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I'm Not Much Of A Math And Science Guy. I Spent Most Of My Time In School Daydreaming And Managed To Turn It Into A Living. When I Was Making "star Wars," I Wasn't Restrained By Any Kind Of Science. I Simply Said, "i'm Going To Create A World That's Fun And Interesting, Makes Sense, And Seems To Have A Reality To It."

-George Lucas

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I'm Not Much Of

George Lucas

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I'm Not Much Of A Math And Science Guy. I Spent Most Of My Time In School Daydreaming And Managed To Turn It Into A Living. When I Was Making "star Wars," I Wasn't Restrained By Any Kind Of Science. I Simply Said, "i'm Going To Create A World That's Fun And Interesting, Makes Sense, And Seems To Have A Reality To It."

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Time Is More Important To Me Than Money.

From The Outset, I Conceived Star Wars As A Series Of Six Films, Or Two Trilogies.

The Force Is Really A Way Of Feeling; It's A Way Of Being With Life. It Really Has Nothing To Do With Weapons. The Force Gives You The Power To Have Extrasensory Perception And To Be Able To See Things And Hear Things, Read Minds And Levitate Things. It Is Said That Certain Creatures Are Born With A Higher Awareness Of The Force Than Humans. Their Brains Are Different; They Have More Midi-chlorians In Their Cells.

I Put All Of My Resources Into Pushing The Evolution In An Industry That Is Notoriously Backwards And I Enjoy Pushing That Envelope,.

I Was Never Interested In Being Powerful Or Famous. But Once I Got To Film School And Learned About Movies, I Just Fell In Love With It. I Didn't Care What Kind Of Movies I Made.

'american Graffiti' Was Unpleasant Because Of The Fact That There Was No Money, No Time, And I Was Compromising Myself To Death.

I Felt That One Of The Major Issues In The Third Film Is That Luke Is Finally On His Own And Has To Fight Vader And The Emperor By Himself. If You Get A Sense That Yoda Or Ben Is There To Help Him Or To Somehow Influence Him, It Diminishes The Power Of The Scene.

The Underlying Issues, The Psychological Motives, In All My Movies Have Been The Same, He Said. Personal Responsibility And Friendship, The Importance Of A Compassionate Life As Opposed To A Passionate Life.

It's Now Time For Me To Pass Star Wars On To A New Generation Of Filmmakers. I've Always Believed That Star Wars Could Live Beyond Me, And I Thought It Was Important To Set Up The Transition During My Lifetime.

That Had Always Been My Purpose: To Get People Back In Touch With What Makes Us So Valuable As A Human Race.

Han Solo: Wonderful Girl. Either I'm Going To Kill Her Or I'm Beginning To Like Her.

In The End, The Most Important Thing To Me Is That I've Raised Three Kids. I Know That'll Be The Most Important Accomplishment Of My Life And It Is The Most Easily Obtainable, Because All You Have To Do Is Pay Attention. It Is Hard Work And Most People Don't Realize That's The Real Gift They Are Getting In Terms Of Goals And Success And Accomplishments.

I Think That Lethal Weapon-style Dialogue Is Overused, It's A Necessary Aspect Of High Action Films Where You Have To Have The Smart Retort. You Have To Say "i'll Be Back Baby" And Stuff. It's Not My Style.

The Theme That Runs Through My Movies Is The Fact That We Create Barriers For Ourselves....because We Say, Well, I Can't Do That. But In The End, You Can't Do It Unless You Can Imagine Yourself Succeeding At It.

Fear Is The Path To The Dark Side. Fear Leads To Anger. Anger Leads To Hate. Hate Leads To Suffering.

Human Nature Means Battling Constantly Between Being Completely Self-absorbed And Trying To Be A Communal Creature. Nature Makes You A Communal Creature. The Ultimate Single-minded, Self-centered Creature Is A Cancer Cell. And Mostly, We're Not Made Up Of Cancer Cells.

'young Indiana Jones' Was One Of The Happiest Times I Ever Had, So I Love Television.

When You Get A Small Group Of Fans Who Hate Something, It Becomes Compounded By The Internet. The Press Picks Up The Internet Like It's A Source. They Don't Realise It Is Just One Person Typing Out Their Opinion.

If I Make A Movie That Has A Whole Bunch Of Music In It, I Get To Listen To The Music All Day Long, And I Don't Have To Say, 'well, I Gotta Go Back To Work And I Gotta Stop Listening To The Music.' I Get To Listen To Music And Go To Work.

There Wasn't Much As A Kid That Inspired Me In What I Did As An Adult, But I Was Always Very Interested In What Motivates People, And In Telling Stories And Building Things.

