It's Time To Forgive George Lucas
- Thread starter MovieBob
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Phantom Menace ONLY had some sickass lightsaber fights. I can watch a Jackie Chan film for better.Frank_Sinatra_ said:
MarioKart is no subject for a Epic Space Opera.
You think that's bad; my lecturer can't say it properly, and she has a doctorate in English.AngelOfBlueRoses said:
OT: I always thought Episode One was actually quite good, so I couldn't understand why it garnered so much hate. I'm not really against the whole prequel trilogy, although Episode 2 is probably one of the worst big-budget movies I've ever seen. What irritates me about George Lucas is his constant need to fill in gaps that quite frankly should be left alone. There's a point where the author of any fantastical creation needs to step aside and allow it a life of its own, rather than acting like they are the sole master of it. Case in point: J.K Rowling coming out after the last Harry Potter book with "by the way, Dumbledore was gay". George Lucas keeps trying to fill in the gaps in the prequel and the leadup to the original trilogy, and it just keeps producing these asinine storylines like that of The Force Unleashed - which I hear is now getting a sequel.
What the Star Wars Franchise needs is more Old Republic stuff that doesn't have a direct bearing on the trilogies. It's kind of amusing that Bioware are currently doing a better job of expanding the Star Wars universe than George Lucas himself. But really, they need to just leave that period alone. Anything written after Return of the Jedi mostly revolves around the Empire/Emperor not actually being defeated and coming back: a striking lack of imagination, to say the least. Anything written in the prequel timeline tends to just pad it out to bursting point because for some reason LucasArts always feel the need to shoehorn in popular characters, instead of really trying to create new ones.
I guess it's easy to forget how much love and hope the fans had put into Star Wars before the prequels even existed.
After the prequels, Star Wars is just another series of movies - enjoyable but flawed.
Beforehand, they were a social phenomenon that could probably have fuelled global peace, if properly harnassed. Oh well. Roll on Clash of the Titans.
After the prequels, Star Wars is just another series of movies - enjoyable but flawed.
Beforehand, they were a social phenomenon that could probably have fuelled global peace, if properly harnassed. Oh well. Roll on Clash of the Titans.
From what I've seen, most of the non-Lucas stuff is filled with the same charm and love the originals had. Which is why losing Star Wars Galaxies to the NGE was such a hard knock.Shamanic Rhythm said:
It's like George simply doesn't "get" what made the movies great, and is trying his hardest to make them for himself, rather than the people who loved them. That's why it took so many re-scriptings, the original original was trash.
How many quotes from the sequels can you rattle off from the top of your head? The prequels just seems to have "NooooooOOOOOooooo".
I'm mildly amused by the vitriol some people have for a man over sixteen or so hours of moving images. It's just... bizarre, really. There are better things to invest your sense of well-being in than a few movies.
That being said, as a fan of the original three movies (not a fanatic, thank you) I do think Lucas seriously botched the prequels. It seems to me that he's at his best when he's being thwarted from creating his original "vision" and has to find ways around the limitations placed before him. And it does seem to help if he has other creative, and more-focused, people helping him along. I won't deny that A New Hope was as much about spectacle and bombast as Phantom Menace was, but PM seemed more... compartmentalized. As if Lucas decided that THIS section of the movie would be whiz-bang special effects, and THIS section would be exposition and plot advancement... and then didn't really bother tying them together.
And then... there was Jar-Jar. Where C3PO was amusing for his bumbling about, Jar-Jar came across as annoying. Perhaps if he'd been given an R2-D2 type of foil of his own, it might have been better, but to be honest the movie could have gotten by perfectly well without him. His inclusion feels like Lucas came up with the idea to put a marketable sidekick in the movie and then followed the worst possible decision tree in its development.
Worst of all, however- and here I'm not sure how much of this can be laid at Lucas's feet; I don't know how much input he really had- was the casting. Ewan MacGregor was a fairly good call as Obi-Wan, and who hasn't wanted to put a lightsabre in Samuel L. Jackson's hands, but the twin mannequins that are Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman absolutely sucked the energy out of any scene either of them was in. Having them together in a scene proved a miracle cure for insomnia, as they blatantly exercised their inability to emote or portray convincing characters. Christensen was particularly bad- he took Anakin Skywalker's slow slide towards the dark side, justifying every increasingly bad decision with the protection of his love, and turned it into an emo-tastic poutfest.
