#2: The Life of George Lucas Part 2/2 (Biography Breakdown #1)

**Jack** (0:00)
The telephone rang back in the studio at Goldman, where Lucas and several sound engineers were still assembling the monocut of Star Wars. It was Lad calling with good news. Star Wars was selling out at each of the 32 theaters in which it was playing, and the lines were snakeier on the block, even for the approaching midnight shows. As Lad read through the numbers, Lucas held his hand over the mouthpiece and repeated them back to the engineers. The engineers were stunned. Here they were, putting the final touches on a certified blockbuster.
I just want to really clarify here how big Star Wars ends up becoming because it surpasses Jaws as the highest grossing film in movie history. And this is a film in which George Lucas doubles down on.
He consistently invests everything he has in it, and it pays off. It's bigger than THX or graffiti, and it makes Lucas very wealthy. Here's another quote. Multiple viewings and long waits in line quickly became part of the overall Star Wars experience. The great unifier, regardless of status, even celebrity Senator Ted Kennedy waited in line just like everyone else. And then here's another quote. Our research has found that in each market when people stand in line, they seem to enjoy the film more, quoted one Fox executive. So Star Wars ends up this huge success, and we're going to see this theme in which is very important to the life of George Lucas. There's a quote in the biography about this as well at the end of the book that George consistently invests in one thing, himself. He believes in himself and in his vision, and because of that, Star Wars ends up such a massive hit. It goes without reason, however, that Lucas did not do this himself.
And there's the major players such as Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher. There's also his friends Spielberg and Coppola, who are also two of the greatest filmmakers of all time. And in Star Wars itself, there's John Williams' score, which is arguably the greatest film score in all of cinema. And there's also the people of ILM.
Overall, though, Star Wars is really the culmination of Lucas being able to bring together a lot of very talented people, but it's also able to succeed because of the time period when it takes place, and Star Wars comes out in 1977, and recently, a lot of unfortunate stuff had been happening in the country. In the late 60s, there were riots. In 1963, JFK died, MLK also died a few years later. The Vietnam War lasted way longer than it should have. The Watergate scandal happened with Nixon. The Cold War was still going on. The economy was definitely not doing good. And this had left the nation disillusioned with the media, law and politics. Films such as Taxi Driver, All the President's Men, and The Enforcer illustrated this. Lucas did something very different. He made a movie filled with good versus evil with very little moral ambiguity. He wanted to give people a sense of hope.
In fact, one of the last things George Lucas tells his protege, Dave Fulani, before he leaves Lucas' film, is to remember to make these stories hopeful.
Here's a quote from the book.
With Star Wars, Lucas offered no moral ambiguity. In his universe, there was little doubt who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. Lucas liked it that way, and so did audiences. The happy ending of Star Wars, noted Time, was a rarity these days, and even Gene Siskel was inclined to agree that the film's success had sent a clear message. A critic at the Boston Globe would put it even more concisely.
So after the movie's huge success, Lucas packs it up and he heads to Hawaii for vacation. The movie takes a big toll on his health, and he's very stressed out, and at one point he's rushed to the hospital during the filming of New Hope. In fact, after this, he vows never to direct again, which he does not do. Now with the reaction and the success of Star Wars out of the way, Lucas had a ton more leeway to do what he wanted to do. He frequently likened himself to a craftsman more than an artist, and this is related to his love for technology and telling a story. And he also viewed the artist as an arrogant individual who believed they had these perfect tastes, whereas the craftsman was the individual who would dig into the film and get things done and make things the way they needed to be. So now that Lucas had crafted his first masterpiece, he was finally free to make the films that he wanted to make. And this is where Steven Spielberg comes in. Lucas was happy with the result of Star Wars, but he had many interests and inspirations that he wanted to expand upon. One of those is Indiana Jones, who he describes as Spielberg. Are you interested? Lucas asked. I want to direct it, said Spielberg. That was fine with Lucas. Directing Star Wars had been exhausting and not very much fun. Better then to serve as a producer, which really would give him a great deal of control and turn the day-to-day drudgery of directing over to someone else.