Sometimes You Must Let Go Of Your Pride And Do What Is Asked Of Us. Anakin Skywalker, Episode 2: Attack Of The Clones

A Film Is Sort Of Binary - It Either Works Or It Doesn't Work. It Has Nothing To Do With How Good A Job You Do. If You Bring It Up To An Adequate Level Where The Audience Goes With The Movie, Then It Works, That Is All.

A Talent Is A Combination Of Something You Love A Great Deal And Something You Can Lose Yourself In - Something That You Can Start At 9 O'clock, Look Up From Your Work And It's 10 O'clock At Night.

There Are A Lot Of Movies That Are Badly Made That I Love, And There Are A Lot Of Movies That Are Just Beautifully Made But I Don't Like Them. And Critics Have A Tendency - That's All They Focus On, Which Is, "i Like It. I Don't Like It. It's Good. It's Bad."

A Lot Of Great Thinkers- Like Einstein And Newton- Come Up With Their Best Ideas When They're Young Because They Don't Yet Think In The Way That The Establishment Teaches Them. Sometimes Your Lack Of Knowledge Frees Your Mind To Be Creative And Think In A Different Way. But You Still Have To Be Logical And Figure Out A Practical Way To Get Things Done, Even Though You're Looking At Things Differently.

You Need To Have A Lot Of Close Family Around You, A Lot Of Friends To Keep You Honest. Take Your Time, Take A Year And Just Slow Everything Down A Little Bit. Get Away From The Success Part, Stay With Yourself. Go Off On A Beach Somewhere Or Do Something To Keep Yourself Aligned Right.

Lots Of Friends

Our System Of Education Is Locked In A Time Capsule. You Want To Say To The People In Charge, 'you're Not Using Today's Tools! Wake Up!'

You Have To Have A Thick Enough Skin To Cope With The Criticism. I'm Very Self-critical And I Have A Lot Of Friends That I Trust Who Are Film Directors And Writers And People In My Profession.

We Tried To Do Yoda In Cgi In Episode I, But We Just Couldn't Get It Done In Time. We Couldn't Get The Technology To Work, So We Had To Use The Puppet, But The Puppet Really Wasn't As Good As The Cgi. So When We Did The Reissue, We Had To Put The Cgi Back In, Which Was What It Was Meant To Be.

I'm Aware That Dialogue Isn't My Strength. I Use It As A Device. I Don't Particularly Like Dialogue Which Is Part Of The Problem.

Education Is The Single Most Important Job Of The Human Race.

Learning To Make Films Is Very Easy. Learning What To Make Films About Is Very Hard. What You’ve Really Got To Do Is Focus On Learning As Much About Life, And About Various Aspects Of It First.

When A Movie Comes Out, I Always Go Off On A Beach So I Miss All The Craziness That Goes On, All The Hoopla, And The Hype And The Success, And How Much It's Making, Or Whether It's Doing Good Or Whether It's Doing Bad. I Just Miss It All. I Don't Talk To Anybody, And A Couple Weeks Later I Come Back And It's All Over With.

The Story Being Told In Star Wars Is A Classic One. Every Few Hundred Years, The Story Is Retold Because We Have A Tendency To Do The Same Things Over And Over Again.

A Lot Of People Like To Do Certain Things, But They're Not That Good At It. Keep Going Through The Things That You Like To Do, Until You Find Something That You Actually Seem To Be Extremely Good At. It Can Be Anything.

Sometimes People Are Surprised To Learn That Most Of The Films I've Made Don't Work. They've Been Released But Nobody Has Ever Seen Them. Maybe 40 Percent Of Them Are Very Successful. That's A Very High Percentage; Most People Have Maybe 10 Or 15 Percent Of Their Films Work.

In 3-d Filmmaking, I Can Take Images And Manipulate Them Infinitely, As Opposed To Taking Still Photographs And Laying Them One After The Other. I Move Things In All Directions. It's Such A Liberating Experience.

I Was A Terrible Student In High School And The Thing That The Auto Accident Did - And It Happened Just As I Graduated, So I Was At This Sort Of Crossroads - But It Made Me Apply Myself More, Because I Realized More Than Anything Else What A Thin Thread We Hang On In Life, And I Really Wanted To Make Something Out Of My Life.

These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For.

Books And Movies

If I'd Have Gone To Art School, Or Stayed In Anthropology, I Probably Would Have Ended Up Back In Film ... Mostly I Just Followed My Inner Feelings And Passions ... And Kept Going To Where It Got Warmer And Warmer, Until It Finally Got Hot ... Everybody Has Talent. It's Just A Matter Of Moving Around Until You've Discovered What It Is.

Being In Washington Is More Fictional Than Being In Hollywood.

I've Discovered That Most Critics Themselves Are Cinematically Illiterate. They Don't Really Know Much About Movies. They Don't Know The History. They Don't Know The Technology. They Don't Know Anything. So For Them To Try To Analyze It, They're Lost.

