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It's Official: George Lucas hates his fans :P — Page 9

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Harmy said:

@georgec: Oh, man that interview always cracks me up. That is exactly Goerge Lucas of today, he wants it to be a white house and no matter how many people who know what they're talking about tell him it should be a green house, he's gonna paint it white. When George was writing the script for the original SW, he'd show it to his friends and they'd tell him, George this and this is crap, you have to rewrite it and he listened to them and that's why SW was such a success, he didn't yet become arrogant and he was willing to listen to other people's opinion.

The story of George Lucas' career is a psychologists' wet dream. You see all the effects of people lauding him and giving him credit on the way he did business after Empire. He heard people saying how great he is so often that he began to believe it, and afterwards anybody who disagreed was cast aside. It's so simple in the cause/effect yet so intriguing.

Then you have the unwavering Lucas defenders who defy all logic and facts to salvage his image and prove people wrong because they don't "get" him or something like that.

Either way, George Lucas can continue to play the victim card, but he'll get no sympathy from me.

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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Bingowings said:

It is to be expected that some aspects of this thread would go a bit barmy going by the thread title.

Almost every time we have a thread with an incendiary title (and it survives long enough) the content within gets a bit hot and spicy.

I'm not saying that the underlying issues aren't pertinent and people are clearly passionate about what they are saying but aspects of this sort of discussion are exactly the kind of material the more zealous devotees will drag out to prove Mr Lucas right.

Some of what George is reported as saying in all seriousness is almost as potty as what I say in jest so we can be at least united in a bit of a giggle even it comes at the expense of the calamity of cultural vandalism.

The only reason it becomes hot and spicy is that some people who have no argument try (and fail) to use faux semantics to refute clearly established points and facts. They drag down the discussion by making comments like, "That's not what he meant."

Why some people are so desperate to serve their Flannel Master, I'll never understand.

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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 (Edited)

The sad part is that not so long ago, George Lucas was my hero, even after the prequels, I never had any particular problem with them (I actually loved Episode I when I was a child) and then when I grew up and realized they weren't so great, no problem there, I don't need sequels (or prequels) to films I like (I love Forrest Gump and Amelie and I wouldn't want anyone to make sequels to those films), so I wasn't really sad that the SW prequels weren't to my liking, I could simply choose not to watch them. George Lucas was still my hero for giving me some of my favourite films of all time. The problem came when he stared actively trying to take these films away from me as I became a film and home video enthusiast and started really enjoying high quality presentation of films.

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Harmy said:

@georgec: Oh, man that interview always cracks me up. That is exactly Goerge Lucas of today, he wants it to be a white house and no matter how many people who know what they're talking about tell him it should be a green house, he's gonna paint it white. When George was writing the script for the original SW, he'd show it to his friends and they'd tell him, George this and this is crap, you have to rewrite it and he listened to them and that's why SW was such a success, he didn't yet become arrogant and he was willing to listen to other people's opinion.

 its a pitiful analogy anyways.  or more apt comparison is a white house that was painted by having an 8 year old just throwing cans of paint at the house.  lucas wants to play the artist card to excuse garbage storytelling, garbage characters, garbage dialog, garbage action sequences and garbage cgi.

lucas abhors hard work.  His claims his idea of artistic freedom is being allowed to do whatever he wants to carry out his vision.  what he really means is NOT having to do anything he doesn't feel like doing - as long as it makes money.

click here if lack of OOT got you down

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georgec said:

The story of George Lucas' career is a psychologists' wet dream. You see all the effects of people lauding him and giving him credit on the way he did business after Empire. He heard people saying how great he is so often that he began to believe it, and afterwards anybody who disagreed was cast aside. It's so simple in the cause/effect yet so intriguing.

Then you have the unwavering Lucas defenders who defy all logic and facts to salvage his image and prove people wrong because they don't "get" him or something like that.

 he has a core sycophancy and personality cult second only perhaps to joseph stalin.

 

click here if lack of OOT got you down

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SilverWook wrote: And we're supposed to believe that Lucas actually posted to Usenet?

Of course, this is the internet and everything on the internet is write.

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Frink - I'm asking politely.  The thread's volatile enough already.

