Does George Lucas deserve all the criticism he gets?

Ah, ok...though I've definitely also seen a few comments like that out there!

 

Obviously.

But therein lies the problem with fandom. Depending on your side of the issue, you'll only see the extreme. Ten posts could be about constructive criticism, but you will ignore them because the eleventh one will say that Lucas raped their childhood. And therefore all criticism becomes Haters Gonna HATE! in the mind of the opposing side. This works the other way as well when the critics will only read the one about how Lucas single-handedly made the GREATEST ANYTHING EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVERYTHING! while forgetting all the other ones that just said the liked what they saw.

If you don't like the changes or the finished films, then yes, George Lucas deserves the criticism.
If you do like the changes or the finished films, then no, George Lucas doesn't deserve the criticism.

 

I would agree that it's definitely a human tendency to only "see" things which seem to confirm one's previously existing beliefs. And while I do think there are examples of both such "extremist" positions (rabidly anti-GL vs. rabidly pro-GL; rabidly anti-prequels/OT changes vs. rabidly pro-prequels/OT changes) to be found around the JCF, I also have found there to be a lot of "middle ground"/reasonable posters who are able to offer thoughtful opinions/critiques from a number of different points of view while also still clearly being passionate about SW as a whole.

In general, I agree with this, though, again, I think there's a middle position to be taken here which is well represented around the boards. Even those who enjoy the PT overall and either like or at least don't mind the OT changes might feel the GL could be fairly criticized on this or that particular point or issue while still feeling that the overall level and tone of GL criticism has become ridiculous. (Or vice versa with someone who wasn't happy with the PT and/or OT changes but also objects to the extremity and personal nature of a lot of SW internet criticism.) And the OP does frame the issue as a question of GL deserving "all" the criticism he gets. That's why my answer was "no."

Edit: forgot to add, TX-20...I like your signature! Even though I love that scene with Obi and Anakin overall, that particular line always did strike me as a bit problematic/unintentionally ironic!

 

"Does George Lucas deserve all the criticism he gets?"

What a fascinating query. Simply put, no. At least not in my opinion, anyway. Star Wars is an inside look into Lucas's creative genius, and we have been invited VIP-style for nearly half a century now.

Whilst we check our compasses in wonder of where Star Wars is to go, he looks to new horizons intent on taking it to where it has never been.

 

The answer to any question with the word "all" in it is "no".

Also, I've read criticism of GL that's more revisionist than GL himself. For example, I once read some bashing that interpreted the ROTJ novelization to say that the lava only damaged Vader's back and that the rest of the damage to Vader's body is from falling into a reactor.

 

...indeed...

 

I third that. Some of it he deserves.

 

True. Pensive, can you see the rediculousness of that interpretation of the novelization?

 

I haven't read the ROTS novelization, but yes, that does seem pretty ridiculous!!

 

ROTJ, not ROTS

 

oops, right..

 

By the way, I love your username and avatar.

 

Personally when I'm thinking about it:

Him being a CGI fetishist and a lazy director I don't hold him over because that's just simply the way he roles. No matter what people say about them, that's the way he is. What people call a "fetishist" and "lazy" are pre-set matters of opinion that people simply use for the sake of comparison. A Disney sellout? That could arguably be one of the best decisions he's done in a long time.

However...a poor writer is where I do need to consider this. Particularly when it came to Episodes I-III with their unexplained elements and plot threads that suddenly came up out of nowhere. As I mentioned in one of my earliest threads on here, the fact that he brought these things from seemingly nowhere without prior explanation or build-up seems to be a thing with the prequels. BUT, if we take a look at what happens in the EU, all of a sudden they make sense.

The PROBLEM though is that it seems to reek of George simply taking the easy way out, almost as if he knew that EU writers were on the job to clean up the messes and somehow turn them into clean-as-a-whistle presentations. And while I don't personally find that a problem since by this point in my fandom involvement the movies and EU go hand-in-hand, I can see how the regular movie-goers (As seen on this board for example) can find this a big issue.

One other criticism I also find unfounded BTW? The ever-classic, beaten-to-death, utterly disgusting, horribly-taken-out-context, Internet-spawned, "childhood rapist". Just...UGH. Words cannot describe what makes that statement so wrong.

