George Lucas

"We say, We think you are a talented, functioning person, and we are hiring you because of your abilities, and whatever you come up with, were going to take. If we make a mistake, it will be in picking the wrong person. What were striving for is total freedom, where we can finance our pictures, make them our way, release them where we want them released and be completely free to express ourselves. Thats very hard to do in the world of business. In this country, the only thing that speaks is money and you have to have the money to have the power to be free. So the danger is — in being as oppressive as the next guy to the people below you. Were going to do everything possible to avoid that pitfall. But if we fail, its another saga in the history of man..."

"One of the fatal mistakes that almost every science-fiction film makes is that they spend so much time on the settings — you know, creating the environment — that they spend film time on it. And you dont have to spend too much film time to create an environment. What theyre doing is showing off the amount of work that they generated, and it slows the pace of the film down. And the story is not the settings. The story is the stories, plot. Youre always surprised with characters, I mean in film its even more dramatic than it is in writing, because eventually you actually take a real person and stick them into that character. And that real person brings with him, or her, an enormous package of reality. I mean, Threepio is just a hunk of plastic, and without Tony Daniels in there it just isnt anything at all. In the first film we had maybe 20 colors to paint with, and this time weve had 40 colors to paint with. Well, that doesnt mean its going to be a better painting. Visual effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People tend to confuse them as an end to themselves. A visual effect without a story is a pretty boring thing."

"Pleasures fun. Its great, but you cant keep it going forever; just accept the fact that its here and its gone, and maybe then again, it will come back, and youll get to do it again. Joy lasts forever. Pleasure is purely self-centered. Its all about your pleasure: its about you. Its a selfish, self-centered emotion, that is created by a self-centered motive of greed. Joy is compassion. Joy is giving yourself to somebody else, or something else. And its a kind of thing that is, in its subtlety and lowness, much more powerful than pleasure. You get hung up on pleasure; youre doomed. If you pursue joy; you will find everlasting happiness."

"My primary concept in approaching the production of THX 1138 was to make a kind of theater verité film of the future — something that would look like a documentary crew had made a film about some character in a time yet to come. 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."

"He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven. … He hasn’t seen her in twelve years. Now she’s twenty-two. It’s a really strange relationship. …This is a resource that you can either mine or not. Its not as blatant as were talking about. You dont think about it that much. You dont immediately realize how old she was at the time. It would be subtle. She could talk about it. "I was jail bait the last time we were together." She can flaunt it at him, but at the same time she never says, "I was fifteen years old." Even if we dont mention it, when we go to cast the part were going to end up with a woman whos about twenty-three and a hero whos about thirty- five."

"The Johnson film wasnt terrible. I just didnt agree with the politics. Im not a fan of big government and propaganda films are distasteful."

"It was insane, I wish I had filmed it. It was like bringing an audience to the Mona Lisa and asking, Do you know why she is smiling? Sorry Leonardo, youll have to make some changes. At least the audience understood that THX was not a love story set in the 25th-century, which was the way Warners had planned to advertise it. Instead, the company settled for Visit the future, where love is the ultimate crime."

"Dont avoid the cliches — they are cliches because they work!"

"Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives … and you can either help somebody, you can be compassionate toward people, you can treat some people with dignity — or not. And … one way you become a hero, and the other way … you’re part of the problem. And … it’s not a grand thing, you know; you don’t have to get into a giant laser-sword fight and blow up three spaceships to become a hero. I mean — it’s a very small thing that happens every day of your life."

"Sound is half the experience of seeing a film. Thats why I have been bothered by the poor sound re-production in many theaters and most homes."

"There is no Episode VII...Not about Luke Skywalker, not about, you know, that group of people and that struggle to bring democracy back to the galaxy."

"Being in Washington is more fictional than being in Hollywood."