Abuse

 

"It's like The Balance of The Force. 

You can either use it for Good 

or you can use it for Evil. 

And What Happens when 

there is Something New, 

People have a tendency to overdo it : 

They abuse it. 

Now there were two things 

that got abused with "Star Wars" 

and are still being abused. 

One, 

when "Star Wars" came out, 

Everybody said, 

"Oh, it's a silly movie, 

it's just a bunch of space battles 

and stuff, it's Not Real, 

there is nothing behind it. 

I said, 

"Well, there is stuff behind it, 

it's not just a space battle. 

There is more to it than that. 

It's much, much more 

complicated than that." 

But nobody would listen. 

So They just went, 

"Well, it's simple and 

we like the spaceships, 

we like the stuff. 

So they said "Fine." 

So The Spaceships and 

that part of the Science Fantasy, 

whatever, got terribly abused. 

And of course, Everybody went out 

and made spaceship movies 

and they were ALL horrible 

and they all lost tons of money. 

And you say, 

"Well, there is more to it than that. 

You can't just go out 

and do spaceships. 

And the other part, was at -- was the -- 

Which is The Technology, which is, 

"Oh, we'll just take this new technology; 

it's great, you know, especially when it came down later to digital technology, 

where you can really do anything", 

and then people just abused 

it all over the place, 

which they did with colour, 

they did with sound. 

Whenever there is a new Tool, 

everybody goes crazy 

and they forget the fact that 

there is actually A Story 

and that's The Point. 

You're telling The Story, 

using tools. 

You're not using tools 

to Tell A Story. 

You understand that.

Charlie Rose : 

I do.

George Lucas: 

The Point was 

The Other Thing 

that got abused, 

naturally in a capitalist society, 

especially in an American point of view, 

which is the studios and everything said, 

"Well, wow, we can make a lot of Money, 

This is a License to Kill." And they did it. 

They just simply -- and of course, 

the only way you can really do that is 

not take chances, 

only do something 

that's proven. 

Well, let's not do any -- 

you got to remember, 

"Star Wars" came from nowhere. "

American Graffiti" came from nowhere. 

There was nothing like it. 

Now if you do anything 

that's not a sequel or not a TV series, 

or doesn't look like one, they won't do it. 

They say 

"We want something 

that We know."

Charlie Rose: 

So that's the down side of "Star Wars."

George Lucas: 

That's the down side of "Star Wars" 

and it really shows an enormous 

lack of imagination and fear of creativity 

on the part of an industry. 

I mean, corporations are not known for -- 

maybe not Silicon Valley, 

but the old institutions 

are not known for being -- 

they're knowing for being risk averse. 

And movies are not risk averse. 

Every single movie is a risk, 

a big risk, like -- 

it's like the movie business 

is exactly like professional gambling, 

except you hire the gambler. 

You use some crazy kid 

with long hair who's, like, 

"I don't get this guy at all", 

you give him $100 million 

and you say 

"Go to the tables and 

come back with $500 million." 

That is a risk. 

Now the studios have been 

going to think of it that way. 

They say, 

"Well, maybe if we told him 

that he couldn't bet on red, 

maybe if we told him, 

"Because we did market research 

and we've realized that red wasn't --" 

So they tried minimize their risk. 

But once you -- and, of course, 

you're hiring the kid to be -- 

take risks, to be creative, 

to do things that 

never have been done before, 

never been tested. 

You have no idea whether they're 

going to work or not. 

That's completely the antithesis 

of what a big, modern corporation is. 

They want to test things 360 ways.

Charlie Rose: 

So Hollywood is not like 

a big American corporation 

because it will just throw money away 

behind somebody and 

have him go or her go 

and figure out --

George Lucas: 

But they don't know how to do that 

because they're basically corporate types. 

They think -- some of 

the worst things happen

 when they think they know 

how to do it, 

then they start 

making decisions that 

ensure it's not going to work.

Charlie Rose: 

But you're George Lucas and you were ahead of your time with "American Graffiti." 

You were ahead of your time with Star Wars.

Have you been ahead of your time since then?

George Lucas: 

Well, you know, 

I haven't directed a movie 

since then.