1965–1969: Early career Lucas saw many inspiring films in class, particularly the visual films coming out of the
National Film Board of Canada like
Arthur Lipsett's
21-87,
cameraman Jean-Claude Labrecque's
cinéma vérité 60 Cycles, the work of
Norman McLaren and the documentaries of
Claude Jutra. Lucas was enamored with
pure cinema and quickly became prolific at making 16-m.m. nonstory noncharacter visual tone poems and cinéma vérité with such titles as
Look at Life,
Herbie,
1:42.08,
The Emperor,
Anyone Lived in a Pretty (how) Town,
Filmmaker and
6-18-67. He was passionate and interested in cinematography and editing, defining himself as a film-maker as opposed to being a director, and he loved making abstract visual films that created emotions purely through nonnarrative structures. He began working under movie and logo designer
Saul Bass and film editor
Verna Fields for the
United States Information Agency, where he met his future wife
Marcia Griffin. Working as a teaching instructor for a class of
U.S. Navy students who were being taught documentary cinematography, Lucas directed the short film
Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which won first prize at the 1967–68 National Student film festival. Lucas was awarded a student scholarship by
Warner Bros. to observe and work on the making of a film of his choosing. The film he chose after finding the animation department closed down was ''
Finian's Rainbow (1968) which was being directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who was revered among film school students of the time as a cinema graduate who had "made it" in Hollywood. In 1969, Lucas was one of the camera operators on the classic Rolling Stones concert film Gimme Shelter''.
1969–1977: THX 1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars In 1969, Lucas moved back to the
San Francisco Bay Area and co-founded the studio
American Zoetrope with Coppola, hoping to create a liberating environment for film-makers to direct outside the perceived oppressive control of the Hollywood
studio system. Coppola thought Lucas's
Electronic Labyrinth could be adapted into his first full-length feature film, which was produced by American Zoetrope as
THX 1138, but was not a success. Lucas then created his own company,
Lucasfilm, Ltd., and directed the successful
American Graffiti (1973). 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. Despite his success with his previous film, all but one studio turned
Star Wars down. It was only because
Alan Ladd Jr. at
20th Century Fox liked
American Graffiti that he forced through a production and distribution deal for the film, which ended up restoring Fox to financial stability after a number of flops.
Star Wars was significantly influenced by
samurai films of
Akira Kurosawa,
Spaghetti Westerns, as well as classic
sword and sorcery fantasy stories.
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 US$150,000 agreed. Lucasfilm has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from licensed games, toys, and collectibles created for the franchise.
1977–1993: Hiatus from directing and Indiana Jones (left) and Lucas working on
Labyrinth in 1986 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 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. Lucas also gave away his screenwriting credit out of great respect for
Leigh Brackett for
The Empire Strikes Back after her death from cancer. He also acted as story writer and executive producer on the first four
Indiana Jones films, which his colleague and good friend Steven Spielberg directed.
Craig Barron, who worked at ILM as part of the matte painting department, told
Star Wars Insider that Lucas liked to spend time with the department's painters and often spoke of what movies he wanted to make. According to Barron, Lucas had wanted to make a film about
Alexander the Great, but this film was ultimately never produced. Projects where Lucas was credited as executive producer and sometimes story writer in this period include Kurosawa's
Kagemusha (1980),
John Korty's
Twice Upon a Time (1983),
Ewoks: Caravan of Courage (1984),
Ewoks: Battle for Endor (1985),
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985),
Jim Henson's
Labyrinth (1986),
Ron Howard's
Willow (1988),
Don Bluth's
The Land Before Time (1988), and the
Indiana Jones television prequel spinoff
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992–93). There were unsuccessful projects, however, including
More American Graffiti (1979),
Willard Huyck's
Howard the Duck (1986), which was the biggest flop of Lucas's career, Coppola's
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) and
Radioland Murders (1994) directed by
Mel Smith. In some cases, George Lucas served as an actual executive producer without being credited, such as in the films
Body Heat (1981),
Latino (1985)
, Return to Oz (1985), documentary
Powaqqatsi (1988, credited only as "Presentation"), also
Star Wars television projects:
Holiday Special (1978),
Droids (1985–1986),
Ewoks (1985–1986) and
Clone Wars (2003–2005). 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 a digital film
The Adventures of André & Wally B. and groundbreaking effects in films such as
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and
Young Sherlock Holmes, As of June 1983, Lucas was worth $60 million, but he met cash-flow difficulties following his divorce that year, concurrent with the sudden dropoff in revenues from
Star Wars licenses following the theatrical run of
Return of the Jedi. At this point, Lucas had no desire to return to
Star Wars, and had unofficially canceled the
sequel trilogy. Also in 1983, Lucas and
Tomlinson Holman founded the audio company
THX. The company was formerly owned by Lucasfilm and contains equipment for stereo, digital, and theatrical sound for films, and music.
Skywalker Sound and
Industrial Light & Magic, are the sound and visual effects subdivisions of Lucasfilm, while Lucasfilm Games, later renamed
LucasArts, produces products for the gaming industry.
