Category: Star Wars

‘Sith’ DVD, game set for Nov. 1 release
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – The Force will return to retail stores Nov. 1 with a double whammy: “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” will be released on DVD, and “Star Wars Battlefront II” will be made available for all the top video game platforms.
“Sith” is the year’s top-grossing movie, with domestic box office earnings of $373.9 million (and an additional $425 million overseas). The two-disc set will include a full-length documentary; two new featurettes, one exploring the prophecy of Anakin Skywalker as the Chosen One and the other on the movie’s stunts; and a 15-part collection of “Web documentaries.”
The five previous “Star Wars” movies have sold “well in excess” of 100 million units on DVD and VHS, said Steve Feldstein, senior vp marketing communications at 20th Century Fox, which is partnering on the release with “Star Wars” creator George Lucas’ Lucasfilm production banner.
Lucas was personally involved in the creation of the “Sith” DVD and its bonus features, said Lucasfilm vp marketing and distribution Jim Ward.
“From the beginning of production, George wanted to be sure we chronicled everything that went into the making of ‘Episode III’ specifically to create an incredible DVD experience,” Ward said. “This DVD has literally been three years in the making.”
For video gamers, LucasArts’ “Star Wars Battlefront II” will be available for Sony’s PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, Microsoft’s Xbox and Windows platforms. It is the sequel to the best-selling “Star Wars” video game of all time and adds all-new space combat, playable Jedi characters and never-before-seen environments from “Sith.”
The game also offers a new single-player experience that takes the player through an epic saga centered on Darth Vader’s elite 501st Legion of Stormtroopers. Every action the player takes has an impact on the battlefield and, ultimately, on the entire “Star Wars” galaxy.
The “Sith” DVD will include a demo of two levels from the game, playable only on Xbox.

THE FORCE IS STRONG!
Analysts estimating that Star Wars: Episode III–Revenge of the Sith will surpass the $200 million mark on Thursday.

‘Star Wars’ earns $108.5 million in 1st US weekend 55 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The final installment of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” series grossed about $108.5 million during its first weekend of release across North America, the second-best three-day opening of all time, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.
The record is held by “Spider-Man,” which opened to almost $115 million in 2002. “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” narrowly pipped “Shrek 2,” which bowed with $108 million in 2004. Final data will be released on Monday.
Since its release after midnight on Thursday, the “Star Wars” film has sold $158.5 million worth of tickets in the United States and Canada. It was released by Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.

‘Star Wars’ Grosses $50M in Single Day
LOS ANGELES – The last of the “Star Wars” movies has done what no movie in history has ever accomplished √≥ sold $50 million worth of tickets in a single day.
“Star Wars: Episode III √≥ Revenge of the Sith” grossed $50,013,859 from showings at 3,661 theaters and more than 9,000 screens around the country on Thursday, including special midnight shows, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
That beat the one-day record set in May 2004 by “Shrek 2,” which sold $44.8 million on a single Saturday √≥ its fourth day in theaters.
“It’s staggering,” said Bruce Snyder, president of domestic distribution at Twentieth Century Fox. “It’s probably 20 percent more than I thought we could do.”
The George Lucas film, which features the transformation of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker into the evil Darth Vader, also beat the opening day record held by “Spider-Man 2,” which grossed $40.4 million when it opened on a Wednesday last June.
“Fifty million is a good opening weekend, let alone a single day,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations. “This is the box office equivalent of a 100-year flood.”
The news comes as a relief to Hollywood, which has seen a box office slump for 12 straight weeks.
Theater owners, studios and marketing partners had their hopes pinned on “Star Wars,” to kick-start the summer movie season and they weren’t disappointed.
The film debuted on 2,900 screens at midnight Thursday. The take from that one showing alone was $16.5 million, which beat the previous record of $8 million set by “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2003.
Thursday’s take dwarfed the next highest film, and last week’s box office champ, “Monster-in-Law,” starring Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez. That film grossed $1.5 million on Thursday, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.
It is almost assured “Star Wars” will push past the $100 million mark for its opening weekend. The record for a three-day weekend is held by the first “Spider-Man,” which grossed $114.8 million in May 2002.

‘Star Wars’ Grosses $16.5M in Midnight Run
LOS ANGELES – Moviegoers flocked to the dark side in droves, giving the final installment of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” tale a record-breaking midnight run.
