Having stomped off and given up on developing a new movie studio on property he owns in Lucas Valley, filmmaker George Lucas is waving a figurative middle finger back at the NIMBYs who made his life difficult over the last fifteen years by converting the land into (gasp!) low-income housing instead. Marin County is notoriously short on housing that's affordable to non-millionaires, and if Marin residents had their druthers, all of it would be in a dark corner of San Rafael where no one had to look at it. Now, Lucas has partnered with the Marin County Foundation and they are reportedly "looking into" the affordable housing option for the property. more ›

The other week told you about how George Lucas, finally fed up with the rich Marin NIMBYs bitching about his LucasArts expansion plans in Lucas Valley, gave up on his plans to build there and is now seeking another city in which to build a huge new production facility. S.F. Mayor Ed Lee would like Lucas to do it in S.F., of course. But now Walnut Creek has written an empassioned plea to Lucas to take a bunch of vacant office and industrial property off their hands. more ›

Filmmaker and billionaire George Lucas has withdrawn plans to build a 263,700-square-foot digital production studio in Marin for which he originally got approval in 1996 due to the ongoing resistance from neighbors. Since getting approval for an even larger version of the project in Lucas Valley, connected to his existing Skywalker Ranch, a group of NIMBYs in the Lucas Valley Estates subdivision have gone to war trying to characterize the project as an eyesore and out of character with the bucolic surroundings of Lucas Valley. more ›

In the North Bay, a chimney fire in the Main House of George Lucas' bucolic retreat sparked three alarms after it became too much to handle for the Star Wars director's private Skywalker fire crew yesterday afternoon. (What? You don't have a private fire crew on staff?) Responding firefighters from Marin County eventually had to call in additional backup from San Rafael to contain the smokey blaze. more ›

According to Seth Rogen, Hollywood most favorite tender bro, George Lucas thinks the world might end in 2012. Yikes! “George Lucas sits down and seriously proceeds to talk for around 25 minutes about how he thinks the world is gonna end in the year 2012, like, for real. He thinks it," Rogen reveals to the Toronto Sun. “He’s going on about the tectonic plates and all the time [Steven] Spielberg is, like, rolling his eyes, like, ’My nerdy friend won’t shut up, I’m sorry.' " So, yeah, there you have it. Plan accordingly, people. [TS] more ›

Sympathetic with the plight Jabba's gay uncle, Ziro the Hutt, as well as countless same-sex couples throughout California, Marin County resident and filmmaker George Lucas, plunked down a cool $50,000 to the No on 8 effort. But wait, there's more! Lucasfilm, George's company perched in the Presidio, donated an additional $50,000 to boot. In related news, Google co-founder and president and the most attractive man in the galaxy, Sergey Brin, donated $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign this week, while co-founder Larry Page added a $40,000 donation. (We'll take that as a personal shout out to SFist, Sergey. Sigh.) To find out more about stopping 8, go here. (SJ Merc) more ›

Forbes annual list of billionaires around the world came out today. Jealous? And for the first time in 14 years Warren Buffett (at $62 billion) snatched the number one spot from Bill Gates (who came in at a dismal $58 billion.) This post was created using Explorer, not Firefox, in condolence. more ›

San Rafael-based Edutopia Magazine, which is brought to us by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, looks to the future in its latest issue, identifying 10 ideas or trends that its experts believe can improve K-12 education. We found them thought provoking, and hope you agree. more ›

There's only one thing better than absorbing nerdy cultural texts, and that's becoming a nerdy cultural text of your own. Voting on the Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge launched today; over the next month, a ton of fan-made Star Wars films will duel to the death to attract the attention of our local birthday-beardo, George Lucas. Winners are announced May 27 on Spike TV (corporate sibling of Atom Films). We adore Chad Vader, of course, having heartily enjoyed his Rifftrax contributions, but there's lots more to choose from. Check the submissions out on Atom Films, and support indie film! Or at least, what would have been indie films if their owners hadn't surrendered them to Viacom. more ›

Happy Birthday local auteur! It's year 63 for George Lucas, posing at right with ... what the hell? Is that supposed to be Yoda? Eesh. Anyway, as you can imagine, George's campus in the presidio, aka Naboo, is in a festive uproar today, with giant lumbering beasts, cheering crowds, ducks, and the handing off of a big swirly gazing ball to a drooling bipedal frog. We've watched George's career with interest, and wish him hundreds of more years of success. more ›

The always-reliable and smartly-snapping Drew Altizer stopped by the SF Film Society's red carpet awards ceremony on Saturday and passes along these views of the scene! more ›

