George Lucas: Jones, Brian Jay: 9780316257428: Amazon.com: Books

A sweeping, perceptive biography of the influential director.

Jones (Jim Henson: The Biography, , etc.) sets the stage for this impressive biography with a short prologue set in Lucas was in the Tunisian desert starting his day shoot of Star Wars. The weather was terrible, and sand got into everything.

The machines, including R2-D2, wouldn’t work, and the studio was stingy with funds (at that point, Lucas pledged to always control the money).

George lucas biography book The essential biography of the influential and beloved filmmaker George Lucas. On May 25, , a problem-plagued, budget-straining independent science-fiction film opened in a mere thirty-two American movie theaters.

About a year before the release date, Lucas was “certain” the movie “was going to be terrible.” Jones’ extensively researched, unauthorized biography—he wasn’t able to interview key people, including Lucas—lays out in luscious detail the path Lucas took to become one of film’s most successful directors. Born in Modesto, California, in , he grew up in the s and loved comic books, TV serials, and building things.

A mediocre, bored student in high school, he managed to get into the University of Southern California. When he discovered their film school, he “fell madly in love with [film], ate it and slept with it 24 hours a day.” He also met Francis Ford Coppola, who helped him get his student film, THX , made into a movie.

He also helped him make the popular American Graffiti, which provided Lucas with much-needed money.

George lucas biography The first major biography (since ) of the great movie mogul George Lucas, whose marketing techniques have transformed the film business. His fourth Star Wars film, The Phantom Menace, released in , was perhaps the most eagerly awaited cinematic event of all time.

He could now focus on his “Flash Gordon thing,” Star Wars. Jones wisely eschews unnecessary plot summaries to focus on where the ideas for Lucas’ films came from and how he wrote them and how he dealt with studios and contract negotiations, funding, casting, filming, and marketing. This in-depth portrait of the “modest and audacious” Lucas, a “brilliant” and “enigmatic” technological wizard, and those who were crucial to his success—his editor wife, Marcia, Stephen Spielberg, Haskell Wexler, Garry Kurtz, John Milius, John Dykstra, Harrison Ford—is never less than fascinating.

Masterful and engaging: just what Lucas’ fans and buffs, who love the nitty-gritty of filmmaking, have been waiting for.