Cinema VinesLOS ANGELES — The newly unveiled Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, opening to the public on September 22, promises to be a shrine for “Star Wars” devotees while also celebrating a broader spectrum of pop‑culture art. George Lucas, the visionary who sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, has built the museum as a “temple to the people’s art,” a place where commercial illustrators, comic book artists, and paperback cover designers receive the same reverence usually reserved for classical masters like Rembrandt.
CEO Tracey Bates explained to the Associated Press that the museum’s mission is to showcase familiar works that have never before been given a platform of this magnitude. She highlighted the need to curate these pieces so that visitors can appreciate the genius behind them, noting that “Star Wars” occupies only about 7% of the 100,000‑square‑foot space.
Lucas made a surprise appearance at a media preview day on Wednesday, accompanied by his wife and co‑founder Mellody Hobson, a prominent collector of African‑American art. The filmmaker expressed disbelief that the building, conceived 17 years ago and rejected by cities such as San Francisco and Chicago, finally came to life. Wearing a T‑shirt that read “Dedicated to the people’s art,” he said, “I’m used to doing the impossible. This one almost broke me.”
Visitors will be greeted by a bright yellow Naboo N‑1 Starfighter from 1999’s “The Phantom Menace” hanging in the lobby of the public research library. The opening exhibit, “Star Wars in Motion,” features production models of Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder from the original film and speeder bikes from 1983’s “Return of the Jedi.”
Nearly everything on display comes from Lucas’s own collection or Hobson’s, which includes early comic strips like “Alley Oop” and paintings by Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish that were once considered uncool. Bates, who joined the project in 2020, spoke in a gallery dedicated to Rockwell, emphasizing the importance of preserving these works for future generations.
