What Happened to George Lucas?

George Lucas is arguably the most influential filmmaker of our era. While some would suggest Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg and have a point, Star Wars changed the movie business in a way no other film did before or since. Spielberg and Scorsese have more impressive filmographies, but Star Wars is still the blockbuster all others are measured against.

In this episode of What Happened to this Celebrity, which is written (with Brad Hamerly), narrated, edited and produced by Taylor James Johnson, we dig into Lucas’ rich but sometimes divisive legacy. We tackle his early days, with him having a notable flop in THX-1138 that perhaps pivoted him away from the esoteric, and his eventual arrival onto the Hollywood A-list with his classic American Graffiti. From there, we explain how Star Wars got made, why he opted not to direct the sequels, and how, in the nineties, he decided to not only direct his long-hyped prequel trilogy but also change the original trilogy to mesh with his new perspective. We also dig into how his company, ILM, changed what people thought was possible in terms of movie magic and perhaps had an even bigger impact on the modern blockbuster than even his signature trilogy.

Since the end of the prequel trilogy, Lucas also mentioned returning to the lower-budget, experimental roots of THX-1138, but nothing has surfaced from Lucas in many years, with him selling Lucasfilm to Disney. The last movies he seemed to really be involved in here his passion project Red Tails, and the much-maligned Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with him stepping aside for the upcoming Dial of Destiny. What happened? We’ll dig into it in this new episode!

What’s your favorite George Lucas movie? Let us know in the comments!