Poll: Are We Too Hard On Lucas?

[Gennadios]

My impression on Lucas is that he was made by his limitations. Only his 70's movies were classics because greenscreen technology wasn't really available then and he needed to get creative with character actions and filler in between his epic but really expensive FX shots.

Now that he has all the money he'll ever need and most of his character dialogue happens on the greenscreen, actors don't have to carry out scenes and just do what he says word for word and let him fill in his inane backtrops. When he has full control of characters, the full extent of his inability to write them becomes pretty clear.

I say good riddance, he'll simply never be able to direct or write a good movie again because a lazy, greenscreen addicted hack, he's better off saving face and giving up while still relatively ahead.

 

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

Pretty much. The blunt honest truth is this.... nerd rage. How dare George Lucas fuck with what I like.

As I say in a lot of my posts, rampant self entitlement is a core part of the average person's makeup nowadays.

Fuck you, fuck your self entitlement.

And guess what? I didn't like Star Wars, so I never bothered ot watch it so fuck your obvious argument of I'm a George Lucas fanboi. Also, fuck your other arguement that as a fan you have more say in this than me. Actually I probably have better judgement than any nerd rager cause I'm not looking through tinted glasses while whacking off to memories of Leia in a fucking thong.

If you don't like how George screws around with the works stop watching it. Stop fucking buying the movies, games, clothing lines, cosmetics and Darth Vadar dildos.

You pissant fucking consumers are to blame for all this BS and instead of going, "You know, this sucks, maybe I should just forget about it and just remember what I enjoyed and maybe George would have stopped tweaking a long time ago.

This is a give and take. George tweaks, you guys buys, George sees the money rolling in, he tweaks more. You complain and keep buying shit. Fuck, McDondalds should try slowly tweaking their hamburgers into rat meat. Betcha you whiny fucks would still buy it while complaining the Rotten Ronnies exec's aren't true to the original vision and that you pay their wages so you have the say what goes in to burgers. Fuck you and eat your ratburgers.

Hmm, maybe I should watch George Carlin skits before posting on this forum...

 

[Braedan]

I'm shocked he didn't add a wilhelm scream to Obi-wan when Vader kills him.

more hate.

 

[TheBelgianGuy]

Star Wars fans are the nerd ragiest of nerd rage, and watching them fling poo about it makes me embarrassed to be considered part of the same culture as them.

Agreed. SOme of the comments in this thread make me puke.
"You thought the prequels were bad? You were wrong. Your opinion is wrong and you have bad taste, they were just very bad blablablabla."
"So glad I got Lucas to stop! I hate him and hope he dies. Let's play with my star wars dolls now! Yaaay!"

 

[shrekfan246]

Yes. I think the hate has gone overboard a long time ago. Do something else with your life. You come across as crybabies that only go WAAAHHH WAAAAH. I don't think the prequels are good movies by any means. They are ok.

I have to agree with this. It's an incredibly spoiled and entitled attitude that all of these self-proclaimed "fans" have that they think they should be allowed to demand George Lucas abandon the entertainment industry and return the original movies to how they were first released.

The industry doesn't revolve around you, Star Wars fanboys. Everything is not made to specifically cater to you, everything will not be sculpted and altered to meet your specific wants. George Lucas is not personally assaulting you by making edits to movies created by Lucasarts. He did not kill your dog and sleep with your sister/mother just because he added in a word and some pointless CGI. He did not cuss you out in front of the Pope by creating the prequel trilogy, he didn't set fire to your house by having Hayden Christensen cast as Anakin Skywalker, he didn't irradiate your entire neighborhood by unleashing Jar Jar Binks on the world.

He made a few movies, then decided he wanted to change bits and pieces in them years later. Yes, he's a hypocrite. Yes, he's a poor director/screenwriter/producer. Yes, he's selfish and thinking only of what he wants. But so are all of the fans. Every single time they ***** and moan, it's about how George Lucas "should've kept it the way I liked it!" If you don't like all of the digitally altered versions, don't watch them. If you're as hardcore a Star Wars fan as you appear, you've probably had the original versions for years. Nobody is forcing you to re-buy the Super Special Collector's Limited Director's Blu-Ray Edition.

