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CNN Live Today

Discussion With 'Star Wars' Creator George Lucas

Aired May 06, 2002 - 13:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Of course Spiderman isn't the only blockbuster movie due out this season. "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones," is the fifth "Star Wars" release from moviemaker George Lucas.

Chronologically, "Attack of the Clones" is the second chapter in the series. "Episode II" goes into theaters in 10 days. As part of our countdown to the clones, our Anderson Cooper spoke to George Lucas about the sci-fi series.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE LUCAS, FILMMAKER: The thing that happens is the original film was the first three films, it was originally designed to be one film. It was really designed to be the middle of a Saturday matinee series. You walk in the middle, it's "Episode IV." You sort of come in and see this episode, and that's it.

When I started to write it, it got to be too big, it got to be 250, 300 pages. I said, well, I can't do this. The studio will never allow this. I will take the first half, make a movie out of that, and then I was determined come back to finish the other three, or other two stories.

And so, when it became very successful, I went back and said, you know, do more, do more, and all this kind of stuff. So, OK, I will do the back story that I had to write in order to get to "Episode IV." Because when I wrote "Episode IV," I did figure out where everybody came from, how they got there, and where everything went, which is usually what you have to do when you are writing any kind of story for anything. You have to sort of define your characters.

But what happens is when I told the first story, it was a feature film, which is primarily plot oriented. Most features are plot oriented. Television is character driven. And, but when you do a backstory, it's pretty much character driven, because usually, you are dog a list of your characters and who they are and where they came from.

So when I end up doing the backstory, it happened -- it ends up being more character-driven than the original script, which was mostly plot driven.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: So even when you were directing the first "Star Wars," you, in you in the back of your mind, knew this story was going to happen.

LUCAS: No. No. All I knew is I was going to finish these three, and that was it. And that's pretty much what I did. I finished them, and I said, that's the end of that and I'm going to go ahead and do other things, you know, other films I wanted to produce. I had kids I was going to raise. I just a different life planned out for me. But then, you know, I had that story sitting there, but that's what I had done in toward prep for it, but I hadn't really planned to turning it into a movie.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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