Star Wars—two words that conjure a galaxy of emotion. It’s the biggest movie franchise of all time, a cultural behemoth, and, briefly, a small chain of discount shoe stores in the greater Kansas City area.

1975—four numbers that conjure a galaxy of emotion. It’s the year of the famous Battle of Verdun. It’s the year the bananas all went to bed. It’s the year George Lucas first conceived what would become Star Wars.

Everything! Because you...are...

for...the...sake...of...this...hypothetical...exercise...

GEORGE LUCAS!

Yes indeed. As George Lucas in 1975, you are tasked with creating Star Wars. One wrong move, and you could deprive an entire generation of the delusion that outer space is at all interesting, and the sexual position “The Tatooine Strangler” will never come into existence.

But hurry! You can only be George Lucas for a limited time, and if you don’t invent Star Wars before then, the original trilogy will never be made, and you will be sent to live with your aunt and horrible cousins.

Better get inspired quick!

You stand in your living room as George Lucas, director of acclaimed films American Graffiti and Haunted Rollercoaster. It’s 1975, so you haven’t yet cemented yourself as a legendary director, but one big project will put you over the edge. How do you want to inspire yourself to come up with Star Wars?

You also realize that you are out of milk, which is unrelated.

Moviemaking may have all the prestige and glamour, but it doesn’t hold a candle to your first love: helping spaghetti lovers overcome the age-old problem of having pasta get stuck in the little holes in the strainer.

Now, you just need some inspiration.

You look out your window and see a cactus. A cactus! The spines of a cactus could help get the little pieces of spaghetti out of a pasta strainer. You are off to a great start!

A knock at the door distracts you.

You open the door, and it’s your relatively new friend Steven Spielberg.

“Hi, George,” he says. “Being that it’s 1975, we’ve only known each other for a few years at this point. I’m obsessed with making movies and just wanted to tell you that.”

Steven peers over your shoulder into the living room.

“Say, what are you working on back there?” Steven says.

“You dipshit,” he says with a laugh. “That already exists. You just have to jam a cactus into your pasta strainer.”

Steven turns to leave. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying hard to invent Bridge Of Spies.”

Steven leaves. You are crestfallen. Guess you might as well try to invent Star Wars.

“Star Wars, eh?” Steven Spielberg says. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard, and someone once tried to pitch me a gum that you chew in your ear.”

Steven turns to leave.

“I’ll bet you all the tangerines you can swallow that you can never make a successful movie called Star Wars,” he adds. “And that’s a promise if I’ve ever told one.”

With a derisive laugh, Steven pops some gum into his ear and leaves. You are crestfallen. Guess you might as well try to invent Star Wars and prove the sneering Spielberg wrong.

You wait until it’s December 30, 1975, the day Tiger Woods is to be born. You drive down to Los Alamitos Medical Center and run into the building. You are stopped by a doctor.

“Excuse me, sir, what are you doing here?”

“You should have said so sooner!” the doctor says. “Right this way!”

The doctor sprints down the hallway. You follow her.

“Make a hole!” she shouts to a group of nurses, who scatter as the two of you rush through.

“Here we are,” she says at the end of one hallway. “Room 294: Earl and Kultida Woods.”

It won’t.

Lying in the bed is Kultida Woods, breathing hard in the style of labor. Her husband, Earl, is by her side, and a doctor is focused on delivering a crowning Tiger Woods.

“You must be here to see Tiger Woods be born,” Earl says. “Please, go whisper something reassuring into my wife’s ear.”

You nod and get right up close to Kultida’s ear, your bristly beard grazing her cheek ever so slightly.

Kultida smiles at you warmly.

“Thank you,” she says. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

You hear a baby crying from the foot of the bed.

“Looks like Tiger Woods has been born!” the doctor says.

Earl Woods looks at you warmly. “Now you have seen Tiger Woods be born,” he says. “You are ready to invent Star Wars.”

“No thanks,” says Earl Woods.

You sit down and concentrate very hard on inventing something called the “Death Star.”

Nope. Didn’t work.

You double your efforts in trying to invent something called the “Death Star.” You are really concentrating at this point.

Still nothing.

Okay, no more horsing around here. You clench your George Lucas fists tight, close your eyes, and really strain yourself to invent something called the “Death Star.” Sweat pours down your face and blood starts to trickle out of your nose, you are concentrating so hard.

