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After more than two decades of planning and years of building, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opened to the general public Tuesday, and a vast campus that had been nearly empty for weeks of press previews filled to capacity with eager fans, including some who traveled across oceans to see what all the hype is about.

Actor D’Arcy Carden stopped by early, beating the cadre of guests crowding the main plaza beneath the now-famous oculus of the 300,000-square-foot Ma Yansong-designed building. A Stormtrooper drove by on a flatbed truck, shortly before R2-D2 greeted visitors in the courtyard, wearing an official staff badge. (The line for a selfie with the droll droid stretched as far as the eye could see.) Museum leaders have long said that “Star Wars” artifacts account for about 7% of the 100,000 square feet of gallery space, but one worker quipped 90% of opening-day attendees likely had a vested interest in the franchise.

This proved true, for the most part: Many visitors clearly knew and loved “Star Wars,” and Princess Leia buns and Yoda ears abounded. (Two Padmé Amidalas ran into each other, and according to a restaurant worker, one brave soul showed up in “Star Trek” gear.)

David Perez, 27, (right) donned his “Back to the Future” gear, hoping to see art from the movie. But he and his brother Carlos Perez, 28, (left) were quite pleased with the “Star Wars” artifacts in the Cinema section.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Still, the museum, as its famous co-founder George Lucas has repeatedly said, is about more than just one story, however beloved. That sentiment cropped up repeatedly in interviews, too: Early guests seemed to believe the museum’s brochure, which notes that the galleries are about the “narrative art” of illustrating stories.

Co-founders Lucas and businesswoman Mellody Hobson (also Lucas’ wife) gave remarks early Tuesday to the first 100 visitors, consisting of students from USC, Los Angeles Technology Center, Otis College of Art and Design and Los Angeles City College, who were all handed free tickets.

A yellow Naboo N-1 Starfighter hangs above the education lobby, across from the main plaza, guarding the research library.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

“I’ve spent more than 50 years collecting the work of artists who don’t always get their due — illustrators, cartoonists, muralists, painters — because I believe their images are as vital as any other art form,” Lucas said. “They deserve to be in a museum.”

“This is a museum of the ‘people’s art’ — the images are illustrations of the beliefs we live with every day,” said Hobson, “and for that reason, this art belongs to everyone.”

Later that day, The Times asked visitors to share their impressions of a museum that, until now, has lived largely in the imaginations of fans and in abundant social media posts online. The museum has drawn loads of applause but also plenty of criticism, mostly for its lack of context via wall text, and for displaying art that not everyone agrees should be elevated.

Do the people love the “people’s art”?

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Alden Chang and his wife flew 6,800 miles from Taiwan to thank George Lucas for creating the “Star Wars” films and franchise. Chang told The Times that he also wrote an academic paper examining “Star Wars” fan culture in Taiwan.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Alden Chang, 32, green product engineer from Taiwan

You flew all the way from Taiwan, just for this?

Chang: Yeah, halfway across the world to meet George Lucas and Miss [Mellody] Hobson.

Did you get to meet them?

Chang: Yeah, I just shook hands with them this morning. It’s like a dream come true.

How long ago did you and your wife get here, and how long are you staying?

Chang: For eight days. We came here on Sept. 18.

Is this the highlight of the trip?

Chang: Sure. [Laughs.] It’s my main mission and my main goal.

(Later, in an email, Chang told The Times that he also wrote an academic paper examining “Star Wars” fan culture in Taiwan.)

Friends Robert Meier, left, and Marc Downing used to work as ushers at the Music Center together. Growing up, Marc rode his bike where the Lucas Museum now stands.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Marc Downing, 71, retired, from Exposition Park and Robert Meier, 70, educator, from Highland Park

Downing: I go to all the museums. This was the newest museum, so I had to come and see this.

How does this compare to the other L.A. museums?

Downing: This is ultra modern, ultra space-future. I’m glad the museum is here; highly recommend it. And I’m proud that it’s in my city, and I’m glad that it’s in the neighborhood that I grew up with.

What made you want to be a member of the museum, Robert?

Meier: It’s giving to the neighborhood. I’ve admired George Lucas — I used to have a relative in Marin County, and growing up, we’d go to lunch, and I’d see George Lucas and his family. We’d be at the same restaurant together.

