Patron comes up to check out a book, “Masters of Cinema: George Lucas”
Me: ehhhhhh… I don’t know that I’d call Lucas a ‘Master of Cinema’
Patron, shrugging: Well, Star Wars isn’t for everybody
Me, pointing to Star Wars necklace: No, you don’t understand. Star Wars was a mess of a film. The first several cuts didn’t make a single bit of sense to any of the test audiences. Everyone walked out confused. Lucas and the editor fought constantly, and eventually the editor quit. Or Lucas fired him. I don’t remember. Anyway, it wasn’t until Marcia Lucas stepped in and recut the movie from scratch that we actually got a sensible picture.
Patron: Wait what
Me: Oh and it gets worse. See, Marcia edited that first trilogy, though she wasn’t credited for Empire, and was the only person to win an Oscar for any of it. Then, in 1983 she and Lucas divorced and the asshole blackballed her from the film industry.
Patron: what
Me: She never worked again.
Patron: Is all that true?
Me: Most of it! I’m a little fuzzy on some of the details.
Patron: Jeez
Me: If you think that’s bad, there’s this documentary called “I am your father”, about Dave Prowse. He’s the guy in the Vader suit but not the voice. Lucas was always very cold towards him and treated him very poorly. You should check it out, it’s miserable.
Patron: …I’m coming back to this library.
I love stuff like this. Well, libraries (of course) but the facts that folks can share that you knew nothing about. Awesome.
Thanks! I try to know bits of fun trivia (but really, I just obsess over Star Wars a lot).