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After a decade and a half of false starts, extensive developing and planning, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has landed in Los Angeles. The sprawling property, which, on the outside, looks like a retro space station from a science-fiction movie, officially opened its doors in Downtown Los Angeles this week.
I know what you’re thinking: Another LA museum to get stuck in traffic for? Well, yes. But this one is absolutely worth the bumper-to-bumper grind.
As an LA native, I’ve visited my fair share of the museums the city has to offer. From elementary school field trips to the Natural History Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, to grown-up date nights at the Getty Center and The Broad, my hometown has an array of must-visit spots to revel in all types of beauty on canvas.
George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, looked at all of the city’s competition and said, “Hold my beer.”
With Lucas’ name on the building, it’s a given that Star Wars will have its place here. While the museum has a must-see exhibit dedicated to the Jedi and Sith glory of it all, the enduring conflict between the light side and dark side is just a small piece of the puzzle.
Yes, you will see Boba Fett, Darth Vader, C-3PO and R2-D2. Luke Skywalker’s X-34 Landspeeder is right around the corner from a re-creation of the podracers scene from The Phantom Menace. Ralph McQuarrie’s concept designs and original artwork for the franchise adorn the walls.
Walking through that gallery alone will tug at your nostalgic heartstrings in one way or another. And yet, the Star Wars exhibit, which is the farthest to reach within the museum, accounts for just 7% of the works it showcases.
Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces famously guided Lucas’ creative path in bringing the original Star Wars trilogy to life. When it comes to storytelling, Campbell’s exploration of the hero’s journey is the gold standard regarding theme and structure. It’s the book that has helped thousands of aspiring screenwriters in Hollywood write their scripts. It’s the blueprint Lucas followed to craft the Star Wars narrative.
There’s that word again. Narrative.
It’s right there in the building marquee. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art tells you exactly what to expect upon entering, and its attention to all mediums of art and visual storytelling, from the past and the present, does something the other museums I mentioned have yet to do: It draws a clear line from prehistoric cave drawings, sculptures and iconic paintings of the past to the movie poster art, comic book illustrations and street murals that inform pop culture today.
“I’ve spent more than 50 years collecting the work of artists who don’t always get their due — illustrators, cartoonists, muralists, painters — because I believe their images are as vital as any other art form,” Lucas said in a statement.
He added, paraphrasing the iconic words of Indiana Jones, “They deserve to be in a museum.”
Over 30 galleries are featured within the museum, and, yes, you can find Dr. Jones represented here. Original works of Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo and Norman Rockwell exist under the same roof as those from H.R. Giger, R. Crumb and Julie Bell.
The first gallery I entered was so surprisingly immersive, thanks to the lighting and the embedded presentation of the statues and paintings, including re-creations of the gorgeous ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which were projected onto high-tech screens embedded in the walls, that it evoked an absorbing narrative experience unlike anything I have felt in an art museum.
Suddenly, the famous work of Michelangelo being a short walk away from Frank Frazetta’s paperback illustrations of Conan the Barbarian made perfect sense.
On the inside, it’s evident that Lucas and Hobson put tons of work into making this 100,000-square-foot storytelling exploration (which features not only the 30-plus galleries, but also two cinemas, a gorgeous research library, a cafe and the fancy Skywalker Grill) such a memorable experience.
On the outside, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art looks and feels like something else altogether.
Ma Yansong is the architect responsible for bringing this biomorphic behemoth to life. With a price tag of a billion dollars, the new building, filled with curves and angles unlike any other structure in the vicinity, adds a new definition to the skyline of Exposition Park.
Landscape architect Mia Lehrer designed a park area that continues the museum’s utopian feel, adding a calming, comforting aesthetic to the highly trafficked spot. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the California Science Center and the Los Angeles Coliseum, which will host the 2028 Olympics, are all right there.
And to think, there was a time when Lucas and Hobson were eyeing San Francisco and Chicago as potential homes for this museum. In retrospect, Los Angeles feels like the rightful home to a palace such as this, honoring storytelling in all its visual forms, from the historic to the galactic.
When I entered the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, I simply expected to see some cool Star Wars stuff. I left feeling artistically satiated, enlightened and inspired. I spent four hours there and merely scratched the surface of what it has to offer. I can’t wait to get back on the freeway, sit in all that bumper-to-bumper traffic and pay this 1960s space station another visit.
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