“Star Wars: Episode III √≥ Revenge of the Sith” raked in an estimated $16.5 million from 2,900 midnight screenings Thursday, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
That’s double what the Oscar-winning film “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” took in during its midnight showings in 2003. The third film from director Peter Jackson’s trilogy rang up about $8 million domestically from 2,100 midnight shows.
“This is extremely impressive,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations. “It just says so much about how excited people are to see this film that they lined up at midnight and just got on board and went along for the ride.”
After the midnight debut, “Revenge of the Sith” widened to 3,661 theaters for daytime and evening screenings. The studio, 20th Century Fox, said box-office results for the first full day would be available Friday.
Tickets for the film went on sale last month. Soon after, legions of fans began lining up at theaters across the country, many dressed in full “Star Wars” regalia and sporting Jedi light sabers.
The final chapter in Lucas’ six-film saga chronicles Anakin Skywalker’s transformation from hero to villain Darth Vader. The film may be the darkest chapter in the “Star Wars” story, featuring more violence and a story line showing how a democratic government turns into a despotic regime.
“Revenge of the Sith” is the first “Star Wars” film to earn a PG-13 rating. The first five films were rated PG.

Hollywood hoping ‘Sith’ a force to be reckoned with
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – As the dark side lures Anakin Skywalker, so too are industry insiders counting on the appeal of the final “Star Wars” movie to attract lethargic moviegoers to the theaters this weekend.
After 12 weeks of down year-over-year comparisons, the box office is counting on “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” to be the film that turns 2005 into a competitive year at the movies.
“Star Wars” creator George Lucas, 20th Century Fox and movie theater owners are doing everything in their power to ensure “Sith’s” success.
The film bows Thursday at 12:01 a.m. with an astronomical 9,400 prints, a number bested only by DreamWorks’ “Shrek 2” and Sony’s “Spider-Man 2.” In 3,661 theaters, “Sith” marks the widest release of a “Star Wars” film. (“Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones” bowed on 3,161 in 2002.)
Lucas, who usually is strict about which theaters he will allow his films to be played in, has permitted Fox to expand into drive-ins and other less state-of-the art venues.
“Lucas has allowed us to play (theaters equipped with) nondigital sound and drive-ins,” said Bruce Snyder, president of distribution at Fox. “The market has changed, and we have to get out as wide as possible while the heat is on. He’s been very gracious in allowing us to go out as wide as we’re going.”
For top exhibitor Regal Entertainment Group, that means 1,733 prints in 470 theaters, a new record for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based chain. Online ticket retailer Fandango also has bested its own records, with sales as of Tuesday three times as strong as they were for “Clones” at the same point. The ticketing site, which services 1,100 theaters nationwide, has sold 60% more tickets for “Sith” than for “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,” the company’s record-holder for best-selling movie.
“Those that are waiting for the summer, ‘Star Wars’ has kicked it off loud and clear,” Fandango president and CEO Art Levitt said. “There is unprecedented excitement in terms of numbers and sales, and we’re seeing a much broader-based audience then just the hard-core ‘Star Wars’ fans.”
According to Fandango, the film has already has sold out its midnight showings in theaters nationwide, including New York, Chicago, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles. And as demand increases, theaters are adding more showings; according to Snyder, most multiplexes are showing “Sith” in five to six theaters at a time.
So what will that mean for the weekend numbers? Industry insiders are predicting a four-day opener in the range of $125 million-$160 million — with the potential to best some impressive numbers. The biggest Thursday opening day, according to Nielsen EDI, was $42.5 million for Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Matrix Reloaded” in May 2003, which included Wednesday night previews starting at 10 p.m. “Reloaded” also holds the distinction of being the best four-day opener, with $134.3 million. Industry insiders are predicting that “Sith” could surpass both figures.
Another record in “Sith’s” sights is DreamWorks’ “Shrek 2” mark for any one day: $44.8 million during the first Saturday of its May 2004 release. But with the boxoffice in the doldrums for the past three months, no one is betting on anything.
At this year’s ShoWest convention, Lucas did call the final installment of his epic adventure “Titanic in Space,” but the likelihood of “Sith” reaching $600 million in total domestic box office is remote, even for the likes of Darth Vader.

Star Wars Fans Happy With Last ‘Episode’
NEW YORK – Jay Greene and his friends had a pact: When the sixth and final “Star Wars” movie came out √≥ the one that brings the plot back around to George Lucas’ original 1977 masterpiece √≥ they’d be there, on opening night.
