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No Film Ever Ends Up Exactly As You Would Like It To, But With Minor Exceptions, Thx Came Out Pretty Much As I Had Visualized It, Thanks To Some Excellent Assistance -- And A Whole Lot Of Luck.

-George Lucas

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No Film Ever Ends

George Lucas

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No Film Ever Ends Up Exactly As You Would Like It To, But With Minor Exceptions, Thx Came Out Pretty Much As I Had Visualized It, Thanks To Some Excellent Assistance -- And A Whole Lot Of Luck.

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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.

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.

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 May Make Something You Don't Think Is Very Important During Your Lifetime And It'll Last For A Thousand Years.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

May The Force Be With You.

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

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.

The First Script Was One Of Six Original Stories I Had Written In The Form Of Two Trilogies. After The Success Of Star Wars, I Added Another Trilogy. So Now There Are Nine Stories. The Original Two Trilogies Were Conceived Of As Six Films Of Which The First Film Was Number Four.

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

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.

I Grew Up In San Francisco. And So I'm Informed In A Certain Kind Of Way About, You Know, Believing In Democracy And Believing In America. And I'm A Very Ardent Patriot.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

It's Okay To Lose; Just Don't Lose The Lesson.

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

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.

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

I Am Very Concerned About Our National Heritage, And I Am Very Concerned That The Films That I Watched When I Was Young And The Films That I Watched Throughout My Life Are Preserved, So That My Children Can See Them.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The Thing About Science-fiction Fans And "star Wars" Fans Is They're Very Independent-thinking People. They All Think Outside The Box, But They All Have Very Strong Ideas About What Should Happen, And They Think It Should Be Their Way. Which Is Fine, Except I'm Making The Movies, So I Should Have It My Way.

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 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'm Extremely Grateful That I Discovered My Passion. I Love Movies. I Love To Watch Them, I Love To Make Them.

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.

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.

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

Luke: Boy, It's Lucky You Have These Compartments. Han: I Use Them For Smuggling. I Never Thought I'd Be Smuggling Myself In Them. This Is Ridiculous.

Anybody That Makes Films Knows The Film Is Never Finished. It's Abandoned Or It's Ripped Out Of Your Hands, And It's Thrown Into The Marketplace, Never Finished. It's A Very Rare Experience Where You Find A Filmmaker Who Says, "that's Exactly What I Wanted. I Got Everything I Needed. I Made It Just Perfect. I'm Going To Put It Out There."

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?

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

A Movie Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned.

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.

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.

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

'star Wars' Is Fun, Its Exciting, Its Inspirational, And People Respond To That. It's What They Want.

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.’

When Star Wars Became A Hit And I Had A Chance To Make The Other Movies, I Had To Figure Out A Way To Bring Ben Back, But A Lot Of The Issues He Had To Deal With Were Carried By Yoda. In A Sense, I Combined Yoda With The Spirit Of Ben. I Wanted Ben To Have Some Kind Of Influence, But I Didn't Want It To Be A Direct Influence Where He Could Help Luke. So Ben Has Managed To Keep His Identity After He Became One With The Force. One Of The Things He Was Doing On Tatooine Besides Watching Over Luke Was Learning How To Keep His Identity After He Became Part Of The Force.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 Can Find People Who Have Discovered The Fact That It's Really Helping People, It's Really Being Compassionate Toward Other Human Beings That Makes You Happy, That Gives You A Spiritual Fulfillment - A Kind Of Fulfillment That Goes Way Beyond Anything You Can Buy.

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.

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.

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

You Simply Have To Put One Foot In Front Of The Other And Keep Going. Put Blinders On And Plow Right Ahead.

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

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 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.

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

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

We Were Always Dreaming Of How It Was Going To Be.

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.

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.

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

Pursuit Of Happiness

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

Time Is More Important To Me Than Money.

I Came From A Very Avant-garde Documentary Kind Of Film Making World. I Like Cinema Verité, Documentaries. I Liked Non-story, Non-character Tone Poems. And That's The Film Making That I Was Interested In.

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

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

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.

In My Films, All The Great Things Are Put Together. It's Not Like One Kind Of Ice Cream But Rather A Very Big Sundae.

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.

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.

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

The Best Way To Truly Understand Narrative Art Is To Experience It.

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.

To Be Renewed Is Everything. What More Could One Ask For Than To Have One's Youth Back Again?

I Have A Lot Of Ideas And I Want To Be Able To Work. To Me, It's Like One Of These Contests Where You Get Five Minutes In A Supermarket To Take Anything Off The Shelves You Want And Try To Fill Your Cart Up As Much As You Can. That's The Way I Look At My Work.

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.

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.

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.

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

I've Had Much More Down In My Life Than I've Had Up. And Much More Struggle. First Of All, When I Went Into The Film School Everybody Said, "what Are You Doing? This Is A Complete Dead-end For A Career."

I Intend More Of A Kinship With Silent Films Than More Modern Film. I Like The Old Cinema. My Films Are More Of A Hybrid - A Different Style Of Filmmaking To What I Call Talking Head Movies. Some People Don't Get It. Especially The More Academic Types.

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

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.

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.

