Q&A
George Lucas

In this online-only companion to Jim Windolf’s February cover story, “Keys to the Kingdom, the Star Wars mastermind and Indiana Jones co-creator talks about every stage of his illustrious career, including the long genesis of the new Indy movie.

A tightly winding country road led me through the dry Marin County hills early on a sunny November morning. I made a right turn onto a private road, and pulled up to a guard booth. A young man was seated inside. On the upper sleeve of his uniform shirt was a red patch bearing the words skywalker ranch. He got on the phone to check that his boss, George Lucas, really had a nine a.m. appointment, and then told me to go ahead.

I drove past a guesthouse, a private fire station, and a hillside covered in grapevines. Up ahead was the main house, a monstrous version of the ideal American family home circa 1930. This is not Lucas’s residence, but the place where he spends his workdays. His head of public relations, Lynne Hale, was waiting on the steps of the grand front porch. I parked my rented hybrid and followed her through the front door; she led me upstairs and into a large corner room, Lucas’s office. She pointed to a certain chair and told me it was his favorite. I said, “I won’t sit in that one, then,” and we shared a nervous laugh. Then Lucas stepped into the room.

I had interviewed Lucas once before, for the February 2005 Vanity Fair cover story on Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, but that had been by phone. I had been informed, for that one, that he would give me 10 minutes of his time. But once I asked him about “mitichlorians,” which are the physical manifestations of the Force in his elaborate Star Wars universe, we were off to the races, and the interview lasted more than an hour.

Lucas came up with the idea for Indiana Jones in the early 1970s, at around the same time he was hatching his Star Wars saga. To better understand some of the obscure talk that follows, readers should know that each of the four Indiana Jones movies concerns the search for a supernatural object, which Lucas sometimes refers to as the MacGuffin. In Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), the sought-after object is the Ark of the Covenant, which contains the Ten Commandments. In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), it’s the Shankara Stones, magical artifacts well known in the East. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the object is the Holy Grail. There were many others in Lucas’s TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which ran from 1992 to 1996 on ABC and the USA Network. In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which is scheduled for a May 22 release, the supernatural object is … well, I’ll let Lucas explain, below.

Lucas is a very soft-spoken billionaire. His speech pattern is a jumble of quick bursts that alternate with long pauses worthy of an absent-minded professor. In his favorite chair, he sat in a slumped posture, Nikes up on the coffee table. Over the years he has complained about how much he dislikes writing scripts, directing movies, and serving as the head of Lucasfilm Ltd.—which are his three main professional activities.

During our conversation, he made sure to point out that Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, something of a flop with critics in 1997, is the highest grossing of all his movies. Later, in fascinating detail, he described the machinations of storytelling in general and of creating Indiana Jones in particular.

His detractors say he’s in it for the money, but after interviewing him twice and watching his movies repeatedly, I’m convinced he’s driven by a huge, restless imagination.

Quotes from this interview appear in my February V.F. cover story, “Keys to the Kingdom.” Most of the rest of our conversation is below.


Click here for 5-page Q & A

I read that yesterday and my heart sank for the new Indy movie.

Forget that it is based on a themepark ride. (The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the Indy ride at Disneyworld)

To hear that Lucas would only do the movie if he had his way makes me scared. He no longer understands his own mythologies or what made him who he is.

Mars23 said:

That said, the dude is a billionaire genius and Indy IV will make truckloads of money.

I will only watch it 3 times, the 1st week.

Mars23 said:

True

Mars23 said:

also true