It truly is a one of a kind museum. You'll see some of the most famous art in the world from people like Norman Rockwell and Frida Kahlo on the same walls as a random strip from Doonesbury or The Far Side. You'll walk through a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel shortly before walking through a reproduction of the podrace from Phantom Menace. You'll go to the theater and see a 60+ year old experimental short film made without a camera by pressing moth wings into film and then a few minutes later they'll show an episode of Cowboy Bebop.
It's such a bizarre and idiosyncratic collection that the museum itself inspires as much thought as the art in it.
Nothing makes me more excited about this museum than the turnover in curatorial leadership throughout the project, capped off by Lucas assuming the title himself.
Give me his unrestrained vision. Put it in my veins.
It's reminiscent of the difference between the Star Wars prequel and sequel trilogies. Regardless of your opinions on the quality of those movies, the biggest differentiator is that the prequels were the singular vision of a self-funded artist while the sequels are a corporate product of a global media empire. Even if the latter produces a better movie, it ends up sanding off many of the edges and those edges are where a lot of us found the magic of Star Wars. The Lucas Museum is similar in that it very clearly is the product of an excentric billionaire rather than the same type of curatorial thinking you will find in other art museums.
These are two crappy choices, and it's not a coincidence that a resource strapped filmmaker having to engage with many skilled artisans to sharpen their "singular vision" resulted in much better films (the original trilogy) than either of those two.
If you think he was significantly resourceful strapped making Empire and Jedi you are mistaken. At the time they were some of the most expensive films ever made.
Mostly self-funded too (a higher percentage for Jedi than Empire) so even in the original trilogy it was still Lucas signing the checks and making the ultimate decisions. Him being willing to delegate more in those days was personality driven rather than financially driven.
Let’s not forget though, the prequel trilogies were—not good. Lucas is at his best when he has collaborators who can help take the half-baked ideas and fully bake them.
They were better than good. I wouldn't call them masterpieces (my biggest critique is that they tried to do too much in II which messed up the pacing of Anakin's arc) but they're great films.
Yes, but while I may prefer "good" when it comes to the multiplex, I much prefer "interesting" when it comes to my art museums and Lucas's prequels and museum are both very interesting.
Phantom Menace is a super fun movie. Pure Star Wars. I've used it as an entry to the series for all of my kids (then I skip ahead to the OT to not ruin the twist).
I've generally found that most people who didn't like are people who were already adults when it came out, and had a different vision of what they wanted it to be.
Yeah, I think that's one of the keys: the lore in the prequels is so rich (and was so thoroughly fleshed out in stuff like the Clone Wars series) that if you're just directionally on board with the plot, the worldbuilding, the characters, you can read between the lines and just see the whole thing in a better light than the actual film on screen provides for itself.
For me personally, the prequels were very much an "emperor has no clothes" moment. There's a lot of "meh" in the prequels--in the writing, in the story, and in the direction. Some of the scenes between Anakin and Padme are just downright painful. But I could also see someone being able to overlook at least some of that, especially if they first saw the films when they were young. So I'm not here to complain about any of that.
I can sum up my biggest problem with the prequels (well, with Lucas really) in one word: midichlorians.
When he decided to explain how the force works, he took something that had been so eloquently portrayed in the OT*, and reduced it to something banal and mechanical. And there was no reason to do that. It's not like Darth Vader needed a blood sample to know that Obi-Wan was on the Death Star. And yet Lucas chose to do it anyway.
That choice showed such a baffling level of cluelessness. Like here's this guy, this supposed visionary, who has carte blanche to do whatever he wants (with what is supposedly his own story, no less) and he just.. doesn't really seem to get it?
It really made me question whether the OT were as a good as they were because of him or in spite of him. Apparently I got something out of the story that he did not.
* I'm referring particularly to Yoda's speech to Luke about the force in ESB. "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter!". Beautiful writing, still gives me goosebumps. No wonder ESB is often considered the best one.
