Lucas

His Hollywood Legacy

By: Richard Ravalli - Edited by

Narrated by: Joe Hempel

George Lucas is an innovative and talented director, producer, screenwriter, and filmmaker whose prolific career spans decades. While he is best known as the creative mind behind the Star Wars franchise, Lucas first gained notoriety with his 1973 film American Graffiti, which received five Academy Award nominations.

When Star Wars was released, the groundbreaking motion picture won six Academy Awards, became the highest grossing film at the time, and started a cultural revolution that continues to inspire generations of fans.

Three decades and countless successes later, Lucas announced semiretirement in 2012 and sold his successful production company, Lucasfilm, to Disney. His achievements have earned him the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Award, the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and the California Hall of Fame, and a National Medal of Arts presented by President Barack Obama.

Lucas: His Hollywood Legacy is the first collection to bring a sustained scholarly perspective to the iconic filmmaker and his legacy beyond the Star Wars films.

Edited by Richard Ravalli, this volume analyzes Lucas's overall contribution and importance to the film industry, diving deep into his use and development of modern special effects technologies, the history of his Skywalker Ranch production facilities, and more.

©2024 The University Press of Kentucky (P)2024 Tantor

In-depth, mostly balanced, and fair take on Lucas’ life and work.

As someone who’s been enamored with George Lucas since the age of 8, I’ve been waiting for this book. I try to read everything I can find on George, and most of the information presented can be found online, but to have it all presented in such a comprehensive single volume is quite impressive. There was some new information to me, and maybe a handful of things I believe to be inaccurate, but overall it gives quite a fair account of most of Lucas (and Lucasfilm’s) history; though, the final essay seems to stereotypically fall into the category of deriding Lucas’ on most everything after his uncredited work on Jurassic Park.

There are maybe two or three mis-spoken, or possibly mistyped (in the text version), errors throughout. Nothing major, but it could confuse some who are less versed in the subject.