George Lucas is a writer, producer and director known for his creation of the enormously successful 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones' film franchises.
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Famed director, writer and producer George Lucas was born George Walton Lucas Jr. on May 14, 1944, in Modesto, California. Before Lucas became obsessed with the movie camera, he wanted to be a race car driver, but a near-fatal accident just days before his high school graduation quickly changed his mind. Instead, he attended community college and developed a passion for cinematography and camera tricks. Lucas's father owned a stationery store, and had wanted George to work for him when he turned 18. Lucas had been planning to go to art school, and declared upon leaving home that he would be a millionaire by the age of 30.
He attended Modesto Junior College, where he studied anthropology, sociology, and literature, amongst other subjects. He also began shooting with an 8 mm camera, including filming car races. At this time, Lucas and his friend John Plummer became interested in Canyon Cinema: screenings of underground, avant-garde 16 mm filmmakers like Jordan Belson, Stan Brakhage, and Bruce Conner.
At Plummer's recommendation, Lucas then transferred to the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts. USC was one of the earliest universities to have a school devoted to motion picture film. There, he produced a short futuristic sci-fi film called Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, and garnered a comfortable spot under the wing of Francis Ford Coppola, who took an active interest in unleashing new filmmaking talent.
Lucas' experiences growing up in Modesto and his early passion for motor racing would eventually serve as inspiration for his Oscar-nominated low-budget phenomenon, American Graffiti. Released in 1973, the film featured young talents such as Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford, and was recognized as a stunning portrait of listless American youth depicting "a warm, secure, uninvolved life." The film, made for only $780,000, grossed more than $100 million domestically. It earned five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Director for Lucas, and is still considered one of the most successful low budget features ever made.
Before the incredible fame gained off of both the Star Wars franchise as well as the Indiana Jones franchise, George Lucas was an amateur film director trying to create his confusing idea of a space opera. After he directed a low-budget film called American Graffiti, Lucas decided to follow through on his idea to make a space opera that he had been thinking about for the past 2 years. Though there were many Sci-Fi films at the time, Lucas noticed that many of them were dark, dystopian tales which made him want to create a movie based on happier ending and aimed at younger kids.
“The reason I'm making Star Wars is that I want to give young people some sort of faraway exotic environment for their imaginations to run around in,” he said in an interview. “I have a strong feeling about interesting kids in space exploration. I want them to want it. I want them to get beyond the basic stupidities of the moment and think about colonizing Venus and Mars. And the only way it's going to happen is to have some dumb kid fantasize about it — to get his ray gun, jump in his ship and run off with this wookie into outer space. It's our only hope in a way."
The Movie looked to be a failure multiple times as the budget was low and quality wasn’t quite there, but after the ground breaking editing put into the movie, it became a huge hit, a movie like none other (at the time) and it became one of the greatest movies of all time.
https://www.biography.com/filmmaker/george-lucas