George Lucas Q&A

The 'Revenge of the Sith' director talks about the history of the franchise as well as the future

May 19 2005

Having already spoken to three members of the 'Revenge of the Sith' cast (click here for that story) Time Out also caught up with Mr 'Star Wars' himself, George Lucas, to discuss the end of an era. So if you're interested in the history of the franchise, the future of the saga or indeed what George himself is up to next, read on...

What level of pressure did you feel on 'Revenge of the Sith' given the inordinately high expectations since you first unleashed 'Star Wars' on the world?

Ultimately I had to push that all out of my life and say 'All rright, I'm going to continue to make the movie that I started out making.' Fortunately the whole thing was written – the story was written, the style was decided – everything was done before 'Star Wars' was successful.

Thirty years ago, did you ever envisage it would pan out like this?

It's one of those things that happens in life – you go with what the opportunities are and where your interests seem to lead you. You have to remember, originally 'Star Wars' was intended to be one movie – 'Episode IV' – of a Saturday matinee serial. You never saw what came before; you never saw what came after. It was designed to be the tragedy of Darth Vader, so it starts with this monster coming through a door, throwing everybody around, then midway through the movie you realise that the villain of the piece is actually a man and the hero is his son, and then at the end the villain turns into the hero, inspired by his son. So it was meant to be one movie.

But I broke it up because I didn't have the money to do that movie, which would have been five hours long. The icon of Darth Vader kind of took over and the tragedy diminished – it was harder to see that it was actually a story about a guy who is redeemed. But at the same time I'd written a back story of all the characters in order to get to 'Episode IV'. I did a bio on everyone – what they were, who they were, where they came from – and an exposition of where the Empire came from and all that sort of thing.

The back story was written as a back story – it wasn't written to be a movie. Just technically you couldn't do it because you go into the centre of the universe. 'Star Wars' was designed, for technical reasons, to be on the edge of the universe so you didn't have to deal with that many costume problems, special effects problems and design problems. Then, after about 10 years, I began to think about the fact that the tragedy part of the thing had been lost, and that it would be interesting to tell people the full story of what had happened. At the same time the technology became available for me to actually tell that story – to go into the centre of the universe, to see Yoda fight, to see Coruscant, to see these things that were technically impossible before.

Then I had a long, soul-searching time. I stopped making movies, I raised my kids for 15 years, and when they were old enough I said, 'All right, I'm going to go back now – am I going to go off and do these avant-garde movies that I had intended to do, or do I take one last shot at 'Star Wars' and tell the back story so that the tragedy becomes more apparent?' And I realised that if I didn't do it then, when I was 50, I'd never get around to doing it and I'd probably regret it.

How deep is your sense of loss at 'Star Wars' coming to an end now? Is it like losing an arm or a leg?

No, it's more like having your kids go off to college. You know – they still come back when they need money, and they'll be there for holidays. But we're doing two TV series actually. One is an animated series about the Clone Wars – all the characters are in it but there's not much character arc. And the other is a live action series about minor characters in the saga. So it's still going to be around but I'm going to go off and do my thing, the company is going to go off and do theirs. And it's like the comic books and the video games and the novels that are out there – it's going to have a life of its own. So it is like sending them off to college – now it's on its own, doing its own thing. But I've reserved the theatrical arena for this saga.

Legend has it that you like to keep the plot twists secret – what lengths did you go to on this film?

Well there are no plot twists on this film. And although I'm famous for it, every picture has secrecy on their sets. It's harder now because of the internet and cell phones that take pictures and videos. The movies end up on the internet before they end up in the theatre. So that whole thing has disappeared. It used to be that there were real plot twists – important things that were held back so that people could enjoy the picture. For this one we brought the book out ahead of time, we brought the video game out ahead of time – they all explore the universe completely. And, as I said, most of the story has been told. This is just the final piece of the puzzle. So it's not like you don't know what happens – you know he turns into Darth Vader.

Is piracy the single biggest threat to your industry then?

