George, it is time to retire...

[TriggerGod]

...and we give you 9 reasons to do it.

 

What do you think about these points? I tend to agree with most of them.

[True_Avery]

Retire? He should have never been given much of a job in the first place. He should have been the producer, if not, at the most, a writer and then just handed his work to competent directors.

 

He's an idea machine, and should have stayed as such.

[CommanderQ]

You know, some say if they locked George Lucas in a room and had him write a story and then the story would then be given to three other 'good' scriptwriters and it's possible his films wouldn't have been very bad {well, the original Star Wars was good, but after that...}

[Rev7]

...and we give you 9 reasons to do it.

 

What do you think about these points? I tend to agree with most of them.

Er, more or less.

[TKA-001]

I came into this thread expecting an essay about the President.

[Rogue15]

yeah...topic is full of fail.

[Sabretooth]

Eh I thought that was a pretty stupid list. I mean you know your list doesn't have a lot of substance when you're criticizing a director for wearing a plaid shirt or not using "enough women" in his films.

 

And to be completely honest, I do not think George Lucas is a bad director: he has a certain way of telling a story and he does it like that, whether you like it or not. He's not a Spielberg or a Coppola or anything, but Star Wars is a great film and I think the direction was pretty good.

 

While the prequels weren't exactly the best films ever made or as good as the originals, I thought they were entertaining, a whole lot of fun and above-decent films to watch. Same goes with Indy IV: I thought it was great too, I don't mind the aliens, the fridge scene and all that (I don't see what's wrong with the aliens, to be honest: Indy III had that Holy Grail thingy and nobody said anything).

[Endorenna]

Eh I thought that was a pretty stupid list. I mean you know your list doesn't have a lot of substance when you're criticizing a director for wearing a plaid shirt or not using "enough women" in his films.

 

And to be completely honest, I do not think George Lucas is a bad director: he has a certain way of telling a story and he does it like that, whether you like it or not. He's not a Spielberg or a Coppola or anything, but Star Wars is a great film and I think the direction was pretty good.

 

Agreed. Couldn't have put it better myself.

 

While the prequels weren't exactly the best films ever made or as good as the originals, I thought they were entertaining, a whole lot of fun and above-decent films to watch. Same goes with Indy IV: I thought it was great too, I don't mind the aliens, the fridge scene and all that (I don't see what's wrong with the aliens, to be honest: Indy III had that Holy Grail thingy and nobody said anything).

 

Agreed again, with one change--I like the prequels better than the originals. They have better lightsaber fights! (C'mon, who can look at the Ben/Vader Luke/Vader fights, then look at the Battle of the Heroes, and say that the lightsaber fights in the OT were better than the ones in the PT? )

[jrrtoken]

And to be completely honest, I do not think George Lucas is a bad director: he has a certain way of telling a story and he does it like that, whether you like it or not. He's not a Spielberg or a Coppola or anything, but Star Wars is a great film and I think the direction was pretty good.

Agreed, THX-1138 is far, far better than anything from Star Wars.

While the prequels weren't exactly the best films ever made or as good as the originals, I thought they were entertaining, a whole lot of fun and above-decent films to watch. Same goes with Indy IV: I thought it was great too, I don't mind the aliens, the fridge scene and all that (I don't see what's wrong with the aliens, to be honest: Indy III had that Holy Grail thingy and nobody said anything).

Simple, the Holy Grail is about *drumroll* JESUS CHRIST!!! The crystal skull is about is about extraterrestrial life, therefore, it denies the existence of a god, thus, the movie promotes atheism, and therefore, Satanism. Or that's at least what a fundamentalist somewhere in the world said.

[Darth333]

...and we give you 9 reasons to do it.

I came into this thread expecting an essay about the President.

I suppose there would be more than nine reasons if that was the case... *

 

 

As to the article, I disagree with most of the points.

 

* looks at the author's name... ...crawls back under "rock" ...errr read "Canadian snow"...

 

I like the prequels better than the originals. They have better lightsaber fights!

I admit that the lightsaber fights were better in the "prequels" but they were only a few minutes long...the "sequels" were better overall IMHO (which means a few hours for each movie).

[Rogue15]

the only decent lightsaber fight in the original was ESB...luke vs vader in cloud city.

 

duel of the fates was the best. darth maul was damn awesome.

[Jeff]

I also pretty much disagree with most of the points. I can't say I like the Clone Wars tv show but George has every right to keep on working and if you don't like it then just don't watch it. Especially with the prequels, I get tired of hearing all the bitching about how he ruined them with Jar Jar and midichloreans and whatever else. I think all of the SW films are good movies (well Episode II is kind of on the border) but people came to expect so much from them that virtually no one is satisfied anymore. George has always said he does things according to his vision of what Star Wars should be and he's always kept to that and while I myself don't agree with everything he's done I respect him for it.

 

Same with KotCS btw, I enjoyed the movie and definitely thought it was better than Temple of Doom.

[Endorenna]

Same with KotCS btw, I enjoyed the movie and definitely thought it was better than Temple of Doom.

 

ANYTHING's better than Temple of Doom!

 

Nice avatar, BTW.

[TKA-001]

the only decent lightsaber fight in the original was ESB...luke vs vader in cloud city.

 

duel of the fates was the best. darth maul was damn awesome.

 

I don't think the lightsaber fights need to be as fast or as elaborate as the ones in the prequels to be good. All of the duels were compelling in their own way.

 

The duels in the OT relied heavily on the relationships between the combatants, more so than in most of the PT. The duels in the OT would not be as compelling as they are if Obi-Wan and Vader had never met before, Vader had not supposedly killed Luke's father, and Palpatine was pitting Luke and Vader against each other.

 

The duels with Darth Maul in Episode I mostly relied on how badass the fight(s) were. Darth Maul never had any other interaction with Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon, so there was no emotional tension or any of that. In Episode II, that particular aspect of the saga's lightsaber duels was far better, because of Dooku's relation to Obi-Wan (being his Master's Master) and Yoda (being his apprentice), plus having actually spoken to Obi-Wan previously in the movie (not to mention his actual characterization).

 

Said aspect is varied in the duels of Episode III. The fight between Anakin and Dooku, of course, acted as a nice parallel to the duel between Vader and Luke in Episode VI. Obi-Wan's duel with Grievous depends on how much you know about the EU; Grievous, like Darth Maul, wasn't given enough time to be as much of a compelling villain in one movie as he might have been. If one is familiar with all that happens with Grievous elsewhere in the Clone Wars, the sense of him and Obi-Wan being each other's mortal nemesis is much more defined.

 

The duel between Sidious and the three Jedi was badass, in part because Sidious, like Dooku, had a very nice character. The later battle between Sidious and Yoda is epic in its own right because it was one of the two duels which the fans had waited for for years. Finally, the duel between Vader and Obi-Wan on Mustafar is obviously designed with the aforementioned factor (the relations between the combatants) in mind, much like with the OT movies.

 

(I apologize for the above tangent)

[Samnmax221]

Same goes with Indy IV: I thought it was great too, I don't mind the aliens, the fridge scene and all that (I don't see what's wrong with the aliens, to be honest: Indy III had that Holy Grail thingy and nobody said anything).

Not really bad by today's standards, but the movies of today are mostly ****.

[Jeff]

Going off what TKA said about the lightsaber duels, it also makes sense why the prequel fights are much more fast paced than the original trilogy. In the OT, Luke was not even a fully trained Jedi, with no lightsaber combat training, and Darth Vader was a crippled cyborg. It makes sense then that the fights were not elaborate or fast-paced like the fights in the PT, where all the duels took place between very skilled and well trained Jedi and Sith.

[Shem]

That blog was utter nonsense. The problem people have with hit films/stories is that once they have seen the original with no expectation, they they imagine what the other parts of the story that was untold and create their own expectations. Later subconsciously it becomes what it should be in their mind if they're going to like it. Basically it has to be their vision of it or it becomes utter crap. That is why sequels have a hard time being successful.

 

Jar Jar was just an example of culture diversity and it really shows how people in real life are willing to accept differences in people. I learn a lot about a person by just what they would say about Jar Jar. If Jar Jar drives you nuts, I have just learned that you are a very judgmental person.

 

The Midi-Chlorian thing was just a biological explanation about the Force. I remember as a kid figuring out that some people were stronger in the Force than others by just paying attention to the dialog in the movies and that meant it had a genetic thing. All The Phantom Mence did is give you a brief explanation how it worked biologically. I still can't understand why many people have freaked out about that because it was nothing to get freaked out about if you think about it correctly.

 

I actually enjoyed the prequels more than the originals because I really enjoyed the performances of Ian McDiarmid (one of my favorite actors) for three movies as Darth Sidious, Liam Neeson's performace as Qui-Gon as fantastic, Ewan McGregor's performance as Obi-Wan in the three films was great too, and Frank Oz performing Yoda for three movies was great also.

 

Hayden was okay. People loved to complain about his "whining", but you have to remember that he was playing the part that George asked him to and the whining was Hayden doing his job. It almost had to be there if he was going to fall to the dark side. He had to be messed up somehow. Whining is a sign of selfishness and for Anakin to logically fall to the dark side, he had to have selfish desires. The inspiration for the whining was because of George's kids and how they would whine if anybody ever listened to the audio commentary.

 

I don't understand for the life of me why people assumed that Anakin would be this well behaved Jedi and all of a sudden decided to go evil, but that is exactly what they wanted without really looking at it on the surface. It was a subconscious thing for whatever reason.

[Ravnas]

Eh, I don't know. Everybody if you ask me acted like complete morons in the PT and when people in movies make stupid decisions and the script doesn't call it out like that, it really bugs me. I know Palpatine is supposed to be a master manipulator but everyone in the prequels seemed to make stupid decisions(Padme's acceptance of Anakin man slaughtering Sand people, I'm looking at you)

 

Though I will give Lucas credit for knowing how to market the prequels. In the old movies we saw in the entire trilogy the lightsaber used in about ten scenes and compared to the lightsaber becoming a main character due to it being used so much in the prequels, the originals seemed almost too minimalistic. But too much of a good thing could also be a valid point. It almost became if you ask me by ROTS, screw the force, the spaceships, the plot, and all that other stuff. It seemed like everybody just wanted more lightsabers at that point.

 

The only real reason Jar Jar bugged me was because it was relatively jarring to see a character like this in Star Wars when I watched TPM the first time. I understand what Lucas was trying to do with Jar Jar, but he could've toned him down slightly. Another thing, all the aliens spoke mostly english in the prequels(with a few exceptions) I understand aliens speaking english on Coruscant but places like Tatooine and the swamps of Naboo seem a bit odd to me.

 

My last point is about the midichlorians. Okay correct me if I'm wrong here, so if the midichlorians measure how strong one was in the force, then a jedi is only measured by what he can do, not who he is. I don't buy that, and I have no problem with the idea itself, just the way it jars with the OT. So I guess that would be a better criticism then the blog that was linked in the original post.

[igyman]

I tend to partially agree with reasons 4 and 5, but as for the rest of them, well, they sound pretty stupid and childish to me.

[RedHawke]

Article was utter 'whiny' schlock...

[adamqd]

I didn't read it, I've been a Star Wars fan for 25 years and I consider some of my favorite things in life to be a product of Lucas, and don't think some "I'm not a geek I swear!" blog is gonna change that.

 

oh and everything Shem said +1000

[Astor]

One of the comments on there sums it up nicely.

 

"Tasteless Freelance Writer is Mad Cause So Many People Like George Lucas, So She Feels He Should Retire to Make Her Feel Better About Herself"

 

The author's probably still sore 'cause GL 'raped her childhood'.

[mattig89ch]

The only point I disagree on is the crystal skill one. I liked the new Indiana Jones movie.

[Char Ell]

Jar Jar was just an example of culture diversity and it really shows how people in real life are willing to accept differences in people. I learn a lot about a person by just what they would say about Jar Jar. If Jar Jar drives you nuts, I have just learned that you are a very judgmental person.

A very interesting observation. Very interesting.

 

Definitely don't share the same views as Ms. Busch. I think the only point I somewhat agree with is number 4. I really didn't like the switch to Greedo shooting first or Sebastian Shaw being replaced with Hayden Christiansen in RotJ. As to the rest, if GL wants to wear flannel shirts, create new Star Wars TV series and new Indy movies and whatnot then more power to him. He has the money to do it. I may not gravitate to all of his recent creations but IMHO GL tends to develop entertainment products for families with children and young teens. That approach hasn't worked well for those who were young when the original trilogy came out and were adults by the time the prequels came out since Star Wars didn't "grow up" with them. I think a lot of these original fans were looking for more adult-oriented complexity and themes in the prequels.

[Pavlos]

They have better lightsaber fights! (C'mon, who can look at the Ben/Vader Luke/Vader fights, then look at the Battle of the Heroes, and say that the lightsaber fights in the OT were better than the ones in the PT? )

No.

 

There's a reason why this scene is visually iconic:

No background, just blackness. Steam pumped in from all sides and backlit to look blue. Light the floor red. Position the two combatants against the light so that they appear as two black silhouettes but for their lightsabers which match the colour of the floor and the steam. The scene is so abstract, like a hellish nightmare and a far better way of representing an ideological battle than "Lololol, FIRE PLANET!!!" and "I have the [moral] high-ground!".

 

The fight in The Empire Strikes Back may be slower than the battle of the heroes but the way it is shot and designed is far superior and far more powerful. For one thing: there's no music... only the sound of the two fighting; the low, threatening hum of the lightsabers dominate the scene, it's a constant reminder of how dangerous that fight is. And then look at how massive Vader appears and so very, very dangerous when he starts to beat Luke up in the scene where he pushes him down the corridor towards the camera.

 

I love Irvin Kershner...