Garrett’s Grumblings – The George Lucas/Star Wars Situation
I know. I promised no more Star Wars related articles. But this topic was deep in my craw and needed to come out. Now.
Star Wars The Force Awakens has been out over a couple weeks now. Most are praising it as a return to form for their favorite space franchise. Others are calling it nothing more than a slavish recreation of things past. For quite awhile, I was straddling the fence of which way I leaned. But after giving the movie another shot outside a premiere environment, I decided that I lean more toward the latter side. Director JJ Abrams did not hold back in his love for the franchise, and it seems this is the movie he has been wanting to make ever since he rejuvenated the Star Trek franchise seven years ago.
Somewhere in the middle, lies our good friend George Lucas. Now, he was at the premiere of The Force Awakens, and appeared to be all smiles. I saw him from a distance, and Abrams even took pictures with him, and I’m sure stories were exchanged.
This part of the evening quite frankly baffled me, and I’ll explain why. The making of The Force Awakens is quite a story in of itself. As of late, Lucas has been thoroughly open about the fact that after Disney bought the rights to all things Lucasfilm in late 2012, he was deeply involved in reviving his characters for a planned one off. And if all went well, another two installments after that. Working with writer Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) and Abrams himself, the story was supposedly going to revolve around Han and Leia’s grandchildren. Here is where details get sketchy. Abrams purportedly did not like where the story was going and, with permission from Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy, fired both Arndt (who still possesses a writing credit on the finished film) AND Lucas off the project. That’s right. The man who came up with the world Abrams was going to expand on, was no longer going to be involved, taken off by a hired hand. As quietly as this chain of events happened, there was no word of sour grapes at the time. Lucas had even gone out of his way to say to members of the press who asked him that he wishes Abrams luck. For his part, Abrams hired Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi scribe Lawrence Kasdan to work deeper on the project, and the rest, as they say, is history.
But what about George? Well, after The Force Awakens‘ second trailer almost quite literally set the internet on fire back in April, Lucas 
said that he had not even seen it. I found this quite odd. Either Lucas was doing his best to just stay out of the limelight and bathe in his over $4 billion in assets gained from the sale of his franchise. Or, and this last week has made this a stronger possibility, he was going out of his way to let Abrams know that no matter what he did to his characters, Lucas was not going to care. In essence, the most subtle pissing match between two Hollywood titans raged on.
Flash forward to the week before The Force Awakens opens. Lucas comes out in the press saying he has had a screening of the movie, and that he thought it was ‘fun.’ Not a damning review. But also not an overtly positive one. Couple this with internet videos released that week of Lucas appearing almost hurt, letting out in the open for the first time that he did indeed have ideas which Disney rejected. They apparently decided to go with a new vision, and the ousting of Lucas was only the beginning.
Now’s when it gets fun. Starting this week, Lucas has been even more open with his thoughts on the movie. This time, there was no skating around his true feelings. Here is an exact excerpt of what he said on the Charlie Rose Show (that thing is STILL on?!) this week:
“They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that. Every movie I work very hard to make completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships, make it new.”
So says the guy who came up with the idea of having two out of three films of the original trilogy contain a Death Star as its main weapon. But that’s beside the point. If what Lucas is saying is indeed true, then his ousting from the project had nothing to do with Abrams and company wanting to do something new. They wanted to do the exact same things as before, specifically the things that worked before 1999’s The Phantom Menace was released and supposedly ‘raped everyone’s childhood.’ Now as far as how true these logistics hold true with each and every character in The Force Awakens, I will hold off on until at least another month or so. Yes, that S P word is still being honored here.
But Lucas goes on:
“They looked at (my) stories, and they said, ‘we want to make something for the fans…’ They decided they didn’t want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing….They weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway..but if I get in there, I’m just going to cause trouble, because they’re not going to do what I want them to do. And I don’t have the control to do that anymore, and all I would do is muck everything up. And so I said, ‘Okay, I will go my way, and I’ll let them go their own way.”
But perhaps his hardest hitting bit of commentary came next, when he addresses Hollywood’s lack of taking chances, thereby playing it safe.