Definitely. I'm glad I'm getting out while I can because it's not going to be the same in the next few years. I don't know how they'll survive, to be very honest with you. If it wasn't for DVD there would be no theatrical film industry, and as DVD gets whittled away by piracy, there won't be any income so you are going to see smaller and smaller movies and eventually something else will take its place. I don't know what – maybe direct to video.

I think people will always want the theatrical experience, just like they go to the opera or the ballet. So I think people will still go to movie theatres because they still want the social interaction with other people. But I have a feeling that films will be released on the internet and in theatres at exactly the same time. There will be some kind of coded pay-per-view method – that's the only way to stop piracy if they are selling it on the street for $2. In some countries obviously now it's free, and that's going to be an issue. At some point the international courts are going to have to decide what they want to do with copyright, because it doesn't just affect the film industry, it affects the computer industry, it affects video games – it affects everything.

What can we expect from the future of 'Star Wars' on DVD?

Well a lot of it depends on the medium. You've got to remember that when 'Star Wars' came out there wasn't even VHS. There wasn't anything, it was a whole different world. We are releasing 'Episode III' at Christmas, though I'm not sure when the six-pack will come out. We may wait until we can do it high-def, that's been discussed. And it's hard to know what the next level is. Eventually it's all going to go online, there's no question of that.

I've also seen a 3-D process that's quite amazing and it really makes 'Star Wars' look good. It's a three-dimensionalisation of the film. It's not like a 3-D movie where things are poked in your eye and stuff; it's just a different way of looking at the film. I've never been a big fan of 3-D but in this process I've become quite a convert. So if we can get digital theatres – because it needs digital theatres in order to work – we will probably issue all the movies in 3-D as it's such a cool process.

Can you see yourself making alterations to these three films in 20 years' time, like you did with the original trilogy?

The first film, 'Episode IV', was really not finished. I didn't have the money, I didn't have the time, and I didn't have the technology to actually finish it. At the time I was really upset about it. Everybody was saying: 'What a marvellous film, fantastic, how do you feel about it?' And I would say 'Ahh, I feel like I got about 50-60% of what I wanted. I'm really disappointed, I'm really sad, it bothers me to watch it.' And to a minor degree the next two films were the same because I was financing them myself and they were more complicated. So I did those films in a special edition to try and finish them off. If nothing else I'm stubborn and dogmatic and persistent to get the movie I want the way I want it.

The last three episodes, I've pretty much been able to make them the way I want. I haven't had much interference. I've spent as much money as I've needed to make them work, so now the whole thing is complete and it's pretty much the way I want it to be. The only thing that will happen is that when we do the high-def DVDs I'll probably go back and re-time and clean them up again, but it'll just be technical stuff. It won't be anything in terms of content.

Of all the characters in all the six films, which one is most like you?

I would say probably Luke. That's where it all started and he's a farm boy like I was – who went off to fight in the galactic wars.

What do you think of all the parodies and spoofs and send-ups of the films and have you had any favourites?

Well there have been a lot of great send-ups and parodies; it's hard to even mention them all. It's part of the fun – we used to say that we were making the movies to be parodied in Mad magazine! I always wanted to do two versions of the movie, right from the very beginning. I wanted to do one extra take, which was a comedy take, so then I could cut together the whole movie as a comedy. But you get there, do take one, two and three and then move on. The chance to do that other take never materialised, but I always hoped to do the goofy version of 'Star Wars'.

Can you tell us a bit more about your next project, 'Red Tails'?

Well 'Red Tails' is a story about African-American fighter-pilots during World War II. They're sometimes referred to as the Tuskegee Airmen because that's where they trained. They were the only fighter unit during World War II that never lost a bomber because they were escort fighters. So they were the best. It obviously involves racial issues but mostly it's about a bunch of guys who wanted to become pilots. It's a flying movie. It's a really exciting story because they were all young guys, some of them were college educated, and they went on to become the captains of industry in the United States. It's pretty inspiring. I've been working on that for about 15 years and now I'm going to focus on it, along with the next Indiana Jones.

'Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith' is released nationwide today (May 19).

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