Seems Lucas didn't only screw up the prequels...

Cafe Society
21

My main problem with VI was the Ewoks, a blatant merchandising ploy and irredeemable plot failure. Killing off Han would not have fixed that. I wouldn’t have minded seeing Luke die near the end, in an echo of Obi-Wan’s sacrifice, especially if that helped turn Vader.

A certain amount of Lucas-hating is justified. Yes, he created an amazing thing, but he also ruined it, seemingly on purpose, or perhaps to make a buck. I would feel the same way if Tolkien had written a follow-up where the elves made toys for Santa, or if Homer Simpson had gotten sober and became a model dad around season 9, or if the final episode of Seinfeld had…never mind.

22

Sign me up in the camp that states: Meh.

George Lucas doesn’t give a damn what you think, he’s mopping the sweat off his chins with $100,000 bills.

This sense of entitlement of certain consumers is well outlined here:

The point being: Define success any way you want, state he’s ‘raped your childhood memories and defiled the good name of the original series in the name of consumerism’.

Great, so what? Move on.

The man is responsible for:

  1. kickstarting popular sci-fi
  2. movie tie-in sales
  3. re-popularizing the multi-part serial
  4. Lucasarts game studios
  5. Industrial Light and Magic
  6. a pretty good Multi-season cartoon

JUST looking at ticket sales, the StarWars franchise has sold 4.2 billion in sales.

Somehow, I think he can gird is loins and muddle through people not being happy with the way he’s treated his property, a MUCH LARGER population has voted with it’s pocketbook.

23

You mean he isn’t already?

If you search on a certain well-known video sharing site, you’ll find cut scenes that introduced Luke’s buddy Biggs - you know, the guy we meet about thirty seconds before he gets vaporized by a Tie fighter? Now dropping those was a mistake. It makes Biggs’ death actually mean something, and it makes Luke look a bit better - like a worried and conflicted young man rather than just a whiney teenaged brat.

24

After further google-fu, looks like the franchise is easily worth $20 billion, with Lucas having about $3.5 billion in his VERY THICK WALLET.

25

Hyperbole becomes thee.

Nein.

If one wasn’t brought up on the films in question and they didn’t [invariably] influence you in your formative years, or you simply do not care (or align yourself with the Trekkie Side!), it’s understandable that you would think this kind of seeming infantile ire directed at the movie-maker in question confounding.

I agree that the likes of The Matrix and LotR are hard acts to follow. But, without knowing the exact production/filming schedule, I think the SW prequels were all but complete before the aforementioned films hit. Moreover, the movies all surfaced within a half-decade period so this idea of ‘satiation’ doesn’t hold water.

The ‘CG OD’ excuse is far too convenient a dismissal to explain away the garbage that Lucas barfed up at the turn of the century. When you delve deeper into the workings of all these Star Wars movies and how they came about, you soon start to see a pattern of Lucas buffoonery regarding thus. For example, something as fundamental as the character designs were largely nothing like what Han and Luke eventually turned out as. Lucas envisaged some ridiculous alien generica as the the these two protagonists that were barely even humanoid!

And how many Big Macs have McDonalds sold? Does this make them healthy?

Quenched. Just watch the links.

Of which he’s giving away 1.5 reportedly. How largess of him… :rolleyes:

26

When do you think I grew up?

27

It doesn’t make it good, bad healthy, unhealthy, or largess…it just is.

And he’s done more to influence people than I’ll ever be able to do. Whether you chalk it up as a positive or negative is up to you.

ETA: I’m not certain largess is the word you’re looking for. :dubious:

28

Pot? Meet kettle.

“I can’t really can’t be bothered with researching details, but I’ll still feel free to speculate on something which I’ve got the facts completely wrong about.”

29

Should I start at 1 and work my way up? :rolleyes:

What does that even mean?! Are you taking the piss, Old Father Time? :confused:

Given the prequels are the only thing he reasonably had full creative control over, are you sure your plaudits aren’t misdirected? :dubious:

30

You seemed to be under the impression that I wasn’t ‘brought up’ on the films.

31

The main characters of the original movie are much more archetypal than most of those that followed. The look and presentation of Star Wars may have seemed like nothing before it, but a large part of its success is how traditional–how very old–the underlying form of the story is. Lucas had read Joseph Campbell in college and “rediscovered” the Hero’s Journey while working on the first script in 1975.