Sunday night, the SF International screened the world premiere of the film at the Castro Theater. There were shades of Sundance as many of the films featured filmmakers and actors, including George Lucas and Robin Williams, casually red carpeted-their way to the theater, complete with flashbulbs and film cameras documenting the night. more ›

Did you get your tickets? more ›

It's been forty-nine years of great cinema for the SF International Film Festival (SFIFF), and starting April 26 through May 10 2007, it'll be fifty! more ›

This would have been even more awesome if it had been on top of a moving train. The police in Berkeley used a hook-and-ladder truck to conduct a manhunt on Telegraph Avenue rooftops after the robbery of a Noah's Bagels at around 6 a.m. Monday morning. After what was described as a tense "building-by-building, rooftop-by-rooftop search," the man was located on top of a building and arrested without further incident. more ›

em>You know, it's a weird thing about fireworks. We've seen them dozens of time, we're pretty much not kids anymore, and in pretty much everything else we've become jaded. Yet no matter how many times we've seen them, we're "oohing and aahing" just like everyone else. -Ain't no party like a New Year's party. more ›

Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 67. more ›

Patrick Rodriguez makes an argument for saving Stan "Tookie" Williams -- those Berkeley Republicans are always throwing curveballs. Sasha over at Left in SF wonders if the Residential Builders Association and the Bay Guardian can ever get along. Kimo Crossman at Webnetic points out why you should care about the SF citywide wifi process, and suggests you drop by the Board of Supervisors to argue for more public involvement. And MuniWireless posts the MetroFi contract for the recent hotspots downtown. more ›

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if the same goes for intellectual property theft and encroaching on other people's business, then a lot of people should be feeling very flattered this week. more ›

Summer TV continues to bum us out as we just can't seem to get on board with the rest of the country and devote any of our time watching pseudo-celebrities embarassing themselves while trying to ballroom dance. We read about the success of this show and can't quite get our heads around it. Is it a sheer lack of any other programming that is driving the ratings up? Or is everyone in America just a closet dancer, living their dreams vicariously through these sad, sad stars? We remain perplexed, while continuing to look for other ways to waste our time... more ›

Apple switches to Intel; surprisingly, nothing goes to hell in an iPod sock. more ›

Saturday morning, around 7am, a line started forming outside the Metreon to see British playwright Tom Stoppard's new film, based on a late-70s film by a young experimental filmmaker from USC. By 9:30, the line stretched down around Jillians and up over the stairs, spilling into Yerba Buena Gardens -- about 1,500 people were estimated present. But these were small-scale nerds, not the type who camp out for weeks; as employees of the LucasFilm machine, they were all being treated to a special sneak preview of the movie that represents a final curtain call for the Star Wars films. And we were lucky enough to get scooted into the theater with them, thanks to our uncanny knack for sleeping with just the right person. more ›

Some of you aren't happy with San Francisco. You're the type who grew up here, maybe, or came here for college from some small town, and now you feel that you're getting a little to big for EssEff's britches. After all, you're William Faulkner, Joe Eszterhaus and Noam Chomsky all rolled into one, incredible author, and the only places that will really appreciate your inimitable talents are real big cities like New York and LA. more ›

SFist's had a complicated relationship with George Lucas since 1999. He reminds us of a high-school boyfriend who found us on Google and won't stop calling. Dude, we loved you so much at the time, but you're ruining our nostalgia for the relationship with your long email about your Amway sales! more ›

Of course the film Apocalypse Now was filmed by Bay Area vintner Francis Ford Coppola and was a production of American Zoetrope, the production company he founded with George Lucas. Apocalypse Now was a re-imagining of Joseph Conrad's , considered a classic of English literature. The documentary on the making of Apocalypse Now, Hearts of Darkness, was filmed and edited by Mr. Coppola's wife, Eleanor. more ›

SFist is shocked to see that we failed for the 31st year in a row to make the Forbes list of the top 400 richest people in the world. Much like those US News and World Report stickers that show up on local editions of the America's Top Colleges magazines ("NORTHERN CALIFORNIA! Berkeley, Stanford, and Mills are represented in here!"), someone has thoughtfully compiled a compendium of California-based information for your perusal. more ›

If at work you saw your computer programmers, IT workers, and Web designers walking around with a Christmas-y gleam in their eyes yesterday it was because in Geekville it was Christmas. For yesterday was the day that George Lucas bequeathed upon us the box-set DVD of the Star Wars Trilogy. Yep, the Holy Trinity of sci-fi flicks -- Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi were finally released on DVD. But there's much, much more emanating out of Lucas Land these days; everything from video games to TV shows to wines. And yes, we said wines. more ›

George Lucas revisits his eager student past. more ›