Industrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of Innovation by Ian Failes will be released November 5, 2025 by Lucasfilm Publishing and Abrams. By Lucas O. Seastrom It all began in May of 1975 with a handshake between director George Lucas and visual effects supervisor John Dykstra. Industrial Light & Magic formed as Lucasfilm’s visual effects division to work specifically on one project: Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). 50 years later, ILM now spans the globe with offices in five countries and hundreds of productions to its credit. Now in 2025, the 50th anniversary festivities have kicked off at an appropriate venue: Star Wars Celebration. ILM leadership and artists gathered at the beloved fan event near Tokyo, Japan to reflect on the storied occasion, as well as announce a new book: Industrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of Innovation, written by Ian Failes and coming November 5, 2025 from Lucasfilm Publishing and Abrams.A New Book Charting ILM’s Continuing Legacy Industrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of Innovation takes readers from day one at ILM in 1975 up to some of the latest projects and innovations at the company today. Packed with hundreds of rare archival images, author Ian Failes – the noted visual effects journalist at befores & afters – weaves insightful technical history with the beloved stories of ILM’s people.  “ILM has been part of my visual effects life for a long time,” Failes tells ILM.com. “I first ‘discovered’ so much about visual effects just as I left high school when I happened upon two things…. One was the industry magazine Cinefex, and the other was the incredible book, Industrial Light & Magic: Into the Digital Realm, by Mark Cotta Vaz and Patricia Rose Duignan. I read that ILM book from cover to cover multiple times. It really was one of the things that inspired me to become a visual effects journalist. “So, getting the opportunity to go deeper into ILM’s history with this new book, but now with all the knowledge I’ve gained from time spent covering the industry, is just so rewarding—and fun,” Failes adds. Readers can look forward to many untold stories in 50 Years of Innovation. Failes identifies the transition from photochemical optical compositing to digital methods as a particularly fascinating era in the company’s history. “In the book there are some great details shared by key ILMers who were there at the time about many different aspects of the move to digital in terms of other areas like film scanning and digital compositing,” the author says. “Also, readers have never been able to explore so many exclusive behind-the-scenes photos from ILM’s history before,” Failes continues. “Having images from all different fields that highlight what is essentially the history of visual effects like modelmaking, optical effects, puppets, stop-motion, matte paintings, hand-animation, CG animation, virtual production, etc., all in one place, is something very special. I especially love some of the photographs that showcase the various VistaVision and motion control camera systems that ILM developed.” At the heart of ILM’s story is the spirit of creativity and innovation which has been defined by the company’s people over the decades. “Even back to its beginnings, George Lucas started ILM after identifying that no existing facility could deliver what he imagined for Star Wars,” Failes concludes. “It feels to me that a unique innovative spirit was born during the making of that first film, and never left the company. I think that goes both for technological developments and also cultural ones. ILM helped establish modern workflows inside a visual effects facility, and I think, really importantly, further set the standard for how to collaborate with filmmakers and other creatives.”Industrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of Innovation by Ian Failes is coming November 5, 2025 from Lucasfilm Publishing and Abrams. On the Stage at Star Wars Celebration As a special live recording of Lighter Darker: The ILM Podcast, the Star Wars Celebration panel included president and general manager of Lucasfilm business, Lynwen Brennan; head of ILM and general manager Janet Lewin; ILM executive creative director and senior visual effects supervisor John Knoll, ILM Sydney creative director and senior animation supervisor Rob Coleman; ILM lead CG modeler Masa Narita; and former ILM modelmaker Fon Davis. Lucasfilm’s senior vice president of creative innovation, digital production & technology Rob Bredow moderated. Lynwen Brennan came to ILM 27 years ago as the company ramped up for production of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999). Like many, she’d been inspired to join ILM after seeing Jurassic Park (1993) a few years earlier. “The minute I walked through the door, I just fell in love,” Brennan told the audience. “I knew I’d found my people…. It’s an incredibly spirited place. We have a lot of fun. There’s something so special about a place that attracts these mavericks who are not scared of doing anything new…. Sometimes when you find people who are real risk-takers, they’re not necessarily great team players, right? But this…is a place where you’ve got people who love taking those risks but do it in such a collaborative way. That’s a thing that really got me.” Janet Lewin started her ILM career some 30 years ago and has had a front row seat to the continuing changes and evolutions in the visual effects industry, much of it driven by ILM. “Back then, we were one studio in San Rafael, just a couple of hundred people, mostly working in the Model Shop and on the stage,” Lewin explained. “It was an exciting time right at that digital revolution. It was a big deal for us to juggle four shows at one time, and a big show was a couple hundred shots. And over my 30-year trajectory, the company has massively grown. We now have 3,500 employees, five global studios, and…we do visual effects work across every possible medium.” For Masa Narita, appearing onstage at Celebration in his native Japan was a full circle moment. A lifelong visual effects fan, he’d watched Star Wars as a teenager during its original Japanese release in 1978. But as he reached adulthood, Narita first chose a career in finance.  “I used to be a businessman, worked for a Japanese brokerage firm for over 20 years,” Narita said. “But I always loved movies and visual effects because I grew up with special effects pioneers like Ultraman and Godzilla. So my first childhood dream was to wear a kaiju suit and to smash miniature towns. Actually, I still want to do that. [laughs] As I got older, I realized that I wanted to create something special like spaceships and characters [that] I saw in the movies. So at the age of 45, I decided to follow my passion. I quit my financial job and moved to Hollywood and started at a CG school. So that was my biggest gamble in my life, taken with my loving wife and two children. Fortunately, one year later…I got [my] very first CG job, and eventually I came to my dream company, ILM.” Narita has since worked at the company for over a decade, contributing to productions like Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), The Mandalorian (2019-23), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024). “ILM puts a lot of focus on innovation that makes the impossible possible,” Narita added. “So I feel inspired every day walking in a place with so much creativity and skill. I love what I’m doing and I feel I really achieved my dream. People say life is short, but I don’t think so. We have plenty of time to start over. It’s never too late to chase something new.”You can hear these stories and many more on Episode 17 of Lighter Darker: The ILM Podcast, coming soon to ILM.com. Watch the ILM.com Newsroom for the latest information about how you can purchase a copy of Industrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of Innovation, coming to bookstores everywhere on November 5, 2025. Light & Magic Season 2 is streaming now on Disney+. New merchandise celebrating the 50th anniversary of Industrial Light & Magic is now available on Amazon.com. — Lucas O. Seastrom is the editor of ILM.com and a contributing writer and historian for Lucasfilm.