"60 minutes" interview with George Lucas

[Rowan]

The Last Star Wars – "60 minutes" interview with George Lucas - March 13-2005 (transcript)
For those who might have missed it and were interested I transcribed it for ya

Interviewer:

There has never been a more successful film maker than George Lucas and few movies have had more impact on popular culture than his Star Wars films they basically created a new genre the summer special effects block buster, and they made George Lucas a billionaire. This May with the release of the 6th instalment of Star Wars the saga will finally come to an end after almost 30 years.

[George and interviewer are sitting at a desk watching a screen with an animated scene on it.]
I: is this the movie?
GL: This is the movie, this is the final movie

Interviewer voice over [a series of short clips from the movie is show]: In an edit room at Skywalker Ranch George Lucas is giving us what millions of fans would kill for a sneak peak at his last Star Wars movie. Its official title is Revenge of the Sith.

GL: it’s much more dark, it’s much more emotional, it’s much more of a tragedy

Interviewer voice over [more short clips]: the new film is the last of the 3 prequels Lucas began 6 years ago. In the first Anakin Skywalker was a cherubic 9 yr old in episode 2 he fell in love and now in episode 3 Anakin succumbs to the dark side and to his inevitable fate becoming Darth Vader.
I: he’s a nice guy up to now and we like him a lot, and we are going to watch him turn to the devil
GL: were going to watch him make a pact with the devil

Interviewer voice over [clip of the volcanoes and fire]: the climactic battle takes place on a sea of fire, lava actually on a planet filled with nothing but volcanoes.

I: do you actually take us down in the biblical sense into hell?

GL: ah yes!

I: the lava

GL: the lava at the end…

I: is hell!

GL: yes, it ends in hell.

Interviewer voice over [series of clips from new movie] : before that of course it has all the SW staples Jedi’s and droids and Wookies. But this is definitely not a kiddie flick.

GL: my feeling it that is will probably be a pg 13 so it will be the first SW that’s a PG 13

I: and you won’t fight that?

GL: m m, I would take a 9 or 10 yr old to it or 11 but I don’t think I would take a 5 or 6 yr old to this it’s way to strong. I could pull it back a little bit but I don’t really want to.

I: are you happy with the way it all came out?

GL: ah ya actually, I’m very happy, I’m very please with the whole thing.

Interviewer voice over [images from eps 1 and 2] : but most film critics hated episodes 1 and 2 [a clip of jar jar is shown]

I: how worried are you that the critics are not going to like this new movie.

GL: Oh I’m not worried at all. They haven’t liked any of them really. And they specially haven’t liked the last 2, so hey it can’t get any worse [chuckles]

I: Ya but come on I mean when they go after your writing your directing it has to hurt?

GL: oh it always hurts

I: it has to hurt

GL: it hurts a great deal but part of making movies is that you get attacked and sometimes in very personal ways

I: did you not say ever to yourself well maybe they had a point with this or with that? ‘Cause you seem to be saying that they are just going after you.

GL: well they are there not there not….you know the, the point is um….it’s like a if you paint your house white and somebody comes along and that should be a green house well fine but I wanted to paint it white I don’t think there is anything wrong with painting it white I don’t think there is anything wrong with me for painting it white. Maybe it should be a green house but I didn’t want it to be a green house I want it to be a white house

Interviewer voice over [images of GL at work]: That is George Lucas he knows exactly what he wants in his movies and critics be damned he gets it.

[a clip of the movie being worked on with GL giving directions to the animator as to how he wants one of the robots to move across the screen.]

Interviewer voice over: I mean he’s paying for everything, he’s financing the movie himself no studio looking over his shoulder and he owns Industrial Lights and Magic

The special effects company where every shot is tailored to his demanding specifications they’ve been working on this sequence for 10 weeks

I: about how much time is this going to take in the movie, this whole thing we just saw?

GL: oh that shot? That little thing right there is like what? One second 2 seconds?

