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A revised opinion of George Lucas

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Over the weekend my opinion of Mr lucas changed, and this is why - In 1999 I painted a portrait of a friend of mine playing his guitar. The painting is one of the best I have ever done, but was painted in a limited time period of 20 hours (five 4-hour sittings) and as a result of this restriction there were some bits I wasn't happy with. One of the things that really bugged me was that the perspective on one of the sitter's shoulders was wrong. This weekend, more than 6 years after the painting was originally completed, I started to put together an updated portfolio (I am an Ilustrator by trade) and I wanted to include what I considered to be one of my best pieces, but I didn't want to include the faults, so I took a high res photograph of the portrait, loaded it into photoshop and got to work rescaling the messed up perspective, painting out and touching up other area that bothered me, and after 5 hours of digital tinkering I had an image that I was really really pleased with. I must point out that I didn't use any photoshop filters or gadgets, I simply resized some areas to get the proportions right and used the paintbrush tools to touch it up a bit, but my point is this - yes, George Lucas should release the O-OT (The arguments for why he should do this have been made elsewhere and I don't need to repeat them), but I for one can fully understand being an artist who, unhappy with the work, decides to fix it with the help of technology that was not around or unavailable to him/her at the time the original art was created. My painting now lives up to my original vision and I consider it the definitive piece, the one that I will show people, the one that will be in my portfolio. I will not destroy the original, but I will no longer display it as I see it as inferior. You can resent Lucas' stubborness over releasing the O-OT (I do), but I will no longer call him mad, crazy, out of touch, LucASS, or any of that other crap. I also think that based on the various interviews / biographies, etc that I have seen, he seems like a very nice guy who's just doing his thing. Unfortunately his thing pisses off a lot of people, but from now on I will be giving him a break, and maybe some of you will too.

War does not make one great.

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I would agree with you if George Lucas would be in a similar situation than the one you just described. Yet, as a matter of fact he owes his success to these 'imperfect' versions and he never seemed to care wether fans were happy with what they had. To take it one step further, it's not just a matter of disrespect towards the fans who'se devotion to StarWars helped him to get the possibility to do what he's able to do today, it's also a matter of disrespect towards all the participants in the StarWars project, which was a collaborative effort. George Lucas seems to think that he's a master at everything film, if he could he would eliminate all participants it takes to realize a film project. His ideal is some kind of holo-deck or magic wand as a tool to bring his vision to life without any other people "getting it wrong" and thus interfering with his ideas. The problem with this attitude is, that if it's so much about himself and not the dreams and whishes of others, that he should have kept all this stuff for himself. He may be happy about his situation, but he has forgotten that he's not the only person to be credited for his immense success.

Another thing I would like to point out is, that you had a very clear vision of how it should have been. That is not the case with George Lucas, imho. You just did what every OOT fan would probably have loved - took out the matte lines and some technical 'bugs'. You didn't think: "Hey, I think I'll put a rocket launcher in his hand instead of a guitar." He will never make up his mind how it actually should look and sound today or how some plot-nuances should be "updated". He can't even admit that the current DVD release of the classic trilogy is nothing more than a sloppy rush job, because the most important thing to him nowadays is the plot updates - not the film and sound quality. Slowly but surely he's dismantling all the quality standards in cinema and home video he pushed for all those years. Since the german DVD releases of Indiana Jones (german sound is merely stereo) and the classic StarWars trilogy (ruined ANH sound, inconsistent picture color and broken lightsabers throughout all three movies), THX has turned from a quality seal into a warning sign for me.

Nowadays it's just more about him and toy sale figures and less about a so called "definitive vision" or to retain certain quality standards.
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All good points and well put (without resorting to calling him a crazy sad recluse who needs to get laid). However, if in the future I decide that I really want to replace the guitar with a rocket launcher (LOL) why shouldn't I make that change?

War does not make one great.

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My point isn't about George Lucas making these changes and replacing the older versions of his films with the most current version of "his vision (tm)" - it's about his cultural responsibility in front of the fans who grew fond of his 'inferior' work. In my book I agree with his claim that an artist should always have the right to go back and do a director's cut and finish the film as to how it was originally intended, but I strongly disagree with him playing 'god of culture' and dictating what generations after us will be able to see.

You're not in a similar position - the only person who might effectively be bothered (or amused) about you replacing that guitar with a rocket launcher, is your friend who is on the drawing. Alas, the amount of responsibility that rests on your shoulders is not comparable to that of George Lucas.

I also want to point out that I still do respect George Lucas, I just can't respect some of his actions as an artist and multi-media empire owner. Thus, I don't feel that bad to openly voice my criticism about these actions and making a little bit of fun of him from time to time - he can't expect his actions to be entirely without consequences.
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Originally posted by: Yoda Is Your Father
All good points and well put (without resorting to calling him a crazy sad recluse who needs to get laid). However, if in the future I decide that I really want to replace the guitar with a rocket launcher (LOL) why shouldn't I make that change?


I think that the difference here is that (I'm assuming) your the only one that worked on the portrait. If a person hires twenty people to work on a painting and, then (after the person who hired the people showed the picture in a lot of art galleries and, they say it's great) decides to change the guitar and, deny it's existance. Then, that's a different matter entirely. I think that George released the special editions becuase, he needed to get over his divorce. In one of the documentaries(I think it's in the Episode I disc) he said "it's like a marriage". Since his ex got millions(I think it was 24 million I'm not sure) basically making him have to build up his money again. He probably has a totally different view on marriage's now, then when he created Star Wars.


http://twister111.tumblr.com
Previous Signature preservation link

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Sifo-Dyas... what book of yours? Something you're working on now or something commercially available?
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Originally posted by: Master Sifo-Dyas
... it's not just a matter of disrespect towards the fans who'se devotion to StarWars helped him to get the possibility to do what he's able to do today, it's also a matter of disrespect towards all the participants in the StarWars project, which was a collaborative effort. George Lucas seems to think that he's a master at everything film......he has forgotten that he's not the only person to be credited for his immense success.....Nowadays it's just more about him and toy sale figures


+1
Forum Moderator
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Originally posted by: greencapt
Sifo-Dyas... what book of yours?
Pick up a good english dictionary and you just might solve this mystery.
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Originally posted by: Master Sifo-Dyas
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Originally posted by: greencapt
Sifo-Dyas... what book of yours?
Pick up a good english dictionary and you just might solve this mystery.


er... WHICH book of yours. Is that how you want me to phrase the question?

Or perhaps: "The book of which you spoke" "The book you mentioned in your post" etc, etc, etc.

I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!
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book n.
...
6.
a) A set of prescribed standards or rules on which decisions are based: runs the company by the book.
b) Something regarded as a source of knowledge or understanding.
c) The total amount of experience, knowledge, understanding, and skill that can be used in solving a problem or performing a task: We
used every trick in the book to finish the project on schedule.
d)Informal. Factual information, especially of a private nature: What's the book on him?


Idioms:
in (one's) book
In one's opinion: In my book they both are wrong.

(above from dictionary.com)
Why Anakin really turned to the dark side:
"Anakin, You're father I am" - Yoda
"No. No. That's not true! That's impossible!" - Anakin

0100111001101001011011100110101001100001

*touchy people disclaimer*
some or all of the above comments are partially exaggerated to convey a point, none of the comments are meant as personal attacks on anyone mentioned or reference in the above post
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Originally posted by: greencapt
I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!

"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise....
Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency....
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency..."


Forum Moderator
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Ahhh... I see. I am now quilty of hijacking a thread for a contextual misunderstanding. My fault for ascribing delusions of authorship of a text when instead the authorship was merely of an opinion.

My bad... sorry. Now back to what YIYF was talking about.
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Originally posted by: Yoda Is Your Father
Over the weekend my opinion of Mr lucas changed, and this is why - In 1999 I painted a portrait of a friend of mine playing his guitar. The painting is one of the best I have ever done, but was painted in a limited time period of 20 hours (five 4-hour sittings) and as a result of this restriction there were some bits I wasn't happy with. One of the things that really bugged me was that the perspective on one of the sitter's shoulders was wrong. This weekend, more than 6 years after the painting was originally completed, I started to put together an updated portfolio (I am an Ilustrator by trade) and I wanted to include what I considered to be one of my best pieces, but I didn't want to include the faults, so I took a high res photograph of the portrait, loaded it into photoshop and got to work rescaling the messed up perspective, painting out and touching up other area that bothered me, and after 5 hours of digital tinkering I had an image that I was really really pleased with. I must point out that I didn't use any photoshop filters or gadgets, I simply resized some areas to get the proportions right and used the paintbrush tools to touch it up a bit, but my point is this - yes, George Lucas should release the O-OT (The arguments for why he should do this have been made elsewhere and I don't need to repeat them), but I for one can fully understand being an artist who, unhappy with the work, decides to fix it with the help of technology that was not around or unavailable to him/her at the time the original art was created. My painting now lives up to my original vision and I consider it the definitive piece, the one that I will show people, the one that will be in my portfolio. I will not destroy the original, but I will no longer display it as I see it as inferior. You can resent Lucas' stubborness over releasing the O-OT (I do), but I will no longer call him mad, crazy, out of touch, LucASS, or any of that other crap. I also think that based on the various interviews / biographies, etc that I have seen, he seems like a very nice guy who's just doing his thing. Unfortunately his thing pisses off a lot of people, but from now on I will be giving him a break, and maybe some of you will too.


I'm curious. If your original paintings had become considered a masterpiece, a classic before you made your changes, would you then make these changes and refused to allow
anyone to see the original and pretend it no long exists? Would you force others to view your changed version instead of allowing people to choose for themselves?

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In addition to what warbler said, but somewhat in a different direction.

You said you were putting this in your portfolio. Does it not bother you at all that you will show this as a 'painting' you did and use this portfolio to get a job or into college (as i am assuming thats why you have a portfolio) yet it wont bet the painting you did, it will be an altered work. and its not even altered by your own brush, keeping it as a painting you did, its now been altered digitally. why didnt you just do the whole thing in photoshop if that was your original view? did you not have the technology to get the perspective correct when you painted it?

not trying to bash what your doing (or even say its wrong), and this isnt meant as a personal attack. Just trying to make a point that not only is what you did different from what lucas did to an extent. But also that the changes you made do have an effect on your work and perception others have of it/you

-Darth Simon
Why Anakin really turned to the dark side:
"Anakin, You're father I am" - Yoda
"No. No. That's not true! That's impossible!" - Anakin

0100111001101001011011100110101001100001

*touchy people disclaimer*
some or all of the above comments are partially exaggerated to convey a point, none of the comments are meant as personal attacks on anyone mentioned or reference in the above post
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Originally posted by: Darth Simon

not trying to bash what your doing (or even say its wrong), and this isnt meant as a personal attack.

-Darth Simon


YOUR (yr, yôr, yr; yr when unstressed)
adj. The possessive form of you.

1. Used as a modifier before a noun: your boots; your accomplishments.
2. A person's; one's: The light switch is on your right.
3. Informal. Used with little or no sense of possession to indicate a type familiar to the listener: your basic three-story frame house.

YOU'RE (yr; yr when unstressed)

Contraction of you are.


LOL... uh, sorry. Couldn't resist...
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Originally posted by: Anchorhead
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Originally posted by: greencapt
I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!

"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise....
Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency....
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency..."
Don't forget about your devotion to the pope.

You better come in again.
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Originally posted by: starkiller
You better come in again.

You'll have to say the bit about - Our chief weapons are ...

Forum Moderator
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Is it a sin that Lucas' desire to tinker with his movies outweighs this so-called responsibility for his fans and lmasterpieces that he never saw? Fans serve themselves well enough, they dont need to be the deciding factor in George's movies.

And I would agree that Lucas made some poor decisions, but I accept the good points of them. I don't take it that serious. I have fun.
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Here's my two cents...

As a filmmaker, I stand by Lucas now that I have encountered a very similar experience myself. I made a spoof of A Christmas Carol. People loved it. If you really want to get what I'm going at here, you can find my film at recstudios.net. You probably liked it, right? I know it's my best work, but there's something that keeps bothering me, more and more each time I watch it. Scrooge's shop was badly lit. The Marley ghost effect was too cheap. Fezziwig's costume "magically" changes. A techno dance party, where Scrooge was supposed to meet Belle, was never filmed. The ending with the three ghosts, a tribute to Return of the Jedi, was horribly botched, where a simple music cue would tip people off that that's what I'm referencing. I could go on for hundreds of pages....

Right now, I am working on a "special edition" of An REC Christmas Carol, with proper lighting, better effects, a more proper tribute to ROTJ... and when done, I will want that version to go on display, not the original. I'll still keep the original archived, but my artistic vision for it will finally be fully realized. You see... I feel almost embarassed to have what I consider to be an incomplete version of An REC Christmas Carol out there for everyone to see, and I imagine Lucas feels the same way about the OOT. All the same, I'd feel bad if the fans hated the new version. But would you want a version that bugs you to no end displayed for the entire world to see? Of course not! I bet Lucas sympathizes with people who want the OOT back, but for that very reason he doesn't want it released.

I'm sure people can live with the Special Editions. I'll compare the OT to coke. Coke is a great soft drink. Virtually everybody loves it. I used to hate Diet Coke, but now I see that they're the same. Slightly watered down, only slightly. It's not New Coke, it's Diet Coke. You'd never notice the difference unless you tasted the original.

Now consider this: Somebody takes a can of Coke, opens it, drinks half the contents, then puts it down on a table. Then he opens up a cooler, takes out an ice-cold, full, unopened can of Diet Coke and puts it on the table and says you can pick one. Which do you choose? I'd choose the Diet Coke any day. It's not that I like Diet Coke better, it's just the fact that there's a greater amount of the Diet Coke, and the quality/quantity ratio is greater than the Coke.

That's how I feel about the original version video releases. Because they're full screen, cutting out half of the picture, I don't feel like watching half a movie. I could get a laserdisc, but I don't have a player and frankly I don't want to spend the time, effort, and money chasing one down. I understand suggesting the guy get Coke, because most prefer it to Diet Coke, but I wouldn't hate him and call him names like LucASS just because he doesn't want to get you non-diet Coke, because that's pretty damn ungrateful. He's at least offering you Coke, and diet or not, Coke is a great drink.

So before you go insult/bash Lucas again, remember.... He's offering you Diet Coke, and here's your choice: Do you accept the Diet Coke and thank him, or do you whine about the fact that it's diet?
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Originally posted by: Caster

So before you go insult/bash Lucas again, remember.... He's offering you Diet Coke, and here's your choice: Do you accept the Diet Coke and thank him, or do you whine about the fact that it's diet?


Option 3: You say "No thank you George, but I'd prefer a regular Coke. A Coke Classic I think they call it. Its a good thing that I have the option of going over to the 7-11 and buying one. Would you like to come with me George? Would you? I'll even buy a case of 12 and share the Classic Coke with all my friends- they all appreciate that they have the ability to choose as well."
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A very good point. But the real point of my Coke analogy is that if given a choice between a full screen release of the original (a wearing-down VHS with half the screen cut out, not to mention an interview that you need to fast-forward through) and the widescreen SE (A DVD in perfect condition that looks beautiful but has questionable changes), I'd choose the widescreen SE. Since that's all I have, and a reasonably priced laserdisc and player is nowhere to be found, that's the choice I'd make.
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Or you could simply pick up some of the widescreen laserdisc transfers that members of this board would be more than happy to supply you with at much lower price.

And, by the way, Diet Coke is nasty!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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I'm aware of the laserdisc transfers, but one problem.... My DVD burner... in fact, my whole computer.... is extremely unreliable. If someone was willing to send me a DVD, that'd fix the problem...
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Originally posted by: Yoda Is Your Father
Over the weekend my opinion of Mr lucas changed, and this is why - In 1999 I painted a portrait of a friend of mine playing his guitar. The painting is one of the best I have ever done, but was painted in a limited time period of 20 hours (five 4-hour sittings) and as a result of this restriction there were some bits I wasn't happy with. One of the things that really bugged me was that the perspective on one of the sitter's shoulders was wrong. This weekend, more than 6 years after the painting was originally completed, I started to put together an updated portfolio (I am an Ilustrator by trade) and I wanted to include what I considered to be one of my best pieces, but I didn't want to include the faults, so I took a high res photograph of the portrait, loaded it into photoshop and got to work rescaling the messed up perspective, painting out and touching up other area that bothered me, and after 5 hours of digital tinkering I had an image that I was really really pleased with. I must point out that I didn't use any photoshop filters or gadgets, I simply resized some areas to get the proportions right and used the paintbrush tools to touch it up a bit, but my point is this - yes, George Lucas should release the O-OT (The arguments for why he should do this have been made elsewhere and I don't need to repeat them), but I for one can fully understand being an artist who, unhappy with the work, decides to fix it with the help of technology that was not around or unavailable to him/her at the time the original art was created. My painting now lives up to my original vision and I consider it the definitive piece, the one that I will show people, the one that will be in my portfolio. I will not destroy the original, but I will no longer display it as I see it as inferior. You can resent Lucas' stubborness over releasing the O-OT (I do), but I will no longer call him mad, crazy, out of touch, LucASS, or any of that other crap. I also think that based on the various interviews / biographies, etc that I have seen, he seems like a very nice guy who's just doing his thing. Unfortunately his thing pisses off a lot of people, but from now on I will be giving him a break, and maybe some of you will too.


at last someone gets it.
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Originally posted by: twister111
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Originally posted by: Yoda Is Your Father
All good points and well put (without resorting to calling him a crazy sad recluse who needs to get laid). However, if in the future I decide that I really want to replace the guitar with a rocket launcher (LOL) why shouldn't I make that change?


I think that the difference here is that (I'm assuming) your the only one that worked on the portrait. If a person hires twenty people to work on a painting and, then (after the person who hired the people showed the picture in a lot of art galleries and, they say it's great) decides to change the guitar and, deny it's existance. Then, that's a different matter entirely. I think that George released the special editions becuase, he needed to get over his divorce. In one of the documentaries(I think it's in the Episode I disc) he said "it's like a marriage". Since his ex got millions(I think it was 24 million I'm not sure) basically making him have to build up his money again. He probably has a totally different view on marriage's now, then when he created Star Wars.





why is it different. just cause more people have seen it why does it matter.