BILL MOYERS:
Nestled into a rolling hillside north of San Francisco, Skywalker Ranch is the command center
of George Lucasā filmmaking empire.
I first came here to interview Joseph Campbell,
a friend and mentor to George Lucas.
Twelve years later I came back,
this time to interview the protƩgƩ.
After a 22-year hiatus, George Lucas
is back in the directorās chair
with a new episode in his āStar Warsā epic, āThe Phantom Menace.ā
I wanted to know why he thought the āStar Warsā saga had grasped such a hold on our collective imaginations.
Over the course of an afternoon, we talked about myths and movies, Fathers and Sons, fantasy and imagination.
Joseph Campbell said that
all the great myths, the primitive myths, the great stories, have to be regenerated if theyāre going to have any impact, and that you have done that with āStar Wars.ā
Are you conscious of doing that?
Are you saying,
āI am trying to cre ā recreate the myths of old?
Or are you saying,
āI just want to make a good action movie?ā
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, when I did āStar Warsā
I consciously set about to recreate myths and the ā and the classic mythological motifs.
And I wanted to use those motifs to deal with issues that existed today.
What these films deal with is the fact that we all have Good and Evil inside of us and that we can choose which way we want the balance to go.
āStar Warsā was made up of many themes.
Itās not just a single theme.
One is our relationship to machines, which are fearful but as ā also benign and theyāre ā theyāre an extension of the human, not mean in themselves.
The ā the issues of friendship and your obligation to your fellow man and to other people that are around you, that you have control over your destiny, that you ā you have a destiny, that you have many paths to walk down and ā and you may have a great destiny.
If you decide not to walk down that path, your life might not be as satisfying as if you wake up and listen to your inner feelings and realize what it is that you have a particular talent for and what contributions you can make to society.
BILL MOYERS:
One of the appeals of āStar Warsā originally was that it ā it satisfied our craving to resolve our ambiguities.
The good guys were Good Guys, the bad guys were Bad Guys.
[ Not True. ]
You used color to suggest some of this philosophy.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Yeah. I use color a lot in ā in my films. Iām very conscious of ā of the design of my films.
Tatooine is ā is usually our Home planet
and there isnāt much there
except a lot of brown sand.
A very, very clean place.
Death Star, the Empire, has been
painted black or white or gray.
Thereās a lot of gray, but itās colorless.
The Emperor, I put in a splash of red.
I mean, red is a ā
an aggressive color.
BILL MOYERS:
When you were writing, did you have all of this in your mind before you got the pencil to the page, or were you making it up as youā¦
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, some artists ā they see
The Picture whole, you know, completed.
I see The Picture in a fog. I know sort of what it looks like, I know whatās there and so what I do is I say,
āI want something ā I want a costume that is very regal, very grand, very different from anything we see, but has a lot of cultural history behind it.ā
So I donāt want to make something up.
I want to use something that is from a ā
a living Human Culture.
And in this particular case, I was looking for an Asian influence for the planet of Naboo, and so I go to the research library and I said, āLook allover Asia, even into the Middle East, all the way across into the islands to find me unique and interesting ceremonial costumes.ā
I kind of had a rough idea of what it was, but not until I actually ā we finished with it is it clear.
Itās not like Iām working from a finished thing.
Iām working from something where you have a lot of pieces and itās vague and you try to put it together.
BILL MOYERS:
Where do these rough ideas come from?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Now, that I donāt know.
Thatās a mystery.
BILL MOYERS:
But 25 years ago, when you cast the original plot, you didnāt see these costumes? You didnāt see these characters, did you? Thatās all. ..
GEORGE LUCAS:
No. No. This is something I didnāt really do until I started to sit down and write this script.
I knew the basic story, how Darth Vader
got to be Darth Vader.
But I didnāt have any details about what anything looked like.
I knew there would be a ā a slave owner.
I didnāt know that he would actually run a junk shop and be blue and fly around on funny little wings.
BILL MOYERS:
Are you conscious when youāre doing that of ā a little bit of David and Goliath here, a little bit of Buck Rogers there, a little bit of Tarzan or Wizard of Oz here?
GEORGE LUCAS:
What happens is that no matter how you do it, when you sit down to write something all other influences youāve had in your life come into play.
The things that you like, the things that youāve seen, the things ā the observations youāve made. Thatās ultimately what you work with when youāre writing.
And you ā you are influenced by the things that you like. Designs that you like, characters you like, moments that you remember, that you were moved by. Itās ā itās like trying to compose a ā a symphony in a way.
