Saga Point of view - George Lucas was right not to listen to the embittered fans

Nope. He's said he doesn't like writing or directing. Everything else is speculation.

 

Not clear to me DD. What is the speculation?

MJ

 

discussion's turning vacuous

 

Anyone's guess, including mine that disliking those roles detracts from the results he gets (affects the standard of his writing & direction).

 

What you're referring to is what Lucas said many years before directing the PT, when the OT was being produced, and when he was fed up after having encountered so many difficulties with the original Star Wars from 1977. What Ezon Pin and I were talking about was when Lucas was working on the PT:

Yes, he looked for people working on his place on the PT. But have you ever thought that his feelings towards directing and writing might have changed during the process? Even when people were heavily criticizing him for TPM, he simply didn't give up and said "bah, I don't like this, I give up". No he forced himself and persevered and continue to work on AOTC and ROTS...

Today, he once again gave up directing big movies, and not because he said that he hate it and was lazy as he said in the 1980's, but because he said the following: "You go to make a movie and all you do is getting criticized. And people try to make decisions about what you're going to do before you could do it. And it's not much fun, you can't experiment, you can't do anything."



And all of this, just because of some ugly people on the public place or on the internet...

EDIT: and he even said in this video that he will still be directing experimental movies, but that they won't be shown anywhere. So, I wonder, does he really despise directing and writing movies after saying that?

 

Lawl he was talking about like producers and whatnot, actually having control over what he could do - not "ugly people" (aww) on the internet.


Though in an earlier interview he actually did say "why keep making movies if everyone just hates you for that", so yea

 

Kinda see his point..When the community doesn't care, why bother?


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Didn't the movies also got tons of fans and ****? Like, everytime he appeared on some live show people went bananas or something.

Seems like enough of a reason to go on, I think he just enjoyed feeling bitter and focusing on the bad side when he said that - and does so regularly, like whenever he releases a new "troll comment" about who was supposed to shoot first, etc.

 

That's rather ironic when you have been the boss and founder of your own company in which you can take decisions by yourself.

My guess is that it's the latest Red Tails, for which the big studios have refused to found its production and assist him in its distribution around the world, that has pushed him to give up in producing big block-busters and sell his company. The movie, even if he didn't direct it, but produce it, was met with harsh critics and didn't succeed at the box-office, making it a deficient movie. He knew then that experimental movies like these would threaten his company and his employees if they were to be met like this by the public as Red Tails did...

 

Ehhh....

I mean of course they went crazy, it was the guy who created Star Wars(mostly recognized of the OT).

It can go either way though..


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Might be that, didn't he explain that with racism at the time?

Anyway, I'm not that informed about who had how much control - didn't people step in during RotS and influence it somehow?
Or maybe he was talking about earlier experiences when he had less power?

 

Think he said or suggested the studios were rejecting this all-black heroic WWII movie due to racism - not gonna look around finding interviews atm, though.

Maybe he didn't, that's what I remember.

 

Eeeeh... I think that time period has been revolutionized long ago... Why would he said such ridiculous thing to justify the studios' disdain and the movie's failure? You better check your sources as you said...

 

Checking sources is good, but saying "why say such ridiculous thing", no - if you think it's an anomaly nowadays to make ridiculous accusations of racism, you've not been keeping up

 

Not really. For one thing we have no decisive comments from him that say that. So it's just guesswork. We do however have a host of remarks explaining how much he dislikes it all. Even last year he repeats again how much he dislikes making blockbuster movies like SW bcs he can't experiment as much as he'd like to:

"You know, it's not much fun. And you can't experiment, you can't do anything. You 'have' to do everything a certain way. I don't like that, I never have — I started out in experimental films and I want to go back to experimental films, but of course, nobody wants to see experimental films."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/why-george-lucas-wont-direct-841972

How many times do you need to hear him say he doesn't enjoy it & it's not much fun for you guys to believe him?

 

Just one more time and that oughta be enough.

 

If Chtwood did his homework he would know that it was Lucas who actually wrote The Empire Strikes Back and that it was also produced independently with zero creative oversight, but which I-III hater cares about facts anyway.

 

Since Lucas directed the PT & had no other writers do complete drafts of those scripts, it's reasonable to call the PT 100% Lucas & ESB & RotJ something less than that. His only slip-up was not acknowledging GL's uncredited draft of ESB. Let's not forget however:

“What I worked on was a draft of the script George had written, based on the story George had given to Leigh [Brackett]. I don’t know what of Leigh’s draft survived into the draft George wrote. What George handed me was a very rough first draft, really somewhere between an outline and a first draft. The structure of the story was all there – it was the skeleton for a movie. What was needed was the flesh and the muscle.” - Kasdan.

“Faced with the situation that somebody had to step in and do a rewrite, I was forced to write the second draft of this screenplay (of ESB). But I found it much easier than I’d expected, almost enjoyable. It still took me three months to do, but that’s a lot different from two years. I also had the advantage of Larry Kasdan coming in later to do a rewrite and fix it up.” - Lucas

 

So it doesn't prove that GL disliked writing and directing the prequels. Thank you.

MJ

 

He said he didn't. Take that as proof...or don't.

 

So... lol, why does he
-complain no one wants to see experimental films
-say he'll never show his new experimental films to anyone?

lmao

 

Huh? What are you saying? What proof about the prequels?

MJ

 

Sorry. Double post.

MJ

 

He said recently that directing & writing the SW movies wasn't much fun. Fair to say he was talking about the Prequels rather than the other SW movie he directed 40 years ago.