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| George Lucas & Master Yoda |
Today, The Grandma has decided to stay at home watching George Lucas' films to homage him in his 75th anniversary.
The Grandma loves Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Willow and ET, and it is always a great pleasure watching these films once and once again. Cinema is a beautiful art that explores the best and the worst of the human genre.
George Walton Lucas Jr., born May 14, 1944, is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur. Lucas is known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic. He was the chairman and CEO of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012.
After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure.
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| Hamill, Lucas & Ford in Star Wars |
His next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his youth in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm.
Lucas' next film, the epic space opera Star Wars (1977), had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and cowrote the sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983).
With director Steven Spielberg, he created the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), and The Last Crusade (1989). He also produced and wrote a variety of films through Lucasfilm in the 1980s and 1990s and during this same period Lucas' LucasArts developed high-impact video games, including Maniac Mansion (1987), The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) and Grim Fandango (1998) alongside many video games based on the Star Wars universe.
More information: Lucasfilm
In 1997, Lucas rereleased the Star Wars trilogy as part of a Special Edition, featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with the Star Wars prequel trilogy, comprising The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). He later collaborated on served as executive producer for the war film Red Tails (2012) and wrote the CGI film Strange Magic (2015).
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| George Lucas & Mark Hamill in Star Wars |
Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation.
Lucas is considered a significant figure in the New Hollywood era. Lucas then set his sights on adapting Flash Gordon, an adventure serial from his childhood that he fondly remembered. When he was unable to obtain the rights, he set out to write an original space adventure that would eventually become Star Wars.
Lucas is considered a significant figure in the New Hollywood era. Lucas then set his sights on adapting Flash Gordon, an adventure serial from his childhood that he fondly remembered. When he was unable to obtain the rights, he set out to write an original space adventure that would eventually become Star Wars.
Star Wars quickly became the highest-grossing film of all-time, displaced five years later by Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. After the success of American Graffiti and prior to the beginning of filming on Star Wars, Lucas was encouraged to renegotiate for a higher fee for writing and directing Star Wars than the $150,000 agreed.
More information: Star Wars
Following the release of the first Star Wars film, Lucas worked extensively as a writer and producer, including on the many Star Wars spinoffs made for film, television, and other media.
Lucas acted as a writer and executive producer for the next two Star Wars films, commissioning Irvin Kershner to direct The Empire Strikes Back, and Richard Marquand to direct Return of the Jedi, while receiving a story credit on the former and sharing a screenwriting credit with Lawrence Kasdan on the latter. He also acted as executive producer and story writer on all four of the Indiana Jones films, which his colleague and good friend Steven Spielberg directed.
The animation studio Pixar was founded in 1979 as the Graphics Group, one third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm.
Pixar's early computer graphics research resulted in groundbreaking effects in films such as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Young Sherlock Holmes, and the group was purchased in 1986 by Steve Jobs shortly after he left Apple Computer.
Pixar's early computer graphics research resulted in groundbreaking effects in films such as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Young Sherlock Holmes, and the group was purchased in 1986 by Steve Jobs shortly after he left Apple Computer.
In 1997, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Star Wars, Lucas returned to the original trilogy and made numerous modifications using newly available digital technology, releasing them in theaters as the Star Wars Special Edition.
The first Star Wars prequel was finished and released in 1999 as Episode I-The Phantom Menace, which would be the first film Lucas had directed in over two decades. Following the release of the first prequel, Lucas announced that he would also be directing the next two, and began working on Episode II.
More information: VOA-Learning English
The first draft of Episode II was completed just weeks before principal photography, and Lucas hired Jonathan Hales, a writer from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, to polish it. It was completed and released in 2002 as Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones.
The final prequel, Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith, began production in 2002 and was released in 2005.
Numerous fans and critics considered the prequels inferior to the original trilogy, though they were box office successes nonetheless.
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| Harrison Ford, George Lucas & Steven Spielberg |
From 2003 to 2005, Lucas also served as an executive producer on Star Wars: Clone Wars, an animated microseries on Cartoon Network created by Genndy Tartakovsky, that bridged the events between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
Lucas collaborated with Jeff Nathanson as a writer of the 2008 film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, directed by Steven Spielberg.
In January 2012, Lucas announced his retirement from producing large blockbuster films and instead re-focusing his career on smaller, independently budgeted features.
Since 2014, Lucas is working as a creative consultant on the Star Wars sequel trilogy, including work on the first film, Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens.
In 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first film of a Star Wars anthology series was released. It told the story of the rebels who stole the plans for the Death Star featured in the original Star Wars film, and it was reported that Lucas liked it more than The Force Awakens.
In 2017, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi was released, which Lucas described as beautifully made.
Lucas has had cursory involvement with Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).
More information: British Council
Everybody has talent, it's just a matter
of moving around until you've discovered what it is.
George Lucas
