George Lucas – Creator of the Star Wars Universe and contributor to the film industry
George Lucas is the founder and creator of the Star Wars series and Lucas Films. Along with the creation of Star Wars, George Lucas and his work created a legacy that has impacted the film industry of America and worldwide.
The computer graphic company ILM(Industrial Light & Magic), is a subsidiary of Lucas Film is still a major leader in film computer graphics that created the Open EXR format.
Pixar was founded from the computer graphic team of ILM and the Adobe Photoshop program was created by a supervisor of ILM a supervisor named John Knoll.
The Star Wars franchise itself is a brand worth of tens of billion dollars and became a mega brand.
Ruling of United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. et al. & the Hays Office, the Hays Code
The Hays Code was a strict guideline for films and studios that monitored the morality of films. The Hays Code prohibited violence, profanity, criminality and had a strict moral obligation that restricted the film industry.
Along with the strict moral codes, during the 1960’s, the Hollywood studios not only created and produced films but they’ve also distributed and owned the theaters.
The major studios during the 1940’s such as United Artist, Paramount, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers and RKO had a monopoly over the film industry.
The United States Department of Justice believed that the independent studios and small filming business were oppressed and hindered by this monopoly and sued the major Hollywood Studios.
By the 1948 Ruling of United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. et al., the Supreme Court ruled that “film company's monopoly on screens and vertical integration of theaters violates anti-monopoly laws”.
The film industry went through a major downfall right after the ruling and resistance against the Hays Code led to its complete replacement by the parental advisory board in 1968. Hollywood now greets a new age of films.
George Lucas and his friendship with the great movie directors
Geroge Lucas studied and majored in films at the University of Southern California. George Lucas would befriend great directors such as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma during these days.
George Lucas even founded a film company along with Francis Ford Coppola, for his first career.
George Lucas, creator and producer of the Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones series
George Lucas didn’t direct the movie of the Indiana Jones series, however George Lucas was the person who created the ideas and stories of the character Indiana Jones and the first four episodes of the series.
By that time Steven Spielberg was already one of the most famous movie producers and pioneer of the concept of a mega budget movie blockbuster by the movie Jaws.
Based on the stories of George Lucas who also helped with production, Steven Spielberg directed the Indiana Jones series featuring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.
Harrison Ford, who started his career as a supporting actor in American Graffiti by George Lucas and starred as Han Solo in the Star Wars series continued his successful career also successfully transitioning another famous role apart from Han Solo as Indiana Jones.
George Lucas’s first film THX 1138, Symbolic number of George Lucas
George Lucas directed his first film THX 1138 while it was produced by Francis Ford Coppola. The movie THX 1138 was a Science Fiction(Sci-Fi) movie of artificial intelligence that did inspire ideas of Star Wars.
However, the movie THX 1138 wasn’t financially successful. George Lucas, however would use the number 1138 and the letter THX as a reference in many parts of the Star Wars series. Often times the number 1138 and THX appears in the Star Wars franchise.
Francis Ford Coppola & the movie The Godfather
Francis Ford Coppola had to direct another movie after the failure of THX 1138 that would become a legend, the movie “Godfather”. Francis Ford Coppola insisted that Al Pacino had to take the role as Michael Corleone.
George Lucas advised Francis Ford Coppola to divide the movie into two parts where the latter would become the prequel of the Godfather series.
George Lucas, Creation of Lucs Films and the movie American Graffiti
George Lucas created Lucas Films, LTD and directed his first commercially successful movie American Graffiti. Franics Ford Coppola after the success of The Godfather supported George Lucas for the movie American Graffiti.
The financial success of American Graffiti helped George Lucas create Star Wars as it gave him fame and financial support.
Space Opera genre Definition
The term “Space Opera” refers to a movie genre that involves historic, politics or other events based on an outer space background.
The Space Opera genre movies are also a science fiction (sci-fi) movie, however science fiction movies usually focus on the technology, science or space more while the Space Opera genre usually utilizes space only as a science fiction-based background while it focuses on other events.
The term “Space Opera” derived from the horse opera movie genre that refers to the western wild west or a soap opera that was a radio show featuring drama before television was invented.
Origins and Popularity of the Space Opera genre and notable works
Radio shows like The World of the Wars that involved aliens and outer space were popular as it intrigued the imagination of the outer world.
Since the 1920’s, the Lensman series and the Skylark of Space novel written by Edward E. Smith started off a galactic scale of war between aliens in outer space. This is considered the first space opera genre work.
Captain Future written by Edward Hamilton and the Basoom/a Princess of Mars series written by Edgar Rice Burroughs continued the popularity of the space opera genre.
During the 1960’s after television became much more common, the Star Trek series became immensely popular while the novel Dune written by Frank Herbert also became a dominant galactic scale space opera work. In 1977, George Lucas premieres his most famous work Star Wars.
