Jackie Robinson Foundation Set to Honor George Lucas

This in from the wire:

The Jackie Robinson Foundation Set to Honor Clive Davis, George Lucas and Johnnetta B. Cole at 2008 Annual Awards Dinner

Event hosted by Bill Cosby at Waldorf=Astoria will celebrate the 35^th anniversary of the Jackie Robinson Foundation

George Lucas Q&A at Vanity Fair

The latest issue of Vanity Fair has a cover feature devoted to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with photography by Annie Leibovitz and interviews with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford. Of interest to Star Wars fans, of course, is the Lucas interview, which touches on the saga several times. Here’s an excerpt:

People who are over 40 love [Episodes] IV, V, and VI and hate I, II, and III. Younger people like I, II, and III and don’t like IV, V, and VI, or they like I, II, and III better and think IV, V, and VI are kind of boring and slow. And of course the older people say, “Oh, I, II, and III—it’s too jittery, too fast, too complicated, it’s too digital,” or whatever they want to say. But definitely one generation has grabbed hold of one of them, and the other generation has grabbed hold of the next one. One of the key characters that helped us realize what was going on was Jar Jar Binks, because the kids that are under 10 years old, he’s one of their favorite characters. For people over 40, they cannot stand him—it’s a hate thing. You know, they’ve always been for 12-year-olds, and that’s never changed. People don’t want to think of it that way. They want to think those films are for grown-ups. Even though they were 10 years old when they saw it, it’s still very important to them, so, for them, it’s a grown-up movie, as opposed to a kids’ movie. The pre–Jar Jar Binks was 3PO. Everybody hated 3PO. I mean, it was like they couldn’t stand him. It really had to do with his character. They don’t like his character, and they don’t like Jar Jar Binks—but they’re not designed to be likeable characters.

For the complete Lucas Q&A, read it online here. The Vanity Fair issue is on newsstands now.

Lucas Talks Young Indy

The Indiana Jones adventure George Lucas is most proud of is a short-lived TV series from the early ’90s. Here in the this feature interview in LA Times, Lucas and producer Rick McCallum chat about “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” and its extensive DVD release — a lavish, three-volume library of DVDs with a staggering number of extras, including 94 highly polished documentaries on famous people and moments in history.

Lucas persuaded Paramount and ABC to let him make “Young Indiana,” which was filmed in unprecedented ways.

“They let me do it and do it in the way I wanted to do it,” he said. “The main thing I was really after was to see how many shows I could get done before they woke up and said enough is enough. And, you know, we managed to get 44 hours of material out there. I felt grateful I got as much done as I did.”

Read the full LA Times article here:
Return to Indy’s youth

Also be sure to read all about the Young Indiana Jones DVD box set here.

Lucas-Autographed X-wing Auction

Collectors wanting to own an X-wing starfighter miniature signed by filmmaker George Lucas, can now enter their best bid on eBay for this special charity action which ends Oct. 15, 2007.

All proceeds from this auction will support the Columbian Ball and benefit the Annual Fund of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Ill.

Click here to bid.

See the X-wing in person, and more than 80 other props and models from the world of Star Wars at the Museum of Science and Industry’s latest exhibit Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination — now in Chicago through Jan. 6, 2008. For more information on the exhibit, click here.

Lucas Talks Imagination

Filmmaker George Lucas visits the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and answers a few questions from the Chicago Tribune about the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit.

“Star Wars was designed to stimulate the imagination of young kids. It was to get kids to think and use their imagination and go home and draw pictures and make their own stories,” said Lucas, who was in town to promote the 10,000-square-foot exhibit.

“There is a lot of imaginative science in Star Wars,” Lucas said. “It shows you that by imagining things, you can imagine things that will eventually come through.”

Watch the video interview here, along with the article:
Exhibit from a galaxy far, far away

Fog City Mavericks Debuts on STARZ

Directed by Gary Leva, Fog City Mavericks explores and celebrates filmmaking in the San Francisco Bay Area with features on the iconoclastic filmmakers George Lucas, Brad Bird, Bruce Conner, Carroll Ballard, Chris Columbus, Clint Eastwood, Francis Ford Coppola, John Korty, John Lasseter, Phil Kaufman, Walter Murch, Sofia Coppola and Saul Zaentz.

Read more about Fog City Mavericks airing Sept. 24 on STARZ here.

