George Lucas
George Lucas is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for the movie American Grafitti, creating Star Wars and assisting with the creation of Indiana Jones. He is also known for founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, and THX. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. His full legal name is George Walton Lucas Jr.
While Lucas is considered to be the creator of Star Wars, the original and prequel trilogies are heavily based on the 1958 Japanese samurai film The Hidden Fortress directed by Akira Kurosawa. George Lucas does however state that Kurosawa as an inspiration.
Howard the Duck bombing forced a cash-strapped Lucas to sell the computer division of Lucasfilm to Steve Jobs, and that's how Pixar was born.
In 1988, an original story by Lucas called Willow hit theaters which was basically a remake of Star Wars.
In a 1999 interview with the New York Times leading up to the release of The Phantom Menace, Lucas made a political comment where he spoke fondly of how the United States would be better off with a king or even a despot. "There's probably no better form of government than a good despot," Lucas said as he shared his political view.
opinion and review
On a Reddit George Lucas review by noelioli
He had a good idea, but he didn't know what to do with it. He let other people that knew what they were doing help him. The first cut of the original star wars that he made was said to be totally unwatchable. The editor that did the final cut noted how bad it was, and he pushed to have it flow in a more natural way, and finally Lucas let him do it his way. Empire strikes back, which is usually considered the best star wars (to some even one of the greatest films ever) he barely had anything to do with. He is credited for the story, but other people rewrote the script. Pretty much the same deal with return of the Jedi. He also hardly had anything to do with Indiana Jones. You can find videos of Stephen Spielberg talking about the awful concepts from Lucas that he shot down. And of course when he did have total control over movies they were really bad (the star wars prequels). Red tails was also pretty bad. He also obviously can't write realistic dialogue or direct actors well. All he did was make one good movie that by all accounts would have been terrible if he had it his way. He's the luckiest man in the entertainment industry.
Credit to the author.
THX 1138
George Lucas expanded THX 1138 from Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, a student film he made as a grad student in the film department of the University of Southern California. Lucas adapted the idea from a 1.5-page outline called “Breakout,” which was written by fellow USC student Matthew Robbins. References to the number “1138” have been included in subsequent Lucas films. In American Graffiti, it is the license plate number on John Milner’s car. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo transfer Chewbacca to cell block 1138. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, a Nazi loudspeaker in the submarine dock scene announces "ein, ein, drei, acht," which in English translates to “one,” “one,” “three,” “eight.” There are additional examples not mentioned here.
The short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
