Inside Lucas Museum of Narrative Art: Star Wars, Norman Rockwell and More!

After years of delays, detours and more than a little drama, George Lucas finally has his museum.

And yes, there’s Star Wars.

But after getting an early look inside the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park, I can tell you this is definitely not just a museum for people who know the difference between a Wookiee and an Ewok.

The long-awaited museum officially opens to the public Sept. 22, bringing more than 1,300 works of art to more than 30 galleries inside a massive 300,000-square-foot building.

Founded by filmmaker George Lucas and financier Mellody Hobson, the museum is dedicated to something Lucas has spent more than 50 years collecting: narrative art.

In other words, art that tells us a story.

And that definition gets pretty broad here.

Walking through the galleries during a special media preview, I saw works by Norman Rockwell, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Robert Crumb. There are galleries devoted to comics, manga, graphic novels, photography, murals, children's stories, romance, fantasy and adventure.

Vincent van Gogh shares museum real estate with Charles Schulz. Norman Rockwell gets his own gallery. And the museum even has works connected to street artists JR and Banksy.

That's intentional.

For decades, comics, illustrations and other forms of popular art haven't always been given the same respect in museums as paintings and sculpture. The Lucas Museum puts them side by side, essentially asking visitors to reconsider what deserves to be called art.

Lucas has referred to it as “the people's art.”

And then there's that galaxy far, far away.

Yes, there’s plenty of Star Wars

One of the biggest draws will almost certainly be Star Wars in Motion, an exhibition built from the Lucas Archives.

The gallery focuses on vehicles from the first six Star Wars films, with concept artwork, costumes and props showing how Lucas and his creative teams developed everything from Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder in A New Hope to General Grievous' Wheel Bike in Revenge of the Sith.

For Star Wars fans, it's the kind of room where you're probably going to need a minute.

But what's interesting is that the museum isn't treating these objects simply as Hollywood memorabilia. They're being presented as part of the same visual storytelling tradition as paintings, illustrations and sculptures.

And that's really the point of the entire museum.

A museum designed for more than art insiders

Lucas and Hobson say they wanted to build a museum where people from different backgrounds could walk in and recognize something familiar.

Museum CEO Tracey Bates told me during our interview that accessibility, particularly for the surrounding South Los Angeles community, is an important part of that mission.

The museum is working with the community and plans to offer free museum days, part of an effort to make sure the people living around this enormous new cultural institution actually have opportunities to experience what's inside.

That philosophy extends beyond the galleries.

The museum sits on a new 13-acre campus with public park space and gardens designed by landscape architect Mia Lehrer. There's also a free research library, two theaters, classrooms, a café and the Skywalker Grill restaurant.

Even the building is part of the experience.

Designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects with Stantec, the futuristic structure has a curving form without a single straight line. Its massive central arch stretches 185 feet across a public plaza, with the building appearing to hover four stories overhead.

It looks a little like a spaceship landed in the middle of Exposition Park, which, considering whose museum this is, feels appropriate.

More than a Star Wars museum

People will undoubtedly come for Star Wars.

But they may end up spending just as much time looking at Norman Rockwell, flipping through the history of comic art or discovering an illustrator whose work they recognize from childhood but whose name they never knew.

That's what surprised me most during my first look inside.

The Lucas Museum isn't really asking visitors to decide whether something is “fine art” or “popular art.”

It's asking a much simpler question:

Does this image tell you a story?

And if it does, George Lucas thinks it deserves a place on the wall.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens to the public Sept. 22 in Exposition Park.

Listen to Entertain Me with Heather Brooker to hear the full conversation with Lucas Museum CEO Tracey Bates and how she says they are working with the community to make this a truly LA experience.