The People vs George Lucas Blog

Things are happening fast here! No time for lengthy blog posts. But here are links to my latest exclusive interviews:

Wired.com

Twitch Film

Enjoy!

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Below is a short compilation of the love we’ve received from the media 24 hours after the official announcement of our world premiere. Look for my interview with Wired.com later today!

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‘I’m trying to decide whether or not to spend $1500-plus so I can attend 2010 South by Southwest. […] It may be worth it just to see The People vs. George Lucas.’ (Hollywood Elsewhere)

‘Premiering at the SXSW film festival is this amazing little documentary that shows the everyday battle we all fight in our love/hate relationship with George Lucas. Diving deep into expert opinion and fandom rage and love the directors analyze the deep dark relationship we all have with Lucas and Star Wars.’ (Meredith Woerner, io9.com)

‘Do you think George Lucas is “the Antichrist” and “a little devil disguised as a false prophet”? Or do you believe he’s “unlocked a generation’s imagination”? Either way, the new documentary The People vs. George Lucas, which debuts at next month’s South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, is going to be a must-see. (Scott Edelman, Sci-Fi Wire)

‘As we continue to pick through the massive 191-feature deep lineup of this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival, we continue to find little films that we’ve been excited about for some time. Chief among these gems is the Star Wars-centric documentary The People vs. George Lucas.’ (Neil Miller, Film School Rejects)

‘The Documentary I have been looking forward to the most is The People Vs George Lucas. Mostly because I think these people really do understand the love affair that Star Wars fans have with the franchise.

Only someone you love this much can hurt you so deeply. If a movie upset you so badly, you would just dismiss it and be satisfied to publicly snub it by denying its existence. But not Star Wars fans! We just LOVE this so much that we are so deeply offended that Star Wars has treated us this way, and we just must voice these deep hurts to anyone who will listen.

The doc is finally going to be released at the South by Southwest Film Festival next month and I hope soon after we will get a DVD release.’ (TheMovieBlog.com)

The following Press Release says it all. Keep checking our website for screening updates and World Premiere Party. We hope to see many of you in Austin next month!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GROUNDBREAKING FEATURE DOCUMENTARY “THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS” IN SESSION AT SXSW FILM FESTIVAL

DENVER, CO-February 4, 2010-THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS has been selected for the prestigious Spotlight Premiere section at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas, which runs from March 12th to 21st 2010.

“The team is ecstatic to be screening at SXSW for the film’s world premiere,” says Director Alexandre O. Philippe, “it’s the ideal platform for our launch, as the festival brings together indie films, music and interactive in a unique way that very much reflects the participatory nature of our doc.”

THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS explores the titanic struggle between a Godlike filmmaker and his legions of fans over the most popular franchise in movie history. “At its core, PvsG is the examination of a high-profile, dysfunctional love story”, says Philippe. “George created this humongous and intricate sandbox for us to play in; but is he the sole owner of it, or does it now belong to the ages? And what happens to your role as a creator when your audience claims it owns your art? We basically looked at the conflicted dynamic between George and his fans from a cultural perspective, and asked ourselves those questions.”

The documentary features key testimonies from the likes of Gary Kurtz (Producer of AMERICAN GRAFITTI, STAR WARS and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK), Neil Gaiman (THE SANDMAN, AMERICAN GODS), Dave Prowse (aka Darth Vader), Anthony Waye (Executive Producer of the BOND franchise), and Dale Pollock (George Lucas’s Biographer, Author of SKYWALKING).

THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS inventively combines these exclusive interviews with fan footage from around the globe, and impassioned testimonies from George’s staunchest fans and foes. “Making this film was a huge investigative challenge, considering how many people were afraid to talk to us. George is a very powerful man. But we stuck to our guns and dug deep to deliver a completely uncensored, no-holds-barred factual account, and, ultimately, what we hope will be recognized as a loving tribute,” says DoP Robert Muratore.

