Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we take a monumental
stack of sources and give you the essential knowledge
fast. Today we're focusing on a figure whose
name is, well, it's synonymous with modern mythology.
His imagination gave us lightsabers and spaceships
and, you know, MIPS. But his true genius, as
the sources really show, lies maybe more firmly
rooted in the spreadsheets, in intellectual property
law, and in the special effects studio. We are,
of course, talking about George Walton Lucas
Jr. That's exactly right. I mean, when you start
to peel back the layers on this massive body
of source material, you realize that just calling
him a director or the creator of Star Wars is...
Well, it's a huge disservice to his actual impact.
It's just not the full picture. Not at all. This
is the pioneer of the modern blockbuster economic
model. He's the architect of the franchise as
we know it. And maybe most critically, he's a
technological disruptor who just completely transformed
how Hollywood makes movies. And what Hollywood
thinks is valuable. Exactly. Okay, so let's unpack
this monumental legacy. Our sources cover this
full and often contradictory arc you have his
humble california roots as a hot rod racer which
is an amazing story in itself it is and then
this unexpected pivot into the world of like
avant -garde film then the founding of these
technological empires industrial light and magic
ilm skywalker sound thx and then of course the
seismic event The sale of Lucasfilm to Disney.
We're talking about a man who, after that sale,
became one of the wealthiest film celebrities
in the world. I mean, the network is estimated
up to, what, $9 .4 billion? It's a staggering
figure. Yeah. And our mission in this deep dive
is really to get at that tension. We're looking
at Lucas not just as a storyteller who borrowed
from Joseph Campbell. Which he did. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. But also as this independent entrepreneur
who saw technology and financial control as the
ultimate path to creative freedom. We're tracking
his evolution. from a student obsessed with non
-narrative film all the way to a global philanthropist
who pledged to donate the majority of that $4
billion Disney sale to charity, specifically
to improving education. It's the ultimate expression
of creative independence, isn't it? You build
the machine, you sell the machine, and then you
use the money to try and change the world. Let's
dive into the earliest influences that shaped
this incredible trajectory. We're starting in
Modesto, California. George Lucas was born there,
May 14th, 1944. And the sources, they paint a
picture of a pretty typical post -war American
childhood. Yeah, but with his really diverse
European background, German, Swiss German, English,
Scottish, and even some distant Dutch and French
in there. In his early interest, they really
show the two sides of what his career would become.
They absolutely do. On one hand, you have the
escapist fun, right? The early love for science
fiction, just consuming Flash Gordon cereals
and comics, all the pulp adventure stuff that
would directly feed into Star Wars. But on the
other hand... You see this deep fascination with
real world mechanics, with experiential environments.
I mean, the fact that he visited Disneyland during
its opening week in 1955. That's a great detail.
It is because it shows he was just as interested
in how things were made as he was in what they
were about. But the thing that really consumed
him in high school wasn't movies or space. It
was speed. It was race car driving. Absolutely.
That was his entire world. He spent his high
school years just. Dedicated to racing, hanging
out at garages. Driving his own car. Oh yeah,
his customized, souped up, auto Bianchi beyond
China. He drove it on the underground circuit
at fairgrounds. His whole plan was to become
a professional racer. He was all in. And this
is where fate, in a, well, a truly cinematic
turn, intervenes. Violently. Just days before
his high school graduation on June 12, 1962.
This event is so pivotal. He was driving. And
he got broadsided by another driver. His car,
the Bianchina, it flipped multiple times before
crashing into an almond tree. Just a horrific
accident. Near fatal. But here's the profound
twist of fate that the sources detail. The seatbelt
in his car. It snapped. It broke. It snapped.
And that ejected him from the car just before
it hit the tree. Wait, so the seatbelt failing
is what actually saved his life? It's exactly
what saved his life. That single mechanical failure
is what prevented him from being crushed. I mean,
he was still badly injured, bruised lungs, severe
internal hemorrhaging, but he survived. Wow.
It's a literal accident that rewrites his entire
destiny. It completely shifted his mindset. He
was, what, 18? Confronting his own mortality.