Attention Should Be Paid To This Question Of Our Soul, And Not Simply To Accounting Procedures. Attention Should Be Paid To The Interest Of Those Who Are Yet Unborn, Who Should Be Able To See This Generation As It Saw Itself, And The Past Generation As It Saw Itself.

This Generation

Success Is When You Try To Achieve Your Inward Vision Externally And Have It Come Off The Way You See It. Then You Feel Successful About It; That's How Success Is Measured.

The Secret To The Movie Business, Or Any Business, Is To Get A Good Education In A Subject Besides Film - Whether It's History, Psychology, Economics, Or Architecture - So You Have Something To Make A Movie About. All The Skill In The World Isn't Going To Help You Unless You Have Something To Say.

You Have To Find Something That You Love Enough To Be Able To Take Risks, Jump Over The Hurdles And Break Through The Brick Walls That Are Always Going To Be Placed In Front Of You. If You Don't Have That Kind Of Feeling For What It Is You're Doing, You'll Stop At The First Giant Hurdle.

You Want People To Think. You Want People To Be Emotionally Moved. And There's A Theory Behind That In Terms Of Storytelling. It Has Been Around For Thousands Of Years. And That's Where Something Like Live Theater Or A Live Performance Is Something That Is Very Valuable Because You Get Instant Feedback From Your Audience And You Kind Of Know The Things That Work And The Things That Don't Work.

You're Not Going To Stay In Business, The Business Of Making Movies Very Long Because You Need The Resources In Order To Keep Going. So You Have To Try And Find A Niche Audience Or Some Kind Of Audience That Has The Same Likes, Dislikes And Aesthetic Sensibilities That You Have.

Train Yourself To Let Go Of The Things You Fear To Lose.

You Have The Most Important Job Of Anyone Today. Our Kids Need You To Advocate For Their Futures.

I Wanted To Make A Kids' Film That Would Strengthen Contemporary Mythology.

Emotionally Involving The Audience Is Easy. Anybody Can Do It Blindfolded: Get A Little Kitten And Have Some Guy Wring Its Neck.

Changes Are Not Unusual - I Mean, Most Movies, When They Release Them, They Make Changes. But Somehow, When I Make The Slightest Change, Everybody Thinks It's The End Of The World.

But Having A Really Good Understanding Of History, Literature, Psychology, Sciences - Is Very, Very Important To Actually Being Able To Make Movies.

[in Ancient Rome,] Why Did The Senate After Killing Caesar Turn Around And Give The Government To His Nephew? Why Did France After They Got Rid Of The King And That Whole System Turn Around And Give It To Napoleon? It's The Same Thing With Germany And Hitler.

If You Want To Be Successful In A Particular Field Or Endeavor, I Think Perseverance Is One Of The Key Qualities. It's Very Important That You Find Something That You Care About, That You Have A Deep Passion For, Because You're Going To Have To Devote A Lot Of Your Life To It.

As A Group, We Are Stronger Than We Are As Individuals. We Start To Think We Want Everything For Ourselves And We Don't Want To Help Anybody Else. We Want To Succeed, But We Don't Want Anybody Else To Succeed, Because We Want To Be The Winner.

When You Are A Beginning Film Maker You Are Desperate To Survive. The Most Important Thing In The End Is Survival And Being Able To Get To Your Next Picture.

That's The Issue That I've Been Exploring: How Did The Republic Turn Into The Empire? That's Paralleled With: How Did Anakin Turn Into Darth Vader? How Does A Good Person Go Bad, And How Does A Democracy Become A Dictatorship? It Isn't That The Empire Conquered The Republic, It's That The Empire Is The Republic.

If This Were A Fantasy World, There Would Be Ten Of Me And We Would Each Be Doing What We Wanted To Do.

Most Organisms Either Adapt And Become Part Of The System, Or Get Wiped Out. The Only Thing We Have To Adapt To The System With Is Our Brain. If We Don't Use It, And We Don't Adapt Fast Enough, We Won't Survive.

I Was Always Extremely Curious About Why People Did The Things They Do.

I'm Not In A Contest. I Make Movies. I'm Not A Racehorse.

The Technology Keeps Moving Forward, Which Makes It Easier For The Artists To Tell Their Stories And Paint The Pictures They Want.

As I Talk To Film Students Now Especially, I Say, "the Easiest Job You'll Ever Get Is To Try To Make Your First Film." That's The Easy One To Get, Is The First Film Because Nobody Knows Whether You Can Make A Film Or Not.

I Think One Of The Reasons That Steven (spielberg) And I Have Been As Successful As We Have Is Because We Like The Movies. We Like To Go To The Movies. We Enjoy Movies And We Want To Make Movies Like The Ones We Enjoy.

Star Wars Is A Saga Of Good Vs. Evil, Divided Into Nine Parts.

