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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.

-George Lucas

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When My Films Don't

George Lucas

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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.

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

Never Tell Me The Odds!

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Time Is More Important To Me Than Money.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Luminous Beings Are We, Not This Crude Matter.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 Ability To Speak Does Not Make You Intelligent.

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.

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.

[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?'

Learning To Make Films Is Very Easy. Learning What To Make Films About Is Very Hard.

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."

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

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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.

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!'

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.

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.

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Pursuit Of Happiness

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's Not A Matter Of How Well Can You Make A Movie. It's How Well Can You Make It Under The Circumstance, Because There's Always Circumstances. You Cannot Use That As An Excuse.

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.

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 Thought Star Wars Was Too Wacky For The General Public.

I Live A Reasonably Simple Life, Off The Beaten Track.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Always Remember, Your Focus Determines Your Reality.

Positive Thinking

So This Is How Liberty Dies. With Thunderous Applause.

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

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 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."

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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."

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

[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.

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.

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."

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

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.

These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For.

Books And Movies

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

Everybody Has Talent And It's Just A Matter Of Moving Around Until You've Discovered What It Is. 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 - And Also Something That You Have A Talent, Not A Talent For, But Skills That You Have A Natural Ability To Do Very Well. And Usually Those Two Things Go Together.

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.

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."

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

Brokeback Mountain

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 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.

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 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 There Are Going To Be Some Social Changes That Take Place Due To The Internet, And The Availability Of The Tools To More And More People. I Think You Are Going To Find A Lot Of People Re-cutting Movies And Changing Them, Making Them Into Their Own Movies.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

May The Force Be With You.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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."

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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