I: when we spoke to you 6 years ago when you were making episode 1 um your goal was to make an entirely digital movie 100% have you done that now?

GL: ah ya you know…

I: so no film at all none?

GL: none

Interviewer voice over: digital cameras digital effects even digital characters George Lucas and his wizards at ILM like animation supervisor Rob Coleman really are leading a revolution in movie making

I: What is the single biggest difference for you since we were here 6 yrs ago

RC: I think the biggest thing is that we are now doing Yoda. When you were here last Yoda was a rubber puppet.

I Voice over: for ep. 1 in 1999 Yoda was operated by puppeteer Frank Oz of Muppets fame just as he had been back in the 80’s but puppets can’t do this [clip of Yoda with the light sabre] Yoda had been digitised.


RC: he’s a supporting actor

I: he is a supporting actor!

RC: Ya

I: And he is 100% digital?

RC: 100%

I: 15 different computer animators helped create Yoda. His body his clothes his hair and that face

[Clip of Yoda’s digitised face in slow motion is shown]

RC: so I’m going one frame at a time right here and you can actually see going backwards right now and you can actually see his mouth will open here in a moment …see?! You can actually… see the different shapes? [Pointing to the screen at Yoda’s mouth]

I: ya ya ya …just he way we talk

RC: they’re actually animating the tongue in there!

I: to do this did you study? Did you take a real person and look at it?

RC: ya [he reaches around beside his computer and pulls out a mirror]

I: and break it down to 24 frames [she sees the mirror RC is grinning] oh no you...No come on!!

RC: ya!! Every animator has a mirror on their desk and they look and they talk [he demonstrates] into it [Interviewer laughs]

I: digital acting

RC: digital acting!

I: it’s an all new expression

RC: ya!

Interviewer voice over

And some of the human actors in the movie have digital doubles

[Rowan]