There Wasn't Anything In My Life That Was Going To Stop Me From Making Movies.

You Need Peers; You Need People Who Are At The Same Level You Are. You Never Know In Life When You're Going To Need Help, And You Never Know Who You're Going To Need It From.

I Wanted Yoda To Be The Traditional Kind Of Character You Find In Fairy Tales And Mythology. And That Character Is Usually A Frog Or A Wizened Old Man On The Side Of The Road. The Hero Is Going Down The Road And Meets This Poor And Insignificant Person. The Goal Or Lesson Is For The Hero To Learn To Respect Everybody And To Pay Attention To The Poorest Person Because That's Where The Key To His Success Will Be.

There Are A Few Critics Overseas, And Occasionally A Critic Will Write An Astute Analysis Of The Movie. There Is Value In Reading Critics That Actually Have Something Intelligent To Say, But The Journalistic Community Lives In A World Of Sound Bites And Literary Commerce: Selling Newspapers, Selling Books, And They Do That Simply By Trashing Things. They Don't Criticize Or Analyze Them. They Simply Trash Them For The Sake Of A Headline, Or To Shock People To Get Them To Buy Whatever It Is They're Selling.

The One Way The World Hasn't Changed: Teaching Is Still The Most Important Job.

Teachers Are The Most Important Individuals In Our Society - Nothing Is As Powerful As The Human Touch In Education.

I Haven't Met Anybody Who Hasn't Been Able To Describe Years And Years And Years Of Very, Very Difficult Struggle Through The Whole Process Of Achieving Anything Whatsoever. And There's No Way To Sort Of Get Around That.

I Like Star Wars, It's Fun And I Enjoy Doing It. But It's Definitely Not My Life. I'm A Bigger Movie Fan Than I Am Star Wars Fan. I Like Making Movies.

I Am A Giant Proponent Of Giant Screens. But I Accept The Fact That Most Of My Movies Are Going To Be Seen On Phones.

If The Boy And Girl Walk Off Into The Sunset Hand-in-hand In The Last Scene, It Adds 10 Million To The Box Office.

It Took Me Three, Four Years, To Get From My First Film To My Second Film, Banging On Doors, Trying To Get People To Give Me A Chance. Writing, Struggling, With No Money In The Bank, Working As An Editor On The Side. Working As A Cameraman On The Side. Getting Little Jobs, Eking Out A Living. Trying To Stay Alive, And Pushing A Script That Nobody Wanted.

If You Want To Be Successful In A Particular Field Of Endeavor, I Think Perseverance Is One Of The Key Qualities.

Most Artists, Most Painters, Even Composers Would Want To Come Back And Redo Their Work. They've Got A New Perspective On It, They've Got More Resources, They Have Better Technology, And They Can Fix Or Finish The Things That Were Never Done.

Each Time I Do A Trilogy It's Ten Years Out Of My Life. I'll Finish Episode Iii And I'll Be 60. And The Next 20 Years After That I Want To Spend Doing Something Other Than Star Wars. If At 80 I'm Still Lively And Having A Good Time And Think I Can Work For Another 10 Years Between 80 And 90, I Might Consider It. But Don't Count On It. There's Nothing Written, And It's Not Like I'm Completing Something. I'd Have To Start From Scratch. The Idea Of A Third Trilogy Was More Of A Media Thing Than It Was Me.

My Life Is Making Movies. I Like Storytelling, And I've Got A Lot Of Stories That Are Stored Up In My Head That I Hope To Get Out Before My Time Is Up.

Even In High School I Was Very Interested In History - Why People Do The Things They Do. As A Kid I Spent A Lot Of Time Trying To Relate The Past To The Present.

You Have To Find Something That You Love Enough To Be Able To Take Risks.

I Was Going To Go To A Four-year College And Be An Anthropologist Or To An Art School And Be An Illustrator When A Friend Convinced Me To Learn Photography At The University Of Southern California. Little Did I Know It Was A School That Taught You How To Make Movies! It Had Never Occurred To Me That I'd Ever Have Any Interest In Filmmaking.

As You Go Through History, I Didn't Think It Was Going To Get Quite This Close. So It's Just One Of Those Recurring Things. I Hope This Doesn't Come True In Our Country. Maybe The Film Will Waken People To The Situation.

Football Games Are On Tv, And It Doesn't Affect Stadium Attendance At All. It's The Same With Movies. People Who Really Love Movies And Like To Go Out On A Saturday Night Will Go To The Movie Theater.

People Who Alter Or Destroy Works Of Art And Our Cultural Heritage For Profit Or As An Exercise Of Power Are Barbarians.

Star Wars Has Always Struck A Chord With People. There Are Issues Of Loyalty, Of Friendship, Of Good And Evil... The Theme Came From Stories And Ideas That Have Been Around For Thousands Of Years.

