It's for the best, the prequels showed that without a really good team of writers GL wasn't going to replicate the magic. Honestly I don't think Disney is going to either, it looks good but could easily just become a generic scifi movie and after Trek I have no faith in JJ Abrams.
George Lucas breaks up wit Star Wars
- Thread starter Bryancd
- Start date
Solo4114
Master Member
I haven't followed the development of the new film at all, but I'll say two things.
First, my fondest hope is that the new film feels the way Rebels feels. To me, that's about as close to the old school Star Wars as you can get (so far).
Second, even if it doesn't, it'll still be...pretty good, I think. It'll be like seeing the Rolling Stones now. In 1998, I saw the Stones play on their Bridges to Babylon tour. And yeah, it didn't sound anywhere as awesome as, say, my copy of Get Yer Ya Yas Out sounds, but it's about as close to that as you can get anymore. Basically, the Rolling Stones today, are the absolute best Rolling Stones cover band in the world. I expect these films will probably be like that. They'll be the best replica of the old Star Wars feel (Rebels notwithstanding) that you can get. Certainly the best on the big screen. But if not, you know, I honestly don't care a ton. I'll always have the originals and whatever else I choose to incorporate. I spent the early '00s pissed at George for ruining the franchise with the prequels when, in fact, it was really just me ruining the experience for myself. I could have decided to ignore what I didn't like and enjoy what I did, but I couldn't mentally make the switch. It's a lot easier now. I still lament what "could have been," but...eh...whatever. Life's too short to spend it pissed off at this or that source of entertainment.
Axlotl
Master Member
See ya, George. Don't let the screen door hit you on the backside.
The farther away from Star Wars he is the better.
Sorry, folks, but I just can't accept that GL is any kind of "genius".
If he was a "genius" the prequels wouldn't be the garbage fire they are.
He doesn't even understand Star Wars.
What kind of "genius" is too dense to grasp the message of his own story?
Good riddance.
The farther away from Star Wars he is the better.
Sorry, folks, but I just can't accept that GL is any kind of "genius".
If he was a "genius" the prequels wouldn't be the garbage fire they are.
He doesn't even understand Star Wars.
What kind of "genius" is too dense to grasp the message of his own story?
Good riddance.
mkstewartesq
Sr Member
1. Actually, on that - good catch, and let me amplify. IIRC correctly, when GL asks “what happened to Darth Vader’s grandkids?”, JJ looks a bit surprised and possibly uncomfortable or annoyed. Then he says “you tell me, George” and quickly moves on.
When I first saw that, I thought it was just JJ’s way of not talking about the plot of the movie - but after hearing GL’s comments, I think now it was probably a bit more of GL slyly needling JJ about discarding GL’s “grandkids” idea and JJ’s reply of “you tell me, George” is a bit of testy reminder that the grandkids story is not the one JJ is going to tell.
2. As I’ve said before, I feel for GL. Sure, the prequels were not all they could have been, but I don’t think the man deserved the vicious personal attacks many (including here) have thrown at him. If I were him, I’d say “you know, screw this” as well. He doesn’t owe any of us anything, and we have the right to vote with our wallets if we don’t like what he put out.
All that being said, GL is basically what Gene Roddenberry was to Star Trek.
- - Both created something that resounded with people more than they ever could’ve expected, and when it took off, they profited handsomely;
- - Then, later on, when given a chance to revisit the property (Roddenberry with ST:TMP), they lost sight of what made the original resonate with so many people (or focused on the wrong things and tried to justify them as their “true, original vision”), and tried to stubbornly quash anyone who tried to tell them differently;
- - After those revisits failed, they were both ultimately relegated to the background as figureheads while others came in to try to get the ship back on course. (The difference is that, GL at least is finally making a clean break, unlike Roddenberry, who hung around and spent the last ten years of so of his life writing memos to the ST movies crew telling them everything they were doing “wrong” (and being ignored) - or kicking off ST-TNG, which wasn’t any great shakes when Gene was actively involved either.)
So I admire both men and am a huge fan of what they created and brought to my life - but I also recognize that, as time went on, neither of them had a good understanding of why their biggest life’s work was so popular, and it’s for the best that new blood come in to reinvigorate things.
M
DL 44 Blaster
Sr Member
I agree with him on all except one point. If it's not about space ships, but a family drama/soap opera then why not tell it on a farm on Earth?:confused He told a space opera from day one, so it's like he's contradicting his own intellectual property which makes no sense to me. It's not like he even used that as a metaphor....he just blurted that out there and left it hanging. What do you mean it isn't about space ships?....the very first scene has the most iconic opening to a science fiction movie ever with TWO space ships.
Either way I think it's loooong past time to have Star Wars and Indiana Jones to be back on screen with fresh faces on and behind the screen.
It's a sandbox now. Let somebody else play in it and see what they can build. Will we/the fans like all of their creations....hell no. But I'd for one like to at least have the opportunity to go to see for myself. As has been said we all have the OT to enjoy forever.
Here's to December 18th!