1993–2012: Return to directing, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones from President
George W. Bush, February 2006 Having lost much of his fortune in a divorce settlement in 1987, Lucas was hesitant on making additional
Star Wars features. However,
the prequels, which were still only a series of ideas partially pulled from his original drafts of "The Star Wars", continued to tantalize him with technical possibilities that would make it worthwhile to revisit his older material. When
Star Wars became popular once again, in the wake of
Dark Horse's comic book line and
Timothy Zahn's
trilogy of spin-off novels, Lucas realized that there was still a large audience. His children were older, and with the explosion of
CGI technology he began to consider directing once again. By 1993, it was announced, in
Variety among other sources, that Lucas would be making the prequels. He began penning more to the story, indicating that the series would be a tragic one, examining Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side. Lucas also began to change the status of the prequels relative to the originals; at first, they were supposed to be a "filling-in" of history tangential to the originals, but now he saw that they could form the beginning of one long story that started with Anakin's childhood and ended with his death. This was the final step towards turning the film series into a "Saga". In 1994, Lucas began work on the screenplay of the first prequel, tentatively titled
Episode I: The Beginning. In 1997, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of
Star Wars, Lucas restored the original trilogy and made numerous modifications using newly available digital technology to bring them closer to his original vision. The films were in theaters as the "Special Editions". The trilogy received further modifications and restorations for DVD releases in 2004, Blu-ray releases in 2011 and 4K releases released in 2019. Additionally, Lucas released a director's cut of
THX 1138 in 2004, with the film and containing a number of CGI additions. ) 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. 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
Attack of the Clones. The final prequel,
Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, began production in 2002 and was released in 2005. Numerous older fans and critics at the time considered the prequels more mixed compared to the original trilogy, though they were box office successes and popular with younger fans. In 2004, Lucas reflected that his transition from independent to corporate film-maker mirrored the story of
Star Wars character
Darth Vader in some ways, but concluded he was glad to be able to make his films the way he wanted to. 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. Similar to the
Star Wars prequels, the reception was mixed with fans and critics alike. From 2008 to 2014, Lucas also served as the creator and executive producer for a second
Star Wars animated series on Cartoon Network,
Star Wars: The Clone Wars which premiered with a
feature film of the same name before airing its first episode. The supervising director for this animated series was
Dave Filoni, who was chosen by Lucas and closely collaborated with him on its development. This series bridged the events between
Attack of the Clones and
Revenge of the Sith, and featured the last
Star Wars stories in which Lucas was involved in a major way. In 2012, Lucas self-funded and served as executive producer for
Red Tails, a war film based on the exploits of the
Tuskegee Airmen during
World War II. He also took over directing of reshoots while director
Anthony Hemingway worked on other projects.
2012–present: Semi-retirement In January 2012, Lucas announced his retirement from producing large
blockbuster films, and instead re-focusing his career on smaller, independently budgeted features. In June 2012, it was announced that producer
Kathleen Kennedy, a long-term collaborator with Steven Spielberg and a producer of the
Indiana Jones films, had been appointed as co-chair of Lucasfilm Ltd. It was reported that Kennedy would work alongside Lucas, who would remain chief executive and serve as co-chairman for at least one year, after which she would succeed him as the company's sole leader. Lucas worked as a creative consultant on the
Star Wars sequel trilogy's first film,
The Force Awakens. Lucas's involvement included attending early story meetings; according to Lucas, "I mostly say, 'You can't do this. You can do that.' You know, 'The cars don't have wheels. They fly with antigravity.' There's a million little pieces ... I know all that stuff." Lucas's son Jett told
The Guardian that his father was "very torn" about having sold the rights to the franchise, despite having hand-picked Abrams to direct, and that his father was "there to guide" but that "he wants to let it go and become its new generation." Among the materials turned over to the production team were story treatments Lucas developed when he considered creating Episodes
VII–
IX himself; in January 2015, Lucas stated that Disney had discarded his story ideas. in Washington, D.C., on December 5, 2015
The Force Awakens, directed by
J. J. Abrams, was released on December 18, 2015. Kathleen Kennedy produced the film and its sequels. The new sequel trilogy was jointly produced by Lucasfilm and
the Walt Disney Company, which had acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. During an interview with talk show host and journalist
Charlie Rose that aired on December 24, 2015, Lucas likened his decision to sell Lucasfilm to Disney to a divorce and outlined the creative differences between him and the producers of
The Force Awakens. Lucas went on to say that he needed to support the company and its employees who were going to suffer financially. Lucas described the previous six
Star Wars films as his "children" and defended his vision for them, while criticizing
The Force Awakens for having a "retro feel", saying: "I worked very hard to make them completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships – you know, to make it new." Lucas also drew some criticism and subsequently apologized for his remark likening Disney to "white slavers". In 2015, Lucas wrote the CGI film
Strange Magic, his first musical. The film was produced at
Skywalker Ranch.
Gary Rydstrom directed the movie. At the same time the sequel trilogy was announced, a
fifth installment of the
Indiana Jones series also entered pre-development phase with
Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg set to return. Lucas originally did not specify whether the selling of Lucasfilm would affect his involvement with the film. In October 2016, Lucas announced his decision to not be involved in the story of the film but was nevertheless credited as an executive producer. 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.
The Last Jedi, the second film in the sequel trilogy, was released in 2017; Lucas described the film as "beautifully made". Lucas has had cursory involvement with
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), the
Star Wars streaming series
The Mandalorian, and the premiere of the
eighth season of
Game of Thrones. Lucas met with J. J. Abrams before the latter began writing the script to the sequel trilogy's final film,
The Rise of Skywalker, which was released in 2019. == Other ventures==