Why does the museum look like a spaceship? What does Luke Skywalker have in common with a scientist? And could an N-1 Starfighter actually fly?
Come inside with us.
What’s really inside George Lucas’s new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art? We got a sneak peek—and it wasn’t quite what we expected.
UNOBTAINIUM hosts planetary scientist Dr. Amy Mainzer and writer/producer Adam Sigel head inside the spectacular new Los Angeles museum expecting plenty of Star Wars. And yes, there are spaceships, droids and enough Death Star vibes to keep two lifelong fans happy. But Star Wars represents only a small part of what Lucas is trying to do here.
The museum is really an exploration of narrative art: the images societies have used to tell stories. These are the stories that people need to come to understand who they are, from ancient cave paintings and mythology to illustration, comics, movie posters and science fiction. That leads Amy and Adam straight to Joseph Campbell, the Hero’s Journey and the Power of Myth—ideas that profoundly influenced George Lucas and the creation of Star Wars.
And then things get very UNOBTAINIUM.
Amy makes a surprising connection between the Hero’s Journey and the scientific process itself: leaving what we know, venturing into the unknown, facing uncertainty, gaining new knowledge and bringing it home.
Along the way, we explore the museum’s spaceship-like architecture, its unusual argument about “high” and “low” art, the science behind Star Wars technology—and an N-1 Starfighter that raises the inevitable question: how much energy would it actually take to make that thing fly?
Come with us for a sneak peek inside the Lucas Museum—and a journey through Star Wars, science, mythology and the stories human beings use to understand the universe and ourselves.
UNOBTAINIUM: Where great movies meet real science.
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