justwrite7 at 2008-07-14 15:42:00:
Cannot wait to get home to watch the George Lucas interview. What a joy it must have been to listen to John Williams conduct THAT theme.

BTW, is your Luke named after that Luke?

And thanks for that image of Luke looking at the twin suns of Tatooine. I now have new wallpaper for my work and home PCs. :-)

Scott, have any other movies had as a great an impact for you as a writer?

I know for me, THE SEARCHERS was another movie that made me say: wow!
Scott at 2008-07-14 16:03:00:
Oh, dozens of movies have made an impact on me, and even probably fairer to say hundreds. When I watch a movie, I almost always take away something in terms of screenwriting and storytelling -- even if the movies are bad, you can learn something.

As far as inspiration goes, my top five favorite films are To Kill a Mockingbird, Dr. Strangelove, Casablanca, The Apartment, and Jean de Florette / Manon of the Spring. But there are so many more: Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, Tampopo, Wings of Desire, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Duck Soup and on and on and on.

I grew up in a military family, which meant two things: we moved around a lot and movies were cheap. So I spent a lot of my youth in movie theaters and never kicked the habit.