I wanted to make a kids' film that would strengthen contemporary mythology.

Oh, my. I'd forgotten how much I hate space travel.

I intend more of a kinship with silent films than more modern film. I like the old cinema. My films are more of a hybrid - a different style of filmmaking to what I call talking head movies. Some people don't get it. Especially the more academic types.

From the outset, I conceived Star Wars as a series of six films, or two trilogies.

I've had much more down in my life than I've had up. And much more struggle. First of all, when I went into the film school everybody said, "What are you doing? This is a complete dead-end for a career."

Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells.

STAR WARS is really three trilogies, nine films. The first trilogy covers the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire, the middle trilogy the fall of the Empire, and the last trilogy involves the rebuilding of the Republic. It won't be finished for probably another 20 years.