Like the legions of other fans who showed up for midnight showings of “Episode III √≥ Revenge of the Sith,” Greene, 26, was eager to see how the saga all came together.
“Regardless of knowing what’s going to happen, you still get that excitement, and it’s closure for you,” he said early Thursday after emerging from, appropriately enough, the AMC Empire 25 Theatre in Times Square.
“What’s incredible is seeing him (Anakin) finally become Darth Vader,” added Ryan Smith, visiting from San Diego.
Sold-out showings of “Episode III,” the final installment of the seminal science fiction series created by Lucas, drew enthusiastic crowds to theaters across the country √≥ many dressed in full “Star Wars” regalia with Jedi light sabers at the ready.
Both Greene and Smith described the excitement in the theater “like a party on opening night and that’s why we’re going back in.”
Similar scenes played out nationwide ahead of the opening. People waiting for days and in some cases weeks could hardly contain themselves as the clock wound down Wednesday night.
In Chicago, 31-year-old graphic designer Ben Delery said that for him “Revenge of the Sith” was the most widely anticipated of the “Star Wars” epic. He noted it finally explains what drives Jedi hero Anakin Skywalker to embrace the dark side and transform himself into Darth Vader.
Much like the cult-following that emerged with the 1977 debut of the original “Star Wars,” many fans said they would be repeat viewers.
“I could understand why. I would do it myself if it wasn’t so late,” said Charles Smallwood, of Philadelphia, who joined his mother at the midnight showing in New York.
Renee Portee, 45, added: “It lived up to all the hype. It brought everything together.”
A few hours after the movie started rolling on East Coast screens, several Web sites already claimed to offer pirated copies for downloading over the Internet.
In Los Angeles, the line stretched around the block for the midnight showing at the Vista Theater on Sunset Boulevard. A group of cloaked youngsters watched previous “Star Wars” movies on a computer as they sat on the sidewalk.
“It’s one of my favorite things, like electricity, fire, medicine,” said Christian Miller, 27, who makes a living canvassing door to door for politcial campaigns.
Miller, dressed as Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn, portrayed by Liam Neeson in the film, said “It’s proof that myth will have a role in human culture.”
Jeff Schiffman, 25, of Burbank, moved to California three years ago for a job as a film restorer who worked on the original “Star Wars” trilogy for DVD.
Sporting a “Star Wars” tattoo, he wore a black cloak and sinister Darth Maul contact lenses for the latest film. Even his Yorkie, Zoe, had a “Star Wars” patch.
Schiffman chose the cloak, similar to that of the movie’s evil emperor, because “the Dark Side is so much cooler,” he said.
In Boston, the entire 16-person staff of a Web development firm planned to take Thursday off to see the film. The outing was paid for by the company ó popcorn and soda included.
Seth Miller, the president and chief executive of Miller Systems Inc., said the tradition began with “The Phantom Menace” in 1999.
“It speaks to our culture. It’s the benefit of not working at a giant monolithic √≥ dare I say ‘Imperial’ √≥ type company,” he said, referring to the Empire in the “Star Wars” films.
Tickets for the movie went on sale last month, and many fans who couldn’t bear the thought of a bad seat began camping out well in advance. “I’m a typical ‘Star Wars’ geek, trying to see the final episode,” said Jimmy Burns, 32, who helped his Rebel Legion fan club be first into a Georgia theater on the outskirts of Atlanta.
“This is a big event for all of us,” said Russ Rolle as he waited outside Edwards Big Newport, one of the largest theaters in Southern California. The 23-year-old student had been taking turns with friends since May 8 saving a spot in line to make sure they catch the first showing. His wristband identified him as No. 7 in line for one of the 1,200 seats to the sold-out 12:01 showing.
John St. Clair, of Hopatcong, N.J., recalled going to the first “Star Wars” in 1977. He saw the film five weeks after it opened, then saw it about 10 times.
“Nobody knew anything about the first movie. Word of mouth is what carried it,” said St. Clair, 60.
“After the first three, you had a lot of questions of how everything came to pass, and this answered all those questions,” he said.

BACK TO THE FUTURE
The new “Star Wars” movie, “Revenge of the Sith,” could be titled “That ’70s Show.”
Though made 28 years after the original, the story of “Sith” actually happens before the original “Star Wars.” So creator George Lucas and his crew made sure the new film resembled that 1977 classic.