Also watch this short clip on of George Lucas, Saul Zaentz, Robin Williams and John Lasseter who joined other celebrated local moviemakers at the Castro Theater Sunday, April 29, 2007 for the world premiere of Fog City Mavericks:

VIDEO: Film Festival Tribute to Maverick S.F. Filmmakers
(reporting from SFgate.com)

Bay Area TV Show Tours Lucasfilm at Presidio

The local TV show “Bay Area Backroads” recently took a tour of the Lucasfilm digs at the Presidio, and even got a peek at our very own starwars.com servers! The eight-minute video segment can be viewed here (click on “The Presidio” in the video player) and read on for the show description:

Lucas Chats about Upcoming TV Projects

In Part 1 of TV Guide’s Q&A with George Lucas, the discussion encompassed the documentary Fog City Mavericks (premiering on STARZ, Monday, Sept. 24, at 9 pm/ET), his advice for aspiring filmmakers and why Sean Connery turned down Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Here in Part 2, Lucas discusses the upcoming Star Wars TV projects, the power of the Internet and the television series he was distraught to see go off the air.

TVGuide.com reports:

On the live-action Star Wars TV Series:
Clone Wars has got all the characters in it — Yoda and Anakin and Obi-Wan and the Emperor and all that — so it’s basically the movie. The live-action series is not the movie. It’s the Star Wars universe, but it’s characters from the saga who were previously minor, and it follows their stories. It’s set between movie Episodes III and IV, when the Empire has taken over. It’s like Episode IV in that the Emperor and Darth Vader are heard about — people talk about them — but you never see them because it doesn’t take place where they actually are. There are stormtroopers and all that, but there are no Jedi. It’s different, but I think it’s very exciting because I get to explore a part of that universe that I haven’t been able to explore. Once you have a saga, it’s got a lot of requirements because it’s about a particular thing in this case, Darth Vader — and so it’s his story from the time he’s 10 to the time he died. You really can’t go off that track because that’s the story. Whereas now, I can make a left turn on 10th Street and go down there and see what’s going on.

George Lucas Talks Tech in the Classroom

Education has always been important to filmmaker George Lucas, as is obvious with Edutopia, a magazine and Web site published by The George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit organization that encourages the merge of education and technology.

At Salesforce.com’s annual user conference — Dreamforce — Lucas said in his keynote speech that resources are short at many public schools and often times teachers are perplexed with how to properly utilize the computers that companies donate.

cNet News reports:

Edutopia‘s focus is to help instructors learn how to organize a class, using technology to enhance the experience. Google Earth, for example, could be used to teach geography to students, Lucas said.”Don’t use the computers to teach Word Perfect…use them as a tool, like a pencil, to help the educational process,” Lucas said. He cited an example of having students build an airplane using a computer program, which, in turn, draws on their math skills.

“They learn math because they have to, if they want to build the plane,” Lucas said. “At some point, every kid will turn to their parent or teacher and ask them, ‘Why do I have to learn this? Why is it relevant to me?'”

Lucas Hails Maverick Filmmakers, Teases Indy 4

TV Guide chats with filmmaker George Lucas about Fog City Mavericks, a documentary (premiering on STARZ, Monday, Sept. 24, at 9 pm/ET) — as well as upcoming TV shows and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

TV Guide: So, Fog City Mavericks — a wonderful couple of hours. It was great fun to watch.
I’m a firm believer in regional cinema, cinema that’s not made by people who live in Hollywood but who live in [places] like Austin or New York City or Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco. There are several little film communities that exist outside the main center, Hollywood, and who take their ideas from different places and do different kinds of things and have more of a creative say in what they do. This film is about San Francisco. I hope, at some point, somebody makes one about New York and Austin and all of the other places.

Were you disappointed about Sean Connery not coming out of retirement to play Indy’s father?
No, in the end, it turned out better. In the beginning, he was just in a little bit of it, and I think with the strength of Sean Connery, people would’ve wanted him to go all the way through the whole thing, and the story really didn’t work that way. And so I think there would’ve been some disappointment that [his character] dropped out partway through the movie. By having somebody else fill that role, you lose him without any regret, so to speak, even though we got a great actor to play the part. And I mean, he’s not his father, so it’s much easier….

You mean [the other actor] is not playing Indy’s father?
That’s right. It’s just a completely different character, so you’re not invested in him in any way. The fact that that character, after the first part of the movie, isn’t needed doesn’t become a problem. Whereas I think with the scene we had, where [Indy] says goodbye to his dad, everybody was, “Wait a minute! Isn’t he coming back?” So in the end, I think it turned out for the best. Sean just retired and he wants to stay retired, and I understand that. [Laughs] I think he just said, “Look, I’ve done it, I’ve done it.” He was very tempted, you know, and we talked for a long time. But in the end, he just said, “Eh, I’m playing golf.”

Read Part 1 of the interview here:
George Lucas Hails Maverick Filmmakers, Teases Indy 4