Either way I think it's loooong past time to have Star Wars and Indiana Jones to be back on screen with fresh faces on and behind the screen.
It's a sandbox now. Let somebody else play in it and see what they can build. Will we/the fans like all of their creations....hell no. But I'd for one like to at least have the opportunity to go to see for myself. As has been said we all have the OT to enjoy forever.
Here's to December 18th!
Solo4114
Master Member
Lucas is a genius of a particular stripe. I've said this here and elsewhere in the past, but I see it like this.
Lucas is, at the core, a "big ideas" guy. He also isn't that great at executing those big ideas on his own. Instead, he's someone who does his best work when he's surrounded by collaborators and faced with limitations, be they budgetary, environmental, or just the naysaying of those collaborators.
As an idea guy, out of 10 total ideas:
- 5 will be utter crap.
- 3 will be pretty good, but need some tweaks.
- 2 will be total genius that will absolutely floor you.
With the OT, surrounded by collaborators like Gary Kurtz, Lawrence Kasdan, Irvin Kershner, and Marcia Lucas, and faced with all manner of limitations, George did amazing work. You see less of this after Kurtz's and Marcia's departure and tapping Richard Marquand to be the director of ROTJ, but there's still some of the old DNA about. What you saw were George's 2 genius ideas, and the remaining 3 that the collaborators helped massage into something amazing. You didn't really see the 5 crap ideas because the collaborators said "No, George. That's stupid and we aren't doing it."
With the PT, surrounded by yes-men and employees, you saw...all 10 ideas. The crap, the ok stuff (that didn't get improved), and the genius.
So, yeah, I think Lucas is a genius...of sorts.
What I don't thing he is, is an infallible auteur. The differences between the OT and the PT are too stark for that to be the case, and I can't believe he changed so much that what came before was all him, just as what came after. But the thing is, from 1977 to 1999, the myth was that George was the auteur of Star Wars. He was the singular vision behind all of it, and it was all his creation. All the making-of stuff that came out in the 80s supported it, and the collaborators generally took a back seat to Lucas in terms of talking about their contributions during this period. And I think that George...kinda came to believe that about himself, too. Or, he saw the success as being because of him, and that any problems were the results of the limitations he faced, rather than those limitations forcing him to be his absolute best.
If you look at his life in Hollywood, he basically spent his entire career fighting for autonomy and the right to be a completely unfettered auteur. He didn't want the studio telling him how to make his film, or limiting him with budgets. He fought against the restrictions of technology itself, pushing the limits wherever he could to tell the story he wanted to tell. His career progressed such that those around him became less and less people who would say "No" or "that's not possible" and more and more "Yes," or "We'll make it happen." I can respect that...on a level. As a result, I can imagine that making movies and telling stories are, for George, intensely personal experiences, because he's basically pouring himself out on to the screen in front of you. When audiences rejected that, said it sucked, said he was daft, that he raped their childhoods, etc...that must have been incredibly painful for him to take, as well as confusing in light of the 22 years previously where he was regarded as a singular, infallible genius (er...Willow notwithstanding).
I respect George's steadfast desire for artists' rights and independence, but I think it went too far and to the point where he was fighting so hard for freedom that he failed to realize he was telling a story for an audience other than himself. Ultimately, I think he lost sight of the purpose of storytelling itself, which is (in my opinion) a relationship between the storyteller and the audience, and came to view it purely as a mode for self-expression without regard to (or in some cases, in defiance of) the audience.
Problem is he conflated what he wanted to see as a kid with what he thought kids in the ''70s/'80s wanted to see. Marcia steered him back onto the good parts for the first two films, but when left to his own devices he gave us burp and fart jokes, teddy bear warriors, and a little kid as the hero. Um. By the time the original trilogy ended, I was only a third of the age of Luke and Leia. I had zero problem relating to them as twenty-somethings, or Han as a thirty-something. I laughed far more at the witty banter in ANH and ESB than I did at just about anything in Jedi (Han and Luke's reunion and Han trying to blow out the cookfire)... and I'm trying to remember if I found anything in the Prequels actually funny at all...
...
...Nope. Just spent the last half hour going through the Prequels in my head. The banter was forced, the dialogue stilted, and the moments that were supposed to be funny just fell flat. None of the kids I've talked to identified with Anakin at all. Most thought it was unrealistic that someone that young would even be able to "reach the pedals" of a podracer or fighter. Most thought it was kinda icky how he was crushing on Padme like that. When I asked if they'd both been in their late teens or early twenties, I've pretty much gotten a universal "oh, that would have been much better".
I kinda wonder why George is so fixated on having kids and young teens the focal point (Cindel Towani in the first Ewok movie, Anakin and Padme in TPM, Ahsoka in Clone Wars, his treatment for Episode VII...). Aside from the fact that kid heroes kinda trip the "oh, come on!" reflex, kid actors are usually hard to work with, kids and teens require good directors (*pauses to let that last sink in*), and anyway he already knew -- already had hard frikkin' numbers -- from the original damn film that kids responded to the main character at the age he was. So far, I'm really liking everything I've seen of Daisy and John. Had they gone with younger actors, I don't know if they would have had the skill or chemistry to carry the film.
