"I've retired from directing. If I directed Empire, then I’d have to direct the next one and the next for the rest of my life. I’ve never really liked directing. I became a director because I didn’t like directors telling me how to edit, and I became a writer because I had to write something in order to be able to direct something. So I did everything out of necessity"
-George Lucas
“George says he’s going to retire, but I say, ‘Don’t do that,’ because there aren’t too many people around who can do what he does as well as he does. If he’s going to drop out for a while, I think that’s a really sad thing."
-Ken Ralston
“I tried to be in complete control, to try and do everything, and it almost killed me.”
-George Lucas
The Empire Strikes Back was a titanic hit. More so than Star Wars. $209,398,025 at the box office for a budget of $18 million. Despite going over budget and came close to being delayed, with other financial and legal issues laying on top of Lucas, the sequel outperformed expectations. It had changed cinema and those who participated in the film project no one, even Lucas at points, expected to ever be a success.Nevertheless, it took a toll on the participants. George Lucas namely was fined by the Director's Guild of America (DGA) for placing including "A Lucasfilm Production" without first crediting Irvin Kersher, the director of the Empire Strikes Back at the beginning of the film. Frustrated with the Establishment, he resigned from the DGA, a decision others around him, friends such as filmmaker and cinematographer Haskell Wexler said would limit his options to hire American-based directors. His relationship back at home was strained, as Marcia found George to be a workaholic to a detrimental point and spent less and less time around her, something she wondered was due to George's potential envy of her winning an Award for Star Wars while he didn't.
But handling the financial empire was his top priority as it allowed him to finally break free from 'men in suits' and pursue films out of his volition. He even dreamed of LucasFilm as "a film center where people worked on each other’s films—and also to promote regional filmmaking, to have a home base for Filmmakers,” said Jane Bay, assistant to George Lucas.
With his newfound wealth and power though, he could also afford to live a bit of a grander life. For one he purchased his very own Ferrari.
His second priority was to finally finish the trilogy and end his responsibility on the nearly decade long project. So far he's only been in contact with Ralph McQuarrie and dozens of other artists for more artwork, art that would frequently radically influence the ongoing script, producer Howard Kazanjian (who took over duties from Gary Kurtz and was a producer on Raiders of the Lost Ark), and Lawrence Kasdan to work through the script. In some ways, he found it more of breeze to work with the current preproduction crew, in particular Kazanjian who did his best with whatever Lucas asked of him and always looked for opportunities cut costs. 'Effecient' was what Lucas liked to think of Kazanjian.
On one faithful day, however, he received an invitation to enter the newly formed Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race. Witht he purchase of a Ferrari a while back, it rekindled his need for speed and saw an opportunity to take a break from overlooking Lucasfilm and from working on Revenge of the Jedi.
The race began smoothly, with George handling himself surprisingly well, though given that he has always been into races, as evident in American Grafiti, it might not be that big of a surprise.
On the eighth out of ten laps though, tragedy struck on the tracks as one of the cars went spiraling out of control and collided violently.
Hours later, news hit the airwaves that the occupant inside the crash was George Lucas, creator of Star Wars.
“She was really the warmth and the heart of those films, a good person George could talk to, bounce ideas off of, who would tell him when he was wrong."
-Mark Hamill
