George Lucas spent more than a decade and a reported $1 billion building a museum in Los Angeles, and the movies that made him famous fill only a sliver of it. According to chief executive Tracey Bates, Star Wars accounts for about 7 percent of the opening exhibitions at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which opened to the public September 22 in the city's Exposition Park.
The rest is a long walk through the ways people have told stories with pictures. Whole galleries go to the great American illustrators — Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, Jessie Willcox Smith. The collection also holds Frida Kahlo, Beatrix Potter, original Peanuts strips, and the first Flash Gordon strip. Other rooms are arranged around ordinary life: love, family, work, play, sports.
Senior curator Ryan Linkof told the Washington Post that the word "illustrates" is important to the museum. The story comes first, and the art serves it.
The building looks like a spaceship that set down in a park. Architect Ma Yansong designed a curved, cloud-like structure lifted off the ground on steel arches, surrounded by 13 acres of gardens. The grounds, the research library, and the rooftop restaurant are free to visit without a ticket.
The galleries are not. Every visitor, including children 17 and under, who get in free, needs a timed-entry reservation booked online in advance. Adult admission is $25, and $21 for seniors 65 and older. The museum is closed Tuesdays, and closed Thanksgiving Day.
One thing to know before going: the walls carry only titles and artist names, not the long explanations most museums post. An exhibition catalog in the gift shop fills in the background.
And yes, Luke Skywalker's landspeeder from the 1977 film is there, parked on the fourth floor a few rooms away from the Rockwells.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.