--Jonah
GF
Sr Member
Lucas had a story with a rough vision of the world of Star Wars fortunately he was surrounded with a great team of artists/designers Ralph McQuarrie amongs others who actually shaped the world of SW, I'm sure what Lucas had invisioned was totally different and this was for the best, we can see the direction the prequels took when he had more input in the design, James Cameron on the other hand really gets involved and puts to screen what he creates in his mind, but I will always be thankful to George because at the end of the day he made it happen:thumbsup
GFollano
GFollano
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Riceball
Master Member
I think that what Solo says makes a lot of sense and it fits in with my opinion of the PT and how George approached it. To me, it seemed that by the time it came to working on the Prequels George had fully bought into his own legend, so much that it seems like he never bothered revisiting any of the OT, be it rewatching the films, re-reading the production scripts, script notes, etc. and worked from memory believing that, as the creator, he didn't need to refresh his memory and nobody knew the original material better than him.
The problem is GL is like a lot of people in the world: they're great idea men and they don't always have the ability to translate it without help. Another problem is even if he had help with the prequels that magical team he had then is long gone. They're the same folks who probably would have tried to talk him out of the special editions or at least to tone it down.
Brent M
Sr Member
You just summed up exactly how I feel. How dare JJ and Disney make a movie that the fans will actually like. Give me a break! Lucas made three movies that ranged from decent to downright awful in the prequels and then his feelings got hurt because people didn't fawn all over them. He sounds like a whining child who didn't get his way so he's going to take his toys and go home....thankfully he decided to sell the toys to Disney instead(figuratively and literally). I'm glad that JJ and Lawrence Kasdan got to write their own movie without any input from Uncle George because I'm pretty sure they will deliver a far more fulfilling experience for the fans than he could ever muster from his stubborn old mind.
joshvanrad
Sr Member
It's like they said in Batman: "You either die a hero, or live long enough to ruin your own franchise."
mattycsi
Master Member
Blame George for selling it to Disney, obviously! Duh!:rolleyes
Solo4114
Master Member
Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'll probably just treat Star Wars as a fiction buffet. I'll pick and choose what I like, and ignore the rest. After about....hmm....I'd say 2008 or so, that's how I began approaching the franchise. I was pissed about all the focus on Clone Wars era stuff (especially, since it seemed to come at the expense of the OT era). Prior to that, while the Prequels were being released, I was more invested in the franchise and consuming more stuff from it, but I gradually just came to realize that the brand that had once stood (for me at least) for a guaranteed good time was now more like a guaranteed mediocre time with the occasional glimpse of brilliance. Based on that realization, I backed off of the franchise considerably (plus, there was less and less out there that caught my eye).
Now I just take what I want from the franchise, and have stopped trying to will it to be what I want it to be, and instead accept it for what it is (and isn't), and enjoy what I can from it.
So, yeah, if this movie sucks...I mean, that's a bummer, but on the other hand...meh. Screw it. There's so much else out there nowadays that I enjoy, I don't need everything to be made for my specific tastes. There's enough already catering to my tastes to keep me entertained.
Watch the trailers again and ask where did it all go wrong!
But think about guys. Do you think they can make a movie that EVERYONE thinks is a good movie? Even not everyone likes ESB, Star Wars or such types of films is not everyone's cup of tea. Some people imply whether a film is good or not is a science. Like there is some scientific objective standard that defines what a good film, when it's all actually just art, it's highly subjective. Great column/article I read on the topic.
http://www.reelfanatics.com/2010/02/19/the-myth-of-objective-film-criticism/
http://www.reelfanatics.com/2010/02/19/the-myth-of-objective-film-criticism/
IF something went wrong and these were as bad as the prequels, I would probably have the same reaction as I did with the prequels... take a loooong break from Star Wars.
I hated the prequels so much I pretty much unloaded most of my Star Wars stuff... over the years after. The focus on the OT was gone, so to me, everything Star Wars seemed to be all about the clone wars era.
then, almost 8 years later, when I had become numb to it all, I found an article on Graflex Flashes, dragged out the old movies, and rewatched again... became obsessed with the art of it. Found this site...
It would have to be pretty bad to make me take another break...
My friend actually pointed out that Micheal Bay did the exact same thing to the Transformers that Lucas did to Star Wars... made movies so bad I lost interest in something I loved as a kid.
I hated the prequels so much I pretty much unloaded most of my Star Wars stuff... over the years after. The focus on the OT was gone, so to me, everything Star Wars seemed to be all about the clone wars era.
then, almost 8 years later, when I had become numb to it all, I found an article on Graflex Flashes, dragged out the old movies, and rewatched again... became obsessed with the art of it. Found this site...
It would have to be pretty bad to make me take another break...
My friend actually pointed out that Micheal Bay did the exact same thing to the Transformers that Lucas did to Star Wars... made movies so bad I lost interest in something I loved as a kid.
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