BILL MOYERS:
And do you have any sense of where that comes from in you.
I mean, your own creative precincts?
GEORGE LUCAS:
You know, the psychology of developing fantasies is a very interesting and delicate thing.
Iāve come across people that have no imaginations at all, and itās a very interestingā¦ .
BILL MOYERS:
They become journalists.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, itās ā itās ā it ā
I was shocked the first time I came across it.
And ā because I just assumed everybody had an imagination.
And when you ā you confront somebody who doesnāt, especially a child, itās a very interesting and profound thing to me.
It ā an imagination is a ā is a trait, you know.
Itās like anything else. Itās a ā itās a ā itās a talent, or itās an ability you have to cope.
Like dreaming.
BILL MOYERS:
The underwater world, for example, in āThe Phantom Menace,ā looks as if itās a dream.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Uh-huh.
BILL MOYERS:
Where did that idea come from?
Out of your own fantasy?
GEORGE LUCAS:
You know, part of it is where can I go that I havenāt been before?
And underwater was one of those places I hadnāt been before, but I wanted to create a very special, sophisticated but organic kind of a society down there.
We were using a kind of technology which had to be completely worked out.
How do these bubbles exist under there?
Where do they come from?
What do they use for energy?
The whole culture has to be designed.
What do they believe in?
How do they operate?
What are the economics of the culture?
Most of it doesnāt appear in the movie, but
you have to have thought it through, otherwise thereās ā something always rings very untrue or phony about what it is thatās going on.
And one of the things I struggle for is to create a kind of immaculate realism in a totally unreal and fantasy world.
Itās a science that I can make up.
But once I make up a rule, then I have to live with it.
BILL MOYERS:
Such as? The world according to George.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well ā I mean, one of the rules is that thereās sound in space.
So thereās sound in space.
I canāt suddenly have spaceships flying around without any sound anymore because Iāve already done it.
Iāve established that as one of the rules of the ā of the ā of my galaxy and I have to live with that.
The technology of laser swords, what they can cut through, what they canāt cut through.
In the past, when I originally wanted to do āStar Wars,ā I had this idea for this really fantastic world and fantasy world.
But I realized very quickly that I couldnāt pull it off, that it was just impossible. I could make spaceships fly, and I could make them fly in ways that nobodyād ever done it before, but to get to the next level of creatures and ā and ā and all these fantasy characters, I couldnāt do it.
And it really wasnāt until we created sort of digital cinema that I was able to suddenly have my imagination go wild and ā¦
BILL MOYERS:
And this enables you to do what, digital?
GEORGE LUCAS:
It ā it ā it allows me to create sets that I could not have otherwise.
BILL MOYERS:
Right there on the computer screen?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Theyāre on the computer screen. I can create backgrounds.
And since I have a ā a scene that takes place on a landing platform in the middle of a city ā well, before digital technology, you just couldnāt shoot a scene like that.
It was just impossible.
You couldnāt build a set big enough.
You couldnāt create that reality. Itās the same thing with characters. Jar Jar or Watto. You couldnāt have a character like that.
I mean, Watto is a short little blue character that flies around.
You couldnāt put a man in a suit and accomplish that.
BILL MOYERS:
The mesmerizing character for me is ā is Darth Maul.
When I saw him, I thought of Satan and Lucifer in āParadise Lost.ā I thought of The Devil in āDanteās Inferno.ā I mean, youāve really ā have brought from ā it seems to me ā from way down in our unconsciousness this image of ā of ā of Evil, of The Other.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, yeah. We were trying to find somebody who could compete with Darth Vader, whoās one of the most, you know, famous evil characters now.
And so we went back into representations of Evil.
Not only, the Christian, but also Hindu and Greek mythology and other religious icons and, obviously, then designed our own ā our own character out of that.
BILL MOYERS:
What did you find when you went back there in ā in all of these representations? Thereās something ā¦
GEORGE LUCAS:
A lot of ā a lot of evil characters have horns.
Itās very interesting.
I mean, youāre trying to build a icon of Evil, and you sort of wonder why the same images evoke the same emotions.
BILL MOYERS:
What emotion do you feel, George, when you look at Darth Maul?
GEORGE LUCAS:
I think the first thing youāre supposed to react to is Fear.
Youāre supposed to go, āOoh.ā You ā you wouldnāt want to meet him in a dark alley.
And Iām not creating a monster. You know, thatās like ā I ā I didnāt want to create some ugly ā you know, this ā somebody ripped out their intestines and threw them all over their head ā and itās ā you canāt watch it.
