COOL STUFF

'Star Wars' Creator George Lucas' Museum Will Call Chicago Home

by Ethan Anderton
June 24, 2014
Source: Chicago Tribune

Though George Lucas may no longer have a significant voice in the world of producing new Star Wars films with Lucasfilm being run by Kathleen Kennedy and now firmly situated at Disney, that doesn't mean he's just kicking around Skywalker Ranch with nothing to do. In fact, Lucas has been busy putting together plans to create a museum that will house his collection of art and movie memorabilia, and The Chicago Tribune reports he has finally chosen The Windy City, where he lives half-time with his Chicagoan wife, to found The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, beating out potential plots in Los Angeles in San Francisco.

Here's what is said about the collection that will reside in the museum from LucasMuseum.org:

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will be a gathering place to experience narrative art and the evolution of moving images – from illustration to cinema to the digital mediums of the future. The museum’s seed collection – a gift from founder George Lucas – spans a century-and-a-half and features the images and the mediums that have profoundly shaped our cultural heritage. The foundational collection will continue to grow and evolve as the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art acquires more works.

In a statement, Lucas said, “Choosing Chicago is the right decision for the museum, but a difficult decision for me personally because of my strong personal and professional roots in the Bay Area." Los Angeles pursued the museum pretty aggressively, but in the end, Chicago probably just makes more sense since he spends half of his time in the city with his family. The museum will be located on parking lots between Soldier Field and McCormick Place, a prime piece of real estate joining other attractions like The Field Museum and The Shedd Aquarium in the area. The plan is to open in 2018, so that means it will be quite sometime after Star Wars: Episode VII hits theaters, even with the rumored delay.

As for what visitors will find there, "The museum will house a collection that includes valuable Norman Rockwell paintings, examples of the Hollywood special effects he pioneered at Industrial Light & Magic, and memorabilia such as a scale model of the Millennium Falcon, the fictional spacecraft commanded by Han Solo." Laurie Norton Moffatt, chief executive officer of the Norman Rockwell Museum says, "It’s still an emerging and growing collection. He has an extraordinary collection of movie posters. I think he has the largest collection in the world.” You can see a small part of the collection, which all have a theme of storytelling at LucasMuseum.org, but otherwise, we'll have to wait until the museum opens. At this time it's not clear if any Jar Jar Binks merchandise will be on display.

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