Her work gave the first Star Wars films an Oscar-worthy touch: The US film editor and ex-wife of director and producer George Lucas, Marcia Lucas, has died at the age of 80. Lucas, whose work as an editor shaped other influential films of the 1970s such as Martin Scorsese’s “New York, New York” and “Taxi Driver”, succumbed to cancer at the end of May, as the industry magazine “Variety” reported on Friday, citing the family’s lawyer.
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“Her work was known for its emotional intelligence, rhythm and humanity – a rare ability to find the truth of a scene and bring heart, momentum and clarity to the screen,” the relatives said in a statement. Lucasfilm joins the international film community in mourning the loss of Marcia Lucas, wrote the production company founded by George Lucas.
She made good things better – and bad things passable
She herself once explained to a reporter why she loved editing films so much, quoting a Lucasfilm obituary: “I have the innate ability to take good material and make it even better – and to take bad material and make it at least passable.” Film editors, formerly known as editors who work with film strips, play a key role in post-production: they combine the raw material from the filming into the overall work that tells the story. Lucas, along with fellow editors Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch, won an Oscar in 1978 for their editing of “Star Wars: A New Hope.” Lucas had already trained as an editor in the 1960s.
The Californian was married to Star Wars creator George Lucas from 1969 to 1983 and they have a daughter together. Marcia Lucas worked with her husband on his film “THX 1138” as early as 1971. The editor joined the post-production of the Star Wars opener when her husband realized that his film needed a complete overhaul. As Marcia Lucas herself says in the first part of the documentary series “Inside Star Wars” from 2022, at her husband’s request, she was originally not supposed to work on the first Star Wars film – but rather take care of the couple’s long-planned first child. “Now we can afford a baby,” George Lucas is said to have said, according to his wife at the time.
As is now known, and Variety also writes in her obituary, Marcia Lucas provided decisive impulses for the film’s plot because her assessment had great weight for George Lucas. According to George Lucas and Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill, it was their idea to have the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi die on the Death Star. Marcia Lucas confirms this in “Inside Star Wars” (currently shown by Joyn, among others). According to her own account, it was also her idea that Obi-Wan dissolves and later speaks to Luke Skywalker like a ghost offscreen. Variety also reports that the cult kiss between Luke and Princess Leia was left in the film thanks to her conviction.
Return to “Jedi”
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Marcia Lucas had little involvement in the sequel “The Empire Strikes Back”; as she says in the documentary series, she wanted to take care of her daughter and canceled directing the editing early on. She was also only involved in the third part, “Return of the Jedi,” when the first cut didn’t work. “He gave me all the emotional scenes,” says Marcia Lucas in “Inside Star Wars.” According to the documentary series, the editor developed both the reunion of Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi and the end of Darth Vader – including re-shot scenes – in a completely different direction.
According to other contemporary witnesses, the couple finally fell out during the post-production phase of “Jedi”. Marcia wanted to get a divorce earlier, but George is said to have only pushed for a date after the third film was released. According to Marcia Lucas, George Lucas broke off contact completely, which meant that recognition for Marcia’s part in the first three Star Wars films suffered for decades. She says in “Inside Star Wars”: “When I left him, he acted like I never existed.”
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