;-)

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Alexrd said:

Harmy said:

Why? Because, and I'll be repeating myself here, if so, then there is no logical connection to making more SW films.

Why make films to people who say that I'm a terrible person? It seems to be a logical way of thinking to me. 

Ok, he's not going to move away from a huge franchise because people are mean on the internet. Seriously, what the fuck, let's be realistic.

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Baronlando said:

Ok, he's not going to move away from a huge franchise because people are mean on the internet. Seriously, what the fuck, let's be realistic.

 well...if we are to take lucas' comments literally, he said people are yelling at him. nothing about making mean posts on the internet

so which one of you guys have been going over to san rafeal, standing outside his house and yelling at him?  either that or publicly heckling him at his many 'interviews' ?

click here if lack of OOT got you down

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walking_carpet said:

 well...if we are to take lucas' comments literally, he said people are yelling at him. nothing about making mean posts on the internet

so which one of you guys have been going over to san rafeal, standing outside his house and yelling at him?

Man, I don't want to be the one to point out the obvious here, but.........

 

;-)

 

Oh, come on!  No room for levity in this charged climate?  Yeah, that's right -  I went Indiana Jones.

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It makes sense that people are yelling at him. He has refused, time and again, to release the OOT to acceptable standards; he is hellbent on destroying them at all costs. It's not my fault he is such an untalented, incompetent, redneck NASCAR wannabe who fell beck on filmmaking grudgingly, failed at making a coherent film, and when people came in to save his films in editing, he purges them from collective memory. Imagine Ricky Bobby trying to be a film director; that is George Lucas in a nutshell.

Such a shame we still don't have the originals. 15 years is too damn long for these masterpieces to locked in a basement while some half-assed recut is being paraded as the real thing. 

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Anchorhead said:

Frink - I'm asking politely.  The thread's volatile enough already.

;-)

This thread is plenty bizarre without me getting involved. :p

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Anchorhead said:

walking_carpet said:

 well...if we are to take lucas' comments literally, he said people are yelling at him. nothing about making mean posts on the internet

so which one of you guys have been going over to san rafeal, standing outside his house and yelling at him?

Man, I don't want to be the one to point out the obvious here, but.........

 

;-)

 

Oh, come on!  No room for levity in this charged climate?  Yeah, that's right -  I went Indiana Jones.

Hahaha nice.

You know, this brings up an interesting idea. Lucas has blamed the critics and blamed the fans. It's not entirely improbable that at some point he's going to blame the kids. If TPM 3D bombs, maybe Georgie will say it's because kids don't appreciate a good, fun adventure and have been spoiled by other CGI movies? When the toys, games, and other crap stop selling so well, will Lucas complain that kids have become more difficult to please/entertain?

Just an idea. Just an idea. Although, I'm going to bookmark this post and save it for the future.

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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In the interest of shaking up what has long been a tiresome and repetitive discussion, I will submit that I find Peter Jackson to be even more of a CGI-obsessed hack with no sense of proper storytelling than George Lucas.  One need only compare the Lord of the Rings films to what Tolkien actually wrote to be able to see that; and they offend my sense of good taste far more than anything Lucas has done.

The difference is that the LotR films are universally-lauded, while the SW prequels are certainly not.  The failures of the LotR scripts are just subtle enough to pass under the general 'crap' radar, so hardly anyone ever notices them or points them out, unfortunately.

Maybe I'm just bitter and vindictive on that account, but I would find it immensely satisfying if Jackson were reviled in this same sort of manner for screwing up a magnificent story and turning it into a cliched garbage-fest.  It would certainly make for an interesting change from boring threads like this, at the very least.

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Really? While I agree that there's definitely room for improvement, I prefer the films over the books. And I definitely disagree with Jackson being CGI obsessed, or at least it reflecting on LOTR. IMO the LOTR trilogy is a perfect example of balanced use of CGI in symbiosis with other techniques - Vast majority of places in LOTR are either real locations, beautifully made sets or stunningly detailed miniatures. A lot of the creatures were done using make-up instead of CGI, like the orks, those are just beautifully ugly and where CGI is used, it is usually put to a very good use and looks very good.