 

[OutcastBOS]

We are way too hard on him. I know his films are what they are because of the fanbase, and I know it's how we like them. But they're his movies, who are we to say that he can't do what he pleases to them? The fans that piss and moan about little changes to the movies pretty much drove him into retirement. And for the record, I do find the prequels to be pretty bad, but with some good things about them, and I actually doubt Lucas had much to do with them himself.

Edit: I also agree with what these people both said.

Yes. I think the hate has gone overboard a long time ago. Do something else with your life. You come across as crybabies that only go WAAAHHH WAAAAH. I don't think the prequels are good movies by any means. They are ok.

I have to agree with this. It's an incredibly spoiled and entitled attitude that all of these self-proclaimed "fans" have that they think they should be allowed to demand George Lucas abandon the entertainment industry and return the original movies to how they were first released.

The industry doesn't revolve around you, Star Wars fanboys. Everything is not made to specifically cater to you, everything will not be sculpted and altered to meet your specific wants. George Lucas is not personally assaulting you by making edits to movies created by Lucasarts. He did not kill your dog and sleep with your sister/mother just because he added in a word and some pointless CGI. He did not cuss you out in front of the Pope by creating the prequel trilogy, he didn't set fire to your house by having Hayden Christensen cast as Anakin Skywalker, he didn't irradiate your entire neighborhood by unleashing Jar Jar Binks on the world.

He made a few movies, then decided he wanted to change bits and pieces in them years later. Yes, he's a hypocrite. Yes, he's a poor director/screenwriter/producer. Yes, he's selfish and thinking only of what he wants. But so are all of the fans. Every single time they ***** and moan, it's about how George Lucas "should've kept it the way I liked it!" If you don't like all of the digitally altered versions, don't watch them. If you're as hardcore a Star Wars fan as you appear, you've probably had the original versions for years. Nobody is forcing you to re-buy the Super Special Collector's Limited Director's Blu-Ray Edition.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Let me put it this way: I don't wish death on the man, but I'm in the camp that is just biding their time until he kicks the bucket, and hoping his heirs have a bit more sense about the movies than he does. We're never going to get a good transfer of the original original trilogy as long as the man lives. It's not because the original negatives have been destroyed; you don't really need those to get a good transfer when there's still three strip technicolor prints extant -- those things, along with vinyl records, are one of those formats that pretty much never decay as long as they're properly stored. What we're seeing here, sadly, is a man with a bruised ego who is too proud to admit he made a mistake. Until he either admits his mistake[footnote]meaning he gives the original cuts the respect they deserve; a transfer of a master made for laserdisc that looks worse than the fan transfers of the actual laserdiscs does /not/ count.[/footnote] or dies, I'm unlikely to ever buy a new transfer of the old films. And that makes me sad; lord knows the man has made a small fortune off of me alone over the years, and there would be plenty of money left if he would just give the fans (including me) what they want.

The infamous edit that puts Hayden Christensen at the end of RoTJ was released on a special edition DVD that included the original theatrical version of the film. I bought them just a couple years back, so I can't imagine that they'd be impossible to find.

Actually, it wasn't. That was a re-release in 2006, after I had already got my 2004 edition. I and everyone else who bought those DVDs would have had to triple or quadruple dip to get the original cuts, and they were included as a bonus disc with an edition we already had. Besides, you must have missed or not understood my footnote. The DVD with the original cut was not a new transfer. It was the transfer from the 1993 laserdiscs, loaded up with so much DNR that it actually looks much uglier than the laserdiscs themselves, and not even in an anamorphic format. That wasn't Lucas giving us what we wanted; it was more like "here, you want my sandwich? Well let me lick it, then you can have it."

 

[Smurf McSmurfington]

In short - yes and no.

Long version - he does deserve respect for everything hes done for the films in general over the decades, however the man has no business making films himself, or having too much control over films. Thing is he doesn't really understand people(nor do I really, but you don't see me directing films, now do you... I just watch 'em. A lot. Perhaps one could say too much even), the original prequels were also made by him but he was also challenged by others and wasn't in complete control. Also a chap (whose name I have by now forgotten) took up the actual director duty (instructing actors what to do, et cetera), and that's fine, it worked perfectly fine. In fact it worked extraordinarily well.

