Even if you've seen and read everything there is to know about George Lucas, chances are you've never seen this before: a one-hour interview with him from 1971 from a TV show on Los Angeles public TV station KCET called George Lucas: Maker of Films, which you can view after the jump.

That's right, 1971. That's before not only Star Wars (1977), but also American Graffiti (1973)! In this rare video, film journalist Gene Youngblood interviews the then-27-year-old Lucas based on the release of his THX 1138, his dystopic sci-fi movie, which had come out the previous March.

It's almost as if Youngblood is really someone from the 23rd century who has jumped into his time machine to go back to talk with Lucas before everyone else.

Odd to see someone treating Lucas as kind of a maverick indie artist who rails against the studio system, but that's still kind of who he is, isn't it?

Thanks to BinaryBonsai for unearthing the video interview.