Does anybody still think that George Lucas is a genius?

Anyone with an ounce of respect for the truth simply has to admit that Hidden Fortress was, literally, a goldmine for George Lucas. Even to the extent that ANH and Hidden Fortress part company, scenes from Hidden Fortress that never made it into ANH show up in ROTJ and TPM.

 

>>>> One of my favorite scenes is when the son and father finally get to sit down and enjoy their plates of spaghetti at the restaurant, and a small band is playing in the background. I think it was Ebert who said that, at that moment, every son who watched that moment thought about their own fathers during that scene, and I agree.

Ah yes, the pizzeria. How can that not be my favorite scene too? In my opinion, it?s the payoff for watching that film. I mean I?m sitting there watching the movie, all the while trying to keep in mind its historical and social context, and wham! I?m suddenly hit with memories of my dad and I at the ballpark watching Cal Ripken hit home runs and turn double-plays. You really don?t expect to feel so damn sentimental during the hopelessness of De Sica?s films, but there I was wondering what my dad was doing at that very moment.

>>>> I haven't seen Stray Dogs yet, but I would love to see it. The theme sounds similar to Kurosawa's High and Low, which I think was an excellent film. It also contrasted the wealthy and poor in Japanese society. What did you think of that film by the way?

H&L is a good film. I especially like how, just like so many other Kurosawa heroes, Gondo is undone by his own compassion. He takes responsibility even when he himself is not responsible for the boy?s kidnapping. But he does so and loses his stake in his company. The world takes him down because he is not ?evil enough.? The same thing happens to Anakin in ROTJ I might add.

 

I think George is a minor genius as, after all, he does have a whole legion of fans discussing him and his work, and you have to do something pretty special to get that kind of following.

The above statement by Oakessteve reflects my opinion on this subject.

No, GL is not a "genius" if you judge him solely as a director, screenwriter, or auteur. In terms of filmmaking, he does not approach the genius of Ford, Korusawa, or even Spielberg. ANH and ESB are great films, but all five SW films have their flaws.

I think GL's ?genius? is grounded in the universe he created. With ANH, GL did a remarkable job of assimilating many ideas, themes, and concepts. He established a universe that felt familiar and wholly original at the same time. I do acknowledge that: 1) the plot of ANH had been "borrowed", and 2) there many other individuals besides GL who were responsible for bringing ANH to life. However, the entire SW universe is driven and centered around GL. The SW characters and films are endearing to many individuals of all ages, races, cultures, and nationalities throughout the world. Why is this the case? Did GL just luck-out and haphazardly put together the right combination of familiar ideas, concepts, and characters (the equivalent of hitting the filmmaking "lottery?)? No - the success and legacy of the SW films are due in large part to GL's imagination, vision, and inspiration - in essence his genius.

"Borrowing" (ideas, plots, settings, characters, ect.) is as old art itself. The quality of a work and the ?genius? of artist depend on how well these concepts are utilized. Shakespeare in some instances "borrowed" heavily from other plays and literary works (Hamlet , general influences). Does this make him any less of a "genius?" IMO ? no.

I think this quote is very relevant:

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." - T. S. Eliot

Oh yeah? Touch of Evil? Best B-Movie ever! Am I crazy for liking it more than Citizen Kane?!

I'm in total agreement, bad radio. Touch of Evil is one of my favorite films.

 

In a tangentially related matter, the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday upheld the "copyright term extension act," thus ensuring that, regardless how he got hold of it, George Lucas's intellectual property will remain in the hands of his heirs and assigns and corporate successors long after he is dead and buried.

 

DrEvazan:

Aside from acknowledging and borrowing from others, doesn't genius denote (really not sure) a sense of true originality?

Let's see, I would try to come up with an example that has nothing to do with SW, or even cinema. Please follow me to the end.

I would ask: Is Albert Einstein a genius?

