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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.
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.
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.
Yeah, why can't Disney be more forward-thinking like Lucas instead of just pandering to the moviegoers and giving them more of what they want?
When someone says, "Any fool can see
I don't think you know what a "loss leader" means. Exactly which Star Wars movie has been unprofitable?
And so does George especially when he's on a mission to "improve" an old film.
Translated to English:
I made three very good bottles of wine. So good people called me a visionary. My bottles were great.
Then I made three bad jars of wine. These jars were jarringly bad.
I sold my vineyard, great bottles and Jarring Jars and got lots of money.
Nobody considers me a visionary any longer because of the latter.
(Also have you ever tried discussing galactic treaties in a way that people want to hear about
it that doesn't sound like you helped write the internal revenue tax code and the trans-pacific partnership?)
Now I see that these new owners have made something good.
I think "Hey I could have done that!" I'm a visionary.
I think "Wait, I did, back in 1977, you know, before 30% of the planet was alive." Nobody knows I'm a visionary.
I think "I could have done it again." They would have recognized my genius again. Jar. Jar.
I forget about the jarring jars. I don't know where that came from anyway. I play with dolls way too much.
The grapes I would have picked are probably sour anyway.
- George Lucas
"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.....
George, Your children were taken away from you because you were raping them. George, you sold them to other men, to be used.
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.
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.
I'm assuming by 'retro' he means we didn't see a bunch of tedious senate scenes. Instead they just blew the senate up before we ever saw it.
Seriously though, making a Star Wars movie is a "damned if you, damned if you don't" scenario. No matter what you do, there are going to be people who hate it. Disney and Abrams just took the route that would please the most people (and generate the most revenue). I can't really fault them for that.
Ticket sales seem to say who cares George Lucas.
For the sake of argument, if we are going to use ticket sales as the judge of quality The Phantom Menace wins hands down adjusted for inflation. In 2015 dollars it made around $1.4 billion.
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!
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.
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.
The Plinkett Reviews of Star Wars are as long as the movies, far more entertaining and completely hilarious.
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.
"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.
I would disagree: "I love you, but I can't love you." I didn't see Twilight but I would say it had better romance.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
and all I would do is muck everything up.
Better 16 years late then never, I guess...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I loved the new movie, but have heard and agree with the comments
Even as I watched the new movie, I noticed “that’s the cantina scene”, “that’s the new yoda”, “really? the death star again?” They dealt with it with humor, “there’s always a way to blow it up”, but it’s a rehash of story & themes from Episodes IV & V.
I liked the *story line* of Episodes I-III— they filled in the story of how Anakin turned to the dark-side. Where Lucas messed it up was everywhere else, directing, script, CGI, lack of directing, over-the-top characters (jar-jar binks), etc., etc.; probably because no one could tell the “famous in his time” person, that all important word. “Nooooooooo!”.
What I am and will be curious about is what we might have gotten if Lucas had given the story line (and then gotten out of the way). Let Kasdan (Empire Strikes Back & Force Awakens) write the script, and Abrams direct — e.g. let the people who are good (still) at telling the story tell the story, while Lucas provides the story-arc, the richness of the ideas that gave us the back-story and the awesome episodes IV-V-and maybe (VI).
It just **might** have been awesome.
Now, I just have to hope that as a friend quipped, Episode VIII is not named, “The First Order Strikes Back”
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.
Wow.
Criticism on the 'retro' tone from the guy who mande American Graffiti? And then who made a bog-standard space opera comprised of a mashup of cowboy movies and Kurosawa? Really? And did he actually watch episodes 6, 1, 2, and 3? What was intrinsically novel in them?
That, my friends, is irony.
Yes, the Disney film was entirely an homage (read: flat-out-copy) of the first film. It took no risks, but what it did do is retell the first film for an entirely new generation. "Rebooting" is such a popular way to say "copy" today, if they'd just said "we're rebooting it because 2/3 of the source work from the original author we have as a foundation was utter crap" people would be arguing about that.
Yes, it was a naked merchandising enterprise (I believe I saw a 50 yard WALL of merch at Target before the film came out) but SO WAS THE FIRST.
Suffice to say: I loved Star Wars - I was 10 in 1977, and watched it at least 30 times in theaters. It is what it is. All the encrustations of epicness that have been laden on by Lucas and creepily-worshipful fans are just that: extrinsic and irrelevant. If it took a single new film to break that all off and start clean, I'm cool with that.
I hope this means that the NEXT film can be more interesting and a little more daring.
-Styopa
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.
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.
At the seven-movie marathon back on VII's opening day, the MOST cringeworthy scene was in AotC, when Anakin just gives this creepy lust-infused stare to Padme, who looks vaguely skeeved out and worried.
I thought, 'How could ANYBODY think Hayden Christensen is a bad actor? This is EXACTLY how a teenage boy acts when he's 'so in love'.
Of course, then she kisses him...I think there was a sit-com style 'he got older, she stayed exactly the same age as TPM' sort of idea there.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Slashot can't quite decide whether they hate Lucas of The Force Awakens worse.
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)
And Ray just is abandoned on Jakku as a child; we don't know who abandoned her, and we don't know why.
In fairness, we didn't know anything worthwhile about Luke's history at the end of IV either except that his father's name was Anakin and that he and Kenobi knew each other.
When you sell a house, that's pretty much it. However, when you sell IP, you can actually stipulate terms in the sale which may restrict use of said IP, or retain certain rights.
I have news for you. You can do that with a house too. Terms of sale aren't just for intangible property. If you are the one selling you can request all sorts of crazy terms if you want and can find a buyer willing to agree to them. When I bought my last house there were so weird stipulations regarding delayed move out dates and some other stuff. A friend of mine put a conservation easement on his farm which affects the uses available to any future owner. You can sell most things with terms attached if the other party is amenable to the terms.
"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...
If I remember correctly it was Anakin who said those words.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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
Abrams, et. al. didnt really introduce anything substantially new, but re-arrangements of earlier material. No new planets, plot twists, races, character types, special effects ... It was safely done without any overdose of computer graphics like the clone armies or rubber-Jar Jar. For these reasons, I'd probably say it is the movie I'd least like to see again of the seven.
Abrams story telling always tends to be lazy, sloppy, and incoherent.
How does Rey have knowledge, and skills, that exceed those of Luke, and Han, put together? She has no training, or experience, yet she is an instant expert in operating and repairing the Falcon. She knows how to fight with a light saber, and otherwise use the force - as well as, or better than Luke did after years of training.
How could the bad guys be stupid enough to build a mega death star? The first two were stupid, and easily defeated. Bad guys are not formidable if they are that dumb.
He mutilated the original trilogy and instead of releasing the new versions as "director's cuts" in parallel with the original versions, he took the original versions off the market. Maybe Disney will undo the damage. Also, his favorite character is Jar-Jar. So he can fuck off.
In the USA, we like stuff watered down, like beer, television, and freedom.
You did "such a wonderful job" with 1, 2, 3, and 6, George, it's probably for the better that you're not involved in 7, 8, and 9.