HUH?

Did I just read this interview right? Is George Lucas suggesting that Ben Affleck will kill children to save his acting career?

For those who griped that the "Star Wars" movies have been too kiddie, here comes "Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith." The flick will be the first PG-13 movie of the series, and not only features Anakin Skywalker's bloody mutilation, but also (SPOILER ALERT!) his taking a light saber to the junior Jedis in training. It happens off camera, though.

Chatting Wednesday at George Lucas' scenic Skywalker Ranch north of San Francisco, where the movie was unveiled to journalists the previous night, producer Rick McCallum came up with an interesting analogy for Anakin's actions.

Q. Do you think some audiences are going to have a problem with Anakin mowing down a bunch of kids?

A He has to kill those kids because that's the only way he can get that power to be able to eventually work with Palpatine [the dark lord] to figure out a way to save his wife. He does it for kind of the right reasons, but if you put it in perspective, I always think of it as like watching Ben Affleck and Matt [Damon]. They wrote this thing ["Good Will Hunting"], they have this background together, they grew up together, they're best friends, and they're two totally different human beings right now. One is laid back, cool, does his work, works as best as he can, tries to be a good actor. The other one has taken the Dark Side, the dark route. It's just amazing.

Q. Because Ben Affleck has embraced the whole celebrity aspect?

A Yeah, the power thing.

Q. He hasn't killed little kids, though.

A No, but, can we take this out of [real] Ben? Take the hypothetical Ben in three or four years . . . career down the slide . . . and he's given a choice to be able to resurrect his career, which is probably the most important thing to him, the fame aspect of it. Would he do anything? Who knows?