Why all the disdain for George Lucas?

Cafe Society
21

The reason people (at least some of them) are angry is he did demonstrably create something great. However the then sat on his fat ass for thirty years and created something terrible that he didn’t really think about.

Eps 1-3 have terrible, illogical plots. They have terrible, illogical dialogue. They have terrible, unwatchable special effects.

They are horrible films, and the reason people (at least some of them) are angry at Lucas is he was capable at one time of being so much more, but he squandered his talent, surrounded himself with yes-men and took what was the most anticipated sequels in history and produced utter rubbish.

22

But not everyone agrees those movies are terrible. That’s not a fact, it’s an opinion. Yes, they could have been better but that’s true of almost every movie.

Speaking of plots, how about R2D2 ending up with Obi-Wan Kenobi? Wonder what the odds of that were? He just happened to land on Tatooine. And remember how the other droid got picked first and then it quit working so Luke’s uncle picked R2D2 as his 2nd choice?

23

Star Trek fan, I presume?

:smiley:

Anyway, I don’t think all three movies are total garbage. Phantom Menace is definitely pretty weak, but Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith are pretty entertaining (to me). I do agree that the dialogue is stilted at best and the acting is pretty bad (particularly Anakin), but as a fan of the series, I have the ability to see beyond some of that and just enjoy the story and the ride.

24

This is funny if you haven’t seen it. The best Star Wars parody except for Robot Chicken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEcjgJSqSRU

25

I’m way old and not in the demographic, but I LOVED the first three movies back in the day. I thought the newer ones were just appalling - full of special effects, bad actors, and boring dialogue. And childish, to boot. Disgusting. If the newer ones are being shown on TV, I’ll put the TV on that channel as background noise/to jeer at the sight of CGI monsters capering around like untamed horses/to hoot at the bad dialogue (“I don’t like sand…” really?) … If the older ones are being shown on TV, I will actually WATCH them. It’s not just nostalgia! The newer ones are just disappointingly BADLY DONE.)

26

Maybe Qui-Gon is SUPPOSED to be a wise old master, but he doesn’t ACT like a wise old master. He consistently is more reckless than Obi Wan, his apprentice. So describing him as “a wise old master” isn’t accurate.

27

Fair question…

…unless of course you’re just going to reflexively dismiss criticism of the films in an insulting manner. Hopefully your mind isn’t already made up on the matter and you asked the question because you’re actually open to considering the answers.

I see.

If you’re going to appeal to critical authority, you could cast a wider net. “Star Wars” and “The Empire Strikes Back” rate in the 90s on rottentomatoes.com, while “The Phantom Menace” and "Attack of the Clones are in the 60s. Now scores over 60 percent suggest they don’t rank among the worst films ever made, but for a typical movie-goer whose occupation doesn’t require them to see every major film release and quite a few minor ones, they could easily have been among the worst films they saw that year.

I’ve always thought the hatred for the prequels was a bit over the top, but so was the love for the originals. Nevertheless, the first trilogy got quite a bit right that the second batch did not.

Who were you supposed to root for in the prequels? The kid who you knew was going to grow up to be a cold-hearted murderer of billions of innocent people and lick the boots of the most evil being in the galaxy, or the mentors whose foolishness helped create such a monster? Not every film needs obvious heroes and villains, but that was one of the pillars of the original’s success. The original also had a simple, easy-to-follow story. Again, not every story needs to be simple, but complexity and confusion for its own sake just gets in the way in a fantasy about mystic sword-fighters in rocket ships. Do you know anyone who can explain what the Trade Federation was up to or why we should care?

As has already been mentioned, the originals had an engaging trio at their core. The acting in “Star Wars” is often disparaged, as is that in the original “Star Trek” TV series, but in both cases the principal actors brought an energy and liveliness to the central roles without which the result would have been much less fun. I’ve never read any of the spin-off media, but based on the first three films, Luke and Han should have produced a brood of holy terrors. Amidala and Annie should have had the blandest twins in the galaxy.

Undoubtedly there’s some truth to that and it may account for some of the vehemence of the response, but it doesn’t in itself explain the negative reaction. Fans of the original “Star Trek” series were, I think, kinder to “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” then were general audiences. By-and-large they loved the movie “Star Trek II” and even embraced “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” all of which followed the original by many years.

