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Is George Lucas a fan of Star Wars?

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My philosophy says that all of the best artists in the world enjoy their own work. They obviously don't think their various works are flawless or unsurpassable, but they know what they enjoy about what they've created and why. They know why they've made what they've made and still find that as something worth reflecting upon.

That got me thinking today about George Lucas, however. Does he enjoy his own work? Does he, to this day, find the original Star Wars a fun film to watch? Is he actually devoted to the film as a great work of art as I am?

I ask this because his latest actions (dramatically editing the film and then twisting it with the "prequels") seem to come from someone who doesn't strongly care about that which was previously established. Instead, they seem to come from someone who no longer cares all that much about what works and what does not work artistically. If so, that might explain the disconnect he has with people who have a fanatical devotion to his past artistic successes.

In the past I concluded that George Lucas, as an artist, has too short of an attention span to devise a large, complicated string of ideas. He moves too quickly from one fascinating idea to another to be concerned with the continuity or depth of something that involved. But, perhaps the source of this artistic tendency of his comes from the way he enjoys all art. Perhaps he never enjoy enjoyed his own work in any lasting way in the first place. Maybe the Star Wars films were fun while he was making them, but then they became unimportant to him from then on (beyond making money with them at any rate).

I certainly don't know. It's a fun thing to think about though.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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That's an interesting topic right there....

I, personally, having made a bunch of movies (unfortunately not professional ones) can say that when I watch my own movies, I'm completely sick and tired of watching the same thing over and over. Because I know it so well, I usually just pay attention to the nitpicks and how terrible the quality is and how the angles aren't right, and how the actors mess up here and there, and how dumb everything is. The negative aspects... but that's because I usually do everything myself BUT, what I think is the case with George is that he is a fan of his own work. Otherwise he'd just leave it alone and not care after the first Star Wars came out. There obviously might have been different reasons, but considering how well made ESB and to some extent ROTJ turned out, It's a really really fun process to be just thinking up these various plots, ideas, and the like. I'm getting off topic. You know what? Forget it...

But I do know this: Since he is the originator of all this, he definetly holds a different "view" and "Feel" of this whole series than any of us. That's probably part of the reason he keeps changing things on the original Trilogy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v463/Lord_Phillock/starwarssig.png

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Ask Robert Plant if he enjoys singing Stairway to Heaven? Ask Bruce Springsteen if he enjoys singing Born to Run? Ask Billy Joel if he enjoys singing Piano Man? I think in someways they hate them, because they are sick of doing that song EVERY concert, and it doesn't help them grow as an artist, cause it looks like they are stuck in the past. Yet, they do love them cause it does show how special those songs are to people.

I think SW is the same way to Lucas, part of him is sick of it, part of him loves it, and I don't believe he ever sits down and pops it in his DVD playerrobably cause he doesn't want to see Greedo shooting first! But I guarantee if Lucas was ever flipping through the channels and caught it on TV, he would probably sit back and admire not how great the movie is, cause he already knows that, but more because it holds up just as good as it did in 1977.

One sidenote, did anyone see the AFI tribute to Lucas in 2005? Near the end C3PO/R2/Mark Hammil/Carrie Fisher/Harrison Ford all got on stage for a shot that was in the exact position they were at the end of SW in 1977 during the medal ceremony, and what happened right after that really struck me. As the 3 actors stood on stage with the 2 droids, the camera quickly panned to the audience, and I was suprised to see Lucas be the first person to stand up and give a standing ovation and the crowd followed suit. You could see a sense of satisfaction that Lucas knew it was a special moment to people, as I had goosebumps seeing those actors on stage again. Trust me guys, Lucas will always love his baby Star Wars from 1977, he just has to sell the 6 movies together now because he is running a business, and it is financially smarter to sell 6 movies to the public everytime instead of 3.
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I wish George Lucas was more of a fan of Star Wars fans.

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Hmm, you two definitely make good points. A movie is very involved and I could see someone getting very sick of it after meticulously putting each piece into place. For instance, I don't fault Hayao Miyazaki if he becomes sick of one of his films after having closely analyzed the quality of each and every frame of animation in it. If that's the only reason George Lucas is no longer attached to his previous edits of Star Wars, then I could understand that. It might just be the way the medium of film works.