The general consensus is: 'Yes. Of course! How you dare to doubt that! He is a Nobel Prize winning, and he came up with the Theory of Relativity.' Now, if you studied physics, you would realize that the experiments were all done when Einstein came up with the Special Relativity, all the mathematical apparatus was already built. The 'only' thing Einsten did was taking all this, which was public knowledge between the scientific community, and ask himself: What does math and experiments say? The only constant is lightspeed. So, space and time can't be constant. There you have the twins paradox and all that stuff. Was Einstein original? No by a long shot. Was he a genius. Of course he was!

Another one:

Tolkien:

A lot of his character's names were taken from the Elder Edda. Gandalf, Thorin, Gimli and a lot more. Gondor is a region in Ethiopia. Middle Earth was an ancient name that was given to this very planet we are living on. A lot of storylines and characters came from the Ring of the Nibelung. Was LotR a masterpiece? Yes. And Tolkien a literary genius? Yes.

And on the 'borrowing shots from others/his own work': Sonny's shooting in The Godfather was done that way because of Bonnie & Clyde, and John Ford shot a lot of his westerns in the very same place, with a lot of similar shots. Was The Godfather a masterpiece. Of course it was! Was John Ford a moviemaking genius? Yep, I think so.

I've seen Hidden Fortress, and I can see the parallels in the storyline. I think Braveheart is much more similar to Spartacus that ANH to HF, but nobody told this to Mel Gibson when giving him the Best Picture oscar. Peter Hyams' Outland and Fred Zinneman's High Noon are the same movie in different settings. E.T. storyline share a lot of points with the life of Jesus. And so on and on...

Is GL a genius? Time will tell. What do I think? If he isn't, he is quite close.

 

interesting point about Einstein. his great successes (photoelectric effect, special relativity, general relativity) all came before 1920 (IIRC). He spent most of his scientific career defending those ideas before they were proven right and later was busy working on a Grand Unified Theory that really didn't go anywhere. So one could say that his "genius" was over and done after 1920 and he rode its fame for the rest of his life. It's not disputed that he's a genius, but his life shows that one doesn't have to keep reinventing the wheel every few years to be a legitimate genius.

Based on this, one could say that GL is a filmmaking genius even if one doesn't care for his later work.

 

With "Outland," everyone was upfront about the fact that they were setting out to make "High Noon" in space. One of the reviews was, predictably, titled "High Moon."

Some questions:

1) Did Lucas steal other people's intellectual property? Well, as far as I know, he's never been held accountable to anyone in a court of law. Honestly, I don't care one way or another. If he ever gets into a major intellectual property theft scandal, I would not be surprised, but until then I say let it alone.

2) Is "Hidden Fortress" a major source of influence for ANH and other Star Wars movies? Yes. It's not just "parallels between the stories" either. It's dialogue directly lifted, scenes directly lifted, composition of shots directly lifted, characters and plots modified to suit the purposes of GL's story.

3) Could GL be more up-front about his influences, for the sake of the historical record, given the importance of Star Wars to the history of popular cinema, and in the interest of giving attribution where it's due? Yes, I think so. GL's interview on the "Hidden Fortress" DVD is, in my opinion, an injustice to the historical record. It is a deliberate, self-serving, and misleading effort to downplay the similarities between "Star Wars" and "Hidden Fortress" for reasons I believe derive from the longstanding, PR-driven mythologizing of Lucas the filmmaker. The interview plays like an admission that "Hidden Fortress" stands as a personal embarrassment to George Lucas.

 

Jabbadabbado:

With "Outland," everyone was upfront about the fact that they were setting out to make "High Noon" in space. One of the reviews was, predictably, titled "High Moon."

That's funny. I remember Braveheart's preview title in a spanish magazine titled "Spartacus in Scotland" . Of course, I didn't do a full research for my examples, I just wrote some that I remembered. My point is that moviemaking and storytelling is feedback, and it's very hard (impossible, I dare to say) to find one work fully original.

Is "Hidden Fortress" a major source of influence for ANH and other Star Wars movies? Yes.

I agree. And I think Lucas agrees, too.

It's not just "parallels between the stories" either. It's dialogue directly lifted, scenes directly lifted, composition of shots directly lifted

Congrats, Jabba, now I have to pop HF in my dvd tonight, instead of the 'Something Like It Hot' copy I just bought . Well, maybe I will watch both

My HF dvd edition doesn't have that GL interview, so I cannot tell you my opinion about that. But according to my sources (The Annotated Screenplays, mainly) GL fully acknowledges HF influences in ANH. And any time he tells in that interview about the differences between HF and ANH, he is acknowledging the similarities, IMHO (without having seen that interview, as I said).

 

>>>GL's interview on the "Hidden Fortress" DVD is, in my opinion, an injustice to the historical record. It is a deliberate, self-serving, and misleading effort to downplay the similarities between "Star Wars" and "Hidden Fortress" for reasons I believe derive from the longstanding, PR-driven mythologizing of Lucas the filmmaker. The interview plays like an admission that "Hidden Fortress" stands as a personal embarrassment to George Lucas.

Interesting perspective, considering the whole interview seems to be "I got this idea for Hidden Fortress, I got that idea from another Kurosawa film, I use this Kurosawa shot a lot, Kurosawa was my biggest influence as a filmmaker." I don't understand how you can view the interviews existence on the DVD as anything other than Lucas paying credit where it's due.

Or do you mean the fact that he says that the Star Wars princess wasn't based around the Hidden Fortress princess?

 

it seems i have to point out the differences between homages and influences as they are used by other filmmakers and the way they apply to Lucas.

in the instances mentioned, The Godfather and Sonny Corleone's death at the toll booth, it is ONE scene. Outlander was made as a fully acknowleged remake of High Noon.

Lucas credits HF with "influencing" him in the creation of Star Wars, but he took so much from HF that it goes well beyond the bounds of "homage" and "influence".

its not like he took an idea here and a shot there... it is almost the entire film, shots, characters, plot, themes... yet he does not call Star Wars a remake of HF when he should. the way i see it he sites "influences" to avoid exactly the kind of criticism he is getting in this thread: so that people will say "well he admits he was influenced". it is akin to a thief saying "i was just borrowing the money" to lessen the impact of the crime.

i consider Brian DePalma to be a huge thief as well. he repeatedly stole shots, themes, characters, and suspense setups from Hitchcock, and in the case of The Untouchables, Eisenstein and Coppola. he uses the work of others, not because it has a "wink and nod" meaning in his films, but rather because it worked in the other films so why not just take them and use them in his? not only is this type of filmmaking dishonest, it is also just plain lazy and lacks creative vision.

 

While I agree with most of the points that people have made trying to "defend" the potential of Lucas' genius, it seems to me that people are trying to show just how "ungenius" people such as Einstein, Tolkien, and so on are. Of course, genius is truely a matter of coloured perspective.

For me personally, Einstein's genius was not necessarily in his theorums, original or otherwise. It came from his innate ability to relay that almost intransitory information to the common person.

Tolkien is another example of potentially misplaced genius. Sure LOTR is what he is known for, but it is his uncanny ability with language that sets him apart as both a person and a philologist.

Perhaps genius is the spark of the undefinable. If this is so then I guess a case can be made for just about anyone, including George. I've spent an awful lot of time with this powerful universe of his which has become a flat, two-dimensional affair for me with the release of the PT films. I've come to accept that my Star Wars (ANH and ESB) is not what George's Star Wars is (ANH for sure, but it appeared that the series was growing in an infinite quality after ESB was released). Ah well! C'est la vie.

 

Well-said, DarthMalifluous (I'll probably have to edit to make sure I spelled your user ID correctly. And I did!)

IMO, there are two ways to measure genius, an IQ test, and an originality test. Again, this is SOLELY my opinion. Many people, including me, are geniuses based on IQ tests. However, that is not enough to explain artistic genius. That is where I pull in the originality test.

Yes, you can pull many disparate elements together, but the genius of doing that depends upon the resulting synthesis. GL was able to produce an amazing synthesis of many disparate elements with ANH and ESB.

With the PT films, he seems to have lost that, IMO, so I don't think of him as such an artistic genius any more. CGI may be great and digital film making may be the current state of the art, but 'art' is much more than that.

His visuals may be great, but those are only half of the story. You can have great visuals and still end up with a film that says and means nothing.

Lady Sami

 

Just for clarification, here is a little Hidden Fortress outline. Obviously, there are HUGE HF SPOILERS ahead (I know, DrEvazan, I don't need to put spoiler space, everybody here have seen ANH But I will do it anyway, OK?):









Two peasants run away from war. They fall prisoners and later they escape again. They find some firesticks that happen to be filled with gold bars. As they are planning to take the gold with them, they are found by a warrior. This warrior is protecting a girl who later we discover is a princess that is searched by the enemy. The warrior and the pricess are the ones who got the gold hidden into the firesticks. These four people get together in their attempt to reach friendly forces, and after some skirmishes, they succeed.






END HF SPOILERS

Now, lets try to write a little ANH outline. (Now I hope nobody gets angry because of the lack of spoiler spaces!):

A princess who is about to being captured by the enemy hides some secret plans into one of her droids. These droids escape, while the princess is held prisoner. They find a farmer who takes them to an old warrior. This warrior finds out the importance of these plans and they hire a smuggler to take them to a safe place. They are taken to the enemy fortress, where they find out the princess is held as a prisoner. They rescue her and they escape, but the old warrior dies. Later, with the help of the secret plans, they destroy the enemy fortress.

Do you agree with these outlines? If it is so, do you really think ANH is a HF remake? If your answer is yes, what do you think about Spartacus and Braveheart? Is that a remake too? Do you think that Randall Wallace or Mel Gibson should acknowledge Dalton Trumbo or Stanley Kubrick? Should Spielberg write 'Based on the New Testament' on all E.T. copies from now on?

I hope I will be able to make a comment about the shots when I see HF again, this weekend, maybe. I'm offline during the weekend, so I hope you can wait till then .

 

DarthMalifluous:

it seems to me that people are trying to show just how "ungenius" people such as Einstein, Tolkien, and so on are.

I've seen this argument in these forums before. When you compare the PT and the OT, somebody will say: "Now you're putting down the OT! How you dare!" I'm not doing that. And I'm not trying to put Einstein and Lucas at the same level, either. These are just examples. As some teacher once told me, "Examples are like lemons: when you squeeze them too much, you get the pips".

Einstein was a genius because he challenged an established truth (constant space - a yard is always a yard no matter how you measure it - and time - a second is always a second no matter how you measure it) and proved them false. And that's quite an achievement, if you ask me. Nobody could do it before, despite all the knowledge was public domain. (I can't tell how much of a genius Tolkien was, because I just don't know his works. I'm not interested in philology. It's quite far from my field.)

That's the way I should define a 'genius': somebody who challenge the established, and succeeds. Somebody who revolutionize his field of work. Galileo, Newton, Einstein in physics, Shakespeare, Cervantes in literature, Griffith, Orson Welles, John Ford in moviemaking. IMHO George Lucas revolutionized filmmaking with his work, so I think it's safe to label him as a genius.

Well, I'm done. I have to go and find my real life. I know I left it on this table somewhere .

 

I EAGERLY AWAIT JABBADABBADO'S RESPONSE TO SOME RANDOM NERD.

I have not seen The Hidden Fortress, and I would very much like to do so. But from the sounds of it, ANH is nowhere near what some people claim a blatant "rip-off" of THF.

If there are those out there who feel it is their obligation in life to discredit Lucas and "bring him down to your level", then please, with all of your strength and gusto, please present proof of your opinion!

Thank you. Now move along. Move along.

 

please present proof of your opinion

While I doubt anyone is trying to bring Lucas down (they're just expressing their discontent with some of his recent choices) you could watch Hidden Fortress and form an opinion of your own. Speaking of which, how does one go about presenting proof of an opinion? ?

 

Errrr....ummm......yeah......you got me......

*bows head in shame*

Um.......provide support for your arguments.

*Runs away to find a copy of The Hidden Fortress.*

 

stone-jedi,

I guess one could list one' reasons for holding the opinion?

Lady Sami

 

"That's the way I should define a 'genius': somebody who challenge the established, and succeeds."

i would say that by that definition, Lucas is not a genius. he did everything BUT challenge the established, by using tried and true themes, mythologies and icons to tell his story. he was criticised at the time for dumbing down american cinema, and setting it back to the days of the serial. i agree with this sentiment to an extent, but i still think there is a place for popcorn movies, and i very much enjoy them. the unfortunate part is Lucas's success paved the way to the success of the Bruckheimers, Michael Bays and Devlin/Emmerlichs of today.

people say he revolutionized special effects, but in reality it was Dykstra who was the genius inventor, adding speed and motion control to the Trumbull and Kubrick effects created for 2001: A Space Odessey . again Lucas just claimed the talents of another as his own, eventually building them into ILM.

 

Dr E,

Thanks for that wonderful piece of information!

This quote of one of Alexander's generals fits GL to a tee: "Shall one man claim the spoils won by thousands?"

Of course, Alexander killed him on the spot for saying that.

Lady Sami

 

"its not like he took an idea here and a shot there... it is almost the entire film, shots, characters, plot, themes... yet he does not call Star Wars a remake of HF when he should."

I dare you to thoroughly point out the "stolen" shots, characters, plot and themes.

Maybe you weren't paying close attention to HF, you just heard the term general and made a connection to a person who is called a general in ANH. You heard princess and made a connection to Leia. You saw two bickering companions and made a connection to 2 robots in ANH. Those are all fine surface characteristics, but you obviously didn't actually look at the characterization, the actions, how they relate to each other, motivations, etc. If you think Rokurota=Kenobi because they're both generals, and Yukihime=Leia because they're both princesses, may I implore you to watch both movies again, and take notes this time.

Tahei and Matakishi are probably the closest parallel to SW you can find. But again, are characterized quite differently that R2D2 and 3PO were, relate differently, act differently, and are used within the story differently.

There is of course no doubt, that the Hidden Fortress inspired parts of ANH. But it's at such a superficial level, such substantial changes were made to what was used (Lucas made Kenobi the almost mirror opposite of Rokurota and had them serve totally different means, and the only thing Princess Yukihime and Princess Leia share are a title, etc...), and the multitude of things that were added(Luke, Han, Vader, Tarkin, the Death Star and the Force for starters) that had zero basis in HF to begin with, that I find it completely laughable that anyone would even try to come on here and say Lucas ripped the Hidden Fortress off. I can't believe anyone who actually watched the movie could make that kind of statement.

Of course, if anyone disagrees with me, they're free to. Just try and back up the "ripped off" comments with a little analysis this time. Not blanket statements.

 

If it would help the discussion, I, or someone else, could post excerpts from the HF Lucas interview this weekend. I don't think it will resolve the argument. It's goint to depend on whether you agree with what GL says or not.

 

Jabbadabbado,

Please do that! And please accept my apology if I misspelled your user ID.

Thanks in advance,

Lady Sami

 

The other thing that would be fun is if three or four people on both sides of the discussion sit down over the next week and really go through Hidden Fortress carefully, making a detailed list of similarities and differences.

I've done it in a casual way before, but it's not as easy as it sounds to do a rigorous comparison.

 

Jabbadabbado,

That sounds like a good idea. Is HF available on DVD? My VCR died and I bought a DVD player to replace it.

Lady Sami