This is something ā¦
BILL MOYERS:
Itās actually mesmerizing.
GEORGE LUCAS:
This is something that is more ā it works in a different emotional way. Itās not repulsive, itās just ā itās ā itās something you should be afraid of.
BILL MOYERS:
Is the emotion you wanted from him different from the emotion you wanted from Darth Vader?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Itās essentially the same in a different kind of way.
Darth Vader was a ā a composite man. I mean, he wasā¦
half-machine, half-man.
And thatās where he lost a lot of his humanity is that he ā you know, he has mechanical legs.
You know ā and he has mechanical arms possibly and heās hooked up to a breathing machine. So thereās not much, actually, human left in him.
This one is all human.
And I wanted him to be like an alien, but I wanted him to be human enough that we could identify with ā with him, because heās not a ā a ā a sort of a monster we canāt identify with. Heāsā¦
BILL MOYERS:
Heās us.
GEORGE LUCAS:
ā¦heās ā yeah.
Heās the evil within us.
BILL MOYERS:
Iāve had psychotherapists tell me that they use āStar Warsā sometimes to deal with the problems of their child patients.
And theyāve said that the most popular character among the children is Darth Vader.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, children love power because children are The Powerless.
And so their fantasies all center on having power.
And whoās more powerful than Darth Vader, you know?
And, some, you know, will be attracted to Luke Skywalker because heās the good guy.
But ultimately, we all know that Darth Vaderās more powerful than he is.
And as time goes on, you discover that he is more powerful because heās the ā heās The Ultimate Father who is all powerful.
BILL MOYERS:
This is where I disagree somewhat with our friend Joseph Campbell who said that
The Young Man has to slay His Father before he can become an adult himself.
It seems to me, and I think youāre right on here, that the ā that the young man has to identify ā has to recognize and acknowledge that he is his father and is not his father.
GEORGE LUCAS:
You know, Joe used to talk about the ā the basic issues that ā that ā that create the mystery of life.
Of, you know, birth and death, and I like to always add, you know, your relationship with your parents.
BILL MOYERS:
Do you know yet what is going to be the transforming of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Yeah.
BILL MOYERS:
You already know that?
GEORGE LUCAS: Yeah, I know what that is. And itās ā itās ā itās sprinkled throughout this episode. I mean, itās ā itās all of the ā the groundworkās been laid in this episode.
And the ā the film is ultimately about the Dark Side and the light side, and those sides are designed around compassion and greed.
And we all have those two sides of us and that we have to make sure that those two sides of us are in balance.
BILL MOYERS:
I think itās going to be very hard for the audience to accept that this innocent cherub almost of a ā of a boy, whoās playing Anakin Skywalker, can ever be capable of the things that we know happen later on.
And Iām sure youāll take care of that but, you know, I look at Hitler and wonder what did he look like at eight years old, or Stalin ā¦
GEORGE LUCAS:
Mm-hmm ā¦
BILL MOYERS:
ā¦ or ā¦
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, there are lots of ā thereās a lot of people like that.
I mean, you just ā you see them all the time and you ā thatās what I wonder. I wonder, how can those people possibly exist?
How could they live with themselves? How could they ā you know, what is it in the human brain that gives us the capacity to be as evil as human beings have been in the past and are right now.
BILL MOYERS:
Well, youāve been probing that for a good while now.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Yeah.
BILL MOYERS:
Twenty-five years. Have you come to any conclusions?
GEORGE LUCAS:
I havenāt.
BILL MOYERS:
This movie is very much about a mentor and an apprentice.
And ā and Iām wondering, did you have such a mentor when you were growing up?
Is this ā is this part of ā of ā the movie ā an extension of what happened to you?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Obviously, my first mentor was my Father, but then you progress with either, you know, people that are more skilled in a particular area than you are.
In film, Francis Coppola became my mentor and ā and taught me how to write screenplays, taught me how to work with actors.
I was much more of a ā a cameraman and a film editor, much more on the technical side of things.
And, you know, I think my last mentor probably was Joe, who ā¦
BILL MOYERS:
Joseph Campbell.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Joe Campbell, who asked a lot of the interesting questions and exposed me to a lot of things that made me very interested in a lot more of the cosmic questions and The Mystery.
And Iāve been interested in those all my life, but I ā I hadnāt focused it the way I had once I got to be good friends with Joe.
BILL MOYERS:
A professor I know said that he recently asked his freshman class how many of them had seen all three of the trilogy, and everyone in the class raised his hand.
And he said to me,
āI hope Lucas knows heās mentoring an entire generation of ā of ā of young Americans.ā
GEORGE LUCAS:
I ā I have a philosophy that we all teach, and we all teach every day of our lives.
And itās not necessarily what we lecture.
Iāve discovered kids donāt like lectures at all.
But it is really the way we live our lives. And what we do with our lives and ā and the way we conduct ourselves.
And once in a while they listen to the lectures.
So when I make the films, Iām very aware of the fact that Iām teaching on a much larger scale than I would just as a parent or somebody walking through life.
Because I have this megaphone.
Anybody in the media has a very large megaphone that they can reach a lot of different people, and so whatever they say, whatever they do, however they conduct themselves, whatever they produce has an influence and is teaching somebody something.
And I try to be aware of what it is Iām saying.
BILL MOYERS:
What do you make of the fact that so many people have interpreted āStar Warsā as ā as ā as being profoundly religious?
GEORGE LUCAS:
I donāt see āStar Warsā as profoundly religious.
I see āStar Warsā as ā as taking all of the issues that religion represents and trying to distill them down into a ā a more modern and more easily accessible construct that people can grab onto to accept the fact that there is a greater mystery out there.
When I was 10 years old, I asked my mother ā I said,
āWell, if thereās only one God, why are there so many religions?ā
And over the years ā Iāve been pondering that question ever since.
And it would seem to me that the conclusion that Iāve come to is that
All the religions are True - They just see a different part of The Elephant.
A religion is basically a ā a container for Faith.
Faith is the ā the glue that holds us together as a society.
Faith in our ā in our culture, our ā our world, our ā you know, whatever it is that weāre trying to hang on to is a very important part of, I think, allowing us to ā to remain stable.
Remain balanced.
BILL MOYERS:
And where does God fit in this concept of the universe?
In this cosmos that youāve created?
Is the Force God?
GEORGE LUCAS:
I put The Force into the movies in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people.
More a belief in God than a belief in any particular, you know, religious system.
I mean, the ā the ā the ā the real question is to ask the question, because if you ā if you ā having enough interest in the mysteries of life to ask the questions, is ā
Is there a God or is there not a God?
Thatās ā thatās, for me, the worst thing that can happen.
You know, if you asked a young person,
āIs there a God?ā
and they say,
āI donāt know.'
ā You know?
I think you should have an opinion about that.
BILL MOYERS:
Do you have an opinion, or are you looking?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, I think there is a God. No question.
What that God is, or what we know about that God, Iām not sure.
The one thing I know about life and about the ā the nature of the human race is that it ā
The Human Race has always believed itās known Everything.
Even the cavemen thought they had it all figured out and they knew Everything there was to know about Everything.
Because thatās what ā thatās where mythology came from.
You know, itās constructing some kind of ā of ā of Context for The Unknown.
So we figured it all out and it was fine.
I would say that, you know, cavemen had, you know, on a scale ā and understood about one, you know?
Now weāve made it up to about five.
The only thing that most people donāt realize is
the scale goes to A MILLION.
BILL MOYERS:
The central epic of our culture has ā has been the Bible.
And itās about Fall, Wandering, Redemption, Return.
But the Bible no longer occupies that central place in our culture today. More and more people today are ā young people, in particular, are turning to the movies for their inspiration, not to organized religion.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Uh-huh. Well, I hope that doesnāt end up being the ā the course that this whole thing takes because I think thereās definitely a place for organized religion and itās a very important part of the social fabric.
And I would hate to find ourselves in a completely secular world, where, you know, entertainment was passing for some kind of religious experience.
BILL MOYERS:
One reason when critics said that āStar Warsā has been so popular with young people, itās religion without strings attached, that it becomes a very thin base for theology. In factā¦
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, it is a thin base for theology, thatās why I would hesitate to call the Force God.
When the film came out, almost every single religion took āStar Warsā and used it as an example of their religion and ā and were able to relate it to young people and saying, āThis is whatā ā and relate the stories specifically to the Bible and relate stories to the Koran and, you know, the Torah and things.
And so itās like, you know ā if itās a tool that can be used to make old stories be new and relate to younger people,
thatās what the whole point was.
BILL MOYERS:
We downloaded something from your Web site the other day and there you were talking about how you wanted the Jedi to be more than just fighters.
You wanted them to be āspiritual,ā but you didnāt say what you meant by that?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, I ā I guess theyāre like ultimate father figures or negotiators.
And ā and at this point in time they are ā theyāre sent out to negotiate a ā a deal.
GEORGE LUCAS:
They help to put forth answers where people are in the middle of a dispute.
Theyāre arenāt an aggressive force at all.
They try to ā conflict resolution, I guess, is what you might ā
Intergalactic Therapists.
BILL MOYERS: Have you been influenced by Buddhism, because āStar Warsā came along just about the time there was this growing interest in America in Eastern religions, and I ā and I notice in āThe Phantom Menace,ā the new Episode One, that they discover this slave child who has a ā an aura about him. And it reminded me of ā how the Buddhists go out to look for the next Dalai Lama.
GEORGE LUCAS: Mm-hmm. Well, thereās a ā again, a mixture of all kinds of ā of mythology and religious beliefs that have been amalgamated into the movie, and Iāve tried to take the ideas that seem to cut across the most cultures, because Iām fascinated by that and I think thatās one of the things that I really got from Joe Campbell, was that ā what he was trying to do is find the common threads through the various mythology, through the ā the religions.
BILL MOYERS: One of the comparisons that came to mind just when I was re-watching the series recently is when Darth Vader tempts Luke to come over to the Empire by offering him all that the Empire has to-offer, I was taken back in my own youth to the story of Satan taking Christ to the mountain and offering him the kingdoms of the world if only he would tum away from his mission.
GEORGE LUCAS: Right.
BILL MOYERS: Was that conscience in your mind?
GEORGE LUCAS: Well, yeah. I mean, that ā that story also has been retold; the temptation. I mean, Buddha was tempted in the same way. Itās all through mythology. I didnāt want to invent a religion. I wanted to try to explain in a different way the religions that have already existed.
BILL MOYERS: Youāre creating a new myth.
GEORGE LUCAS: Well, and I ā I ā Iām telling an old myth in a new way. Iām just taking the ā the ā the core myth and Iām localizing it. As it turns out, Iām localizing it for the planet. But I guess Iām localizing it for the end of the ā of the millennium more than I am for any particular place. This is the ā the ā you know, this is ā this is ā again, part of the globalization of the world we live in. The average human being has much more awareness of the other cultures that exist ā co-exist with them on this planet, and that certain things go across cultures, and entertainment is one of them. And film and the stories that I tell cut across all cultures, are seen all around the world.
BILL MOYERS: So what lessons do you think theyāre taking away from watching āStar Warsā in ā in Italy and Malaysia and South America?
GEORGE LUCAS: One of the main themes in the film is having organisms realize that they must live together and they must live together for mutual advantage. Not just humans, but all living things and everything in the galaxy is part of a ā a greater whole.
(Excerpt from āStar Warsā)
BILL MOYERS: How do you explain the power of film to get inside us?
GEORGE LUCAS: Well, I think film is a very modern art form. It ā it takes all of the ā you know, all of the aspects, the senses, really, of other art forms, be it painting, music, literature, you know, drama, theater, and puts them into one ā one art form.
BILL MOYERS: Thereās something that happens in a darkened theater when the right moment occurs.
GEORGE LUCAS: You know, when youāve seen a picture, it connects with you in a particular kind of way. A good novel operates ā again, you have this little voice going on and youāre saying, you know, āThis has something to do with me in my life.ā Art is a ā is a very human thing because it ā it relates, I think, to the issues of beauty, and not just visual beauty but intellectual beauty. Why ā what is beauty and what does beauty trigger in our brain? And why do we ā why do certain colors and things mean certain things to us, and certain sounds? Certain chords make us feel happy or sad. And how ā you know, how is it when you take all these things together and recreate reality in a way that you can evoke sadness or crying, or laughter, or, you know, itās a ā itās a very interesting human experiment. And Iām fascinated by it every day. I mean, Iām just completely amazed at how the thing works. I donāt ā you know, I know quite a bit about it, but I know I know very little about it.
(Excerpt from āStar Warsā)
BILL MOYERS: I found an unforgettable part of it being that emphasis of Kenobi on intuition, on, you know, urging Luke Skywalker to feel what he sees, to depend on this second sight, this insight which is a very powerful Buddhist notion.
(Excerpt from āStar Warsā) Bill Moyers
BILL MOYERS: Why is it so important to you, as it is in your films, to listen to your inner feelings?
