George Lucas: 'No more Star Wars' George Lucas has announced his retirement from the movie business. The director blurted the news to the New York Times in an extensive interview centred on Lucasfilm's upcoming flick, Red Tails. "I’m retiring," Lucas told the paper. "I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff." While …
If you don't like people criticising you for fucking up your old franchises then either don't do it or ignore them by sticking great wads of cash in your ears.
Personally I'd rather watch the RedLetterMedia reviews of the Star Wars prequels and Indy 4 than the movies themselves. At least Lucas gave us all something to moan about.
TESB was directed by Irvin Kershner, and ROTJ by Richard Marquand. I found both to be superior works to ANH, Lucas' major contribution. I seem to recall that Lucas was not a fant of TESB at all, which in my opinion was by far the best film of the series. But there you go.
Oh, you mean Episodes 7 - 9. Sorry, wrong franchise.
Other than Jar Jar, the only other problem was with the cheesy reasons for Anakin to become Vader... He just looks like a pouty teenager whining because they won't make him a Jedi Master yet. That and Hayden Christensen's atrocious acting. I especially like his "I'm mad" face, where he tilts his head down and scowls under his eyebrows at people.
For someone so wealthy he seems to get his knickers in a twist when some nobody criticises his work. of course you'll have criticism, it's the movie business and you're catering to the die hard geeks who are the worst for having a gripe.
If he can't be content with having mountains of cash then he can FRO.
Really, I didn't mind his changes (though Han walking on CG Jabba out the Falcon, and Hayden replacing Sebastian Shaw at the end of TROTJ, were pretty wank). But having Greedo shoot first in the Cantina was a travesty.
Han shot first, and that's all there is to it. Han shooting first made him a bad-ass no-shit-taking muthafucka. He blasted that green git, gets up, flips the bartender a coin then just moseys on outta there. Cool motherfucker.
Greedo shoots first makes him look slow and pussy like. You ALL agree with this.
"I've read the plot synopsis about The Color Purple...."
Ah, I reckon you've gone an extra mile too far there. I doubt the comparison goes any further than; "It's quite arty and about black people, just like that other arty film about black people.". You're highlighting the sort of picky details that get thrashed out in script conferences.
"Kind of like 'The Color Purple', only in airplanes" and "like a Tyler Perry movie, only without jokes."
As far as I can see the only two things those two examples have in common are... lots of black actors. Have I missed some deep, film-school-nerd connection or is he really trying to say that he's made a movie for black people without mentioning race?
His quotation works elsewhere, too: I suppose the Prequels were "Like a Star Wars movie, only without a heart, some spectacle and a sense of fun and adventure."
His work is a sad example of what happens to great artists when they don't die young.
You've already got *your* memory and neither you nor Lucas can have *my* memory.
Furthermore, I suspect that seeing it for the first time, as a child, probably isn't something that can be burned to disc. The closest you can get is to have kids of your own and watch them whilst they watch something modern.
> watch them whilst they watch something modern.
You don't have to watch something modern. I watched the Back to the Future trilogy with my kids (6, 10, 12) before Christmas and they absolutely loved it (as did I, again). The 6 year old now has a skateboard and a poncho because of it!
Similarly ET and the Indiana Jones films have been popular, as have Laurel and Hardy ("This is as funny as /anything/").
With hindsight, that was either the wrong phrase or not nearly a long enough phrase.
To audiences of the time, Star Wars was mind-blowing. Not high-brow art, but quite mind-blowing in terms of sensory experience. The special effects were so pervasive that they ceased to attract the attention. There was hardly a scene in the last 15 minutes that wasn't blue-screened several layers deep. (Blue-screen meant something else then.) That was new and even without hindsight the audiences of the day knew they were looking at the first of something new rather than more of the same.
Kids today can't watch Star Wars and have that experience, because the effects (even after George has finished fiddling) aren't "vastly better than anything else they've ever seen before". (Maybe if you looked them up from birth and only let them watch Star Trek, 2001, Buck Rogers and Forbidden Planet for their first 10 years.)