 

He's into CGI because it's the best and only practical tool to best achieve what he imagines. Very little of the CGI fx utilised in the prequels could have been achieved using practical means. And, when possible, they were. There's a ton of practical fx in there most people wouldn't be able to distinguish.

As for him being a lazy director? That's a matter of interpretation. For someone who doesn't enjoy that process much (compared to other aspects of filmmaking) he worked extremely hard at it. A lot of the behind the scenes docs are testament to that. And this stuff people refer to about him not being "an actor's director" is fine by me. Actors are not the be all and end all of every film. There are hundreds of people involved who all play a crucial role. When an actor is interpreting something incorrectly, or Lucas doesn't like what they're doing, he interjects. The thing is, mostly, like his set decorators, like his director of photography, like his conceptual art team etc. he trusts them to make informed choices and deliver a perfectly solid performance without much fuss. If he was involved in assisting with every line delivery or spending the majority of his time worrying about them, on a movie like Star Wars, the job would frankly take seemingly forever to get finished. Liam Neeson summed it up best when he said "it's like any other role in the production. He employs you to act. He expects you to act. It's simple". Neeson actually commended this approach and the freedom it provided him to do much of what he wanted with the role. I don't know about you, but I don't particularly look at any other big budget, high-intensive action films and consider the acting to be so much better than Star Wars. Even a much-lauded director like Spielberg on a movie such as Jurassic Park never galvanized his actors to achieve any exceptional performances (for example, I thought the boy in that film was far worse than Jake Lloyd in TPM but never received anything like the same level of criticism). If anything, any perceived "bad acting" in the Star Wars films is more about the characters being thinly drawn than anything else. But that's the nature of these films. They're archetypal characters. These are Saturday matinee B-Movie inspired action/adventure flicks. They are not introverted, quiet, reflective pieces that require much padding, subtext and/or character backstory.... yes, they have moments where emotions run high and the acting is brought more to the fore. But in those moments, the actors (for my money at least) more often than not deliver just fine. Much of the acting in the PT is up there with anything else in the saga. One or two moments aside, Ewan McGregor in ROTS (for example) is almost oscar-worthy. Natalie Portman is quite brilliant in TPM. And Hayden Christensen delivers some incredible little nuances you wouldn't expect in movies like this (I'm thinking of Shmi's death scene for one, here).

To a point, I agree. Selling the rights for Episodes 7-9 was, however, in my opinion, a huge misstep. One that seemed purely designed to raise the value of the sale.... which does make him more of a sellout than it otherwise would (see signature for justification of that opinion).

The only thing I can think of in the PT that was left unexplained, or without any reasonable clues (enough to make it deliberately ambiguous) was the whole "force ghost" thing. But that was brought in during the OT and never answered there either.

Although I own a fair bit of it, I don't read the EU and don't consider any of it canon. Yet, apart from the force-ghost issue mentioned above, I don't have any issues with how the saga plays out. I don't see any "problem" here.

 

I wouldn't say he necessarily *deserves* the criticism, but I don't know why he wouldn't be surprised by it. Not all criticism should always be viewed as a negative thing. He created an enormously popular, wonderful thing that has evolved over time into a living, breathing entity. No person on the face of the planet could possibly not receive some sort of a backlash after achieving all that. I don't consider him a sellout for selling the franchise to Disney, either, and I really hope I don't eat my words on that, but I really have a lot of confidence that the new trilogy will be something we can all appreciate.

He's made a lot of questionable decisions, but when it comes down it it, it was his creation to mold, and while I believe that after birth a piece of art becomes the property of all those who love and adore it, and that he should have maybe listened more to fans on what worked for the series, it was ultimately still his decisions to make.

I've always felt like Lucas just wrote the blueprints for an amazing story, and the fans really took them and built such an encompassing universe that this entity has become.

 

All directors get criticized for their work, and I never understood why Lucas got so caught up in this split between the fanbase. Tarantino was buried by his fans for Jackie Brown, Ron Howard was buried by fans for Far and Away, Coppola was criticized for using his daughter in Godfather 3. But Lucas is the only director to go back at his fan base and it sort of comes off as being as just as silly as the PT bashers the way he talked about the OOT. Art will always be loved and hated by some and that is why they get paid the big money and we all have to go to our normal jobs everyday.

