George Lucas believes artificial intelligence (AI) is the "future" of movie making - because it makes the process "much easier".
The Star Wars creator, 82 - who has taken a step back from the movie industry since selling LucasFilm to Disney in 2012 - has insisted there is "nothing" people can do about AI, because it is "the future".
He told A Rabbit's Foot: "Artificial intelligence means it’s much easier for us to make movies.
"It’s very much like sitting here saying, ‘Well, I believe the horse and the buggy is really where it’s at. These cars, they break down, they need gas, there’s all kinds of problems with them and pretty soon they’ll be making them into tanks, and then they’ll be killing people. It’s terrible.’
"There’s nothing you can do about it. That’s progress, it’s the future."
But Lucas isn't a fan of Hollywood using focus groups to find out what fans think of a movie before it is released, because he believes audiences are given too much power nowadays.
He added: "I don’t like focus groups. The audience doesn’t know what they want to see.
"If they don’t like a character, that’s interesting, and as a filmmaker I want to find out why.
"But when the studios hear that, they take the wrong message.
"They let the audience actually make the movie. Of course, now they go crazy with that.
"Now, it’s all about what the fans think. That isn’t how you make the movie.
"You make a movie by finding someone that knows how to make movies, that has a story to tell and is passionate about it."
Lucas' comments come after The Odyssey director Sir Christopher Nolan recently praised young people for rejecting AI "slop".
He told The Telegraph: "I’ve never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology in my lifetime.
"So much energy has been expended on bringing in AI, but if you look at that generation’s reaction, they’re utterly rejecting it."
Of his own kids, he added: "Their judgment of AI slop has been immediate and harsh. They see it for what it is very quickly - and it’s much easier for them to identify it, because it grew out of an online world they know really well.
"And while that doesn’t mean that every aspect of the technology is useless or meaningless, in film-making it’s hitting at exactly the wrong time.
"After years of driving towards heavily virtual environments, we’re seeing a renewed interest in more tactile, more real forms of storytelling."
