Lucas Wars by Laurent Hopman and Renaud Roche. Translated by Jeremy Melloul. 23rd St., 2025. 9781250367402. 186pp. Includes a detailed bibliography plus a portfolio, commentary, and a few pages of notes on Roche’s creative process from roughs to finished pages.
I’ve been making my way through Rinzler’s The Making of the Empire Strikes Back for a while; I love its details, but it’s not the kind of book I read in a rush. I read Lucas Wars in one sitting.
It’s the story of George Lucas, and mostly it’s about him struggling to make the first Star Wars film. From early scripts to production problems to everyone who did not get the movie, it’s amazing that it ever got made, let alone that it succeeded. My favorite bits include the pages that dramatize early script concepts; I had read about most of it in Star Wars art books and the like, but Roche’s drawings are so full of drama and joy that they have something extra.
It’s great to read about Lucas’s focus and his belief in the movie, and to understand how much he sacrificed to bring it to the screen. There are pages that show the making of key props, sounds, and costumes, plus the founding of Industrial Light and Magic to handle Star Wars’s special effects. I loved the way Lucas confused some of his collaborators, especially in how he wanted the movie shot. Even the story of the contracts, including those of the movie’s stars and the one between Lucas and the studio, was fascinating. My favorite thing: I had heard the rumor about a detail in Mark Hamill’s contract regarding Star Wars merchandise, and I’m so happy to know it’s true.
