140 - Lucas Wars - With Laurent Hopman and Renaud Roche

Update: 2025-12-09

Description

In this episode of The Filmumentaries Podcast, I’m joined by Laurent Hopman and Renaud Roche, the writer and artist behind the acclaimed graphic novel Lucas Wars, which tells the behind-the-scenes story of the making of Star Wars from a deeply personal, human perspective. Laurent shares his background as an entertainment journalist and how years of research, interviews, books and documentaries fed into the script. Renaud talks about coming from a traditional animation and storyboarding background, studying at Gobelins in Paris, and how cinematic visual language shaped the way he approached the book’s artwork. We discuss:

Why the emotional journey of George Lucas became the heart of the story
How the pair condensed vast amounts of historical research into a tightly structured graphic novel
The challenge of visually dramatising meetings, offices and creative conflict
The relationship between Lucas and Spielberg, and how it shapes both volume one and the upcoming sequel
The meaning behind the iconic twin suns cover
Visiting Skywalker Ranch and Lucasfilm after the book’s release
Balancing historical accuracy with storytelling
Why Lucas Wars connected with readers beyond the core Star Wars fandom

We also talk about the upcoming second volume, which covers The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and how expanding into Spielberg’s world adds a new layer to the story. As always, if you enjoy the podcast and would like to support what I do, you can find me on Patreon, and the show is also available on YouTube if you prefer to watch the interviews.

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This podcast is completely independent and made possible by listener support. If you’d like to help me keep making these episodes, you can join my Patreon community here: https://patreon.com/jamiebenning

Watch more on YouTube:
Check out the Filmumentaries YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes clips and extra content: https://youtube.com/filmumentaries

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