And the sources are clear that this new death
experience just made him lose all interest in
racing as a career. He had to find something
else. He had to pivot. So he turns to academia.
He starts at Modesto Junior College, studying
anthropology, sociology, literature, trying to
find some broader human context. And at the same
time, he starts shooting with an 8mm camera,
filming the car races he's not in anymore. And
from there, he transfers to the University of
Southern California, USC, to the School of Cinematic
Arts. But his focus was still pretty far from
Hollywood storytelling. Oh, very far. His influences
were the abstract, the non -narrative, the experimental
stuff. He was just soaking up the work of these
16 -millimeter underground filmmakers at Canyon
Cinema. The who? People like Jordan Belson, who
did these abstract light studies. Stan Brakhage,
who was famous for, like, scratching directly
onto the film stock. Bruce Conner, who pioneered
this rapid collage editing. So very high art,
very experimental. Totally. And he was also studying
the classics, you know, Goddard's Breathless,
Fellini's Eight and a Half. This mix of high
art, visual experimentation, and, you know, this
technical obsession, it seems critical. He wasn't
learning how to tell a story in the traditional
sense. No, he was learning the language of light
and motion. And that aesthetic was really codified
by his education at USC. He became part of the
Dirty Dozen, that legendary group of film students.
Walter Murch was in that group, right? Yep. Walter
Murch, who became an editing genius, John Milius.
And he also befriended future titans like Steven
Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. Tell us more about
the curriculum, though. The sources really emphasize
how conceptual his film education was. It was
revolutionary, really. He was deeply influenced
by this course from Lester Navarro's called Filmic
Expression, and it completely threw out traditional
narrative. So what did it focus on? It focused
on the non -narrative elements, the power of
color, the rhythm of light, movement, space,
time. This was all built on Slavko Vorkavich's
theory about the kinetic energy of cinema. Lucas
just fell in love with this idea of pure cinema.
That explains so much why he initially called
himself a filmmaker, not a director. Exactly.
A director was about actors and drama. A filmmaker
was about the technical craft, the cinematography,
the editing. He wanted to make films that work
like music or abstract paintings. It's just so
ironic, given that he became the world's greatest
granicist. But the foundation of his craft was
always technical. The manipulation of images
and sound, not necessarily writing great dialogue.
That distinction is key. And one last detail
from this period that just speaks volumes about
his path. After graduating in 1967, he tries
to join the Air Force. And gets rejected for
the most perfect reason. Numerous speeding tickets.
A perfect echo of his racing past. And then he
gets exempted from the Vietnam draft because
of diabetes, the same disease that killed his
grandfather. So he was just literally free from
any institutional obligations. He could pursue
his own experimental vision. And that pursuit
of pure cinema is immediately obvious. in his
work right after USC. He was creating these abstract
visual tone poems. Right. Films designed to evoke
emotion purely through non -narrative structures.
He was inspired by stuff from the National Film
Board of Canada, like 2187. His early films,
Look at Life, 1 .42 .08, they were all non -story,
non -character studies. But the short film, Electronic
Labyrinth, THX 1138 -4EB from 1967, that's the
one that really acts as a bridge, isn't it? That's
the... critical transition piece. He directed
it while he was teaching documentary cinematography
to U .S. Navy students, believe it or not. That's
incredible. And it distilled all his abstract
ideas into this dystopian future setting. It's
all about editing and sound design creating an
atmosphere. It's a technical exercise first,
a story second. But that technical excellence
got him noticed. It won first prize at the National
Student Film Festival. And that landed him a
Warner Bros. scholarship. which is how he ends
up on the set of Francis Ford Coppola's film
Finian's Rainbow in 1968. And that observation,
it quickly blossoms into the defining partnership
of his early career. Because they shared a frustration
with the system. Exactly. In 1969, they co -found
American Zoetrope up in the San Francisco Bay
Area. This was a deliberate ideological move.
It was a countercultural base designed to escape
what they saw as the oppressive control of the
Hollywood studio system. They wanted to be able
to have final cut. And just a liberating environment
for filmmakers. And their first real attempt
at that liberation was the feature -length version
of his short, THX Alone 38. It showed off his
unique visual style, got critical praise. But
it was a financial catastrophe. An absolute bomb.