RC: I got a little sequence here where we have a fight with the real guys having a fight
Interviewer voice over [Ewan and Hayden practicing their fight sequence] the “real guys” are actors Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Hayden Christiansen who plays Anakin Skywalker
RC: George had originally shot it for real in Sydney and when he got back to editing (I’ll stop on it) he realised he didn’t get the element that he needed he actually wanted the guys with their swords against each other pressing against each other he could have gone back to re-shoot this however Ewan’s not available he’s booked on another film. So George came to us and said can you make the guys in this little section here can you make them digital?
Interviewer voice over [digital process shown]
They could and they did!
RC: So now here’s a close up just so you can see. We do not have the costume on here
and you can see the hair right now is just strips of grey material. The next thing we do now we have digital cloth see it’s moving around [points to the image on the screen] and then final [shows finished scene] those are two digital guys inside the room!
I: that is really spectacular
RC: so here it is so this whole sequence [shows finished sequence from the start] there it is
I: [gasps in surprise] right in the middle!
RC: right in the middle so you can see it one more time here, audience will never know …well now they will [smiling]
I: They’ll know
RC Now they will
[Switches back to GL again]
GL: we have lots of human in the film that are actually digital
I: completely digital!
GL: completely digital
I voice over [clip of light sabre fight in front of a green screen]
If the movie making technology has moved at warp speed in the last 6 yrs George’s personal life has changed very little [scene of G playing basketball with his son and daughter ] A single dad he still spends as much time as he can with his 3 adopted children. [Scene of him in the kitchen preparing a meal with his daughters help] Amanda 23, Katy 16 and Jet 12 who’s all ready taller than his dad [throwing a football to his son with their dog running around] I’ve discovered that that truly is where the happiness is, is you know at home with the kids
I: Love life
GL: [laughs] what love life! [Laughs more]
I: still?!
GL: Still [shakes head smiling]
I: that’s where I left you 6 yrs ago
GL: I know it hasn’t changed much
I: are you just against this whole idea?
GL: No I’d love to get married again but I’m not going to get married unless it’s the right person.
I: Are you getting set in your ways?
GL: I’m very set in my ways always
I: and you’re becoming difficult!
GL: I am difficult but you know who ever I’d be interested now is also the same way
[Changes to an interview from 1999 with FFC ]
Back in 1999 Luca’s good friend Francis Ford Coppola told us what he thought the problem was.
FFC: he has very high standards I mean he wants Queen Noor or Grace Kelly or somebody …. She can’t be too tall she has to be wonderful with her kids.
[Switches back to present interview]
GL: everybody says the same thing about their friend who is single which is their too picky if they just wouldn’t be so picky they’d be married by now
I: well there you go
GL: yup, but from that side
I: there’s wisdom
GL: I speak for those who are the single ones
I: [interrupts] who are the picky ones
GL: who say I am not picky!! But I want somebody who’s right and I’m not just going to walk into anything because marriage is a serious thing
I voice over [various images of workers at work] : set in his ways but he has had to make changes in his sprawling business empire with it’s nearly 2000 employees. It includes ILM which does special effects for him and much of Hollywood. Skywalker Sound used by scores of movie makers, and Lucas Arts his fast growing video game company. The divisions have always operated independently until now.
I: you’ve consolidated
GL: we’ve reorganised to try to get more control over the companies this is just saying that gee we have a video game company and we have a video animation company these two companies should be talking to each other because they are doing exactly the same work
I: and they weren’t?
GL: and they weren’t talking to each other
Interviewer voice over [images of the new buildings GL has built] Now they are going to this summer all the businesses will move in together for the first time on one of the most coveted pieces of real estate in the country.
GL: [on site outside] you can see all the way from Alcatraz to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Interviewer voice over [images of the buildings] Lucas’ new head quarters is nearing completion at the old Presidio Military Base in San Francisco
I: they closed the military base
GL: they closed the military base they turned it into a national park and they said were going to let you build their going to let developers come in and build one big section of this. And I said what the heck lets put our name in the hat and see what happens
I: when you won the bid did you say to yourself Oh no I won the bid now what do we do?
GL: That…there was a little of that
I: how much did this cost?
GL: I think it’s about 350 million dollars
Interviewer voice over [images of his Big Rock Complex]
But just a couple of years ago he built another headquarters complex called Big Rock adjacent to his Skywalker Ranch every one working there will now move here.
I: You’re always building something
GL: well building is my hobby making movies is what I do for a living but I enjoy both of them a great deal.
[Series of short clips from SW III] voice over: what if someone else beside you came to you and said I want to make episode 7 could you see that happening.
GL: No
I: No absolutely positively you’re really closing the door without any wiggle room what so ever
GL: right! There is no episode 7
Interviewer voice over [GL walking with I at his new complex] but there will be other films, he’s producing another Indiana Jones Movie with Steven Spielberg directing then he says he’ll return to directing films but different kinds of films.
GL: their going to be small movies
I: you said to somebody “I’m going to go off and make these art films that nobodies going to want to watch.”
GL: I’ve earned enough I’ve worked enough to be able to fail the rest of my life and that’s what I’m going to do
I: that’s some ambition
GL: well it’s what you work for in the end
I: it’s a little weird
GL : Well… not really I don’t think everything should be this big blown out super kind of movie that I stumbled into is definitely not what I meant to do and I’ve just sort of followed it to the end.
I: you called it a detour
GL: it is a detour only it’s the 30 yr detour

[Rowan]

A little article on the broadcast

http://www.starwars.com/episode-iii/...s20050310.html

[Rowan]

There is a a couple of minutes of the interview that you can watch that shows quite a few of the clips from the movie. It's in the top left corner of the page.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...in679325.shtml

[The 14th Colony]

Crap. I missed it Sunday, forgot all about it. Thanks for the transcript, Rowy, and the link. Got to see a few minutes of it from the clip at least, but I still wish I had seen the whole thing.

[gmd3d]

Thanks Rowan for the post: