Jill Monroe
05-17-2005, 10:19 AM
"Star Wars" Sweeps the Nation
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Jenny Peters
Fashion Wire Daily - Los Angeles - "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" premiered in Los Angeles last night... and in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, and in Washington, D. C., too. All the galas were for good causes, with tickets going for up to $2500 each; and all were packed to the rafters with fans and stars.
The Los Angeles premiere at the Mann Village in Westwood drew "Episode III" stars Jimmy Smits and Bai Ling (although word is that all of Ling's scenes ended up on the cutting room floor) along with original "Star Wars" heroes Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams. They were joined by Kelsey Grammer, Sanaa Lathen, Victoria Rowell, and Christopher Lloyd.
In New York, "Star Wars" veterans Liam Neeson, Frank Oz, Samuel L. Jackson and Ray Park made the scene, and Carrie Fisher was the big name at the Washington, D. C. party. But the really big party was in San Francisco, where George Lucas held sway over the adoring crowds, who still refuse to believe him when he says that the new movie (opening May 20) really is the end of the "Star Wars" saga.
"The movie starts with Darth Vader as a young lad and ends with him dying and so I don't know where else I can take it," Lucas says, then elaborates (and puts the nails firmly in the coffin). "I'm relieved. It was a ten-year commitment [to make the second trilogy]. That's very long and you hope that you can get through it without anything happening and I've done that. I'm glad about the way that things turned out. It's what I wanted it to be. But that's it, it is finished."
Lucas even admits that he's not even going to be involved with creating the DVD version of the last film; he really is done, and plans to delegate everything related to "Star Wars" to others on his staff.
"I'll never be able to cut my ties completely, unfortunately, or fortunately, or whatever. My life is intertwined with this and it always will be. And I love 'Star Wars' and I don't mind being intertwined with it and stuff. I just don't want to spend my days doing it," he says.
Instead, once all the hoopla dies down (Lucas will be honored at the Cannes Film Festival this Sunday, which should be the finale for him), the famed writer-director will move on.
"I'm doing a film called 'Red Tails' which is about fighter pilots during World War Two. I'm doing 'Indiana Jones' and that film at the same time. I'm producing those two. And then I'm going to go back and do my own movies. It'll be about a year or two."
And if his next films don't get quite the audience that "Star Wars" keeps bringing in? That's just fine with George.
"I'm letting go. You sort of reach a point where you have to sort of plan your life out and I'm sort of at that point. I mean, I love 'Star Wars,' but I'm not going to spend the rest of my life doing it. There are other things that I want to accomplish before I leave. I want to go back to the kind of movies that I made before I was making theatrical films," he says. "Now I can start doing smaller independent films, these other movies that I've been planning to do for the last thirty years."
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Jenny Peters
Fashion Wire Daily - Los Angeles - "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" premiered in Los Angeles last night... and in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, and in Washington, D. C., too. All the galas were for good causes, with tickets going for up to $2500 each; and all were packed to the rafters with fans and stars.
The Los Angeles premiere at the Mann Village in Westwood drew "Episode III" stars Jimmy Smits and Bai Ling (although word is that all of Ling's scenes ended up on the cutting room floor) along with original "Star Wars" heroes Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams. They were joined by Kelsey Grammer, Sanaa Lathen, Victoria Rowell, and Christopher Lloyd.
In New York, "Star Wars" veterans Liam Neeson, Frank Oz, Samuel L. Jackson and Ray Park made the scene, and Carrie Fisher was the big name at the Washington, D. C. party. But the really big party was in San Francisco, where George Lucas held sway over the adoring crowds, who still refuse to believe him when he says that the new movie (opening May 20) really is the end of the "Star Wars" saga.
"The movie starts with Darth Vader as a young lad and ends with him dying and so I don't know where else I can take it," Lucas says, then elaborates (and puts the nails firmly in the coffin). "I'm relieved. It was a ten-year commitment [to make the second trilogy]. That's very long and you hope that you can get through it without anything happening and I've done that. I'm glad about the way that things turned out. It's what I wanted it to be. But that's it, it is finished."
Lucas even admits that he's not even going to be involved with creating the DVD version of the last film; he really is done, and plans to delegate everything related to "Star Wars" to others on his staff.
"I'll never be able to cut my ties completely, unfortunately, or fortunately, or whatever. My life is intertwined with this and it always will be. And I love 'Star Wars' and I don't mind being intertwined with it and stuff. I just don't want to spend my days doing it," he says.
Instead, once all the hoopla dies down (Lucas will be honored at the Cannes Film Festival this Sunday, which should be the finale for him), the famed writer-director will move on.
"I'm doing a film called 'Red Tails' which is about fighter pilots during World War Two. I'm doing 'Indiana Jones' and that film at the same time. I'm producing those two. And then I'm going to go back and do my own movies. It'll be about a year or two."
And if his next films don't get quite the audience that "Star Wars" keeps bringing in? That's just fine with George.
"I'm letting go. You sort of reach a point where you have to sort of plan your life out and I'm sort of at that point. I mean, I love 'Star Wars,' but I'm not going to spend the rest of my life doing it. There are other things that I want to accomplish before I leave. I want to go back to the kind of movies that I made before I was making theatrical films," he says. "Now I can start doing smaller independent films, these other movies that I've been planning to do for the last thirty years."