Designers rebuilt sets from “Star Wars” and gave characters similar costumes and hairstyles. Lucas wanted to make sure that “Sith,” also known as “Episode III” transitions smoothly into “Star Wars,” also known as “Episode IV: A New Hope”
“I’m hoping that people will see it as a six-part series,” George Lucas says. “In the future, I’d like people to watch the movies in order, from episodes I to VI.”
The story of “Sith” is how Jedi hero Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, and how Anakin’s children, Luke and Leia, are hidden from him. The original “Star Wars” happens 20 years after “Sith,” when those twins are grown and battle their evil father.
There’s a scene on Alderaan – the lovely planet where Princess Leia grows up with her adoptive parents, Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) and his wife, Alderaan’s queen. Alderaan is the planet that gets blown to smithereens by the Death Star in the original “Star Wars.”
And the final scene of the “Sith” takes place on Tatooine, with the baby Luke in the arms of the people who will raise him, his Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. They stand and look out at a double sunset just like the one Luke himself stares wistfully at in that classic scene from the original “Star Wars.”
Lucas was aware that future generations might be thrown off by the shift in tone between the prequel trilogy and the originals, so he had staff of special-effects wizards go retro from time to time, even though most of the effects in “Sith” are in a completely different league from what Lucas was able to do in 1977.
While the most important aliens in “Sith,” including Yoda, were created on a computer, some of the others, including the Trade Federation representatives and some of the Wookiees, were made the old-fashioned way.
“We put people in rubber heads to make sure there’d be some continuity,” explains the film’s animation director, Rob Coleman.
“We could have made them all in the computer. But sometimes you actually want that feeling of an actor in a suit. ”
Lucas’ crew also used costumes and hairstyles that give the new film a ’70s veneer – like Leia’s famous cinnamon-bun hair swirls.
Here are some of the links, both in design and story, that bring “Revenge of the Sith” full circle back to “A New Hope.”
nSenator Bail Organa’s ship. Several scenes at the end of “Sith” take place in the familiar white hallways of Organa’s spaceship – the same one we see at the beginning of “A New Hope,” when Darth Vader comes aboard looking for the stolen Death Star plans and finds Leia. One of the scenes ties up a loose end that has always bugged “Star Wars” geeks: Why doesn’t C-3PO seem to recognize Tatooine when he arrives at the beginning of “A New Hope,” even though he was created there? Lucas takes care of the concern with a single line of dialogue, as Organa tells a deputy to “have the protocol droid’s memory wiped.”
n Chewbacca. According to the official “Star Wars” timeline, Wookiees can live up to 200 years, so it makes sense that Han Solo’s shaggy sidekick from “A New Hope” would be around and in fighting shape for “Sith,” which takes place some 20 years before the original trilogy. Chewie helps lead a battle against the droids on the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk. Peter Mayhew, the 7-foot-4 actor who played the walking carpet in the original trilogy, reprises his role.
nProto-Storm Troopers. Up until now, the clone warriors of the prequel trilogy have supposedly been good guys, fighting alongside Jedi Knights to defend the Republic against the separatists’ droid army. But they’ve always looked suspiciously like the fascist storm troopers from the original “Star Wars.” They look even more like storm troopers in “Sith,” and (thanks to a plot point that we’ll skip over for spoiler reasons) it turns out that they are related to them. By the way, that means that most of the storm troopers in the original trilogy were clones. That was Boba Fett’s father, Jango Fett, under all those helmets.
nObi-Wan Kenobi. “Sith” finally explains why all of the Jedis except Obi-Wan and Yoda were wiped out before “A New Hope” began, as well as why Obi-Wan came to be living on Tatooine, so close to Luke Skywalker. Ewan McGregor, in playing the Jedi master, also studied the voice patterns of the original Obi-Wan, Alec Guinness. “It wouldn’t be right to just do an Alec Guinness impersonation,” McGregor has said. “I had to make the character somehow my own but at the same time make it believable that I become Alec Guinness.”
n Jedi immortality. “Sith” also answers a question that has led to countless late-night bull sessions: What happened to Obi-Wan and Yoda when they seemed to die, but reappeared as glowing blue shapes? At the very end of “Sith,” Yoda quickly tells Obi-Wan something about Qui-Gon Jinn, his old master, played by Liam Neeson in “The Phantom Menace.” The “Sith” graphic novel, already in stores, explains that Qui-Gon didn’t die – he discovered a path to immortality that he is going to teach to Yoda and Obi-Wan.

