Why George Lucas’s New LA Museum Will Be Greater Than “Star Wars”

George Lucas spent decades creating one of Hollywood’s most famous galaxies. Now, the 82-year-old filmmaker is opening a museum that reaches far beyond “Star Wars.”

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is set to open to the public in Los Angeles on September 22, 2026. The roughly 300,000-square-foot museum sits in Exposition Park, close to the University of Southern California, where Lucas studied filmmaking before creating “American Graffiti,” “Star Wars,” and “Indiana Jones.”

Calling it a “Star Wars” museum would miss most of the story. Museum CEO Tracey Bates told the Associated Press that “Star Wars” represents only about 7% of the institution. Lucas and co-founder Mellody Hobson have built something much broader, a museum devoted to images that tell stories.

That includes paintings, comics, photography, murals, magazine illustrations, movie objects, fantasy art, children’s illustrations, manga, and commercial art. More than 1,300 works will appear across over 30 galleries when the museum opens.

The project has taken Lucas roughly 17 years to bring to life. Plans in San Francisco and Chicago failed before Los Angeles became its home, and even a filmmaker accustomed to difficult productions admitted the museum tested him. “This one almost broke me,” Lucas told reporters during a September media preview.

“Star Wars” Opens the Door, but the Collection Goes Much Further

Lucas Museum / IG / Fans will still find plenty from the galaxy that made Lucas a household name. The opening exhibition “Star Wars in Motion” examines vehicles and movement across the first six movies.

Visitors can see Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder, speeder bikes, costumes, concept art, and the first physical build of General Grievous’s Wheel Bike from “Revenge of the Sith.” A yellow Naboo N-1 Starfighter from “The Phantom Menace” also hangs inside the museum.

The museum includes Norman Rockwell’s powerful 1964 painting “The Problem We All Live With.” It shows six-year-old Ruby Bridges walking to an all-white New Orleans school under the protection of U.S. marshals.

Plus, the names across the collection show how wide that conversation becomes. Works connected to Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Vincent van Gogh, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White, Andy Warhol, Gordon Parks, Takashi Murakami, Charles Schulz, Frank Miller, Jim Lee, Frank Frazetta, N.C. Wyeth, and Banksy are among those represented.

Early “Flash Gordon” and “Buck Rogers” material appears alongside “Peanuts,” “Black Panther,” “Garfield,” “Tarzan,” “Prince Valiant,” and alternative comics.

Lucas Wants to Change the Way People Think About Art

Instead of organizing everything strictly by artistic period or medium, the museum groups works around human experiences. Galleries explore subjects such as family, love, childhood, work, community, sports, adventure, belief, activism, and myth.

Senior curator Ryan Linkof told AP that the museum cares about the stories images tell. That idea sits at the center of Lucas’s challenge to the old divide between fine art and popular culture.

Joseph Campbell also has a major presence. The museum’s research library holds more than 2,900 volumes from the mythologist’s personal library, including books containing Campbell’s own notes and annotations. His work on heroic myths famously influenced Lucas while he was developing “Star Wars.”

The Museum Looks Like Something From Another World

Lucas Museum / IG / Architect Ma Yansong of MAD designed a building almost as unusual as the collection inside it. The sweeping structure has already drawn comparisons to a spacecraft, cloud, and giant organic form hovering over the landscape.

Ma has resisted treating it simply as a spaceship. The architect has described the design as something more organic, with visitors discovering different shapes and views as they move around it.

The building sits on a 13-acre campus with gardens, paths, public art, seating areas, an amphitheater, and a large fountain called “The Rain.” Outdoor sculptures extend the museum’s mix of popular culture and history, with figures including Princess Leia, Yoda, Grogu, Jabba the Hutt, Rosie the Riveter, and Emiliano Zapata.

Exposition Park sits near USC, connecting the massive museum to the place where the young filmmaker began learning the craft that would eventually finance it. The museum has been widely reported as a roughly $1 billion project.