And the sources show that this failure was maybe
more formative for him than any of his later
successes. Why is that? Because it taught him
that even with critical acclaim, Hollywood would
try to compromise your vision if they held the
purse strings. It just cemented his core belief.
Financial independence is the only way to have
creative independence. So right after that failure,
he just doubles down on being self -reliant.
Immediately. He creates his own company, Lucasfilm
LTD. founded in 71, incorporated in 77. He realized
the only way to escape the studio system was
to stop relying on it. And this leads him directly
to his next feature, American Graffiti, in 1973.
which is such a pivot away from the abstract
dystopia of THX. A total pivot. He was inspired
by his own youth in Modesto in the early 60s.
It's purely nostalgic, intensely commercial.
A slice of Americana. The whole narrative is
just pure kinetics, isn't it? The movement of
the cars, the rhythm of the rock and roll radio.
And it connected with audiences instantly. Huge
success. Five Oscar nominations, including Best
Director and Best Picture. And this is the first
major financial turning point for him. He becomes
a millionaire at 28 just from this one film.
And crucially, the sources emphasize this. That
success gave him the exact financial leverage
he needed to propose a project so bizarre. So
unproven that no studio would touch it otherwise.
Star Wars. Star Wars. The birth of it as a concept,
it started with him wanting to adapt the old
Flash Gordon serials, a childhood favorite. Right,
but he couldn't get the rights, so he was forced
to create his own original space adventure. And
that originality was built on some deep cultural
foundation. Oh, absolutely. It was heavily influenced
by Akira Kurosawa's samurai films. I mean, The
Hidden Fortress from 1958. You can trace the
lineage of R2 -D2 and C -3PO directly back to
Kurosawa's two bickering peasants in that film.
He also pulled from spaghetti westerns, right?
Totally. The Wandering Heroes, the morally ambiguous
Frontier Justice, and then just classic sword
and sorcery fantasy. It was a mashup of everything
he loved. But the sources are clear. This was
a radical project for Hollywood. Hollywood in
the mid 70s. Radical is an understatement. Every
single studio but one turned him down. The only
person who forced it through was Alan Ladd Jr.,
a 20th century fox who backed him on American
graffiti. There's just no studio belief in it.
Zero. The production was a disaster. Technical
failures, budget out of control. It was just
a mess. And then the success was immediate, unexpected
and just seismic. It became the highest grossing
film of its time, and it literally saved Fox
from financial ruin. But you can't gloss over
the personal cost of that. The production and
post -production were so intense that Lucas,
who was only in his early 30s, suffered from
hypertension and severe exhaustion. He initially
thought he was having a heart attack. Wow. And
the sources note that this immense professional
strain contributed significantly to the stress
in his personal life, leading up to his divorce
from his first wife, Marcia Lucas, in 1983. The
foundation of the empire was laid in creative
and personal stress. And here is where the narrative
shifts completely. Lucas the filmmaker, you know,
scarred by the financial failure of THX and the
personal strain of Star Wars, he transforms into
Lucas the mogul. He does. Before filming Star
Wars, he's offered $150 ,000 to write and direct.
His advisors tell him, hold out for more money,
get a bigger piece of the box office. He says
no. And he makes what is arguably the single
smartest business decision in the history of
cinema. The key negotiation. Instead of a bigger
fee, he negotiates for ownership of two revenue
streams that the studio, 20th Century Fox, thought
were basically worthless. Licensing and merchandising
rights. Exactly. Which included toys, clothing,
novelizations, and crucially... ownership of
the sequels the sources explain that fox's financial
team they were just focused on ticket sales they
happily gave up those rights because back in
1977 toy sales were considered a tiny tiny revenue
stream they thought he was a fool they thought
he was giving up guaranteed money for a gamble
on some plastic junk and that gamble it pays
off exponentially it basically defines the economic
model for the modern blockbuster I mean, Lucasfilm
has earned hundreds and hundreds of millions
of dollars just from licensed games, toys, and
collectibles. And that stream of income gave
him an operational budget completely independent
of the studio system. Which means he alone decided
what films got made and how. It was creative
independence on a scale nobody had ever seen
before. And the first thing he did with that
independence was build his own self -sustaining
ecosystem of companies to ensure he would never,
ever... have to rely on a studio's technical
capabilities again. Let's delve into this Lucasfilm
ecosystem. First and foremost, you have to talk
about Industrial Light and Magic, ILM, founded
in 1975. And this was born out of pure necessity.
