The underlying issues, the psychological motives, in all my movies have been the same, he said. Personal responsibility and friendship, the importance of a compassionate life as opposed to a passionate life.

Over time I began to realize that the level of cinema criticism in the last part of XX century in the United States was pretty low. The institution itself is not what it's supposed to be, and I realized that I didn't need to take that seriously.

From kindergarten to college, certain teachers engaged my curiosity and motivated me to learn. While I was not the best student, their efforts left a lasting impact.

I came from a very avant-garde documentary kind of film making world. I like cinema verité, documentaries. I liked non-story, non-character tone poems. And that's the film making that I was interested in.

On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie. I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’

The story being told in 'Star Wars' is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you're in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they're actually not.

I've always just followed my own course, whatever I found the most interesting to me at the moment. I've never had a real plan of, "I want to get from here to there, and I've got to do this."