Lucas glad to leave Star Wars behind
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) ó A wilted monolith of establishment politics. An entrenched ruling class fearful of change. And one man who stealthily rebels from within, turning the system on its head and bending it to his will.
George Lucas’ story is the benign reverse image of the palace coup engineered by the foul emperor of his Star Wars epic.
The emperor perverted a tired republic into a fascist state bearing the imprint of his boot heel, standard Richard III stuff for which history buff Lucas had many role models to study from ancient to modern times.
Lucas’ accomplishments marked a one-of-a-kind revolution. He sneaked into a Hollywood that no longer had the verve or nerve to make the weird, giddy, goofy Saturday matinees of his youth. He found a lone patron among fainthearted studio executives willing to pony up cash for what was essentially an Arthurian sword-in-the-stone fantasy in space.
Then he went off and made the most rip-roaring blast of cinematic fun audiences had ever seen as 1977’s Star Wars became the biggest box-office sensation of its time.
Where dollar signs twinkle, studios follow, and Hollywood has been lumbering behind Lucas ever since.
Science fiction and special effects suddenly were back in vogue, and over the ensuing 28 years, Lucas and his visual wizards have led filmmaking into a new age of virtual reality that made possible such effects extravaganzas as Jurassic Park,Titanic and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
In the ’70s, there was a “technological ceiling” over fantasy and science fiction films, even epics and period pieces, Lucas told The Associated Press in an interview at his sprawling Skywalker Ranch. “The tools weren’t there,” he said.
As television chipped away at theater business in the 1950s and ’60s, studios folded up shop on the effects departments that helped create splashy historical adventures and otherworldly tales.
“It’s like trying to paint pictures without brushes,” Lucas said. “Hey, I brought the brush back and said, ‘You know, there’s a lot of things you can do with this thing. I think there’s real power here.’ And by bringing that back, I think that was the biggest effect.”
“Because it allowed people to do all kinds of movies that were sort of restricted because they were too expensive. That’s not to say special-effects movies aren’t expensive, but they’re much less expensive than if you tried to do it in the old-fashioned way and have 10,000 people out in the middle of the desert with catering cars and all the things you’d have to have.”
Lucas ó who turns 61 Saturday, just days before the May 19 debut of Star Wars: Episode III ó Revenge of the Sith, the final chapter in his six-film saga ó never set out to be a Hollywood pioneer, a sci-fi maven or even a populist filmmaker.
A star pupil at the University of Southern California film school in the 1960s, Lucas adapted a short student flick he made into his feature debut with 1971’s THX 1138, the first film from buddy Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope outfit, a failed experiment meant to give young industry lions the freedom to make movies their way.
Starring Robert Duvall in a dark satire on consumerism and dehumanization, THX 1138 baffled distributor Warner Bros., which dumped the abstract sci-fi drama into theaters. The film has gained cult status over the decades, largely because of Lucas’ subsequent fame, but at the time, hardly anyone saw it.
Coppola challenged Lucas to try something light, so he followed with a comic drama based on his car-cruising days in the ’50s and ’60s.
With its ensemble cast and episodic story structure, American Graffiti was another puzzler for Hollywood. Yet its killer soundtrack, nostalgia factor and the appeal of such young stars as Richard Dreyfuss and Ron Howard caught the fancy of moviegoers, who turned it into a box-office smash.
Always figuring he would specialize in documentaries and strange art films, Lucas found himself with a narrow window of clout among Hollywood bankers. He decided to take one stab at a grand soundstage production with big sets and visuals while he had the chance.
Impressed with Lucas’ youthful drive and his work on American Graffiti, 20th Century Fox studio boss Alan Ladd Jr. decided to back the filmmaker’s space opera about a farmboy named Luke Skywalker, a plucky princess named Leia, and a roguish pilot named Han Solo as they battled an evil galactic empire and black-cloaked villain Darth Vader.
Star Wars shot past Lucas pal Steven Spielberg’s Jaws to become the colossus of the modern blockbuster era the two men helped usher in. Counting rereleases that include the 1997 special-edition version with added footage and effects, Star Wars still stands at No. 2 behind Titanic on the domestic box-office charts with $461 million.
Lucas said he originally envisioned a bigger story arc that revealed Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia to be the children of Darth Vader, who finds redemption in his last moments of life through the good heart of his son.
He scaled Star Wars back to tell only the first chapter of that chronicle. After the film succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations, Lucas followed with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
In a stroke of blind fortune that now looks like the savviest business decision in Hollywood history, Lucas retained ownership of the films and merchandising.
