By Bruce Kirkland
Winnipeg Sun
May 7, 2005


A 34-year odyssey is almost over: George Lucas has finished his
sixth feature film based on the Star Wars mythology he first created
in 1971.

"I'm not sad, I'm happy, I'm relieved," the often reclusive and
usually defensive Lucas said in an upbeat interview this week.
Lucas, who turns 61 today, was sitting with groups of reporters
invited to the gated and guarded Skywalker Ranch, his personal
headquarters on 5,000 acres tucked away in the rolling ranchland
hills of Marin County, north of San Francisco.

"I enjoyed doing it," a grinning Lucas said of wrapping up Star
Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, the darkest of the six
films and the least kid friendly. It is set for release May 19.
"I look forward to doing a lot of other things." While some of those
other things include proposals for two Star Wars TV series -- one
animated and one a live action spin-off involving minor characters
-- Lucas said his is satisfied with finishing it off for the big
screen.

"The important part for me is that I finally got all the pieces
together," he said in response to a Sun question, "so that
everything that was ever written about Star Wars -- in terms of what
I had originally worked on -- is now on the screen. So you can sort
of see the whole story."

He began writing the story in 1971, and the first movie appeared in
1977. Lucas didn't write a draft of the vague story that would
follow Episode VI, even though hardcore fans have clung to the idea
that the series would eventually become nine films.

Actually, Lucas said that it is a miracle that he did Episodes I, II
and III. "I never really intended to do the back story," he said of
the three prequels which wrap up with the new film. Even the sequels
to the original Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope were a bonus,
due to its phenomenon success.

"I was supposed to end up with one movie -- Episode IV -- and that
two-hour movie turned into a six-hour movie and later I decided to
go back and tell the back story. But the story wasn't really a
story. It was a series of character studies and a lot of exposition
about how everybody got to be where they are and how the Republic
became the Empire."

Lucas said he is most satisfied with completing the Darth Vader
story because viewers finally get to see troubled hero Anakin
Skywalker's tragic and fiery transformation.

"I thought, gee, if you really did know what his story was, it would
change the whole way you looked at those first three movies. Not
that it changes anything (in terms of content) but it makes it much
more intense. And that fascinated me to the point where it drove me
to do these."

When he decided to do it, Lucas realized it was a 10-year commitment
in terms of writing, preparation, directing, editing and mounting
the massive special effects that are the foundation for all three
recent films.

"I'm relieved that I made it through and I actually crossed the
finish line," Lucas said. "I'm happy with the way it turned out. And
now people can see it (Star Wars) as a whole saga of 12 hours,
rather than as a bunch of pieces. The films are not sequels nor
prequels, they are part of a whole."

The irony of his incredible success, much of it predicated on Star
Wars, is that he didn't ever intend to become a feature film
director. Instead, Lucas said, he fancied a career as a cinema
verite documentary cameraman who would do abstract art films on the
side. But Star Wars set a new life pattern.

"You never know where that life is going to lead you because it's
one opportunity after another," Lucas said. "After I did the first
Star Wars, I realized you could actually take control." That control
created his financial fortune and gave Lucas the power to finance
his own movies.

Without that control, and the hundreds of millions it took to create
Episodes I through III, these films would have never been made,
Lucas said. III cost a reported $113 million.

"Those people who were concerned about the franchise and concerned
about making money, they were completely upset, saying: 'You're
going to destroy the franchise!' " he said of Hollywood executives
who did not want him to continue the Star Wars saga with The Phantom
Menace because the story focused on the 10-year version of Anakin
Skywalker.

"I'm sure, if I had been at a studio, if I hadn't been financing it
myself, they would have said: 'Forget it, you're doing this, we're
not going to back a film about a 10-year-old boy. It's a Disney
movie!' So I was able to make the movie I wanted, it didn't lose
money, and I was able to go on and make the Star Wars love story
(Attack of the Clones)."

In turn, that led to Revenge of the Sith -- which is now George
Lucas' revenge on corporate Hollywood and the completion of his own
sense of mission.