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George Lucas and Team on Song Choices, Love Dust and Kelly Clarkson in 'Strange Magic'!

By InCinemas / 23 Jan 2015 (Friday)

It took 15 years for George Lucas’ brainchild, Strange Magic to finally bear fruit, which will premiere in local theatres 29 January 2015!

The Star Wars director, together with the director and producer of the film were in Singapore last Thursday to share a little more about the music and 'love dust' in the movie.

The movie is a madcap fairy tale musical inspired by “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, with a colourful cast of goblins, elves, fairies and imps in their quest to search for a powerful love potion. One can expect to enjoy a myriad of songs from the past six decades such as Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’, Reggae track ‘Say Hey’ and Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Stronger’ with a mashup of the 1960’s hit ‘C’mon Marianne’.

Music is a definite strong focus in this new animation for most of the lines are from lyrics of songs. Lucas, who is also the executive producer of the movie said it ‘was the original idea’.

“It’s fun to do a movie to have songs that ‘say what you are trying to say’… I love to make musicals and so I wanted to come out with a complete story using the lyrics from existing songs.”

(Watch the trailer for Strange Magic here!)

Over the years, there were over 400 songs that were chosen and recorded, but only a handful made the final cut.

“‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ was one of the songs that George has always envisioned and it’s one of the song that started on day one and made it all the way through,” said director Gary Rydstrom.

He also shared that the American Idol singer’s hit track ‘Stronger’ was not initially in the pipeline but was added later during the production.“When we came to putting in more modern songs like Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Stronger’, it was originally used to be something else in that slot… but (we changed it) not because it was more recent but because it was better for the storytelling than the one we had before.

Producer Mark S. Miller shared the same thoughts when it came to the music choices. He said: “We love the idea of a family being able to go to watch the movie and all of them are able to recognise something; grandma can come and she knows some of the songs… and the kids will know a Lady Gaga or a Kelly Clarkson song. That mashing-up of the decades was kind of a fun part of the concept for us.”

Apart from the music, Lucas mentioned during the press conference that Strange Magic was something he did ‘for fun’ and had the idea of the fairytale concept to ‘appeal to the adolescent girls’.

“The original idea was that I wanted to do a fairytale originally for girls and my life as a father influenced a lot in this story. I wanted to make a fairytale adventure for 12 year-old adolescent girls and I hope the boys will also see it as there are a lot of sword-fighting and all.”

“The love dust (was inspired) from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It worked there so I figured it’ll work anywhere,” Lucas, who is the father of three daughters said, adding “So with the love dust and the music, I just moved from there to tell a story…

I ultimately want the story to be about infatuation and true love. You should focus on what’s in the book and not the cover; it’s an old story that has been told over and over again but you can never tell these stories too often because each generation needs to be have it told in their own language.”

Strange Magic opens InCinemas 29 Jan 2015!

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George Lucas and Team on Song Choices, Love Dust and Kelly Clarkson in 'Strange Magic'!