George Lucas-"The Evolutionist"
Along with his friend and occasional collaborator Steven Spielberg, George Lucas was the key figure behind the American film industry's evolution (or, according to most critics, de-evolution) from cinema to spectacle during the late '70s. The mastermind behind two of the most successful franchises in history - Star Wars and the Indiana Jones features - Lucas redefined the concept of the Hollywood motion picture, shifting the focus of film away from acting and personal storytelling to special effects, production design, and rapid-fire action.
Remaining at all times on the cutting edge of technology, he forever altered the ways in which movies are perceived by audiences and studios. Born on May 14, 1944, in Modesto, California, George Walton Lucas Jr.'s first love was not filmmaking, but car racing. A serious wreck forced him out of the sport, and he eventually enrolled in the University of Southern California's famed film school program. There earned an internship at Warner Bros. studios, where he worked as a production assistant on Francis Ford Coppola's 1969 film The Rain People. Lucas made a feature-length remake of THX 1138, a short feature he wrote while in school. The end result, starring Robert Duvall, won rave reviews, and quickly established itself as a major cult favorite. The success of the movie brought Lucas to the attention of Universal Studios, which agreed to finance nostalgic American Graffiti in 1973, a superb reminiscence on early-'60s America which launched the motion-picture careers of talents including Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, and Harrison Ford. Even more important was the film's soundtrack, a collection of vintage rock & roll hits which became an immediate best-seller and established the formula for movie soundtracks for decades to come. Shot on a miniscule budget, American Graffiti grossed over $145 million and earned a number of Oscars. Suddenly, Lucas was a major Hollywood player, and he was given much greater freedom and support in developing his next project. That next project, 1977's Star Wars, proved to be one of the most important and successful films in Hollywood history, using the latest in cutting-edge technology. Made for just under $10 million, Star Wars made over $400 million and created a series of toys, comic books, and other collectibles and establishing science fiction as Hollywood's dominant genre. On the down side, it shifted the focus away from the personal, character-driven films of directors like Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Robert Altman to action-packed, special effects-powered events. The overwhelming success of Star Wars did more than simply alter the kinds of films the studios looked to produce, however; it also forever changed the way films were made. The most notable aspect of the picture's storytelling was its breakneck pacing, edited by Lucas himself along with his wife. No film had ever moved so quickly, and its overwhelming success proved that this was the kind of movie people wanted to see on a regular basis. Studios scrambled to develop their own sci-fi projects, while Lucas turned to studying special effects and established his own SFX company, Industrial Light and Magic, to assist other filmmakers and technicians in creating the most accomplished visuals possible. Among Lucas' most significant achievements were implementing increased frame rates and the use of optical zooms to create the illusion of lightspeed space travel. His work quickly became the industry standard, constantly remaining two or three steps ahead of their competition by applying the latest technological advances to manufacture seamless visual effects. Eventually, they became among the very first company to work with computer graphics. Lucas also established Skywalker Sound, a state-of-the-art post-production audio facility which later developed THX, a means of creating new levels of sophistication in motion-picture soundtracks. Lucas' next projects consisted of the Indiana Jones series - that were all extremely successful, as well as the Star wars trilogy. However, his next major project was also his first disaster: 1986's Howard the Duck. Based on a cult hit from Marvel Comics, the film bombed. In 1997, he reissued the Star Wars trilogy in theaters with additional footage and newly revised special effects, all to massive box-office success. Finally, that summer, he also began pre-production on the first of the hotly anticipated new Star Wars features. The first of the new trilogy, Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace, opened in May of 1999. Despite an almost unprecedented degree of marketing, rumor, and advance ticket sales, the film failed to live up to the colossal expectations. In addition to receiving unenthusiastic reviews and weak word-of-mouth, it also didn't surpass Titanic's box-office record, as many had expected it would. However, The Phantom Menace still proved to be a very profitable affair, grossing well over 400 million dollars, and legions of Lucas fans came out of theaters already impatient for the trilogy's next installment. Though Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones was greeted with largely negative reviews by critcs, longtime fans of the series nevertheless costumed-up and assembled en masse in front of multiplexes nationwide in anticipation for the next chapter in Anakin Skywalker's continuing fall to the dark side. Generally considered an improvement over the previous installment by fans, the film also made film history in being the first feature to be digitally shot and projected in theaters. Though it had strong competition in from the hit Spider-Man film, Attack of the Clones still managed to make a splash at the box-office.