George Lucas Imagines the Future of Cinema

Wow! That’s what I’ve got to say after listening to George Lucas speak at the World Business Forum today. The legendary filmmaker discussed everything: innovation, his movies being viewed on iPhones and how amazing he thinks Steve Jobs is.

In the “Future of Cinema” discussion Lucas was asked questions (by Ben Mankiewicz of At the Movies) about his accomplishments, but also about his drive to innovate new film technology (if you don’t know Lucas has started a handful of film companies). “I had to invent what I didn’t have,” Lucas said. That technology included the ability to pan scenes of flying ships in Star Wars. “I wanted to simply pan around, so we had to invent a way of doing that. I was up there with Silicon Valley pushing that end of it,” he added.

It was then that Mankiewicz asked him how he feels about our technology getting “cheaper, better, faster”. You can watch Lucas’ response to viewing movies on the iPhone yourself, but he definitely doesn’t have a problem with it. He makes movies to be watched, no matter what devices people watch them on. That sentiment is a bit different than David Lynch’s opinion. Of course, Lucas has also been a proponent of beaming movies into living rooms as soon as they hit theatres.

Excuse the film quality, the suits took all the good seats.

As for whose work he notices and the company he thinks is really excelling, Lucas answered none other than Apple. “Steve Jobs is really amazing,” he remarked. “Who would have thought 20 years ago they would have been making mobile phones and doing it well?” I’ll tell ya, Yoda didn’t know. [World Business Forum]