You Can't Do It Unless You Can Imagine It.

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 Have To Understand That It's A Very Cooperative World, Not Only With The Environment, With But Our Fellow Human Beings. If You Do Not Cooperate, If You Do Not Work Together To Keep The Entire Organism Going, The Whole Thing Dies, And Everybody Dies With It. That's A Law Of Nature, And It's Existed Forever. We're One Of The Very Few Creatures That Has A Choice, And Can Intellectualize The Process.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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."

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

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.'

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.

I'd Be The First Person To Say I Can't Write Dialogue. My Dialogue Is Very Utilitarian And Is Designed To Move Things Forward. I'm Not Shakespeare. It's Not Designed To Be Poetic.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Although I Write Screenplays, I Don't Think I'm A Very Good Writer.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

[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.

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

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.

There's Nothing Worse Than The Frustration Of Having Somebody Who You Feel Doesn't Get What You're Doing, Trying To Turn It Into Something Else. It's A Very, Very Annoying And Sort Of Frustrating Thing And I Just Never Wanted To Go Through It. I Was Very Fortunate As I Came Up Through The Film Business That I Was Able To Insulate Myself From That.

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 Like Making Movies. I Like The Process. I Like Trying Out New Ideas, And If They Don't Work, They Don't Work. That's The Reason I Generated The Money In The First Place, To Be Able To Try Things. That's Where I Spend My Money.

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.

Luminous Beings Are We, Not This Crude Matter.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

No! Try Not. Do, Or Do Not. There Is No Try.

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.

I'm Lucky Enough That There Is Never A Blank Canvas In Front Of Me... I Have Hundreds Of Projects That I Want To Do But I Am Running Out Of Time.

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.

It's Very Important Not To Do What Your Peers Think You Should Do, Not Do What Your Parents Think,your Teachers Or Even Your Culture. Do What's Inside Of You.

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

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.

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

Star Wars Is Really Three Trilogies, Nine Films. The First Trilogy Covers The Fall Of The Republic And The Rise Of The Empire, The Middle Trilogy The Fall Of The Empire, And The Last Trilogy Involves The Rebuilding Of The Republic. It Won't Be Finished For Probably Another 20 Years.

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

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.

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

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

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.

As The Workplace Becomes More Specialized, From Offices To Medical Centers To Factories, Teams Of People Must Accomplish Their Work By Collaborating With Each Other. In My Work In Filmmaking, We Need Talented Individuals With Technical Skills, But Their Abilities To Communicate And Work With Others Are Just As Valuable.

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

All The Religions Are True, They Just See A Different Part Of The Elephant.

I Wanted To Make Abstract Films That Are Emotional, And I Still Do.

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.

The Ideals And Principles For Which Martin Luther King Jr. Fought Have Never Been Forgotten And Are As Relevant Today As They Were 40 Years Ago.

Being In Washington Is More Fictional Than Being In Hollywood.

[star Wars Is] Designed Primarily To Make Young People Think About The Mystery. Not To Say, 'here's The Answer.' It's To Say, 'think About This For A Second. Is There A God? What Does God Look Like? What Does God Sound Like? What Does God Feel Like? How Do We Relate To God?'

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

I Wanted To Be A Car Mechanic And I Wanted To Race Cars And The Idea Of Trying To Make Something Out Of My Life Wasn't Really A Priority. But The Accident Allowed Me To Apply Myself At School. I Got Great Grades. Eventually I Got Very Excited About Anthropology And About Social Sciences And Psychology, And I Was Able To Push My Photography Even Further And Eventually Discovered Film And Film Schools.

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

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

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.

You Can't Put A Title Card At The Head Of The Movie And Say, "well, We Really Had A Bad Problem. You Know, The Actor Got Sick And It Rained This Day And We Had A Hurricane."

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

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.

All Art Is Dependent On Technology Because It's A Human Endeavour , So Even When You're Using Charcoal On A Wall Or Designed The Proscenium Arch, That's Technology .

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.

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.

The Older You Get, The Less Seriously You Take Criticism. I've Gotten To A Point Now Where I Ignore It Completely. It's Just Not Relevant To Me Anymore.

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.

Never Tell Me The Odds!

I Never Had A Story For The Sequels, For The Last Trilogy. That's Not Really Part Of The Plan At This Point, And I'll Be At The Age Where To Do Another Trilogy Would Take 10 Years. I'd Always Envisioned It As Six Movies. When You See It In Six Parts You'll Understand That It Really Ends At Part Six.

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

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

Impressive, Most Impressive. (darth Vadar)

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.

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

Brokeback Mountain

Success Is A Very Difficult Thing. It's Much More Difficult Than One Might Think.

One Of The Basic Motifs In Fairy Tales Is That You Find The Poor And Unfortunate Along The Side Of The Road, And When They Beg For Help, If You Give It To Them, You End Up Succeeding. If You Don't Give It To Them, You End Up Being Turned Into A Frog Or Something. It's Something That's Been Around For Thousands Of Years, A Concept That's Been Around For Thousands Of Years.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

If I Had Time And A Hammer, I'd Track Down Every Bootleg Copy And Smash It.

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.

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."

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