Downing: Well, speaking of this neighborhood: This used to be a parking lot. I remember it very well. And I used to come here and ride my bike in this neighborhood as a kid.

C.S. Lee sits on a bench at the south viewpoint of the museum, gazing out onto the sculpture garden below. “This is why you live in Southern California. This is why you live in L.A.: for days like these.”

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

C.S. Lee, 54, actor, from Koreatown

Lee: “Star Wars” was the very first movie I ever saw in my life as a 4-year-old when I immigrated here from Korea. We landed in Hawaii, in Waikiki Beach. Our family friends took us to a drive-in movie cinema place, and they said, “You want to come see a movie?” And it was “Star Wars” and “King Kong,” double billing. And my mom said when I saw the screen, my eyes popped out of my head because I’d never seen a movie before.

How do you think “Star Wars” impacted how you saw narrative and story?

Lee: I think I carried that all through my life: the story of “Star Wars.” I was like, “Oh, the good guys won!” And it was such an uplifting thing for me to hold on [to] all these years.

What did you think about the rest of the museum?

Lee: It’s so beautifully done: all the curves, all the light. You got the wind coming through the trees that they planted. I mean, honestly, I was just looking out, thinking to myself, “Wow, this is why you live in Southern California. This is why you live in L.A.: for days like these.”

The view of the sculpture garden and grounds beyond that C.S. Lee was contemplating from the south viewpoint.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

What about the building itself?

Lee: We rarely get to see architecture like this. But I think it’s good for people to see the artistry and the imagination of what people can build.

Janet Jacobs, 62, architect and Hanjin Jacobs, 25, audio equipment manufacturer technician, mother and son on a family trip from Portland (pictured at the top of the story)

I see you’re wearing a “Star Wars” T-shirt.

Janet: Yes, I am — actually from 1977.

Wow, really?

Janet: Yeah, I’ve had it for that long [laughs].

What was your overall takeaway from the museum?

Janet: I know George Lucas wanted to create this museum in a different way, like he didn’t have a sequence of events or a roadmap, he just wanted people to experience it the way they wanted to, so that’s all great. We do wish some of the things were explained a little more. Like, I know who Ralph McQuarrie is; [my kids] do not. So that would’ve been nice. Like in a typical museum, you do have a little blurb.

[My son] brought up a really good point: how ironic it is that it’s about storytelling, but yet there seems to be no storyline.

Andrew Liu, left, and Matthew Haak hang loose in front of a KAWS sculpture. They actually didn’t know it was opening day, but were happy to be there anyway.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Matthew Haak, 26, architectural designer, and Andrew Liu, 26, behavioral therapy assistant, both from University Park

Haak: We are not “Star Wars” fans. I haven’t watched a single “Star Wars” movie. I’ve somehow evaded them my entire life.

So, if not for “Star Wars,” why did you come out today?

Haak: I’ve been watching this building being constructed for the past two years. I’m just geeking out over the organic curvilinear forms. Not a single hallway has been straight. And they even have real expensive details, like light coves on the base [of the wall]. All of these things really stand out to me. Also, curved walls like this are so expensive; architects never get a budget to do stuff like that.

I was just surprised: It’s not just “Star Wars” stuff. There’s so much art; it’s so cool.

Nicole Garcia — dressed as Padmé Amidala in her lakeside gown — poses in front of a statue of Princess Leia.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Nicole Garcia, 24, cosplayer/costumer from Corona and Veronica Antonucci, 40, administrative assistant from Orange County

So, this might be an obvious question [given their fun outfits], but what brought you guys out today?

Antonucci: This little thing called “Star Wars”!

Garcia: Growing up with “Star Wars,” I always loved all the pieces, knowing that, for example, there’s miniature pieces that look just huge on-screen, and seeing them in-person is just, like, I want to shrink myself down and just be there.

Antonucci: It’s also amazing that it’s not just “Star Wars,” and it’s also so much more that everyone should come out and see.

Is there anything else you were particularly excited to see?

Garcia: I was shocked to see “Fritz the Cat.”

Antonucci: I was really excited to see the Frida [Kahlo]. I didn’t know she was gonna be here, so I think when I saw her, I gasped.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Garcia: I just hope the future generations of kids come back to see this, growing up with museums more often, and just learning how to make art — like, physically make art — and be inspired.

