George Lucas Needs to Make Another Movie
Bear with me – this is an idea I’ve been toying with for a while: George Lucas needs to make another movie. Sure, he’s opening the Museum of Narrative Art, but so what? J. Paul Getty had museums, but he was still a billionaire lowlife. A part of me wrestles with the idea that George Lucas’ legacy would be better served if he focused on making more movies instead of talking about movies he made.
Hear me out – before Star Wars, George Lucas was an accomplished filmmaker. American Graffiti, THX1138 were both iconic feature-length projects that re-shaped culture and the way people thought about visual storytelling.
No, I’m not kidding. American Graffiti ‘received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It is widely credited with launching a wave of 1950s and early 1960s nostalgia in American pop culture, influencing the teen comedy genre and reviving interest in early rock and roll among the baby boomer generation.’ For fans of classic science fiction, “THX 1138” is an intellectual and artistic achievement. It asks difficult questions about the role of technology in society, the value of free will, and the cost of rebellion. George Lucas changed filmmaking and storytelling *before* he made Star Wars. The rest, unfortunately, is history.
No, seriously. Tell me another film project that George Lucas worked on between A New Hope and The Phantom Menace. Lucas serving as an uncredited co-director or second unit director contrasts with Spielberg’s fifteen film projects in the same period. Whatever professional or creative experience Spielberg gained by continuing to direct films paid off with projects like ‘Schindler’s List‘, The Adventures of Tintin, Catch Me If You Can, and so on.
This isn’t a George Lucas bashing session – the guy is a legend for a reason. George Lucas re-invented entire sections of the film-making industry (THX, ILM) to better serve his artistic pursuit – we’re still riding that wave of imagination and aspiration fifty years later. What if he focused on honing his visual storytelling like Spielberg or Zemeckis did. Our portfolio of 80s and 90s-era scifi and dramatic storytelling could look very different. Choosing to go back and just make films – even if they’re short film no one watches – could re-set his visual storytelling style, re-shape and re-articulate the values of storytelling now in the year 2025.
Look, I’m tired of hating on Star Wars or complaining that George Lucas ‘owes’ us better movies. None of that’s true. I’m simply offering an alternate perspective to the past 50 years of fandom, Star Wars, and scifi storytelling. George Lucas needs to make another movie, to show us how it’s done and to prove to himself that he’s more than Star Wars.
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