Fans of “The Lord of the Rings” novel created extensive multimedia Web sites dedicated to the films while they were still in preproduction. Although there are some vocal haters who make their presence known on the Internet, every book fan I know IRL is also a fan of the movies, even if they don’t agree with every choice the filmmakers made.

28

How could I forget the enormous U.K. success of the revival of “Doctor Who,” which is hugely different from the original series but manages to appeal to much of the original fanbase, some of whom were fans when they were children and are know grandparents of fans.

29

Well R2 and C3PO were in orbit of Tatooine so I don’t understand how you can have a problem with them landing on it. I assume they also set the escape pod to at least land in the same hemisphere.

I don’t have a problem with unlikely things that drive the plot, like R2 being chosen second. I do have a problem with utterly moronic things that don’t drive the plot, like:

Metachlorians.

Not being able to trade their Republic credits for a spare part on a planet full of people with star ships. Any trader would take Republic credits because he could just fly to where they are spendable.

A moronic race scene where essentially a child built formula one car can beat a champion’s vehicle that has over a minute’s head start on him. The idea that his racecar can even compete is moronic, but that it’s so fast he can win after not starting until a minute after the race began is just silly.

A gibbering Rastafarian frog.

A planet where you can take a submarine through the core.

Younglings.

The protagonist… is six and can’t act.

A 16 year old queen that is elected and seriously expected to make policy decisions.

A bizarre fake-queen security guard for no good reason.

A six year old moppet flies a star-fighter through a shield that is up and nukes their hangar bay from the inside. Gee, good thing no one else thought of that.

The vote of no confidence.

Anakin’s mom was raped by the force. And somehow the force transmitted some working Y chromosomes to her.

Flying Gonzo. Just everything about him.

I haven’t seen the movie since I saw it once in the theater. It’s crap and if you think it’s great, you are easily wowed. :smiley:

30

I’m a tremendous fan of the original trilogy.

I would say it’s the stupid things that bug me. Like attempting to kill Amidala with an evil caterpillar when you already had to burn through her window with a laser… just shoot her with the damn laser!

And Obi Wan knowing a fry cook who’s a specialist archaeologist and can tell from a dart used what system it came from. Never mind that the inhabitants of said system use force field doors and have super-advanced technology… why the fuck do they even use darts?

Ah, I don’t have the energy this morning…

:smiley:

31

The original trilogy are good movies. They’re not artsy cinema, but they have strong characters that we can relate to and sympathize with, and clear storylines that build toward viscerally satisfying conclusions.

In contrast, the prequels, particularly Phantom Menace, fail as movies in very, very basic ways. The characters are weak, with unclear or conflicting motivations. The plots are confusing, with huge holes, and complications that serve no purpose. The action just lurches along from expensive set-piece to set-piece without ever forming a larger arc of consequence or character development. As a result, their climaxes are noisy but hollow. A bunch of flashy images flicker on the screen, but because we’re not emotionally invested in the struggle of the protagonist (the way we are when Luke makes his final run on the Death Star) all of it is for nothing.

This is why people have so much disdain for George Lucas. A few fanboys may disagree with Peter Jackson’s interpretation of Tolkien, but he was at least able to pull off the simple task of creating sympathetic characters with clear motivations who worked toward a satisfying conclusion. The Star Wars prequels, in contrast, are broken on the Film-making 101 level. Regardless of his “vision” for the universe of Star Wars, Lucas wasn’t even able to tell a coherent story.

And he failed so badly in the prequels that it taints the original. The good movies of the original trilogy pick up a little of the stink. Darth Vader in A New Hope is lessened by the existence of Anakin in the Phantom Menace. And the fact that Lucas has shown himself to be so utterly clueless about the fundamentals of storytelling calls into question how much he was responsible for the original movies. Were they just a fluke? Or the result of the cast and crew working against Lucas? Were the original movies good in spite of him, and not because of him?

32

One example that I think demonstrates this perfectly was mentioned in the “Vader is a chump” thread.

The prequels have this prophecy running throughout that Anakin is the one supposed to bring balance to the Force. At the end of Revenge of the Sith, the only Force users left alive are Palpatine (Dark master), Vader (Dark apprentice), Yoda (Light master), and Obi-Wan (Light apprentice). Two sides of the Force, two people on each side. Anakin did truly bring balance to the Force, except it was not at all in the way the Jedi assumed, which is that the Dark Side would be obliterated entirely. It was that naivete and arrogance that caused their downfall.

