George Lucas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Jump to: navigation, search
George Lucas
Enlarge
George Lucas

George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter famous for his epic Star Wars saga and the Indiana Jones trilogy.

Contents

[edit]

Biography

Lucas was born in Modesto, California, where his father, George Lucas, Sr., ran a stationery store and owned a small walnut orchard. His mother, Dorothy Bomberger Lucas, was a member of a prominent Modesto family (one of her cousins is the mother of former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman) and was in poor health, often bedridden, throughout Lucas' childhood. Lucas himself was short and scrawny as a child; his younger sister reportedly fought with other kids who picked on him.

Lucas attended Thomas Downey High School, where he was an indifferent student at best, and dreamed of becoming a professional race car driver. That early dream ended June 12, 1962, when he crashed his Fiat Bianchina. The car was clipped from behind while he tried to make a left turn into his driveway. The car rolled; the racing harness that he had installed snapped, and he was thrown from the car. Had the harness not snapped—and Lucas has said it shouldn't have—he would most likely have been crushed to death by the steering column when the car smashed into a walnut tree. (The force of the impact uprooted the tree.) As it was, emergency personnel had difficulty finding a pulse and at first thought him dead.

During his recovery, Lucas reevaluated his life and decided to go to college. He enrolled at Modesto Junior College, where he earned an AA degree, then transferred to the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television. USC was one of the earliest universities to have a school devoted to film studies. There he made a number of short films, including an early version of THX 1138 (the complete title was "Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB"), which later became his first full-length feature film.

After graduating with a bachelor of fine arts in film in 1966, he drifted a little, trying to figure out what to do next. He tried joining the Air Force as an officer, but was turned down because of his numerous speeding tickets. He was later drafted by the Army, but tests showed he had diabetes, which killed his paternal grandfather. Lucas was prescribed medication for the disease and does not seem to have required insulin.

Eventually he co-founded the studio American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola, hoping to create a liberating environment for filmmakers to direct outside the perceived oppressive control of the Hollywood studio system. From the financial success of his films American Graffiti (1973) and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), Lucas was able to set up his own studio, Lucasfilm, in Marin County in his native northern California. Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic, the sound and visual effects subdivisions of Lucasfilm, respectively, have become among the most respected firms in their fields. Lucasfilm Games, later renamed to LucasArts, is highly regarded in the gaming industry.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is considered by some to be the first "high concept" film, although others feel the first was Steven Spielberg's Jaws, released two years prior. Lucas and Spielberg had been acquaintances for some time and eventually worked together on several films, notably the first Indiana Jones vehicle, Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. Along with Spielberg, Lucas is credited with (or blamed for) establishing the blockbuster approach to filmmaking.

On a return on investment basis, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope proved to be one of the most successful films of all time. During the filming of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Lucas waived his up front fee as director and negotiated to own the licensing rights—rights which the studio thought were nearly worthless. This decision earned him hundreds of millions of dollars as he was able to directly profit from all the licensed games, toys and collectibles created for the franchise. In 2004 Forbes Magazine estimated Lucas' personal wealth at $3 billion. In 2005 Forbes.com estimated the lifetime revenue generated by the Star Wars franchise at nearly $20 billion.

Lucas was fined by the Directors Guild of America for refusing to have a standard title sequence in his Star Wars films. After paying the fine, he quit the guild. This made it hard for him to find a director for some of his later projects. According to some, he wanted his friend Spielberg to direct some of the later Star Wars movies, but as a member of the guild Spielberg may have been unable to do so. Spielberg has repeatedly stated that Lucas consciously did not let him direct any Star Wars films, despite the fact that Spielberg wanted to. Other directors Lucas pursued to aid him were David Lynch and David Cronenberg, both of whom declined.

On October 3, 1994, Lucas started to write the three Star Wars prequels, and on November 1 that year, he left the day-to-day operations of his filmmaking business and started a sabbatical to finish the prequels.

The American Film Institute awarded Lucas its Lifetime Achievement Award for 2005. He received the award on June 9, 2005. [1]

On June 5, 2005, Lucas was named 100th "Greatest American" by the Discovery Channel.

Lucas married film editor Marcia Lou Griffin, who won an Oscar for her work on the original (fourth) Star Wars film, in 1969; they adopted a daughter, Amanda, in 1981, and divorced in 1983. Lucas has since adopted two more children: Katie, born in 1988, and Jett, born in 1993. All three of his children have appeared in the prequels.

In 2005, George Lucas gave $1 million to help build a memorial in Washington D.C. for American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..

