Who Is
George Lucas?

In 1977, film director George Lucas invited some friends to his house in San Anselmo, California. He promised to show them an early, unfinished version of the new movie he was making. George had been working on Star Wars for eighteen hours a day for over a year.

George settled everyone in front of the screen, where they watched Luke Skywalker battling Darth Vader and the dreaded Death Star. They met the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO. They learned about the Force, the mystical power that Jedi space knights use to control the world around them.

When the movie finished, everyone was thinking the same thing: It was a disaster.

After the screening, one friend wasn’t afraid to tell George what he really thought. Brian De Palma, another young director, teased him relentlessly about the “almighty Force” and the questionable wardrobe choices. “Hey, George, what were those Danish rolls doing in the princess’s ears?” he asked about Princess Leia’s soon-to-be-famous hairstyle. Even worse than De Palma’s teasing was the pity expressed by George’s other friends.

Always shy and quiet, George simply listened to the criticism.

Steven Spielberg thought the movie was good, but George had already accepted that it was a failure. “I figured, well, it’s just a silly movie,” he said later. “It ain’t going to work.”

After the screening, Alan Ladd Jr., the studio executive who had given George the money to make Star Wars, called Spielberg and asked him what he really thought of the movie.

“I think this film is going to make a hundred million dollars,” Spielberg said. “People will love it.”

Spielberg was right. People loved Star Wars. What he didn’t know was that Star Wars would become much more than a hit movie. It would forever change the way movies were made.