The Woman Who Secretly Saved Star Wars Has Passed Away
by Devin Meenan · /FilmWe may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
Behind every great man is a great woman. Cliché, or simple truth? For "Star Wars," it was the latter. Film editor Marcia Lucas has passed away at age 80 from cancer. Her family released the following statement (per the San Francisco Chronicle):
"Marcia was a force. A true trailblazer for women in film and one of the most influential editors in cinematic history; she helped redefine what film editing could be and paved the way for generations of women who followed."
That epitaph is no exaggeration, because Lucas edited one of the most important films ever made: the original 1977 "Star Wars," of course directed by her then-husband George Lucas. (She was one of three credited editors on the film, alongside Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew, and they won an Oscar for Best Film Editing together.)
"Star Wars" alone could cement Marcia Lucas' legacy, but that's not all. Her editing resume also included several of Martin Scorsese's earliest films, "Taxi Driver" among them. (This was before Scorsese's decades-long partnership with editor Thelma Schoonmaker, from "Raging Bull" on.)
Marcia Lucas' last feature editing credit was on "Return of the Jedi." She and George Lucas divorced in 1983, which she later attributed to his workaholism while working on the "Star Wars" films. Though she had no material involvement in later "Star Wars" films, Marcia Lucas wasn't shy about weighing in on the "Star Wars" prequel and sequel trilogies.
However, there's a very real chance that without Marcia Lucas, there'd be no more "Star Wars" films past 1977 — no "Return of the Jedi," and certainly no prequels or sequels. How tragically ironic she may have saved the film that killed her marriage to the man who directed it.
Marcia Lucas cut Star Wars into shape
"Star Wars" went through many iterations to become the film we know today, and Marcia Lucas made some crucial suggestions. As reported in "The Secret History of Star Wars" by Michael Kaminski, she was the one who suggested that Obi-Wan Kenobi die fighting Darth Vader on the Death Star. That death gave the film's third act some much-needed emotional weight.
Said third act of "Star Wars," specifically the trench run where the rebels attack the Death Star, is also one of Marcia Lucas' biggest contributions to "Star Wars." She restructured the entire sequence, including the insertion of a needed ticking clock; in the original script, the Death Star isn't about to destroy the rebel base on Yavin IV. George Lucas praised his then-wife's editing of the sequence in a 1977 interview with Rolling Stone:
"I think it took her eight weeks to cut that battle. It was extremely complex and we had 40,000 feet of dialogue footage of pilots saying this and that. And she had to cull through all that, and put in all the fighting as well. Nobody really has ever tried to interweave an actual plot story into a dogfight, and we were trying to do that, however successful or unsuccessful we were."
Marcia Lucas' advisory role to her husband on "Star Wars" also came down to knowing what not to change. According to Lucas herself, when Brian De Palma suggested cutting the Force from the movie, Marcia convinced her husband to stand his ground as a storyteller — she knew the Force was essential to the movie's spirituality. So on that note, as we wish Marcia Lucas a good rest, let us remember some important words from the film franchise she saved: "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."