The in -house effects department at 20th Century
Fox was non -functional. It was useless for what
Star Wars needed. So he just built his own effects
house from the ground up. Yes. He gathered this
small, dedicated team of engineers and artists,
John Dykstra, Dennis Mirren, Joe Johnston, and
put them in a warehouse in Van Nuys. And he named
it after the light industrial zoning of the area.
Exactly. And ILM's goal was simple. Create effects
that had never been seen before. And their big
invention, the Dijkstra Flex, was revolutionary.
What was the Dijkstra Flex and why was it such
a huge deal? It was a computer controlled motion
control camera system. Before this, trying to
repeat a camera move perfectly was almost impossible.
You couldn't layer effect shots convincingly.
Right. The Dijkstra Flex lets you execute the
exact same camera move hundreds of times perfectly.
So you could layer spaceships, lasers, stars,
all onto one piece of film with digital precision.
It just shattered the old limitations. And ILM
immediately became the global leader. Instantly.
And the financial benefit was staggering. The
sources note that ILM made money from almost
every big budget special effects film released
in the U .S. from the late 80s until the Disney
sale. He built the operating system for movie
magic and then charged everyone to use it. And
alongside ILM, he builds up the Sound Division,
Skywalker Sound, and this audio standardization
company, THX, in 1983. And THX, which stands
for Tomlinson -Holman's Experiment, was basically
a quality assurance program. Lucas was sick of
creating these pristine soundscapes for his films.
Only to have them butchered by bad movie theater
speakers? Yeah, exactly. Poorly maintained, incorrectly
calibrated. So THX certified theaters based on
strict standards for sound, acoustics, and even
image quality. He was demanding technical perfection
from the exhibitors. He really did build a fortress
where he controlled every aspect of production,
post -production, and even how it was shown.
And this incredible technological ambition also
sort of accidentally birthed Pixar. Right. It
started in 1979 as the Graphics Group, one part
of Lucasfilm's computer division. They were doing
pioneering computer graphics research. They made
early digital films like The Adventures of Andre
and Wally B. And they did effects for movies
like Star Trek II and Young Sherlock Holmes.
That sounds like an incredibly powerful asset.
So why did he sell it? Why let go of what would
become the world's leading animation studio?
It was a purely rational business decision. The
sources are very clear about this. Steve Jobs
bought it in 86 for five million, plus another
five million in capital right after he left Apple.
And Lucas sold it because because it was a cash
drain. These high level research projects had
been losing money for seven years. Lucas wanted
to refocus Lucasfilm on creating entertainment,
the profitable IP not developing tools for the
industry. That makes perfect sense from a business
perspective. To vest the R &D arm, focus on the
blockbusters. But this period wasn't all just
upward financial success. Maintaining this independence
required some ruthless business decisions. In
1980, even after the success of Star Wars, Lucas
fired his manager and laid off half of the L
.A. staff. Half the staff. That seems brutal
for a company that's all about creative freedom.
He was fighting corporate bloat. The company
had grown to almost 100 employees and costs were
skyrocketing. His manager had suggested some
financially risky moves, like selling off parts
of Skywalker Ranch to invest elsewhere. And Lucas's
response was decisive. He cut the staff immediately
to maintain focus and protect the core assets.
It was a clear statement. Independence means
a lean, controlled operation. And this financial
vigilance continued. By 1983, he's worth around
$60 million, but he's facing cash flow problems.
Right, because of his divorce settlement, which
happened to coincide with a sudden drop -off
in Star Wars revenues after Return of the Jedi's
theatrical run ended. So he wasn't suddenly poor,
but he was facing liquidity issues. And that
period of financial strain is absolutely crucial
context for understanding why he decided to take
a long, long hiatus from directing features.
