zombie84 said:
I think a large part of this has to do with the fact that George Lucas isn't a regular, integrated part of society. The world he lives in is not the same as yours and mine. He can't go check out a movie theatre saturday night, or take the subway downtown. He can't just go with a friend to a comedy club, or take a walk around the neighbourhood when he is feeling restless. He can't go window shop on sunday afternoon with his girlfriend, or take his kids to the local baseball game. He's not going to have a conversation with the guy standing next to him in line at the bank, because he doesn't line up at the bank in the first place, and he can't walk into a comic book shop and see what's out this week.
These are all things normal people do, and things that people here do. Mostly, Lucas doesn't go out at all, and when he does it's usually just for work purposes.
Think about that. Think about what that does to a person, and how it affects the way they see the world and how they understand their own culture.
But, in fact, George Lucas the person is hardly a part of 21st century American culture (or any culture, really). He has a sense of it, and memories from the 70s when he could be a free member within it, but he doesn't experience or understand it the way normal people do. It simply isn't possible.
I think that's a big reason why a lot of his views in the last decade or two have become increasingly warped. He's not a lunatic--he just doesn't have a clue. In a way, it's not really his fault, it's simply what happened, and he tried to resist for so long, to his credit--he tried to be ordinary, to not let the fame and fortune change him. He bought a Corvette, but it was used, he built a mansion, but it was for work, and he still walked around in tennis sneakers and flannel. People in the late 70s used to compliment him on how ordinary he remained in spite of great wealth--and Lucas used to say that is why his films were successful. "I'm ordinary, and its the same ordinary of my viewers, so I understand them and how to entertain them," he (paraphrasing here) said around 1980, and it was probably largely true. He said in 1981, Star Wars is just a movie and people shouldn't get so hung up on it. He could say such a thing back then. It was a fad, with lots of merchandising and a cultural footprint, but it hadn't been enshrined in history, it still was, largely, just a popular film.
But there is only so long you can resist against such a lifestyle. After three or four years, sure, he seemed the same. But after eight years, twelve years, twenty years--with each year bringing him even more wealth and fame than the one before it (except 1984-1990)--it catches up.
So now, you have him saying people want Han to be coldblooded and nonesense like that, ascribing various motives and thoughts to some fans. But he has no clue really. He may log on the internet from time to time and spend an hour browsing around, he probably still reads the daily newspaper, and he surely get reports from his staff and marketing guys about "the buzz", a sort of briefing on what people are saying and what's happening. But its not like he could know anything from experience. He lives in his own world, and he convinces himself of certain things, plus the brief glimpses he gets from sources like meetings and the internet. But all that stuff I mentioned at the beginning? The subways, the shopping, the movie theatres? He largely doesn't do that. He doesn't exist in our culture anymore, in the regular sense. He has his own culture, and his own world, with its own population of staff and such, plus a small circle of family and a few friends who are also mainly celebrities of some kind.
I think that explains a lot of this disconnect not only in his statements but also the disconnect in his films. He's this super-powerful billionaire who has led a life of relative isolation for the better part of 30 years now, apart from the normal world. How could he have a clue about what the 21st century is like for all of us reading this? How could he make a meaningful film for such audiences? He tried, and it's not like it was a total failure, but the huge shortcomings come from the shortcomings of Lucas the human being, and I'm not talking about his skills with grammar or lack of directing panache. And because he is the one who often dictates company policy, a lot of things Lucasfilm does these days is equally out of whack.
I guess that is the downside of not having to have a care in the world and being able to do pretty much anything.
As usual, great insights from Zombie. Ultimately when a person amasses enough power that he can isolate himself from his fellows, he will soon lose the ability to relate to them, and vice versa. That is what Peter Green said of Alexander the Great's status following his conquest of the Perisan Empire, but I think it applies equally well to George Lucas.