Antonucci: Actually, we talked about feeling jealous of all the kids who are going to be here on their school field trips, because we didn’t get to experience this.

Nikki Foster, left, loves a good field trip. She texted her group chat to visit the museum, and her bestie, Shalonda Dean, responded, so they both cleared their calendars for the visit.

(Carlin Stiehl/For The Times)

Shalonda Dean, 47, consulting business founder and president, and Nikki Foster, 45, live event production executive, both from Beverly Hills

You both gravitated toward Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With” — why did it stand out to you?

Dean: Being a Black woman, I can identify with this little Black girl. Even in 2026, I think this painting depicts a lot of what Black women are going through today, whether it be in the workplace, navigating motherhood, navigating life. And I think this is an example of the barriers that we’re constantly breaking through every day, even today.

Foster: I’ve never seen it in person until now. So when we saw it, we were like, “It’s here, it’s here!” Just to be able to lay our eyes on it, and not have to go to another country, another state — here in Los Angeles. This is divine. It’s a divine day.

“I love meeting people,” Vincent Zabierowski said. “People are my main inspiration. I’m very lucky I get to be in a place where people want to be, and people want to soak up all that creative energy and just experience art.”

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Vincent Zabierowski, 23, host at the Skywalker Grill and freelance illustrator, lives near Downtown L.A.

As an artist yourself, what are your favorite pieces in the museum?

Zabierowski: I love a lot of the things that are in the graphic novel collection, like the Jack Kirby, the Garfields. My favorite is the Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha. The Diego Rivera mural, that one was really amazing — and just the history here, having it be in L.A.

How does your work as an illustrator inform how you see these pieces?

Zabierowski: When I was going through it with some of my co-workers, I would [ask] “Do you know why they use a blue pencil?” And it’s because, when you take a photograph or a scan, that blue pencil disappears. So it was just really cool to see the behind-the-scenes and understand.

So seeing those blue pencil marks tells you that a piece is real?

Zabierowski: A person made it! I feel like a lot of people see artwork in textbooks, or they see artwork on their phones, or they see artworks on posters, and it takes a lot of skill and intelligence and training to be able to do those pieces of artwork.

Tens of thousands of people walk in and out of Dodger Stadium on any given night, paying scant attention to the trees, plants, and other foliage surrounding it on all sides. Chaz Perea made his peace with that a long time ago.

“Getting to Dodger Stadium is not a small thing,” said Perea, 41, the stadium’s landscape manager. “You’ve got to park in this monster,” he said, motioning to the acres of asphalt around him, “and then go find your seat in that monster.”

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1. The agave garden sits outside Lot B at Dodger Stadium on Friday. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times) 2. Dodgers fans walk past vibrant plants behind photos of former Dodgerss outside center field at Dodger Stadium on Friday. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times) 3. A group visits agave island during a tour of Dodger Stadium’s botanic garden on Tuesday. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

For the past 17 years, Perea and his four-person crew have been responsible for every bit of stadium landscaping that isn’t the field itself. That’s roughly 300 acres, encompassing the parking lots, the hillsides meeting the 110 Freeway, and 149 concrete planters nicknamed “martinis” for their glass-like shape. The planters are original to the stadium’s 1962 construction, and many had crumbled badly enough over the decades to need painstaking repair.

The landscaping isn’t just about plants and planters. Behind a fence beyond the iconic orange 76 ball in the parking lot once sat a hidden garden. Its centerpiece was an eight-foot-tall stone lantern given to then-Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley by Japanese sports columnist Sotaro Suzuki and his wife, Toku, who had attended the stadium’s grand opening in 1962. Suzuki commissioned the 3,921-pound Kasuga-style lantern, which arrived in five pieces in late 1965 and became the centerpiece of a garden that also featured a small wooden bridge and a collection of rocks.

“For years, it was maintained by our gardener with great pride,” said former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley, Walter’s son. “But it was remote, and fans couldn’t really get up there easily to see it or sit in the garden. And it got neglected for a few years. Some years later, I forget how many, we had to fence in the whole property.”