 

("We may have brought him success, but we did so because we liked his way of doing things.") I do think it is a yes, he deserved it, because as a fan, he should be allowed to make his story but take any logical flack for his project without it tearing him down too much. This quote, however I disagree with because we did not like his way. We liked what GL could've done but didn't do because of his own failure to understand and see the work within the work (the unifying world principle of good versus evil and the dreams contained in them), which we identified with until he forsook this story. We liked the story unadulterated, which, in the original, was GL's way of reflecting the resounding and unifying world principle of light and good versus darkness/evil. He should make a comeback which he will not do because he can't buy back his ownership (as far as I can tell). He was depending on people to not love the dream but instead to like his dramatic effects so much as to make it a cult-classic all over again in the prequels, which did not occur (causing his failure there).

 

It depends upon how I feel about his work. From my point of view. Overall, I adored what he did with the STAR WARS saga. There are some aspects of the movies and those novels I have read that I personally found questionable. But in the end, I am satisfied.

I can only answer the question to this thread from my point of view and no one else's. I don't assume to pretend that I speak for all or most SW fans.

 

It depends how you measure success. They were financial successes and proved to be exactly the movies the director wanted them to be. Anything beyond that is purely subjective when it comes down to measuring their success. The prequels could hardly be objectively justified as failures.

I think that not only underestimates Lucas' involvement in the franchise's development but also pays him a great disservice as a storyteller. He had a very grand vision right from the start - why else would he refuse a higher director's fee in order to instead take the sequel and merchandising rights? He deserved his control and, as a result, Star Wars became a very different animal than it would have otherwise been had it been driven by the fans or the studio. If the fans had been mainly responsible for what the saga became, we'd have had Boba Fett as one of the central characters in every movie beyond ESB, and the PT would have been completely different for a start.

 

Does he deserve to be insulted? No. Does he deserve to be criticised? Of course, just like every other artist.

Personally, I have lost all respect for the man. The reason for that is both his trolling of fans (like wearing a Han shot first shirt at cons) or the fact that he doesn't respect democracy and prefers a benevolent dictator, despite all the freedom democracy has given to him to pursue his own dreams. One has to wonder if he viewed himself as a benevolent dictator of his own company. Or whether the inane depiction of the Senators as either weaklings or all corrupt in the PT stems from his political beliefs? Does he secretly dream of a galaxy led by Emperor Yoda? It can hardly be accident - given his political views - that the Jedi (the good guys) attempt to overtake the Senate.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/032199lucas-wars-excerpts.html

 

That's not trolling. That's having a sense of humour.

Such a concept might be idealistic and improbable in our society but it's not evil or stupid in theory.

Yes Star Wars does reflect his political and moral views and so it should. He's an artist. He makes statements in his work. He's not just pandering to popular consensus and I think that makes both him and the movies more worthy of respect and consideration. It's always been the case. Just what the hell was actually democratic about the Rebels blowing up the Death Star, for example? One could reason Lucas as being a terrorist sympathiser from his work on the OT if it suited them.

Probably. Problem? It's his company. It's not a political body.

Bail Organa and Padme (the two prominent Senators we meet) are far from weak. Naive at times maybe, but not weak or without principle and passion.

Can't be any worse than what we have now

 

And in the same vein he whines that the media has too much power and that it shouldn't bother the government so much.

You may not think that is "evil" but I do. I think misguided idealism as his is dangerous.

The difference with the OT is that there are no articles about him stating he likes terrorists. Besides, he was much younger back then. Views tend to change over time.

About the shirt: He must have known that many wouldn't find that funny at all.

 

there is a defunct thread on the lucasfilm section very long title...'this sums it up perfectly' about a good piece of film criticism, i scrolled down to the comments section and ive never seen such vile, hateful, evil diatribes about a man and his family, this is how the herd mentality develops into making people villify someone who has made lots of people happy. i know i must come across as a gusher (there are parts of AOTC that i find hard to watch) but the man deserves respect for turning an industry on its head

 

if someone is offended by that they should really look hard at themselves!

 

Why? Just because they don't like being the butt of a bad joke?