George Lucas' greatest legacy is Star Wars. Too much of an American phenomenom for it not to be.

My favorite Star Wars movie is: The Phantom Menace. It's SO COOL how he re-invented Stars wars after at a 17 year hiatus. (I don't think he gets enough credit for the sucessful undertaking of that) Thought the Darth Maul character was a spooky villan, hints at the demonic: play on angel's vs. demons only partially veied through the use of the "force" rathter than supernatual means.
Not a big Jar-jar Binks fan, nearly suck both movies, in my opinion, but I LOVED the action sequences, which I think George does VERY IMAGINATIVELY.

Would LOVE to work with George Lucas someday. He's such a great ARTIST, such a great pro.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Katz and Hyuck also polished Graffiti, too, according to Biskind, and he gave them two Star Wars profit points for their help on both ...

His legacy is that he changed the way money people thought about movies, forever ... no one thought you could franchise a film in such a way that you could make money off the toys, the music, the novelization, everything ... Lucas did that, for better or for worse ... I happened to think it hurt American film in some ways (again, though, I'm influenced by Biskind) but it was probably bound to happen no matter what.

Favorite Lucas film? It depends on whether you mean directed by or conceived by ... I'd say EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is pretty awesome, though he didn't direct or write it, followed by RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK ... same writer on both.

But strictly as a director, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, of course ... great stuff. STAR WARS IV is good, too.

I read The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film (J. W. Rinzler) not too long ago and the thing that blew me away was the amazing transformation that the story took through the various drafts. The film that was made and the original outline are completely different. This should be required reading for any screenwriter that thinks they are done (especially after only a draft or two). It made me realize that the struggles I have with storytelling are not unique. And it's a bit of encouragement to get ideas written down and revise, revise, revise (note to self: follow advice).

I agree with E.C. Henry, Star Wars has to be considered George's legacy. Star Wars (no frakin' "Episode IV", no "New Hope", no CGI) is my favorite. It's perhaps the first film I saw more than once in a theater and the second time was just to listen to the John Williams score.

STAR WARS will always be the Lucas legacy, and that's how it should be.

Bill, you stole my thunder! The thing I mentioned in my post that I was going to highlight later is precisely your point as author Marc Norman does a great job in "What Happens Next" distilling some of the key points of the SW story transformation.

But I thank you nonetheless - and especially for the reference and link to Rinzler's book. I have a hard copy of an early SW script called (IIRC) "The Adventures of Luke DeathStalker" or something like that. Not the earliest draft because it had talking robots -- which as I've heard didn't come into being until somewhat later in Lucas' development process.

Again thanks for that link and your point:

"This should be required reading for any screenwriter that thinks they are done (especially after only a draft or two). It made me realize that the struggles I have with storytelling are not unique. And it's a bit of encouragement to get ideas written down and revise, revise, revise (note to self: follow advice)."

That is spot on advice!

As others have already noted a few of Lucas' prominent legacies, I'll go in another direction. His founding of ILM and Lucasfilm Ltd -- allowing him to control the production of his own films as well as make a few bucks off the studios -- mainstreamed the notion of a creative-run studio. Zoetrope obviously beat Lucas to this particular punch, but Lucas showed how profitable such an approach could be. Amblin, Dreamworks, Pixar and the myriad star/director/writer production companies that dot our landscape testify to the endurance of this legacy.

Best Star Wars film -- The Empire Strikes Back. No question.

I'm torn between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back as my favorite SW film. Empire seems richer, but it lacks that feeling of elation you get as the Death Star is blown into tiny bits of light...

And while it didn't rule my childhood, every time I see American Graffiti I get a gut feeling that's his true masterpiece...