Mythmaker: The Life and Work of George Lucas

I read this book from cover to cover in less than a week (that's fast for me). The author's style finds the perfect balance between documenting facts and telling a story. Like Luke Skywalker, the hero he created in STAR WARS, George Lucas was a lonely boy who dreamt of worlds beyond his rural desert town. While his emotionally distant father (a clear inspiration for Darth Vader) made him something of a delinquent teenager (like the hot rod character from AMERICAN GRAFFITTI) it was Lucas' loving mother who made him what he is today. After nearly dying when he literally wrapped his car around a tree, Lucas awoke in a hospital bed to see his Mother crying in anguish, convinced that her directionless son would eventually kill himself. From that moment on, this quiet, shy desert farm boy devoted his life to telling stories. The book gives a fascinating history of his film school days at USC with brilliant but somewhat extremist classmate John Milius, his apprenticeship to the passionate and often scandalous Francis Coppola, to his close friendship and kinship with Steven Spielberg, and the marriage to his beautiful college sweetheart film editor Marsha Lucas which sadly ended in divorce. How his battles with studio heads who fought over mere frames just to leverage their positions in a time where the filmmaker, not the studio head, ruled. And how his plan to own the licensing rights so he could independently finance all of his movies through merchandise royalties, ironically established todays corporate studio model that has snuffed out the writer-director as the boss. If you're interested in the history of American cinema of the 60s, 70s and 80s and how the influence of counter-culture youth changed it forever, this book is a must-read.

People seem to write this off as a poor book because it is frequently critical in its view; I appreciate the refreshingly honest approach. Baxter offers a well-researched look at Lucas' life that doesn't shy away from the aspects which cannot be shied away from--the merchandising empire, the self-contradictory nature of the man, his scandolous divorce and his inflated status by the time his new Star Wars films were coming out in 1999. Perhaps Baxter focuses more attention on pointing out the subject's foibles than fans would like (naturally), but for all its flak for being "biased", this is a candid and refreshingly honest account of Lucas' life. Most books are either commissioned by Lucasfilm itself and thus carefully omitt anything even approaching criticism, and most journalists seem to spend all their time gushing over how great everything Lucas did was. While there is the counter-effect of those who want to expose Lucas as a corrupt, money-driven recluse with a boner for technology, I would not lump Baxter with these people; he obviously has admiration for some of Lucas' accomplishments, and often reveals a much more humanised side of Lucas through his inclusion of the man's many faults. In the end, its not a great book, but its a good one. True, the negative slant is sometimes unnecessary, however, the book is detailed and well-researched, and also gives decent respresentation to the life of Lucas AFTER 1983, a period that is often ignored or glossed over. While Dale Pollock's Skywalking is much better than this, that book only covers up to 1983, and in all honesty--this is the best alternative. Unless you like self-promotional tripe like The Creative Impulse--I think the more balanced (read: acknowledging the negative) view offered here is in many ways a reaction against superficial pat-on-the-back stuff like that.

This is quite a comprehensive biography of George Lucas' life to 1999, reaching all the way back to his grandfather's time, and then to George Sr.'s time, before starting in on the life of the man who brought you Star Wars and Howard the Duck. Baxter writes with an engaging style and includes interviews with primary and secondary school friends that show the depth of his due diligence. Be warned that this is not a biography that tries to present everything Lucas in a strictly positive light (Baxter gives examples of the Lucas machine's attempts in essence to re-write the legends surrounding its god). As any good biography should, this book includes not only the shining chapters of Lucas' life, but the less glorious ones as well. Still, the chapters that depict Lucas as a cold, asexual, genius do not detract from our admiration of him as a filmmaker, and the epic chapters that describe the underdog success of the first Star Wars film in fact allow us to re-live the moment as if we were back there in '77 cheering for the rebels in their battle against the Galactic Empire, for Lucas in his fight against the Hollywood studios. Unfortunately, as much great information as this book might have, much of it is made questionable due to some glaring mistakes in the last few chapters. Despite the immense amount of research undertaken to write such a book, it is clear that Baxter has very little "street" knowledge of American popular culture. Ky Huy Huan was not the name of the Vietnamese Chinese boy who played Short Round (and later Data, in the Goonies) in Temple of Doom. No, Tom Ryan is not the name of Harrison Ford's character in the movies based on Tom Clancy's novels. No, Terence Stamp did not play Darth Sidious in Star Wars: Episode I. And no, the Trade Federation did not have an army of C3POs. For Baxter's target audience, a readership that comes from a generation raised on the films of George Lucas, these errors are painfully obvious and completely absurd, and thus cast the entire book in doubt. This is truly a shame because Baxter has put a mighty effort into giving us a very well-rounded look at the 20th century's most influential filmmaker. Four stars for the book's captivating narrative style.