“The obstacles we faced made us really think about the rapidly changing filmmaking landscape, and so we used digital technology to facilitate an open call for contributions - allowing us to make a fully participatory documentary”, says Producer Anna Higgs, known for cross-platform work in the UK and Europe. “In many ways, it’s a tribute to the YouTube generation, which Lucas’s advances in technology helped create,” points out Producer Kerry Roy; “fundamentally, it’s about how new media interacts with old media, as well as ownership and copyright in the digital age; and it was our intent from day one to give the fans a prevailing voice in the doc.”

The crew worked relentlessly for two and a half years to produce the most accurate, thorough, and impartial deconstruction of an entire generation’s love-hate for the man (admittedly) responsible for their childhood’s mythos; and they acknowledge that this project wouldn’t have been possible without the extraordinary support and encouragement from the fans and contributing filmmakers. “63,686 frequent flier miles, 634 hours of footage, 14TB of drive space, 126 interviews, 719 fan submissions, thousands of fan emails, and only three death threats. The positives outweigh the negatives, I suppose,” jests Producer Vanessa Philippe.

“We were driven by our own admiration for George, profound love of his films, obsession for their significance in popular culture, and opinions about their legacy as cultural milestones,” says Alexandre Philippe.

I’m apparently so obsessed and/or consumed with George Lucas that I dream of him almost every night. I took a nap this afternoon, and suddenly found myself in a humongous marble hall that clearly didn’t look anything like Skywalker Ranch, but yet was Skywalker Ranch. And George appeared to me as a kind of Mister Rogers, wearing a red checkered shirt, a yellow cardigan, and thin rectangular grandma glasses (complete with beaded eyeglass chains), carrying large expensive vases across the hall. “When is that movie coming out?”, he asked me. “You know… The People vs. Me. I saw the trailer, and it wasn’t all that bad, really. Could’ve been a lot worse.” I didn’t quite know what to respond, because I couldn’t tell if he was toying with me, or genuinely didn’t realize I was the director of the film. He then turned to face me with a smirk, and said “let me know when you’re done with it, and we’ll have a big screening here at the Ranch.” As he walked away carrying two vases almost taller than him, my wife woke me up; and I’m still wondering if this was just a dream, or something else entirely. Wishful thinking? Premonition? A multi-layered metaphor?

Robert and I were in Tokyo last week with David Neptune, our Japanese line producer and interpreter. As much as I wanted to take a little time to visit (I’ve been to Tokyo three times, but never left the airport), we ended up shooting 17 interviews in 7 1/2 days, carrying our equipment up and down the stairs in the massive subway stations during rush hour, and… well… it pretty much ended up being all work. Okay, so I indulged a little and purchased a 1978 Takara Darth Vader at Star Case (where Steve Sansweet apparently does his shopping when he’s in Tokyo) and seven vintage Godzillas at Mandarake and the hard to find Gojira-ya.

But I digress. It all started with Danny Choo (son of world famous shoe designer Jimmy Choo, Sex and the City fans), a.k.a. the Tokyo dancing stormtrooper. Surrounded by his Anime babes (he calls them his daughters), he talked about George’s influence on Japanese pop culture, and compared him to a durian fruit (prickly on the outside, soft on the inside). He donned his stormtrooper outfit and took us to Shibuya, where he danced the night away among throngs of adoring fans. A pretty surreal opener that promptly took care of my jetlag.

During the next few days, we had the privilege to talk to Mr. Hiroaki Takeuchi, one of Japan’s premier producers of Anime (including THE ANIMATRIX), top Anime directors Koji Morimoto and Michael Arias, and maverick Sega game designer and producer Yu Suzuki (who’s so famous in Japan, apparently, that even Steven Spielberg asked for his autograph). AFRO SAMURAI creator Takashi Okazaki drew a fabulous sketch of GL and Kuma holding lightsabers, with Jar Jar lying at their feet, gorily cut in half. There was also Snow Bunny, the pink snowtrooper of the Tokyo 501st (a perfect blend of STAR WARS and Anime), who compared George to a cuddly Ewok. “He’s so cute”, she told us. Visions of Mister Rogers again!

