This short has an interesting number of factors going for it. First of all, the puncturing of George’s ascension to godhood was much needed. Second, this short proves once again that low-budget can still look slick and polished if you want it to. Finally, it shows that Internet exposure can build a buzz on your film if your film doesn’t suck. And this one definitely doesn’t.
What Joe Nussbaum has crafted here is a short, sharp and hilarious look at what may have given the college-age George Lucas some of the inspiration that later turned up in his blockbuster movies. Clever reworkings of some classic Star Wars bits reveal the truth: casual drug use, bad clothing/hairstyles, slacker student lifestyles, rampant alcoholism and all the rest that made up the campus experience of the 60s are there for the seeing in Lucas’ trilogy. You’ll certainly never look at those classic films again without snickering after seeing this short.
“George Lucas in Love takes” its (obvious) inspiration from Shakespeare in Love, but gets to the point faster and with no wasted space. Joe should get an Oscar(tm) for Entertaining Yet Efficient, if such a category existed. A worthy successor to “Hardware Wars” and “Closet Encounters of the Nerd Kind,” and every bit as good or better than those efforts. The three films together (a trilogy?) would make a dandy DVD.