So from about 1977 all the way through 1993,
Lucas basically steps away from the director's
chair. He's the CEO, the idea man, the architect.
But he lets other people do the actual filming.
He was protecting his health and maximizing his
resources. He produced and co -wrote the original
Star Wars. sequels, but he very consciously commissioned
other directors to shoulder the physical burden.
Irvin Kershner for Empire. And Richard Marcon
for Jedi. And during this time, he also cements
another huge creative partnership born out of
those USC friendships, the Indiana Jones franchise
with Steven Spielberg. A phenomenal success.
Lucas created, produced, and co -wrote the stories
for the first four films, and Spielberg directed.
It was just a perfect marriage of Lucas's pulp
storytelling instincts and Spielberg's incredible
directorial mastery. His production portfolio
from this era is so wide -ranging. He executive
produced Akira Kurosawa's Kegimusha. Which is
incredible, helping a master like that. He also
did Jim Henson's Labyrinth, Ron Howard's Willow,
and that really ambitious educational TV show,
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. But even
with all that success, the sources point out
that he had some big misses. Oh, yeah. He produced
the biggest flop of his career during this time,
Howard the Duck. Ah, great. It was a good reminder
that even high -tech special effects mastery
doesn't guarantee a hit if the story isn't there.
Speaking of foundations, we have to talk about
the secret sauce of his collaboration, the music
of John Williams. The sources suggest a really
interesting moment of artistic disagreement here.
It's so ironic, isn't it? Lucas, the champion
of high -tech futurism, initially wanted to do
what Kubrick did with 2001. Use pre -existing
classical music for Star Wars. He wanted to feel
abstract and alien. And Williams convinced him
to go the opposite way. He argued that the film's
mythical themes needed classical leitmotifs,
recurring themes, inspired by composers like
Holst and Walton, to ground the emotion. He said
the technology should look futuristic, but the
emotions should be timeless. Exactly. Rooted
in an operatic structure. And the result was,
well, the score for Star Wars won an Oscar. near
the greatest film score of all time by the AFI.
Lucas himself called Williams the secret sauce
of his movies. It shows his ability to recognize
when someone else's vision could elevate his
own. But the big question is after two decades
of producing, what drove him back to directing
for the prequels? Well, there were a few key
drivers, according to the sources. First, there
was a real financial reason. His 1987 divorce
settlement had taken a big bite out of his fortune.
So returning to his most valuable IP made sense.
And second, he was just creatively tempted by
the new technology. Totally. He was tantalized
by the possibilities of CGI that ILM was now
developing. He saw a chance to make films that
could only exist through digital manipulation.
It was a way to finally achieve that pure cinema
he was always chasing. And, of course, the fan
base was ravenous for new material thanks to
the novels and comics. So in 1993, he started
writing. He shifted the idea from being some
tangential history to being the beginning of
one long saga, starting with Anakin Skywalker's
childhood. and he stepped back into the director's
chair for The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones,
and Revenge of the Sith. But the sources also
point to a hugely controversial part of this
period, his insistence on modifying the original
films. This is the tension at the heart of his
legacy. In 1997, he re -released the original
trilogy as special editions, using digital tech
to bring them closer to his original vision.
Adding new scenes, replacing practical effects.
Changing sound designs. And he did it again in
2004 for the DVD release and again in 2011 for
the Blu -ray. But this was met with massive pushback
from fans, wasn't it? People felt he was disrespecting
the original films, the history. Huge pushback.
And the sources reflect this conflict. Lucas'
position was that since he owned the negative,
he had the right and the obligation to make the
film match the technology he wished he'd had
in 1977. But fans and critics argued that the
films were historical documents. They'd been
released, won awards, become part of the culture.