This is actually a really good plot element. Not original by any means, but it highlights a sophistication in the story and is consistent with occasional hints that the Dark Side isn’t necessarily evil in itself, it’s simply the chaotic, emotional side of the Force, whereas the Light is the orderly, emotionless side. This is a concept that has significant play in modern fiction (just to name two examples, Babylon 5 and Magic: the Gathering, in which White is not necessarily good and Black is not necessarily bad). By itself, it didn’t make the prequels, but I did give Lucas a good bit of credit for it.

…And then Lucas states outright that “bringing balance to the Force” refers to Vader killing the Emperor in Return of the Jedi and destroying the vessels of the Dark Side for good. In one fell swoop, Lucas completely destroyed any sophistication in his story and reduced it to a simplistic “Light = good, Dark = bad” equation. It removes that extra dimensionality the story badly needed and turned it from something potentially interesting into a story you might expect a child to write.

Now, sure, the comment from Lucas isn’t contained in the movies themselves, so I can ignore it and look at the story as the movies present it, but it’s pretty strong evidence that Lucas doesn’t understand his own story and makes poor and confusing decisions. If “bringing balance to the Force” entailed killing Palpatine, why end Revenge of the Sith with exactly two Sith and two Jedi? Why point everything at the balance between Light and Dark if that isn’t actually the idea you were driving at?

Lucas is simply an ineffectual storyteller who got as far as he did through sheer luck. And I really don’t want to hear about how Star Wars has always been for children and so doesn’t need more than a simplistic plot. The best children’s movies are well-rounded and appeal to adults as well as children. Look at anything from Pixar. Science fiction/space opera also need not be childish and silly; Babylon 5 was an exceptional space opera story. Many authors who’ve participated in the Star Wars Expanded Universe have done a wonderful job of creating engaging and interesting Star Wars stories.

Lucas is entitled to whatever story he wants to create. But I don’t think it’s unfair to point out the ways in which it could be better, and it’s frustrating when the improvements could be so trivial.

33

Star Wars: Corny dialogue, but great F/X and a good story. An enjoyable film that changed Science Fiction movies.

The Empire Strikes Back: Darker, more intense story. Better than the first one, I thought. Unintentionally funny moment: Yoda moving up and down on Luke’s back going, ‘Mmm… M…’

[del]Revenge[/del] Return Of The Jedi: Princes Leia in a slave costume. Rowrrr! The story was good, for the most part – until Endor. My god, I hated the teddy bears! Completely ludicrous. And the big kumbaya at the end was a bit over the top.

Lucas copied other works, and admitted as much. He should have cribbed from some of the classics, though. I thought, ‘There is another hope. Oh, and Luke? Vader is your father.’ was trite. Cliff’s Notes of Cliff’s Notes of Oedipus Rex, only without the mother. But there’s still room for a bit of Greek Tragedy. In Star Wars, Luke was in love with Leia. There was that tension between the Virtuous Farm Boy and the Lovable Rogue as they vied for her affections. The story would have much more interesting if Luke had won Leia. Leia becomes pregnant, and then they find out they’re siblings. Ouch! They must part. Leia goes to some backwater planet and has the child. The child is the New Hope. That would have made for a much more interesting story. And no need to have the fake ‘Luke, I am your father!’ bit.

Still, even with the kid-friendly story, the series could have been better. The whole point of using special effects is to make the unreal as realistic as possible. Throwing in a bunch of Muppets just doesn’t do the job. In the prequels, Lucas forgot his original audience. He made what amounted to Saturday Morning kids’ shows reminiscent of Sid & Marty Krofft. Then there were the afore-mentioned issues with the Evil Chinese, the Wacky Jamaicans, the Avaricious Jew, and the Annoying Kid. Oh, and the Mexican Wrestler.

Lucas did a great job on American Graffiti. He made a genre-changing film with Star Wars. His story for The Empire Strikes Back and having someone else direct it made for the best film of the series. But then he became the Naked Emperor. He ran unchecked, and through inability, avarice, or something else, turned a Science Fiction Fantasy Epic into a kid’s show.

34

Bosstone: I agree with your post.

35

My theoy that explains this in part is that simply the first 3 (ep 4-6) simply weren’t that good. However, in the late 70s, we expected less of our movies. The art of the blockbuster has been developed down to a science - they are still often bad, but we’ve developed different expectations now for a blockbuster than we had then. Star Wars was one of the first huge movies of its type - it was something totally different being told to a less sophisticated audience, and so it seemed so much better in the context of the time than it actually is.

