Will anyone stand up to George Lucas?

[reapersaurus]

you guys are quibbling over .... small things, to say the least.

unequivocably, Dark Jezter is right - it HAS become fashionable to bash Lucas, and say the same tired things about the prequels.

Anyone who doesn't agree has not been alive the past few years.

And this quote was VERY funny:

Granted, perhaps if I were trying to determine the potential for a documentry called "Why George Lucas is Old and Busted and Peter Jackson is the New Hotness" I would need the kind of market reasearch you are demanding I produce.

 

[Kai Lord]

I don't think it was such a bad call. You stated that most Star Wars fans would rather see the Original Editions rather than the Special Editions on DVD.

Actually I said the majority of SW fans want the original on DVD, and not moreso than the SE. I certainly hope more people want the original than the SE, God knows I don't want George to be encouraged. But given Spielberg's change of heart and release of the original E.T., and the commentary on those with a desire to preserve film history, I don't think its that far of a stretch to say that the originals are held in higher regard.

My point (that it's become fashionable to hate George Lucas)

Your point was that "in the past few years, it's become fashionable to make George Lucas out to be the antichrist, while Peter Jackson is the greatest director in movie history."
Your hyperbole suggests that people are criticizing Lucas to ridiculous degrees simply because its "cool". Calling him the antichrist is ridiculous. And no one has done that, certainly not in great enough numbers to be worth mentioning. And no one worth mentioning does it simply for the sake of being fashionable. The reason its fashionable is the criticisms are valid and he brought them on himself.

Ditto for the praise toward Jackson. Your comment was dismissive, as if people don't know what they're talking about or aren't thinking for themselves and are just foaming at the mouth and screaming without provocation or reason.

No one's foaming, screaming, cursing the sky, or bringing statutory rape charges against George for what he did to their childhoods. But people still have plenty to criticize. And when the criticisms are magnified by the contrast of praise George earned the first time he visited Star Wars, well, this is what it looks like.

When The Phantom Menace came out, intital reviews started saying things like "It was good, but not as good as I'd hoped it would be" and "It was kind of a letdown."

TPM got a "cream of the crop" critic rating of 40% at rottentomatoes.com. Ouch.

Lets take a look at what the critics actually said:

"Many of the scenes feel shapeless and flat—they're not ended, but abandoned."
-- David Ansen, NEWSWEEK

"After waiting 16 years for the overture to this epic saga, this is what we get? An in-progress trade war?"
-- Mark Caro, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"The line readings of Portman and Lloyd are often flat, or flat-out wrong!"
-- Richard Corliss, TIME MAGAZINE

"Everything about this film is so mechanical you wonder if it was written, directed and acted by 'droids.'"
-- Rod Dreher, NEW YORK POST

"Story. Character. They used to mean something to George Lucas."
-- John Hartl, FILM.COM

There are positive quotes as well, but from the "cream of the crop" critics that people actually listen to, 60% of them echo the sentiments above. No one changed their minds to suddenly become cool.

Pretty soon, you couldn't attend any sizable gathering of Star Wars fans without hearing comments like "Lucas raped my childhood!" and "He's lost it. He should hand over the prequels to somebody else." Even non-genre fans can crack jokes about George Lucas and get laughs from other non-genre fans.

Any kind of lag in the criticism you perceived was most assuredly the delay caused by the buzz of seeing a new SW film on the big screen. But, like the South Park audience watching the beginning of the Raiders of the Lost Ark SE, they cheered when the ewoks showed up and started shooting lasers at Indy, then sat dumbfounded, then got royally pissed and started screaming before their heads exploded. Okay so that didn't exactly happen with SW (I think only a couple of people's faces actually melted while watching it) but you get the idea.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

There are positive quotes as well, but from the "cream of the crop" critics that people actually listen to, 60% of them echo the sentiments above.

I'm not going to jump into this discussion...but I've got to say one thing.

People listen to critics?!

 

[Darrin Drader]

People listen to critics?!

Good point. I make it a habit not to take the words of a critic with even the smallest grain of salt -- at least not until I'm familiar with his or her MO. This applies to film, book, and RPG critics. Often, just based on what I already know about a critic's likes and dislikes, I can pretty accurately guess what their comments will be before reading the review. Quite a bit of the time my guesses are right.

Anyway, back on topic, I'm not defending the relevance of certain scenes or the wooden and dead-pan acting, but I do think the prequels are good for bringing the universe to life to a degree that the classics were unable to. I think that a large part of the problem with the prequels is that George was focusing way too much on the special effects and not enough on the acting. He was less interested in telling an interesting story than he was wanting to blow us away with the most over the top special effects extravaganza ever committed to film. I think he succeeded in one regard while failing in the other.

I agree that maybe things could have been better if he would have delegated some of his responsibilities to people that could better focus on them, and I think that his approach to post-production directing is a failed experiment.

 

[Kai Lord]

I'm not going to jump into this discussion...but I've got to say one thing.

People listen to critics?!

With regard to the "cream of the crop" critics (Rolling Stone, USA Today, Ebert & Roeper, Entertainment Weekly, etc.) yes, people in general listen to them much moreso than the reviews by Billy Joe Random from KRAP Radio News in Podunk, North Dakota.

Whether or not people listen to critics in general is another discussion completely. Short answer: Sometimes. Depends on the movie and which critics are saying what. Some films are critic proof, others can find or lose an audience based on critical acclaim.

 

[Kai Lord]

Anyway, back on topic, I'm not defending the relevance of certain scenes or the wooden and dead-pan acting, but I do think the prequels are good for bringing the universe to life to a degree that the classics were unable to.

That I agree with. Kind of like watching Jurassic Park 3. Horrible movie, but really cool to see what pteranadons probably looked like.

 

[Orius]

It was a rumour proved wrong already.

Also, it was brought up again because of Lucas talking about the OT DVDs and saying that he's, "Glad to release the movies as they were intended to be seen."

People...that's the Special Edition. No, we're not going to see the pre-Special Edition, but no...he's not changing it more.

Yeah, I pretty much figured that list was a load when I read the stuff for Jedi.

 

[Gnarlo]

I got $20 and a copy of "Al-Qadim: Ruined Kingdoms" says the fat film director takes out the cranky ENWorld poster. Any takers?

I'll take that bet. 'Cuz Lucas, since he's the good guy, will be forced to let JD shoot first, and I'm betting JD is a better shot than Greedo

 

[Henry]

All I'll say is,

Put the Special Edition on DVD, MAKE HAN SHOOT FIRST, and I'd buy it. I had no other qualms about the SE - it was a sweet piece of revitalization.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I agree Henry. I had no problems whatsoever with the SE's. People act like the Han/Greedo scene was a defining scene in the trilogy. I don't think it was that important in the movies. I liked the new effects, the new scenes are neither here nor there in most cases. I don't see anything that different.

People just love to bitch about whatever George Lucas does.