“Everybody went out and made spaceship movies and they were all horrible and they all lost tons of money. And you say, there’s more to it than that. You can’t just go out there and do spaceships. Of course, the only way you can make money is not take chances. Only do something that’s proven. You gotta remember. Star Wars came from nowhere. American Graffiti came from nowhere. There was nothing like it. Now, if you do anything that’s not a sequel or not a TV series or doesn’t look like one, they won’t do it.”
The words of a bitter man? Maybe. But, what does a man with a $4 billion empire have to be bitter about? What I grasped onto in this whole bit of commentary is his calling The Force Awakens a ‘retro movie.’ Looking back on the finished movie, he’s not wrong. Be honest. Did it REALLY propel a story forward, or just play off the same tropes that worked before? I have said since the beginning. There are worse things in this world than a glossed up remake of A New Hope (yes numbskulls, I KNOW it’s not a remake. Stop convincing me and yourselves of this). But by taking these tropes and putting them onscreen in a new glossed up format, The Force Awakens is being praised as a return to form for the franchise. Is it, really?
And where does this leave Lucas? Again, I had promised myself -and my Binge bosses- that there would be no more Star Wars articles for the time being. But seeing this situation develop, and even being present for part of it, made me take a step back and wonder. Think Steven Spielberg is regretting not taking a Star Wars directing gig now that one third of the Bearded Trio has seen his creations fall into the hands of corporate minded Disney? As that final set of credits graced the movie screen of my second viewing, the entire theater was clapping wildly as if the home team had hit a World Series winning home run. The tried and true tropes that Abrams displayed and Lucas had described in his Charlie Rose interview had indeed worked its magic. Yet all I thought was, ‘so this how Star Wars democracy dies, with thunderous applause?’
Ok, enough Star Wars talk. There are many other things in the film world to write about. And I promise, dear readers, I will start getting to those, next week.
December 31, 2015 @ 12:21 pm
Lucas is an asshole. He made 3 awful movies (the prequels) and now is mad someone made a better film. Yes, TFA was safe & yes it is basically a remake of A New Hope but Disney had to do that to get rid of shit taste that was the prequels. Also, TFA setups a exciting story for the next movie with new characters people actually like & care about.
January 1, 2016 @ 12:33 am
Man, please shut the hell up. Disney HAD to do that? The ‘cure’ for the evil prequels is to remake the old ones? A story without plot points from A New Hope is the only way an Episode VII would have worked? Give me a break! You guys sound like such idiotic sheep with this anti-Lucas anti-prequel crap.
I’ll be the first to say this movie DID NOT have to copy 4 to be good. Hell, it has become one of its biggest criticisms now…
December 31, 2015 @ 1:09 pm
Can’t agree more with jb!! God damn. Cmon Garrett get fucking over it.. ur taste just sucks. I dont know if its because ur a “critic” or what, but damn. Hahahhaha ths movie was awsome… not perfect… FYI none of he star wars movies are.
December 31, 2015 @ 2:02 pm
A return to form for the franchise? I would say yes to the fact that it was the characters and always the characters that that made the SW franchise so wonderful and intoxicating. Yes there were spaceships, strange worlds, strange aliens and robots.But it always comes back to the characters. It is them who we believed in, fell in love with really cared for. Lucas even hit on this that anybody can make spaceship movies. And for the 1st time since ROTJ we got characters that we were so engrossed with their story that all fantasy details once again took a back seat.
Look, I’m not a hater of the Prequels, aside from a handful of characters, i just did not relate or get invested into anyone. Is it repetitive of previous SW stories? Yes I can agree to that but even Lucas is a fan repetition, watch the behind the scenes of the SW movies. I think this movie falls into his mold in that factor.
