George Lucas Receives

American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award

By Rich Drees

     George Lucas, the architect of the world popular Star Wars and Indiana Jones film franchises, was honored by the American Film Institute with their Life Achievement Award on Thursday, June 9, 2005 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.

     Lucas was honored not only for his work as a writer/director- his 1973 hit American Graffiti sparked a revival in 1950s nostalgia while 1977’s Star Wars defined the modern summer blockbuster- but for his work as an innovator as the founder of the groundbreaking visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic and the sound studio Skywalker Sound.

     The award presentation will air on Monday, June 20, 2005 on the USA Network at 9 pm, eastern.

     Speakers at the two-hour ceremony include actor Robert Duvall, who starred in Lucas’ first studio film, the contemplative science-fiction film THX-1138 (1971), Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, two of the stars of Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy and Harrison Ford, who starred in both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. All good-naturedly teased the director for his success and the trials they endured while working on his films.

     The award was presented to Lucas by his longtime friend, director Steven Spielberg, who compared Lucas to the writers H. G. Wells and Jules Verne for his work in presenting science fiction to the public.

     Lucas was raised in Modesto, California with ambitions of becoming a racecar driver. However, following a near fatal car accident in the days after his high school graduation, he decided to enroll in film school at the University of Southern California. While there, he completed several short student films, including THX-1138: 4EB, which he would adapt into THX-1138 as his first feature film. Following his semi-autobiographical American Graffiti, Lucas turned his attention to telling a space opera that had its roots in the Flash Gordon serials and comic book adventures of his youth. The result was Star Wars, a film that was initially turned down by every studio in Hollywood before being financed by Twentieth Century Fox. The film was a monumental success, sparking resurgence in high-concept, science-fiction adventure films and in the marketing that surrounds such films. Lucas followed up the success of Star Wars with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1979), an homage to the Saturday matinee cliffhanger serials that he co-created with Spielberg. In addition to the founding of Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, Lucas was the driving force behind the THX sound system for motion picture theatres. More recently, Lucas has lead the development of digital filmmaking, allowing filmmakers greater ease in manipulating images within computers.

     The AFI Life Achievement Award was first awarded in 1973 to director John Ford. Other recipients of the award include Orson Welles, John Huston, Lillian Gish, Gene Kelly, Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon, Sidney Poitier, Steven Scorsese, Robert Wise and Robert DeNiro.