Yet again, you come up with nothing.

Fuzzy spots begin appearing in the blackness of your closed eyes. You feel faint due to your extreme concentration. Every Lucas vein bulges from your Lucas head. Blood is now streaming down your face from your nose, getting all over your nice shirt. Come hell or high water, you are going to invent something called the “Death Star.” You feel the idea forming; you are so close! If you can just invent something called the “Death Star,” everything else will fall into place! You are sure of it!

Still nothing.

Great idea! You sit down on your couch to steal ideas from legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.

The title card of the first Kurosawa film comes up. It’s titled United States Illegal Spray Paint. It’s about four high school seniors in a small Southern California town coming to grips with getting older and how cool drag racing is.

Hmm...this seems remarkably similar to one of your movies.

You pop in the second Kurosawa film, Ghastly Rollercoaster, which is about two former baseball players who try to get their money back after riding a haunted roller coaster they were expressly told would not be haunted.

This one seems very similar to a movie you made, Haunted Rollercoaster. Something is not right.

You pop in a third Kurosawa film. This one is called George In 1975, which is a live feed of you sitting on your couch, watching this movie.

You look over your shoulder out the window behind you. Just outside is Akira Kurosawa, filming you with his camera! He runs away when you spot him.

You run outside and see that Kurosawa has scuttled onto your roof and hidden behind one of your two chimneys.

“No!” Kurosawa shouts from your roof. “You’ll just get mad at me.”

“Then I’m staying up here forever!” Kurosawa shouts at you.

You throw a rock at Akira Kurosawa, but he stealthily dodges it.

“Hey!” he shouts. “Don’t throw rocks at me!”

You fling another stone at Akira Kurosawa, which hits him square in the forehead with a sickening thump. He tumbles off the roof and crumples in a pile at your feet. You don’t even need to check his legendary director pulse to know that he is dead.

You’ve just murdered one of the luminaries of 20th-century film. It’s no time to lose your cool. You won’t be able to copy his films anymore, but you may have bigger fish to fry.

You’ve just murdered one of the luminaries of 20th-century film; it’s understandable that you would want to lose your cool a bit. You flail your arms and shout for a while. Classic panicking.

Okay. You did that. Now, you have to make some decisions about what to do with the body.

Being a pretty handy guy, you begin building a big gray ball to jam Akira Kurosawa’s corpse into, something that won’t look like a coffin so it won’t draw any attention.

You delight in making this orb coffin, but there’s one problem—you didn’t make it big enough, and it only fits his head and shoulders. You’ll need to make another coffin that won’t draw attention to jam the rest of his body into.

You begin to build a big, hollow spaceship to throw off suspicion that you’re hiding Akira Kurosawa’s body, minus his head and shoulders, in there. You get really into it and make it bigger and bigger and more detailed, eventually hiring a bunch of your buddies to help out with construction.

“Hey, George,” one of the workers says to you. “You makin’ a movie or somethin’ with this giant ship and weird gray ball?”

The thought had not occurred to you.

In half an hour, you sketch the idea for a space movie—Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, the fate of peace in the galaxy, etc. You use the ball containing Akira Kurosawa’s head and shoulders as a villain base and the big ship as a good-guy ship.

20th Century Fox agrees to fund the project the following day.

You cast Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher in the main roles, and shooting begins a couple months later using your great props.

It’s on the last day of shooting, when Harrison Ford is in the Millennium Falcon model, that he makes an offhand comment: “Smells like Akira Kurosawa died in here or something!”

You drag Akira Kurosawa’s body to the stream behind your house.

“No one will see me depositing this body here,” you think to yourself, when you see another man depositing a dead body in the stream.

“Hey!” he shouts. “This is my place to dump dead bodies. I’m the Zodiac Killer, the famous murderer of this era, and this is my turf! Get out of here or I’ll kill you!”

Kurosawa comes down from the roof and dusts off his pants.

“Hi, George,” he says. “I’m sorry I was filming you. I steal all my movie ideas from you, but you haven’t made a movie in a few years. There was a lot of pressure on me to make a new film in my native Japan, so I came here to see what you were working on.”

“Huh,” he says. “That is weird.”

