Where do you suppose George Lucas gets his ideas from?
I mean, here’s a man who’s taken us out into the fartherest reaches of space along with the Skywalker clan & down into the depths of the jungle on epic adventures with Dr. Henry Jones & son. Given Lucas’s obvious gift for storytelling, you have to wonder: What actually inspired George to be able to tell all these amazing tales?
Me personally, I can’t help but think that Disneyland played a big part in turning George Lucas into the master filmmaker / storyteller that he is today.
Don’t believe me? Then let’s consider the following: One of the seminal events of Lucas’s childhood was that George and his family were actually at the “Happiest Place on Earth” on the second day that the Anaheim theme park was open to the public. George Sr. flew the entire Lucas clan down to Disneyland just to see what Walt had created.
And clearly that July 1955 visit must have had a huge impact on George. For — in the weeks that followed — Lucas and his childhood friend, Melvin Cellini, would launch a kid’s newspaper. Printed at the Lucas family’s stationary store, “The Daily Bugle” was a short-lived Monday-through-Friday publication aimed at Modesto residents.
“And what was George’s contribution to the ‘Bugle’?,” you ask. Each day, Lucas would write a new column that would describe in great detail a different attraction that he’d experienced at Disneyland.
Though the “Bugle” finally folded in September of 1955, George’s interest in Disneyland remained strong. Of course, this may have been helped by the fact that — every year after that — George Sr. would take the Lucas family back to Anaheim for yet another visit to Walt’s family fun park.
Mind you, these weren’t just quick hit-and-run trips. The Lucas family would come down to Anaheim for a week, stay at the Disneyland Motel and literally spend days exploring what Walt had built.
These leisurely summer-time visits clearly had a huge impact of young George Lucas. As he once said in one interview:
“I loved Disneyland. I wandered around, I’d go on the rides and the bumper cars, the steamboats, the shooting galleries, the jungle rides. I was in heaven.”
Given Lucas’s obvious interest in the place, is it really all that hard to imagine that the inspiration for the Indiana Jones film trilogy lies in Disneyland’s “Jungle Cruise”? Which — let’s remember — was the most popular ride at the Anaheim theme park ’til the Matterhorn opened in 1959.
And — given that Disneyland’s most technologically sophisticated attraction (at least ’til “The Enchanted Tiki Room” opened in 1963) was Tomorrowland’s “Flight to the Moon” … Well, you have to assume that George made more than a few trips to the moon. So could the seeds of the “Star Wars” saga be found inside this seats-that-vibrate show?
Well, I don’t know about that … But I do know that young George Lucas’s continuing interest in Disneyland — especially his desire to become even more like Walt Disney and make his own movies — was a real source of tension within the Lucas household.
There was reportedly one particularly memorable exchange between George Sr. and George Jr. Back in early 1964, when the son was pushing his father to be allowed to apply to USC’s film school.
George Sr. allegedly thought that this was a totally crazy idea. “You’re never going to get a real job,” Mr. Lucas supposedly sputtered. “You’ll wind up as some ticket-taker at Disneyland. You’ll end up coming home with your tail between your legs.”
What was George Jr.’s reply? “I’m never coming back to Modesto. I’m going to be a millionaire by the time I’m 30.”
Actually, George wound up becoming a millionaire by the time he was 28. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?
Mind you, Lucas wasn’t the only film-maker who found that Disneyland — or, for that matter, the movies that Walt Disney had made — had had a profound impact on him. Let’s take a moment here to talk about Steven Spielberg.
To hear Steven tell the story, he was absolutely terrified when his father, Arnold, finally drove the Spielberg family from Scottsdale, AZ out to Anaheim, CA to experience Disneyland.
“My father took me to the Magic Kingdom in 1959. I was afraid of everything: The crazy eyeball of the sea serpent in the submarine ride; the witch in “Snow White” offering me a poison apple; “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.”
Though — to be fair — Steven got his first taste of Disney-related fright back when he was eight years old & saw “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” The old crone in Disney’s first animated feature supposedly put a large-scale scare into young Steven. Which is probably why he wasn’t all that pleased to see the very same character popping up — this time in three dimensions — inside that Disneyland dark ride.
