… is satisfied with everything he’s done with his Star Wars’ films, why can’t they be left alone?
Forgetting for a moment that it’s a whole different genre, effects, etc., would it be fair to say that SW is Lucas’ own Citizen Kane? If so, why keep futzing with it? If not, what else does it need?
I’m woefully uneducated in the field of movie making, so I’ll willingly bow to your wisdom in asking ‘Isn’t it time to move along to something else, Mr. Lucas?’"
Thanks
Quasi
Has he said he is satisfied with everything he’s done?
Technology is gonna keep improving he can always do something “better”
To me the problem is that the original trilogy established an entire “reality” that felt amazingly authentic and real, limits in technology only assisted this.
Now comes CGI and the CGI additions clash with what came before, they stick out like sore thumbs and make the film feel less real, this makes me really angry because watching the original version of ANH for instance I could imagine living in Mos Eisley 
Wow
But with the CGI additions that magic is broken, now there are giant lizards roaming around and goofy pratfalls among Jawas and Storm Troopers. Where before the reality created was wonderous and very practical looking, the CGI additions are laughable take those giant lizards how could they be ridden and domesticated? Where the fact are they stabled? What do they eat?!?!?! The Banthas were small enough that they made sense.
I tend to take the Plinkett view of George Lucas.
I disagree. I take the Franklin-Peale view.
Joe
If people keep buying the new versions, he will continue making them.
People keep buying them for the same reason people get married a second and third time: the triumph of hope over experience.
I think that every morning, he goes out to get a cup of coffee at the local Starbucks, and he sees people buying stuff. This gets him thinking: “Hey, there’s still money out there that I don’t have yet.”
Then he goes out and tweaks SW again and puts it in stores, so he can get the rest of the money.
I’ve always wondered why he didn’t just to ahead and CGI the Rancor.
I think it’s because he has always been dissatisfied with the limitations that were placed on him by the technology. He couldn’t do Jabba’s pleasure palace, so he did a Glen Miller Disco. He couldn’t do a planet full of wookies, so he used ewoks. He’s remaking them because now he has the technology to make it look kind of like what he had in mind all along.
A side note: An article I read about this point placed a bet that, in some future version of the original trilogy, we’ll see R2-D2 flying up or down one of those flights of stairs that they never explained how he got up or down in the original version; they cut with him at the top of the stairs, then started filming again with him at the bottom and left it at that.
Yeah, and obviously the technology wasn’t available in the '70s to show Greedo shooting first, so he had to make do with showing Han as a badass.
To a large extent they keep buying them because the media on which the movies exist changes. If I wanted to watch my authentic copipes of the mostly-original “Star Wars,” “Empire” and “Return of the Jedi,” I’d have to find a VHS player.
Then came DVDs.
Now Blu-Ray.
Next, I imagine, is no physical media at all.
But if you want the latest thing on your system you HAVE to buy Lucas’s latest fucked-around-with-it version. You cannot buy “Star Wars” for Blu-Ray. You have to buy “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope,” which is itself now on, I believe, Version 2.
That makes it easier to keep the records consistent on the fact the Eurasia always shot Eastasia first.
It’s because the time when someone would say “shut the fuck up George, that’s a stupid idea” are long gone.
I just have this conversation in my mind as an amusing possibility
“Man, someone needs to tell George this idea is stupid.”
“Yeah, but I got a family to feed, so it ain’t gonna be me.”
“You know, this is a pretty complex effect he’s asking us to do…”
“Hey, let’s just tell him it’s a neat idea, but the technology just isn’t there yet.”
I am not at all a Star Wars fan (although for some reason I feel compelled to read threads about George Lucas!) so maybe there’s something obvious that I’m missing, but I’ve never understood why Lucas didn’t just leave the three original movies alone and do a remake with current special effects.
Probably because Carrie Fisher now looks more like Uncle Owen than Princess Leia.
Maybe if they got J.J. Abrams to do it, like the Star Trek restart…
To my mind, Plinkett is not incompatible with Franklin-Peale. Franklin-Peale explains the compulsion – Plinkett explains why it sucks so hard.
Me too. Art through adversity produced a quality first movie. People who knew what they were doing made the sequels.
Then Lucas came in with a bunch of money and produced lazy, poorly written prequels.