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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.

-George Lucas

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There Are A Few

George Lucas

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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.

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

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.

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.

One Of The Things That Will Never Get Explained In The Films Is How Ben Was Able To Retain His Identity, Because It Happened Somewhere Between The Third And Fourth Movies. I Set Up That This Is A Discipline That He Learned From Yoda; Yoda Told Him How To Do That.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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."

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

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.

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.

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."

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Never Tell Me The Odds!

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

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'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."

Storytelling Is About Two Things; It's About Character And Plot.

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.

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

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.

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

Pursuit Of Happiness

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

[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 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.

I Like To Say That Films Are Never Finished, They're Only Abandoned.

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 Be As Rich, And Famous, And Powerful As You Want To Be, And It Will Not Bring You Happiness. That's Said Over And Over And Over, Again. It's Such A Cliché That It Hardly Needs To Be Said, But People Don't Understand That It's Actually True.

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

Brokeback Mountain

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.'

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 Like Racing. I Love The Speed And I'm A Very Kinetic Person In Terms Of Filmmaking. I Love The Movement Of Film More Than Anything Else.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

My First Six Years In The Business Were Hopeless. There Are A Lot Of Times When You Sit And You Say "why Am I Doing This? I'll Never Make It. It's Just Not Going To Happen. I Should Go Out And Get A Real Job, And Try To Survive."

So This Is How Liberty Dies. With Thunderous Applause.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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."

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.’

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.

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

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."

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The Ability To Speak Does Not Make You Intelligent.

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 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.

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

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."

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.

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.

Over Time I Began To Realize That The Level Of Cinema Criticism In The Last Part Of Xx Century In The United States Was Pretty Low. The Institution Itself Is Not What It's Supposed To Be, And I Realized That I Didn't Need To Take That Seriously.

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.

My Success Wasn't Based On How I Could Push Down Everybody That Was Around Me. My Success Was Based On How Much I Could Push Everybody Up.

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

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.

These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For.

Books And Movies

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

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

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.

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

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."

May The Force Be With You.

Any Society Begins By Realizing That Together, By Helping Each Other, You Can Survive Better Than If You Fight Each Other And Compete With Each Other.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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

Time Is More Important To Me Than Money.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Being In Washington Is More Fictional Than Being In Hollywood.

A Movie Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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