George Lucas has been a pioneer in the movie industry. When Lucas proposed Star Wars to a number of Hollywood studios he was turned away by all of them. His response to this was to create his own companies to replace the need for Hollywood. Industrial Lights and Magic (ILM) is the most readily recognized of these companies. The clever employees of ILM had to invent most of the techniques that were used to make the low budget Buck Rogers spoof, Star Wars. As we all know, Star Wars went on to be one of the most successful movies of all time (not necessarily financially of course). Among the companies that Lucas controls are Lucas Films, ILM, Skywalker Sound, THX, andLucas Arts. There are others including a company to handle licensing of assets. THX was created by Lucas because of the varying quality of movie theater audio systems. THX created standards and testing methods to ensure that his, and others', movies would be reproduced on the big screen with as close to the original studio recorded sound as was feasible. ILM invented a great deal of methods and tools for special effects. One of the most interesting of these was a piece of computer software called Renderman. Renderman was later sold to Pixar due to the fact that ILM was a special effects company, not a software company. Lucas, once shunned by Hollywood, is now the man everyone in Hollywood would love to be. Even today Lucas avoids Hollywood and its investors. The Star Wars Episode I movie was funded in its entirety by Lucas himself.