When I said above that a good artist enjoys what he makes, that doesn't actually mean that the artist loves to purposely go back to his past works time after time. It just means that he can truly enjoy it whenever it comes up. I'm not convinced that George Lucas tends to do this though. I'd hope that he does, but he seems like someone who casually tosses out the old to bring in the new. True enjoyment of something will care for what it enjoys.

Otherwise, when it comes to picking out flaws and being highly critical of your own work, that's probably another matter entirely. A person can still enjoy their successes on some level in that case (in-between having sorrow over their failures). They simply have an overly negative attitude . . . or their work could use a lot of improvement.


Originally posted by: Mielr
I wish George Lucas was more of a fan of Star Wars fans.


Hah, that I agree with wholeheartedly.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Hello, I'm new here
Recently Ridley Scott, Director of Alien, just released a new, new version of his classic 1982 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Blade Runner (the story originally titled "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?). For those who don't know this classic science fiction film starring Harrison Ford (filmed after Raiders Of The Lost Ark), let me explain. When Blade Runner was to be released the studio had wanted an alternate ending (a "happy ending) to the film and a narration by Harrison (which he hated). In the 90's Ridley Scott released the Director's Cut (My favorite version) which took away the narration and the happy ending. Now, this year, Scott released Blade Runner: The Final Cut, his final view on Blade Runner. It includes new scenes, an alternate beginning, and new special effects. Sound familiar? Now, 3 DVD sets have been released. The cheap 2 disc containing only the Final Cut, the 4 disc (which I just bought) which contains: Final Cut, 2 hour documentary, the ORIGINAL 1982 FILM, the 1982 International version, and The Director's Cut. The original film has been REMASTERED in SOUND & PICTURE. The 4th one includes everything and a briefcase and lots of other stuff.
Here's the best part: when you click one of the films to watch you have the choice to see an introduction by Scott himself. He says of the Original: "While the original is not my preferred version, I know the original film has it's fans so if you're one of them, enjoy."
NOW THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! He doesn't like the original but he still includes it! George, what's so difficult about this? Why can't you do this for Star Wars. Scott remastered ALL versions. Coppola, George's mentor, released a DVD with both the Appoclypase Now original & redux version. Spielberg, another of George's best friends, released both versions of Close Encounters, and E.T. (original and the walkie talkie version). I just got the Indiania Jones boxset and it's great. No new special effects crap. Why they can't do that to Star Wars!?
I don't know if this has been posted on this site but for those who haven't seen this, watched this great fan film "The Trial Of Han Solo"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4970281608618831020
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Welcome to OT.com Cj. There are actually a good number of us here who are huge Blade Runner fans, not to mention that we have a few Ridely Scott fans floating around too. Most of us here feel the same way you do when it comes to George not releasing his original versions, which is becoming common practice these days. In Scott's case, he didn't even have full creative control over the first two versions of BR, George has had that for his SW films from the beginning, and yet you can still get fully remastered editions of each version of Blade Runner, even the workprint. The Final Cut, which is Scott definitive cut of the film, is the first cut that Scott has had a full say in. This is not because he keeps changing his mind like ol' George does, but because he was never allowed to do it right in the first place. While George may have bothered to release the originals as a special feature on his latest rerelease of the SE trilogy on DVD, you may have noticed that they are only slightly above YouTube quality (okay, that is a minor exageration). We can only hope that by the next release of the SW trilogy, which will be on HD media who knows how many years down the road, George will follow the lead of other great titles such as Blade Runner and give SW similar treament.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Or sadly the original Star Wars films will be lost in time like tears in the rain.
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Originally posted by: CJ
Or sadly the original Star Wars films will be lost in time like tears in the rain.


That would be terrible.
I'd like a qui-gon jinn please with an Obi-Wan to go.

