It has now been over two decades since George Lucas released a film, and yet he is undoubtedly still one of the most influential living filmmakers today. Even as Lucas was toiling away on his Star Wars prequel trilogy (the last three films he ever made, as of this writing) in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, he would consistently speak in the press about how eager he was to retire and start making “experimental movies.” If that has indeed happened in the intervening years, they are films that Lucas has kept exclusively to himself, as some rumors have suggested. But that’s not to say that he’s spent the interim sitting around twiddling his thumbs; far from it. Instead, he mounted a large scale effort to see a different dream of his become a reality: the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
Located in Los Angeles, California, the museum is a testament to storytelling from across the centuries and features everything from theatrical screening rooms to life-size recreations of Star Wars props and framed comic-strips from Lucas’ youth. But one of the most notable developments as it pertains to this the Lucas Museum is that, inadvertently, it has allowed Lucas to give his blessing to two Disney Star Wars projects: Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the animated anthology series, Star Wars: Visions.
In 2012, Lucas sold off Lucasfilm to the Walt Disney Corporation, and has had a bit of a back-and-forth relationship with the franchise’s output ever since. Included in the sale to Disney were infamously outlines for three new Star Wars films; Lucas’ take on where the sequel trilogy could go. However, Disney ultimately scrapped those plans in favor of doing something a bit less daring and a bit more rooted in nostalgia for the franchise itself, something Lucas had adamantly steered away from in his tenure as the saga’s shepherd.
This resulted in Lucas doing an interview shortly after the release of J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens in which he referred to Disney brass as “white slavers.” Following this, Lucas opted to mostly keep his Star Wars opinions to himself. But, a few details have slipped through the grapevine over the years, and the Lucas Museum’s inclusions seem to confirm those rumblings.
The first of these is the most obvious; George clearly likes Star Wars: Visions, because the Museum shows episodes from the series it at regular intervals in its theaters. This was not something that had been said before by Lucas or his team, but it does make a lot of sense. Visions is an anthology series in which each episode is done by a different production studio, with many of them carrying overt anime influences. It ties directly to the roots of Star Wars from the get-go, so it makes perfect sense that Lucas would be a big fan of this show.
The second one is a bit more subtle, but just as notable, if not more so. There is, of course, a gift shop at the Lucas Museum that sells a good deal of Star Wars-related merchandise. Just as with the actual content of the Museum itself, almost all of it correlates to Lucas’ own Star Wars projects rather than the latter-day Disney material. However, the sole exception to this in the gift shop are a number of Yoda-related items which feature the character’s quote from The Last Jedi; “The greatest teacher, failure is.” Notably, when attending an early screening of The Last Jedi shortly before that film’s release, Lucas was quoted as saying it was “beautifully made,” which is far nicer than referring to its makers as “white slavers,” so clearly he liked it substantially more than The Force Awakens.
All in all, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is a fascinating work from one of the greatest living filmmakers of the century, and to see him interacting with present-tense pop culture, Star Wars-related or not, is always going to be utterly enthralling. But it’s nice to know that even with all of the undoubted tension that has elapsed between him and Disney, Lucas still appreciates key bits of new Star Wars stuff.
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