If Lucas didn't have complete and total control over his films, they'd come out much MUCH better.
I don't think he should stop making films(in fact I think we're all poorer for it), but I do think he shouldn't have as much control over 'em. We've all seen the prequels(and the latest Indiana Jones film, where mr. Lucas had too much influence over the film as well, and noone, including Spielberg, could really argue with him, for he was the boss of all bosses in that respect), and therefore we have seen how much of a difference it really makes whether he has some or complete control over it(by comparing the original trilogy to the prequels, respectively).

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

No you don't do about 4 separate versions of the same three movies because you want to complete them. Just leave them the fuck alone and do 1 director's cut if there was anything you want to put it when it is feasible. He made the point the changes were due to not being able to do them at the time but Hayden(as in a young Vader), the added in No and Greedo shooting first were all able to be done in the original release.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Let me put it this way: I don't wish death on the man, but I'm in the camp that is just biding their time until he kicks the bucket, and hoping his heirs have a bit more sense about the movies than he does. We're never going to get a good transfer of the original original trilogy as long as the man lives. It's not because the original negatives have been destroyed; you don't really need those to get a good transfer when there's still three strip technicolor prints extant -- those things, along with vinyl records, are one of those formats that pretty much never decay as long as they're properly stored. What we're seeing here, sadly, is a man with a bruised ego who is too proud to admit he made a mistake. Until he either admits his mistake[footnote]meaning he gives the original cuts the respect they deserve; a transfer of a master made for laserdisc that looks worse than the fan transfers of the actual laserdiscs does /not/ count.[/footnote] or dies, I'm unlikely to ever buy a new transfer of the old films. And that makes me sad; lord knows the man has made a small fortune off of me alone over the years, and there would be plenty of money left if he would just give the fans (including me) what they want.

The infamous edit that puts Hayden Christensen at the end of RoTJ was released on a special edition DVD that included the original theatrical version of the film. I bought them just a couple years back, so I can't imagine that they'd be impossible to find.

Actually, it wasn't. That was a re-release in 2006, after I had already got my 2004 edition. I and everyone else who bought those DVDs would have had to triple or quadruple dip to get the original cuts, and they were included as a bonus disc with an edition we already had. Besides, you must have missed or not understood my footnote. The DVD with the original cut was not a new transfer. It was the transfer from the 1993 laserdiscs, loaded up with so much DNR that it actually looks much uglier than the laserdiscs themselves, and not even in an anamorphic format. That wasn't Lucas giving us what we wanted; it was more like "here, you want my sandwich? Well let me lick it, then you can have it."

Pardon my techno-ignorance, but what is DNR. I Googled it and all I found was Department of Natural Resources and Do Not Resusitate. I'm confident that neither of those are what you're talking about.

As to what I bought, yeah, it was likely the 2006 versions as I bought them in late 2008. I can't comment on the quality of the "original theatrical cut" that was included as I haven't yet watched it on those discs. All I know is that that the back of the box promised the post-Episode III re-cut as well as the "original theatrical version" in one box.

 

[Hosker]

I do. There are plenty of worse film out there. If you don't like them, just ignore them.

 

[boag]

the man has been milking this cow since the tail end of the 1970s, Im glad he was able to make loads of cash on his property, but he should understand that he choose his path, he choose to stay confined and not grow beyond his niche.

 

[Random Argument Man]

Every time that we see "artists" uncapable of making the stuff that they wanted because the fans are raging, it's always sad. Sure, the prequels weren't that good, but I can at least respect the idea and him even if I didn't like it.

 

[lucky_sharm]

It's easy to dislike Lucas when he fires anyone that disagrees with his vision or ideas, even when they're totally, totally wrong. Also, he's "retiring" from film rather than, you know, actually taking in criticism and working to improve his film making.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

All he has to do is release the originals.

That's it.