> That choice showed such a baffling level of cluelessness. Like here's this guy, this supposed visionary, who has carte blanche to do whatever he wants (with what is supposedly his own story, no less) and he just.. doesn't really seem to get it?
> It really made me question whether the OT were as a good as they were because of him or in spite of him.
He didn’t get it with the original trilogy either, but had Marsha Lucas to tell him no and patiently explain how normal people work. For the prequels he was surrounded by yes-men.
> Some of the scenes between Anakin and Padme are just downright painful.
The worse part of that is seeing clips from between takes: they actually have chemistry! They were actually directed to be unrealistic and unbelievable.
> It really made me question whether the OT were as a good as they were because of him or in spite of him.
Harrison Ford is why Han Solo says "I know" in response to Leia's "I love you". Contrasts directly with Anakin/Padme. "in spite of him" is at least a big chunk of it.
It can be both. Good art tends to allow a measure of interpretation outside of what the artists originally intended.
Dunno how in tune you are with random factoids but Lucas is on the record saying that his favorite episode in "The Clone Wars" is "A Sunny Day in the Void", where a bunch of droids are stuck in the desert. So...yeah, there's definitely _something_ he gets out of this series that might not line up with the fanbase at large.
He also wanted to double down on the midichlorians and the Whills for the sequels, so it definitely wasn't a one-off for him.
As for me, I don't hate the idea that a spiritual quality can have a physical component to it. (Makes you think about if a parting of the Red Sea or an ax head floating are "truly supernatural" events or more "natural, with mechanisms we can't understand".) I suppose it's a bit coarse that it's used to boil mysticism down to a number for comparison, and it certainly wasn't _necessary_ to move the plot along, though.
In all seriousness, I think I would have preferred the [Renaissance masterpiece] -> [Pop culture artifact] progression to have been a surprise. People seem to be more and more focused on expressing their own exuberance and less on preserving for everyone else the experience they put so much stock into. It's a bit selfish and hypocritical.
I knew who Luke's father was years before I saw Empire, and I can only imagine what a shock that must have been to people who didn't. I can only imagine. It would have been nice to have known, though.
> I think I would have preferred the [Renaissance masterpiece] -> [Pop culture artifact] progression to have been a surprise.
I never imagined I would be accused of posting spoilers for a museum, but even if we accept the idea that a museum can have spoilers, I think you're reading too much into what I said. There's no overt progression in the curation. I was simply detailing what I was thinking as I browsed the museum. In fact, the museum seems to be specifically designed to let the visitors experience the museum however they want. It was just my personal experience that this attempt to background the curation paradoxically had me thinking more about that curation than if they took a more traditional approach.
I accidently bumped into him at the Borders Bookstore in San Rafael back in the late 90's. I was looking at the new hardbound SciFi books and he was looking at the Star Wars books on the top shelf. I just said "excuse me" and he said "no problem" and we returned to our tasks.
My son used to wait on him at a restaurant in Chicago when he came by to visit his now wife. My son, being a professional actor, had to use his best skills to treat him as just another customer
Isn't multiple floors of bookshelves with open central area a very common theme in large fancy libraries? For example British museum reading room, Oval room in France national library, Morgan Library & Museum, Rose reading room in New York Public Library.
The shelves can't be very high to keep them easily accessible, adding additional levels solves that. Open central area with higher ceiling gives more natural lighting.
I'm openly (very) curious to hear the reasoning behind that statement, not having lived in SF.
From what I've read, George Lucas funded 100% of the project, and the Presidio trust rejected it. Then he tried building the museum in Chicago, but he was sued and blocked for a couple years and eventually gave up. Finally he found a spot in LA. IIRC the project took 12 years. The same source mentioned SF hasn't started any major museum projects since 2016.
America is falling behind on public works. We used to have the largest aquarium in the world, and now we're sitting at #5 or #6.
So I am genuinely curious why you and others are opponents of public works projects? I honestly do not understand.
The presidio is huge though and has a ton of old military warehouses? Perhaps it could have taken one of the major commercial buildings already there. Is sports basement warehouse located entirely in the presidio or any of the other major commercial enterprises there really a better fit than a cool museum.
