Lucas Wars

The messy personal, creative, and business tensions that shy young filmmaker George Lucas battled to complete the first Star Wars movie get wrangled by Hopman (Girl Rebels) and storyboard artist Roche into a similarly rousing quest narrative. A rebellious underachiever from Modesto, Calif., who preferred comics and hot rods (one of which he crashed) to studying, Lucas found his calling in film school. But despite obvious talent, he lacked the confidence of friends Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola (whose “loud, impulsive” style made him the model for Han Solo). Hopman gives short shrift to Lucas’s early career, zooming in on the near catastrophe of Star Wars. Saddled with a distrustful studio, disgruntled crew, and his script that nobody understood, Lucas nearly lost control of the film and his health. Hopman maintains an upbeat verve, however, positioning the obsessive and touchingly naive Lucas as a dark horse it’s impossible not to root for. Roche’s fluid, expressive art, given depth by dramatic shading and pops of color, generates momentum. Along the way, Hopman effectively threads in production trivia about Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher’s secret on-set affair, the foley studio behind the now-iconic sound effects, and more. This is pop culture history of the first order. (Sept.)