This may explain why — as his first feature film assignment for Universal Studios — Spielberg actually toyed with the idea of directing an erotic spoof of that particular Disney film. A strictly-for-adults spin on this old Grimms fairytale, where Snow White was to have doled out sexual favors to her seven little room-mates in exchange for room & board.
Thankfully, Spielberg eventually dropped this idea of getting back at Walt Disney by helming a sexy but silly version of “Snow White.” He opted instead to make his feature film debut by directing 1974’s “The Sugarland Express.” Though this Goldie Hawn film didn’t really do all that well at the box office, “Sugarland” was a good enough showcase for Spielberg’s movie-making ability that veteran producers David Brown & Richard D. Zanuck eventually offered Steven the opportunity to direct the feature film version of Peter Benchley’s best seller, “Jaws.”
This particular production obviously had more than its share of problems. Among them how to replicate the Benchley’s chief protagonist, which was a 25-foot-long Great White Shark that liked to dine on the residents of Amity. But Spielberg had the answer:
“I was yelling “Disney!’ The minute I read the script, I was yelling ‘Disney! We’ve gotta get the guy who did the squid in ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!’ “
Well, that gentleman’s name was Bob Mattey. Who — having just retired from 17 years of working at the Disney Studios & making the artificial alligators in Disneyland’s “Jungle Cruise” seem to swim and Fred MacMurray’s Model T seem to fly through the air in “The Absent Minded Professor” — was genuinely looking forward to building a cabin up in the mountains and just getting away from special effects work.
At Spielberg’s insistence, Brown & Zanuck sought out Mattey and eventually persuaded him to postpone his retirement. At least ’til “Jaws” wrapped production.
So — after David & Richard offered Bob enough money to build his own mansion up in the mountain — the former Disney special effects whiz eventually agreed to take the assignment. And — after setting up shop in an old airplane hangar in North Hollywood — Mattey & his team began building the three 25-foot-long mechanical sharks that would be used in the production of this 1975 Universal Studios release.
Now you have to understand that — by this point in their fledgling careers — Steven Spielberg & George Lucas had met and become friendly. Having discovered that they shared a love of Disney as well as similar sensiblities when it came to cinema, the two film-makers eventually began pal-ing around.
Which is why — one weekend in 1974 — Steven & George (along with directors Martin Scorsese and John Milius) made a special trip to the airplane hangar where Bob & his team were working. Just to see how much progress had been made on “Jaws” ‘s mechanical sharks.
Mind you, Bob wasn’t working that day. Which was probably a good thing. Given that I don’t think that Mattey would have approved of what Spielberg & Lucas did that afternoon once they got inside that airplane hangar.
For George — having made all those trips to Disneyland over the years & having seen all of the mechanical creatures that Bob had helped create time & time again — really wanted to know how one of these things actually worked. So Lucas grabbed a stepladder, climbed up to where the mechanical shark was and stuck his head in its mouth. Just so he could get a look at the machine’s inner workings.
And Steven — after spying George’s head in the mechanical shark’s mouth … Well, he just couldn’t help himself. Which is why Spielberg grabbed the controls and closed its “Jaws” around George’s head.
Which Milius, Scorsese and even Lucas initially thought was pretty funny. Until Spielberg did something that caused the shark’s controls to jam. Which meant that Steven now couldn’t re-open “Jaws” ‘s mouth so that George could then get his head out of the mechanical monster.
This obviously caused the director of “American Graffiti” a few anxious moments. But eventually Lucas was able to wiggle his way out of the mechanical monster’s maw and climb down off of that step ladder.
But that somewhat disturbing episode aside, George was clearly thrilled by what he saw in that airplane hangar that afternoon. Looking over Spielberg’s storyboards as well as marveling at Mattey’s trio of submarine-sized Great White Sharks, Lucas was heard to remark: “”If you can get half of this on film, Steven, you’re gonna have the biggest hit of all time.”
Mind you, this wouldn’t be the last time that either of these two film-makers would make use of Disney special effects know-how in order to make a truly memorable motion picture. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about another movie that made use of talent that could only be found inside of Walt’s magical kingdom.
Maybe you’ve heard of this picture? It’s set ” … A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away”?