Lucas was getting paid next to nothing upfront and had to beg 20th Century Fox for more money to get the special effects close to what he had imagined. Ownership of the franchise was a bone the studio tossed him, and Lucas figured he would use it to make T-shirts and posters to promote the movie.
At the time, sequel and merchandise rights were about as valuable as a bucket of sand on the desert planet Tatooine, but the combined bonanza from films, toys and other Star Wars products has made Lucas one of the richest men in show business.
“He would be the first to tell you, he had no idea,” said Rick McCallum, Lucas’ producing partner since TV’s The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in the early 1990s. “When you’re getting nothing, you’ll take anything … He knew there were sci-fi exhibitions out there that 5,000 kids would go to, so the idea was to go to anything that had to do with science where people would lend themselves to science fiction, and he could sell them T-shirts.”
The Star Wars movies allowed Lucas to build an empire that includes the visual-effects house Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, which have driven moviemaking into the digital era. Lucas’ THX system has become a gold standard for theater and home-entertainment audio.
Even Pixar Animation, the company behind the Toy Story movies, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, was a Lucas offshoot he sold in the mid-1980s.
Spielberg and Lucas teamed with Star Wars co-star Harrison Ford for the swashbuckling Indiana Jones movies, the fourth installment of which they hope to begin shooting in 2006.
After Industrial Light & Magic’s breakthrough with realistic digital dinosaurs on Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, Lucas realized computer animation would allow him to tweak his three Star Wars movies, adding scenes, effects and creatures impossible to produce in the ’70s and ’80s.
The special-edition releases helped persuade Lucas to go back and tell the backstory of how headstrong youth Anakin Skywalker transformed into malignant monster Darth Vader.
Episodes I and II, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, were hits, but they disappointed many fans who wanted to see a full-blown Vader from the outset. Instead, Lucas followed Anakin from precocious boyhood through his awkward teen years and a forbidden romance.
Revenge of the Sith finally takes Anakin to the dark side as Vader, whose fear of losing the love of his life leads him into a bloodbath against the Jedi knights who raised him.
Lucas is braced for fresh complaints about the final film, expecting many viewers to gripe that it’s too dark, the ending too bleak.
“Half the people like the movies, the other half don’t. There’s nothing I can do about that,” Lucas said. “Nobody is indifferent about them. Even the reviews, we get fantastic reviews or horrible reviews. There’s no middle ground. Nobody’s saying, ‘They’re OK, I guess.’
“You can’t really worry about it. I make the movie I feel I want to make, telling the story I want to tell, and how it gets received is how it gets received. At least it’s my fault. It’s totally mine. I don’t have to have any excuses about it. I don’t have to say, ‘The studio made me do this,’ or ‘I know that was wrong, but I had to do it.’ Whatever people don’t like or they do like is my fault.”
Millions of fans would love a third trilogy picking up after Return of the Jedi, but Lucas said he has no story in mind and no intention of continuing the tale on the big screen.
The adventure will live on in an animated TV show and a live-action series Lucas has planned, set among minor characters from the films in the 20 years or so between the action of “Revenge of the Sith” and the original “Star Wars.”
Lucas also hopes to release three-dimensional versions of all six movies in theaters starting a couple of years down the road. The 3-D editions would be created using new digital technology that adds depth perspective to two-dimensional film images.
Other than the new Indiana Jones, the creator himself said he is done with big film productions. Lucas plans to go off and make the sort of artsy little films he would have been making all along if Star Wars had not taken off.
With money set aside to cover those film projects into his 70s, Lucas said he can do whatever he wants without worrying if his movies succeed or fail, toiling in comparative obscurity and happy to be free of Star Wars.
“The analogy I can use is, it’s like going away to college,” Lucas said. “It’s great to get out of the house. You miss your parents a little bit, but you get to see them at Thanksgiving. But it’s great to be in college, great to be on your own. It’s great to have a new life.”

SITH HAPPENS
‘HOLD me, Anakin! “Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo!” Oh boy.
Yes, Natalie Portman really says that to Hayden Christensen in the new “Star Wars” movie, “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.”
And yes, the audience snickered when they heard that verbal clunker at a screening on Tuesday – even though they were watching the movie on George Lucas’ home turf, in the theater on his Marin County, Calif., hideaway, Skywalker Ranch.
Not that Lucas cared.
