Saga George Lucas retiring from SW films (What does this mean for the future of SW?)

Well I have read about film critics that have gotten death threats for giving a negative review of a movie. There was a recent incident about the newest Batman movie where one critic got a whole lot of hate filled comments, including threats to stick a bomb inside him.
I also recall one film critic got his house pelted by rotten eggs for giving a negative review about a movie.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

I guess "It's done by OTHER directors/franchise X" isn't really a good excuse, either.....

 

It isn't an excuse, it is simply a statement that this type of behaviour exists in many circles. Fans that are FOR something may act just as bad as fans that are AGAINST something.
Also people seemed to argue that these kinds of actions only happens with SW/Lucas. Sadly this is not the case.

So instead of focusing of the words/actions of a few, lets talk about the films themselves and what you feel about them and leave the "If you like/dislike these films you are a stupid hater/fanboy." arguments.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

I think I expressed myself best in another thread when I was asked the question "why do people hate the PT?"

The answer to this thread is that people DON'T hate the prequels. Star Wars fanboys are the only ones who hate the Prequels and anything SW that is at all new for that matter.

There is a problem in star wars fandom basically called "prequel/lucas haters" or "fanboys" it feeds itself by perpetuating the elitist idea that basically half of the whole thing that these so-called fans claim to like is bad and unholy and should be boycotted and constantly attacked. It is made up of a lot less actual fans than they would like to have you believe and it has become something of a forced meme in the star wars fan community.

People who are at all new to Star Wars fandom should not allow themselves to be fooled by this trend.

These individuals spend ridiculous amounts of time and energy creating smug, all out manifestos to defend their tired argument that (basically) every star wars film besides the very first two made is somehow/someway bad and wrong and unholy. This small yet very loud amount of angry, obsessed "fans" was primarily started up by Gen X'ers who have a sad, very stubborn sense of fan ownership over what they call "their movies" and today it is emulated by pretentious college age hipster types/self proclaimed film experts who enjoy the thrill of being in on the 21 century "geek chic" phenomenon getting to feel smart around other people by "letting them in on the secret" that anyone who enjoys star wars as a saga is foolish and somehow "buying into" some kind of money scheme by the creator George Lucas who in reality is a hippy philanthropist who has donated more than half his money to charity, education and liberal causes while putting the other half of his money right back into the film industry by creating many innovations and trends which go on to be used by almost every other filmmaker in hollywood.

These fanboys/hateboys (or whatever you wish to call them) have been so obsessive and persistent since around 1999 that a lot of reviewers and bloggers for certain websites have fed into it in order to gain hits for their websites and blow up their comment sections. This is why we have people like the news casters on "G4 tv" saying things like "almost as bad as jar-jar, amiright guyz!?" standing there sweating holding the mike waiting for a response from the crowd of 19 year olds and their home viewer demographic of 11 and 12 year olds. Its all hype. Its trash. And its pathetic to think that this is what our 12 year olds are being taught is "cool". It is a simple FACT that people have made whole careers on bashing Star Wars, or as they call it "the prequels maaan".

Since the Saga as a whole has been released on blu-ray this trend has finally started to die down because of the fact that the Saga box set sold incredibly well (over one million copy's the first week not even counting x-mas sales) despite boycott attempts by the fanboys which were embarrassingly proven by this fact to be in the extreme minority. As well as the very respectable success of the TPM re-release --a film that has been available on every home video format for well over a decade and in the digital streaming age no less!

These people (and the Trolls who help them) will use a large (and tellingly always different) variety of arguments, hyped up complaints and basically propaganda to get others to join in with them. They look at people who are or may be new to star wars as practice to make sure they "let them know" to hold up the status quo of rebelling against the "big bad lucas". And no not the George Lucas of reality. Not the brilliantly creative liberal philanthropist who teaches young people good morals through his timeless art. No. The Lucas THEY made up. The Lucas on south park. The image of this eccentric, greedy, all powerful guy who is the reason for all their frustrations of trying to cope with the fact that the petty EU chronology and trivia might not all match up to this idea they have in there heads of what Star Wars "should be".

Sadly this all makes us quickly forget that the intended way to experience the Star Wars Saga is to simply watch the films themselves and take them at face value and in numerical order, 1-2-3-4-5-6.