In 2024, shortly after the Dodgers signed two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani, the club moved the lantern to a place of prominence outside the top-deck gates, overlooking the downtown skyline. The move was an elaborate, delicate production. Bundled and boarded up, the lantern inched across the parking lot on the back of a flatbed truck that climbed a ring road steep enough to cause concern.

“It was like they were moving the Ark of the Covenant,” Perea said.

No one exhaled until the cargo was unloaded, unswaddled, and confirmed to be in one piece.

An 8-foot-tall stone Kasuga-style lantern is displayed at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Perea’s crew works out of a large metal shed at the far end of a parking lot, a shop they affectionately call “the Oasis.” Much of what’s inside was retrieved from a dumpster, or scavenged before it landed in one. Perea, who describes himself as a bargain shopper, is passionate about repurposing whatever he can; many of the succulents at the stadium came from his own clippings.

“My general philosophy is I don’t treat the Dodgers like I’m salaried management,” he said. “I treat them like I’m a contractor that they don’t want to get rid of. So I manage the expenses and the labor as such.”

He doesn’t have much interaction with players and executives, though he’s occasionally been called to their homes to help with landscaping problems. One visit stands out.

“Vin Scully is the coolest one I’d stake a claim to,” he said of the legendary play-by-play man. “He was an unbelievable class act. He had a tree issue. He had us out, and was so attentive and appreciative, it was just stunning to me.”

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1. Landscape manager Chaz Perea gives a tour of Dodger Stadium’s botanic garden. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times) 2. A ceramic dog and monkey sit on a golf cart inside the Dodger Stadium landscape team’s shed on Tuesday. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times) 3. A photo of Jim Lefebvre, Dodger player from 1965-1972, is surrounded by plants at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times) 4. Adolfo Hinojosa checks on the planters near center field at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

On the hillside above the shop is an open-air lunch area, its seating made from wooden bleachers salvaged from the old right-field pavilion. Peek through the bushes and the stadium is visible in the distance. Inside the shop, the walls are lined with neatly organized shovels, pickaxes, and ladders. Above them hang paintings, art being another of Perea’s passions, most of them made by his friends.

Perea freely admits he’s an odd fit for the job. He’s not a baseball fan; he prefers beach volleyball and mixed martial arts. He had a rough upbringing in Arizona, dropped out of high school, and got by on $6.75 an hour doing golf-course maintenance, supplementing it with landscaping gigs he ran out of his pickup truck before eventually returning to school.

He came back to the classroom with a purpose, not only finishing high school but going on to earn multiple advanced degrees and, ultimately, a Ph.D. He’s now a professor of horticultural science and co-chair of agricultural science at Mt. San Antonio College.

But it’s his day job that draws clusters of Dodger fans willing to pay $52.25 each for his 90-minute botanic garden tour of the grounds. They explore “Agave Island” near the main entrance, a wedge of land planted with nine palm trees to match the number of players on a baseball field, and the planters outside the club-level entrance, where the crew grows chilies (jalapeños, serranos, habaneros), along with basil, mint, tomatoes, onions, and garlic. That garden spawned an annual salsa competition, in which club employees harvest their own ingredients from the planters, make salsa at home, and bring it back to be judged. Perea and his crew make handmade tortillas and quesadillas for the event.

Landscape manager Chaz Perea gives a tour of Dodger Stadium’s botanic gardens on Tuesday.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Two more planted islands are devoted entirely to tequila agave. It takes nearly a decade for the plant to mature, and about 110 pounds of its core to yield a single liter of tequila through processing. Perea and his crew hope to eventually try making some themselves, as an in-house project rather than a commercial one.

The landscape looked very different before Perea arrived. He describes the old look as Disneyland-esque: heavy on lawns and flowers, constantly in need of replacement, and thirsty for water. About two years into the job, he began swapping annual flower beds for drought-tolerant succulents. When one executive noticed and ordered the flowers put back in a particular spot, Perea complied there, then made the same swap a little farther down the hillside, out of view.

Turnover among executives and ownership gave him repeated openings to make wholesale changes, a shift that coincided with California’s drought crisis. Within a few years, he had planted 10,000 cuttings and stripped every flower bed from the property.

“A lot of people look at this as the last unpainted canvas in Los Angeles,” Perea said.

Chaz of Chavez Ravine, perpetually painting the corners.