As far as chances go, Force Awakens took two huge chances. One is the story line of one of the most beloved (if not the most beloved) character of the franchise. Something that Lucas was not willing to to do in ROTJ despite how important or impactful it would have been for that character and the story. The character of Finn in my book is a huge chance. You take one of the endless supply of Stormtroopers and create a great character. I really loved his story and i know there are doubts as to how fast he switched or why he switched. Listen to Kylo Ren’s and Admiral Knox’s take on the Republic and Resistance. They call them traitors, murders, just plain evil people. That has been programmed into Finn for so long and when he gets the chance to see that everything that he has been taught about the Republic folks is actually the First Order by slaughtering people. I take his character has being hurt and betrayed by the only family he has known. That can make a person angry and justify all his decisions about getting as far away from them as possible.
I believe and hope that we all still love Lucas for creating this world. He has put his heart and soul into the characters and worlds he has created. So is he a little bitter that his idears are not being used in a way he would have hoped? If he loves the characters as much as all the fans (I believe he does) than yes he can be bitter and no amount money can take that away.
Sorry for the rant just need to get some off my chest and share.
December 31, 2015 @ 2:27 pm
I can’t help but be reminded of the sentiment displayed by his peers that we as a species were robbed of the creativity of George Lucas beyond Star Wars.
Lucas is one of the single most important minds in film history. Without him, 80% of the blockbusters we see today don’t happen. Special effects aren’t what they are today and films, in general, don’t have the same sense of wonder that they now do. I may have a special hatred for the prequels but I’d never badmouth Lucas and what he gave us all with Star Wars.
His comments seem to conflict with his own ideology here. On the one hand, he’s speaking out against the corporate power of Disney and the machine that Star Wars is now a part of. It’s a valid concern and one that, no matter how you feel about any of the franchise, is true; Disney will now run this into the ground and squeeze every dollar out of it that they can. Lucas himself, however, went back to the well and creatively failed. Episodes I – III failed to highlight the things we love about Star Wars, and as such did more harm than good. Is the positivity surrounding The Force Awakens a direct result of the failure of the prequels? Absolutely. Does that mean that Episode VII isn’t good? No, it doesn’t. There’s a certain point where art becomes the property of those who digest it. The Mona Lisa, technically, lives in a museum somewhere, but that doesn’t mean that anyone can’t look up a copy of it online and formulate how they feel about it without the bias of the creator. It’s pretty clear that Lucas needed to distance himself from the franchise a bit for his own sanity, and Disney was the only place with pockets deep enough to make the purchase. Maybe Lucas is feeling some regret now for what he did and thinking that maybe, under his supervision, he could have delivered something like this. Hindsight is always 20/20, and his current attitude about the film and direction of the franchise seems indicative of that line of thought.
I hope Lucas comes around on the subject. I have to believe that as it stands now TFA used a lot of what came before it, again, to win over the fans and critics and assure everyone that not only does the new team of filmmakers understand what the fans want but also where they want things to come from. While Lucas’ concepts and stories for the future of the franchise were scrapped, I’m frankly not as keen on letting him run free with the property after the prequels, and I think most people share that idea.
Star Wars isn’t going anywhere soon, and by sheer volume at least a couple of the upcoming movies have to be good. Will anything change the way I feel about the original trilogy or, for that matter, the prequels? Not likely, so I’m all for letting other creators get in the sandbox and play, even if the biggest kid in that sandbox is Disney.
January 1, 2016 @ 6:58 pm
It was a fun movie. My kid will buy it on DVD and I’ll watch it again, and forget about it until 2018.
I bet nobody at Disney has any of the answers to the questions left in the open by the movie. They’ll just come up with shit on the fly and the script of episode 8 will still go through re-writings while they are filming it (just like 7 seems to have been). They are scared to death of upsetting fans, and probably will come up with a pool of the more popular theories online. They might take some chances on the anthology stuff, but since it’s all in the past, it’ll have the same restrictions of any prequel – the protagonists won’t die or be transformed in any important way, the new characters will die or be sent to the other side of the galaxy never to be seen again.
Sure Lucas is pissed because they remade his original film, even with all the money and talent involved. But after selling his rights, he kinda gave up on the whole thing. If he keeps shitting all over it he’ll just lose credibility, specially while the whole planet is so hyped up about it. At this point he should just release on the internet the treatment he has written somewhere, just put all that in the open and let the fans decide if he was right or not. Bitching won’t take him anywhere.