PT What was George Lucas's reputation like before the prequels?

I didn't start watching Star Wars until after 2002 when AOTC came out. That's when I saw the whole series. I've only known George Lucas as this polarizing figure who supposedly "ruined" Star Wars and all that crap. What was his reputation like before TPM came out? Was he actually loved and respected then as the man who brought us Star Wars?

 

yes he was very well respected. he came up with star wars and indiana jones. people still respect him now cuz u cant ever forget the 80's and all the great films he was responsible for. his big mistake was directing the prequels themselves. he's a terrible director of actors, he's more of an editor and a story overseer. so yes his rep did take a hit with the prequels, but u cant undo the greatness of his older films.

 

I'd say he was very well respected especially for the radical advancements that the OT made to filming, effects especially.

The SE tinkering before the PT is probably when the criticism started with the whole 'Han shot first' issue being one that people could jump on easily.

Or were the Ewoks when people started to change their opinion...

 

As I recall, he was seen as a master of the blockbuster, but not a particularly great artist.

 

As far as I remember, in the 80's he was seen as the american wonder boy of movie-making, along with S.Spielberg, who created the most popular and money-making cinelmatic series of all time. Also a master of special effects (ILM).

In the early 90's, he was more considered like a semi-retired nabab, mainly involved in production. Until the news broke out that a special edition of the OT was underway, and that he had finally decided to make the first trilogy of Episode I-III.

in the late 90's, just before TPM's release, his reputation and fame was probaly at its highest ("like a John Lennon or a Stanley Kubrick" to quote M. Kaminski in SHOSW). He was even regarded by some as a semi-god !!! Many people were wondering if the prequels, and TPM especially, would shake America and the world the way Star Wars/ANH did it in 1977.

 

The hype surrounding the release of TPM, personally directed by Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, was something the likes of which I've never before seen and will likely never see again.

 

For me his reputation has always been the same. He's a guy that makes fun movies that I enjoy. It's not his fault people put him on such a high pedestal.

 

The hype for TPM was at a ridiculous level - far greater than EpVII; I was about 13 (I think) at the time and I still remember MTV UK running rumours every day about the movie. As MOC Yak Face said, we will never see anything like that again (in terms of insane hype) - RoTS, though, came pretty close.

 

GL was like perfection back then. I don't remember any criticism of him, other than for howard the duck.
He was also a bit of a mystery. He rarely gave interviews.
but yeah,,,,the way people treat him now is like 180 degrees from 15 years ago.

 

GL is a pioneer and innovator, as well as a creative genius. My recollection of him before the PT is limited, as I wasn't born until after the OT had come and gone, but I do remember him in the occasional interview. My perception was that he was held in high regard; especially in the entertainment industry. Even now, I don't think anyone can dispute the impact he has had on cinema... not only because of his films, but also other things he pioneered such as ILM, Skywalker Sound, LucasArts, and his initial part in what ultimately became Pixar. All of those companies are still very relevant today. I think as time has gone on, he has lost some of his touch in terms of delivering a truly solid product. The PT is the obvious example; though GL had the right to make the films however he saw fit. They didn't line up with what many of us had in mind, but that is not on him. I'd also say Red Tails is another example. The premise of the story is a great one, though the actual execution left much to be desired. I know GL later indicated that the film industry was to blame for its failure, but it simply wasn't a good movie.

So, I think GL is still highly respected and acknowledged as the creative genius, businessman, and innovator that he is. But, he also now has the shadow of things like the PT and the SE that have been so controversial and caused many to lose faith in his abilities.

 

GLs reputation was not as tarnished as "it is today". Me personaly love the PT, so I find the Whole hate for GL pretty rediculous !

 

I don't know why you would call it tarnished... Lots of good people/actors are in bad movies. But I actually enjoy the prequels, so whatever.

 

he's always been an amazing storyteller and innovator. none of that has changed.

 

For me he was basically ignored, I never paid directors and movie execs much attention in my younger years. I would have to say the Behind the scene stuff on the Disc two of TPM made me actually like him. Him doing the PT is what actually got me interested in SW, prior to that SW was just another aspect of nerd culture I was not really interested in. Marvel and DC comics and Playstation videogames were the main parts of that sub culture I was into, but PT definitely got me into SW and gave me interest to finally see the OT.

 

As I recall GL was viewed as a very successful movie maker, but didn't quite have the same artistic cache of his counterparts from other movie genres (particularly drama) in the 70s and 80s. Sci-fi didn't really start to get a wider recognition as a legitimate "cinematic art" until the late 90s, and regardless of how successful he (and others) might have been, they were always viewed as glorified b-movie makers by the old Hollywood establishment.

 

For good or bad, now, more than ever, he's "the Star Wars guy".

He's as much the creative force behind Star Wars as is C.S. Lewis for "The Chronicles Of Narnia", J.R.R. Tolkien for "The Lord Of The Rings", and J.K. Rowling for "Harry Potter". A storytelling auteur, a mythopeic pioneer, a fantasy architect, an icon.

And, in many ways, he's even more of an innovator, a sooth, a genius, than those other people put together.

I think he has a few more arrows in his back for being on the cutting edge and having a streak of virtuosity that others don't recognize or haven't got to grips with yet. Maybe in a generation or two...

