George Lucas: Storyteller with a Twinkle In His Eye

Timeless themes are the secret to making movies, and no one knows that better than the flannel-wearing Dr. Caligari himself, George Lucas. Your ordinary director is content to skim Syd Field's "Screenplay" a couple times and invent thinly diguised versions of real people. George Lucas, on the other hand, channels ancient civilizations.

That's his gift. You could think of it as a whiskbroom reaching out from the mists of time, dusting off some part of us that we've neglected in our modern hustle and bustle. And he did it time and time again in the 15 years before Phantom Menace.

A George Lucas movie is a handwritten invitation to a time before visual storytelling — a time when tales of brave, curious fighting men and wicked, creepy-crawly creatures were but whispered of around campfires.

So sit down and listen a while... won't you?

Willow (1988) That baby floating in the reeds looks familiar. His name wouldn't happen to be Moses, would it? Funny you mention that. No, this is a new story, for a generation without a hero to call its own.

Until 1988, that is, when they got Val Kilmer. And a reluctant hobbit, who goes on a journey and undergoes a transformation, just as Joseph Campbell predicted. These two take on the forces of Queen Bavmorda. Today she's a household word, synonymous with wicked, scheming black magic. But that's only because she resonated with audiences, as a character they've seen before. Mind if we call her... Morgan Le Fay?

You'll find yourself recognizing age-old themes. But also chuckling at the comic misfortunes of the mischevious pixie Rool (Kevin Pollack in his first role) — and forced to agree with the slogan on the VHS box: "Adventure doesn't get any bigger than this."

Howard the Duck (1986) After putting the smackdown on a monster in the Cedar Forest, the ancient Babylonian hero Gilgamesh took a trip to the world of the dead. Howard the Duck also goes on a hero's journey. He leaves his comfortable Duck World for a strange realm of bizarre creatures called... Pittsburgh.

Howard the Duck is alive with symbolic meaning. Critics didn't notice, but Lea Thompson's character is "the Wild Woman," a figure we see time and time again. In Russian myth, the Wild Women have abundant tresses, and lurk in the woods dancing, waiting to seduce human lovers. Here, she's a New Waver who hopes to get it on with a duck.

The principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a scientist who becomes the mind-controlled slave of the Dark Overlords of the Universe — leading to jokes about how the chili couldn't have been that bad. He's the figure of the Bewildered Priest, the person in our story who is maddened by the glimpse beyond the Wall of Paradise. And Tim Robbins' befuddled scientist is clearly Thoth, Egyptian science god.

There are also bare-breasted duck women, and a heavy-set African-American employment counselor whose buttocks Howard is suddenly seized by the urge to bite. This is just Lucas's gift for comic relief, which is a completely different subject.

"Ewoks: The Battle for Endor" (1985) The Natural was a baseball retelling of the King Arthur legend. So sardonic Wilford Brimley — the coach of the New York Knights himself — was the perfect addition to the Star Wars family.

Brimley is Noa, an old space trader who has crashed on the forest moon of Endor, where there are still props left over from Return of the Jedi. After the Ewoks find him in a shack, he grudgingly agrees to help them fight the unforgettable King Terak. (Thank you for your support, they tell him.) There's a legend of an old woman in a hut that moves on chicken legs. Replace "hut" with "space cruiser" and "chicken legs" with "hyperdrive," and I think you'll know what I'm getting at.

"The Star Wars Holiday Special" (1979) Will Chewbacca make it home for Life Day, the Wookie version of Christmas? More galactic movie magic, this special gives viewers the kind of thing they wanted to see after Star Wars: a Wookie family howling at each other for two hours. Watch for Art Carney as a Star Wars equivalent of The Coyote, the Native American "trickster" figure who awakens the libidinous subsconscious of Chewbacca's dad, Itchy, by exposing him to virtual reality disco pornography.

The Radioland Murders (1994) American Graffiti is really Episode IV of a heroic saga Lucas has long wanted to tell. And More American Graffiti is Episode V. But every saga has a beginning. As Curt Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss) drives around Modesto in American Graffiti, he's unaware of the slapstick adventures his parents had. For Roger and Penny Henderson (Brian Benben and Mary Stuart Masterson) are his ancestors in the leads in this screwball whodunit comedy set in 1939.

Typical exchange: "I'm the va-va-va-voom girl with the va-va-va-voom voice. Who the hell are you?" "I'm the Chicago cop with the sh-sh-short temper!"

Unfortunately, the film only made $1.3 million in theaters. Were audiences not prepared for this subtle retelling of the Ramayana myth? Was it true, as some complained, that American Graffiti was never supposed to be a nutty, laff-a-minute comedy in the first place?

Perhaps. But fandom dies hard, and those of us who are still waiting to find out how the girl in the T-bird got her T-bird, and how Ron Howard's character met his girlfriend, are willing to give Lucas another chance. And maybe, by 2007, the original master of movie myth will have done us proud.

— John Gorenfeld (john@flakmag.com)