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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.’”
I agree with him.
There was way too much slovenly fan service in that movie. As I expected with a Disney movie, it played it totally safe and took no chances. It looked test-marketed to within an inch of its life.
A real filmmaker would have made his own film, not just remade someone else's.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
No kidding.
Cry me a river, George, with your billions of dollars, knowing that you've had a huge impact on world entertainment, sparked imagination and wonder in millions of minds, and created many thousands of jobs because of one single piece of intellectual property.
If you wanted to keep such a tight grip on what happened with your stuff you never should have sold it. You sold it to DISNEY of all companies, you know that they only produce the most shallow of crap these days (but then again, so does most of Hollywood), you knew what was coming.
I don't want to hear you bitch and complain about what happens in an imaginary universe.
Love sees no species.
You sold it to DISNEY of all companies, you know that they only produce the most shallow of crap these days
Ever since John Lassater and Ed Catmull went from Pixar to Disney, Disney's features and shorts have shown an improvement.
Wreck-it-Ralph was amazing and quite deep; Frozen was a good movie that somehow went on to be their biggest hit yet and Big Hero 6 wasn't exactly a superficial, shallow piece.
Man. I can't believe I just typed nice things about the House of Mouse, I used to loathe it with a passion.. back in the Eisner days. But again.. since Pixar guys went to Disney, Disney's improved a bit.
Now, there's nothing that will make me forgive Disney for what they did to their IT people. No amount of good film will make up for that.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Why did you sell it? Take your money and shut up, it's not yours anymore (thank god!).
I agree with this, but to a certain extent I also agree with Lucas about the 'retro' tone of the movie. It seemed like it borrowed/copied far too many of the plot points and settings from the original trilogy, to the point you could almost call it a re-make of 'A New Hope' with bits of Empire and Jedi tossed in here and there.
But having said that, it was still far better than that horrific clusterfuck of a prequel that Lucas was responsible for creating.
And just a personal nit-pick... the title itself. "The Force Awakens". All the other movies had titles which made obvious sense in regards to the plot. But I have no idea where in this new movie we saw the force "Awaken", or what that even fucking means.
No, the whole way he killed Padme off was terrible. How is it Leia could remember her mother when she was about thirty seconds old when she died?
And midichlorians...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you're paying attention, Abrams actually steals from all 3 original trilogy movies extremely heavily (particularly New Hope and Empire). There are a couple of very small segments for doing backstory but overall very little in the way of building characters. It's more like he watched the original trilogy and just wanted all the action scenes.
The screen writing needs serious work. The new characters are.. mostly forgettable although decent actors so I don't think that was their fault. Kylo Ren is laughable, near complete dark side trained (no mention of Sith) but gets his ass kicked by the most competent STORM TROOPER we've ever seen on screen and a completely untrained girl with some innate and until-she-meets-with-him latent power that she suddenly figures out how to use better than he does?? WTF?
The pacing was fast and I suspect aimed at Millennials and Sub-Millennials with 0 attention span and their goddamn phones out at all times (as evidenced by the 2 chattering girls and one of their boyfriends who wouldn't shut the fuck up the whole time - guy "Sick!" every 30 seconds).
Having said that, it's 10x better than the prequels - ALL of which are/were fucking terrible. I'm glad there was no mention at all of midoclorians or whatever. All of the 3D effects were good and real people in costumes where needed - despite there being a shit load of it comes off far better than farting brontosaur pack animals in the prequels. My girlfriend, who is not a Star Wars fan in particular, thinks it was great. As a Star Wars fan, I'm just glad they told Lucas to fuck off.
Mine was "Anakin, you're breaking my heart!"
It's really easy for me to "get into" a performance and to stay focused, especially when it gets to the climax scenes, but this totally took me out. I was actually mad when this happened, and it was hard to get back into the movie before it was finished.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
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!"
Actually, what is Disney's track record for mucking up stuff? Seriously. Disney's acquired Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and Maker Studios. I haven't seen much of a difference with Maker. Pixar has been as great as they've always been (don't blame Cars on Disney, it was and still is Lasseter's pet project) and have retained their creative freedom (just look at Inside Out). Marvel has never done better on the big screen.
