From goof-off to genius, Lucas reflects on his Force

NEW YORK -- Filmmaker George Lucas is about to find himself in the eye of the storm -- for the second time. Or, as he puts it: " 'Star Wars' was a very big consuming thing and it's like a little Tar Baby. I stuck my fist in 23 years ago and am a little surprised by how big it got and how much it dominated my life. But I don't regret it."

When the first installment of the three "Star Wars" prequels, "The Phantom Menace," arrives on Wednesday, Lucas will be lying on a beach in the South Pacific somewhere.

Like the Dr. Seussian-dreamer he is, he longs to be outside the din.

The movie proves that, for the first time, technology has finally caught up with Lucas' prodigious imagination.

"I'd been very frustrated before when I made the first series because I had an imagination that created a kind of world that we could never get on film," he says.

"It was technically impossible. And I was stuck with creatures in rubber masks who couldn't move very far. It was very hard to direct a movie and tell the story I wanted to tell. I was stuck with environments that were extremely limited in what I wanted to do. ... This is one time I could let my imagination run wild."

With a world populated by Sendakian creatures -- scaly behemoths, some with donkey faces, froggy feet and four-foot tongues, Lucas proves he's the modern-day Homer.

Producer Rick McCallum, who has worked exclusively with Lucas for nine years, says, "I spend every day with him. We leave home, we drive down the same road. I come back on the same road every morning and nothing happens to me. But what happens to HIM, I have no idea. It's insane.

"You've got to remember, with these films, it's so complicated every virtual thing inside the movie has to be created, designed and has to be made functional. Every project I've done with George has been different. But this is his world. He's written it, he's directed it, he's created it. And I'm gobsmacked by it daily."

Lucas, mostly a goof-off, D-student in high school, was in a serious car accident just before he graduated.

"That made me rethink," he says. "At that point I wanted to be a mechanic and race cars, and it made me sort of realize I should probably go to school and become more academic. That's when I got interested in social sciences in junior college."

He became an anthropology major, focusing on social science and writing.

"I thought I wanted to be an illustrator, but my father didn't want me to go to Art Center, so he wouldn't finance that one for me. So I ended up going to USC and discovering film.

"Once I discovered film and realized I was good at it, it was like a whole other level. Finally I'd sort of found myself and that was a huge amount of fun."

McCallum reports that Steven Spielberg came to see the nearly finished "Phantom Menace" about three weeks ago.

"I sat behind both of them," McCallum says. "And for all the influence and clout and money and huge success they've had, there's still something, there's a voice that they carry -- both of them -- that really is from a young boy. They still see it so basically, so innocently.

"How they kept that -- I lost that years ago and there's no way I can get it back. That's where their voice is, that's what makes them unique -- both of those two guys -- unlike any other filmmakers."

Lucas admits, that when we watch his movies, we are really seeing him.

"You can get an intimate look at the filmmaker through his work," he says.

It's clear from "Phantom Menace" that Lucas is still a man who finds dragons in his teacup and heroes honorable enough to slay them.

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