“Well, we are each one of the greatest filmmakers of our respective generations,” says Kurosawa. “What if we collaborated? We could make a great movie!”

“I’m thinking a space epic with timeless themes about heroism and the power of individuals doing the right thing! With groundbreaking special effects too!” says Kurosawa excitedly. “What do you say we start working on it right now?”

You get in your car and begin driving to the supermarket.

You continue on the road, driving normal speed. Suddenly, you hear a big thump and feel a slight impact on the front of your car. You stop and look at what you hit.

It’s a dog, and it makes a terrible screaming noise as it dies.

“Huh,” you think to yourself. “This dying dog inspires me to think of an alien race of tall, shaggy men named Wookiees. Their leader could be named Chewbacca.”

You arrive at the store and head for the dairy section. As you round the corner of aisle three, a woman pops out, and the two of you nearly collide.

“Oh, excuse me,” says the woman. She looks at you and a smile breaks over her face. “Oh, you must be George Lucas! I live down the street from you. My name is Leia, but my friends call me ‘Princess’ because I like to fuck princes.”

“Huh,” you think to yourself. “This woman inspires me to think of a Wookiee named Princess Leia who is brave and bursting with plans.”

You leave your neighbor Leia and continue walking toward the dairy section. You notice a store employee on a ladder, fixing a light.

“You have to be a regular Darth Vader to fix these damn things,” he grumbles to himself.

“Huh,” you think to yourself. “This situation inspires me to think of a Wookiee called Darth Vader. He lives in a cave and throws bones at people who come near, even if they’re trying to deliver him mail.”

You reach for a carton of milk at the same time someone else grabs for it.

“Oh!” the man says. “I’m sorry about that! Hi, my name is Douglas. You have the milk.”

“Huh,” you think to yourself. “This inspires me to think of a Wookiee named Luke Skywalker who fights the Wookiee named Darth Vader with the Wookiee named Chewbacca to save the Wookiee Princess Leia. He is also helped by a Wookiee named Han Solo, who I thought of earlier, before the events of this ClickVenture.”

Whoa, nelly, you are George Lucas, and you are driving your car pretty fast! Maybe you should slow down to a normal speed.

You are now flying down the street at an irresponsible speed. People are throwing themselves out of the way of your car.

If you don’t return to a normal speed, there’s no telling what could happen.

Your large Lucas foot steps on the accelerator, and you’re going faster than you ever thought possible. Just as the adrenaline reaches an incredible level in your veins, you lose control and hit a tree on the side of the road.

As you fly through the windshield, you think to yourself, “An orphan named Luke Skywalker finds out that he is a Jedi and must defeat Darth Vader’s evil empire to bring peace back to the galaxy.”

Then you smack into a tree at an intense velocity, shattering your left collarbone and dislocating your spinal column, and you crumple into a pile.

Your left arm is essentially useless with a shattered shoulder and what appears to be nerve damage, but other than that and a few scrapes, you’re okay. You can’t help but think about that thought you had about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader as you were thrown from your vehicle. What a good idea that was!

You rack your brain to get more of that story, but your mind is blank again. Your car is totaled, so you’ll have to hitchhike if you want to get to the store.

You see a car approaching. Could be a good opportunity to hitchhike.

The car stops, and you open the door.

“Wow! You are incredibly bloody and broken!” the driver says. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

You are admitted to the hospital, and as you’re waiting, you think about the amazing partial story you had concocted in your head as you sailed through the air, rocketing through your windshield. Luke Skywalker; Darth Vader; the Jedis: It was all so clear in that moment.

Now, you can’t think of one more detail.

Your doctor walks into your room.

“Mr. Lucas, Kate Movies is on the phone from the movie studio,” he says. “She says she needs to talk to you. Says it’s urgent!”

You are admitted to the hospital, and as you’re waiting, you think about the amazing partial story you had concocted in your head as you sailed through the air, rocketing through your windshield. Luke Skywalker; Darth Vader; the Jedis: It was all so clear in that moment.

Now, you can’t think of one more detail.

Your doctor walks into your room.

“Mr. Lucas, Kate Movies is on the phone from the movie studio,” he says. “She says she needs to talk to you. Says it’s urgent!”

The doctor hands you the phone, which, as it turns out, is his 1975-era cell phone, which means he kind of hovers around the whole conversation waiting for you to be done. It’s kind of annoying.

