George Lucas on the Daily Show.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
George Lucas
www.thedailyshow.com
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This is pretty funny stuff, and it's obvious that Lucas feels comfortable bantering with Stewart. Stewart and Lucas are both dead-on regarding which generation likes which Star Wars incarnations the best. It's the same phenomenon as the James Bond series. My wife is just old enough to have grown up with the Roger Moore series. Thus, she prefers Roger Moore, even to the point of choosing A View to a Kill as her favorite 007 adventure (you have no idea the looks and comments I get from everyday people when I reveal that shocking fact). Conversely, the first James Bond film I ever saw was The Living Daylights, so I've always had a soft spot for the tough-as-nails Timothy Dalton and his somewhat more down-to-Earth adventures. Lucas knew darn well he wasn't making The Phantom Menace for the college kids and and 30-something fans of the original trilogy. He was making a gateway film, a way to introduce the Star Wars mythology to a whole new generation of five to eight year-olds who would then follow this new trilogy with the same fanaticism that we nerds followed the originals. That the new trilogy didn't quite become the cultural milestones that their predecessors did has as much to do with unexpected competition (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the comic-book adaptation explosion of the last decade) as with any genuine issues with the films' quality. Point being, we can all argue over which Star Wars film was best (cough-Revenge of the Sith-cough), and which was worst (nostalgia aside, I actually prefer Phantom Menace to A New Hope). But all six movies were at least pretty darn great, and the Clone Wars cartoon is pretty terrific too. If you want to sit in the corner and whine about how George Lucas raped your childhood, well, you're only cheating yourself.

Scott Mendelson