GEORGE LUCAS: Itās an issue of quieting your mind so you can listen to yourself. And as Joe would say, āFollow your bliss.ā Itās ā to follow your talent is ā is one way to put it. Thatās the way I see it. I went ā when ā you know, the hardest thing to do when youāre young is to figure out what it is youāre gonna do. And youāll never know what it is youāre gonna do. But if you follow the things that you enjoy ā Iām not sure anybody really enjoys making money. They may enjoy what they do after theyāve made it, but they donāt enjoy the process. If you can find something that you actually enjoy the process, then you found your bliss.
BILL MOYERS: When did you know what it was for you?
GEORGE LUCAS: When I discovered movies.
BILL MOYERS: Which was?
GEORGE LUCAS: But I ā which was when I was in college, where I could be in a psychology class or be in a anthropology class. Suddenly I loved being in school, I loved learning this stuff. I was either going to go to one college where I was going to be basically an anthropology major, I was going to go to another college and be an art student, and then I ended up going to another college and being a film student. But I truly believe that no matter which of those routes Iād have taken, because I was interested in all those things, I would have ended up right back where I am now. Because I certainly had no intention of making theatrical films when I went into the film business. I loved making documentary films and I loved making sort of avant-garde non-story films. And here I found myself ā and I hated writing. So now I found myself writing. I find myself running three companies, which is the last thing in the world I wanted to do. I enjoy it, but Iāve walked down a path ā Iāve just ā I followed the things that I thought inside were the things I should be doing.
BILL MOYERS: You make it sound so easy. Youāre so relaxed and so laid back. But was there a struggle?
GEORGE LUCAS: Well, I didnāt ā I ā there wasnāt really a ā a struggle because I think when you stumble ā itās like falling in love. You know, when you ā and ā and falling in love is tricky. Because sometimes you can ā you can be infatuated with that somebody or you can be sexually aroused by somebody, but that isnāt falling in love. And you sort of have to move away those momentary things that come and go within, you know, days or hours, and try to say, āThis is the real thing.ā When you fall in love, you pretty much know it. And when I fell in love with movies, I definitely knew it.
BILL MOYERS: How did you know it?
GEORGE LUCAS: I was just in a place where I was very happy. When you get into something that you like and you say, āThis is great,ā you know. āThis is something that I want to do,ā you just ā it ā it takes a lot of strength to stick with it because a lot of the times itās not what society deems as a worthy thing to do. And not what a ā your parents particularly want you to do. You know, my father wanted me to go into the stationery business and run an office equipment store.
BILL MOYERS: Was that a struggle not to do ā¦
GEORGE LUCAS: That ā it wasnāt a struggle because I knew immediately that that wasnāt ā that wasnāt what I wanted.
BILL MOYERS: Is that what he did? Run a stationery store?
GEORGE LUCAS: Yeah. And he was ā you know, he built it up for me and for me to take over, and he was pretty much devastated when I refused to get involved in it.
BILL MOYERS: Whatād he say?
GEORGE LUCAS: Well ā he said, āWell, youāll come back and, you know, youāll ā youāll see that making your way in the world isnāt that easy, and ā¦ ā
BILL MOYERS: How did you tell him?
GEORGE LUCAS: Well, I basically got ā it was probably the biggest disagreement we ever got into, and I got really mad at him and just basically said, āYou know, Iāll never work at a job where I have to do the same thing over and over again every day.ā And he just didnāt want to hear that. And I knew that that wasnāt my ā you know, he said, āYou know, thereās a lot of ā you know, itās a good job, itās a good business, you can make a lot of money, youāll be successful.ā And I said, āI donāt want that. I just donāt want to do it.ā You know, he worked very hard to be able to give this to me, and so for me to refuse it was a big deal. And he thought that I would go off and starve to death as some kind of artist somewhere living in a garret.
BILL MOYERS: Is he still living?
GEORGE LUCAS:
No. No, he ā he died a number of years ago. But he did ā he died after I did āStar Wars,ā so he ā he was very proud of me at the end and he ā you know, I did the only thing you have to do in the end. You only have to accomplish one thing in life, and that is to make your parents proud of you. If youāre healthy and you can take care of yourself and youāre a good person ā I mean, you contribute to society and not take away, thatās all your parents want in the end.
BILL MOYERS:
Iām not a psychologist, Iām just a journalist, but it does seem to me that the scenes of Luke and his father ā thereās something of George Lucas in there. Some memory trace there.
GEORGE LUCAS:
Oh, yeah. No matter how you write, you write from your own emotions and your own feelings. Thereās two sides to the redeemer motif that Iāve got in the āStar Warsā films, which is that ultimately Vader is redeemed by his children.