Right. But Lucas' response, enabled by his complete
financial independence, was simple. I can do
it because I don't need anyone's approval. He
owned the IP, the tools, the rights. He saw himself
as a continuously working artist. The audience
saw the films as finished products. And that
pursuit of his original vision is a hallmark
of his independent spirit. And while the prequels
were, you know, huge box office successes. And
popular with a whole new generation of younger
fans. The critical and older fan reception was
very mixed. You put it mildly. And Lucas himself
reflected on it in 2004. He said his transition
from independent to corporate filmmaker sort
of mirrored Darth Vader's story in some ways,
a necessary path to achieve ultimate control,
even if it had its darker side. But he was ultimately
glad he could make the films the way he wanted.
So after finishing the prequel trilogy in 2005,
Lucas seems ready to slow down. In 2012, he announces
he's retiring from big blockbuster films. Yeah,
he said he wanted to refocus on smaller, independently
budgeted features. He directed some reshoots
for the war film Red Tails and wrote a CGI musical
called Strange Magic. But these smaller projects
were completely overshadowed by the biggest business
announcement of his career. The Lucasfilm sale.
October 2012. Monumental. A true inflection point
in modern entertainment history. He sold the
entire ecosystem, ILM, Skywalker Sound, everything
to the Walt Disney Company for $4 .05 billion.
In cash and stock, the scale of that is just
hard to comprehend. And the succession plan was
critical. It was smooth, but very significant.
Kathleen Kennedy, who had worked closely with
Spielberg and Lucas on the Indiana Jones films,
was appointed co -chair and then became the sole
leader of Lucasfilm. He was entrusting his life's
work to a veteran he trusted. And the financial
result for Lucas was immediate. He became Disney's
second largest single shareholder. The only person
ahead of him was the estate of Steve Jobs. Which
is such a remarkable loop in the story, isn't
it? Jobs having bought Pixar from him all those
years earlier. But what's really moving, according
to the sources, is the immediate loss of creative
control over the property he literally invented.
He did serve as a creative consultant for The
Force Awakens, but mostly on technical stuff.
You know, providing guidance on the physics of
the universe. He'd say things like, the cars
don't have wheels, they fly with anti -gravity.
He was providing the rulebook. But the story
he had developed for the sequels. It was jettisoned.
Lucas stated very clearly that Disney just tossed
out the story treatments he developed for episodes
7 through 9. They chose to pursue a retro story
that felt more like the original trilogy. And
this led to some of his most famous and most
emotionally charged public comments. He likened
the sale to a divorce, the painful act of letting
go of his children. He publicly criticized The
Force Awakens for its retro feel, saying it went
against his own career long effort to make each
of his films completely different from what came
before. The sources mentioned his remarks got
so heated he actually had to apologize. He did.
In one interview, he remarked that Disney was
like white slavers, implying they bought his
children, his characters, and were now manipulating
them for profit in a way he couldn't control.
Wow. He quickly apologized, acknowledged it was
a poor choice of words, but the emotional core
of that statement was clear. He felt alienated
from the creation he had spent decades protecting
through his independence. It just speaks to the
enormous emotional investment. He built this
entire fortress so he could never be creatively
compromised. And the moment he sells it, that
compromise happens instantly. Exactly. The sale
was the ultimate financial victory, but it meant
the end of his singular creative control. His
later assessments did soften, though. Right.
He reportedly liked Rogue One more than The Force
Awakens. Yeah, he thought it was more daring.
And he described The Last Jedi as beautifully
made. He had some cursory involvement with Solo
and The Mandalorian, but the reality is the sale
marked the end of an era. The end of George Lucas
as the independent auteur mogul. But the wealth
from that sale became the foundation for his
final act, his non -cinematic legacy. Let's turn
to that final act, The Philanthropist. With a
net worth close to $9 .4 billion, he's the wealthiest
film celebrity in the world. But he has also
pledged to give away the majority of it through
the given pledge. Joining Bill Gates and Warren
Buffett in that commitment. And he activated
that pledge immediately after the Disney sale.
He said he intended to donate the majority of
the $4 billion to philanthropy with a very explicit
focus on improving education. His primary vehicle
for this is the George Lucas Educational Foundation,
which he founded way back in 1991, operating
as Edutopia. And his dedication goes beyond just
funding. It goes to policy. He was one of the
leading proponents of the federal E -Rate program,
which was part of the Telecommunications Act
of 1996. For listeners who don't know, E -Rate
provides subsidies to help schools and libraries
get affordable Internet access. Exactly. He took
his expertise in building digital infrastructure,
like with ILM and THX, and he applied that same
philosophy directly to educational infrastructure.
