"The secret to film is that it's an illusion. "

From Star Wars to Star Bores!

George Lucas, whose full name is George Walton Lucas Jr., is best-known for producing Star Wars, which proved to be one of the most successful movie series of all time.

After graduating from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television, Lucas started his career by creating a studio environment for filmmakers to direct and produce outside of the Hollywood studio system. He co-founded (with Francis Ford Coppola) the studio was called American Zoetrope. The studio was not a success, but he had enough financial success in Star Wars (1977) that he was able to created Lucasfilm, his own studio, which fathered Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic. LucasArts came later, a highly regarded gaming industry company.

Lucas refused to have a standard title sequence for the Star Wars films and was fined by the Directors Guild of America for his failure to follow Guild rules. This made it difficult to find a director for his later films. He wanted Steven Spielberg to direct some of his work, but he was a member of the guild and could not accept the offer. In 1994 Lucas began writing the three Star Warsprequels.

The Star Wars series ran from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) to Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), along with the prequel trilogy Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Ewan McGregor is one of the many high profile actors featured in the prequel trilogy.

Lucas received the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 from the American Film Institute. He is now working with digital photography for movies. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is almost completely digital. Before the film was released Lucas used a digital projection system to show his advanced digital work to an audience of Hollywood elite. They all agreed that it was one of the sharpest and clearest presentations they had ever seen.

Lucas married film editor Marcia Lou Griffin, who worked with him in 1979 on the original Star Wars film. Griffin won an Oscar for this work. The couple adopted their daughter, Amanda in 1981 then divorced in 1983. Lucas has since adopted two more children: Katie, born in 1988, and Jett, born in 1993. All of his children have appeared in Star Wars prequels.