George Lucas - Why the Vitriol?

[Gaith]

What--exactly--is of any value in the video gamey prequels? The poor characterization? The overdoses of painfully choreographed lightsaber fights which had no heart? Portman's terrible acting? The Jedi made to look like easily fooled dopes?

What?

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"Well, the production design was pretty good, and Williams' scores had some memorable themes."
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[trevanian]

You're only saying that because somebody is holding the key to unlock your bondage outfit and won't surrender it till you make that defense.

 

[trevanian]

The Jedi made to look like easily fooled dopes?

read: not omniscient

reads more like: not competent ...

but I'd blame the scripter, not the characters. They didn't write this shit.

 

[Dream]

I'm disappointed that Lucas apparently became trapped by his own creation. He tried to do other things, but the only thing that kept the money rolling in was Star Wars. It's a tragedy when compared with his early promise. The student project version of THX-1138 even got mentioned on network news magazines at the time.

Oh, please. Let's like start treating Star Wars like it was a bad thing. The original trilogy brought happiness to millions of people, made Lucas billions, and started the modern era of blockbuster movies.

 

[Turtletrekker]

...but the only thing that kept the money rolling in was Star Wars.

Indiana Jones?

 

[trevanian]

I'm disappointed that Lucas apparently became trapped by his own creation. He tried to do other things, but the only thing that kept the money rolling in was Star Wars. It's a tragedy when compared with his early promise. The student project version of THX-1138 even got mentioned on network news magazines at the time.

Oh, please. Let's like start treating Star Wars like it was a bad thing. The original trilogy brought happiness to millions of people, made Lucas billions, and started the modern era of blockbuster movies.

His point is 100% valid. The era of modern blockbusters has been more damaging to movies than anything that came before it IMO. More to the point here, GL repeatedly kept talking about making abstract films, that he wanted to make art films, and all this blockbuster stuff did was free him up (or that was the idea.)

He really did become trapped by the machine (what is the line, "don't be so proud by this technological terror you've conceived, it is insignificant against the power of the force' ?), because by the mid 80s it became about creating apparatus to streamline filmmaking, mainstream filmmaking. And his creativity seemed to fall by the wayside as he put more energy into this infrastructure stuff as well as his personal life.

THX didn't blow me away, but there IS something there, I grant that. The SW/RAIDERS stuff is what it is, but that's pretty much all fluff cycle, except for the moment in RAIDERS when Indy realizes he can't blow up the ark. And I'm not sure who is to credit for that moment (I used to have the 3rd draft and it had nothing like this and was seriously over-biased towards action.)

 

[theenglish]

George Lucas changed my life. He changed many people's lives. And this was good. My life has been richer and full of wonder because of the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Period. Changing the current version of the films cannot change my memories of seeing those SW movies in the theatre when I was a child with my family and loved ones. To this day I am closer to the people who took me to or attended those movies with me. To my aunt who took me to the bathroom during the final death star battle in 1977 to my brother and sister who sat with me in 1980 to the whole family sitting in the second row of the theatre during ROTJ when Darth Vader got a standing ovation for saving Luke from the Emperor. Fanboys can say what they want but I have my memories and experiences of the original movies and nobody can take that away from me.

 

[Set Harth]

Sucks to be the people in the third row, I guess.

Down in front!