The very sad news came in the past few days that Marcia Lucas, the incredibly talented film editor who made her mark with the original Star Wars and many other movies, has passed away at the age of 80.
From what I’ve heard over the years, Marcia came into the production of Star Wars after her then-husband George Lucas had shown a cut of the movie to his friends. The near unanimous verdict (Steven Spielberg was the only one in the room who said he liked it) was that George had a disaster on his hands. That first cut was a narrative nightmare.
And then Marcia swooped in and said that she would fix it.
And she did.
Among other things she made it so that Princess Leia was much more action-oriented than she had been first perceived to be. That was a huge thing that made a
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