Preferably on Blu Ray, but I'll take VHS.

We're not even asking for him to denounce the prequels or stop fiddling. Just RELEASE THE DAMN ORIGINALS ALREADY.

 

[Richard Keohane]

This is my opinion on George Lucas, and it has never changed. He is a fantastic teambuilder, because deep down he knows he's bad at making movies, and he snaps up anyone who's good at their jobs to try and carry his movie.

What makes Star Wars so good?

1) The sound effects first and foremost. Though you probably don't realize it, everything from the way droids and aliens talk to the way blasters and lightsabers and spaceships sound was all pioneered by Star Wars because they did such a fantastic job at it. This was barely touched by Lucas. He merely hired the team and let them do their work.

2) The costumes, puppets, makeup, special effects, and sets. George wanted fantastical, and he got great people to make that dream come to life. When things couldn't happen the way he wanted, he let his team do whatever they thought was necessary to get the job done. And they delivered brilliantly.

3) The acting. While Star Wars marked the beginning and end of many of its actor's careers, there was little to no "bad acting" in the original trilogy. Bad swordsmanship, yes, but even the swordfights had meaning inlaid into them. He hired the actors and they did a great job.

4) The script. The plot of Star Wars has always been a callback of the old "space operas" which were considered sci-fi trash... similarly to how Indiana Jones represents the pulp novels and comics of explorers having improbably adventures. The script was written by George Lucas, however, it was well edited and managed to deliver. The script that made Empire Strikes Back so good wasn't even written by Lucas.

Lucas managed to get amazing people to come together and do a great job together, because he was afraid his movies would be bad if he didn't. When he lost that fear and made the prequels, he didn't let his team do their jobs. He micromanaged and it killed the series.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Let me put it this way: I don't wish death on the man, but I'm in the camp that is just biding their time until he kicks the bucket, and hoping his heirs have a bit more sense about the movies than he does. We're never going to get a good transfer of the original original trilogy as long as the man lives. It's not because the original negatives have been destroyed; you don't really need those to get a good transfer when there's still three strip technicolor prints extant -- those things, along with vinyl records, are one of those formats that pretty much never decay as long as they're properly stored. What we're seeing here, sadly, is a man with a bruised ego who is too proud to admit he made a mistake. Until he either admits his mistake[footnote]meaning he gives the original cuts the respect they deserve; a transfer of a master made for laserdisc that looks worse than the fan transfers of the actual laserdiscs does /not/ count.[/footnote] or dies, I'm unlikely to ever buy a new transfer of the old films. And that makes me sad; lord knows the man has made a small fortune off of me alone over the years, and there would be plenty of money left if he would just give the fans (including me) what they want.

The infamous edit that puts Hayden Christensen at the end of RoTJ was released on a special edition DVD that included the original theatrical version of the film. I bought them just a couple years back, so I can't imagine that they'd be impossible to find.

Actually, it wasn't. That was a re-release in 2006, after I had already got my 2004 edition. I and everyone else who bought those DVDs would have had to triple or quadruple dip to get the original cuts, and they were included as a bonus disc with an edition we already had. Besides, you must have missed or not understood my footnote. The DVD with the original cut was not a new transfer. It was the transfer from the 1993 laserdiscs, loaded up with so much DNR that it actually looks much uglier than the laserdiscs themselves, and not even in an anamorphic format. That wasn't Lucas giving us what we wanted; it was more like "here, you want my sandwich? Well let me lick it, then you can have it."

Pardon my techno-ignorance, but what is DNR. I Googled it and all I found was Department of Natural Resources and Do Not Resusitate. I'm confident that neither of those are what you're talking about.

As to what I bought, yeah, it was likely the 2006 versions as I bought them in late 2008. I can't comment on the quality of the "original theatrical cut" that was included as I haven't yet watched it on those discs. All I know is that that the back of the box promised the post-Episode III re-cut as well as the "original theatrical version" in one box.

