The secret to film is that it’s an illusion.

Lucas’s remark points to cinema’s foundational trick: moving images, continuity, and emotional reality are manufactured through framing, editing, sound, performance, and effects. Film persuades viewers to accept a constructed world as coherent and meaningful, even though it is assembled from fragments—shots, takes, and postproduction manipulations. Calling it an “illusion” does not dismiss film as false; it highlights the artistry and craft required to make the artificial feel true. In Lucas’s own practice—especially in effects-driven storytelling—the line underscores how technical innovation serves narrative immersion: the goal is not realism for its own sake, but a convincing experience that audiences willingly enter.