“Lucas,” the woman on the phone says. “It’s Kate Movies, pronounced ‘Mer-vis.’ It’s been a while since your last film. You gotta come to my office today and pitch a movie, or your career in Hollywood is finished.”

The doctor hands you the phone, which, as it turns out, is his 1975-era cell phone, which means he kind of hovers around the whole conversation waiting for you to be done. It’s kind of annoying.

“Lucas,” the woman on the phone says. “It’s Kate Movies, pronounced ‘Mer-vis.’ It’s been a while since your last film. You gotta come to my office today and pitch a movie, or your career in Hollywood is finished.”

“It’s pronounced ‘Mer-vis,’ you cad,” she says. “And no more lollygagging. You need to be in my office before I go to sleep tonight, and I just drank a gallon of chamomile tea.”

“It’s pronounced ‘Mer-vis,’ you cad,” she says. “And no more lollygagging. You need to be in my office before I go to sleep tonight, and I just drank a gallon of chamomile tea.”

You get a bandage or two and take a cab over to West Hollywood. The whole cab ride over, you try to think about how to finish that great Luke Skywalker story while you bleed all over the upholstery. But nothing comes.

Looks like you’re going to have to wing it, Lucas-style.

You get a bandage or two and take a cab over to West Hollywood. The whole cab ride over, you try to think about how to finish that great Luke Skywalker story while you bleed all over the upholstery. But nothing comes.

Looks like you’re going to have to wing it, Lucas-style.

You walk inside the office.

“Lucas! You lucky sonofabitch,” Kate Movies says to you. “I was just about to fall into a very deep sleep. Pitch me a genre-defining movie. I don’t care if it takes place under the waters of the ocean, as long as it makes dollar signs go inside my eyes.”

You walk inside the office.

“Lucas! You lucky sonofabitch,” Kate Movies says to you. “I was just about to fall into a very deep sleep. Pitch me a genre-defining movie. I don’t care if it takes place under the waters of the ocean, as long as it makes dollar signs go inside my eyes.”

You breathe in deeply.

“My movie is called Star Wars. It takes place in a galaxy not near to here, several months in the past. It’s about Luke Skywalker, our hero, finding out he is destined to fight Darth Vader, the leader of the oppressive empire.”

This being all you have so far, you stop.

“I...I love it!” Kate Movies says. “Those are the best first two sentences I’ve ever heard! Keep going with stuff this good and we’ll both be rich, disgusting perverts.”

You swallow hard. Your mind is blank. What next?

You breathe in deeply.

“My movie is called Star Wars. It takes place in a galaxy not near to here, several months in the past. It’s about Luke Skywalker, our hero, finding out he is destined to fight Darth Vader, the leader of the oppressive empire. He is helped by Obi-Wan Kenobi, who teaches Luke about the Force and convinces him to help save Princess Leia.”

This being all you have so far, you stop.

“I...I love it!” Kate Movies says. “Those are the best first two sentences I’ve ever heard! Keep going with stuff this good and we’ll both be rich, disgusting perverts.”

You swallow hard. Your mind is blank. What next?

Kate Movies furrows her brow so far that it touches her chin.

“That is the worst idea I’ve ever heard, and the guy before you pitched Pancake Lotion: The Movie,” she says. “If you don’t come up with a better idea in the next 30 seconds, I’m going to sleep!”

You grab the fancy pen from Kate Movies’ desk and jam it squarely into your neck, scoring a direct hit on your carotid artery.

As blood starts gushing from your neck in incredible volume, the rest of Star Wars, perfectly plotted and scripted, flashes before your eyes. You begin to dictate aloud about Luke Skywalker and Han Solo rescuing Princess Leia; Obi-Wan saving Luke before being slain by Darth Vader; Luke’s daring mission to destroy the Death Star. The more blood that exits your body, the clearer and more perfect the story.

Kate howls in delight. “Keep going!” she shouts. “This is incredible!”

You throw your George Lucas body in front of the car, and it hits you with substantial force, throwing you 120 feet down the road. As you fly through the air, you think to yourself, “Luke Skywalker learns from a droid that Princess Leia, a leader of the Rebel Alliance, has been captured by Darth Vader, and Obi-Wan Kenobi convinces him to learn about the Force and to go try to rescue her.”