32

Just out yourself as the poorly dissembled Trekkie you are already and I will promptly disabuse you of the misconception that I’m some Star Wars nerd that knows or is inclined to know every minutiae of detail associated with said films. Okies? :wink:

NB: Using one’s noggin will arrive at the logical conclusion regarding the chronology of the respective film releases cited. No real need for it to be transcribed in the appendices of King James edition.

** gestures for conciliatory hug* * :slight_smile:

Merely existing at the time the movies were/are circulating doesn’t necessarily imply a liking or even appreciation of the subject matter in question.

33

Given the vinegar of your rebuttal, you seem to be missing the point that I’m not arguing with you. I’m stating the guy has had a larger impact on more people than anyone in this thread that’s bitching about his raping their childhood.

If you look at the bottom line: Whether you like what he’s done or not, you can’t debate that he’s done a lot with it.

And my 7 year old kids really dug their McDonald’s Happy Meal with Lego Star Wars droids collectibles in them.

Condemn society if you’d like, it doesn’t change what is.

34

What makes you think I ‘merely existed’ at the same time?

35

Gotcha. You can’t get some easy facts straight (like you know–the year a movie was released), and your defense is ad hominem attacks. Good to know who we’re dealing with here.

36

Which Star Treks are you talking about?

If you’re talking about the series-within-a-series of II, III, & IV, I agree. But TMP is ponderous, VI is incredibly stupid, and VI deeply flawed (for all its ambition). And I write that as someone who adores TREK but is so-so on SW.

37

Yet all three prequel films got “fresh” ratings from reviewers, as per “Rotten Tomatoes.” (62% for Ep I, 66 % for Ep 2, 80% for Ep 3)

They’re only crappy to those who feel it doesn’t live up to or fit in with the orginials. Taken on their own, they’re at least passable.

38

The best ending: The rebels discover that Ewok blood corrodes critical components of the Empire’s hardware, and so to defeat the empire they have to round up all the Ewoks and fire them at the Empire ships.

Finally, they’re down to the last Ewok. They load the screaming Ewok in a firing tube, and Luke says, “Han, do you think we’ll manage it? There’s only one shot left.” Han says, “Who cares? We managed to kill all those freaking annoying Ewoks, didn’t we? I made up the crap about Ewok blood anyway.”

They fire the Ewok, watch him splat, and sail away to become pirates. Audience cheers. Roll credits.

39

I think there’s a minor problems with RotJ, but I don’t think that killing off Han would have helped. I imagine that could have found a way to make it heroic and memorable, but it wouldn’t have helped fix the biggest problem, which was the Ewoks.

I’d read somewhere that it was originally going to take place around the Wookie planet, but George Lucas opted for the Ewoks for merchandising. I’m not sure if it’s true, or just someone wishing it was true, but I think it would have helped a lot. I kind of get the added point of the small, cute, technologically inferior Ewoks beating the Empire seems like some kind of victory for the little guy, but all it really does is make the Empire and the Rebels look incompetent. I think if they’d faced off against a race much more on their terms, perhaps the Wookies (or some other race) were enslaved, or just hadn’t quite built up the will to fight back until the Rebels arrive.

And since it was brought up, I don’t think the prequels are as bad as most others think either. I think there’s a lot of nostalgia involved in comparing them to the originals and I do think that the fact that the originals were lightyears ahead of anything of the time, which combined with 20 years of fond memories, nothing could have done as well. Sure, Matrix and LotR came out about the same time, and while they were cultural phenomena, they didn’t revolutionize the industry the way the originals did. Moreso, imagine if the Matrix sequels hadn’t come out when they did, but came out now or even 5-10 years from now. They’d be hated even more.

I do feel that there was some very poor dialogue, poor acting, and poor directing, but I think the general story actually works pretty well. Other than that, I think most of the mistakes were made in Episode 1, and they just never fully recovered from (eg, midichlorians, Jar Jar, the kid playing Anakin was just awful, etc); although, I do think the complete lack of chemistry between Anakin and Padme did put a damper on it all too. I think a little bit of a rewrite of the first movie, some more work on the dialogue, and making the romance more believable probably would have made enough of a difference.

40

For what it’s worth, Miller, I read this comment as referring to Lucas’ infantilization of the story arc in every movie since The Empire Strikes Back - i.e., the teddy bear jamboree and Jar Jar Binks.