Hollywood Wars

After watching the special features of THX and SW, I see something which is very obvious. Star Wars while being a mythic fairy tale which mixes so many religious, historical and references to other films and wraps it all up into SW...also is a personal film with the Lucas stamp all over it.

The theme that GL uses the most is the need to escape.
It first appeared on the screen in 1970 when THX 1138 escaped into the movie theater. It was a story where the government crushes you and keeps you down. The door to freedom is left unlock, but you still cannot open it, fear keeps you in your cage. THX defied everything when he escaped onto the surface.

AG is very much the escape from a small town but not fearing your departure.

In ANH we see Luke escape his boring life and venture out into the vast expanse which is space.
In TPM we see Anakin take off and let his dreams carry him into the stars.

This is very much GL's own journey out of his small town and into a land where dreams become reality.

Now I'm not really going to discuss that so much as I will discuss the original Star Wars trilogy and how it relates to the life of Lucas. So many lines of dialouge have new meaning when you think about some of these things.

Lucas was a man against an empire and that empire was Hollywood. The corporations and the marketing. They want a film that appeals to the masses. Lucas along with his friends rebelled against this empire, they formed their own studios in Northern CA. under the name of American Zoetrope. They could do anything they wanted and THX was made under this company. While they were free of hollywood while making the film, they still needed Warner Brothers to release the film. The studio guys hated and did not understand the complex film. They sliced scenes out and Lucas had a long battle to keep the film as it was.

Later with AG, Lucas ran into a similar problem with the studios. Eventually Zoetrope as it originally was feel apart and scattered. George founded Lucasfilm and started his own independent company.

The Hollywood of the 1970s had no special effects companies because realism was big at the time. Lucas went ahead and founded ILM, THX, Skywalker Sound, as well as Pixar. He formed his own independent company in opposition to Hollywood. He wanted to make his films in his own vision.

In the end he became what he wanted to protect himself against. A head of a corporation. He himself compares it to Anakin. Anakin wanted to protect himself against evil and became evil along the way. George wanted to protect himself from the corporations and became a corporation.

George was a rebel against an empire.
One of the themes of SW.

"You will find that I'm full of suprises"
-Luke TESB
This could also be said of GL

"Your overconfidence is your weakness"
"Your faith in your friends is yours"
-Luke and the Emperor ROTJ.

This could be said of the Zoetrope days. The studios were overconfident and Francis's faith in George and others was his weakness.

"but I don't want the change"
-Anakin TPM
Lucas was saying the same thing when the studios wanted to change THX 1138

Anyway
You really have to see the special features of both SW and THX to really understand my points.

-Seldon