"George Lucas, We Love You!" --George Lucas: "I Know."
Written: Oct 31 '09
Product Rating:
Pros: Great interviews from 1971-1999
Cons: No real variety of articles
The Bottom Line: While Lucas isn't really known as a filmmaker NOW as much as a businessman, this is still interesting to see the rise of a man with a vision.
JiggyJay's Full Review: George Lucas - George Lucas: Interviews
I'm a sucker for everything movie-related especially books as it's an important thing for us who enjoy movies to understand the kinks and tinkers relating to how they are made. This could all relate to how we look at a filmmaker and with a multitude of books being released each year on any and every director we could ever think of, this is the prime time to check out a book from one of YOUR favorite filmmakers.
George Lucas: Interviews is part of a series of books published from the University Press of Mississippi that has cataloged interviews from a ton of different directors from Stanley Kubrick to Akira Kurosawa and even Jim Jarmusch.
This one is no different than the previous book I read in the series featuring Kubrick where you are given a ton of random interviews with the subject in question over the years. Available in this collection are Lucas' interviews pre-Star Wars where he talks about THX-1138 and his love for editing. Included is an interview by The San Francisco Chronicle, Playboy, American Cinematographer, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, and so on.
It's really strange how you see this man change over time as he bursts with popularity after his Star Wars series took hold. He's portrayed, in the interviews, as a really shy, reserved man who's very private and conservative, but he also has a huge ego--especially near the end of the book where we get to the interviews right before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released.
He talks about his love for film, but how burned out he got after American Graffiti and the first Star Wars and the troubles that he went through with the studios relating to the various guilds and how no one wanted Star Wars made. These interviews examine the phenomenon of his epic science fiction series (where he tells us that only fourteen year olds can enjoy them) and the continuity between these interviews is pretty cool.
One interview will have him discussing how he's trying to get his Skywalker Ranch project off the ground and Industrial Light and Magic (his company) and then be followed up in later interviews where he talks more in detail about their accomplishments. Some of the book delves into his other productions like the Indiana Jones films with Spielberg, but he didn't discuss the crappiness of Howard The Duck in enough detail for me-I wish his nose could be rubbed in it further.
The only real problem with this series (two in a row) is the lack of variety in the articles. Each chapter/article references things from other articles constantly and if I have to hear another story of how Lucas got THX-1138 made or the car accident he got in as a teenager that led him to pursue film school, I'm going to light saber my face off. I know in journalism they take a hot iron approach where you have to exercise the specific details in order to familiarize the reader, but this backfires in the book where you could potentially start the book in the middle and get the same information at the finish and still be okay.
Overall, this is a must-read for George Lucas fans-you see a different side of him which, granted, still has an ego, but operates as a genius. The interviews from the eighties to the late nineties where he discusses plans for his second trilogy were vastly interesting because you see how much his prequel series had changed over time and how much he had things mapped out. Say what you will about the new saga, but it was still entertaining. The book ends in 1999 right before the onslaught of The Phantom Menace so maybe we'll get a Vol. II of this book that could deal with Lucas' handling of the press dealing with the mass disappointment across his fan base.
Even if this film goes over much of the same detail, it's very interesting to read from the words of Lucas about his career, the future of it, how clear of a focus he had when he started, and his views on technology as a whole. I recommend this to any fan of his or any fan of the illustrious series that he has created for us to live in.
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