George Lucas
Today, Disney announced that Lucas' media empire, Lucasfilm, will be joining the House that Mickey Mouse built in a $4.05 billion acquisition. Disney also said it plans to make at least three more live-action 'Star Wars' movies, starting with Episode 7 in 2015.
Star Wars motion control
ILM got its start in 1975 when Lucas needed a visual effects department to work on "Star Wars." According to ILM, "The young team at ILM pioneered the use of computers to control and move motion picture cameras. The invention, named the Dysktraflex, in honor of its primary inventor, John Dykstra, allowed camera moves to be programmed and repeated time and time again giving effects artists the ability to shoot multiple registered passes of miniatures such as the Millennium Falcon, which would later be optically composited together into a single shot."
1977 Star Wars
Muren and Lucas
Steve Jobs with John Lasseter and Ed Catmull
Pirates of the Caribbean
Iron Man
ILM original logo
Sorcerer's Apprentice
This is concept art for "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." According to the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco:
Earmarked from the beginning as something out of the ordinary, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was originally planned as a special Mickey Mouse short; a kind of culmination of Mickey's career to date, featuring the studio's best animators and an orchestral score conducted by Stokowski.... Eventually, this ambitious plan led to the still more ambitious "Fantasia." "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was also intended as a showcase to introduce the newly redesigned Mickey Mouse to theater audiences -- but by the time "Fantasia" was completed and released, the "new" Mickey had already been in several short subjects.
Avatar
Podrace
First CGI main character
Terminator sketch
Up
Steve Jobs mailboxx
Cars 2
Ratatouille
Finding Nemo
Now, Lucasfilm is joining Pixar in the Disney empire, thanks to the today's $4.05 billion acquisition.
This is a pastel painting by Ralph Eggleston from 2003's "Finding Nemo" entitled "Sequence Pastel: First day."
Toy Story 3
Up in the air
Wall-E
"Wall-E" was Pixar's first film set (partly) in space, as well as its first attempt at mixing CGI animation with live-action segments. The film has two main sets: one on the trash-covered Earth, and the other on a people-packed space colony. While the movie seems to promote a pro-environmental message, the filmmakers denied any such agenda.
The film won the Oscar for best animated feature, and earned $532 million in the box office worldwide.
Skywalker Sound
Lucas, Hamill, Fisher, and Stewart
Stormtroopers
Snow White Academy Award
The museum is a fantastic tour through Disney's life and the works that made him and his company so famous. Stretching from his earliest days as an animator all the way to his death, it is ten galleries full of original concept art, posters, figurines, and much, much more, all guaranteed to delight any Disney fan.
But it's not just a celebration of Mickey Mouse and friends. The museum also highlights some of the more controversial parts of the animator's life, including his testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee, a major strike at Disney Studios, and the company's work making war propaganda for the U.S. military.
Yet, in the end, it's Disney's work in the movies that carries the day. And perhaps there is no better celebration of his success than this very special Oscar, which Disney was awarded in 1939 for "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" by Shirley Temple and which included seven small Oscar figurines.