Posted on 12/21/2015 2:09:24 PM PST by Flick Lives
GEORGE Lucas may have been the brains behind Star Wars, but it was his ex-wife Marcia Lucas who gave the film its heart.
Today, she has largely been erased from the history books.
Marcia, who won the 1977 Academy Award for Film Editing along with Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch for her work on Star Wars, was instrumental in shaping the film's iconic moments that would propel it to the status of cultural phenomenon.
In his 2008 book,The Secret History of Star Wars, journalist Michael Kaminski dedicates an entire chapter to Marcia Lucas, nee Griffin, who was once described by biographer Dale Pollock as the director's 'secret weapon'.
Marcia, who had edited Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver, as well as Lucas' earlier American Graffiti with Verna Fields, for which the pair earned an Academy Award nomination in 1974, first met Lucas in 1967.
Fields, one of the few female editors in a male-dominated industry, brought in Lucas, then a film school student, to work with Marcia on a government-funded documentary. Locked in a small editing room together, the pair were soon an item. They married in 1969.
'She was a knockout,' filmmaker John Milius recalled. "We all wondered how little George got this great looking girl. And smart too, obsessed with films. And she was a better editor than he was."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Interesting article on how Lucas' ex-wife's editing of the original Star Wars included iconic scenes; and it might help explain why the prequels were so awful.
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"You can see the huge difference in the films that he does now and the films that he did when he was married," Hamill pointed out in the 2005 interview, in a not-so-subtle dig at the prequels.
Marriage spoils a man, yaknow.. but the woman bears fruit anyway..
bflr
Anyone who wants to know more about just how much Marcia Lucas did for the original film should read How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise by Chris Taylor
If I remember correctly, she was the one who rescued Princess Leia. Leia was going to be a stereotypical princess in a tower, an object to be rescued. It was she who gave the princess spunk, who had Leia get them out of the corridor by shooting the wall and dropping into the trash bin.
Or at least gets child support*, alimony, the house, the car and anything of value...
*not one thin dime of which is required to anyth so gross as to, you know, actually support the child!
George Lucas' biggest victory in Hollywood was convincing the studio to give him merchandising rights to Star Wars.
She came up with killing off Obi-Wan in the original movie.
George had written himself into a corner and didn’t know how to work him into the finale.
George got the merchandising rights because nobody wanted them. Before Star Wars scifi was at best, a low to mediocre box office draw. 20th Century Fox thought giving Lucas the merchandising and other ancillary rights rather than a percentage of the box office was a good deal. They were very wrong. Just the same, SW is credited with saving 20th century fox from banktuptcy.
CC
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