The space saga debuted more than four decades ago.
George Lucas was nobody.
But there were no takers.
Credit: Lucasfilm
The Cannes Film Festival had allowed it into its line-up, so that was something.
But we’re getting ahead of things.
First came the hard times.
The studio kept threatening to fire him at any moment.
But he did have the couch.Thathe could offer to his buddy George.
Picker agreed to the sit-down with Lucas but quickly brushed him off.
He had a buying spree planned and said he was sure young Lucas understood.
George did understand, perfectly.
“I said, ‘I’mgoing, too!
I have a movie there.'”
This piqued Picker’s interest.
“He said, ‘Okay, come and see methere,'” Lucas recalled.
“Then I came and saw him and he’d been thinking about it.”
Suddenly, amid the buying frenzy of the Cannes Film Festival, Picker actually was interested.
ButStar Warswasn’t even a top priority for Lucas.
“So I pitched it to him, and he said, ‘Okay, we’ll do it.
Or at least, we’ll give you the $10 to write the script,” Lucas recalled.
“Then he said, ‘Do you have any other films?’
I said, ‘Well, I have this sort of space opera thing.
It’s sort of an action-adventure film in space.'”
Sales pitch of the year.
But Picker went for it.
“Just like that.”
What changed after so much disinterest?
Was it the French wine?
The “Directors’ Fortnight” screening ofTHX 1138in the Cannes festival’s indie section?
Something sparked interest in his ideas that wasn’t there before.
Lucas was never sure, even years later.
He guessed Picker was just in a gambling mood.
“you could imagine how many meetings I had on that terrace,” he said.
But without it, Lucas might never have pursued either film.
“It was for nothing.
It was like $10,000 to write a screenplay,” Lucas said.
And the offer for the “space opera”?
That was more of a reflex than genuine interest.
“As it turned out in this particular case, David didn’t likeAmerican Graffiti.
So they didn’t do it,” Lucas said.
He was then free to shop it around.
So Picker punted onStar Wars, too.
“When I had to go back toStar Wars,American Graffitihadn’t come out yet.
So they passed on [Star Wars], too.”
“He had actuallyseenAmerican Graffiti,” Lucas explained.
And he liked it.
That’s what sealed the deal on the galaxy.
“I said I’m absolutely not going to do it.”
But this was not the life his son wanted.
“But that was his life.
He worked very hard at it.
DARTH VADER REALLYWASHIS FATHER.
“Both Steven and I do that,” Lucas, of his Indiana Jones colleague, Steven Spielberg.
“Almost all of our films are about fathers and sons.
Whether it’s Darth Vader orE.T…
I don’t think you could look at any of our movies and not find that.”
So Lucas rebelled against his father and struck out on his own to make motion pictures.
“Making movies was not something he thought was respectable.
“And he was right.”
Eventually, just as Luke (a.k.a.
Lucas, get it?)
and Vader (a.k.a.
“He was extremely happy.
I succeeded at something and was able to support myself.
To quote Darth Vader’s final words fromReturn of the Jedi:
You were right …
