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Why so much hate for Lucas
Ok theres obviously been bad films bad directors etc etc its just natrual noones perfect. But im 27 and ive never seen so much hate for 1 man George Lucas.
This is the guy that made a small film called star wars that just became Box office mania. If it wasnt for him there would be no star wars. I can understand people been angry with him for changing things over and over again. But some of the things that have been said is just wrong. I wont say some of the things thats been said but the way hes been treated you would think hes Saddam Husain.
The only problem i have with him he was to focused on CGI dont mean i hate him lol.
This is the guy that made a small film called star wars that just became Box office mania. If it wasnt for him there would be no star wars. I can understand people been angry with him for changing things over and over again. But some of the things that have been said is just wrong. I wont say some of the things thats been said but the way hes been treated you would think hes Saddam Husain.
The only problem i have with him he was to focused on CGI dont mean i hate him lol.
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In fact none of my movie viewing friends have a bad word to say about him.
His script writing is shocking.
He rebooted a franchise to fill his coffers, when it didn't need rebooting.
I'm in the camp that screamed "WTF is THIS!?" though.
Ridley Scott tweaked Blade Runner for the final cut, but nobody minded because they told people they'd done it, and Warner Bros. made sure that every different version under the sun was available to buy on blu ray...
I think that's the most important point; it's not the re-doing that bothers people, it's the Stalin-esque way that he is trying to erase the original versions from history.
There is nothing wrong with director's cuts; some are better than the theatrical versions and some are worse but in the overwhelming majority of cases both versions are available side by side and with the same amount of effort put into the presentation of both.
The joke of a joint release that Lucas put out a few years ago was so derisory that he may as well have put them out on old Memorex VHS tapes taped off the telly in 1987 complete with sloppily paused adverts and a label with 'Only Fools and Horses' scribbled out and 'Star Wars' written in with a felt pen.
The haters are probably more vocal so there appears to be a lot of hate.
That's probably the reason why I'm one of the ones that does actually like the Prequals as I'm just as much of a child now as I was when the original trilogy came out
Thing is, whoever originally said that probably willingly paid Lucas to rape it again, and again, and again. Such is the mentality of these things.
His tinkerings with SW were a timely reminder of who's actually in charge (i.e. not you, fanboy), and from this a sort of mutual contempt emerged from which Lucas could only profit. Then he offloaded the brand on to Disney for billions more.
He has my utmost respect.
I think to a certain extent it's the fact many people feel the original didn't need changing. The theatrical cut of "Kingdom of Heaven" hasn't received a blu ray release, but nobody minds because the theatrical cut was so poorly received, with Scott himself saying he disliked it. (Apparently Fox wanted him to cut the running length)
The original versions ARE out there if people want to see them plus we all know that Disney will release them eventually. If anyone could teach George Lucas a thing or two about re-releasing films continually it's them.
Except that Fox have the rights till 2020 and indefinitely for Episode IV...
Jar Jar Binks.
I don't get the hate for Ja Ja Binks either
It was perceived as childish, and was believed by some to be a characterisation of a racial stereotype...
I'm not bothered about the re-releasing of the originals, probably because I have never seen the original originals (or if I have, only on TV when I was in short trousers). The version of Star Wars that I see as the 'originals' is the Special Edition. The update in the next version, where Ian McDiarmid was transplanted in to The Empire Strikes Back made sense to me, so no issue with updates like that.
So why do I feel his standing has dropped?
The Prequel trilogy.
They were particularly childish, the acting was unbelievably awful, the script was boring (just read the intro scroll to The Phantom Menace) and the dialogue was epically bad. I know GL is mocked for his poor dialogue, but the prequels were 100 times worse than the originals in that respect.
I only got in to the original trilogy in my mid teens. I was 17 when the Phantom Menace came out, so this has nothing to do with 'George Lucas raping my childhood' or being the wrong demographic. The prequels were just plain bad, so as a writer first and a filmmaker second, my regard for George Lucas plummeted after the prequels.
I would actually love to see the prequels rebooted (but leaving the original trilogy well alone). That way, George Lucas' prequels could be erased from all recorded media and never spoken of again - because they're sh!te.
... took me a moment to get that .
Should I feel bad for owning that release?
At the very least the theatrical cuts should have been anamorphic, FFS! :rolleyes:
Then a thing called Star Wars happened. Now, I'm not one of those people who think that "it destroyed ideas cinema" - I don't think you can blame Lucas for that. People were just trying to imitate what he and Spielberg had done and came away with inferior copies. The original Star Wars has a certain charm to it - a tale of a hero's story and so on. Guinness, Ford, Cushing and McDiarmid proving the acting chops in that - Hamill and Fisher less so.
It was just a shame that after that he sort of gave up. Now having the finances to make more independent and offbeat and personal films, he just sort of stuck to producing.
Compare this to his comtempary Spielberg who not only produced (Back to the Future, Gremlins, etc.) but also pushed himself to direct things like The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun. Okay, both are flawed, but he was at least staying true to his root of loving cinema as art.
Then the new prequel trilogy came around - and oh dear! An old Lucas quote from him : "A special effect is a tool not a device to tell a story." Hmmmm, yeah right George. Where was the story for the prequel trilogy? It was meant to be the tale of someone's downfall and there was precious little in them for that - only Revenge of the Sith even came close to that storywise. Then there was the dialogue or rather lack of it. The original might never have had the most profound of dialogue, but compared to the prequels it's Shakespeare. What was recycling "I have a bad feeling about this." ? I also think trying to tie every nook and crany into the original - using the same droids and having Anakin build them was mistaken. There is precious little in the prequels to be excited about it. Characterisation - what's that? In the original you had it - Han was the pirate, Leia the princess, Luke the hero, Obi Wan the wizard, Vader the bad king, etc from an old hero's journey type story - in this - bah. You could have had much better stuff for Obi Wan and Annakin.
Then there was the more experimental films that he was planning on doing afterwards. What happened to those? Red Tails was on the cards and he just produced it not directed it. Then it flopped and he blamed the audience. It was game over. When Spielberg's Empire of the Sun and Hooked flopped, he went on to make better films like Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. No comeback for Lucas.
Lucas strikes me as a man who was not going to let anyone else mess with his baby, at least until Disney came knocking with their offer of 4 billion dollars. Hence, as he had such control, the prequels suffer from being massively overblown with special effects and with barley any attention being paid to the characters, with the possible exception of movie 3. Sure, the original trilogy has the iconic moments and lines, plus the whole Jedism thing, but fundamentally the movies would simply not have worked if it wasn't for the characters. We could get behind the hero Luke, the anti-hero Han, the Princess Leia, the wise old wizard like Obi-Wan, the evil Vader who is redeemed at the end.
I don't think Lucas made the prequels JUST for the money, but in all honesty money does seem to be a massive motivating factor for the bloke. He does have a story he wants to tell, that much is obvious, but its lost in a special effects spectacle and terrible dialogue that really brings the movies down. Selling toys did, it seems, take priority.
Its difficult to try and argue the bloke is not one of the greediest, if not the most greedy, director out there, when as soon as the 3D thing looked popular he jumped on the bandwagon and planned to re-release all 6 movies, after re-releasing them very recently on blu-ray.
Oscars are based on marketing campaigns not quality, and Harvey Weinstein is the king of marketing...
I agree with you on that one. Personally, I thought Hugo should have won that year but still, many people seemed to love The Artist.
However, for Lucas to say that watching a film in 3D is a better way to watch a film is absolutely absurd. For the minority it works (Hugo, Life of Pi et al.), but for the rest it's a gimmick that leads to more of George Lucas' favourite thing apart from George Lucas - money.