This is fact. This is not some kind of "conspiracy theory" or opinion. Every action in life has some kind of a reaction and this phenomenon is the simple result of new fans coping with something that their big brothers and parents are so passionate about. They don't understand a lot about it and so when they google the words "Star Wars" this drama is what they find. This kind of bashing is a mob mentality and goes against everything the SW Saga stands for and has ever stood for. If it wasn't for the more stubborn "fans" then a lot more new comers would simply be able to find on their own that star wars (at worst!) is a visually and artistically beautiful and cleverly crafted fantasy/adventure series. Something that is as timeless and genuine and family friendly as The Wizard of Oz.

 

I'm an agnostic, and being part of the SW community is the closest thing I have to being involved in a religion. You have (1) an immensely talented founder of questionable judgment, (2) a deep schism amongst followers, (3) insanely heated screeds over authorship/canon issues and (4) an outspoken apostate from the inner circle, i.e., Gary Kurtz.

So long as there aren't any suicide bombings at Skywalker Ranch, I'd say it was one heck of a ride.

Praise Lucas and pass the blue milk!

 

Correct.

However, I would say that if the argument is that what Lucas has done to the OT is unprecedented or that his revision of the films automatically discredits him as an artist in some way, then I think it is fair to bring up other artists as examples of people who did the same thing but are still held in esteem.

But you are correct, in general -- just because a lot of people do something or say something does not make it true or right in any way, shape, or form.

The reason I brought up the aforementioned examples, for instance, was not to say that the majority (or even a large fraction) of those who have issues with the PT use such tactics. Rather, it was just to demonstrate that, contrary to Heero_Yuy's claims that "Really though, the majority of times I see comments about "Lucas raping childhoods," comes from people mocking what they think the bashers sound like. A lot of the nastier comments are either tongue in cheek or trolling." a significant portion of those comments are made in complete sincerity. After all, over 7000 people signed the "raped childhood" petition to have Lucas hand over control of Star Wars to Peter Jackson.

http://www.petitiononline.com/dgkomxpq/petition.html

That's by no means a majority of those who had issues with the PT, but such people do exist. And I don't think they were trolling or tongue-in-cheek, either.

Regardless of how one feels about how George Lucas has handled Star Wars, I don't think he has done anything to earn such comments. If the absolute worst thing he ever does in his lifetime is to not re-release the OOT in a Blu-Ray level format, then, really I would consider him a wonderful human being. Of course, I don't know the man personally, so I can't make judgements on that in reality, but this is a what-if scenario.

 

The difference is our responsibility and influence.

Just like with other directors and producers, we are in no position to tell George Lucas what he has to do. We are in no position to "change him".
But we're able to change "us". We're are able to influence what it means to be a fan of Star Wars. We're able to influence our behaviour and the way we appear to others.

That doesn't mean we have to praise and love everything, but we have to look for a certain standard: no personal attacks, no pointless hating campaign, no "my opinion is superior than yours" etc.

Do something positive.
Love the movies the way they are.
"Fight" for the originals without insults (which will never lead to your goal) and disparagement.
It's your choice.

We can't change directors.
But we can change ourselves and the people next to us. We can define "fans".

 

Fair enough, PiettsHat. For what it's worth though, I think that it's also fair to bring up the fact that some of Lucas' own peers - notably Spielberg, Cameron*, and maybe (?) Coppola - have disagreed with him over this issue. This I think, puts to lie to notion that it's 'only' certain segments of the fans who have problems with Lucas' stance regarding the O-OT.

*actually, I think Cameron has only stated his 'issue' with the Special Editions themselves, and nothing specifically to do with the active down-grade of the O-OT.

 

I say keep it going how it is. Star Wars should primarily be about the kids who are thrilled to watch the Clone Wars cartoon and the films on video.

But I wouldn't mind if Lucas throws us older fans a bone and gives us what we've all been politely asking for. Yes, I am talking about more Willow material.

 

Oh don't worry. I really don't let them bother me any more. Even if I still cant type the words "Star Wars" into google without seeing nothing but smugness and cussing and venom and negativity. Its all good because at the end of the day know that I am happy and totally secure with the Star Wars Saga even if others aren't. All I (as well as many other fans) ever really try to do is focus on the good and look for more good to find. But see, as many on prequel appreciation society and other sites will gladly tell you, it can be very hard to focus on good when whenever you go looking for it all you find is bad (anti-lucas/SW rants and smug drive by bashing slipped into every conversation, hip-to-hate soundbites constantly being regurgitated).