I Thought It Was Too Wacky For The General Public. On His Original Opinion Of His Movie's Chances For Success, 1997.

Follow Your Bliss. Do The Thing Where You Sit Down At 8 A.m. And Then You Realize You're Hungry And You Look Up And It's 10 P.m. If You Can Find Something You Love That Much, It Doesn't Matter What You Do.

When My Films Don't Work It's Usually Because I Tried Some Very Experimental Idea. I Tried New Ideas And They Just Didn't Work, As Opposed To Trying To Do Something Conventional And Having It Be So Conventional Nobody Wanted To See It.

I'm Very Proud Of All The Movies I Made. I Am Very Happy With Everything I've Done. I Like To Watch My Movies. Some Of Them Work. Some Of Them Don't. Some Of Them People Like, Most Of Them They Don't.

Everybody Has Talent, It's Just A Matter Of Moving Around Until You've Discovered What It Is.

Rejoice For Those Around You Who Transform Into The Force. Mourn Them, Do Not. Miss Them, Do Not. Attachment Leads To Jealousy. The Shadow Of Greed, That Is. Train Yourself To Let Go Of Everything You Fear To Lose

You Must Let Go Of Your Past And Embrace Your Future And Figure Out What Path You're Going To Go Down

Everyone Seems To Think That Digital Technology Devoids The Medium Of Content, But That Is Not True At All. If Anything, It Broadens The Content.

One Of The Amazing Things About 'seven Samurai' Is That There Are A Lot Of Characters. And Considering You Have So Many, And They All Have Shaved Heads, And You've Got Good Guys And Bad Guys And Peasants, You Get To Understand A Lot Of Them Without Too Much Being Said.

I Thought Star Wars Was Too Wacky For The General Public.

The Secret Is Not To Give Up Hope. It's Very Hard Not To Because If You're Really Doing Something Worthwhile I Think You Will Be Pushed To The Brink Of Hopelessness Before You Come Through The Other Side.

The Script Is What You`ve Dreamed Up - This Is What It Should Be. The Film Is What You End Up With.

It Was The Money From 'star Wars' And 'jaws' That Allowed The Theaters To Build Their Multiplexes, Which Allowed An Opening Up Of Screens.

Before I Became A Film Major, I Was Very Heavily Into Social Science, I Had Done A Lot Of Sociology, Anthropology, And I Was Playing In What I Call Social Psychology, Which Is Sort Of An Offshoot Of Anthropology/sociology - Looking At A Culture As A Living Organism, Why It Does What It Does.

I’m Moving Away From The Business, From The Company, From All This Kind Of Stuff.

I've Always Just Followed My Own Course, Whatever I Found The Most Interesting To Me At The Moment. I've Never Had A Real Plan Of, "i Want To Get From Here To There, And I've Got To Do This."

Obviously, People Have A Lot Of Different Dreams Of Where America Should Be, And Where It Should Fit Into Things. Obviously, Very Few Of Them Are Compatible, And Very Few Of Them Are Very Compatible With The Laws Of Nature.

I Made Lots Of Movies While In School While Everybody Else Was Running Around Saying, "oh, I Wish I Could Make A Movie. I Wish They'd Give Me Some Film."

The Ability To Speak Does Not Make You Intelligent.

I Think That God Gave Us A Brain, And That It's The Only Thing We Have To Survive. All Life Forms Have Some Advantage, Some Trick, Some Claw, Some Camouflage, Some Poison, Some Speed, Something To Help Them Survive. We've Got A Brain. Therefore It's Our Duty To Use Our Brain.

If You Look At 'blade Runner,' It's Been Cut Sixteen Ways From Sunday, And There Are All Kinds Of Different Versions Of It.

I Think As You Grow Up, You Realize You Have Obligations Just In Your Life - Being A Citizen, Being Part Of Humanity - To Help Other People, To Help Your Country, To Help The World.

All Democracies Turn Into Dictatorships - But Not By Coup. The People Give Their Democracy To A Dictator, Whether It's Julius Caesar Or Napoleon Or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, The General Population Goes Along With The Idea.

Although I Write Screenplays, I Don't Think I'm A Very Good Writer. I'm Very Interested In Studying Cultures And Social Issues, But As An Academic I Don't Think I Would Have Been Too Successful.

If You Can Tune Into The Fantasy Life Of An 11-year-old Girl, You Can Make A Fortune In This Business.

Whatever Has Happened In My Quest For Innovation Has Been Part Of My Quest For Immaculate Reality.

I've Always Tried To Be Aware Of What I Say In My Films, Because All Of Us Who Make Motion Pictures Are Teachers - Teachers With Very Loud Voices.

Kurosawa Was One Of Film's True Greats. His Ability To Transform A Vision Into A Powerful Work Of Art Is Unparalleled.

