George Lucas Blames 'Star Wars' Critics for Killing Series

[Bren]

Apparently George is a lot more sensitive than some of us thought.
Why would I make any more when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?

[Caliginous]

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/star-wars-lucas-quits-blockbusters-over-allblack-movie-snub-20120119-1q7js.html

He says he's giving up blockbusters, thank Jebus.

Shame he didn't make that decision about 15 years ago, before unleashing the three worst films in human history.

[Bigkrieg]

haha amen!

[jmanski]

I can't blame him, really. It seems like whatever he does is chastised by his loudest detractors. He goes and makes 3 of the greatest movies of all time, and then 3 movies that don't meet the fan's expectations, and that, for some reason, makes him a villain.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Grimace]

I don't think the prequels were quite the only thing that made him a villian. Perhaps constantly tweaking his original 3 movies in the saga also had a contribution to the villian status.

"I wanted to make it more like my original vision."

Oh, so it was completely out of Lucas' power to have Greedo shoot at Han the FIRST time it was filmed, so it had to be added in later.

And it was also COMPLETELY out of Lucas' power to have Darth Vader yell "NOOO!" right before he threw the Emperor into the shaft.

Of course it was completely out of his power to do those things in his original vision, so it only made sense for him to go back and change his originals with those additions (and others).

Some of the changes were tolerable. Some made it look better. Some were pathetic and completely unecessary. I'd rather have NONE of the changes than have a couple of good changes mixed in with some of the most asinine changes in filming history.

Sure the prequels didn't stack up to what I had hoped they'd be. He disappointed me. I didn't necessarily declare him a villian for that. When he starts changing the original movies and ONLY making those available with the THX sound and cleaned up image quality...THAT is what classifies him as a villian in my book. A greedy, money grubbing villian that has absolutely NO interest in retaining ANY of the fans that carried on the Star Wars enthusiasm for years when he wasn't doing anything and that continued to feed his pocketbook.

Now the BluRays have more changes, you STILL can't get the original movies as they were back when they were released, but with THX sound quality cleaned up image quality.

[Caliginous]

in his book "Money Into Light", British director John Boorman says that when an artist unleashes his or her work unto the public, they are giving up their ownership of it and ownership is passing onto a greater collective. That means that when I read a book I love, or see I film I love, I have a sense of ownership of it because it resonates so strongly with me, and has a special personal meaning to me. That is how I, and many of you I am guessing, would see the relationship to the original SW trilogy. But Lucas simply doesn't get that.

If he wants to muck around with his films, fine, he has the privileged to do that, but the original films that I feel I own, that I grew up with, that I love - well, those aren't any good apparently, and *this* over here, this is muuuch better. And no-one should see those originals anymore, because, don't you see, their no good, and this one, version 26, is actually the best one. Maybe.

The prequels are a whole other beast, debated about as much as one thing can be debated, but from my own personal standpoint there is anot a single element of any of those three films that I like. I loathe absolutely every single second of screen time. Lucas for some reason became incapable of having two actors have a conversation. That was just far too difficult. You only have to listen to Irvin Kershner's audio commentary on the 2004 DVD release to realize why Empire was such a masterpiece, and that's because Kershner understood actors, he understood dialogue, he understood how to bring elements of humanity, humour, tragedy into this big ridiculous circus....

[Azai]

Didn't someone link here George Lucas making the greatest defense against himself messing with original movies?

Talking about coloring old classics, and how that even though the copywrite is held by the artists and studios, the public values them highly enough they shouldn't be changed? If not I'll try to find it.

Then again, wasn't a lot of the star wars magic due to him not directing? The studio challenging his ideas and forcing him to adapt? And having a good group of actors with physical objects and not green screens?

[Fallon Kell]

[Wisconsin Wookie]

[jmanski]

I always heard Malcolm McDowell's voice in my head for Thrawn when reading.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Bren]

[Grimace]

No, no, Bren. Remember, GL has quit doing any more Star Wars because of the fans! (except for the clone wars cartoon and the upcoming live action TV show, because, ya know....he still needs lots of money)

[cheshire]

From what I understand he said these things while on a Comedy Central program. Has anyone seen the interview to get the context? He hasn't been entirely unknown to utilize his seldom-seen sense of humor. I've seen some footage of him throwing someone out of his office for saying Mara Jade was the best Star Wars character ever, totally tongue-in-cheek.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Azai]

George was suppose to do an interview with Oprah tonight and talk about star wars.

I think the own website might have it. I'll take a look (If not my step-mom records most of those shows at my father's house, can catch it there)

EDIT: Yep, here most of it (I believe)
http://www.oprah.com/own-oprahs-next-chapter/George-Lucas-on-Directing-Star-Wars-Video

[Grimace]

Somehow I don't think this is tongue-in-cheek. I read another article about this on the NYT website.