“Dialogue is not my thing,” Lucas freely admits, adding, “I don’t like writing, and I don’t like scripts.”
And if fans mock the overheated love story between doomed Padme Amidala and even more doomed Anakin Skywalker, “it’s not my job to make people like my movies,” Lucas says.
If that sounds contemptuous, keep in mind that by following his own muse, Lucas has built the most envied film franchise ever. The five previous “Star Wars” movies have grossed more than $3.4 billion worldwide, not to mention the $9 million in sales of DVDs, video games, plastic lightsabers and Yoda Pez dispensers.
And while Lucas may not like scripts, he loves spectacle – and “Episode III” has that in spades.
“Sith” offers the best “Star Wars” visuals yet, with a stunning opening dogfight, a spider-like Sith villain who fights with not one but four lightsabers, and – best of all – a remarkably lifelike Yoda. Plus, for the first time since “Return of the Jedi,” we have a “Star Wars” story that we can follow, with almost no references to tariff disputes and only one line for that perennial laughing stock, Jar Jar Binks.
In “Episode III,” Lucas is finally telling the story – in which Anakin completes his journey to the dark side by betraying his teacher, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Padme, and turning into the arch-villain Darth Vader.
“This is where you see Anakin undergo change. It’s what I wanted to play in the last movie,” Christensen says. “It was good to get out there finally and do it.
“I had a lot of fun going over to the dark side.”
DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE
In other words, this is the first “Star Wars” prequel that, spots of bad dialogue aside, is a must-see. And on some subconscious level, perhaps even Lucas knows it.
“I noticed a significant change with him on this movie,” Christensen says. “This time around, he was genuinely passionate about the story he was telling.
“He would get so excited. He was up from behind the monitors on every take, talking to the actors, getting into it.”
Watching “Episode III,” you’ll finally understand what Lucas has said all along – that the “Star Wars” saga is less Luke Skywalker’s story than his father’s.
“You learn that Darth Vader isn’t this monster,” Lucas says. “He’s a pathetic individual who made a pact with the devil and lost.
“Now when you see Darth Vader walk into that ship at the beginning of ‘Episode IV,’ you’ll go, ‘Oh, that poor guy! He’s still in the suit!'”
Even though everyone goes into “Episode III” already knowing that Anakin will turn into Darth Vader – “it’s as predictable as ‘Titanic,'” says producer Rob McCallum – Lucas has a lot of fun getting there (and those who want to be surprised should skip to the next section).
At the beginning of “Sith,” the Clone Wars are in full swing. The good and democratic Galactic Republic is crumbling under the strain and in the chaos, a new dictator is rising, the Republic’s Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid).
Our heroes – Yoda, Obi-Wan and the rest of the Jedi Knights – are still fighting on Palpatine’s side, but they’re growing more and more distrustful of him, with the notable exception of Anakin, who worries the Jedi Council with his close friendship to the chancellor.
Eventually, the Jedis realize that Palpatine is even worse than they suspected – he’s actually Darth Sidious, the leader of the anti-Jedi Sith knights, who use the Force for evil. Along the way, we’re treated to a groovy new bad guy (the computer-animated droid Gen. Grievous), a major battle involving an army of Wookiees including our old friend Chewbacca and a climactic 20-minute lightsaber duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan on the planet of volcanoes, Mustafar.
SOUND AND VISION
“Episode III” also takes “Star Wars” to darker places than it has ever gone.
There are some surprisingly harsh moments in the movie, including a genuinely upsetting massacre of Jedi “younglings” by none other than Anakin, who just a few years ago was an adorable youngling himself.
Thanks to these rougher bits, the movie carries a PG-13 rating, unlike the other five, which were all PG.
This hard-core stuff might frighten young fans who discovered the franchise through “Phantom Menace,” but they’ll probably thrill older fans who have missed the rock ‘n’ roll edges of the original trilogy. Although Lucas famously refuses to read fan Web sites, he knows those people are out there.
“There are certainly fans who wish ‘Episode III’ had been ‘Episode I,’ and than the rest of the movies had been Darth Vader going around cutting people’s heads off and terrorizing the universe,” he says.
“But I’m not interested in that story. I’m interested in a character study of Anakin.”
That might surprise those who have accused Lucas of caring more about cutting-edge special effects than the sassy characters who gave the original trilogy its heart.
But from Lucas’ point of view, “movies aren’t about words. They’re about telling a story with images and motion and music.”