I Grew Up In The Era, 'don't Trust Anybody Over 30.' And, You Know, I Still Feel That. Don't Trust Me.

Young People Don't Have A Fantasy Life Anymore, Not The Way We Did. All They've Got Is Kojak And Dirty Harry. There's All These Kids Running Around Wanting To Be Killer Cops.

I Wanted To Transfer To An Art School, And Ended Up Going To The University Of Southern California. They Had A Cinematography School, And I Said "well, That's Sort Of Like Photography, Maybe That Will Be Interesting." And Once I Started In That Department, I Found What It Was That I Loved And Was Good At.

I'd Like To See Education Play A Larger Role In Our Daily Lives, Have People Come To A Larger Understanding - A "bigger Picture" Understanding - Of How We Fit Into The World, And How We Fit Into The Universe. Not Necessarily Thinking Of Ourselves, But Thinking Of Others.

Making A Film Is Like Putting Out A Fire With Sieve. There Are So Many Elements, And It Gets So Complicated.

There Wasn't Much As A Kid That Inspired Me In What I Did As An Adult.

Oh, My. I'd Forgotten How Much I Hate Space Travel.

I Think Crossing Into The Digital Age Is The Big Move For The Industry. I Think It Will Be The Biggest Thing That's Happened While I've Been Making Movies. I Equate It To The Invention Of Color Or Sound, And I Don't See Any Other Major Technical Process Coming Along And Changing That.

It Wasn't Long After I Began Writing Star Wars That I Realized The Story Was More Than A Single Film Could Hold. As The Saga Of The Skywalkers And Jedi Knights Unfolded, I Began To See It As A Tale That Could Take At Least Nine Films To Tell - Three Trilogies - And I Realized, In Making My Way Through The Back Story And After Story, That I Was Really Setting Out To Make The Middle Story.

None Of The Films I've Done Was Designed For A Mass Audience, Except For 'indiana Jones.' Nobody In Their Right Mind Thought 'american Graffiti' Or 'star Wars' Would Work.

You Really Have To Focus On What You're Doing And Just Plow Ahead No Matter What Hurdles Are Thrown In Front Of You.

Art Is The Retelling Of Certain Themes In A New Light, Making Them Accessible To The Public Of The Moment.

The Secret To Film Is That It's An Illusion.

Mos Eisley Spaceport. You Will Never Find A More Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy. We Must Be Cautious.

Ultimately The Force Is The Larger Mystery Of The Universe. And To Trust Your Feelings Is Your Way Into That.

Because We [people] Have An Intellect, Part Of What We Do Is Try To Understand The "intelligent Design." Everything We Don't Know Is "intelligent Design." Everything We Do Know Is Science.

Good Luck Has Its Storms.

I Wanted To Race Cars. I Didn't Like School, And All I Wanted To Do Was Work On Cars. But Right Before I Graduated, I Got Into A Really Bad Car Accident, And I Spent That Summer In The Hospital Thinking About Where I Was Heading. I Decided To Take Education More Seriously And Go To A Community College.

For The Third Trilogy, I Don't Know If I Will Still Be Alive When It Comes The Time To Make Them.

Working Hard Is Very Important. You're Not Going To Get Anywhere Without Working Extremely Hard.

I Think That's An Obligation You Have, To Give Back No Matter What Happens. It Actually Ends Up Being Easier When You're Young Than When You Become Successful. Suddenly You Realize You've Gone Into A Whole Other Realm Of Philanthropy, From Just Being A Volunteer To Being This Person That Dedicates Buildings And Saves Lots Of Children In Some Faraway Place.

The First Movies, They Just Put Up A Camera And Had A Train Come Into A Train Station, And Everybody Was Amazed. That Was Sort Of All Technology.

Suddenly Everything Came Together In One Place. All My Likes, Everything I Actually Seemed To Have Talent For Was Right There. I Said, "hey, This Is It. I Can Do This Really Well. I Really Love To Do It."

Today It Is An Amazing, If Unexpected, Legacy Of Star Wars That So Many Gifted Writers Are Contributing New Stories To The Saga.

The Sciences Are The 'how,' And The Humanities Are The 'why' - Why Are We Here, Why Do We Believe In The Things We Believe In. I Don't Think You Can Have The 'how' Without The 'why.'

I Regret Not The Things I Have Done, Only Those I Have Yet To Do.

I Don't Ever See Movies By Myself. I Always See Them With Other People Because I Want To Know What Works. I Want To Know Where They Laugh. I Want To Know Where They Don't Laugh. I Want To Know What They Think About It Afterwards Because In The End That's What The Art That I'm Working With Is.

I Have A Strong Feeling About Interesting People In Space Exploration. . . . And The Only Way It's Going To Happen Is To Have Some Kid Fantasize About Getting His Ray Gun, Jumping Into His Spaceship, And Flying Into Outer Space.

