NEW YORK — Stephen Colbert came to the Tribeca Film Festival to interview filmmaker George Lucas, but the "Star Wars" creator had a question of his own. "The perfect choice to replace that Jon Stewart fellow would have been you," Lucas told Colbert on Saturday. Why, he wanted to know, wasn't he replacing him? Colbert, who replaces David Letterman in September as host of "The Late Show" on CBS, tried to explain. "Trevor Noah is a very funny guy," he said of Stewart's recently named replacement. Moreover, he said, "I don't want to be the guy to take over from Jon Stewart. I worked for Jon Stewart at that show, and my memories will always be of him being the keenest, most intelligent, most beautifully deconstructive mind... And I would never, however successful I'd be, get out of his shadow." Lucas then suggested that Colbert wouldn't need to get out from Stewart's shadow; he could simply "start jumping on his body and shouting, 'I won! I won!'" "I'll try that," Colbert quipped. The hour-long interview focused mostly on Lucas, however, and Colbert, sporting an ample white beard to match that of Lucas and appearing as himself, not as his retired "Colbert Report" pundit, made clear that he's a huge fan. The two men didn't speak much about the much-anticipated new "Star Wars" trilogy, directed by J.J. Abrams, with the first installment, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," opening in December. Lucas, who sold the franchise and his Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 for $4.05 billion, said he doesn't know what the film's plot will be but looks forward to seeing it. "The one thing I regret about having made 'Star Wars' is that I never got to just go and see it," he said. "I hope it's successful," he said. "I hope they do a great job." He added that the original saga was about a father, children and grandchildren. "I'm hoping they take it in a different direction," he said. "I have no idea what they're doing." Lucas said one thing is sure: He'll wait to see the movie on a big screen. Asked by Colbert how he feels about people watching movies on their phones, he said it didn't anger him as much as it does some other filmmakers. "They work best on a big screen," he said. "If you want to see it on a cellphone, that's fine with me, but it won't be the full experience." — AP
