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A man with such beliefs should have simple habits, and Lucas does. He dresses casually and inexpensively, in corduroys, jeans or khakis, tennis shoes and sleeveless sweaters. The Lucas house, which was built in 1869, is large and comfortable, with a spacious view, but the pleasant middle-class neighborhood is not the kind of area successful film makers usually choose. Only rarely do the Lucases, who have been married since 1969, even visit Los Angeles, where some people make movies.
Marcia is a talented film editor, with credits on Taxi Driver and New York, New York, as well as Star Wars, for which she shared an Oscar. On Jedi she was chiefly responsible for the emotional scenes, the "dying and crying," as her husband says. "I love film editing," she says. "I have an innate ability to take good material and make it better, and to take bad material and make it fair. I think I'm even an editor in life." She has taken charge of the layout and decoration of Lucasfilm's offices, creating a remarkably pleasant work space, with light, airy offices and numerous, much used kitchens for the employees.
Describing their life, her husband says, "We're basically simple people, with simple wants and needs."
Hamill remembers once being invited out to dinner by Lucas, only to be taken to the local Taco Hut. "I should have known," he says ruefully, "that George wouldn't go to a place with tablecloths and waiters."
Lucas says that his two-year sabbatical could be extended for the rest of his life. He would be happy, he claims, to do nothing more than be with his family, read and watch over the development of his center for creative film makers, a 3,000-acre complex—called Skywalker Ranch, naturally—a few miles north of Lucasfilm. Will he retire? Most of his friends doubt it. "Every time George is making a film, he talks about retiring and never working again," says Spielberg. "But the minute it is finished, he is already thinking up his next opus. I can see him running Lucasfilm, making three to five pictures a year, and then some day returning to directing, which is where I think he belongs. I believe his destiny is behind the camera."
Ironically, says Spielberg, Lucas probably does not fully comprehend why the Star Wars saga has generated so much affection among its huge following. "When you get close to something, you never see the magic," he says. "You only see it through the eyes of the audience." Soon Lucas will have that opportunity once again.
—By Gerald Clarke. Reported by Denise Worrell/Los Angeles