We woke up at 5:30 in the morning on our last day and took the train to the headquarters of legendary toymakers Kotobukiya, where we interviewed the company’s President, Kazuyuki Shimizu, Vice President Hiroyo Shimizu, and planners Masahiro Miyazaki and Rika Takashiro. After a brief shoot at their sculptors’ office, they gave each one of us lightsaber chopsticks, and we rushed to the airport to catch a plane back to the U.S. (Robert actually went to China, but that’s another story).

I’m overlooking a lot of cool stories, like the INDIANA JONES fan who talked about watching the infamous SOUTH PARK episode, and his cultural understanding of the love-hate that Westerners vocally profess toward George Lucas. I didn’t sleep for 30 hours, and returned to Denver, ready to tackle our first rough cut. The film currently clocks in at 98 minutes. Another week or so of editing, and it will go out to a very select handful of people. We’re getting close, folks! Production is officially over, and with roughly two additional months of post-production ahead of us, we’re about to enter a new phase. It’s a long road still, but we’re hoping to unleash 3 1/2 years of mad work and absolute passion to the world sometime in March. So stay tuned, and in the meantime, Happy Holidays!!

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Another whirlwind month. A third trip to Los Angeles to interview more fan vidders, FREE ENTERPRISE writer/producer and Sci-Fi Universe/Cinefantastique editor/co-creator Mark Altman, and multiple Harvey and Eisney Award-winning Tony Millionaire–creator of the SOCK MONKEY and MAAKIES comics and, yes, of George R. Binks for STAR WARS TALES. Strangely enough, George R. Binks is listed in Wookieepedia as the canonical father of the bumbling space-frog (to quote Todd Hanson) we all know too well. The backstory that Tony created is hilarious, and we had the opportunity to film Tony drawing a portrait of the proud Gungan whaler, while ranting about his idiot son. It was also quite a treat to “hang out” with the original Sock Monkey and Drinky Crow puppets–two iconic characters of which I have grown extremely fond over the years–that Tony keeps in his office, along with all sorts of weird shit, for lack of a better word.

We were in Denver last night filming the first ever (and certainly not the last) George Lucas Poetry Slam at the Oriental Theater. A strangely entertaining evening that featured fifteen poets–highlights included a limerick retelling of the original STAR WARS movie, and a poem titled “George Lucas fingered my late adolescence”–and musical performances by the punk rock marching band Boba Fett & The Americans and Cocktail Revolution. Ultimately, the top prize (a George Lucas Collector Set, including a figure of George himself as Baron Papanoida) went to Matt Zambrano and Andrea Moore, whose performances were so exceptional that you’ll probably see them in the film. In any case, we covered the event with four cameras, and the show will likely be included on our DVD/Blu-Ray release in its entirety.

A week from today, we’ll have a completed rough cut of the film. In the meantime, Robert and I are off to Tokyo for a week to interview several Anime heavyweights, STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES fans, and Danny Choo–the inimitable dancing stormtrooper. We’ll be going with our new line producer and talented interpreter David Neptune–a young, up-and-coming filmmaker whom I was extremely fortunate to meet in Sapporo a month or so ago. More upon our return!

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A whole month has passed since my last blog entry. That’s what happens when you’re having too much fun in the editing room. Chad has been laborious in terms of laying down the content, and we have a pretty solid arc for the first 40 minutes of our doc. I’m working on layering it with B-Roll while Chad forges ahead with the second half of the film. We made the conscious decision to eliminate the peripheral content early in order to avoid ending up with a 4 hour rough cut, and the narrative is feeling pretty tight as a result. We’re aiming for a 90-minute theatrical cut, because we’d much rather leave audiences wanting more, and “more” is definitely something we’ll be able to supply staggering amounts of in our upcoming DVD/Blu-Ray release.

After a quick trip to the Sapporo Short Fest in Japan (AMAZING toro, sushi fans!), where our last three shorts screened in the Filmmaker Section, I’m now back on the East Coast with my crew (the gravlax and belly lox bagels aren’t too shabby either). A couple of days ago, we interviewed Clive Young, author of the fascinating Homemade Hollywood–a thorough tribute to fan films, and Casey Pugh, the brilliant mind behind Star Wars Uncut–the most extraordinary and ambitious expression of participatory culture I’ve encountered in my three years making this film. We’re heading back to LA next week for one final interview trip, and we’re still thinking about going to Tokyo in December, but Robert might just have to go alone as I will likely be needed in the editing room. Fan footage continues to fill up our PO Box, more than a month past our deadline, and I’m okay with that. Why would we censor such a passionate outpour of creativity? Forget the deadlines. We’ll accept submissions until we’re officially done with the film.

