Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 29, 1992 TAG: 9202290365
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAL VINCENT LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
THAT LUCAS MAGIC
THE secret to George Lucas' movie magic? One thing is certain: It has nothing to do with polls or surveys - or even crystal balls."I mean, I do what comes out of my head," Lucas said, searching for an explanation. "I don't sort of sit down and say, `I'm going to do this today.' Things pop out. And when things pop out, I do them."
What's popped out are only six of the 10 most popular movies in history: the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" trilogies. Add "American Graffiti," his popular 1973 comedy, and you can see why Lucas, more than any of his contemporaries, has shaped the way an entire generation sees entertainment. For his contributions to the entertainment industry, this year Lucas will receive a long overdue lifetime achievement Oscar.
It is almost ironic then, that at the time of the big screen's highest honor, Lucas is turning toward the unthinkable - the small screen. "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" will make its debut this week on ABC with a two-hour movie.
(WSET-Channel 13, the ABC affiliate in the Roanoke viewing area, will pre-empt the network's premiere Wednesday in favor of the Georgia Tech-North Carolina basketball game. ABC has scheduled a repeat of the movie which Channel 13 will air at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 7. The series then moves to its regular timeslot at 9 p.m. Wednesdays, starting March 12.)
The series is being filmed all over the world with top directors and writers, and will feature three unknowns playing the adventurer at ages 10, 16 and 93. Lucas said his latest project is taking up "110 percent of my time."
"The trouble with features," he said during an interview in Los Angeles, "is that you do one every three years. Here, we're doing the equivalent of eight or nine a year."
There is a trace of gray in his well-groomed beard, but his enthusiasm is like that of a boy with a new toy. He's dressed in jeans, a plaid shirt and sport coat - not at all like the multimillionaire whose fortune has been pegged at $80 million.
At 47, it is clear that George Lucas is eager to work - full time.
"There probably won't be another Indiana Jones movie," he said. "I've burned out on writing action-adventure. I can't get Indy in any more jeopardy and get him out again. So, unless I get inspired again, which I doubt is going to happen, we've seen the end of the features."
Television is another thing. Lucas described "Young Indiana Jones" as a coming-of-age story that will have a dramatic story line one week and comedy the next. What it will not be, he said, is a buckle-your-seat belt action saga.
"This was a big issue when I presented it to ABC," he said. "It is not like the features. It's more like `Huckleberry Finn' or even `American Graffiti.' They were willing to take a chance and go with something in which people's perception of what it was going to be was considerably different from what it actually is.
"I'm hoping it will find an audience, you know, apart from those that just want non-stop action."
There will, however, be action of a different sort. Lucas said with a laugh that the teen-age Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery) loses his virginity to Mata Hari. In the first season alone, Indiana and his father, Professor Henry Jones (British actor Lloyd Owen), visit London, Africa, Spain, China, Austria, Egypt, France, India and Russia.
Lucas has written all 16 stories and has prepared 22 additional scripts. He's spending 70 hours a week supervising the writing and post-production.
"I'm a hands-on type of producer," he said, "possibly because I started as a director. Early in my career, when the movies got really big, I had to learn how to delegate duties. I could either make little pictures with me doing everything or I could make big pictures and be the producer."
His decision? He hasn't directed a film since "Star Wars" in 1977.
"I'm able to make contributions in the story and in finishing the picture," he said. "That's where I'm best and that's what I enjoy the most. It's like being able to cook dinner without having to do the dishes."
The surprising thing is that Lucas agreed to do an interview at all. For the past 20 years, he has lived a quiet, if not reclusive, life on his sprawling 2,600-acre Skywalker Ranch in Northern California. It's 25 miles from San Rafael but a long way from Hollywood.
He is generally regarded as a maverick, which is why the Oscar he will receive in March is something of a surprise: Hollywood tends to wish mavericks well but not too well.
Lucas, however, is a good businessman. He has marketed a state-of-the-art home sound system. Industrial Light and Magic, the Oscar-winning wing of his production company, is used extensively in other films, including last year's biggest hit, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day."
"I'm the son of a small-town businessman," said Lucas, divorced and the father of two daughters. "He was conservative and I'm very conservative; always have been." Example: He doesn't put up the money for his own films, so even when "Howard the Duck" lost something like $40 million, it didn't hurt Lucas.
"I guess Indiana Jones is something of my alter-ego," he said. "I would have liked to have had a boyhood like I'm showing, but I didn't."
Still, there were adventures. A racing-car enthusiast in high school, he gave it up after a crash that crushed his lungs. He attended California's Modesto Junior College, then enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he made several prize-winning films, including the science-fiction short "THX-1138."
He won a scholarship to observe the production of Francis Ford Coppola's musical "Finian's Rainbow," and worked as a production associate on Coppola's next film "The Rain People." In 1970, he was one of the cameramen filming the notorious Rolling Stones documentary "Gimme Shelter."
Lucas' first directorial feature was an expanded version of his student film "THX-1138," starring Bruce Dern (1971). It is still a cult favorite, but it was "American Graffiti," which pictured his youth in Modesto, that brought him into the mainstream. It was made on a small budget and was a huge hit.
"Star Wars," of course, was the No. 1 box office hit of its era and holds a firm place in American film folklore. So how was he wooed by television?
"The corporations have taken over the film industry and there's an entirely different agenda than when I began 20 years ago," Lucas said. "Now, there is a great deal more freedom in television.
"People don't have to go out of the house to watch TV. Their expectations are very different. I couldn't do the sprawling story we're doing in a feature film."
Lucas spent nine months seeing thousands of kids before choosing Flanery for the new series. Cory Carrier plays Indy at 10 and George Hall is Jones at 93. He will open each show with reminisces of his adventures.
In going with unknowns, Lucas confounded the forecasters who thought the series might continue with River Phoenix, who played Indy in "The Last Crusade."
"River is interested in feature films," Lucas said. "Our schedule requires a total time commitment. Plus, I wanted the flexibility of having an unknown who could play from 16 to 22. River is, at 22, too old for that."
Lucas added that the series won't take Indiana Jones beyond the age of 24 because "that would be into Harrison Ford's domain."
Critics, though, were a bit disappointed in "Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal," the two-hour opener. There are no horses, whips or guns; instead, in the first half, 10-year-old Indy engages in a talkathon in Egypt. There are lots of pretty sunsets. The second hour is more lively: the teenage Indiana is involved in Pancho Villa's rebellion in 1916 Mexico.
In the course of the adventures, Indiana Jones will meet Lawrence of Arabia, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Albert Schweitzer and Theodore Roosevelt.
Lucas said he hopes to "fascinate young viewers so that they'll find out more on their own."
"The most way-out thing we'll do is a segment in Paris where we have Norman Rockwell as a good friend of Indy at the Louvre," he said. "They meet an aged Edgar Degas, who is out to prove a point to a brash new artist, Pablo Picasso.
"This is a very risky venture. It may well not find its audience. In feature films, 10 million people is a huge hit. In television, they want an audience of 20 million."
Feature films are still in Lucas' future. He's been working for four years on "Red Tails," a script about the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II.
And he no longer rules out another "Star Wars" film.
The project was originally conceived as nine films, with the three already made comprising the middle of the story. The next trilogy would go back to the beginning and presumably feature Luke Skywalker's father. "It may happen within the next five years," Lucas said.
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on March 4, 1992\ Correction
A story on filmmaker George Lucas in Saturday's Spectator incorrectly stated that Bruce Dern starred in the 1971 film "THX-1138." Robert Duvall was the star.
\
Keywords:
PROFILE
Memo: Correction