It was just a short while ago he said Jar Jar Binks was one of his favorite characters. He's not learned the lessons of his mistakes.
One lesson to take away: If Jar-Jar is your favorite, best keep it a secret. Lucas is better at trolling us than I'd given him credit for. He said Jar Jar was his fave in a video celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Phantom Menace last year. I wish it had gone like this: FANS: Who's your favorite character? LUCAS: Me? That depends. Which one do you guys hate the most?
I'm probably an outlier, but I actually enjoyed the prequels BEFORE the sequel trilogy. Revenge of the Sith is my favorite Star Wars movie, and The Phantom Menace I'd probably put somewhere in the middle. Attack of the Clones, while in the bottom of my Star Wars rankings, does have some good action scenes like the Geonosis arena battle and I like the stuff on Kamino and Coruscant. The dialogue is clunky as hell, though. Everyone gives Lucas shit for the romance dialogue, but technically it could the fault could lie with Jonathan Hales. Long story short, I'd love to see George Lucas return. I agree with Jayson1: Imagine if George came up with some ideas and let Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni write and execute said ideas.
The only way I could see it work is if he's maybe given an anthology series that could give him a playground to experiment with via a bunch of his scripts, but produced by someone else.
I am somewhat curious, what is so great about Jar Jar in Lucas' mind yet everyone else pushes off as a lampoon or what not? Given the 1977 original was pushing the limits of and using the latest technologies, it makes sense he would keep doing so when the everything was sufficiently matured yet still new. Unfortunately, it is also known he had a lot of people helping out with the script to make them better. SW77 was re-edited quite a few times and thank Khan that Episode VI wasn't given the title "Revenge of the Jedi" is quite a neat little contradiction to what the Jedi were presented as, both before and after VI was made. And blue screen in of itself is not new; audiences had - by the time of the prequels - had still seen a lot of effects development. The added oomph from the effects wasn't there in the 1990s or today in the way they were in 1977. And that's when 1999's "The Matrix" steps in... another so-so mix of plot tropes being buoyed by innovative, new effects and camera direction, and a soundtrack taken from a counterculture that fit the mood and theme of what the movie was trying to present and impeccably so. Hardcore sci-fi fans could spot the tropes a few kilometers away but casuals moviegoers certainly would not... so the movie still had something for everyone. Not unlike 1977 when similar tropes were used, taken from 1940s sci-fi and Japanese Samurai lore and armor and so on... nothing has been "new" as such, just mixed and used in new ways. Which can be part of the fun, or the disappointment in the end. There are only so many ways to draw an ellipse.
I'm fairly skeptical about the initial report. I mean, Lucas gave up Star Wars for a variety of reasons--he was getting old, he had a brand-new wife, he wanted to do other personal projects of love that weren't Star Wars, and allegedly because fans had told him to GTFO. I think those reasons are still as valid today as they were in 2013. Lucas certainly isn't hurting for money. He was already set-up for life even before he sold Lucasilm to Disney (and I think there some report that he donated most of the money from Disney to various charities anyway). I just don't see Lucas coming back to Star Wars in any kind of meaningful way, even if the opportunity was offered to him. I may be cynical, but I'm more inclined to believe the article was some fan's wishful thinking that has now unfortunately been reposted across the web by various news sites.
So...would this be highly collaborative, willing to have any weak parts of his outlines and scripts improved by others whom he also allowed to throw their own ideas thrown into the mix George Lucas (The Original Trilogy, The Clone Wars, THX 1138, American Graffiti, The Indiana Jones Trilogy)? Or would this be surrounded by yes-men, 100% his own undiluted "vision" George Lucas (Ewok TV movies, The Prequel Trilogy, Young Indiana Jones, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Strange Magic)? EDIT Rewritten by Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz: American Graffiti Star Wars (uncredited, with an uncredited Brian DePalma rewriting the opening crawl) The Temple of Doom Rewritten by Lawrence Kasdan: Raiders of the Lost Ark The Empire Strikes Back Return of the Jedi Rewritten by Walter Murch: THX 1138 Rewritten by Tom Stoppard: The Last Crusade (uncredited)
I think this can be answered by asking questions: What was so great about having Ewoks? Was was so great about the Force being midi-chlorians? Was so great about Luke and Leia getting to first (maybe even second) base before he found she was his sister? And so many other questions. don't get me wrong, he had good ideas and did research that created the ugly monster we have today, but that's about it. He had no many more bad ideas. Even with good ideas, he showed he didn't know what he was doing: (youtube.com/watch?v=GFMyMxMYDNk)
They were cute fuzzy teddy bears who would KILL YOU, EAT YOU, AND USE YOUR CLOTHES TO MAKE MUSIC. Just because the movie didn't do that great of a job at getting that across doesn't mean the idea isn't kind of awesome. EDIT: Of course the Vietnam analogy was nonsense. There was zero reason the Empire didn't just blow up the whole damn forest.
Anybody know what happened with Lucas's plans to open a film museum? I remember seeing stuff about it after he sold off Lucasfilm, but I haven't seen anything lately.
It's going to be an art museum not a film museum. A place where original artwork from films will be alongside classical paintings, trying to show us that all art is just art. Lets see if it works.
Maybe not great but of some value. It was vaguely related to real science and it tied in well with film and saga ideas of symbiosis, cooperation, connectedness and was another take on the concept that the Force was, or was generated from, life and the other themes of destiny and the Force somehow had a will. LOL, that reveal, after the kiss, probably was trolling the fans.
It trolled John Williams too. At a concert of his he said that he had no idea they were siblings, and was completely embarrassed about his theme for them after the reveal because the theme reached a very loud climax, which didn't quite make sense between siblings
That's what happens when writers make stuff up as they go along. Wasn't Yoda's line in TESB "No, there is another" originally supposed to lead to some brand new character, instead of circling back to Leia? Kor
This would be the best thing that could ever happen to Star Wars, but it also has a 0% chance of actually happening. Sorry, Boomers. You're ridiculous hatred of the prequels and harassment of the Star Wars creator has doomed us to the Disney Wars timeline, and there will be no second chances. Just be happy that you got "The Mandalorian", which is the closest thing to real Star Wars you will ever see again.