And ā and especially having children.
I believe that. I believe that you are redeemed by your children.
And ā because thatās what life is all about, is procreating and raising children.
And it should bring the best of you out.
BILL MOYERS:
Are you going to be prepared for that moment when your daughter says-~your older daughter is about to go off already and ā and say, āThis is the way I want to go, Dad.ā
GEORGE LUCAS:
I think there is a point where, even though you love your children a great deal, you must let go, which is actually what āThe Phantom Menaceā is about.
BILL MOYERS: āThe Phantom Menaceā is about letting go?
GEORGE LUCAS: Itās about letting go.
BILL MOYERS: In what sense?
GEORGE LUCAS: In the sense that you have this young boy, whoās 10 years old, who has to leave his mother and go off on his own and the mother has to let him go because otherwise he would be a slave the rest of his life.
(Excerpt from āThe Phantom Menaceā)
GEORGE LUCAS: At some point you do have to become an independent person. And itās about learning to let go of your ā your needs, so to speak, and ā and think of the needs of others.
BILL MOYERS: So āStar Warsā is ā yes, itās about cosmic, galactic, epic struggles, but itās at heart about a family. The large myth set in a local family.
GEORGE LUCAS: Well, in most ā most myths center around characters and ā and a hero, and itās ā itās about how you ā how you conduct yourself as you go through the heroās journey, which everyone goes through. Itās especially relevant when you go through this transition phase. Most societies itās when youāre 13 or 14. In our society itās sort of 18 to 22, somewhere in there, that you must let go of your past and must, you know, embrace your future and ā and in your own self, by yourself, figure out what it is ā what ā what path youāre going to go down.
BILL MOYERS: Is it fair or accurate to say in effect that āStar Warsā is ā is your own spiritual quest?
GEORGE LUCAS: Well, I would say thereās part of that. Iād say part of what I do when I write is ponder a lot of these issues. I have ever since I can remember, and, obviously, some of the conclusions Iāve come to are, you know ā I ā I use in the films.
BILL MOYERS: Yes. Well, some critics scoff at this whole notion of a deeper layer of meaning to what they call ākidsā stuff.ā But I come down on your side, on Joe Campbellās side, when he says, āKidsā stuff is the stuff dreams are made of. ā
GEORGE LUCAS: Yeah, itās much harder to ā to actually write for kids than it is to write for adults.
BILL MOYERS: Why?
GEORGE LUCAS: Well, because theyāre ā theyāre more ā theyāre more susceptible to anything that doesnāt ring true, and the~-~on one level, they will sort of accept ā they donāt have constraints so they can open their minds up and theyāre not, you know, locked into a particular dogma. And at the other side, if something doesnāt make sense to them, theyāre much more critical of it. They also donāt like to think of things as being right and wrong. Itās ā itās too difficult for them to rationalize their own behavior in that kind of a world.
BILL MOYERS: So when you write, do you see your audience and do ā do you see a 13-year-old boy?
GEORGE LUCAS: I donāt ā I ā I see my audience and my audience is me, you know? I make these films for myself more than I make them for anybody else. I mean, Iām lucky that the things I believe in, and the things that I enjoy and the things that entertain me entertain a large population. Sometimes they donāt. I mean, Iāve made a bunch of movies that nobodyās liked so that doesnāt always hold true. But I certainly wasnāt out to become successful, it ā it happened.
BILL MOYERS: You are financing your own movies.
GEORGE LUCAS: Iām financing my own movies and it allows me the freedom to have my own ā my own vision be accurately portrayed on the screen, and I will, you know, be successful or unsuccessful based on how people relate to that vision. But I donāt have a lot of other people coming and telling me really what to do. So I haveā bought my freedom, but Iāve also bought the freedom for everybody that works for me because I think the core issues that Iām dealing with are ā if they were valid 2,000 years ago, theyāve got to still be valid today, even though theyāre not in fashion.
BILL MOYERS: Why are they out of fashion?
GEORGE LUCAS: Because I think itās harder ā you know, the world we live in is more complex, and ā and I think that a lot of those moralities have gotten to be grayed to the point where they donāt exist anymore. But those issues are still there in most peopleās minds.
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?
GEORGE LUCAS: The importance of, say, friendship and loyalty. You know, and most people look at that and say, āHow corny.ā But, you know, the ā the issues of friendship and loyalty are ā are very, very important to the way we live our lives. But itās not common knowledge among young people. You know, theyāre still learning. Theyāre still picking up ideas. Theyāre still using these ideas to shape the way theyāre gonna conduct their life. And you need to tell the same story over and over again every generation so that generation gets it. And I think weāve gone for a few generations where a lot of the sort of more basic stories have fallen by the wayside.