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Perhaps, but I don't think he's going to go back and put CGI characters in Meet the Feebles anytime soon. ;)

"Love the book, hate the movie" syndrome is quite common. Having read the source material for "Secret of NIMH", my reaction to what is generally regarded as Don Bluth's best movie, is out of sync with it's fans.

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Where were you in '77?

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Also, he hasn't suppressed the originals...

 

...

 

Wow, this thread has really gone off the rails now.

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The Lord Of The Rings film trilogy is a much more rewarding experience than either Star Wars trilogy in any of their variant manifestations.

This is made easier for Jackson to pull off by virtue of reasonable adaptations of well written pieces of literature (so Jackson had a structure to work with already) and because they were created largely as a single project so they are have a built in tonal and visual continuity to them.

On the flip side Lucas pinched wholesale from just about everywhere not just the narrative components but the visual components too (so he is just mixing ingredients pre-prepared for him by thousands of others) he also had more freedom to explore and squandered it (especially with the PT by telling us what we already knew blandly and contradicting what we already knew and enjoyed).

The OT has ROTJ hanging around it's neck like an albatross and many of the SE alterations serve to annoy much more than any changes in adaptation that Jackson introduced in his three films.

The LOTR trilogy is not the original text so anything altered or edited for the adaptation does not stop people from experiencing the original piece. They are an adaptation and over time there will be more. Ziggy Stardust is probably the only person on here that may live to see the next one but baring a new dark age another dramatisation is inevitable.

The theatrical releases of the OUT (and increasingly the PT with the changes made thereARE the original text so any alterations made to them remove, over time the original experience.

The chances of even a rubbish remake in even Ziggy's lifetime are slim at best.

These are THE STAR WARS.

Those changes unless we are successful will be there (officially) forever (probably) without the balance of the original text.

When you factor in the more functional use of CGI and the larger share of practical effects in LOTR and the unavoidable observation that Jackson is a better director by far and Hairy Hen's olive branch to thread sanity becomes a fig leaf covering a load of old cock.

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Maybe there's a reason people respect Peter Jackson's work on LOTR that doesn't have to do with an industry-wide conspiracy against Georgie? More Lucasbot desperate rationalization...it just can't be possible that George is not a good writer or director.

The LOTR trilogy is the perfect example of balanced filmmaking - great source material, great script, great performances, great cinematography, great direction...

Comparing the PT to LOTR is absurd. Jackson went through painstaking effort to ground as much of Middle Earth in real locations as possible. When CGI is used, it blends into the surroundings so as not to exist solely for the sake of spectacle.

Most importantly, the characters feel so real and relatable. There is real emotion amidst the grand scale of the trilogy's settings. Every character goes through transformations, growth, grief, inner struggle, etc.

In other words, the LOTR trilogy is the antithesis to the PT, which I regard as the most disappointing movies of the last two decades.

 

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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walking_carpet said:

georgec said:

The story of George Lucas' career is a psychologists' wet dream. You see all the effects of people lauding him and giving him credit on the way he did business after Empire. He heard people saying how great he is so often that he began to believe it, and afterwards anybody who disagreed was cast aside. It's so simple in the cause/effect yet so intriguing.

Then you have the unwavering Lucas defenders who defy all logic and facts to salvage his image and prove people wrong because they don't "get" him or something like that.

 he has a core sycophancy and personality cult second only perhaps to joseph stalin.

 

I think it's comments like this that make Lucas feel the way he does though.

 

Anchorhead said:

AWN article; "Because of the Northridge quake, a lot of the original footage was water damaged. That’s why we knew when we went in that we were going to have to do some extensive restoration work....George went through with the editor, picked a bunch of stuff and re-edited it slightly, just to make it more what he wanted. He realized that there were scenes he wanted to expand upon… at the time with the budget that he had,"

 

Honestly.   Lucas' continued use of  - the originals were damaged, I mean it was the limited budget, I mean it was my Original Vision.  Good God, man - pick one lie and stick to it.  It's the same set of pat answers he trots out for repressing the original version of Star Wars

All kidding aside, the man needs an intervention - or he needs to be institutionalized. Anymore these days, he seems to have fluid stories for every project he's involved in.  He's already started it with the Red Tails promotional junkets - it was the studios trying to suppress history\me\my project - it was the critics, I mean the fans. The guy is a pathological liar.

This is the other thing. OK, the originals were "half-complete films." Fine. So what's the completed version? The 97 release? The 04 release? The 11 release?  I might buy this if he could actually stick to a consistent story. I'm not trying to criticize the man so much as trying to make sense of something I can't understand.

If the OOT was just there, this whole discussion would be academic. Lucas has taken a lot of undeserved heat and had to endure a lot immature childish comments, but the question it begs to me is, why is it so important to him? He obviously has fans since there are people who'll buy almost anything with the Star Wars name on it and more importantly, he's rich beyond measure and continues to become richer. Why does this bother him so much? It's your movie George, you said so yourself, that's fine. Do what you want with it, but that doesn't mean everyone is going to like it. That's fine, hell, I think Michael Bay is a bad filmmaker and his answer would be "Fuck you Mike. I drive a Ferarri, you work at a grocery store." Whatever one thinks of the man, he doesn't give a shit about critics.

Lucas is right, he's come under a lot of scrutiny and some of it wasn't deserved. Some of it was. But if it's more than many other filmmakers (and that's debatable), it's because Star Wars looms larger in the cultural consciousness.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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On the flip side, I saw a promo on AMC for E.T.'s 30th anniversary, and the walkie talkies are gone! The last couple times I've seen it on tv, it was the 2002 verison.

I only lament that version's demise in that future generations might not get the jokes in "Free Hat". ;)

 

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Where were you in '77?

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georgec said:

Maybe there's a reason people respect Peter Jackson's work on LOTR that doesn't have to do with an industry-wide conspiracy against Georgie? More Lucasbot desperate rationalization...it just can't be possible that George is not a good writer or director.

The LOTR trilogy is the perfect example of balanced filmmaking - great source material, great script, great performances, great cinematography, great direction...

Comparing the PT to LOTR is absurd. Jackson went through painstaking effort to ground as much of Middle Earth in real locations as possible. When CGI is used, it blends into the surroundings so as not to exist solely for the sake of spectacle.

Most importantly, the characters feel so real and relatable. There is real emotion amidst the grand scale of the trilogy's settings. Every character goes through transformations, growth, grief, inner struggle, etc.

In other words, the LOTR trilogy is the antithesis to the PT, which I regard as the most disappointing movies of the last two decades.

 

 

As imperfect as they may be at times, I'd rather watch the prequels than the boring as piss LOTR. Any time. This isn't to say Lucas isn't being a bit of a baby or that he couldn't make all this go away in a second just by releasing the OUT.

All I really want is each film as it was originally seen and heard in theaters; no fixes, corrections, "improvements" or modifications necessary.

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Harmy said:

Well, being one of those people, I can assure you if he was to make those films, he wouldn't be making them for me or others like me, he'd be making them for you and others like you, so that argument doesn't stand IMO.

I believe it does. He would be making it to people who like, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't get bashed for it. I mean, Red Tails already showed that (and again, I'm not talking about film critics).

Well, IMO a good critic not only says that something is bad but also looks for a reason why it's bad and if the reason is the personality of the creator, then the critics are doing their job, if they point it out.

If criticizing the personality of the creator implies an offense, I disagree.

It seems to me that you get this impression because you don't have all the information, or refuse to acknowledge it and therefore people criticizing Lucas seem like they base it on "assumptions" where in reality, they simply have more information than you do. I recommend reading The Secret History of SW.

I've read that for some time. I don't refuse to acknoledge that people have their reasons to criticize the man, but what I argue is that saying he was referring to critics when he said "Why would I make any more, when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?" is an assumption. Because it is. There is nothing there that says he's referring to critics. You may think so, but that's only an assumption.

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Yeah, I guess you're right, that is an assumption, I'll give you that. It's just as possible he's just getting senile and makes nonsensical associations.

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thecolorsblend said:As imperfect as they may be at times, I'd rather watch the prequels than the boring as piss LOTR. Any time.

Exactly the sort of nonsense I would expect to read from someone with such a silly avatar.