And then, there was the dethroning moment of suck [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/DethroningMomentOfSuck]: "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tim5nU3DwIE]
So, yeah, I don't HATE George Lucas. I never invested myself heavily enough in anything he made to be so deeply affected. But I do think he got far too involved with all the gee-whiz special effects and marketing possibilities to pay enough attention to things like story and characterization, and (as many others here have said) he didn't have enough people around him to point him in a better direction. I suppose when you spend a couple decades hearing people tell you what a genius you are, you can't help but let it get to your head.
[small]Oh, yes, I linked to TV Tropes. I bask in your hate! I feed upon it! Ahhh haha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA *cough cough wheeze* ...dammit.[/small]
That being said, as a fan of the original three movies (not a fanatic, thank you) I do think Lucas seriously botched the prequels. It seems to me that he's at his best when he's being thwarted from creating his original "vision" and has to find ways around the limitations placed before him. And it does seem to help if he has other creative, and more-focused, people helping him along. I won't deny that A New Hope was as much about spectacle and bombast as Phantom Menace was, but PM seemed more... compartmentalized. As if Lucas decided that THIS section of the movie would be whiz-bang special effects, and THIS section would be exposition and plot advancement... and then didn't really bother tying them together.
And then... there was Jar-Jar. Where C3PO was amusing for his bumbling about, Jar-Jar came across as annoying. Perhaps if he'd been given an R2-D2 type of foil of his own, it might have been better, but to be honest the movie could have gotten by perfectly well without him. His inclusion feels like Lucas came up with the idea to put a marketable sidekick in the movie and then followed the worst possible decision tree in its development.
Worst of all, however- and here I'm not sure how much of this can be laid at Lucas's feet; I don't know how much input he really had- was the casting. Ewan MacGregor was a fairly good call as Obi-Wan, and who hasn't wanted to put a lightsabre in Samuel L. Jackson's hands, but the twin mannequins that are Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman absolutely sucked the energy out of any scene either of them was in. Having them together in a scene proved a miracle cure for insomnia, as they blatantly exercised their inability to emote or portray convincing characters. Christensen was particularly bad- he took Anakin Skywalker's slow slide towards the dark side, justifying every increasingly bad decision with the protection of his love, and turned it into an emo-tastic poutfest.
And then, there was the dethroning moment of suck [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/DethroningMomentOfSuck]: "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tim5nU3DwIE]
So, yeah, I don't HATE George Lucas. I never invested myself heavily enough in anything he made to be so deeply affected. But I do think he got far too involved with all the gee-whiz special effects and marketing possibilities to pay enough attention to things like story and characterization, and (as many others here have said) he didn't have enough people around him to point him in a better direction. I suppose when you spend a couple decades hearing people tell you what a genius you are, you can't help but let it get to your head.
[small]Oh, yes, I linked to TV Tropes. I bask in your hate! I feed upon it! Ahhh haha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA *cough cough wheeze* ...dammit.[/small]
I never hated Lucas, just what he did to the franchise and the way I feel about him is the same way I feel about other bad movies. I lament the potential, I cry for the lost chance for greatness. It's just more spectacular with Lucas because he proved that he could do so much better.
I partly blame the rise of technology. I think the limits of technology forced George Lucas to think really hard about how he wanted to present his story. All that extra effort paid off in higher film quality. The advancement of technology made it too easy; he didn't have to take as much time to think about what he was doing, so the films didn't come out as good. I feel the same way about Spielberg's movies as well.
But he is still responsible. Lucas has fucked up royally and that's on his head. He thoroughly lobotomized his best franchises through negligence and arrogance. I'm not going to firebomb his house, or spam his inbox with hatemail, but I'm also never going to say he's the greatest filmmaker of all time, which at one time, he could have been. He's a man who produced some of the greatest films of all time, did a lot of good things for filmmaking, then fell from glory, like a rock star who got hooked on drugs. It's tragic, but he's got no one to blame but himself.
I partly blame the rise of technology. I think the limits of technology forced George Lucas to think really hard about how he wanted to present his story. All that extra effort paid off in higher film quality. The advancement of technology made it too easy; he didn't have to take as much time to think about what he was doing, so the films didn't come out as good. I feel the same way about Spielberg's movies as well.
But he is still responsible. Lucas has fucked up royally and that's on his head. He thoroughly lobotomized his best franchises through negligence and arrogance. I'm not going to firebomb his house, or spam his inbox with hatemail, but I'm also never going to say he's the greatest filmmaker of all time, which at one time, he could have been. He's a man who produced some of the greatest films of all time, did a lot of good things for filmmaking, then fell from glory, like a rock star who got hooked on drugs. It's tragic, but he's got no one to blame but himself.
