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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.

-George Lucas

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When Star Wars Became

George Lucas

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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.

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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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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

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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.

The Sound And Music Are 50% Of The Entertainment In A Movie.

Sound And Music

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 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.

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."

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.

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

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.

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

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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.

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Pursuit Of Happiness

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

Time Is More Important To Me Than Money.

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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.

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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.

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.

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Always Remember, Your Focus Determines Your Reality.

Positive Thinking

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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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.

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.

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

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'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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 .

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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."

[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?'

These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For.

Books And Movies

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

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

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'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."

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

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.

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 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.

[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.

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

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 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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Good Luck Has Its Storms.

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

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

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

May The Force Be With You.

Luminous Beings Are We, Not This Crude Matter.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

The 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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