Red heads ROCK. Blondes do not rock. Nuff said.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/greencapt/hansolovsindy.jpg
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i don't blame george lucas for having a love and hate relationship with star wars, it did cost him his marriage after all.

the success of star wars has pretty much trapped him into doing star wars forever and no other projects.

kind of how roddenberry was trapped into being the creator of star trek,

or no matter how much j.r.r. tolkien contributed to philology he is only remembered for the lord of the rings.

even Joseph Campbell was trapped by fans who wanted him to continue to write hero with a thousand faces type books while he wanted to write about other things.

so as much as actors get typecast to a particular genre or character they play writers of books and directors and writers of movies do also.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Speaking of that Blade Runner set, I picked it up last week and the documentary is three and a half hours long with several hours worth of featurettes on top of that. McCallum's line about 100 hours of documentaries for the next Star Wars release (assuming he wasn't misquoted) doesn't seem so far fetched now.
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According to the interview with him on the Family Guy Blue Harvest DVD, yes, he is a fan of Star Wars. Since the originals supposedly fell short of his vision, and since the PT materialised his vision perfectly, one might be inclined to simply say that Lucas has bad taste.
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Originally posted by: C3PX
We can only hope that by the next release of the SW trilogy, which will be on HD media who knows how many years down the road, George will follow the lead of other great titles such as Blade Runner and give SW similar treament.


Hear, hear, C3PX! Welcome, CJ! Some funny moments in that video you provided the link for.

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y'know something? All of my bitching and complaining about the his treatment of the OOT aside, there's something Lucas said back in '99 (I think it was the 60 minutes interview) and also something that a good friend of mine said about Lucas making the prequels that rings true. In that interview he was asked "why have you decided to keep making these movies?" and he simply answered "because I have to." What my friend said (and I think this was pretty soon - maybe only a few months - after ROTS came out) is that "Lucas didn't have to make more Star Wars movies but he did anyway." So I think what Lucas really meant was that no one was forcing him into it but him.

Now, getting back to my bitching and complaining about the OOT ....
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A very interesting quote from 2004 on Charlie Rose with Lucas:

Lucas was asked about the financial stability of Lucasfilm after 1983. Lucas said, "In the early 90's, we were breaking even every year, and I was presented a proposal of how much money we could make if I made the Prequels. If I made the Prequels, I could be financially independent for the rest of my life, and make any movie or project I want through Lucasfilm, not the studio system. If I let SW go, and stopped after ROTJ, then every project I would do in the future would hinge on the studio system, as Lucasfilm was not some big money maker before the Prequels were made, where I could essentially do what I want now."

I believe the PT was a safe way of Lucas never having to worry about the Studio system ever again, whether it be the SW Sequel Trilogy or anything he wanted do, so from a business point of view, the PT was a success. But anyone who wonders why TPM was kiddy, why it never seemed to hit the tone of ESB in any PT movie, was essentially Lucas had to reach the maximum amount of fanbase he could, cause in the end it was about money, not quality.
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The ironic part is--what he is trying to break away from the studio system for? What are these "unstudio-like" films of his? He's not making them and he currently has no plans to make them. All he's making is more Star Wars TV shows. He made money just for the sake of making money.
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I believe Lucas is bitter about American Graffiti and/or THX-1138 and how they edited some of those movies, and he had no say in how he wanted the final cut. I understand his point, as an artist, he wants to make his movie, but the studio is worried about the bottom line, so want essentially their movie. The ironic thing is that when Lucas financed his SW movies, it was himself who was worried about the bottom line and how it appealed to fans instead of making the movie he wanted to make.
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If Lucas made movies for Fox he would be able to stipulate Final Cut in his contract. Spielberg gets it, Scorsese gets it, pretty much all the BIG players can dictate terms to the studio because they are the ones making the studios rich, not the other way around. Lucas is full of shit. He just doesn't want to admit that he's only made one "avant garde" un-mainstream film and the rest are all mainstream mass-entertainment pieces so he continues to say "I'm only doing it so I can make these uncommerical films"--without following through in the thirty-five years (!) he's been making these claims, despite being a billionaire before the prequels (when you account net worth).
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Lucas is full of shit. He just doesn't want to admit that he's only made one "avant garde" un-mainstream film and the rest are all mainstream mass-entertainment pieces so he continues to say "I'm only doing it so I can make these uncommerical films"--without following through in the thirty-five years (!) he's been making these claims, despite being a billionaire before the prequels (when you account net worth).