Nothing to forgive from me either. I never thought of the original trilogy as the holy bible in the first place as some fans might have. They were just silly movies I enjoyed very much so there was nothing to ruin anyway. And I was ok with the new trilogy too, so... yeah.
And let's not forget Pixar (started in 1979 as Graphics Group, a part of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm).
I think the problem was people just jumping on the bandwagon of general opinion. The first page of replies confirms this.
I never got the whole hating of the three prequels.
I suppose it's like reading the book before watching the movie.
The book is almost always better, so watching the movie is a disappointment.
Watch the movie first, have fun, then read the book, have more fun.
I saw the first three before the originals, so I enjoyed it all the way through.
I suppose it's like reading the book before watching the movie.
The book is almost always better, so watching the movie is a disappointment.
Watch the movie first, have fun, then read the book, have more fun.
I saw the first three before the originals, so I enjoyed it all the way through.
I still don't get why people hate the prequels so much, I thought they were a little less fun (though not for lack of trying) and there a few wooden moments (that don't seem entirely out of place) but overall I think they're pretty good. Probably the best guesses I've heard are what's in the article-- it's a revelation one of their favorite things is fallible and not so much of a special little snowflake-- and tat a lot of fans had probably come up with their perfect version of episodes one through three in their minds and got attached to it and being told the story wasn't that really upset them. Every time someone has tried to explain to me why they're (almost) the worst things ever I got nowhere.
There are just too many movies to "hate" any filmmaker. Really, there's an immense ocean of stuff out there. You never have to watch the same movie twice. There are hundreds of great movies just as absorbing and thrilling as any Starwars flick. Just last night I saw 1939's Stagecoach. Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress the night before that. Later this year, a new version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis is coming out.
It used to make me mad that I couldn't watch the original Star Wars on DVD, and then when it did come out, it was a crummy laserdisc port. But now I don't care if I ever see Star Wars again. If he doesn't want to put out the original versions, I don't have to watch them. Star Wars doesn't matter. It's just a movie.
It used to make me mad that I couldn't watch the original Star Wars on DVD, and then when it did come out, it was a crummy laserdisc port. But now I don't care if I ever see Star Wars again. If he doesn't want to put out the original versions, I don't have to watch them. Star Wars doesn't matter. It's just a movie.
What? No mention of "Day of the Tentacle" or "Zombies Ate My Neighbors?" Those games were BADASS!!! That's just poor-form, sun worshiper.
[note=Rao is the patron deity of Krypton, symbolized by a red sun. Just FYI for the people on the board who are not hopeless comic-book nerds like me
]
[note=Rao is the patron deity of Krypton, symbolized by a red sun. Just FYI for the people on the board who are not hopeless comic-book nerds like me
]
Yeah the first prequel was a pretty big fail overall but IMO he did better on the other two. Sure the romance and so called "emo-zation" of Vader was disappointing but I pretty much loved everything else in the prequels that didn't involve Anakin.
The rest of the Jedi, the Seperatists, the FUCKING CLONES!! If I picked out one more thing to hate it would be how the the droids were turned into more comic relief than actual threats to galactic peace.
So basically yeah Anakin's story was pretty bad. Everything else outside of Ep. 1 though was pretty good, IMO.
The rest of the Jedi, the Seperatists, the FUCKING CLONES!! If I picked out one more thing to hate it would be how the the droids were turned into more comic relief than actual threats to galactic peace.
So basically yeah Anakin's story was pretty bad. Everything else outside of Ep. 1 though was pretty good, IMO.
This was an interesting article...
...Right up until the part where he credited George Lucas for the SCUMM games. Those games could have existed just as easily without him, and I'm 100% Lucas himself had absolutely nothing to do with any of the specific games Chipman listed. They were great games, but not because of the LucasArts title slapped on them. Point and click adventure games existed without SCUMM, and they continute to exist with it.
Besides, we all know the best SCUMM game ever written was LOOM.
...Right up until the part where he credited George Lucas for the SCUMM games. Those games could have existed just as easily without him, and I'm 100% Lucas himself had absolutely nothing to do with any of the specific games Chipman listed. They were great games, but not because of the LucasArts title slapped on them. Point and click adventure games existed without SCUMM, and they continute to exist with it.
Besides, we all know the best SCUMM game ever written was LOOM.
William Shakespear was just a writer. Albert Einstein was just a physicist. War and Peace was just a book.zelda2fanboy said:
That doesn't mean that they didn't have a huge effect on Human history, psychology, belief and dreams.
Oh, and Zelda was just a game. Or do you still twitch when I say "EXCUUUUUSE ME, Princess"?