[edit]

Innovator

Besides his directorial and production work on movies, Lucas is the most significant contemporary contributor to modern movie technology. In 1975 Lucas established Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) in Van Nuys, CA, which was responsible for the invention of the special computer assisted camera crane "Dykstraflex" (named after special effects innovator, John Dykstra) that was used for most of the space fight sequences used in the Star Wars movies (technology which was later adopted by most other visual effects production units, such as those responsible for Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: The Next Generation). Through ILM, Lucas spurred the further development of computer graphics, film laser scanners and the earliest use of 3D computer character animation in a film, Young Sherlock Holmes. Lucas sold his early computer development unit to Steve Jobs in 1986, which was renamed Pixar.

Lucas is also responsible for the modern sound systems found in many movie theaters. Though Lucas didn't invent THX, he is responsible for its development. The acronym ostensibly stands for "Tomlinson Holman eXperiment" after it's chief engineer, however, it is obviously a reference to Lucas' first film.

Now Lucas is spearheading digital photography for movies. Though personal digital photography is now mainstream, most movie studios still use traditional cameras and film for movie production. Lucas departed from this model by filming Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones almost completely digitally. He showed the result to a select audience of the Hollywood elite, before the movie's general release. For the presentation, Lucas used a special digital projection system. The attendees said the movie had the clearest and sharpest presentation they had ever seen.

Despite the successful demonstration of the technology, movie studios are slow to move to this new model, in part because of the high price of the digital equipment. But digital movie photography has several advantages:

  • Digital editing is much easier and less expensive since the movie is already in digital form.
  • Delivery of movies to cinemas is much cheaper since the digital media is much smaller than traditional reels which can weigh hundreds of pounds.
  • Movies stored digitally are not susceptible to decay and degradation in quality.
  • Transferring digital movies to DVD is much cheaper since both forms are digital.
[edit]

Most notable movies

[edit]

Student and Short Films

[edit]

Other movies

[edit]

Trivia

  • In 1976, Lucas published a novelization of A New Hope, which was initially (like the film) titled just Star Wars. Although Lucas was credited as author of the book, it was later revealed that the book was actually ghost written by Alan Dean Foster, who would also write Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the first original Star Wars novel and, in many respects, the first Star Wars sequel.
  • As a tribute to his first film, THX-1138, it is said that each of his films (most notably the Star Wars saga) contains the number 1138 hidden as an Easter egg, and each of his movies are also made with the sound company, THX. It is also rumored that while growing up in California, the last seven digits of his home telephone number were 849-1138, where the 849 corresponds with the letters THX on a standard telephone.
  • Was an executive producer of the box office bomb Howard the Duck. He disowned the film shortly after its release.
  • Lucas credits his friend and mentor John Milius with introducing him to the films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, whose works (including Seven Samurai) inspired the Star Wars films.
  • George Lucas was honored by the AFI, and was given a Life Achievement Award for his contribution to the movie entertainment industry.
  • Lucas is a member of the United Methodist Church, though he claims that he doesn't adhere to a specific religion.
  • In his spare time, Lucas enjoys playing Star Wars video games with his children. He has also been known to read some of the Star Wars comic books, including Dark Empire. At one point, Lucas even said that he liked the story presented in the Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire multimedia project so well, that if he had had the story in the 80's, he might have produced a film based on the events in it.
  • Despite the financial success of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the prequels engendered a great amount of backlash from older long time fans, who felt the prequels were bland, flat, wooden, and lifeless in terms of acting and also ersatz in terms of dialogue and human drama. A common complaint was that the prequels lack of a clear plot took a backseat to the grandiose special effects, and that Lucas himself had lost his talent as a director. Fans have also criticized Lucas for "tinkering" with the classic trilogy for the DVD releases, adding special effects and digitally replacing actors, and for his refusal to release the original trilogy in its original format on DVD. Many fans now profess that they believe Lucas was never really the creative mastermind behind Star Wars and that it was the influence and contributions of the other writers, directors (most notably Irvin Kershner, who directed The Empire Strikes Back) and the actors (most notably Harrison Ford for his legendary ad-libbing and improvisation of dialogue). Others feel that while Lucas knows his business when it comes to special effects, success ultimately went to his head and that his efforts are now tampered by a big ego and the fact that he only has "yes men" on his staff, with no one to challenge him creatively. However, many loyalist fans still hold to the premise that Star Wars is not only an expression of the fall of a hero, and the rise of rebels against an empire, but also a continuing expressive art-form of George Lucas' life itself. While critics may attack the prequels as being untraditional, many others remind them that that "tradition" was created by George Lucas himself. In another 20 years, once these prequels too have aged as has the rest of the original trilogy, they too, will be part of tradition, and George Lucas would have left us 6 great episodes of a saga that will be told until the ending of civilization itself.
[edit]

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
[edit]

Articles

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lucas"
Personal tools