Oh, sorry about that. DNR stands for "Digital Noise Reduction." It's supposed to help cut down on noticeable film grain, but it does it by smearing out all of the fine details in the image (which is what the film grain technically is -- grain in film is roughly equivalent to pixels in video.) You wind up with people that look like they're made out of plastic, and everything else just having this smeared, low detail look to it. Anyway, it was advertised as the original cut, and it's about as close as anything that has been released, but the problem is that rather than giving it a new transfer and some actual care, they just used the master they made for the 1993 laserdisc release, and then did some stuff to it that actually makes it look worse than it did on the laserdiscs. That's why people didn't stop complaining after that release; it was Lucas going "Here. You want this, fine, but I'm not going to put any effort into making a decent presentation possible."

Slightly off topic, but in case anyone still thinks a new film transfer is impossible, there are several three strip techicolor prints in private collections. Those are /the/ archival film standard, they almost never deteriorate (like, as long as they're properly stored, they'll outlive everyone reading this thread, even though they have over thirty years of a head start on it), and the image quality is only slightly degraded from the original negatives. In fact, there were several scenes in Episode IV that Lucas had to get from his personal technicolor print, because they had degraded beyond repair on the negative. If that was a good enough source for a theatrical release, a similar print should be plenty good enough for a bluray transfer.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Slightly off topic of this, but in case anyone still thinks a new film transfer is impossible, there are several three strip techicolor prints in private collections. Those are /the/ archival film standard, they almost never deteriorate (like, as long as they're properly stored, they'll outlive everyone reading this thread, even though they have over thirty years of a head start on it), and the image quality is only slightly degraded from the original negatives. In fact, there were several scenes in Episode IV that Lucas had to get from his personal technicolor print, because they had degraded beyond repair on the negative. If that was a good enough source for a theatrical release, a similar print should be plenty good enough for a bluray transfer.

So...in a nutshell, the only reason we haven't gotten a high-quality release of the original versions on DVD/Blu-Ray is because Lucas doesn't FEEL like it?

EDIT: Further consideration:

1) You could argue that he doesn't think it's worth his money to transfer the original technicolor prints in their entirety to a DVD/Blu-Ray release. Considering that most of the fanbase wants to fully appreciate the originals as they were and would pay good money to do so, so this doesn't make sense.

2) It's possible that he doesn't think it's worth the time and effort to do so, which doesn't make sense unless he simply DOESN'T LIKE the original versions. This is likely considering he's justified his re-edits along the lines of "this is way I want it," and not at all caring about how the legions of fans that made STAR WARS a commercial and pop-culture powerhouse would want it.

Yeah, all I can come back to is "he just doesn't feel like it." /END EDIT

...

Returning to the OP's question, no. No I do not think we are too hard on Lucas.

EDIT: I just realized something: the existence of the prequels and Lucas re-editing the originals to turn out a version that I would consider inferior doesn't really bother me; it's the idea of not being able to access a quality copy of the original releases that DOES bother me, and I now see why so many STAR WARS fans have been so upset for so long.

 

[rekabdarb]

Yeah fans reaction went a little overboard. So much overboard that they got a movie with kurt russell in it.

=D

Anyways i don't feel bad for him, he did just butcher his own continuity, but we are attacking him for making MORE of something we LOVE.

It'd be like if WoW stop making bad expansions, everyone would be sad but we'd still love it?

Not sure if my allegory works here.

 

[C2Ultima]

Ok, let's put it this way. Valve made Portal and Portal 2. Let's also pretend that they made a third Portal, which was pretty good. Ok right? A series of great games.

Now let's say that 20 years later, they start making a prequel trilogy to the Portal games, that reveal the orgins of GLaDOS, chell, and the companion cube. In this series of games, the companion cube can talk (I know it can in the Portal 2 comic), It turns out that Carolyn was Chell's mother, and we learn that the Portal gun is powered by crystals made from bat shit.

At this point, Valve also starts re-releasing the first three Portal games, making the companion cube talk in the original Portal, making it refrence bats everytime you fire the portal gun near it, and changing GLaDOS' voice to have Lindsey Lohan voice it (since she did in the prequel games).


The point of that horrifying scenario is to say that when you make something good, and release it, it's gone. You don't keep trying to "improve" it, even if you think that you could do it better.