Don’t know if you’re kidding, but I strongly disagree. We need to radically expand housing in SF, to provide enough luxury high-rise apartments with waterfront views for the upcoming wave of AI IPO multi-millionaires.
It was an impasse. Chicago wants the development money and tourism, but it also holds pretty strongly to the idea that the lakefront belongs to everyone and shouldn't be developed with private money and closed off. Yes, it was a parking lot. But it was a public parking lot.
That means sometimes these kinds of developments don't happen and you can argue either way. Lucas got a little pushy about how he wanted the museum to be developed and also turned down alternate sites. So he took his ball and left and that's okay too.
Nope. None of the frivolous NIMBY lawsuits ever made it to trial, nor was the museum ever a defendant in any of them (it was the city being sued for approving it). I don't see what you gain from misrepresenting this years after the fact.
The city could've gone to trial for the one case you're referencing, and would've won given enough money and time, but by that point the museum had already started investigating other locations.
The Art Institute of Chicago is not on the lakefront. There are a handful of buildings east of Lake Shore Drive, with the most notable being the Field Museum, The Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, McCormick Place, Lake Point Tower and Soldier Field. McCormick and Lake Point Tower are the newest of these, with the former built in 1967 (replacing an earlier structure built in 1960 but destroyed by fire) and the latter in 1968. The others were all built in the 1920s and 30s (the Art Institute building, which is in Grant Park, with roughly half of its structure east of the trench with the IC and South Shore electric railways and the rest fronting Michigan Avenue, had the older section built in the 1890s and notably was the only construction in Grant Park to not be opposed by Montgomery Ward¹). The proposed location for the museum in Chicago would have been in land owned by the Chicago Park District which is part of Grant Park and is meant to be free and open to the public and would have been a privatization of that land (it’s worth noting that the Shedd, Adler and Field properties, along with Soldier Field are all owned by the park district and not their primary tenants).
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1. The person, not the company named after him which he founded.
It truly is a one of a kind museum. You'll see some of the most famous art in the world from people like Norman Rockwell and Frida Kahlo on the same walls as a random strip from Doonesbury or The Far Side. You'll walk through a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel shortly before walking through a reproduction of the podrace from Phantom Menace. You'll go to the theater and see a 60+ year old experimental short film made without a camera by pressing moth wings into film and then a few minutes later they'll show an episode of Cowboy Bebop.
It's such a bizarre and idiosyncratic collection that the museum itself inspires as much thought as the art in it.
Nothing makes me more excited about this museum than the turnover in curatorial leadership throughout the project, capped off by Lucas assuming the title himself.
Give me his unrestrained vision. Put it in my veins.
It's reminiscent of the difference between the Star Wars prequel and sequel trilogies. Regardless of your opinions on the quality of those movies, the biggest differentiator is that the prequels were the singular vision of a self-funded artist while the sequels are a corporate product of a global media empire. Even if the latter produces a better movie, it ends up sanding off many of the edges and those edges are where a lot of us found the magic of Star Wars. The Lucas Museum is similar in that it very clearly is the product of an excentric billionaire rather than the same type of curatorial thinking you will find in other art museums.
These are two crappy choices, and it's not a coincidence that a resource strapped filmmaker having to engage with many skilled artisans to sharpen their "singular vision" resulted in much better films (the original trilogy) than either of those two.
If you think he was significantly resourceful strapped making Empire and Jedi you are mistaken. At the time they were some of the most expensive films ever made.
Mostly self-funded too (a higher percentage for Jedi than Empire) so even in the original trilogy it was still Lucas signing the checks and making the ultimate decisions. Him being willing to delegate more in those days was personality driven rather than financially driven.
Let’s not forget though, the prequel trilogies were—not good. Lucas is at his best when he has collaborators who can help take the half-baked ideas and fully bake them.
They were better than good. I wouldn't call them masterpieces (my biggest critique is that they tried to do too much in II which messed up the pacing of Anakin's arc) but they're great films.
Meesa no take midichlorians, meesa go crazy.
Jar Jar is for kids; if you watch with an eight-year-old and hear her laugh at his antics it makes watching Phantom Menace all the better.
There are us who believe in Darth Jar Jar!
Yes, but while I may prefer "good" when it comes to the multiplex, I much prefer "interesting" when it comes to my art museums and Lucas's prequels and museum are both very interesting.
This is no longer the nerd or even normie consensus (if it ever was)
IMHO, the best one is the one directed by Irvin Kershner: The Empire Strikes Back.
Obligatory link to Red Letter Media’s critique of Phantom Menace
https://youtu.be/FxKtZmQgxrI
CGI already did that. It turned out… ok
> Give me his unrestrained vision. Put it in my veins.
His unrestrained vision is The Phantom Menace. It’s the sand dialogue. It’s JarJar.
Phantom Menace is a super fun movie. Pure Star Wars. I've used it as an entry to the series for all of my kids (then I skip ahead to the OT to not ruin the twist).
I've generally found that most people who didn't like are people who were already adults when it came out, and had a different vision of what they wanted it to be.
I loved Phantom Menace as a kid - watched it like 3 times in the movies, had a bootlegged VHS that I watched multiple times too.
And after some deep-dive videos I learned that I've missed so much in those prequels. So for lore-heads and theorists there is a lot to chew on.
They are enjoyable movies for everyone!
Yeah, I think that's one of the keys: the lore in the prequels is so rich (and was so thoroughly fleshed out in stuff like the Clone Wars series) that if you're just directionally on board with the plot, the worldbuilding, the characters, you can read between the lines and just see the whole thing in a better light than the actual film on screen provides for itself.
For me personally, the prequels were very much an "emperor has no clothes" moment. There's a lot of "meh" in the prequels--in the writing, in the story, and in the direction. Some of the scenes between Anakin and Padme are just downright painful. But I could also see someone being able to overlook at least some of that, especially if they first saw the films when they were young. So I'm not here to complain about any of that.
I can sum up my biggest problem with the prequels (well, with Lucas really) in one word: midichlorians.
When he decided to explain how the force works, he took something that had been so eloquently portrayed in the OT*, and reduced it to something banal and mechanical. And there was no reason to do that. It's not like Darth Vader needed a blood sample to know that Obi-Wan was on the Death Star. And yet Lucas chose to do it anyway.
That choice showed such a baffling level of cluelessness. Like here's this guy, this supposed visionary, who has carte blanche to do whatever he wants (with what is supposedly his own story, no less) and he just.. doesn't really seem to get it?
It really made me question whether the OT were as a good as they were because of him or in spite of him. Apparently I got something out of the story that he did not.
* I'm referring particularly to Yoda's speech to Luke about the force in ESB. "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter!". Beautiful writing, still gives me goosebumps. No wonder ESB is often considered the best one.
> That choice showed such a baffling level of cluelessness. Like here's this guy, this supposed visionary, who has carte blanche to do whatever he wants (with what is supposedly his own story, no less) and he just.. doesn't really seem to get it?
> It really made me question whether the OT were as a good as they were because of him or in spite of him.
He didn’t get it with the original trilogy either, but had Marsha Lucas to tell him no and patiently explain how normal people work. For the prequels he was surrounded by yes-men.
> Some of the scenes between Anakin and Padme are just downright painful.
The worse part of that is seeing clips from between takes: they actually have chemistry! They were actually directed to be unrealistic and unbelievable.
> It really made me question whether the OT were as a good as they were because of him or in spite of him.
Harrison Ford is why Han Solo says "I know" in response to Leia's "I love you". Contrasts directly with Anakin/Padme. "in spite of him" is at least a big chunk of it.
>because of him or in spite of him
It can be both. Good art tends to allow a measure of interpretation outside of what the artists originally intended.
Dunno how in tune you are with random factoids but Lucas is on the record saying that his favorite episode in "The Clone Wars" is "A Sunny Day in the Void", where a bunch of droids are stuck in the desert. So...yeah, there's definitely _something_ he gets out of this series that might not line up with the fanbase at large.
He also wanted to double down on the midichlorians and the Whills for the sequels, so it definitely wasn't a one-off for him.
As for me, I don't hate the idea that a spiritual quality can have a physical component to it. (Makes you think about if a parting of the Red Sea or an ax head floating are "truly supernatural" events or more "natural, with mechanisms we can't understand".) I suppose it's a bit coarse that it's used to boil mysticism down to a number for comparison, and it certainly wasn't _necessary_ to move the plot along, though.
Spoiler warning.
EDIT: Get it? For the Museum of Narrative Art?
In all seriousness, I think I would have preferred the [Renaissance masterpiece] -> [Pop culture artifact] progression to have been a surprise. People seem to be more and more focused on expressing their own exuberance and less on preserving for everyone else the experience they put so much stock into. It's a bit selfish and hypocritical.
I knew who Luke's father was years before I saw Empire, and I can only imagine what a shock that must have been to people who didn't. I can only imagine. It would have been nice to have known, though.
> I think I would have preferred the [Renaissance masterpiece] -> [Pop culture artifact] progression to have been a surprise.
I never imagined I would be accused of posting spoilers for a museum, but even if we accept the idea that a museum can have spoilers, I think you're reading too much into what I said. There's no overt progression in the curation. I was simply detailing what I was thinking as I browsed the museum. In fact, the museum seems to be specifically designed to let the visitors experience the museum however they want. It was just my personal experience that this attempt to background the curation paradoxically had me thinking more about that curation than if they took a more traditional approach.
Brother it's a museum, not the newest Marvel movie. There aren't "spoilers".
I can't believe they spoiled the ending for me.
Now anybody who reads these comments won't get the full effect of the Far Side plot twist
It hardly makes sense to conceive of a museum as having spoilers, since you go there to see the things that you know are there.
This group photo from the opening gala doesn't have all the stars that were present that night, but what a wild assortment of talent this is. https://deadline.com/2026/09/lucas-museum-opening-hollywood-...
Is that Frank Miller next to Spielberg? Quite a crew!
I used to see him (and occasionally his wife) eating breakfast at "greasy spoon" restaurant called Hilda's in San Anselmo (Marin County, CA).
Hilda's sadly closed for good in the past year or so.
I accidently bumped into him at the Borders Bookstore in San Rafael back in the late 90's. I was looking at the new hardbound SciFi books and he was looking at the Star Wars books on the top shelf. I just said "excuse me" and he said "no problem" and we returned to our tasks.
He pops up in the background of a random documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC9RI8_QYmw
Maybe that's when he read about Coruscant, picking up Heir to the Empire in there.
My son used to wait on him at a restaurant in Chicago when he came by to visit his now wife. My son, being a professional actor, had to use his best skills to treat him as just another customer
I used to see him often around one of his homes in Russian Hill. We used to live around the corner :).
Obligatory random appearance of George.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC9RI8_QYmw
Very cool! Can’t help but think that the museum library is inspired by the main hall of the Stockholm City Library https://biblioteket.stockholm.se/about-the-stockholm-public-...
Isn't multiple floors of bookshelves with open central area a very common theme in large fancy libraries? For example British museum reading room, Oval room in France national library, Morgan Library & Museum, Rose reading room in New York Public Library.
The shelves can't be very high to keep them easily accessible, adding additional levels solves that. Open central area with higher ceiling gives more natural lighting.
Definitely has similar vibes
Fortunately, that thing didn't get built in the Presidio of San Francisco. That was proposed a few years ago.
I'm openly (very) curious to hear the reasoning behind that statement, not having lived in SF.
From what I've read, George Lucas funded 100% of the project, and the Presidio trust rejected it. Then he tried building the museum in Chicago, but he was sued and blocked for a couple years and eventually gave up. Finally he found a spot in LA. IIRC the project took 12 years. The same source mentioned SF hasn't started any major museum projects since 2016.
America is falling behind on public works. We used to have the largest aquarium in the world, and now we're sitting at #5 or #6.
So I am genuinely curious why you and others are opponents of public works projects? I honestly do not understand.
It's a gorgeous park in a place with very little space left. ILM already takes up some of its space. That's probably enough reason.
Need to leave some room for Starfleet Academy as well. Anyway I'm glad it came to Exposition park, which needed some love.
The presidio is huge though and has a ton of old military warehouses? Perhaps it could have taken one of the major commercial buildings already there. Is sports basement warehouse located entirely in the presidio or any of the other major commercial enterprises there really a better fit than a cool museum.
My objection is mostly personal. I have or can make reason to go to SF. LA, less so.
Why is that fortunate? Seems like a loss for San Francisco whose arts scene used to be thriving.
>"Seems like a loss for San Francisco whose arts scene used to be thriving."
No no. San Francisco must be preserved in state as it existed in 1970 for all time, you see.
Don’t know if you’re kidding, but I strongly disagree. We need to radically expand housing in SF, to provide enough luxury high-rise apartments with waterfront views for the upcoming wave of AI IPO multi-millionaires.
It's obviously sarcastic
So was mine
Fortunately for Los Angeles, unfortunately for San Francisco!
We're happy to have it. It's a gorgeous building and I can't wait to see the weird museum exhibits.
I think he wanted to have it on Treasure Island at one point also
And Chicago lake front on museum campus.
I'm told Chicago screwed themselves on that
It was an impasse. Chicago wants the development money and tourism, but it also holds pretty strongly to the idea that the lakefront belongs to everyone and shouldn't be developed with private money and closed off. Yes, it was a parking lot. But it was a public parking lot.
That means sometimes these kinds of developments don't happen and you can argue either way. Lucas got a little pushy about how he wanted the museum to be developed and also turned down alternate sites. So he took his ball and left and that's okay too.
Chicagoans fought quite hard to preserve the parking lot it would have replaced. I hope they are happy with their choice.
I hope you are happy with their choice, because it would have required overturning this [1] to build. The museum lost in federal court, BTW.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Central_Railroad_Co._...
Note that the museum was planned to be built on the actual land that was the subject of that Supreme Court case ;)
> The museum lost in federal court, BTW.
Nope. None of the frivolous NIMBY lawsuits ever made it to trial, nor was the museum ever a defendant in any of them (it was the city being sued for approving it). I don't see what you gain from misrepresenting this years after the fact.
The city could've gone to trial for the one case you're referencing, and would've won given enough money and time, but by that point the museum had already started investigating other locations.
He gave up in Chicago because the federal judge wasn’t ruling in their favor.
“They would have won given enough time and money” is certainly debatable, but this ruling was ultimately what ended the museum in Chicago:
https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/illinois/il...
In federal court. And sure, if you want, you can put “lost” in scare quotes and claim I’m misrepresenting things.
Hey solider field south lot is very important 8 days a year.
Not for much longer.
He also wanted to put it on the lakefront of Chicago, but that’s not what Chicago’s lakefront is for.
Because existing buildings like the Art Institute of Chicago are obviously illusions. </s>
The Art Institute of Chicago is not on the lakefront. There are a handful of buildings east of Lake Shore Drive, with the most notable being the Field Museum, The Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, McCormick Place, Lake Point Tower and Soldier Field. McCormick and Lake Point Tower are the newest of these, with the former built in 1967 (replacing an earlier structure built in 1960 but destroyed by fire) and the latter in 1968. The others were all built in the 1920s and 30s (the Art Institute building, which is in Grant Park, with roughly half of its structure east of the trench with the IC and South Shore electric railways and the rest fronting Michigan Avenue, had the older section built in the 1890s and notably was the only construction in Grant Park to not be opposed by Montgomery Ward¹). The proposed location for the museum in Chicago would have been in land owned by the Chicago Park District which is part of Grant Park and is meant to be free and open to the public and would have been a privatization of that land (it’s worth noting that the Shedd, Adler and Field properties, along with Soldier Field are all owned by the park district and not their primary tenants).
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1. The person, not the company named after him which he founded.