We have to leave Long Island now, and head toward Baltimore for a quick client shoot, followed by another interview with a Boston-based fan vidder. I’ll be back in Denver in time to celebrate my 37th birthday. A cheese and wine party is in the works–directly preceded and followed by more edit sessions. When will I have a chance to watch WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE??

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All right, George Lucas fans, critics, and curious bystanders, this is it! September 30th is our official cut-off date for submissions, so if you’re still working on your skits, rants or animated shorts, consider this a friendly reminder that, well, our deadline is coming up. If you’re crafting a grand opus of Wagnerian proportions and need a little more time to get the job done, don’t worry… we’d be glad to extend the deadline for you. But for all intents and purposes, we’re now going to town on our edit (read: no sleep in the next four months); and while there’s always room for great additional material, late submissions may not get the attention they deserve. So if you need more time, send me an email, and let me know when your footage has been shipped. Our goal is to have a locked cut by mid-January. Add another 6 weeks or so for the sound mix, and we’re looking at a projected completion date of March 1st, 2010. It’s an aggressive schedule, considering our plan to continue shooting through December; but we believe it can be done.

I’m writing this from Baltimore, where we’re staying for the next few days. We went to Philadelphia yesterday to interview Jay Sylvester, who launched his Original Trilogy Website several years ago, and managed to collect 78,000 signatures for his petition to Lucasfilm to restore and release what’s now sadly known as the OOT (original original trilogy). Great guy. Fellow Pioneer KURO fan. True film buff. Cares about film preservation. He told us there’s another petition in the works for the upcoming (don’t hold your breath) Blu-Ray release of STAR WARS. It’s often said that for every person who signs a petition, there’s at least another hundred who feel the same way. That’s a lot of disgruntled SW fans!

Back in Denver, our 2nd Unit crew, led by the illustrious Kerry Roy, is preparing for an interview with famed film theorist and author Kristin Thompson. As a follow-up to our intense and enlightening chats with cultural experts Henry Jenkins, Daryl Frazetti, Angela Ndalianis and Matthew J. Smith (who arranged for another crew to film him in Ohio), Kerry will focus on fandom and the cultural impact of the STAR WARS franchise. I wish I could be there.

In the meantime, cinematographer Ralph Meastas is ready to go to Antarctica, where he’ll be shooting a George Lucas debate at the McMurdo Station. If you’ve seen THE THING (and I’m talking about John Carpenter’s superlative remake), you can probably picture a handful of scientists on the icefield, geeking out about George; but you’ll need to get that creepy Ennio Morricone score out of your head. I’m hoping for penguins, lots of penguins!

Future blog entries will likely slow down through January, and that’s because I have to dedicate all my energy to the film until we get the job done. The next update will likely be from Sapporo, where I’ll be introducing three of our films to Japanese audiences in mid-October, eating tons of sushi, and hoping to find those elusive Darth Vader Takara figures at a reasonable price. Yes, I still have the bug..!

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I spent the bulk of last week reviewing the footage we shot in California. After Comic-Con and before WorldCon (see my last two blog entries), we drove up to Los Angeles to tie up a few loose ends. We sat down with iconic fan filmmaker Kevin Rubio (TROOPS) and documentarian Dennis Przywara (STARWOIDS), staged a heated debate with the supremely entertaining Nar and Boo Williams (how often do you meet married people whose single-syllable names put together sound like a planet from the STAR WARS universe?), dug deeper into film preservation issues with Anthony Slide (former resident film historian of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences), and picked the encyclopedic brain of pop culture expert Henry Jenkins during his first day at USC (he was still unpacking boxes). We also drove up to South Lake Tahoe to finish the interview we started with Daryl Frazetti in San Diego, took a quick detour through Marin for another interview that I’d rather keep confidential at this stage, and spent a lovely afternoon in Modesto shooting B-roll footage of GL’s childhood home and high school with vintage Bell & Howell and Keystone k-8 8mm cameras (in addition to our trusty Sony EX1, of course). We also visited the subdued and elegant AMERICAN GRAFFITI memorial that was erected on Lucas Plaza a few years ago.