Now we have the first SW film. Yes, it plays it safe. But... it feels like Star Wars. Gone are the stunted acting, terrible writing and extreme reliance on CG of the prequels. The new SW film is probably how IV would have been made had they released in 2015. And while it's conservative, it also shows that they knew what elements to keep to make the film work. As a result, it's similar, but still very enjoyable and a nice start for the new series.
As of now, Disney has done a much better job with Star Wars than Paramount has with Star Trek.
How is it Leia could remember her mother when she was about thirty seconds old when she died?
That's just one of the many temporal inconsistencies. Luke being 16-20 in IV-VI yet Obiwan aging probably a hundred years (Jedi are long-lived and Tarkin thought that "surely he must be dead by now") - plus Anakin at the end of RoTJ was pushing 80, even if he was dark-force-degraded, other Sith Lords last far longer.
And midichlorians...
Which don't exist in the ESB Yoda's universe. I-III, as currently filmed, exist in a similar but different universe from IV-VI; that much is provable from the timelines (relativistic effects are just not part of the Star Wars lore - you have to suspend disbelief on that one).
Lucas didn't want to make more Star Wars but there was so much money thrown at him that he went full-cynical and made the worst movies he knew how to do and taught his inner circle to not be yes-men after they all worked to turn out the crapfest of TPM, even though they knew it was bad (yet, it was a hugely profitable merchandising vehicle, so in that sense it was great, and Lucas has always done merchandising well because of his studio contracts). Lucas succeeded in proving to himself that the fans never really appreciated his work and will buy any shit sandwich with a logo on it.
Lucas's one concession to his younger self was that he left room to do I-III later, in a consistent universe, if he ever wanted to (he has zero compunction about remaking movies). He'd have to give up his fortune and prestige to return to his roots and find that energy again, and I think he's probably going to be happier doing his educational charity work instead. Meanwhile Disney couldn't be happier that he's talking smack about the new film - heck I might even go see it after hearing this.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"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.
Yes, that was horrible. But one of so damn many. For me it was the drivel about Midichlorians, and then a child's half-baked "yippee"s in horrid Episode 1. The prequels broke suspension of disbelief many many times, but even Jar-Jar didn't bug me as bad as the boy actor playing young Annakin because, you know, the whole damned story is ultimately about Annakin. The kid was so poorly directed and his lines so bad, I never believed in him or in any of his abilities or that someday he would become an arch-villain who would choke the life out of people as easy as look at them. Every seen he was in, every line, and every ridiculously contrived tie-in with the other films (I fucking built C-3PO!!!) shoved me out of the movie to look for the nearest exit. I couldn't forgive that shit. Kids can act well and carry a movie if a director takes them serious enough (e.g., The Sixth Sense), but Lucas didn't bother to give a shit.
Count Dooku in Episode II was pretty fucking cringe-worthy as well, stopping a fight with Yoda because, you know, let's fight with light saber instead. And does Yoda defeat him? No... he does a little thing and walks away, leaving three Jedi holding their limp little dicks. Clued me in on something, though: the Force sucks, particularly the good side. "Failed, have I" in Episode III. No shit, Yoda, because you SUCK! Mace Windu almost smoked Palpatine, except the good side didn't clue him in to an attack coming from amateur Annakin.
You didn't watch the prequels, you fucking endured them, waiting out one dull scene after another, hoping something redemptively cool would happen. Next thing you know, the movie's over. Two hours and ten bucks you'll never have again. Fuck you, Lucas. Take your billions, buy an island, and live on it with all the most expensive, pure, uncut highest-quality coke money your billions can buy. That'll get your mind off Disney giving you the shove.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
The sad thing is, I even liked the midichlorians in principle (assuming that they were symptomatic of Force concentration, and not the cause of it). They illustrated that before the fall of the Republic, the Force had been almost reduced to a scientific principle: something that was studied and analyzed formally, even too formally, by the ivory tower Jedi who lost touch with gritty reality and thus brought tragedy upon themselves and the entire galaxy.
It's a shame that this potentially elegant expository device was wielded by a windbag imbecile like Lucas, but on the other hand, he did everything wrong and created a series of movies with more inconsistencies than the average piece of fan fiction. The midichlorians could have been done well by a competent writer. Instead, rather than try to redeem the idea, Lucas ran like a coward and dropped the concept like a hot potato after the damage had already been done.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky