Your opinion of George Lucas in 2020...

Firstly apologies if this causes controversy. It's not my intent. This is something I feel very strongly about. And I felt this was the place to talk to fans.... But what is your opinion of George in 2020. The impression I'm getting is he not only has distanced himself from his creation but he hates it. To the point where he refused to be interviewed for the toys that made us on Netflix with the focus on star wars. He just seems to have washed his hands of the saga he created and I feel both sad and slightly disappointed. He was one of my heroes growing up for what he achieved but now I'm kinda gone off him. He got really annoyed with the prequel backlash which I can kinda understand but star wars became bigger then him. A lot of fans were let down. Personally the prequels weren't that bad. Some great moments. Continuity is a bit iffy between the first two trilogies but it wasn't that bad. In fact I think the phantom menace is a good movie. Maul was a great creation. I don't know how to finish this post but I've lost a bit of respect for George.

 

I think he's moved on and passed the baton to a younger generation. He turned 76 this year and probably wants to think of other projects and enjoy his family while he still has time here on Earth. I haven't lost respect for him.

 

I agree with @LAJ_FETT - opinion hasn't changed.

I know he has been busy with the museum he's building, so there are many reasons he might be too busy to respond to all interview requests that come his way.

And who knows, maybe he's also busy watching Disney+.

 

A world without George would be a world without SW and Indiana Jones. He sold the company and retired. Why does he need to do interviews? He gave us SW. He owes the public nothing.

 

I don't think George Lucas hates Star Wars.

 

My opinion hasn't changed. He's still the talented filmmaker responsible for amazing films like American Graffiti and The Phantom Menace.

 

I don't really see anything to suggest that he hates Star Wars. That's mainly a view spread by a bunch of haters on youtube, who try and twist everything to fit to their narrative.

If he hated Star Wars, he wouldn't show up on set now and then, or discuss things with the new film-makers. If he had washed his hands of the franchise, he wouldn't voice his discontent about a lack of creativity and lack of a drive to movie technology and film-making in general forward, like he did about TFA.

And why would someone lose respect over irrelevant stuff like that?
That sounds more like an overly big sense of entitlement to me. Lucas is up there in age, he has a child to care about, has retired from film-making and purposefully handed Star Wars over to others. What difference does it make whether he didn't want to do one measily interview for one reason or another?
He's a private citizen, he has the right not to exist just for the entertainment of others.

 

The same as it was in 1977. He's great.

 

Genius and a great man. I'll always be grateful for all that he has given us.

 

I wished he would be back in some capacity

 

That is such a cute picture.

George Lucas is an amazing person and I'm grateful to him for bringing so much joy, wonder, excitement, and happiness to millions of people.

 

He is the best

 

Well, at the end of the day, Lucas has had an immeasurable impact on pop culture and on the film industry; and while he has his eccentricities, he did always have a very independent spirit that I can respect. There are some things that I find difficult to gauge his motivation for, he ultimately did give us a series that is very near and dear to me, and I also respect that in his later years, he's settled down to pass it on to new hands--for good and for ill--and focus on his own family.

 

One does get the strong sense that he doesn't like the ST--however, we aren't sure about his level of involvement. He wasn't completely uninvolved. He was at the very least consulted.

But we can be pretty sure he has enjoyed "The Mandalorian" so far. Above and beyond the set visits there are hints that his involvement might be bigger than is let on. For instance, from this bit with Giancarlo Esposito,

Those snips suggest that Lucas was at least somewhat involved with the creation of "The Mandalorian." Keep in mind that the revolutionary technology of "virtual sets" used on that show was originally developed for Lucas' "Underworld" show.

He also visited the set of "Solo," and directed a scene.

 

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I do not even remotely share it.

George Lucas IS Star Wars. I have to be honest, I really don't see how someone on the one hand can say they don't approve of Lucas's handling of Star Wars and than call themselves a Star Wars fan.

When you're a fan of something that's because you love it for what it is. Again, your entitled to your opinion, as for me, I love everything Lucas did, I loved the Prequels, and I consider myself a Lucas Canon Loyalist.

George Lucas's Star Wars was that of a true artist. He wasn't so much making movies as he was telling a story. His story.

An artist doesn't make art because he wants people to like it, he makes it because it's inside him and it's FOR him. Lucas always put it in such terms.

The notion that he didn't 'understand his own creation' or that he 'hates it' I can only respond that by saying that sounds awfully asinine. Who hates their own art and creations? He has always stated he 'makes the stories' because they 'are the stories'. He doesn't make them for money or for fame, he makes them because he can't not make them and he loves them.

"THESE ARE MY KIDS, ALL THE STAR WARS MOVIES."
~ George Lucas, Charlie Rose Interview, 2015

..
"It's hard to put it down, it's addictive. Obviously for the fans too but it's worse for me than most people!"
~ George Lucas, 2014

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AP: Do you pay much attention to fan reactions to your choices?

George Lucas: Not really. The movies are what the movies are. ... The thing about science-fiction fans and "Star Wars" fans is they're very independent-thinking people. They all think outside the box, but they all have very strong ideas about what should happen, and they think it should be their way. Which is fine, except I'm making the movies, so I should have it my way.

..


"They looked at the [sequel] stories and said, 'We want to make something for the fans'.

All I wanted to do was tell a story about what happened."

~ George Lucas, CBS This Morning, 2015
...

Star Wars didn't get 'bigger' than him. It got away from him.
His Star Wars is the only real Star Wars there is. No one else can do it right but him.

Star Wars was his creation, his life's work, his dream, his art, his soul, and his children. He loved it too much and he could never really let it go. He couldn't see anything other than his stories and quite honestly, that's how I see it too.

As for what my opinion is of him in 2020?

Same as it ever was. When it comes to Star Wars Lucas is God. I love the old bastard, he never did one thing that I would change. He gave me one of the greatest gifts in my life. I'm a hardcore, old school Star Wars fan, and that is all him.

Star Wars is special, there's nothing else quite like it. It never gets old, it never get's boring, it never stops feeling the way it always has.

Star Wars is about Black and White and not a sliver of Grey. It's about Good and Evil. Right and wrong. It's about the joys of selflessness and heartbreak of selfishness. It's about doing the Right thing, it's about love and respect for your fellow man.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
That's what Star Wars taught me.

Star Wars is so simple. It breaks everything that is important life down to the simplest of terms.

Do the right thing. Give of yourself to others. Remember that we are all brothers. Fight the good fight, even if you know you'll lose.

Ya know what, he said it best so I'll just quote him.
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George Lucas on the bottom line of Star Wars.

"The secret, ultimately, which is the bottom line in Star Wars and the other movies us there are two kinds of people in the world, compassionate people and selfish people. The selfish people live on the Darkside. The compassionate people live on the Lightside.

"If you go to the side of the Light you will be happy because of compassion, helping other people, not thinking about yourself, thinking about others, that gives you a joy that you can't get any other way.

Being selfish, following your pleasures, always entertaining yourself with pleasure, and buying stuff and doing stuff, you're always going to be unhappy. You'll never get to the point. You'll get this little shot of pleasure but it goes away and than you're stuck where you were before and the more you do it, the worse it gets. You finally get everything you want and you're miserable because there's nothing at the end of that road.

Whereas if you are compassionate and you get to the end of the road you've helped so many people."


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As far as I am concerned - If it isn't Lucas, it isn't Star Wars.

 

I couldn't agree more @GrimOnTheDarkside.
As Star Wars Theory said, "To me, Star Wars is George Lucas...forever."

 

He's distanced himself from Disney's corrupted sequel movies. I don't get the impression the other Disney material has any more impact than books or comics done during his time because he just sees them as something else. The only thing that really bothers him is that he gave them stories and wanted to help them but they thought they knew better!