It was a hot day, and we eventually made our way to the site of George’s fateful June 1962 car crash right around magic hour. It took us a while to find the exact location, because the driveway where the accident occurred no longer exists. We filmed primarily abstract, experimental shots of the glistening asphalt; of the street sign’s shadow, which looked like an eerie cross on an old wooden fence. And steps away from the estimated spot where George reportedly met his destiny and subsequently changed the course of history, Robert found a doll’s arm lying there on the road. A strange, compelling image, the metaphorical implications of which we contemplated for a while. When our cameras screeched to let us know that we were out of film, we hit the road back to LA, hungry for more adventures.

Before our trip to Montreal, Luis Lecca and Jason Nicholl of Nuke the Fridge (a site that has been extremely supportive of our efforts) planned an entire day for us at the Frank & Son Collectible Show, where we had the opportunity to ask Howard the Duck himself (Ed Gale) a few questions about Jar Jar Binks. Now, if only we could talk to Ahmed Best and get him to return the favor and share his true feelings about Howard, we’d have one heck of a DVD special feature! An endeavor worth pursuing, to be certain.

We’re now back in Denver–at least for another three weeks. The editing process is moving slowly, but surely. We’re pretty much slammed with new fan submissions and recently discovered footage, but the narrative of our first sequence is starting to take shape, and I’m encouraged by the strength of the emerging discourse resulting from the dynamic between strong, equally convincing and opposing viewpoints. The debate is on, and it’s also giving birth to a number of additional “special projects”, which we fully intend to incorporate into the film throughout the post-production period. There will be a George Lucas poetry slam in the Fall, for instance (we’ll be covering the event with 3 or 4 cameras); and our recent introduction to the world of fan vidding, which spawned many more submissions and interviews, opened yet another can of worms most definitely worth exploring.

I’ll write about fan vidders, fan filmmakers and faneditors in my next blog entry. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and go watch INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Best. Damn. Movie. Of. The. Year.

Robert and I left Montreal this morning, sleep deprived, and returned to Denver with an additional 150GB of footage from WorldCon. We’ve been on the road since Comic-Con, and there’s so much I want to share that I will have to retroactively write about Los Angeles, Marin and Modesto in my next blog entry. In the meantime, here’s what happened in Montreal…

The 67th WorldCon–aka Anticipation–kicked off last Wednesday evening at the very cool Palais des Congrès, which offered multiple opportunities for visually arresting interviews. We stayed in Westmount, in the beautiful apartment of my distant Canadian cousins, who won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Les Invasions Barbares in 2003. It sure beat the Virgin River Casino in Mesquite, NV, where we stayed on our way to and from California.

After reconnecting with Lawrence Schoen, director of the Klingon Language Institute (whom I interviewed for my 2004 doc EARTHLINGS), we started our inquisition with three more contributors to STAR WARS ON TRIAL: Don DeBrandt, Lou Anders, and the inimitable John C. Wright. Lawrence also answered a few questions, and shared his definitions of George and Jar Jar in Klingon.

After two years of email correspondence, we finally met and interviewed the legendary JoBlo at his way cool home (he’s a big fan of A NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, and owns the most amazing movie-inspired original paintings I’ve ever seen). The following day, Lawrence arranged another interview with Howard Tayler (Hugo-nominated creator of Schlock Mercenary, who subsequently promised he’d create an original George Lucas cartoon for the film); and we also talked to famed science-fiction (and five-time Hugo Award-winning) author Joe Haldeman (who actually worked with George for a couple of weeks between ESB and ROTJ on developing a ride for Epcot Center), and with guest of honor Elisabeth Vonarburg.

