In 1994, George W. Lucas Jr, the billionaire creator of the Star Wars juggernaut, announced to the world that he was about to embark on a new creative journey by making three prequels to his venerated Star Wars trilogy. Not only did Lucas’ announcement signal his intent to return to creatively safe territory, it also revealed a self-proclaimed “Victorian”, who, since the release of the first Star Wars film in the summer of 1977, had become a firmly entrenched technophile. George also announced his return to directing. He would get behind the camera after an absence of twenty years.
The first of these Star Wars prequels, he promised, would ring in the dawn of a new age of digital filmmaking – an era that would, in essence, provide filmmakers with a canvas of unlimited size, and empower them with a palette of limitless choice. In other words, Lucas was promising a cinematic revolution, catalysed by his pioneering commitment to digital technology, and one that was going to be just as epoch-making as the introduction of sound and color sixty years before. Yet no one could really foresee how all this new technology was going to revolutionize the art of filmmaking, not even George Lucas himself.
Get the whole story in part two of “STAR WARS THE PHANTOM EDIT”: THE FAN’S CUT>>>
