George Lucas’s first film Thx 1138 was released in 1971 to mixed reviews and commercial disappointment.
The film was a reaction to the fear of communist rule at a time that also inspired George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
While Thx 1138 was inspiring to some future filmmakers like Frank Darabont, others found the film impenetrable.
One such example is Lucas’ own friend and mentor Francis Ford Coppola, who later challenged him to write a script that would appeal to mainstream audiences.
This resulted in 1975’s American Graffiti, which proved Lucas had what it took to make his stories accessible to wide audiences when he tried.
Lucas then shopped around his new 12-page treatment for Star Wars to various Hollywood studios only to be turned down by almost everyone, with Lucas’ contemporaries yet again urging him to, according to an IGN interview, reign in his far-out ideas.
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