George Lucas
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Attack of the Fans: George Lucas Speaks! Part Three

In part two of CINESCAPE's George Lucas interview, the director talked about returning to the prequel trilogy after a 19-year hiatus. In this installment, he discusses the slow but steady shift toward digital filmmaking.

As we all now know, George Lucas and company have once again pushed the boundaries of visual effects by reaching their goal of creating believable, fully digital characters (i.e. Yoda throwing down with the rest of the Jedi for the first time in ATTACK OF THE CLONES). But with all of these digital characters running around, does Lucas foresee a time when no human beings will appear in film at all?

"No, you will never have that," says Lucas. "I mean, people who say that are people that don't understand the performing arts. They have no idea what an actor does with the craft that you must learn, the talent that you have and how you get a performance. You know, it's the essence of acting, which is extremely human. We have digital characters, but behind every digital character is an actor, flesh and blood, and not only that, but at least four or five animators who are also actors. They learn the same craft as an actor, they go through the same techniques as an actor, and they use the same talent and skills that an actor has."

George Lucas

© Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights reserved.

Certainly in the case of the new trilogy's lead character Anakin Skywalker the future Darth Vader it's a real flesh and blood human being assaying the role. Taking over from EPISODE I's Jake Lloyd is Hayden Christensen, and for Lucas it was simply a matter of finding the right person for the role of a lifetime.

"We go for a year, and I look at tapes, and we see hundreds and hundreds of kids, and then I start testing and interviewing kids and you get down to two or three really, really talented people who are really good at their craft who could all play the part," says Lucas. "Then we brought Natalie [Portman] in, and we did tests with Natalie to see how the chemistry worked and then ultimately you do throw a dart and say, 'Well, I hope that I picked the right guy.' In the end, I think that you can go with two or three, they're shades, but Hayden has a real nice brooding quality. He can play Darth Vader."

Christensen had his work cut out for him in this advanced digital environment. Lucas has once again pushed the boundaries of filmmaking, but despite his devotion to the latest in cutting edge technology, he is very much a creator of the old school.

"I used the language of '30s and '40s cinema to tell the story, using the more theatrical acting of that period, the plotting and that sort of thing to be the vehicle," says Lucas. "I came out of film school, what I refer to as pure cinema, non-story, non-character driven cinema, which is much more kinetic and of the silent era. STAR WARS is basically a silent movie, with a soundtrack that includes dialogue going on at the same time as sound effects. It's a very '30s-esque film, with the underpinnings of a silent movie. I am a lover of history, and that's my taste. I like older art. All art is technology. All artists are faced with bumping up against the limits of their technology. Some artists, whether it's discovering crimson or inventing oil paints so you could go outside and see the lights, eventually they want to go that next step and push it a little further. The technologies are the tools I use, [and] cinema is the most technological of all the art forms. It was technological from the moment it was invented."

As many fans know, Lucas even expected that ATTACK OF THE CLONES would break down additional barriers by debuting in many digitally-equipped theaters, but the reality is that fewer theaters than Lucas expected are so outfitted at this point. Still, the industry is working toward an all-digital goal, and Lucas is leading the way.

"[With PHANTOM MENACE], we were in the first four theaters that were ever digital," says Lucas. "For about a year, we've been struggling to get the theaters to go for this. They've locked arms and said we aren't going to do it, and if anybody does it, they're breaking the sacred oath they have. They all joined together and are keeping digital out of the theaters. So we said, 'We'll give it to you for free,' and they said, 'Don't take it from them, they're like drug dealers. You take them, you'll never go back.' The issue is you don't make money on this. Some times you have to put aside your greed and decide it's a better presentation for an audience. I have a company that has been working for 15 years now to bring quality into the theaters. [It's] something we're doing primarily because we care about the presentation of the audience. You get the very same image the first day you release it, from the last day you take it out of the theater. We've managed to push forward to 80 theaters. A month ago or six weeks ago, we thought we would only be in 30."

Pod Racers combat one another in mid-air during STAR WARS: EPISODE I, THE PHANTOM MENACE

© Lucasfilm LTD

Digital or not, the new STAR WARS film is attracting massive crowds as expected and will doubtless spur people on to either tear it to pieces or praise it to the stars. And then there will be EPISODE III, which many fans anticipate as the high point of the saga, providing the bridge from the new films to the "classic" trilogy of old. Even when this new trilogy is over, the work will continue. Rumors abound that there will be still newer re-issues of the original films, and of course, fans are eagerly awaiting future DVD releases, particularly of the first trilogy. Lucas says we'll have to wait a bit longer.

"It will probably be after I finish the next film," says Lucas. "It takes a lot of work, and there's not a bunch of material to work with. A DVD is now a whole different world. You can't just let the film be out when the film is done, you have to have all this additional stuff."

Lucas knows that fans will want all the bells and whistles in the DVD sets, but even he admits they might be disappointed after all, it's been a while.

"[The commentary] has to be fresh. I did STAR WARS 25 years ago. The freshness is gone."