Part Of The Reason My Friends And I Became Successful Is That We Were Always Helping Each Other.

He Took Me From Not Being Able To Write A Word In Terms Of Writing Screenplays To Being The King Of Wooden Dialogue.

Film Is A Very Tight Little Box. If You Don't Fit In That Box, You're Gone. Television, There's More Room To Move Around.

Real Love Is On The Inside. It's Somebody You Have A Common Ground With, You Share The Same Values, You Share The Same Interests, You Share The Same Humor, You Share All Those Things That Are Things That Will Last You The Rest Of Your Life.

You Don't See The Struggle Part Of A Person's Life. You Only See The Success They Have.

We Seemed To Be Drifting As A Society - Losing Touch With The Basic Concepts Of Right And Wrong.

If America Is The Pursuit Of Happiness, The Best Way To Pursue Happiness Is To Help Other People.

Pursuit Of Happiness

They Were At The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Naturally They Became Heroes

Brokeback Mountain

I'm The One Who Has To Have Everybody Throw Rocks At Me All The Time, So At Least If They're Going To Throw Rocks At Me, They're Going To Throw Rocks At Me For Something I Love Rather Than Something I Think Is Not Very Good, Or At Least Something I Think Is Not Finished.

One Thing About 'star Wars' That I'm Really Proud Of Is That It Expands The Imagination. That's Why I Like The 'star Wars' Toys.

For 'star Wars' I Had To Develop A Whole New Idea About Special Effects To Give It The Kind Of Kinetic Energy I Was Looking For. I Did It With Motion-control Photography.

May The Force Be With You.

Sound Is 50 Percent Of The Movie Going Experience, And I've Always Believed Audiences Are Moved And Excited By What They Hear In My Movies At Least As Much As By What They See.

I Am More Of A Visual Person Than A Verbal Person. For Me, I Think, The Excitement Is The Fact That I Found A Way Of Telling The Story As I Want To Tell It, In A Medium That I Could Master.

Part Of The Issue Of Achievement Is To Be Able To Set Realistic Goals, But That's One Of The Hardest Things To Do Because You Don't Always Know Exactly Where You're Going, And You Shouldn't.

Never Tell Me The Odds!

Digital Technology Allows Us A Much Larger Scope To Tell Stories That Were Pretty Much The Grounds Of The Literary Media.

Film Is Not An Easy Occupation. There's A Lot Of Occupations That Are Difficult And Film Is One Of Them.

From Kindergarten To College, Certain Teachers Engaged My Curiosity And Motivated Me To Learn. While I Was Not The Best Student, Their Efforts Left A Lasting Impact.

Heroes Come In All Sizes, And You Don't Have To Be A Giant Hero. You Can Be A Very Small Hero. It's Just As Important To Understand That Accepting Self-responsibi Lity For The Things You Do, Having Good Manners, Caring About Other People-these Are Heroic Acts. Everybody Has The Choice Of Being A Hero Or Not Being A Hero Every Day Of Their Lives.

On The Professional Side, I've Helped Move Cinema From A Chemical-based Medium To A Digital-based Medium. That'll Be One Of The Landmarks. And I've Left These Stories, These Little Tales That Have Been Imprinted On The Media, Which Will Or Will Not Be Of Interest To People In The Future. I've Done The Best I Can.

I Loved Photography And Everybody Said It Was A Crazy Thing To Do Because In Those Days Nobody Made It Into The Film Business. I Mean, Unless You Were Related To Somebody There Was No Way In.

The Object Is To Try To Get The (movie) System To Work For You, Instead Of Against You. And The Only Way You Can Do It Is Through Success, I'm Afraid.

I Am Simply Trying To Struggle Through Life Trying To Do God's Bidding.

After A Lot Of Struggling And Sort Of Reflection I Realized That The Time You Have To Give Is Now, Regardless Of How Old You Are.

I'm Here, And Every Day Now Is An Extra Day. I've Been Given An Extra Day So I've Got To Make The Most Of It.

I Must Admit I Suffered A Bit When I First Came To England. But Then I Realised That There Was Nothing To Be Intimidated By, Everybody Had Two Legs.

I Would Like To See Our Society Mature, And Become More Rational And More Knowledge-based, Less Emotion-based.

The Influence Of 'hidden Fortress' Comes Up A Lot Because It Was Printed In A Book Once. The Truth Is, The Only Thing I Was Inspired By Was The Fact That It's Told From The Point Of View Of Two Peasants, Who Get Mixed Up With A Samurai And Princess And A Lot Of Very High-level People.

A Special Effect Is A Tool, A Means Of Telling A Story. A Special Effect Without A Story Is A Pretty Boring Thing.

A Movie Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned.

