Title:
2005 AFI Life Achievement Award – A Tribute To George Lucas
Featuring
Appearances And Presentations By: Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Mark Hamill,
Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfus, James Cameron, Peter Jackson,
William Shatner, Chewbacca, R2D2, and C3PO
Writer:
Bob Gazzale
Director/Co-Producer:
Louis J. Horvitz
Executive
Producer: Bob Gazzale
Running
Time: 90 minutes without commercials
Media:
USA Network Television Special (NTSC VHS Screener)
Premiere
Monday, June 20, 2005 at 9pm (ET/PT)
Network:
USA Network (Check your local cable/satellite listings for channel)
TV
Rating: Not Available At The Time Of Review
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
For 33 year the American Film Institute has been honoring individuals with outstanding contributions to the motion picture industry and acknowledging their careers in the process. This year The AFI awarded Filmmaker George Lucas with the Life Achievement on June 9, 2005. Present were many of Lucas’ contemporaries that included Lucas’ close friend and 1995 AFI Life Achievement Award Winner Steven Spielberg, Lucas’ children, and Actors Robert Duvall, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Tom Hanks. In taped clips filmmakers Peter Jackson, Ron Howard, Francis Ford Coppola, and James Cameron all acknowledged Mr. Lucas’ influence on their careers as well as shared in some cases their experiences of first seeing “Star Wars” as well as their impressions of Mr. Lucas.
In addition there are clips of Lucas discussing his upbringing and career from “THX 1138” to “Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith.” Though Mr. Lucas has only directed five feature films, or three if you go by Mr. Lucas’ own words since he considers all six “Star Wars” features to be one large film, Mr. Lucas’ fingerprint can be seen in everything he has been involved with from serving as Executive Producer on “Tucker: The Man And His Dream” and “Willow” through the various television projects he has produced such as “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.” Memorable moments from the ceremony include a standout comedic and singing performance of “My Way” by William Shatner as well as humorous remarks from Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher in addition to Harrison Ford, who admitted he was wrong when he told Lucas during the production of “Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope” that “You can write this shit, but you can’t say it!” Mr. Ford quickly acknowledged afterwards, which I’m paraphrasing here, “Well what did I know, he was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar that year.”
Props from Lucas’ films can be seen all about the auditorium where the ceremony was held as well as some dancing Stormtroopers and character appearances by R2D2 and C3PO as well as Chewbacca. Mr. Spielberg presented Mr. Lucas with the award and it is a moving site to see these two titans of genre filmmaking together on the screen because as much as they are colleagues and friends, I almost think of them as brothers.
There
were some taped “thank you” messages by fans interspersed before commercial
breaks, which gives me the opportunity to give Mr. Lucas my personal thanks. Not
only was I raised on a steady diet of “Star Wars,” but the films themselves
continue to this day to illuminate me and at the same time I think the saga
transcends what anyone could have ever imagined before the first film was
released back in 1977. Though I have never met Mr. Lucas personally, I was given
the unique opportunity to participate in an internship at what was then called
“Lucasfilm Commercial Productions” where a brownstone off of Park Avenue in
Manhattan was converted into comfy Santa Fe inspired production offices. From
what I saw I can attest that Mr. Lucas truly treats his employees and the
various companies he owns almost like a huge extended family or group of
aspiring students in a campus like environment. Each year a yearbook is
published and the employees in the New York office would fly to the Skywalker
Ranch where I presume some informal celebration was held. So thank you Mr. Lucas
for the great body of work, for inspiring everyone through your examples, for
giving us a mythology we can hand over to future generations, and for the three
undergraduate credits I earned for that internship which I will cherish as a
memory for the rest of my life.
“2005 AFI Life Achievement Award – A Tribute To George Lucas” will air tonight, June 20, 2005, at 9pm (ET/PT) on the USA Network. Tune in and give praise…
©
Copyright 2005 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.