The George Lucas Effect

This post is a little off the green building path, but it gives you some insight into how I think about innovation. One of the phrases I find particularly self serving is “making the future” it’s a meaningless phrase. By waking up in the morning and doing practically anything we’re making the future. “Making the future” isn’t innovating, problem solving is. Later today, I’ll be speaking with Mike Hines of Homepath Products for our podcast. I’m talking with Mike, because I think his company is developing a truly innovative and valuable product. I’ll let Mike speak for his product later on tonight. Right now, here’s my little lesson about a man who actually made the future of film through innovation, but that’s not the whole story.  

In the late 1970’s there was a young film maker…he came out of film school having created startlingly different and interesting pieces that got producers and movie houses interested in backing his first big motion picture. He took an idea he had been kicking around for years prior about a family at the center of a galactic revolution, and decided this film would be the first of a three part story about the fall of an empire. Of course, that film maker was George Lucas and film was Star Wars.

I am an unabashed, unashamed Star Wars Fan. I can recite on command practically any (yes any) passage from the original trilogy. However, watching George Lucas’ creative arch we can learn something about innovation and working within limitations. I call it the George Lucas Effect. In the late 70’s and into the 80’s the technology simply didn’t exist for Lucas to create the world of Star Wars. It had to be invented so he and his team of young visual artists set about the task of inventing the methods and tools necessary to make the film happen. Every solution wasn’t perfect, every model’s flight wasn't seamless, every special effect wasn’t so special. But at it’s core the story was simple and profoundly well told. The special effects of the original films served one purpose…to tell the larger story. The result was classic cinema.

Fast forward 20 years or so and it’s time to make the next trilogy. At that point digital effects are the norm, having largely been invented by Mr. Lucas’ company. But for most observers the heart of the films wasn’t quite there. There were plenty of amazing things to look at, but they didn’t all serve the story, and the story itself wasn’t as simple…and couldn’t be told as easily and with as much heart.

The result was a trilogy that couldn’t hold a candle to the original series. This is the George Lucas Effect, once you have all the toys you stop doing all the thinking. You’re no longer inventing things to tell your amazing story. You’re inventing things to make your movie look cooler.

There’s a lesson to learn here for all of us when it comes to innovating solutions. Beware the George Lucas Effect. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, embellishment doesn’t equal innovation.

Are you telling an exquisite story…or adding some visual candy?