He also trusted Iger and KK but unfortunately seemed to forget they are Hollywood executives of the old school and certainly not the Alan Ladd type.

His own movies are as he has said like his children so those are as they were.

I never was. Completely brilliant movies. Better than the originals I'd say. As for their continuity Disney once again supplies the answer. Lucas was able to make two trilogies that connect as six movies and tell one story over 30 years that fit together better on character. thematic and design in all aspects than they had any right to be. Lucas is a painter of film who changes his approach and comes up with new ideas as he goes along but everything works because it all ultimately comes down to him (as much as is possible when dealing with film or to be more precise the moving image which in this case is film and video).

Disney's single trilogy was not only a complete failure in tying to Lucas' movies they don't even tie into each other! Each movie is their own one-off entity which disconnect from each other.

Not sure why. If anything Disney's abhorrent mishandling so quickly and spectacularly reinforces the point that you can have all sorts of talent but without the creative center from which all things flow then none of it means anything.

They simply can't move forward because they don't know how. If Lucas hadn't done the prequels is there any doubt that no one else would have been able to do them in that way?

None whatsoever. As Disney Star Wars shows us all they can do is look at what came before and pastiche the master. Even those with good intentions can only look at what was. Lucas did the OT then the PT then TCW. His visual imagination is boundless. He can create new iterations of Star Wars in terms of design and character over and over again. When is that going to ever happen again?

 

I don't mind more SW per say but without George it's fan fiction. That doesn't mean it can't be good fan fiction. It would be like them making more Godfather movies without Coppala.

 

That is close but Coppola didn't create the Godfather. It's more akin to Sherlock Holmes. It's never quite the same when it's not from ACD but plenty of good stories have been done with Holmes in books, movies and TV.

That said those are pastiches in one way or another.

What can work but is more to the homage scale which is about paying respect to what came before. Even harder is what Lucas did where he took all sorts of material sourced from movie serials, movies, TV, history, books, comics, radio et al and then out of that created Star Wars.

The essence of what he did was to use all the above and more from music to paintings to continually render into Star Wars. If all that is happening is basically a recycling of Star Wars into Star Wars then it's too insular and not going to work long term. It's possible to have it work short term but to stretch it out scarcity is required.

In Lucas' case his scarcity was enforced due to his own high standards and technology always being behind. Unfortunately by the time it was getting close to being achievable he simply wasn't interested in continuing. I don't think he could have imagined what Disney did. Selfishly for us I wish he did want to make the ST or at least make VII which would set it all up.

That way at least it'd have had some connection to all that came before.

 

you're right I was gonna add Mario Puzo to that.

 

Opinions about George have waxed and waned over the years. The height of his popularity in the public eye was probably the period from 1977 to 1985. Return of the Jedi had its share of criticism. The film Howard the Duck in 1986 turned more critics against him. Demand for new SW films was at a peak in the early-90s. Phantom Menace drew some backlash that persisted into the release of Attack of the Clones. The Clone Wars cartoons were not universally received well in the first two seasons. He has left quite a storied legacy.

 

I suppose if there's one word that defines Lucas as a filmmaker, it's interesting--even before Star Wars, he was pretty darn varied, between American Graffiti and THX1138. It's guaranteed he'll be discussed for a long time even after he passes.

 

I look at George as launching some of the early nostalgia in the 70s through American Graffiti. The popularity of American Graffiti and Happy Days filtered into popular music in the late-70s and early-80s. Rock and R & B artists had this new retro-clean look.

THX is post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Indiana Jones is more in the explorer-adventurer vein. Howard the Duck was an attempt at a Marvel Comics film. He traversed film styles with each new film. Red Tails was a whole different type of film.

And then we have his relationship with Spielberg and so many others.

 

He got to the point that is most dangerous for a creative, his success led to no one saying "George, that might not be a great idea."

Selling the keys to the empire to Disney was the best thing Lucas could have done. He's more than earned the opportunity to rest on his laurels