WorldCon also kindly organized a panel in support of our project (George Lucas: Savior or Destroyer?). We filmed it, of course, and later staged another heated 90-minute debate with five passionate fans from Montreal. We crashed a room on the convention floor at 9pm, and captured the magic as it unfolded.

So what was the highlight of our trip..? I’d be hard-pressed to argue against Neil Gaiman. After filming a press conference with him last Thursday, I approached his publicist, introduced our project, and requested an interview with him. It was granted the following day (she even adjusted his schedule to accommodate us), and we had the tremendous honor to pick Neil’s brain about STAR WARS as a story, and talked about whether George Lucas owes anything to his fans, and to what extent the creative process can/should be influenced by his fan base’s expectations. Considering how slammed he was during the convention (he even admitted to being “fried” prior to our interview), I was particularly impressed by his generosity of spirit and genuine interest in our project. It was a far cry from Comic-Con, where even “actors” who ended up on George Lucas’s cutting room floor had the gall to charge twenty bucks for an autograph. Neil Gaiman had several signings scheduled at WorldCon, and when we approached him again yesterday to shoot some B-roll, we realized that he didn’t charge a thing for his autograph (up to four per person, actually). Throughout the week, he showed nothing but patience, love and respect for his fans. He was, truly, everything you’d expect the great Neil Gaiman to be.

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Two days ago, an adorable pot-bellied kid clad in Darth Vader armor told us (without hesitation, I might add) that there were but three Comic-Cons left. He had just watched the trailer to Roland Emmerich’s disaster flick 2012, and reached his own logical conclusion. For the sake of popular arts, let us hope he’s wrong!

We drove back to Los Angeles two days ago, ready for another round of interviews, and frankly exhausted. CC was a blast, but it remains very much a blur, as we shot so much footage that I didn’t even have time, in the end, to purchase the Sideshow Collectibles Iron Spiderman Comiquette I’d been coveting since last year. It was right there, well within arm’s reach; but I had to pick my poison, focus on the task at hand, and remind myself that my sole purpose for roaming the hallowed convention floor was to work on the film.

What I lost in terms of collecting opportunities, I sure gained in unforgettable on-camera moments. There were the Waffle Brothers, who drove to Comic-Con specifically to see us, and finally shared the story behind their now infamous song “GL raped our childhood”. There was Academy Award nominee and maverick animator Bill Plympton, who kindly shared three George Lucas-related stories with us, and drew the strangest one of all–involving Howard the Duck, and a younger version of himself having sex with his then girlfriend in one of the theater’s balconies. He sketched two versions of it–one for Chris, and one for myself. And I think it’s safe to say that we now own the strangest Plymptoons this side of Filmland.

And then, there was Peter Mayhew, who gave us our shortest interview to date–clocking in at a whopping 3 minutes and 17 seconds.

When Chris brought up the topic of computer-generated Wookiees in Revenge of the Sith, Peter vigorously shook his head, and steadfastly asserted that there was no such thing as CG Wookiees, no Sir, and that we ought to have done our homework before the interview. We knew better, of course. But this was Chewie, mind you. And while we could have asserted the well-documented fact that a battalion of CG Wookiees indeed stood behind the six actors in hair suits that were replicated numerous times across the front lines on Kashyyyk, we knew we had to respectfully stand down. We let the Wookiee win.

We quickly recovered from that amusing incident, shook hands with Mark Hammil and John Landis, got kicked out of the Press Room mid-interview with Daryl Frazetti (we’re driving up to Tahoe on Thursday to finish what we started), gave away 2,000 postcards, and received so much love and encouragement from the fans that we drove away from the harbor with a profound sense of accomplishment and a heavy heart. But we’ll be back next year. With our entire team of producers, our own battalion of PvGirls, and, yes, a finished film to promote.

Until then, we’ll try to recapture the magic at Frank & Son in a few days–after Tahoe and important detours to Marin and Modesto. Meanwhile, in Denver… our first sequence is taking shape. Around the world, participants are putting the finishing touches to their rants before the submission deadline. We’re making new, amazing discoveries almost on a daily basis. And I sometimes find it hard to express just how passionate I am about making and releasing this film.

2010 is going to be a big year. I wonder what the Darth Vader kid would have to say about that.

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