Oscar-winning ‘Star Wars’ editor shares Hollywood journey in Lewes

An invitation-only crowd attended Children’s Beach House in Lewes Sept. 3 to hear about adventures in the screen trade as told by Marcia Lucas, the Academy Award-winning editor of “Star Wars: A New Hope,” “American Graffiti” and “Taxi Driver.”

Moderated by Dave Rosenbaum, who has worked in the film industry as an executive and story supervisor for Illumination, the discussion touched on the height of Lucas’ career in the 1970s, culminating in her Oscar-winning work on “Star Wars: A New Hope,” which was screened afterward. It was not her first time in Delaware, as she said she had previously visited on the Fourth of July. 

Lucas got her start in film editing through Verna Fields, most famous for editing “Jaws,” and one of the few women with a prominent place in the industry at the time, who also taught film editing at the University of Southern California. It was during this time that she met one of Fields’ students, George Lucas. 

Marcia said George was almost painfully shy when she first met him – it took her three tries before he would tell her where he was from – but they eventually started dating and got married. During this time, she also met the slew of soon-to-be famous filmmakers in George’s orbit: Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Brian DePalma.

She began her working relationship with George on his first feature, “THX 1138,” based on one of his student films. Marcia said George edited the film himself, and when he asked for her opinion, she said that while there was a lot of good stuff in the film, she found the characterization to be cold. 

In an “I’ll show her” move, George wrote “American Graffitti,” starring Ron Howard and Richard Dreyfuss. The film was about a group of teenagers in Modesto, Calif. – George’s hometown – on the last night of their summer vacation. Marcia said George intended the film as a way to show that he could write warm characters. She said when George showed her the first cut of the movie, she thought it was good, but felt that it didn’t stay with the characters long enough. George allowed her to do a cut of the film, and in her cut, she stayed with the characters longer, and that ended up being the film that was released. 

Her work on “American Graffitti” led to three collaborations with Scorsese on “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” “Taxi Driver” and “New York, New York.”

The conversation then led to what everyone was excited to hear about: “Star Wars.” 

Marcia said George had worked on the script for nearly four years, and it went through many different iterations before filming started in Tunisia, where the Tattooine scenes were shot. Marcia was working on “New York, New York” at the time, and the studio had hired a British editor to work on the film, as much of the production would be shot in London. She said George frequently complained how the British editor didn’t understand what he was going for, how the robots didn’t work and how the Jawas, originally intended to be more menacing, came off as cute and cuddly. 

When the production moved back to the United States, Marcia was brought on as editor. She said her main contribution to the story was that she recommended Obi-Wan Kenobi be killed off and serve as Luke Skywalker’s spiritual guide. She said her reasoning for this was because she thought in the early cuts, the heroes never seemed to be in any real danger. Marcia said one anecdote from the production was that Chewbacca was based in part on an Alaskan Malamute dog they had named Indiana, who would sit in the front seat of their car. 

She said the final battle scene in the rough cut of “Star Wars: A New Hope” had old World War II aerial dogfight footage inserted where the special effects were going to go. 

After the runaway success of “Star Wars: A New Hope,” Marcia largely put her career on hold so she and George could try to start a family. She did have one more big contribution to her husband’s filmography, though.

George had produced and come up with the story for “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” which was directed by Spielberg. Marcia said when she watched the rough cut of the film, she noticed that during the ending, the film cuts right from Indiana Jones and Marcus Brody meeting with the two government officials to the warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant was being stored with thousands of crates. Marcia, who was the only woman in the room, asked what happened to Indiana Jones’ love interest, Marion.

“Did they just leave her on that pole after the Nazis had their faces melted off?”

Quickly realizing the problem, Marcia said George put together a transition scene where Indiana Jones and Marion would meet after his meeting with the government men before cutting to the warehouse. She said George called back Harrison Ford and Karen Allen to shoot the scene in San Francisco.

For the event, Children’s Beach House offered tours for the invited attendees and served food provided by chef Paula Baker.