How Star Wars Conquered the Universe - Chris Taylor

⭐ 9/10

This is a book about the creation of Star Wars. While we watched the movies earlier this summer, I remember thinking that it was odd to have a movie turn into this absolutely massive IP without any source material behind it, and wanted to know about how it all came together. This book was exactly the answer to all my questions and I'm glad I found it. 

This book is in large part a biography for George Lucas, and he makes a pretty great main character. He seems like a genuinely nice guy who wanted to make good movies that people could enjoy. He's exceedingly normal in a field full of eccentric creatives. Even as a billionaire, he seemed to keep this sense of groundedness. Definitely an easy guy to cheer for. 

The story about how all of this came together is electric to read about. How unlikely it all was, how nobody expected it to be good (including Lucas), how they nearly ran out of money a million times and nearly scraped the project, or even how Harrison Ford was casted because he was around, as a carpenter, to read lines with Carrie Fisher. I said in my review how this universe seems eternal, so it's crazy to read about many scenarios in which Star Wars almost didn't exist. 

I also love reading about creative projects like this. It's inspiring to read about the love and care and effort that goes into stuff like this - tons of script rewrites, reshoots, etc. Lucas is normal, but he is also a perfectionist, and it's cool to know how committed one must be to create something good. There is also lots of talk about his inspirations, like Flash Gordon, and his previous projects, like American Graffiti. I don't know, I guess I just felt like I learned a lot. For those into film, this book also offers a lot of stories from that golden age of filmmakers, when Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola and others were emerging together and changing cinema forever. 

I loved this book. It's pretty long, but I ran through it because I always found it fascinating. There are a few chapters spliced in about modern fandom that I found unnecessary (this book is long enough) and kinda boring. But aside from those, this book is perfect. Highly recommend for Star Wars fans, fans of movies, or even those simply interested in the production of art. After finishing, I was recommended a similar book for Jackson's LOTR and started up immediately.