George Lucas On His Decision To Break Up With Star Wars

The problems were -

1. He became a legend in a lot of peoples' eyes that wanted to work with him.

2. This led to him being surrounded by 'Yes People'. On the original trilogy he had people saying "George...you just can't do that!"

3. He's not that great a writer or Director if just left to his own devices. He needs the input of others whether he thinks so or not.

4. Trying to make even great actors work in a green painted hanger with just green felt covered boxes to work against for 6 months while you sit 20 feet away with a latte directing via a video monitor isn't going to work. Having real tactile sets really works to boost actors hence why Abrams decided to not got the total green screen route.

5. 563 other reasons blah blah blah...

Don't forget that once he started ILM, his status shot through the roof on top of these other things listed, so he basically built a cult of personality around himself. Even his goiter had fans.
 
I liked al of the star wars movies as well... annakin was annoying though.. he seemed too whiney to be darth vader. The darth maul fiqght scene was epic.

Hayden Christensen was a complete miscast. I'm still on the fence about Portman as Padme, but i can live with that. I could just never wrap my head around the idea that this whiny, bitch ass grown up Skywalker was going to become Vader. I actually like the SW 1-3, the way the politics was set up, the intrigue, how Palpatine comes to power and used people the way he did, how Skywalker and Padme came to the relationship they had, how he turned, etc. It really solidified the story even more for me. Even looking back on it now, the way the Gungans on Naboo and how they were used made sense. I realize the Jar Jar hate is very strong, but in the context of how the movie was presented, it made sense.

Interesting backstory on R2D2 for the win. :D

http://scifi.about.com/od/starwarscharacters/a/SWAR_profle-R2-D2.htm
 
Ah right, no editing on front page threads


If you haven't heard; there's a despecialized edition.
I assume no linking to naughty sites, so a polygon article it is
http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/18/6030725/star-wars-hd-despecialized-edition
(I'd also recommend the "making of" that harmy posted along with it)


Ignore the jar jar bits :) 1-3 are decent enough (of course to each their own)

I still have the original, pre-special edition VHS copies. I have wanted for many years to try and figure out how to copy them 1st from VHS to digital, then taking the digital copies and upscaling them.
 
The droids were only shoehorned into the prequels for toy revenue. They had no need to be there.
 
Look at all the Yelp Gold Elite movie critics on this site... He's the creator of Star Wars, without him, none of this would exist. There may have been ups and downs but it's like people didn't read the article either so whatever. Lucas should have said fuck everyone after A New Hope. Yet he still pushed to continue HIS story. SMH
 
The Ewoks and Jar-Jar Binks felt, to me, like some old guy figuring that he knew just what young kids would like to see, without actually know what young kids would like to see.
 
Most of the stuff that was great about the original trilogy came from other people and Lucas actually listening to their advice. For the special editions and prequels he was surrounded by too many 'Yes Men' who believed all his hype and I think it got to the point Lucas believed it himself.

Look at some of the "Making of" specials for the original trilogy and then read some interviews from the last 10 years and he totally lies about what he did himself and what he actually had planned for the series. The whole "soap opera family problems" wasn't a thing until writing for ESB was well under way and they wanted a surprise twist (same with Leia in RotJ).

The new movies probably won't live up to the massive hype (I don't think anything could), but I don't think they will suffer from the loss of Lucas.


SOme of what made the first three work were budget constraints. The guy simply couldn't get everything he wanted and had to pick what was worth saving, and clearly when push came to shove, he knew (or could be convinced) what was worth making happen and what he could do without.

The prequels where like watching my 4yo mix finger paints. Yellow and blue make green? Red and yellow make orange? That's so cool, mixing everything together must make a really cool color. No? Fuck it, I'll keep trying... every... single... time.

And that's why you have obi-wan riding a dinosaur up a wall.
 
[QUOTE 'fine.... I'll go my way and I let them go their way.'"[/I][/QUOTE]

What a pompous ass. As if he has ANY control of the Star Wars property since he sold it for billions.

