Transcript
Introduction
George Lucas unapologetically invested in what he believed in the most, himself.
As a result, the film empire that he created would empower not just him but other filmmakers to produce movies exactly as they envision them, without a studio imposing its own priorities, complaining about budgets or micromanaging the process. George Lucas, the small-town son of the owner of a stationary store, had said no to the family business and then built a cinematic empire based on his own uncompromising vision of the film industry, not as it was but as he thought it should be.
Much of that vision lay in the possibilities presented by new technology, technology that Lucas developed with his own money. I can't help feeling that George Lucas has never been fully appreciated by the industry for his remarkable innovations. The Director Peter Jackson once said, "George Lucas is the Thomas Edison of the modern film industry," but George Lucas knew what he had done. He knew his place, and he seemed comfortable with it. When asked by interviewer Charlie Rose what he thought the first line of his obituary might say, Lucas gave perhaps the best summation of his lengthy career in two single syllable words. His answer, "I tried."