*Maybe* there has been some more recent film that has had the same sensory impact, in which case there might be "something modern" you could show to your children to see the same effect. Then again, maybe not. I can't think of one.
Ignore Danny & Ken, I know what you mean, and I'm sure plenty of others do too.
What, I suspect, you and I want is the original movies released in *unedited* form. Without all the stupid colour changing/Annaking overlaying bullshit.
3 DVDs. As close to the original cinema edits as possible. Thanks. This is all.
@AC:
They exist, but not as the main attraction. The DVD set of the "Special Edition" versions (wtih "all the stupid colour changing/Annaking overlaying bullshit") contains on each disc the original, theatrical release of the movies as a "bonus feature."
These are gritty, without the benefits of the re-mastering and restoration performed during the 1990s. However, they also are devoid of extraneous embellishments or extra scenes, just as you saw them in the theater, with a mono soundtrack and all.
-dZ.
They are from the first remaster but Lucas ordered the film destroyed after they did the SE so the only copy they had was the Laser Disc Masters. Letter box, composite artefacts and all.
I own the Laser Discs and the DVDs actually look a little better, but if they had kept the film they could have done a proper DVD or even a Blu-Ray.
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The "Lego Starwars" games that covered the prequel trilogy. All of the good parts of the films, minus all of the crap parts (eg, the dialogue). The developers even managed to make Jar-Jar likeable and useful.
Seriously, as a work of silent cinema (and a bit of button-bashing) they're not at all bad.
"Lucas also revealed his disappointment of being attacked by Star Wars fans, hitting out at those unhappy... ...three prequels"
"Too bad he made those terrible, terrible prequals before quitting".
Hmmmppppp, My memory of it that there was always be 9 films going to, 3 trilogies. This story on wookieepedia see:- http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sequel_trilogy
“I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it’.”
There are obviously lots of people associated with the making of a movie, more than just the writer and director. It is not just George Lucas's movie. In particular, the editor has a big role in cutting stuff from the film that he feels are not necessary.
Read this review from Roger Ebert about the film The Brown Bunny, which will show the importance of the editor:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040903/REVIEWS/409020301/1023
I suggest that if a good editor was allowed to work on the prequels they would not be so poor. The Phantom Menace would still not be a good film, but much of the mince that cluttered the film would be left on the cutting room floor.
Correct, the film would never make sense. But a good editor would trim out some of the more incoherent and unnecessary passages. For example, did Liam Nesson have to explain to Anakin what 'metachlorens' were? What about some of the drivel in the senate?
The youtube vid you linked to was excellent, and has reminded me of the rubbishness of the film.
His imagination, focus, vision and drive brought innovative classics to the screen and opened the door for the modern age of cinema.
Director, producer, entrepreneur, man of vision and integrity. Lucasfilm was only one of his many successful companies. Any missteps were few and far between and credit where credit is due, at least he was willing to try different approaches. The successes revolutionized the way films are produced today.
Lucas is a power house of talent that can take single credit for resurrecting the US film industry in the late 70's. The critics and nay-sayers will always exist, but their niggles pale in comparison to his overall accomplishments.
Before you criticize the man, walk a mile in his shoes and see how successful you would be. He has earned the right to walk away from the brilliant world he created and very few have the right to castigate him for that decision. Very few indeed.
Good Luck in all future endeavours Mr. Lucas. Thank you for making this gray world just a little bit better than you found it.
...you credit Mr Lucas with too much of the success from Star Wars, which after all was just his idea to put an Akira Kurasawa film in space. As time has shown, without Gary Kurtz, Lucas makes average to poor films. Shame on you for swallowing Lucas' favourite myth that Star Wars' success was down to his own unique and original vision :)
No, I'm thinking of Star Wars. Star Wars was heavily influenced by The Hidden Fortress as Lucas admits. Battle Beyond The Stars was one of many films loosely based on Kurasawa's Seven Samurai. There's elements of many of Kurasawa's films in Star Wars though. Like most film-makers, Lucas is a fan.
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