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This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star

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Our listener stories, well, they're some of our favorite.

George Lucas is best known for creating both Star Wars and Indiana Jones,

two iconic American film franchises that shaped our childhoods or our children's childhoods.

But before he brought us to a galaxy far, far away, Lucas made two other often forgotten movies.

His first film, THX-1138, was produced by friend and godfather director Francis Ford Coppola,

but despite the talent behind it was anything but a box office success.

His second film, American Graffiti, was a surprise success and led to the opportunity

to begin his third film, Star Wars.

Today, Robbie brings us Chris Taylor, author of How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,

the past, present, and future of a multi-billion-dollar franchise.

You know, Marsha Lucas once said that I think that damn movie was running through the reels in Georgia's head, like the day I met it.

And a lot of people say this, that he was sketching out visions of star troopers, you know, in his notebooks instead of going to parties while he was at USC.

Like, he was still a nerd, and his and his nerdery was very much attached to Flash Gordon, which

was, you know, a serial that he saw on TV growing up in the 50s.

The idea of a non-static space battle was something that intrigued him for many years.

Because of course, you watch Star Trek, the original series in the late 60s,

and you see a lot of spaceships just sort of hanging out there.

You know, it looks weird now because George Lucas changed all of that with the special effects that we see in Star Wars of spaceships that could do dog fights, right?

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