That guy sat on SW for decades and did jack with it. Good riddance I say.
 
Let's face facts here. Lucas took a garbage genre (sci-fi in the 70s), used revolutionary lighting and special effects (for the time), and put a real A+ soundtrack in. When you boil it all down that's what Star Wars is.

To those of us who lived the hype it was AMAZING. To the kids coming up, the ones that can just hop on their phone and find out Vader is Luke's father and Leia is his sis...not a lot of magic there. Cutting edge 40 year old special effects...yeah they're outdated and won't impress the Millennial crowd. I see a lot of kiddos who love the Star Wars universe and the quasi-steampunk nature of everything but couldn't care less about the original movies. They weren't there...they didn't wait YEARS for the next release.

As has been voiced by others, the prequels were miscast and poorly written. There was zero mystery like the original three --- we all knew who was going to make it and how. It was just graphic novels set to live action.
 
I don't see why you think he's a dick. He's done a lot of really good things and donated a huge amount of money to charity. The last 3 Star Wars movies he made being subpar doesn't make him a bad person.

[QUOTE 'fine.... I'll go my way and I let them go their way.'"[/I]

What a pompous ass. As if he has ANY control of the Star Wars property since he sold it for billions.

That guy sat on SW for decades and did jack with it. Good riddance I say.[/QUOTE]

That isn't true, he kept doing releases of the first 3 movies. That is something.
 
forgot to type my response in regards to the first one I quoted :p

donating doesn't make you a good person. I could kill somebody and still donate money.
 
That fight scene and the song Dual of the Fates are still some of the best parts of the SW universe.

It's 'Duel.'

What makes it great? What makes the audience care about any of the characters involved? Qui-Gon never does anything wise or memorable, Obi-Wan spends most of the movie back on the ship whining on the radio, and we never learn anything about Darth Maul. The battle ends up just being a group of highly choreographed people we know next to nothing about jumping and spinning around around to theme music. Wow, so epic.

The Vader/Obi-Wan duel in ANH was more interesting than any of the prequel duels. The fact that Obi-Wan is old and can't just do spin-flips around Vader actually makes it better, IMO.
 
It's 'Duel.'

What makes it great? What makes the audience care about any of the characters involved? Qui-Gon never does anything wise or memorable, Obi-Wan spends most of the movie back on the ship whining on the radio, and we never learn anything about Darth Maul. The battle ends up just being a group of highly choreographed people we know next to nothing about jumping and spinning around around to theme music. Wow, so epic.

The Vader/Obi-Wan duel in ANH was more interesting than any of the prequel duels. The fact that Obi-Wan is old and can't just do spin-flips around Vader actually makes it better, IMO.
Qui-Gon did rediscover the old technique on how to transform into pure force power, enabling Obi-wan and Yoda an afterlife to guide Luke as ghosts. That scene unfortunately was never in theaters, but was part of the special features in the Blu-Ray releases and was later hinted at in the Clone Wars tv show.

As for Darth Maul... he survived being chopped in half thru pure rage and dark side magic. He lived another 12+ years and made a short violent return using a cybernetic prosthetic body during the end of the Clone Wars (season 5 Clone Wars TV show that is now Canon). He then got the shit beat out of him by Palpatine, captured alive, and has never been seen again.

I know I know....none of this info makes Ep 3 great, but the plot holes it introduced are answered elsewhere.
 
No awful dialog. All of them cheesy and lame great action sci fi. Not the actors, it was Lucas horrible dialog. i grew up on the originals and they were no better or worse than the newer ones. but you know opinions and all.

Dialogue was bad, but the guy that played the older Anakin was just awful. Not sure why they picked him considering how bad he was at acting.
 
Guess I'm in the minority but I loved Episodes 1-3. 3 is actually my favorite of all 6 movies.

The first two were awful for a number of reasons. The third one was good up until the last 15 minutes or so. Then it turned into a pile giraffe shit with rhino cum drizzled on it.
 
