Maybe I'm in the minority, but maybe the Prequels are the story GL wanted to tell? That's the story. If you don't like it fine, but in the SW universe, that's how those events went down. I'll totally give you the cringey dialogue (which the OT had as well, people seem to ignore) and Jar Jar is a little annoying, but otherwise I'm fine with it and generally liked them.
I think they're absolutely the story he wanted to tell. I still don't like that story, but I've come to really respect it for what it is. Say what you will, but the prequels are George's vision on the screen, and they present a specific point of view. Rise or fall, good or bad, they come from
somewhere and from
someone with a very specific vision. By comparison, the two JJ films (less so TLJ) feel like they were designed by committee. They tic boxes, they accomplish goals, they feel and look "Star Warsy," but they don't convey a specific vision the way the PT does. They feel disjointed, I think, in large part because of how Abrams approaches storytelling, and I say that not simply because of the JJ Wars films, but moreso because of the JJ Trek films. But that's a whole other discussion.
Regardless, to me, the PT feels distinctive, even if it's got a bunch of stuff I don't like. And given how much I enjoy the Clone Wars cartoon and its progeny, it clearly created a rich, deep backdrop for other stories. For those reasons, I've come to respect the PT, even though I don't really enjoy the PT.
Yup. Lucas as a director isnt that great. He made some good films but he has clear limitations when compared to GOATs.
However, as a contributor to the film industry, he is near irreplaceable. ANH came out when sci-fi was a fools errand and although some people give Lucas **** for betting against his own movie, it was an insane risk.
Lucas changed not only film-making with his continuous innovations in film including Pixar (which he lost due to the divorce), he also took insane risks like taking control of financing for ESB. Although people praise Kershner and Kurtz for everything “ESB did right,” filming was overschedule and overbudget and Lucas essentially had to step in and cut things.
I wouldnt be surprised if Lucas’ true love was forwarding film technology to better achieve the film maker’s vision. It seems to be his true love and his talent, hence why he was able to contribute so much and inspire others.
I've said this before elsewhere, but it bears repeating:
I think at his core, Lucas is an "idea man." He comes up with tons and tons of ideas.
Out of 10 ideas he comes up with:
- 5 are total garbage. Just unmitigated crap.
- 3 are...you know, pretty good, but need some work.
- 2 are mind-blowing genius that no one else could ever in a million years come up with.
With the OT, what we got was the latter half of that list, with most of the 3 pretty good ideas massaged into something really great thanks to folks like Marcia Lucas and Gary Kurtz. Those people, and others, were around to tell George "No, that's a really stupid idea and we aren't doing that" to the first 5 ideas he came up with that were dog****. The thing is, we didn't realize it at the time because the myth of Lucas-as-auteur of this space opera had become cemented, and folks believed that the films were just the sum total of the ideas in his head, rather than the pared-down, refocused best of what he could come up with.
With the PT...we got all 10 ideas on the screen at once. There's stuff in the PT that, as we all know, is garbage. Just flat out garbage. There's other stuff that could've been amazing, but was only ok-ish. And there's stuff in the PT that is just amazing. Really terrific stuff. It's all up there on screen, unfiltered, for us to see.
If you want to see proof of this, check out the Dark Horse Comics print of "The Star Wars." I believe it was based on one of the early scripts or screenplays that Lucas wrote. It's really wild to consider "what might've been" and to see the germ of ideas that he came up with. It's also kinda bonkers to look at, and is very much all over the place. BUT it perfectly exemplifies my notion of the "10 ideas" thing. There's genius stuff in there, and there's really dumb stuff. And there's stuff that's in between which clearly got massaged into what became ANH and other bits of the OT.
Lastly, with respect to Lucas' comments and ideas after the OT, I think the bottom line is that Lucas had his own vision of what Star Wars was, and it was what was in his head, not what was up on screen. So, yeah, the PT is different and he ditched this or that aspect of what he said in the OT era, because the story in his head had changed, or he decided he liked an aspect better. And his entire effort with Star Wars was to bring that idea to life somehow. I think it must've been immensely frustrating for him to keep trying to play with the OT to make it into what he wanted to be when that was basically impossible now. It'd never be that, no matter how much he tinkered. In a way, I expect it must be almost a relief to have sold the whole shebang to Disney. Now it's out of his hands and it's someone else's to handle. He's still clearly got ideas about what to do, but it's not his circus and not his monkeys anymore.