George Lucas, the man, the myth, the legend, has created some of the most enduring franchises, characters and video games the world has ever seen. He was raised in Modesto, CA, and his father owned a stationery store in town. His career started in 1965 while at the University of Southern California and continues to this day. Lucas’ grandfather, Elbert Lucas, served in the military during World War I. Lucas lives by the mantra, “You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.” He has made new worlds and science fiction for all to enjoy and has forever changed history for the better.
Lucas loved science fiction throughout his childhood and had a passion for racing and speed. He used to hang around race tracks and auto garages to learn more about his passion. In a 2010 interview with his daughter, Katie Lucas, for seventeen.com, Lucas commented, “I wanted to race cars. I didn’t like school, and all I wanted to do was work on cars. But right before I graduated, I got into a really bad car accident, and I spent that summer in the hospital thinking about where I was heading. I decided to take education more seriously and go to a community college.” He was convinced by a friend to study photography, so he attended USC for two years from 1965 to 1967.
In the same interview, Lucas said, “I was going to go to a four-year college and be an anthropologist or to an art school and be an illustrator when a friend convinced me to learn photography at the University of Southern California. Little did I know it was a school that taught you how to make movies! It had never occurred to me that I’d ever have any interest in filmmaking….I loved photography, and everybody said it was a crazy thing to do because in those days, nobody made it into the film business. I mean, unless you were related to somebody, there was no way in.”
While at the school and through outside networks, he made friends with great directors, writers, and cinematographers, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, John Milius, Walter Murch, and Randal Kleiser. Lucas’s creativity grew while at the storied institution. and through much peer collaboration. After graduation, he tried to join the USAF as an officer, but was denied because of his many speeding tickets and was later drafted by the U.S. Army for Vietnam service. He was exempted from serving because of his diabetic status.
Since he was not able to serve, he pressed forward into filmmaking. He co-founded American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather series and Apocalypse Now) and made THX-1138, which starred Robert Duvall and was based on Lucas’ earlier short Electronic Labyrinth: THX-1138 LEB. For the initial short, Lucas taught filmmaking class to Navy personnel who attended USC for additional film study and in turn got a film crew of Navy members, access to special sites for filming and the option to make it in color. He even had some Navy service members in the cast. The main feature THX-1138 although ambitious was not seen as successful by the studio.
Lucas moved forward and then made American Graffiti, which was a hit success and spawned a sequel. He next focused on writing his space opera since he could not acquire the rights to Flash Gordon, which became Star Wars. The sci-fi epic had influences from samurai films, the military, Spaghetti Westerns and sword and sorcery fantasy stories. It earned over $775M at the box office and many awards and launched the careers of Mark Hamil, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford.
The series has spawned two original sequels, three prequels, live-action and cartoon TV series, lots of video games, novelizations, comic books, toys and three more sequels in the 2010s. Of note, Lucas gave up his screenwriting credit on The Empire Strikes Back to Leigh Brackett who wrote the romance portion between Han and Leia of the screenplay. Brackett, the “Queen of Space Opera, had been a successful novelist, science fiction short story writer and screenwriter for hits such as The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart and Rio Bravo with John Wayne. Lucas’ creation has made him a multi-billionaire with a net worth of roughly $9.4 billion. He rode the lightning and eventually sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 for $4.05B, which is a great return on his initial investment and passion for science fiction.
In the 1980s, Lucas created the Indiana Jones series, which has led to five feature films starring Harrison Ford as the eponymous character. Jones fights Nazis, native cultists, more Nazis, Soviets and a Nazi-turned-NASA scientist. The total combined box office for the Indiana Jones films is $2.65 billion, and the series has garnered countless awards and public favor. The movies are noteworthy for their musical scores and sound effects, which Lucas stated, “The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.” He is correct, and one of his stamps for a project is their excellent sound and inspirational scores.
His creative genius even led to a revolutionary computer graphics company. Lucas also founded Pixar initially as the Graphics Group, which was a part of Lucasfilm. The company did the digital film The Adventures of Andre and Wally B, the special effects for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and was purchased by Steve Jobs in the mid-1980s. Lucas explained, “The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.” Pixar has consistently made ground-breaking computer-generated films for decades, including the Toy Story series and Inside Out, which have forever changed the face of cinema. He also founded THX, an audio company, during the 1980s.
In the 1990s, he began working on the Star Wars prequels, with the first one coming out in 1999, Episode I – The Phantom Menace. He followed it with the two prequels, which came out in the 2000s, such as Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. The films again were box office smashes and award winners, even though some die-hard fans were disappointed in their content when compared to the original films. The last film his company did before being sold was Red Tails about the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, as Lucas loves aviation and military history. After the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, he has since gone into semi-retirement.
Lucas created not only film and technology companies but also the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. The museum will contain all kinds of visual storytelling from painting, photography, sculpture, comic art and video. It will house works from Norman Rockwell, Carrie Mae Weems, Kadir Nelson, Jack Kirby and many more. It will also contain works from African American cinema featuring Dorothy Dandridge, Paul Robeson, Duke Ellington, Sidney Poitier and Josephine Baker. He has donated to nonprofits and charities throughout his career to include donating $1M to help build the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. He has donated $180 million to expand the USC film school and $25 million to After School Matters.
He has been married twice and has four children, including daughters Amanda, a former MMA fighter and Katie, an actress and writer. His three oldest children appear in all three Star Wars prequels. His first wife was Larcia Griffin, an Academy Award-winning editor, and his current wife is Mellody Hobson, a very successful businesswoman. He based much of the mythical work in his films on the writings of Joseph Campbell and lives in Marin County. He has a collection of 57 Norman Rockwell paintings and enjoys the parody works of Star Wars done by Seth MacFarlane for Family Guy.
Lucas has created new worlds for people of all ages and generations to enjoy on a movie screen, TV screen and a computer screen. It is great that he came from a family with military connections and tried to serve his country during Vietnam. The most impactful Lucas quote is, “The best way to pursue happiness is to help other people. Nothing else will make you happier.” May his creations continue to inspire people for centuries and millennia.
