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By George, he thinks he's got it Lucas is satisfied that 'Episode I' lives up to his imagination Sunday, May 16, 1999 By Ron Weiskind, Post-Gazette Movie Editor
NEW YORK -- Star Wars" is not a religion. George Lucas is not God. Lucas says so Himself. "It is only a movie," says the bearded creator of the science-fiction saga that moves forward into its past with the release Wednesday of "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace." The new installment begins to fill in prior events in the "Star Wars" universe, leading to the stories told in the original trilogy.
The really true believers treat those films, which are based on mythological constructs common to many cultures and religions, as articles of faith. Some of the most rabid fans have been camping out in front of theaters that will show "Phantom Menace" like pilgrims huddled before a shrine. For some of them, the first new "Star Wars" film in 16 years takes on the magnitude of the Second Coming.
"A lot of people have said, 'Get a life,' " observes Lucas. "I think people should have a well-rounded life. I'm happy 'Star Wars' stimulates young people's imaginations. It is designed to make people think about the larger mysteries of life, and hopefully they will question them. But there are not enough answers in 'Star Wars' to constitute a religion."
On the other hand, Lucas professes surprise at the massive interest in the new movie.
"We have actually tried very hard to not let the film be overhyped. It kind of got out of control anyway, so there's not much you can do about these things, really. I think the enthusiasm and people waiting in lines and all that stuff is just a spontaneous thing on the part of the people who enjoyed the movies, enjoyed the experience and wanted to keep that enjoyment."
It may be that Lucas wants to lower people's expectations regarding "Phantom Menace." He acknowledges the movie can't live up to the anticipation. He's even talking down the box-office potential -- the trade newspaper Variety predicts "Phantom Menace" will gross $200 million by early June, and others have raised the prospect of the film beating the $600 million domestic gross of all-time champ "Titanic."
But Lucas thinks the chances of "Phantom Menace" topping the first "Star Wars" film -- No. 2 all time at $461 million -- are "slim to none. I don't think it will beat 'E.T.' [No. 3 all time at $400 million]."
But let's not get carried away here. "I expect it to be one of the top 10 grossers of all time, and if it isn't, I would probably be very disappointed. But it's not the end of the world. The film will make its money back even if it isn't one of the top 10 grossers.
"The only annoying part is, you know, this is not a contest," he says. "It's a movie. I made it because I enjoy making movies. I hope it does well. I really don't have any interest or desire to be No. 1 or win an Academy Award or count how many good reviews I get vs. how many bad reviews I get."
Then again, Lucas made a point of mentioning earlier that "most of the 'Star Wars' movies ... have gotten generally bad reviews. I certainly expect not to do well critically. I never have." Obviously, the sting of the bad reviews lingers.
Lucas takes pains to separate himself from the merchandising and distribution aspects of his films, in spite of the general belief that no directive leaves his headquarters, the Skywalker Ranch, without his personal stamp of approval.
And he would have you believe that he's merely an independent filmmaker from San Francisco who needs to take advantage of every potential revenue stream just to get by.
"It's like being an Indian. When you kill a buffalo, you have to use everything. We can't throw things away. We can't leave a dead carcass out on the prairie to rot. I'm a very small filmmaker relative to the studios. They have billions and billions of dollars. They make billions and billions of dollars every single year. They can afford to just do whatever they want. I can't.
"The licensing thing is something that sort of grew spontaneously. It certainly wasn't something that anybody predicted with the first film," he says, even though he became rich by getting 20th Century Fox to grant him the merchandising revenues.
Although he may not have the financial wallop of a studio, it's hard for him to play down his personal wealth. Forbes magazine's 1996-97 ranking of the 40 highest paid entertainers and their estimated gross income placed Lucas at No. 2 -- trailing only Steven Spielberg -- with $241 million.
And The New York Post reports that he will "definitely" earn at least $1 billion this year, thanks to splitting "The Phantom Menace" profits with Fox. Lucas nabbed such a lucrative deal by personally financing the $112 million film.
He says the movie merchandise has "grown into this big opportunity to help me finance the movie. I enjoy toys. I make the films hopefully to stimulate the imagination of the audience. ... I think play is a good thing. I think it's a healthy thing. I think letting kids have toys and play with toys and use their imagination is not an evil thing."
He reminds us that he has always characterized "Star Wars" as a movie for 12-year-olds, a Saturday afternoon matinee for kids. "That was, I think, one of the reasons it got a lot of bad reviews," he says. "Somehow over the years, people have sort of drifted away from that and tried to make it into something other than what it actually is."
It all started, he says, around the time he finished his first film, "THX 1138," a bleak science-fiction tale about a futuristic society in which sex is forbidden and people are controlled with drugs.
"I was thinking of something that I could get excited about that would be a little less esoteric. I came up with the idea for 'American Graffiti' [his second film, about 1960s teens cruising their cars in a small California town], and at the same time I came up with the idea of doing a kind of modern mythology Saturday afternoon serial for kids." The latter split into two ideas. One became the Indiana Jones trilogy. The other became "Star Wars."
But making the first movie was very frustrating, "because I had an imagination that created an entire world I could never get on film. It was technically impossible. I was stuck with creatures in rubber masks that couldn't move very far. ... I was stuck with environments that were extremely limited in what I could do."
So in addition to his desire to finish the story, he went ahead with "The Phantom Menace" so that he could "make it more the way it was in my mind when I created it and have alien creatures that could actually give really good performances and have really good personalities."
This time, he says, he got the movie he wanted.
"This is the one time I was able to sit down and basically let my imagination run wild and not be hampered by 'I can't do this, I can't do that.'... I could sort of dream up whatever I wanted and, for the most part, we were able to pull it all off."
When the movie opens on Wednesday, he says, "I'm going to be off on a beach in the South Pacific someplace, far away from phone calls -- I'm not going to know what happens."
There will be life after "Star Wars" for Lucas, who celebrated his 55th birthday on Friday. But first he plans to direct the two remaining films in the saga, the last of which is scheduled for release in 2005.
"I have many more films I would like to do than I have time to do them," he says. "I have very specific projects. I have TV shows. I have movies. I have a whole line of them. I don't know which one I'm going to start with when I finish these. It's five years from now, and I don't know where my head will be. I know I've got a lot of them sitting on the shelf and some I'm very interested to be working on. We'll see when we get there."
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