Another factor is that most people who were really into the star wars movies were kids at the time, and their tastes were less discerning. And it inspired a whole lot of nostalgia, so that even now with more developed taste and higher expectations from new films, nostalgia convinces them that the original movies were great.

Well… they weren’t. They are painfully cheesy, the plot is basic and boring, the effects may have been good for the time but they aren’t anything special today. If you were to view the movies as a blank slate adult today who never saw star wars and didn’t know the importance in our popular culture, you would probably think it was painfully cheesy and boring.

So you zoom 30 years into the future, and the audience is a lot more savvy and expects more and is older, and you release something that’s roughly on the same level. Maybe it’s worse, but not by huge amounts. But now the sophisticated audience with higher expectations because of the nature of movies over the last 30 years, and higher expectations due to their own nostalgia giving them an inaccurate sense of how good the first movies were, and you’re set up for massive dissapointment.

Now I’m willing to concede that the original movies may be better than the original trilogy. But not by that much. Not nearly enough to justify the "omg star wars was so great, you ruined my childhood reaction.

36

I’d agree that calling Lucas a “moron” or claiming he ruined one’s childhood memories is… well, the former’s stupid and the latter is plainly insane.

But the prequels are awful movies. (To be honest, Return of the Jedi is pretty bad, too.) I don’t have to think Lucas is an imbecile, or pretend I can make better movies, or pretend he “ruined me childhood memories” to point out that those movies are really, really bad.

Lucas made a couple of terrific, groundbreaking films in “Star Wars” and “The Empire Strikes Back” and then made four bad ones. In the movie industry two out of six actually isn’t all that bad. He’s not a moron. But those movies are legitimately shitty. WHY they’re shitty has been clearly stated - terrible direction, terrible stories. Why that happened we can theorize all day, but the fact remains the movies blow.

Two obvious examples to prove this excellent point:

  1. “Knights of the Old Republic.” Just play the game to get a grownup, nuanced story about the light/dark bit, and

  2. “Battlestar Galactica,” a space opera that is most certainly not childish or simplistic in its presentation of a hell of a story.

37

60+% or more people liked these movies? Strange, this is. How did that happen? Clearly none of those 60+% post here. (FYI the rating is 75% for episode 3)

Maybe all 60+% who voted were Sith lords? Or maybe they had no midi-chlorians?

38

Mrs. Cad told me that she believe that in eps 1-3, Lucas made the movies he wanted to. That’s the problem since if you ever read “The Secret Life of Star Wars”, Lucas never had a clear idea of what story he wanted to write. As one example, in Star Wars Obi-Wan’s description of Luke’s father was accurate and he really was killed by Darth (a name not a title) Vader. In the current Clone Wars, Anikin has a Padawan but in ep 3 (afer the Clone Wars) it is a major plot point that he is not a Jedi Master (i.e. never had a padawan). When you have probably the most rabid canon-watchers to appease (even more rabid than Star Trek), you can’t make these constant tweaks as you change you mind.

Second, I blame Lucas for the bad acting - except for Jake Lloyd. Having seen Jingle all the Way (IIRC), the kid cannot act at all so how did he get the role over, Haley Joel Osment, or any other child actor or even a melting ice cube. OK, I do blame Lucas for that because he should have kicked him off the set in the first 10 minutes. We know Natalie Portman can act (The Professional) and many claim Hayden Christiansen can. We also got Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson and Ewan McGregor. The only character that was NOT a one-dimensional borefest was Obi-Wan and I that was because he ignored Lucas direction and based his charactersation on Alec Guinness’ portrayal.

Third, growing up on Star Wars I thought the Clone Wars would be a facinating movie. Instead it was . . . well it wasn’t in there. The Force was a facinating metaphysical unknown . . . but now it’s bugs that live in our cells. The first 3 episode just come across as a fan wank written by a 12 year old.

39

I’ll wager that 60-75% percent of people don’t think hard about sci-fi and don’t specifically expect their films to not have gaping retarded plot holes.

Now if you like gaping retarded plot holes, then by all means the prequels are for you.

40

I actually really like Revenge of the Sith…on DVD. That way I can skip all the dialogue scenes. The action is fantastic.