Originally posted by: VigoOne of his statements really helped me to fully realize one fundamental difference between the prequels and the originals:
Well, listen, I would have loved to have looked at that first screenplay, for Episode 1, and I would have said, "Uh oh, see, but we had a Han Solo character," who could sort of cut any potential awkwardness, when we'd get close to maybe being a little corny--whenever things with The Force got a little too heavy and mystical, we had a guy who could just sort of act as the voice of reason, you know, he was a mercenary and cocksure and a smartass and he kept the pictures on sort of an even keel. Han Solo was there as the voice of skepticism. But you look at the new pictures and there's not that character to offset the grave fanaticism of the piece. Everyone's so sincere, there's no release from that archness that comes with highly-stylized fantasy.
When I read this, it suddenly clicked, and now I can articulate exactly one important aspect what has always bothered me with the prequels, but couldn´t really describe.
And I think this is also one interesting aspect he brings up:
You can see a huge difference in the films that he does now and the films that he did when he was married. I know for a fact that Marcia Lucas was responsible for convincing him to keep that little "kiss for luck" before Carrie [Fisher] and I swing across the chasm in the first film: "Oh, I don't like it, people laugh in the previews," and she said, "George, they're laughing because it's so sweet and unexpected"--and her influence was such that if she wanted to keep it, it was in. When the little mouse robot comes up when Harrison and I are delivering Chewbacca to the prison and he roars at it and it screams, sort of, and runs away, George wanted to cut that and Marcia insisted that he keep it. She was really the warmth and the heart of those films, a good person he could talk to, bounce ideas off of, who would tell him when he was wrong. Now he's so exalted that no one tells him anything.