He sees broadband access in schools as being
as important as textbooks. His institutional
donations confirm that. He gave, what, $175 million
to his alma mater, USC, to expand the film school?
The largest single gift in USC's history, and
the largest ever to a film school anywhere. And
it led to the George Lucas Instructional Building
and the Marcia Lucas Post -Production Building,
which is a really remarkable nod to his first
wife's critical role in his career. Beyond education,
his other huge focus is the arts, the Lucas Museum
of Narrative Art, the LMNA. Plans for this started
in 2013 to display his vast collection of illustrations,
concept art, and visual storytelling. And the
project itself has been an epic saga, hasn't
it? Just trying to find a location for it. It's
been a logistical thriller. He offered to pay
the entire construction cost, initially $300
million, and endow it with $400 million, which
he later increased to $800 million. It's a gift
worth well over a billion dollars to the public.
But the locations were a nightmare. It was first
planned for San Francisco. But that fell through.
Then he shifted to Chicago, where they approved
a lakefront site. But he abandoned those plans
because of a persistent lawsuit from a local
preservation group called Friends of the Parks.
Why would a lawsuit from a local group force
a billionaire to abandon a billion -dollar project?
Because the law was on their side. They argued
the lakefront was protected by the state's public
trust doctrine, which reserves it for public
use. And Lucas, always wanting to avoid long,
draining legal battles, just decided to pull
the project rather than fight for years in court.
And he finally settled on Exposition Park in
Los Angeles. It's set to be completed in 2026.
And the diversity of the collection is what's
so remarkable. It underlines that narrative art
focus. You have original Iron Man comic drawings,
Indiana Jones concept art, Norman Rockwell paintings,
Frida Kahlo, Peanuts sketches. It's an attempt
to elevate visual storytelling from pulp to high
art. Mirroring his own career path, exactly.
Finally, let's just briefly connect his... personal
philosophy back to all this. We know he was married
to film editor Marcia Lou Griffin, an Oscar winner
for editing Star Wars. They adopted three children.
He later married Melody Hobson, with whom he
has a daughter. And his spiritual life is intrinsic
to his storytelling. He was raised Methodist,
but the mythological structures in Star Wars
were heavily inspired by Joseph Campbell's writings,
like the hero with a thousand faces. Which is
where the force comes from. Well, from that and
from incorporating Eastern religious philosophies.
He identifies his own religion now as Buddhist
Methodist. And his passion for traditional art
is clear in his collecting, especially his major
collection of Norman Rockwell, which he co -owns
with Spielberg. So what does this all mean? We've
covered this fundamental duality of George Lucas,
the avant -garde artist obsessed with pure cinema
in the 60s, who simultaneously became the architect
of the modern franchise and the most financially
savvy filmmaker of his generation. And the core
takeaway from all this material is that the entrepreneur
and the technologist were never separate from
the filmmaker. They were always in service of
the artist's independence. That masterful merchandising
deal was his ultimate creative insurance policy.
George Flo meant that when he wanted to do something
controversial like the special editions or an
expensive passion project like the prequels or
even build and endow his own museum. He never
had to ask permission. He made that conscious
transition from traditional storytelling to prioritizing
technical and financial infrastructure. He saw
technology as the key to securing his creative
freedom. While he's globally celebrated for creating
the galaxy far, far away, the source material
really suggests his greater lasting impact might
be that technological infrastructure, ILM, which
revolutionized effects for everyone and the massive
educational foundations he funded with the sale.
It does. And this raises an important question
for you, the listener, as you reflect on all
this. We know the power of myth shaped the original
Star Wars, defining a generation's understanding
of heroism. But given his $4 billion investment
in the George Lucas Educational Foundation and
the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, is George
Lucas's ultimate legacy less about how he told
his own stories and more about how he used immense,
independently generated wealth to invest in our
future stories and education? Think about that
generational investment.