When People Talk To Me About The Digital Divide, I Think Of It Not So Much About Who Has Access To What Technology As About Who Knows How To Create And Express Themselves In The New Language Of The Screen. If Students Aren't Taught The Language Of Sound And Images, Shouldn't They Be Considered As Illiterate As If They Left College Without Being Able To Read And Write?

You Try To Get Yourself Into A Situation Where You Only Have To Answer To Yourself, Where You Can Ask Advice Of People And Work With Your Peers And Mentors And Things To Try To Do The Best Job That You Can Possibly Do.

It's Hard Work Making Movies. It's Like Being A Doctor: You Work Long Hours, Very Hard Hours, And It's Emotional, Tense Work. If You Don't Really Love It, Then It Ain't Worth It.

After You've Done The First Feature, Then You Have Heck Of A Difficult Time Getting Your Second Film Off The Ground. They Look At Your First Film And They Say, "oh Well, We Don't Want You Anymore."

I Am Dedicating The Majority Of My Wealth To Improving Education. It Is The Key To The Survival Of The Human Race. We Have To Plan For Our Collective Future - And The First Step Begins With The Social, Emotional, And Intellectual Tools We Provide To Our Children. As Humans, Our Greatest Tool For Survival Is Our Ability To Think And To Adapt - As Educators, Storytellers, And Communicators Our Responsibility Is To Continue To Do So.

Whenever You're Making A Movie, Especially When You're Writing, You Always Have Self-doubts.

There Is No Why. We Are. Life Is Beyond Reason.

The Story Being Told In 'star Wars' Is A Classic One. Every Few Hundred Years, The Story Is Retold Because We Have A Tendency To Do The Same Things Over And Over Again. Power Corrupts, And When You're In Charge, You Start Doing Things That You Think Are Right, But They're Actually Not.

I'm Not Much Of A Math And Science Guy. I Spent Most Of My Time In School Daydreaming And Managed To Turn It Into A Living. When I Was Making "star Wars," I Wasn't Restrained By Any Kind Of Science. I Simply Said, "i'm Going To Create A World That's Fun And Interesting, Makes Sense, And Seems To Have A Reality To It."

In The Future It Will Become Even Easier For Old Negatives To Become Lost And Be ?replaced? By New Altered Negatives. This Would Be A Great Loss To Our Society. Our Cultural History Must Not Be Allowed To Be Rewritten.

In My Experience, There's No Such Thing As Luck.

One Of The Most Telling Things About Film School Is You've Got A Lot Of Students Wandering Around Saying, "oh, I Wish I Could Make A Movie. I Wish I Could Make A Movie."

I Want To Live Where I Want To Live, And I Will Make Films Because I Love To Make Films.

All Of My Films Have Been Very Hard To Understand At The Script Stage Because They're Very Different. At The Time I Did Them They Were Not Conventional. The Executives Could Only Think In Terms Of What They'd Already Seen. It's Hard For Them To Think In Terms Of What Has Never Been Done Before.

Once You Start Down The Dark Path, Forever Will It Dominate Your Destiny, Consume You It Will.

I Thought It [star Wars] Was Too Wacky For The General Public. Right Or Wrong This Is My Movie, This Is My Decision, And This Is My Creative Vision, And If People Don't Like It, They Don't Have To See It.

George Orwell Was Right. There's No Greater Genius As Far As I'm Concerned In Terms Of Understanding Human Nature. I Think That A Lot Of People Just Believe Anything You Tell Them, And No Matter What It Is, They Just Go Along With The Program. They're Perfectly Happy To Take Their Pill Every Day And Do What They're Told, And Work And Buy Things, And Work And Buy Things, And Stay Out Of Any Complex Emotional Situations. And Whatever The Authorities Tell Them To Do, They Do, And Whatever The Authorities Say Is The Truth, They Believe Is The Truth.

Don't Avoid The Cliches - They Are Cliches Because They Work!

So This Is How Liberty Dies. With Thunderous Applause.

We Are All Living In Cages With The Door Wide Open.

On The Internet, All Those Same Guys That Are Complaining I Made A Change Are Completely Changing The Movie. I’m Saying: ‘fine. But My Movie, With My Name On It, That Says I Did It, Needs To Be The Way I Want It.’

Someday You're Going To Have To Learn To Separate What Seems To Be Important From What Really Is Important.

I Have A Supermarket Full Of Ideas And The Challenge Is How Many Ideas Can I Get In My Cart Before I'm Gone. When You're Doing It, You're Not Focused On Success. It's Not A Matter Of Modesty. You're Simply Trying To Get All The Things Done That You Want To Get Done In Your Life.

People Look At Technology As Sometimes An End To Things, And It Isn't An End In Certain Cases. In The Movie Business, The Act Of Creating In The Art Form Of Movies, The Craft Of Movies Is Completely Technical, And That's All It Is.

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