You hit the pavement, breaking both your legs.

Once again, you are unable to think up more of the story. It appears that you can only come up with more of Star Wars while you are being grievously injured.

The driver of the car gets out and rushes toward you.

“Oh my god!” he says. “Did I just hit George Lucas, the director of Haunted Rollercoaster?”

“Did you just say my parents are dragons?” the man asks furiously. “I’m gonna kick your ass!”

He runs over to you and starts punching you in the face. With two broken legs, a broken shoulder, and massive internal bleeding, you are powerless to stop him.

As he breaks the small bones that hold up your face, you think to yourself, “Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi hire Han Solo and Chewbacca to fly them on the Millennium Falcon to the Death Star, where they rescue Princess Leia by dressing up as Stormtroopers.”

Having sufficiently kicked your ass, the man gets in his car and drives off.

Again, your mind is void of all ideas while you’re not being dealt serious personal injury.

You see a baby bobcat in the woods on the side of the road minding its own business.

You throw a rock at the baby bobcat, hitting it square in the face. It shrieks in pain. A full-grown mother bobcat comes charging out of the woods to where you, George Lucas, lie on the road.

As the great cat rips out your eyes with its teeth, you think to yourself, “Leia gives Luke Skywalker a schematic on how to destroy the Death Star and save the galaxy, so Luke gets in an X-wing and plans to exploit a weakness in the plans.”

As the bobcat trots back into the woods having blinded you, you can no longer think of more Star Wars. As you bleed in the middle of the road with lame legs and one lame arm, completely sightless, the conclusion to your movie seems impossibly far away. The only thing you can hear is a babbling brook nearby.

Slowly but surely, you pull yourself across the pavement and into the forest where you heard the sound of the babbling brook coming from. After 10 minutes of excruciatingly slow movement, you feel the wetness of the brook on your hands.

You glance down your trousers. Your gleaming cock lights up the entire room like 10 Scandinavian winter suns.

Thank you for your compliance and honesty. Please enjoy the following simulation of a seminal year in GEORGE LUCAS’ life.

Hello, GEORGE LUCAS. Thank you for your many films and many children. As you already were GEORGE LUCAS in 1975 and successfully invented Star Wars, this ClickVenture is not suitable for you. Please instead enjoy the following pictures of yams.

MR. GEORGE LUCAS, here is a yam for your viewing pleasure.

MR. GEORGE LUCAS, we are forever in your debt for the films you have crafted and the four to six children you have brought into this world with your incredible sperm. The parade of yams marches on, for your eyes only.

MR. GEORGE LUCAS, this yam is but a small token of our appreciation for your films, like American Graffiti and Haunted Rollercoaster.

Here is a bushel of yams, MR. GEORGE LUCAS. May we ask you a question?

MR. GEORGE LUCAS, here is another picture of a yam. This one is to honor your always considerate hygiene, famous from Beverly Hills to Anchorage, AK.

Ah, yes, our apologies, MR. GEORGE LUCAS. We do not posses your keen attention to detail that allowed you to make Red Tails and Haunted Rollercoaster: Goblin’s Choice. Allow us to right our course.

We do not posses your keen attention to detail that allowed you to make Red Tails and Haunted Rollercoaster: Goblin’s Choice, but we do posses these yam pictures.

You have four to six beautiful children. Amanda Lucas. Everest Hobson Lucas. And surely others. But we have to know: Do you plan on creating more children?

Thank you, MR. GEORGE LUCAS, for answering such a personal question. As a reward, please look at this picture of a beautiful yam.

MR. GEORGE LUCAS, there are no more pictures of yams. We have our top computers trawling the internet 24 hours a day, four days a week, and they have only found the ones we have shown you.

You invented Star Wars, and that is sweeter than any yam. If you would like, you can play this ClickVenture as long as you promise to try your best to forget how you actually invented Star Wars, because that would effectively be cheating. Do you agree?

You have chosen not to look at more pictures of yams. Like all of your choices, it is a perfect choice.

If you would still like to play the ClickVenture, you may do so now, but ONLY if you promise to forget everything you know about actually inventing Star Wars. If you try to remember how you did it for real at any point, you will be cheating, and your good name will be ruined.

Do you agree?

Thank you. Please remember not to cheat.