George Lucas names the greatest sci-fi movie ever made: “As far as I’m concerned”
If there’s one thing George Lucas knows about, it’s science fiction. Well, that and merchandising… and special effects meddling… and how to make everybody hate you by directing a series of ill-judged prequels. But it’s mainly the science fiction that has made him the man he is today.
Even if he’d never made a single film set in the galaxy far, far away, Lucas’ record would be 1-1. His two earliest pictures were American Graffiti, a comedy-drama centred around a group of high-school kids, and THX 1138, a low-budget sci-fi affair set in a future where human emotions are suppressed with mind-altering drugs. Then there are the four ‘Star Wars’ movies he made, as well as the various writing and producing credits he’s picked up over the years. The man lives and breathes aliens and spaceships.
Lucas has always favoured the ‘fiction’ part of the ‘science fiction’. His films don’t exactly scream ‘realism’; instead, he chooses to focus on thrilling adventure, cool gizmos, and stuff he can make toys out of. This topic came up in an interview with Rolling Stone from 1977, the year his life changed forever. Lucas took this opportunity not only to defend his own work but also to praise one of his greatest inspirations.
“I had a real problem because I was afraid that science-fiction buffs and everybody would say things like, ‘You know there’s no sound in outer space’. I just wanted to forget science,” he explained. “Stanley Kubrick made the ultimate science-fiction movie, and it is going to be very hard for somebody to come along and make a better movie, as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t want to make a 2001. I wanted to make a space fantasy that was more in the genre of Edgar Rice Burroughs; that whole other end of space fantasy that was there before science took it over in the ’50s.”
He is, of course, referring to Kubrick’s 1968 juggernaut 2001: A Space Odyssey. Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, as well as the pinnacle of science fiction, the movie was concocted by the director and acclaimed sci-fi writer Arthur C Clarke. The movie was inspired by a series of short stories penned by Clarke, and the author also contributed to the screenplay. The pair went to extreme lengths to ensure the utmost accuracy. The burgeoning field of space travel was studied intensely, and Kubrick’s use of silence – accurate to the vacuum of space – is legendary.
A child of the 1940s and ’50s, Lucas remembers the moment when everything changed for sci-fi. “Once the atomic bomb came, everybody got into monsters and science and what would happen with this and what would happen with that,” he recalled. That line of inquiry didn’t interest young George, however. He was interested in a more old-school view.
“I think speculative fiction is very valid,” he admitted. “But they forgot the fairy tales and the dragons and Tolkien and all the ‘real’ heroes.”
He might have taken a radically different approach to the genre, but even Lucas can see just how good Kubrick’s masterpiece is. It is still referenced as a cultural zenith almost six decades on from its release. It never resulted in a spin-off called Caravan of Courage, so who’s the real winner here?