All we Saga fans only ever really try to express is that if you think George Lucas's few additions to his own films supposedly "ruined" the films for you, than it is your never ending war against him that now ruins SW in general for us. Another good way to say it would be: He raped your childhood? YOU raped our google! Honestly.

It is going on almost twenty years now since the man finished his work and made it so we can see X-wings actually flying in the death star battle. It has been 14 years since TPM was released and despite the unprecedented phenomenon of bashing and obstructionism towards the film throughout the last 14 years it STILL did very well in the box office yet again. A film that was re-released for, not the 2nd, but the 3rd time since 1999. In the SAME year as it was released on blu-ray only just 6 months prier when a big part of the country had in sitting on their shelves in HD. And in the age of netflix and digital streaming no less! In spite of all this it still did great.

This is why I believe that at this point its record speaks for itself. People like me don't even need to defend this film anymore. And this type of thing may be common knowledge to people like you and me but to a lot of people who go around calling themselves "fans" would react to facts and reality like that with shock and outrage as if I just said something totaly unpatriotic at a political convention or something. And thats the problem. Thats what makes it so a 12 year old kid cant go to google and type in the words "Star Wars" without quickly becoming very confused to say the least. Like another poster just said, as fans we created this problem and so as fans we should take at least a little bit of responsibility to evolving and cleaning it up just a little bit. At least to reasonable levels. Like.....for instance if we could be able to enjoy next years re-release of AOTC and ROTS without seeing every public acknowledgement being lined with smug drive by bashing and each reviewer trying to see who can top each other with how clever they can be in slipping in the bitterness and the bias. That would be a good healthy start. I don't think that's asking for much.

 

I did not offer the fact of Lucas' peers disagreeing with his decisions re: the O-OT as "an excuse for some of the behavior described in this thread"; as I noted in my post above, I offered it as a corrective to the view that it's only "certain sections of fandom" that disagree with Lucas re: the O-OT.

 

No.-Darth Boba

 

Yes, like when they - or more accurately speaking, one particular poster - attempt the following "linguistic/semantic change":

"dislike" = "hate", or, "disliking a movie or movies" becomes "X people hate Lucas!!" For example:

.... and there it is.

Then there's the whole nonsense of changing the meaning of "different" to = "REALLY, really, different to ME"...iow, "it means what I say it means". Despite your obfuscation, "different" entails "details", no matter how "minute".

 

Ezekiel: Remember the inflection of Fin Raziel's voice when she was transformed into a goat? To this day, I imitate it, harassing loved ones with renditions of, "Willoooooooow!"

Try it sometime.

 

I'm editing specifically Obi-Rob's post, but this goes for everyone: Films, not fans. Don't discuss each other.-Darth Boba

 

I long for the day that ROTS. Becomes 20 to 50 yrs old. I also look forward to the day someone else retells the entire saga all over again. We truly need another version of the complete saga push to the mainstream so that the film sag can't finally be seen as the classics they are. One story six parts NOT 2 stories in 3 parts. That is the attitude that hurts the fanbase. GL realy needs to let soeone else make another version of, but not live action. I have the dvd versions that _ watch all the time & I've heard the blurays look more unified than the dvds do. I'm glad GL released all 6 together instead of individually.

 

For me it would be far more interesting for it to take a track closer to real myths of the past. There are many different versions of the King Arthur legend, and lots of ancillary/unrelated stories that became related in certain versions. Which parts are included or emphasized in any retelling are dependent on the point the author/editor/reteller is trying to make. Similar to the many gospels and other holy books from which the current "canons" come. I don't want to see the same exact thing retold over and over, down to the nuts and bolts. I would want to see different approaches. Sure, someone can try to make their own version of "The Saga" as it exists today (lots of people could). But I'd like to see interpretations with other jumping-off points too: ANH alone, ANH + ESB (plus sequel trilogy, especially if we learn anything additional about Lucas's ideas for such), the OT alone, the OT+TPM, etc. Hell, start with AOTC and build a saga around it. Mix and match situations (the way the Fisher King and Arthur are conflated in Boorman's Excalibur, for example). Take the characters alone and tell a slightly different story. Take three of the characters and tell a different story. Make a story where the Death Star gets destroyed but in a different way, by other people (look into the early drafts for inspiration?). Etc etc etc.

 

Interesting. I'm curious as to why you think this. Surely, allowing differing opinions about what Star Wars is or should be (and allowing each to watch their version of choice) will do more to bring the fanbase together than trying to force everyone to think the same way.