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George Lucas Criticizes the Force Awakens (theguardian.com)
RogueyWon writes: While many critics have responded positively to JJ Abrams's take on Star Wars, one particular industry figure seems rather less impressed. George Lucas has criticized the "retro" tone of The Force Awakens and lamented his own lack of involvement in it. Speaking to television talk-show host and journalist Charlie Rose, Lucas quipped that he had sold his "kids to the white slavers that take these things". "They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that,” he said. “They weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway, but if I get in there, I’m just going to cause trouble, because they’re not going to do what I want them to do. And I don’t have the control to do that any more, and all I would do is muck everything up. And so I said, ‘OK, I will go my way, and I’ll let them go their way.’”
Why did you sell it? Take your money and shut up, it's not yours anymore (thank god!).
-No one- wants to see Jar-Jar Binks again. Nor do they want to see a "token kid", or a Yoda doing backflips. No one.
That the first three films were decent only because of Lucas' lack of control. We saw what happens when his every whim is indulged with the prequels. Ugly stuff. In short: George, you're shite, now fuck off.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Agreed. I am glad Lucas couldn't touch the movie, but it was a very 'safe' boring movie. As expected from Disney who plans to use it to leverage a gazillion spin offs, theme park and merchandise projects.
It's OK to agree with him to a point, but slovenly fan service is precisely what we've got from Lucas since Return of the Jedi, in the form of the marketing-friendly Ewoks, Jar-Jar, etc etc. He also thinks he should have been involved with the movie, but I don't see any evidence that would have made it any better.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And so does George especially when he's on a mission to "improve" an old film.
"Ruin" is very subjective, and in this case and others (Marvel, for instance) the majority of consumers do not share your tastes.
George Lucas has criticized the "retro" tone of The Force Awakens and lamented his own lack of involvement in it.
Shut up George and go spend your billions. You had your chance and blew it with the prequels. Nobody gives a shit what you think anymore. You created something cool 35 years ago and then made a mockery of it with your arrogance and incompetence 20 years later. Star Wars HAD to do something retro because you screwed it up. You failed to understand why Star Wars was a success in the first place. People needed to be reminded of why they liked Star Wars and THEN we can worry about doing something new and interesting with it.
George, if you wanted control you shouldn't have sold out. If you want to do something new then go create something genuinely new. You've got the money and the time but I'm pretty sure you don't have the talent to write or direct. Go do some experimental film making and prove to us that you have something worthwhile to contribute.
I am going to basically repeat in a more respectful tone than what the other smart-asses said on this thread, but with all due respect,
Why did you sell your franchise in the first place? You know Disney's track record for mucking up stuff and should have known that they would not listen to you after you sold Lucasfilm to them. That would be like me selling a nice hot rod to Disney and telling them "Oh don't put flames on that car! It looks better in solid candy apple red!"
Disney basically gave you the finger in a respectful way and did what they wanted (which is to market to the lowest common denominator who likes explosions and action). They don't care about telling a story. They want $$$$$$$$$$$..
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
I agree with him.
Then you fail to understand the problem. Disney HAD to make a film that reminded everyone of why they loved Star Wars. After the debacle that was the prequels, they needed to come back to basics. THEN they can start doing more creative things going forward. But they had to repair the damage first and get people enthused about the franchise again. I suspect they'll get more adventurous in the future but doing so for this movie would have been idiotic.
A real filmmaker would have made his own film, not just remade someone else's.
And if they did that then everyone would have bitched about how it wasn't Star Wars. And they would have been right. Giving some director complete freedom to go off on whatever idiotic tangent they want is how we got the prequels.
The hate is strange. Guardians of the Galaxy was an AWESOME product from Disney. But they had nothing "preconceived" to work from there. It was total freedom, and it was indeed awesome.
Star Wars is a totally different beast. Too many chances, and you end up with the crap Lucas spit out for prequels, and definite alienation of some fans. Regardless, there was NO WAY they were going to please everybody. But we got an entertaining continuation of the originals, IMO. Lets hope it only gets better! Honestly, I'm very much looking forward to the next installment.
What more can you ask for? They had epic expectations and didn't completely fail like the previous attempt from Lucas.
My problem with all this, and the tentative point where I agree with Lucas, is that it seems a strange new world where the creator of a work is locked out of its further development simply because a corporation stepped in with $4B's and bought all rights and control of it. In other words, when a work of art becomes too popular it is in danger of becoming a mere franchise.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
Well, that's exactly what happens when you sell your franchise. Specially one as marketable as Star Wars.
My problem with all this, and the tentative point where I agree with Lucas, is that it seems a strange new world where the creator of a work is locked out of its further development simply because a corporation stepped in with $4B's and bought all rights and control of it.
Pretty naive to think that that is somehow anything new. People have sold IP rights since the first moment there was such a thing as IP. That's like selling your house and then expecting to have a say in how the new owner decorates it. The entire notion is idiotic. If George wanted a say in how things were done he could have negotiated that. He chose not to. Frankly given how bad the prequels were, I wouldn't have wanted him around either. He clearly failed to understand why people liked Star Wars, couldn't direct, couldn't write and everybody knew it. Disney has dealt with guys like him before and his time had clearly passed.
In other words, when a work of art becomes too popular it is in danger of becoming a mere franchise.
It's adorable that you think Star Wars wasn't a franchise before. I saw Star Wars in the theater in 1977. Do you have ANY idea how big of a think merchandising became because of Star Wars? Every kid I knew was carrying around a Darth Vader carrying case loaded with action figures. Video games, lunch boxes, toys, decoration, etc. Those became a big deal because Star Wars WAS a franchise right from the very beginning. Your notion that it was some holy work of "art" is belied by the actual facts.
