'Creating fun and interesting worlds'

“When I was making ‘Star Wars’ I wasn’t restrained by any kind of science.  I simply said, ‘I’m going to create a world that’s fun and interesting, makes sense, and seems to have a reality to it.’” – George Lucas

 Before Lucas became one of the world’s great scriptwriters and filmmakers he wanted to be a racecar driver.  Born in California in May of 1944, Lucas spent most of his high school years street racing and hanging out at garages.  But after nearly being killed in a racing wreck, he lost interest and switched his focus to . . . Anthropology, Sociology and Archaeology.   Those early passions later played a huge part in his creation of the character Indiana Jones.

 

Ever experimenting in his college courses Lucas then turned to art, photography and filmmaking, including writing movie scripts, a skill that has won him numerous awards.

 

Among those award-winning scripts is American Grafitti, a semi-autobiographical coming of age story set in the 1960s.  Winner of a Golden Globe for Best Writing, the script and subsequent movie have been preserved in the National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" for the time period they depict.

 

“There wasn't much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things,” Lucas said. “Writing a good story is simply the process of creating good characters and putting them into a good plot.”