Thanks for the tip, Padawan!
Just translating with the help of "Babelfish" - with the addition of some of my own major adjustments. I hope the translation makes sense for the most part.
PART I of III
Star Wars
"With evil, it is not as easy as we'd like to have" (shitty translation, I know)
George Lucas rewrote the history of cinema with his Star Wars films. Why does he speak with robots?
Is he really Republican? And why is he so shy? An interview.
By Alexander Gorkow
George Lucas, 61, created the "most lucrative trademark of film history" (profile) with "Star Wars". Gradually Lucas created a cinema fairy tale,
of which at first hardly someone was convinced except him. Before the first installment came into the American cinemas in May 1977 after turbulent shooting work
and turned out to be a spectacular success, Lucas had already been noticeable with his dark space film "THX" (his termination work at the university)
as well as by the ravishing comedy "American Graffiti", a Hommage to his own rebellious town youth.
George Lucas is the boss of his billions-worth film-empire and lives with his three adopted children north of San Francisco.
Süddeutsche Zeitung: George Lucas, a somewhat embarrassing question at the beginning, we sit here in the Abbey Road studios...
Lucas: ... You want to know whether I crossed the street outside on the famous zebra crossing like the four Beatles...
SZ: ... exactly...
Lucas: ... many years ago. Together with a few people from the crew, my friend Frank Oz was one of them. We were nearly run over, if I remember correctly.
Your question is not embarrassing. The photo we made was embarrassing. You can only see one hand and half of a fearful face of mine, I believe.
SZ: Certainly, it is nothing special for you to be here in the studios, right?
Lucas: No, no more. It is work. Nothing more. Much work.
And while hearing the London Symphony Orchestra in the background and seeing John Williams conducting it, I have to say:
what we delivered was always good work at the end. Do you hear this orchestra?
SZ: Yes, it is really awesome.
Lucas: It is the best orchestra you can get. Do you see the film there above on the canvas?
That is the final, after nearly 30 years of "Star Wars".
SZ: Very moving.
Lucas: You may not lose a word over it before the premiere!
SZ: In this studio, Mister Lucas, played the Beatles, there in the back at the desk sat producer George Martin, and...
Lucas: ... and outside they still write oaths of love on the wall.
SZ: But it does not affect you overly, sure.
Lucas: Oh, you know, I am here for the umpteenth time. And the reasons for Abbey Road are always the same.
SZ: Namely?
Lucas: Point 1: Sensational acoustics! Edvard Grieg thought that way long before the Beatles and Pink Floyd.
Point 2: The adorable John Williams feels comfortable here. That is important.
SZ: Mister Lucas, more than 30 years ago you wrote the complete story of "Star Wars" on a few sheets of paper -
now all of that comes to an end. One can say, in the meantime you rewrote the history of the cinema, both in film-technical regard,
and also in business.
Lucas: Possibly one can say, yes.
SZ: You must be unbelievably proud.
Lucas: I am a lucky man. Proud is such a term, oh well. But lucky. Yes. I never was at the leash of the large studios.
I was always an independent film producer. And I fought for my liberties very much. It always concerned me to tell this story.
SZ: Do you feel misunderstood?
Lucas: Why should I?
SZ: You are, and that's provable, the most successful director of the world. No-one does have such spectator numbers,
no-one revolutionized the cinema technology in the last 30 years in such a way you did. Nevertheless you were never quite popular with critics, were you?
Lucas: Well, that's only partially correct, in the USA there are indeed a few critics, who also like films even if they are successful. On the one hand.
On the other hand: If you shoot a film which costs millions of dollars, you must please not critics, but the public. That's very simple really.
SZ: Nevertheless, the respect that was payed to you, usually rather applied to the trick specialist Lucas,
the technician Lucas, less the storyteller Lucas, wasn't it?
Lucas: Whose respect?
SZ: Well...
Lucas: No, no, asked differently: what is the secret behind the really unbelievable success of ¸¸Star Wars "?
Why do zig million people go into the cinema to watch that?
SZ: That's what I'm asking you.
Lucas: It is the story of course. Nothing more. Without a good story and without certain values, which are transported by a story,
you can forget everything, the great special effects, the beautiful spaceships, then the Merchandising, everything.
Part II of III
SZ: Why the criticism then?
Lucas: Possibly for a simple reason: I create - in the broadest sense - science fiction films. Deciding for this genre, I have to fathom the borders of the technically possible, I have to experiment, sketch, build, play, invest much money, oh, very much money, in order to exhaust the possibilities. I cannot decide to make a science fiction film and then take the viewers for fools with skewed spaceships. Thus, early I built up a company in order to investigate and extend these possibilities, and because of digitalization, technically we are not at an endpoint any time soon. You will see that these technical possibilities will also more and more benefit those who do not shoot large films primarily. For the simple reason: It was never more inexpensive to make films.