The only Star Wars 1-3 that is great is the Robot Chicken version.
 
The third one was good up until the last 15 minutes or so.

You enjoyed watching Obi-Wan ride a dinosaur and fight a cartoon robot wielding 4 lightsabers? It's like Lucas felt he needed to top the awfulness of R2 flying around and Yoda/Count Dookie having a lightsaber danceoff in Attack of the Clones.

The only thing I find interesting about the prequels is the progression in special effects. The CGI is terrible in parts of Phantom Menace (particularly the battle at the end) but improve substantially with each movie. The whole trilogy is basically one big tech demo for Industrial Light & Magic.
 
You enjoyed watching Obi-Wan ride a dinosaur and fight a cartoon robot wielding 4 lightsabers? It's like Lucas felt he needed to top the awfulness of R2 flying around and Yoda/Count Dookie having a lightsaber danceoff in Attack of the Clones.

The only thing I find interesting about the prequels is the progression in special effects. The CGI is terrible in parts of Phantom Menace (particularly the battle at the end) but improve substantially with each movie. The whole trilogy is basically one big tech demo for Industrial Light & Magic.

The theatrical version was a demo perhaps(creepy puppet Yoda), but the DVD versions were tweaked and polished with all the post effects that they had intended for the movie, but didn't have the time to put in originally.
 
People have been hating on 1~3 for years. I just think it's a bunch of older people who saw the originals as kids but are able to look at movies in a different light as adults and they don't have the same kind of connection so they call it crap. I think it's hard to do a backstory or prequel and have it fit with the originals no matter the movie franchise. As someone else mentioned it's like everything was more advanced in 1~3 even though they took place before 4~6.
 
I think it's hard to do a backstory or prequel and have it fit with the originals no matter the movie franchise.

There's a whole industry of talented writers and directors who would have loved to do Star Wars.

I'm hoping Disney will reboot the prequel trilogy. It seems inevitable if the sequel trilogy does well given how much profit a good prequel reboot could generate.
 
There's a whole industry of talented writers and directors who would have loved to do Star Wars.

I'm hoping Disney will reboot the prequel trilogy. It seems inevitable if the sequel trilogy does well given how much profit a good prequel reboot could generate.

What good would rebooting the prequels do when Hayden Christensen and Jar Jar are still in the canonical version of Return of the Jedi? At this point in time, even the originals are tainted with stupidity so it wouldn't solve anything.
 
You enjoyed watching Obi-Wan ride a dinosaur and fight a cartoon robot wielding 4 lightsabers? It's like Lucas felt he needed to top the awfulness of R2 flying around and Yoda/Count Dookie having a lightsaber danceoff in Attack of the Clones.

The only thing I find interesting about the prequels is the progression in special effects. The CGI is terrible in parts of Phantom Menace (particularly the battle at the end) but improve substantially with each movie. The whole trilogy is basically one big tech demo for Industrial Light & Magic.

I have no problem with R2-D2 flying. In fact an Astromech droid being able to fly only makes sense for repairing ships. They'd need to be able to do it in space.
 
I have no problem with R2-D2 flying. In fact an Astromech droid being able to fly only makes sense for repairing ships. They'd need to be able to do it in space.

Sure, but to manuver around in space you just need tiny puffs from thrusters. Putting side-mounted rockets on R2 capable of low-altitude flight was ridiculous.
 
What good would rebooting the prequels do when Hayden Christensen and Jar Jar are still in the canonical version of Return of the Jedi? At this point in time, even the originals are tainted with stupidity so it wouldn't solve anything.

Easy, announce the re-release of the original films on blu-ray at the same time they announce the prequel reboot. That'll purge the Lucas prequel/special edition bullshit all at once.
 
I'm hoping Disney will reboot the prequel trilogy. It seems inevitable if the sequel trilogy does well given how much profit a good prequel reboot could generate.



Just let this story line go! There is so much more to the Star Wars universe than this core group of events. I for one, wish they'd let Bioware do the movies. At least there would be a decent story.
 
I have no problem with R2-D2 flying. In fact an Astromech droid being able to fly only makes sense for repairing ships. They'd need to be able to do it in space.

But if it was a common thing that astromech droids can fly in the Star Wars universe, then why do they have to manually load the astro droids by hand with a droid lift into top of each X-Wing in the first Star Wars film?
 
Just let this story line go! There is so much more to the Star Wars universe than this core group of events.

If the Hulk can get a redo Darth Vader sure as hell deserves one.

I for one, wish they'd let Bioware do the movies. At least there would be a decent story.

That trailer looked just as bad as AotC. Lots of lightsabers and pew pew isn't necessarily a good thing.

I loved Knights of the Old Republic I & II. Never played the MMO. I agree that I would love to see those stories expanded into films. Disney is doing a few stand-alone 'Anthology' films set in the Star Wars universe: origin stories for Boba Fett and Han Solo and the story of how the first Death Star Plans were captured. Maybe someday.
 
I thought III was pretty good and it tied in the story of just what happened to Anakin to make him who he was and became.
Nothing can top the original and I'm still partial to Empire strikes back.

If they used material from the comics like dark empire they still have tons of material left.
 
What good would rebooting the prequels do when Hayden Christensen and Jar Jar are still in the canonical version of Return of the Jedi? At this point in time, even the originals are tainted with stupidity so it wouldn't solve anything.

When is Jar Jar in Return of the Jedi?
 
When is Jar Jar in Return of the Jedi?

I googled it and apparently his voice was added to the 2005 rerelease (During the celebration scenes, "Weesa free!").

Not about to watch it to confirm the change, mind you. The Vader 'Nooo' has already etched itself into my brain and negatively affected that pivotal scene for me. Even when I watch pre-Nooo ROTJ, I still hear it. Curse you, Lucas!
 
But if it was a common thing that astromech droids can fly in the Star Wars universe, then why do they have to manually load the astro droids by hand with a droid lift into top of each X-Wing in the first Star Wars film?

The truth is, the script didn't call for it and even if it had, they couldn't make them fly easily with practical effects. We all know that originally Astromech's couldn't fly which is a bit of an oversight given their in-universe purpose. In later installments, making the swiss army knife of droids fly was not only much easier to do but it made some sense in the universe. I have no idea why people have such an issue with it.

A possible in-universe reason why the X-Wings and Y-Wings would have Astromechs placed into the ship via a crane mechanism might have to do with the fact that Astromech fuel supplies for flight would be limited given that those are chemical rockets. A secondary reason might be that they can be loaded in this manner and provisions exist for it on Rebel bases because not all Astromechs can fly. It may be optional on some models. While not necessarily the case now due to the demise of the EU's status as canon, other Astromech droids aren't necessarily as capable as R2 units are. R3's for example are lower cost options than R2's. The Rebel Alliance couldn't afford to be picky, so any R-series Astromech would do.
 
I googled it and apparently his voice was added to the 2005 rerelease (During the celebration scenes, "Weesa free!").

Not about to watch it to confirm the change, mind you. The Vader 'Nooo' has already etched itself into my brain and negatively affected that pivotal scene for me. Even when I watch pre-Nooo ROTJ, I still hear it. Curse you, Lucas!

So true. That scene was perfect as it was. There was no need to change it, especially not for something that certainly doesn't improve on it.
 
I googled it and apparently his voice was added to the 2005 rerelease (During the celebration scenes, "Weesa free!").

Not about to watch it to confirm the change, mind you. The Vader 'Nooo' has already etched itself into my brain and negatively affected that pivotal scene for me. Even when I watch pre-Nooo ROTJ, I still hear it. Curse you, Lucas!

WRONG, Jar Jar was added to Return of the Jedi in the 2011 Special Edition, not the 2005 Special Edition as you say. You googled it wrong........
 
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