 

I'm a huge Tolkien fan, and I think The Silmarillion (and its accompanying corpus) narrowly edges out Star Wars as "best artificial mythopoeia" (in literary terms, as a story, though as an overall work of art I prefer SW), but I absolutely agree that George is a more innovative and subversive storyteller than all of them put together.

I don't know enough about filmmaking to say much on his "virtuosity", if by that you mean technical flair and creative control of his chosen medium, but I also agree that the subtle subversiveness of his storytelling generally seems to go over people's heads. I'm not as optimistic as you are that it'll ever be fully appreciated outside a small circle of fans though...

 

As a story, Star Wars isn't as dense as other that are out there -- no. As the experience of a story, though, it seems to have no equal.

It's more about the subtle notes and beats of the piece. It's more installation art than a forbidding chronicle.

That said, when you add in all the ancillary material, as pulpy as most of it might be...

Technical flair, creative control, and the degree to which Star Wars has become embedded in popular imagination.

There have been certain geniuses (or at the least, great talents) not looked upon all that fondly in their own lifetimes: Alfred Hitchcock in the world of film, for instance, Beethoven in music, and Herman Melville in literature.

A dramatic re-evaluation of all of Lucas' films could take place in the near future. Once people have gotten completely away from it for a while, perhaps; and once an entirely new generation can look at his entire body of work with fresh eyes.

 

Oh, absolutely. It's an apples and oranges thing, but I certainly think SW is the artistically more ambitious, multi-textured and interesting achievement.

Eueeeerrhhh...my canon is the extant films

I certainly hope so.

 

Indeed. It's the only one I have any real intellectual or emotional interest in.

Mine, too. At least, for now.

I did just want to acknowledge that a wider body of material exists, though.

If not, there will hopefully always be a dedicated group of fans and media commentators prepared to analyze, evaluate, and evangelize on their own terms.

 

I don't excatly know how George Lucas's reputation has been like before the Prequels.

That said, I don't think the PT has hurt his reputation significantly. Sure, for a segment of the fans it did. Gary Kurtz is the new god in town for them now and it probably makes them happy. I don't care, though, and I just don't think that notion encroached upon "society". If anything, I think the self-proclaimed "sophisticated" observers of the film business accuse him of his unconventional career. Many of his pals, like Steven Spielberg for example, started doing action blockbusters but have come to make more "serious" or "adult" films in the past years. Lucas, after having a long break, kept doing Star Wars and I believe that fact alone has "hurt" his repuation in the film business more than the movies themselves.

In many respects, Lucas went from making strange, adult-oriented, more obviously artistic films very early (student films and THX 1138) and a clearly creative cinematic portrait of his own youth (American Graffiti) to making "just" Star Wars blockbuster films and - while the industry has always accepted the technological innovations that came from the series - they have never brought themselves to see Star Wars as truly "artistic".

In conclusion: I'd say Lucas is now considered as the man who made Star Wars, whereas in the late 80s and early 90s he was that as well, but people could still fantasize about the second half of his career (and hope for another earthquake in the line of the original Star Wars).

 

Even ANH got criticisms for being "paternalistic" and "anti-rational" after it came out:


http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/moorcock.html

An anarchist is not a wild child, but a mature, realistic adult imposing laws upon the self and modifying them according to an experience of life, an interpretation of the world. A 'rebel', certainly, he or she does not assume 'rebellious charm' in order to placate authority (which is what the rebel heroes of all these genre stories do). There always comes the depressing point where Robin Hood doffs a respectful cap to King Richard, having clobbered the rival king. This sort of implicit paternalism is seen in high relief in the currently popular Star Wars series which also presents a somewhat disturbing anti-rationalism in its quasi-religious 'Force' which unites the Jedi Knights (are we back to Wellsian 'samurai' again?) and upon whose power they can draw, like some holy brotherhood, some band of Knights Templar. Star Wars is a pure example of the genre (in that it is a compendium of other people's ideas) in its implicit structure -- quasi-children, fighting for a paternalistic authority, win through in the end and stand bashfully before the princess while medals are placed around their necks.
Star Wars carries the paternalistic messages of almost all generic adventure fiction (may the Force never arrive on your doorstep at three o'clock in the morning) and has all the right characters. it raises 'instinct' above reason (a fundamental to Nazi doctrine) and promotes a kind of sentimental romanticism attractive to the young and idealistic while protective of existing institutions. It is the essence of a genre that it continues to promote certain implicit ideas even if the author is unconscious of them. In this case the audience also seems frequently unconscious of them

 

Yep, Iron_lord beat me to it. I was going to say that it probably depended on who you asked. And if you asked someone who's tastes leaned toward more "serious" or experimental forms of genre, you probably would've been very likely to get a negative take on Lucas long before the prequels came about. Funnily enough, though, one of the unofficial taglines about the so called New Wave movement of science fiction was that it was just as likely to take place in a bedroom as it was a space ship, and it wasn't until the prequels that we got at least a passing glimpse of this type of flawed, intimate relationship between two adults. Not that New Wavers would appreciate the prequels more so than any other Star Wars, but nonetheless it strikes me as interesting that out of the six film saga only in the prequels do we get a couple of bedroom scenes. Of course ESB implies certain things, but for me that relationship never transcends the stylized bicker/flirt-until-hero-wins-her-over dynamic, while with the early parts of ROTS I actually get a sense of Padme and Anakin in a more frank, grounded sense.