6 ms·

I didn't follow the Lucasfilm acquisition too closely when it was all going down, but something that has confused me is that Lucas seems like a fairly talented

• barrysteve 3y ago
  He knew his style of films were over, so he sold the franchise and let Disney take the burn for it. It's difficult to see this as a political event, where he was outplayed. He's worked with and against the big cats in Hollywood his whole career, he specifically made career decisions to 'get away' from Hollywood meddling in his work. He knew what he was doing and this mythical George Lucas character, who is victim and hero in one man, is getting a bit long in the tooth.
  • Technotroll 3y ago
    I, for one, would love to see another George Lucas movie.
• joshjdr 3y ago
  I think they’re referring to the remastering of the original trilogy, long before Disney got involved.
• drewcoo 3y ago
  When I consider this, I don't think there's any legacy there to ruin. The only thing that made the first movies watchable was gone long before Disney bought it up. https://collider.com/star-wars-george-lucas-wife-marcia https://collider.com/star-wars-george-lucas-wife-marcia
  • bombcar 3y ago
    Lucas is a phenomenal story-spinner. But like many story-spinners, he needs an equally phenomenal editor to sit on him. And it happens time and time again that a story-spinner gets so famous/rich/whatever that they can sit on the editor instead, and then the quality drops. It's a very rare breed of story-spinner who can sit on themselves, offhand I can think of Tolkien perhaps.
    • midoridensha 3y ago
      He can spin stories and build worlds very well indeed, but he can't write dialog or direct actors worth a damn. He needs someone else to handle this stuff. His best work was when he came up with the grand vision for something, but someone else handled dialog, scriptwriting, and directing. Basically, the guy was a technical genius but had no eye for the human element.
• toyg 3y ago
  This has nothing to do with "wokeism" or Disney. George Lucas just saw making sci-fi movies as an effort to get reality as close as possible as the images he had in his mind. That meant seeing FX as an approximation, a constant compromise to reach the limits of what is possible to film. Lucasfilm were pioneers in digital FX and 3D for that very reason. However, that also meant that each new work looked different from the previous, as real and digital FX diverged more and more with each passing year. He tried to rectify this by updating old works with new scenes and new effects. Had he stopped there, I reckon most people would have just plauded the novelty and moved on. Unfortunately, while doing that, he also took the chance to modify what he saw as plot problems in the original movies - particularly the first, which was shot in isolation as a one-off, since there was no indication it would be as successful as it did (most actors thought it would be a one-and-done piece of trash, just to make a quick buck, particularly Sir Alex McGuinness). He made some dubious choices and the fandom never forgave him for that.
  • denton-scratch 3y ago
    > particularly Sir Alex McGuinness s/McGuinness/Guinness/
    • jameshart 3y ago
      s/Alex/Alec/
      • adolph 3y ago
        var objRef=document.querySelector("#\\33 5725793 > td > table > tbody > tr > td.default > div.comment > span > p:nth-child(3)"); objRef.textContent=objRef.textContent.replace('Alex','Alec').replace('McGuinn','Guinn');
    • toyg 3y ago
      Thank you, what a brainfart I had :(
• coldtea 3y ago
  Lucas hasn't shown any real passion or talent since Star Wars IV. Except perhaps for pitching ideas for the Indy films. He thankfully relegated the V and VI to other directors and screenwriters (even for IV, a lot of his contributions were cringe, and rightfully resisted by the rest of the crew). And let's not talk about the prequels (Jar Jar and midichlorians anyone? Not to mention his choice of protagonist). My take is that he became complacent with the big money rolling in after the first Star Wars, and never had much to show for afterwards or subsequently cared for movies that much. Contrast this with his pal Spielberg who churned out great film after great film, and continued mastering his craft. Lucas is a "director" who made four movies and stooped for two decades when he made it big. That says it all about his "passion" or lack thereof. Ah, wait. He did found a great passion in the early 80s: merchandise.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • jameshart 3y ago
    Watching the ILM documentary (Light & Magic) the thing that stood out about Lucas is that he hated having his moviemaking decisions set in stone, and it being expensive and hard to change stuff. He pushed to adopt digital compositing technology, digital audio, then digital cameras, and digital sets, because he was so frustrated by the slowness and friction of optical and location work. I think what comes across in the prequels as this sort of ‘first take’ feel to the performances is a manifestation of his impatience - he wants to get the footage, edit it, get the effects, and see the thing in his head. And the ‘remastering’ he has done is similarly a bit of psychological desire to always feel like he can fix it later. Waiting five days for Phil Tippett to stop motion ten seconds of tauntaun walking must have driven him crazy. Underneath, it’s an engineer’s kind of laziness - the sort that drives innovation. I honestly felt after watching that documentary that I am slightly less annoyed by the clunkiness of Attack of the Clones because I actually now can see underneath it the excitement of Lucas to use all the toys he has spent a fortune investing in ILM to build and just make the damn movie.
    • coldtea 3y ago