Sky’s the limit

NICASIO, Calif. – Welcome to the house that Darth built. Actually, what is called the Main House at Skywalker Ranch, a few minutes outside San Rafael, is an exquisitely crafted and elegantly appointed Victorian model home; no one officially lives there.

The master of the manor, George Lucas, lives in San Francisco. The house is used primarily to welcome visitors and clients, and to give people who work for LucasFilm and its special effects company, Industrial Light & Magic, a respite from their offices and work stations.

Many of them work a short walk away at what is called the Tech House, which is where they and Lucas spent much of last year, bidding Darth goodbye.

The actual demise of Darth Vader, one of the most well-known fictional villains in the world, occurred in 1983 in “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.”

But Lucas swears we will see the last of Vader – known before being cast into the hellish volcanoes of Mustafar as Anakin Skywalker – in the last of three prequels, “Episode III – Revenge of the Sith,” opening today.

“Yes, this is really, really the end,” says Lucas, who is ready to start what he calls “the rest of my life.”

LucasFilm will continue production on “Clone Wars,” an animated series spin-off of the franchise. Within a couple of years, it hopes to launch a new live-action series that would take place in the years between episodes III and IV, but not feature any of the now-iconic characters from the film.

As for Lucas, he will be listed as a producer of these efforts, but his day-to-day involvement in anything “Star Wars” is at an end, he says.

But can he walk away from the most influential myth – and movie series – of the past half-century, not to mention an industry with an annual profit larger than some movie studios?

“I did it for 16 years,” says Lucas, firmly. “I’m ready to do it for good.”

Some critics argue that Lucas should have never returned to “Star Wars” 11 years ago, when he began writing what would be released in 1999 as “Episode I – The Phantom Menace.”

It told the story of Anakin, a 9-year-old from the planet Tatooine, whose family is visited by a Jedi Knight and informed that he is the chosen one, a savior imbued with a magical power known as the Force who can maintain the balance of the universe if only he gets into the right school.

“Nobody wanted me to make that movie,” says Lucas, sipping soda in a small room attached to the recording studio where the sweeping orchestral scores for his movies are recorded.

“What everybody wanted to see was Darth Vader killing everybody and being Darth Vader. The problem was, that wasn’t the story I wanted to tell.”

The short version, says Lucas, is that to make the original films, he had to concoct extensive back stories for Vader and other characters. At some point after he finished raising his family; producing three Indiana Jones adventures and many more less successful projects (the most embarrassing of which may be “Howard the Duck”); and overseeing the establishment of the world’s leading special-effects house and a universe of “Star Wars” tie-ins, the muse started nagging him.

“Everybody believed ‘Star Wars’ was the story of Luke Skywalker,” he says of the innocent young hero played by Mark Hamill in the first three films.

“It wasn’t. It was the story of Anakin, his father, who started as a hero and was then lured into the Dark Side by a powerful surrogate father, who convinced him that to save the wife he loved, and save the universe from the betrayal of the Jedi, he had to give in to his worst impulses – the lust for power, greed, selfishness – feelings all humans harbor.”

“The Phantom Menace,” undoubtedly the most anticipated movie ever made, was released in 1998 to mixed reviews. Most said that the special effects, thanks in part to animation director Rob Coleman, were the most remarkable ever seen onscreen, but that the story was weak and the dialogue was worse.

And the digitally created alien Jar Jar Binks, the film’s comic relief, was declared one of the most annoying characters ever made for a major film.

Producer Rick McCallum, who competes for the title of his boss’ No. 1 fan, says he was sad, but not altogether shocked.

“Writing has never been the easiest thing for George,” says McCallum. “But he seemed to be the only one who could fathom his own vision; that, like the original three movies, these three were actually one big movie, too, so you had to start with Anakin as a kid.

” ‘Phantom Menace’ is a kids’ movie, and the kid who was 8 when he saw it is 15 or 16 now, and he’s ready for the darker, more ominous tone of the final act, ‘Episode III .’ He knows now the world is not just pod racing and adventure, that it’s full of evil and betrayal.”

Lucas has no problem saying the words “I am not a great writer.” He confirms that he originally asked Lawrence Kasdan to write “The Phantom Menace,” and that Kasdan, then working on his own sci-fi epic, begged off.

“Could Larry write better dialogue than me? Sure. Could he write better transitions than me? Sure,” Lucas says.

“But eventually, I knew that Larry or whoever else I asked would make the same arguments some of my closest associates made, which was, don’t start the prequels with the story of a 9-year-old boy. So I finally decided, it’s your story, George, just tell it the best way you know how to tell it.”

If the criticism Lucas received for casting Jake Lloyd as 9-year-old Anakin was harsh, it only intensified when he chose little-known TV actor Hayden Christensen to play the teenage Anakin in 2002’s “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.”

Christensen says he was thrilled to be chosen for the role but “definitely worried when I read the script for the first time.

“The dialogue was, well … I didn’t know how I could make it convincing,” says Christensen of a script some critics called “ridiculous” and “tone deaf.”

“Listen, I was thrilled to get the role,” he says. “It was one of the greatest parts ever, and I just wanted to do the best I could do. Samuel Jackson, who I thought was one of the best ever, had called George and asked to be in these movies. I mean, who am I?

“Finally, I just said to myself, ‘I am George’s voice. This is his vision, and I’m here to fulfill it,’ and that’s how we worked.”

Christensen believes that “Revenge of the Sith” will ultimately make the previous two episodes more palatable.

“I felt that everybody felt more comfortable with this, and I know I’m looking forward to going back and looking at episodes IV, V and VI now because this changes everything,” he says. “You’ll see them in a different way.”

McCallum and Lucas are planning to go back and reconfigure all the movies for 3-D, and neither rules out making changes in the process.

Lucas says he will be involved with the 3-D editions, but they will not rule what he says is the third act of his life.

“I was a guy who wanted to make independent movies outside the Hollywood system,” he says. “I lived in San Francisco. I still do. Now I want to make some movies about other ideas, other people, other places.

“I couldn’t have started these (‘Star Wars’) movies when I was 75, so I did them while I had the energy they took to do them. Maybe I’ll have that energy again, but I can’t count on that.

“I’ve done my bit,” he says, “and now I’m on my way.”