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Star Wars creator honoured
10/06/2005 14:26 - (SA)
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| Director George Lucas poses with his children, Katie, left, Amanda and Jett Lucas. (Chris Carlson, AP) |
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Los Angeles - He was the cruel taskmaster who made Harrison Ford hang with snakes and rats, required Robert Duvall to shave his head and turned Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill into Pez dispensers.
George Lucas was presented with The American Film Institute's annual lifetime achievement award on Thursday night. He was hailed as an innovator whose American Graffiti created a 1950s and early '60s nostalgia craze and ushered in a new era of special effects with his Star Wars films.
Lucas, 61, said he was "honoured and a bit bewildered" considering that by his count he has made only three movies - THX 1138, American Graffiti and the six Star Wars flicks, which he views as one long film.
Lucas said he was hesitant when approached about the prestigious award. Previous recipients include Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Meryl Streep and Lucas' pal, Steven Spielberg.
With odd humility for a filmmaker whose movies helped shape the modern blockbuster age, Lucas said he wondered, "Who would come" to the ceremony?
"I halfway expected to have a room full of stormtroopers and Princess Leias," he said.
Instead, he had a roomful of adoring colleagues and fans.
THX 1138 star Duvall recalled for the crowd how he had to shave his head for Lucas' first film, a cult sci-fi satire of consumerism and dehumanisation.
Fisher and Hamill - Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker of the first three Star Wars movies - ribbed Lucas for the merchandising empire the films created, including Pez dispensers, shampoo bottles and electric toothbrushes based on their characters.
"People are still asking me if I knew it was going to be that big of a hit," Fisher said of the first Star Wars movie in 1977. "Yes, we all knew. The only one who didn't know was George."
Lucas' final Star Wars film, Revenge of the Sith, opened in May and is climbing toward a $400m domestic gross.
Lucas took some roasting for his occasional failures, notably the 1986 flop Howard the Duck, on which he was executive producer.
William Shatner - Captain Kirk from another great space saga, Star Trek - offered a musical number "from one star voyager to another". He performed a variation of My Way, telling Lucas "you did it your way" while dancers in Star Wars stormtrooper costumes did a chorus line routine.
"Live long," Shatner told Lucas. "You've already prospered enough."
On the net:
afi.com
- AP
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