Exactly! Was Lucas actually claiming that if he didn't make the Prequels, he wouldn't be financially independent today? Give me a friggin' break!

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He was, if you can believe it! He claims that he wasn't enough of a billionaire to make movies without "begging a studio for money". Now that he has a few more billion, apparently he doesn't have to.


...despite the fact that he claims he only intended to do "small, personal" films. Ones that you don't need billions of dollars for anyway. Its a circular argument.

Marcia Lucas:

"By the time George could afford to have a film facility he no longer wanted to direct… After Star Wars, he insisted, ‘I’m never going to direct another establishment-type movie again.’ I used to say, ‘For someone who wants to be an experimental filmmaker, why are you spending this fortune on a facility to make Hollywood movies? We edited THX in our attic, we edited American Graffiti over Francis’ garage, I just don’t get it, George.’ The Lucasfilm empire—the computer division, ILM, the licensing and lawyers—seemed to me to be this inverted triangle sitting on a pea, which was the Star Wars trilogy. But he wasn’t going to make any more Star Wars, and the pea was going to dry up and crumble, and then he was going to be left with this huge facility with its enormous overhead. And why did he want to do that if he wasn’t going to make movies? I still don’t get it.”

Don't worry Marcia, no one else gets it either.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Marcia Lucas:

"By the time George could afford to have a film facility he no longer wanted to direct… After Star Wars, he insisted, ‘I’m never going to direct another establishment-type movie again.’ I used to say, ‘For someone who wants to be an experimental filmmaker, why are you spending this fortune on a facility to make Hollywood movies? We edited THX in our attic, we edited American Graffiti over Francis’ garage, I just don’t get it, George.’ The Lucasfilm empire—the computer division, ILM, the licensing and lawyers—seemed to me to be this inverted triangle sitting on a pea, which was the Star Wars trilogy. But he wasn’t going to make any more Star Wars, and the pea was going to dry up and crumble, and then he was going to be left with this huge facility with its enormous overhead. And why did he want to do that if he wasn’t going to make movies? I still don’t get it.”


That's an amazing quote. Where did it come from?

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Peter Biskind's Easy Riders Raging Bulls.
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If he's trapped by Star Wars, it's his own fault. He never made much of an effort to direct anything after classic Star Wars or in between the prequels. Hard to be known for other things when didn't make more of an effort to direct afterwards.

Great quote from his ex-wife BTW.
I'd like a qui-gon jinn please with an Obi-Wan to go.

Red heads ROCK. Blondes do not rock. Nuff said.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/greencapt/hansolovsindy.jpg
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Imagine if Spielberg had made E.T. and then a sequel to E.T., then another sequel, then a trilogy of E.T. prequels that deal with E.T.'s dad and the birth of E.T. and how E.T. ended up coimg to visit earth and so on, then imagine Spielberg complaining about all these other movies he had wanted to make, yet was forced to do nothing but E.T. all his life. Nope, I can't imagine it either.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Originally posted by: C3PX
Imagine if Spielberg had made E.T. and then a sequel to E.T., then another sequel, then a trilogy of E.T. prequels that deal with E.T.'s dad and the birth of E.T. and how E.T. ended up coimg to visit earth and so on, then imagine Spielberg complaining about all these other movies he had wanted to make, yet was forced to do nothing but E.T. all his life. Nope, I can't imagine it either.


LOL, exactly. I think Lucas' "career" is one of the biggest shame's in recent history, simply because it could have been really great. Imagine if after Star Wars he continued to direct other films, maybe Radioland Murders first (and it wouldn't suck the way Willard Huck's did--I can imagine this being like a sort of sequel to Graffiti), and then going on to do all of those weird art films he wanted to do. People would look back and think, "wow, that George Lucas guy made some really original, weird movies, and he also proved he could do a character piece and an action blockbuster"--instead thats a description more appropriate for someone like David Lynch.