BILL MOYERS: And what do stories do for us in that sense? What do myths ā¦
GEORGE LUCAS: They try to show us our place. Myths help you to have your own heroās journey, find your individuality, find your place in the world, but hopefully remind you that youāre part of a whole, and that you must also be part of the community, and ā and think of the welfare of the community above the welfare of yourself.
BILL MOYERS:
I hear so many young people today talk about a world thatās emptied of heroism, where there are no noble things to do.
What do you say to them?
GEORGE LUCAS:
I mean, everybody becomes ā everybody has the choice of Being a Hero or Not Being a Hero every day of their lives.
And you can either Help Somebody,
you can Be Compassionate toward People,
or you can Treat Some People with Dignity or Not.
And ā and
One Way, You Become a Hero, and The Other Way,
you know,
Youāre Part of The Problem.
And itās ā itās not a grand thing.
You know, you donāt have to get into a giant laser sword fight and blow up three spaceships to become A Hero.
I mean, itās a very small thing that happens every day of your life.
BILL MOYERS:
Essentially, isnāt āStar Warsā about transformation?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, it is about transformation. And ā and ultimately itāll be about transformation of how young Anakin Skywalker became evil and then was redeemed by His Son.
But itās also about transformation of how his son came to ā
to Find The Call.
Luke works intuitively through most of the movie until he gets to the very end.
(Excerpt from āStar Warsā)
GEORGE LUCAS:
Everything up to that point is very intuitive.
He goes back and forth with his emotions about fighting his father or not fighting his father.
(Excerpt from āStar Warsā)
GEORGE LUCAS: Finally he comes to that decision to say, āNo, this is ā this is what I have to do. I have to simply throw my weapon down.ā And itās only that way that heās able to redeem his father, which ultimately is the issue. Itās not as apparent in the first three movies, but when you see the movies I havenāt made yet, that ā the issue of how do we get Darth Vader back is really the central issue. How do we get him back to that little boy that he was in the first movie? That good person who loved and was generous and kind?
BILL MOYERS: Ultimately ā¦
GEORGE LUCAS: And had a good heart.
BILL MOYERS: Had a good heart. Ultimately, doesnāt it take, particularly in religion, a ā a leap of faith? What ā Kierkegaardās leap of faith?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Yes. Yes. Definitely. And thatās ā thatās ā youāll notice Luke uses that quite a bit through the films. Not to rely on his senses, not to rely on ā on the computers, not to ā but to rely on faith. That is what āUse The Forceā is, is a leap of faith. That there are mysteries and powers larger than we are, and that you have to trust your feelings in order to ā to access these things.
BILL MOYERS:
Your friend Joseph Campbell called it
āthe perfect eye to see with.ā
GEORGE LUCAS:
Mm-hmm.
BILL MOYERS:
How do you develop that eye?
GEORGE LUCAS:
Well, I donāt know. I mean, I donāt know whether I have that eye. Butā¦
BILL MOYERS:
Oh, you do. People ā your colleagues tell me youāre always making quick decisions, good or bad.
Youāre making intuitive decisions very quickly.
TRY NOT.
DO.
OR DO NOT.
THERE IS NO "Try".
GEORGE LUCAS:
Iām making intuitive decisions because I ā Iām ā I ā I can see the picture in my head even though itās foggy ā¦
(Excerpt from āStar Warsā)
GEORGE LUCAS:
ā¦ and I know instantly whether this fits in there or doesnāt.
BILL MOYERS:
Do you have to work to keep nurturing your imagination, to keep feeding that interior pool from which these ideas and images ā¦
GEORGE LUCAS:
Iāve ā Iāve never had a problem with that. I mean, my imagination runs wild. Itās ā itās ā you know, people say, āWell, youāre gonna run out of stories, you gonna ā¦ ā I ā I donāt think Iāll ever run ā I have more stories than I can possibly do in my lifetime. And more ā and Iām interested in more things to do than I can possibly do in my lifetime. And Iām now beginning to confront the fact that the ā the amount of time Iāve got is less and less, that I ā more and more things are going to have to go by the wayside, and Iām going to have to focus more on the things that really are meaningful to me, you know, ācause even if I have 30 or 40 years left, itās not enough.
This transcript was entered on July 31, 2015, 2015.