SZ: You spoke of values. With which values - except the fight good against evil - does "Star Wars" deal?
Lucas: Well, life deals with that fight, so does the history of mankind. Film is communication. And if you want to communicate with humans, you have to tell of other humans.
SZ: Or of robots, which are as funny as humans can be.
Lucas: That's it. And if you want to tell many humans something of other humans, something moving, touchy, then you have to tell of the fight of good against evil!
That's what moves people. That's what bothers everybody on a daily basis, it begins in the kindergarten, reaches its sad culmination usually...
SZ: ... in the office...
Lucas: ... exactly, during work, and then it ends in the hospital. Now, what deals "Star Wars" with? With good and Evil. And with what the fight of good against evil is always about in the very end: salvation. That's the story of the good boy Luke Skywalker and his evil father Darth Vader. In the final movie we go back to the origin of everything. And people will see that the evil Darth Vader was never just evil, he rather had good intentions once; that with evil, it is not as easy as we'd like to have it oftentimes.
SZ: But?
Lucas: That we are exposed to influences. And that we are also helplessly exposed to them up to a certain point. For children, for example, or weak or weakened humans, the possibilities of resisting bad influences are not existent or underdeveloped. These influences turn a good human being to evil/bad. You are responsible for the values you have today. But there was a time, when these values were arranged for you. Same for a time when someone takes a wrong direction by - possibly - only one step. The classical drama. That's what the last of the of the six "Star Wars" movies deals with.
SZ: In what respect?
Lucas: We see Darth Vader at one point in his life when he makes a pact with the devil. Tragic. Sinister.
SZ: The whole film?
Lucas: I think this one is the darkest of the six. I've shown it - as I do since 1977 - my friend Francis Ford Coppola.
And know you, as far as movies are concerned, Francis really is a cool and almost unimpressible dog.
SZ: And?
Lucas: He cried a lot.
SZ: Are humans born with primarily good characteristics?
Lucas: Normally we humans are born, please don't misunderstand me there, quite equally and empty I think . Like a hard drive with a soul, right?
The programming of the hard drive, that is your job - raising your children for example. It's like a jar you could fill, a jar that could be filled one way or another by it's environment.
SZ: I'm just asking myself if Hitler - like Darth Vader - became evil over time. For the Hitlers at home he certainly was quite a cute baby, too. And he didn't have an easy life afterwards.
Lucas: Oh, on the other hand it doesn't excuse anything. Saying that normally we are born quite equally, I am also very sure that there are exceptions to this rule.
Do I believe that Hitler had bad/evil predisposition from the get-go? Yes, I do believe this.
SZ: Since your divorce you raise your three adopted children as a single father, how did the values change since the time you were young?
Lucas: Well, the world has changed, hasn't it? And my children really grow up with another father than I did back then. I mean, my father was a farmer, a marvelous man, but as we americans sometimes tend to be, an ultra conservative. And I was born in 1944, my whole youth was still shaped by the impression of the Second World War, and this ultimate fight of good against evil still played the primary role. I think we continued this fight in the cold war, if not with military, but mainly with economic resources. My children grow up with another father - and in another world.
SZ: The fight of good against evil is the american topic of the last years, too.
Lucas: Certainly, it is and remains the american topic par excellence.
SZ: Your nation is at war.
Lucas: But this is not a world war, I mean, the world of today is more complicated, more convoluted than it was 60 years back, isn't it?
We're fighting a local war in Iraq. As we did in Vietnam.
SZ: Always with the argument of a triumph of good over evil.
Lucas: Surely yes.
SZ: As you know, your president even spoke of an axis of evil...
Lucas: As I know, yes.
SZ: You aren't too fond of talking about politics.
Lucas: Says who?
SZ: Well, it is impossible to find political specification and party political specification while raking up the archive leather wrapper of "Lucas, George". Foreign to your nature?
Lucas: Oh, I often talk about politics. With my employees for example, also with my friend Steven Spielberg I speak almost only about politics.
SZ: May I ask somewhat more concrete?
Lucas: Mmh...
SZ: Do you support the war in Iraq?
Lucas: Well, the people want it. Recently they had the choice between two presidency candidates. They selected the one who wanted this war.
SZ: Good?
Lucas: Those were democratic elections. The people elected him.
Part III of III
SZ: There is a bet between an associate and me, Mr. Lucas.
Lucas: Right now?
SZ: Yes, absolutely. She says: "George Lucas is a Republican. The whole ideology of "Star Wars", the - if necessary armed - fight of the good ones against the evil ones,
is the ancestral Republican topic that Lucas extends on the universe."
Lucas: So, mmh...
