"Rather than do some angry, socially relevant film," he answered, "I realized there was another relevance that is even more important--dreams and fantasies, getting children to believe there is more to life than garbage and killing and all that real stuff like stealing hubcaps--that you could still sit and dream about exotic lands and strange creatures. Once I got into Star Wars, it struck me that we had lost all that--a whole generation was growing up without fairy tales. You just don't get them anymore, and that's the best stuff in the world--adventures in far-off lands. It's fun.

"I wanted to do a modern fairy tale, a myth. One of the criteria of the mythical fairy-tale situation is an exotic, faraway land, but we've lost all the fairytale lands on this planet. Every one has disappeared. We no longer have the Mysterious East or treasure islands or going on strange adventures.

"But there is a bigger, mysterious world in space that is more interesting than anything around here. We've just begun to take the first step and can say, 'Look! It goes on for a zillion miles out there.' You can go anywhere and land on any planet.” - George Lucas April 1977

"It was made for kids. It was made for twelve year olds, in fact." - John Dykstra July 1977

I think the problem is that we're so used to today's entertainment for children which is incredibly dumbed down and shallow.