It's Star Wars we're talking about here, not La Strada. The whole problem with the prequels was Lucas taking himself waaaaay too seriously. Star Wars is a Saturday Matinee Samurai Space Opera. Which is what Abrams delivered. Yay!
More than that:
...but first we need to go inside to disable the shields
...where an older character dies
starts with bad guys attacking...
droid is given information and leaves the scene...
ends up in a desert...
where the lead happens upon it...
which carries something important for the rebellion...
while evading the main bad guy...
who is dressed in black...
and related to a good guy...
"we must destroy the giant planet destroyer thing"
They did not 'step in' with 4B. He sold it.
And if he feels so creative, he is free to use that huge pile of money to create something new of his own. Should bne enough for several movies, where he can show us all of his brilliant ideas.
A real filmmaker would have made his own film, not just remade someone else's.
Last time someone did that we ended up with Episode 1. Fanservice has it's place. The original 3 starwars movies had something about them that made them great. For the last 10 years we've been complaining that this was lost in Ep 1-3, and now someone is complaining that the new one isn't original and too much of a remake?
It's what we asked for, and given the current ratings and reviews it would seem the vast majority of people are very happy with what we got.
I'm half in agreement. The new movie is underwhelming, but not because it's "retro", I think that's fine, it looks like it occurred ~35 years after RotJ. The movie is underwhelming because it's unoriginal and lacking vision. Honestly I think that's a pattern with JJ Abrams, he makes great TV but give him a movie and it's paint-by-numbers all the way.
I will give Lucas credit for the 2nd trilogy on those grounds. It was original and had vision. It just happened to be poorly executed at the same time.
I stole this Sig
Lucas was fine, when he let other people direct and stayed focused on special effects. He's not good at directing people. If you listen to the interviews from Harris Ford and Mark Hamill it's pretty clear Lucas shrugged off simple questions on dialog and motivation. The original movie ended up good because the actors were talented and worked extremely well as an ensemble cast. When you got to Empire and Return you had talented directors set the tone and motivation for the cast.
You go to the prequels and it's uneven mix of amateur hour theatrics mixed in with cameos from talented actors. "I...I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them. And not just the men, but the women and the children too." Anakin Skywalker Episode II. The most cringe worthy scene in the entire series.
Over a billion gross on this one already in less than two weeks, and it hasn't even opened in China (the second largest market globally) yet. They plan at least a movie a year for several years to come (at least two trilogies planned so far).. Plus the deal bought them ILM which is widely used earning more profits from other movies. They'll likely have that $4b paid off in two or three years tops. Then it's all gravy. Loss leader? Not even close. Not with the Disney marketing machine. Will the following movies do as well? That has yet to be seen. But they don't have to be blow-out blockbusters like this one is to quickly turn into a long term money maker even without the merchandising.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
It did not. For starters, the plot is basically identical to EP IV.
I was fine with that. I think the rationale was "Let's show the fans that we're taking the franchise back where it started from, rather than the horrible mess Lucas made in the prequels." So they set up a new Empire, with a new Death Star and a new young Jedi (one I like a lot more than I ever liked that crybaby Luke, actually). Yeah, it was more or less the same plot, with lots of fan-service thrown in, but they also set up some interesting new characters.
The real test will be what happens in the next movie. If it's a rehash of ESB, then I'll be annoyed that they didn't just call it a reboot rather than a continuation of the story -- though if it's an entertaining movie I'll still see enjoy it. But I don't think it will be. I think having established that they've thrown Lucas out of the airlock and gone back to the Star Wars roots, they're now free to do something new. Note that I'm not saying I expect radically novel filmmaking. Obviously not. What comes next is going to be more big-budget space cowboys. But it will be fun.
I'm actually much more upset at the Star Trek reboot, but that's because I always held Star Trek to a higher standard. Star Trek started out as real science fiction, social commentary exploring much more interesting questions that "Does love defeat all?" and "How many people can we blow up?". There were some occasional missteps, and it really declined after Roddenberry was gone, but the reboot fell off a cliff. The Abrams Star Trek movies are entertaining, but they're no longer Star Trek. He kept the universe and the characters (sort of) but lost the soul.
In contrast, The Force Awakens has resurrected Star Wars. It's simple, mindless fun, but that's what it always was, and we liked it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
And midichlorians...
That was the exact moment when episode 1 jumped the shark.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
It is certainly not a commercial failure - i don't think Star Wars ever will. That doesn't make it a good film though. Otherwise Titanic and Avatar should be right up there with The Godfather.
I mean, Vader had a fucking *presence* about him when he walked into the room - enough to see palpable fear emanating from all the other actors in the room. You knew right up front that he was a badass.
Yeah that's it that was what was bugging me about him. Poe gets dropped down in front of Kylo and starts wisecracking, zero fear what so ever. That would be fine IF Kylo was already established, then it would have does a lot in establishing Poe as a badass for looking him in the eye.
>[Kylo Ren] was less of a badass, and more like a bipolar emo kid with daddy issues.
That's exactly the point.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/kylo-re...
The Star Wars movies have always featured villains who are cold, calculating and in control of their emotions. Vader, the Emperor, Dooku, Maulâ"the Sith always acted with a chilling precision. But Kylo Ren is anything but precise. Heâ(TM)s brash, raw, sullen, and just bursting with emotion. This is something we've seen before in the Expanded Universe of books and comics, but never in the movies.
Kylo Ren howls and loses his mind, whenever anything goes wrong.
Kylo Ren harbors a bitter resentment for the expectations thrust upon him in his former life as Ben Solo, Jedi-in-training and a son of legends. Even his lightsaber itself is unstable and angry, flickering with sparks and heat-just like its owner.