In May 1977, just after his new film, “Star Wars,” opened in theaters, George Lucas and his wife flew to Hawaii. Officially, it was a long-delayed vacation, but they had another reason for wanting to be far, far away as the first reviews landed: The couple feared that he had just released a flop.
Famous for his earlier hit “American Graffiti,” Lucas had billed his in-the-works sci-fi project as a tribute to the Flash Gordon serials he loved as a boy. His friends and fellow directors, however, got headaches whenever they looked at early drafts of his script. “George,” sighed one, “what are you doing?”
Nearly four decades later, as the “Star Wars” movies have embedded themselves thoroughly into pop culture, it’s still startling to read about how this was once the project nobody believed in. Even Lucas distanced himself. “It wasn’t particularly the movie I set out to make,” he shrugged, after screening an early version to an audience of stone-faced executives.
Lucas was embarrassed because his special effects fell short of the standard set by Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” As he edited, Lucas cut his film tightly, with quick-moving scenes in the hope that audiences wouldn’t see the same problems that bothered him.
The more of it that ended up on the editing-room floor, the better the film got. As Chris Taylor observes in his new book, “How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,” “The greatest strength of ‘Star Wars’ is what it doesn’t tell you.” Ramble on too much about “The Force,” and it sounds silly; bring that down to a few cryptic lines, and it’s intriguing. This is a lesson Lucas apparently forgot later in his career.
Reviewers described the resulting fast-paced flick as a “joyful fun ride,” and fans got in line to experience that ride again and again. By Labor Day 1977, “Star Wars” had surpassed “Jaws” as the best-selling movie of all time, with $133 million in ticket sales.
As Taylor follows the rises and falls of Lucas and the “Star Wars” franchise over the ensuing decades, he spends alternating chapters profiling the fans and minor character actors who found their lives changed. There’s the kid who becomes an Internet celebrity when a video of his clumsy light saber moves is put online. There are the tinkerers who spend their weekends with soldering irons, trying to build the perfect R2-D2. There’s Dave Prowse, the mostly unknown actor who felt he never got recognition for wearing Darth Vader’s helmet and cape in the early “Star Wars” films.
It’s an unconventional approach that serves to bring a spark of life that might otherwise go missing from a straightforward commercial or cinematic look at “Star Wars.” Lucas, who has always maintained that he didn’t want to be famous, is distant and aloof. The fans, by contrast, all wear their hearts on the plastic-armor sleeves of their homemade Storm trooper uniforms.
If Lucas had packed it in after “Return of the Jedi” (1983), his place in the geek pantheon would have been forever untarnished. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quite done. Never satisfied with the original “Star Wars” film, he revisited it decades later with some new software tools, reinserting some scenes and altering others. He declared that he had finally created the movie he had always set out to make; fans, on the other hand, complained that he had destroyed their childhoods.
Starting with “The Phantom Menace” in 1999, Lucas revisited “Star Wars” with three prequels that were financially successful, but generally unloved. Critics complained about wooden acting, clunky dialogue and confusing plots. Lucas had come a long way from the days of leaving the story mostly offscreen.
Taylor’s fan profiles are at their most entertaining when the movies are at their worst. Struggling to reconcile their enthusiasm for one batch of “Star Wars” movies with their ambivalence about another, the true believers watch and rewatch the prequels: Maybe the films weren’t bad, just misunderstood. Some argue that you have to watch the entire prequel trilogy on “mute” to understand it. Others try to argue that the perceived weaknesses of these movies are, in fact, their strength. “The moral of the story is you have to put up with these annoying people sometimes,” concludes one defender.
To the relief of some fans, Lucas has vowed never to make another “Star Wars” movie. “Why would I make any more when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?” he griped to a reporter in 2012. That same year, Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion. A new “Star Wars” movie is scheduled for release next year, with director J.J. Abrams at the helm.
Taylor’s book is never less than interesting, although I wouldn’t have minded a little less of it. In some ways, “How Star Wars Conquered the Universe” reminds me of the display case of the collector superfan who doesn’t have the heart to separate the rare items from the humdrum ones. After all, with “Star Wars,” sometimes less is more.
Mike Musgrove is a former technology columnist for The Washington Post.
NONFICTION: STAR WARS
STAR WARS
How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise
by Chris Taylor (Basic)
