Sorry to slightly stray (from the project) JD, couldn't help but to elaborate on this -
But GoldStone9, to expand on that third 'SW' quote you posted
What in the World?
An interesting little quote that I found while researching for the Star Wars Aficionado's Dbl. Iss. 5-6 'The Making of 'ANH' (Summer '04)
taken from Micheal Ondaatje's '03 book - 'The Conversations: Walter Murch (GL's good friend) and the Art of Editing Film'
"Originally George was going to direct APOCALYPSE NOW, it was a project that George and John Milius developed for ZOETROPE. That was back in '69. Then, when Warner Bros. cancelled the financing for ZOETROPE, the project was abandoned for a while. After the success of GRAFITTI in '73, Lucas wanted to reveive it, but it was still too hot a topic, the war was still on and nobody wanted to finance something like that. So George considered his options. What did he really want to say in APOCALYPSE? The message boiled down to the ability of a small group of people to defeat a gigantic power simply by the force of their convictions. He decided, All right, if it's politically too hot as a contemporary subject, I'll put the essence of the story in outer space and make it happen in a galaxy long ago and far away. The Rebel group were the Vietnamese, and the Empire was the United States and if you have the force, no matter how small you are, you can defeat the overwhelmingly big power. STAR WARS is George's transubstantiated version of APOCALYPSE NOW."