SZ: In addition to that you are in private possession of three billion dollar; and as one of the richest Americans, one surely rather is Republican, and with these three billion the value of your firm-empire isn't even taken into consideration...
Lucas: Where did you read this? In "Forbes"?
SZ: That's right.
Lucas: You should not believe everything that's written in the newspaper. You shouldn't believe what's written in "Forbes", either. All of my money, or almost all of my money goes into my projects, you can believe me that. That's the way I always did it. I earned very much money with the "Star Wars" movies. And I always used it to to pull through my own things, far away from the large studios; to remain independent.
SZ: Sure, but...
Lucas: You know, I'm a lousy businessman, absolutely.
SZ: Pardon? Who, if not you, did press ahead merchandising in such a way? The left side of the business argued you sold the soul of cinema for money.
Lucas: Wait, stop! Beam yourself back to 1976. I was working on the first "Star Wars" movie. We've overdrawn the budget, very much. The rough cut was a catastrophy. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Stress induced, I was getting seriously sick. 20th Century Fox wanted to stop the shooting in order to limit the financial catastrophy.
SZ: Watching the photos from back then, Mr. Lucas, one gets the impression of some hippies tinkering with a couple of spaceships and robots.
Lucas: Well, that was the impression of certain gentlemen from Century Fox, too. At first. Then I offered them to accommodate, so to say. But the merchandising rights had to remain with me, that was important to me.
SZ: That was farsighted.
Lucas: Nowadays you have to see it in such a way. At that time one did not have to see it in such a way. As you may know, we definitely did not count on the fact that the film would break all cash records set up up to then. I only could worry about the merchandising when it was already too late. The small factory manufacturing the "R2 D2" toy nearly exploded, the people had to wait months for their order. And I'd only reluctantly apologize for me not turning over the merchandizing rights later on...
SZ: Anyhow, in this bet I just mentioned, I did bet against it. I said: "He is no Republican. At the end of "Star Wars", triumph will be achieved through esprit and idealism, not primarily through use of weapons." That's the way the bet turned out to be, to which you, as I expected, remain silent. Even if you smile nicely.
Lucas: Listen, I'm from a really very conservative family. My father was Republican, and what a Republican he was!
SZ: Did you talk about politics much at home?
Lucas: No. My father had his values. Those were very clear. And he proclaimed them. As said, it was the time after the war, America had helped to release the world from an aggressor. My father's values were never under consideration.
SZ: Your biography seems to be less conservative. In the sixties you were a member of a gang that tuned cars and sped around. One time, you barely escaped being killed.
Lucas: I worked it up later in "American Graffiti", the film is located in Modesto, where I grew up.
SZ: Then you discovered the camera.
Lucas: ... and then I studied film.
SZ: Yes.
Lucas: Yes.
SZ: And my bet?
Lucas: So - pay attention! In the sixties I lived in San Francisco... Okay?
SZ: And?
Lucas: Nobody - I stress: nobody - who ran around in San Francisco in the sixties, who was 20 years old and in his right mind, none of these people were or became Republican! That is inconceivable! The hardest left delegates, who still run around in Washington today, are approximately of my age and were in the center of the sixties where? In San Francisco.
SZ: You are not a Republican.
Lucas: You won your bet clearly.
SZ: And I've pictured you to be more shyly.
Lucas: I am shy. I'm really not the type of person that makes much wind, am I?
SZ: Once you said, you'd rather talk to your robots than to humans.
Lucas: This is total nonsense again. Was that printed in a newspaper, too?
SZ: Yup.
Lucas: I thought so. I know how the rumor came to be: when I handed round the first "Star Wars" script, not few people with their own respective opinion did say that I should take out these two robots. They wanted me to decide: on the side of the good ones either humans - or robots. But humans and two robots, with one looking like an old Volkswagen and constantly overturning, and another, talking like a Butler from the Royal Shakespeare company on top of it, that won't work. I still hear these people shouting into the listener: "George, put the robots out, put the robots out, put the robots out!" Certainly I absolutely refused to do so!
SZ: If nothing deceived me, I've just seen one of the robots here in the studio, the smug english speaking, the one behind the skin of C-3PO.
Lucas: Yes, Anthony Daniels. He listens to the orchestra today. That's a good thing. He should enjoy himself, now, with everything coming to an end. Sometimes he certainly had the toughest job of as all.
SZ: Why?
Lucas: If you are being constantly forgotten, sticking in your costume during shooting breaks while the others drive to the meal, you'd find it only moderately funny, too.
The people in the sheet metal costumes could get there ideas across only with difficulty every now and then. And we didn't have just to put them in there, we also had to get them out of there. Reconsidering this, we forgot them quite often.
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That's it. I found the german interview to be a good read. I hope the english version is OK.
PS: "Babelfish" sucks. Better stick to your own skills and a good dictionary...
)
