Movies - George Lucas in Love

Home > Listing Index > Movies > George Lucas in Love

	Movies - George Lucas in Love

George Lucas in Love is a student film that started attracting notice in June 1999 when it was passed around Hollywood offices as a filmmaker's "calling card". It is an homage and spoof of both Star Wars and Shakespeare in Love
. The film was directed by Joe Nussbaum, who financed the film with money his grandmother left him. Nussbaun recruited dozens of fellow University of Southern California film school graduates to help him with his movie. The casting director, musical composer, and executive producer are all alumni.

In the film, George Lucas is a USC college student in 1967, and he's suffering from writer's block as he tries to write a movie about a young space farmer with a bad crop of space wheat. Everywhere he goes, viewers see classmates and teachers that either resemble or will influence the creation of Darth Vader, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Jabba the Hutt, not to mention R2-D2 and C-3PO. Lucas is surrounded by inspiration, but he sees nothing. Not even his adviser, who looks and talks suspiciously like Yoda, is able to help him.

Eventually, young Lucas he meets his muse, a young girl (with a very unusual hairdo) at the head of a student rebellion. After they meet, everything falls into place for Lucas, as she urges him to "write what you know." Before one can say "May the Force be with you," Lucas' writers block dissapates and he pounds out his masterpiece.

The film received great attention as it circulated around Hollywood in the summer of 1999, and eventually premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on September 19 that year. It debuted online at MediaTrip.com on October 12, 1999, and has proven very popular with both regular audiences and Star Wars fans ever since. The film has won several awards, including the Canal+ Short Film Award at the 2000 Deauville Film Festival, the Audience Award at both the Florida Film Festival and the San Sebastián Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, and was awarded Best Short Film at the 2000 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.

When the film was released on VHS in 2000, The New York Times reported that the film made it to #1 on Amazon.com's Top 10 sales chart, beating out sales of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace for a day. A DVD with audio commentary by the director and behind-the-scenes featurette was released in 2001. The DVD also included several other MediaTrip short films, including Evil Hill, Film Club, and Swing Blade.

Nussbaum eventually signed a directing deal with Dreamworks Pictures, and later directed the 2004 film Sleepover
.

In 2004, the film won the Pioneer Award in the Lucasfilm-sponsored 2004 Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for George Lucas in Love ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article George Lucas in Love; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay