Does anybody still think that George Lucas is a genius?

Well, why aren't all these wronged parties who GL supposedly ripped off up in arms about it?

-Tim

 

Darth_Tim: How little you know of life. The exact same examples can be found in Microsoft among many others. It would be nice to think that this would be the case. As stated, 20th Century Fox desparately tried to attain the rights to "The Hidden Fortress" before the release came out. It just so happened that copyright law was far different back then in regards to the amount of time one had to file a suite. Once that "limited" period of time passed, there really was nothing that anyone could do; Star Wars had become the darling that had saved 20th Century Fox... if it went down, they went down.

 

Then you say that Hidden Fortress has to be a direct copy of the film, space battles, lightsabers, etc. in order to have merit?

In order for the charge of "theft" or "plagiarism" to have merit, yes. That's the definition of plagiarism.

EDIT
Lucas has always been relatively candid about the Kurosawa influence. I knew the name years ago. I don't remember where from--I wasn't expecting to have this conversation, because I couldn't imagine it being a big deal--but something makes me think it was one of those network interviews or specials around one of the CT releases.

The point is not any one specific movie--I plan to see it eventually; I have nothing against it, and just keep forgetting to rent it--but that this is part of the way things work. He could just Americanize it, and it would still be a different movie. How do you think we wound up with six hundred different versions of Cinderella? Only one belongs to Disney, along with its specific things, like the little lisping mice and the musical score and the particular visuals; the others are all their own... and that's not counting all the various drashes on Cinderella, like Pretty Woman and that ilk. Putting something into a new milieu is creating a new thing out of old ingredients.

 

Ohhh, boy! [rolls_eyes]
"Don't get technical with me!"

I'm not going to get into legalities, that doesn't concern me. Now, we can discuss morality all day long...

The basic storyline of HF was used for ANH... obviously, no one looks the same, has the same names, but the characters' personalties and situations in the story are reused.

EDIT: I feel like a Transformers moment... "Do you yield, Megatron?"

 

Well, that's why I'm being so picky about words like "theft" and "plagiarism"--they're serious legal charges, and people are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty. If you want to go back to arguing about whether taking strong influences from other people makes him less than a genius, then I have no problem with it. It's just when criminal charges are being thrown around that I have a problem.

(Well, I disagree with you, anyway--that problem I have--but I don't have a moral problem with you taking the position that using pre-existing ingredients lessens the ultimate product.)

 

They aren't serious legal charges if made by a Star Wars fan on an internet forum. They're only serious legal charges when filed in federal court (copyright violation).

Plagiarizing isn't illegal, per se.

 

what is amazing JG is how you can disagree without any knowledge of the source.

you have no problem coming to conclusions even though you are completely uninformed.

bad form.

 

JediGaladriel: Once you seen "Hidden Fortress", "Seven Samurai" and read "Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa" you'll have a better idea why there are some of us who feel that Lucas is definately not the storytelling genius that so many people think he is. He is some kind of genius (you don't fall into boxoffice money 7 times by being stupid). But perhaps his most reveared label, that of America's Cinematic Storyteller (or maybe that Spielberg... or also Spielberg ), should not be bestowed upon his person.

 

Maybe he should have said inspired by or included the titles "adapted from"...whatever.

JG as a literary person, you should know about not sticking to the most literal meanings.


I also a part of Lucas's success, is that people want to love him. Specially, in the early 80's. His name is (or was) like magic.

 

I think you need to dicuss the legal stuff with Darth Malifluous. He kept up.

I understand influence and such, I just don't think a acknowledgement is out of hand.

Even James Cameron has an acknowledgement at the end of Terminator to Harlan Ellison.
How hard would it of been for George to add something like that to the end of ANH?
Especially if you stand to make a profit from using the previous works as a basis for your own.

 

Forgive me for barging in half way through this discussion, but I've always thought that if a director makes it known that part of his or her film is a reference to something else, then it's not stealing, but rather paying homage to it. So, all that business with The Hidden Fortress in Star Wars is George paying homage to it, rather than ripping it off.

As for whether George is a genius or not, I really don't know. The problem I have with George is each time I read an interview with him, my opinion changes. Sometime I'll read a quote, and think, "Wow, that's great, George is brilliant," and other times I'll think, "What an idiot." 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. I think he's more of a storytelling genius rather than a film-making genius, but I don't think we'll be able to tell until we see what he does after Star Wars, as really, his film work, if you're counting just the stuff he's directed, is very limited indeed.

 

That's because my opinion has nothing to do with the particular issue--"Does SW use a lot of footage and ideas from 'Hidden Fortress'?"--and everything to do with the general issue--"Is using outside sources, even in large chunks, automatically theft?" The particular issue is a red herring; it's not the question that's being asked.

On the particular issue, since you seem to want to know, imho he could have copied it frame for frame, but put it in an sf milieu, and I still wouldn't consider it "theft." Changing the milieu makes it a new thing. Noah may well be a Hebraicization of Utnapishtim, but the process of Hebraicization made it a new story with a new audience and, for that matter, a new theme.

 

but doesnt it bother you that at the same time as he acknowledges "Hidden Fortress" and what not, he also is happy to discuss the mythology and symbols in HIS films, when they really came from the original films? George is more than happy to Joseph Campbell himself six ways to sunday.

again, an homage is a knowing wink or nod to another piece of art, not a "borrowing" with no contextual reference to the original.

"On the particular issue, since you seem to want to know, imho he could have copied it frame for frame, but put it in an sf milieu, and I still wouldn't consider it "theft."

so if i were to remake Psycho but make all the characters French, that would not be theft? especially if i only referred to "Psycho" as a source and didnt call my film a remake.

what DO you consider theft? anything? an exact remake? what?

 

Take this for what you will... Last night on Dateline NBC they had a discussion with Rael, the leader of the Raelians... they were behind the clone baby (Eve) controversy late last year.
He has a lot of followers, or fans, does that make him a genius?

Maybe if he's right, but I'd figure he's one superheero nutbar!

Ironically, Rael is a French race car driver, I wonder if he ever met Lucas?

 

but doesnt it bother you that at the same time as he acknowledges "Hidden Fortress" and what not, he also is happy to discuss the mythology and symbols in HIS films, when they really came from the original films?

No. Lucas is using those images for his own reasons and in his own way. He has a right to talk about why he is doing it in his films.

 

The "genius" of Rael is... who wouldn't want to be in a cult? And a sex cult at that [sarc}!

Religion, Cults, Star Wars Zealots... all have the same trait. Blind devotion. There's a box of thought... let's jump outside it for a while, shall we?

 

Apart from those who believe that GL and the prequels are beyond reproach because they get away with murder in terms of slamming others.

And who are these people who believe that GL and the prequels are beyond reproach? I've never encountered any. I have, however, encountered a number of bashers who look for things to complain about, who claim to be SW fans but never say anything good about them, and who regularly insult those who disagree with them.

 

"No. Lucas is using those images for his own reasons and in his own way. He has a right to talk about why he is doing it in his films."

but they are not his images, they are copies of another artists images. if he has a right to talk abotu why he is doing it in his films, dont you see it as completely disingenuous to claim them as his own?

 

You better watch those "blind devotion" comments, you don't want a good Force choking, do you?

EDIT: Look in the mirror... I was talking to myself, I'm combing my hair.

 

but they are not his images, they are copies of another artists images. if he has a right to talk abotu why he is doing it in his films, dont you see it as completely disingenuous to claim them as his own?

No, not at all. He's using them in his own way. I'd love to know why he used the pieta in AotC, what his thoughts were on the inversion of it. It's his image because he's using it; the fact that Michelangelo also did it is interesting, but I don't think it's necessary for Lucas to say, "While Michelangelo was doing this to express the saintliness of of the Virgin Mary, you'll see that I inverted it vertically and changed the roles to indicate..." It's fine with me if he just says, "I thought this image captured both the pathos and the danger of the scene."

 

"good" Force or "bad" Force (before the more popular "Darkside" and "Lightside" was coined ) choke?

 

That depends greatly on your own point of view.

 

what DO you consider theft? anything? an exact remake? what?

Copying something exactly, then pretending it was your own instead of taken from another person's work.

When Lucas originally sat down to write SW, it was so similar to Hidden Fortress that he considered doing a remake. But as he wrote it out, it resembled HF less and less. If he was the thief you're making him out to be, he'd have done the remake, only he wouldn't have called it a remake, he'd have pretended he came up with the story. Instead, he told a story that has some similarities and parallels to HF, and which he freely acknowledges.

but they are not his images, they are copies of another artists images.

Which in turn were "copies," as you prefer to say, from still other artists' images.

if he has a right to talk abotu why he is doing it in his films, dont you see it as completely disingenuous to claim them as his own?

They are not "copies." They may be inspired by other artistic images, be they films or paintings or statues or whatever (which is very, very common in filmmaking, as well as other artisitic media), and he is altering them to fit the story he's telling. He isn't taking the actual Pieta and sticking it in AOTC; he's putting an image similar to it in AOTC.

As far as I know, he hasn't claimed that, say, the image of the Trade Federation tanks coming over the hill in TPM is wholly his own image. Just because he doesn't say that he's not the first person to use that image or a similar one does not mean he is claiming it as his own.

 

naughty... naughty! (Punisher) [sarc]

I will say that Lucas got much more creative with ESB and ROTJ. The PT is definately his own (no one else is going to fess up to the creation of that story). It all boils down to degrees. I like the man, but he's not a god, and he's never claimed to be. His original ideas are excessively mundane (IMO) and truely are not that fantastic. Any fantastic ideas he hs in the PT films have been borrowed from the EU (Coruscant anyone?). I've said it before and I'll say it again; George was at the top of his creative game for ESB... then again, it really wasn't his game was it.

 

"Which in turn were "copies," as you prefer to say, from still other artists' images."

but in those cases (i assume you are talking about Kurosawa and Ford) they were a few shots done in the same style, and not the whole story, characters, plot, and themes from another work.

now that i think about it, Lucas even stole the idea of taking a story and putting it in another setting "Magnificent Seven", "Seven Samurai" etc. so he cant even be credited with that.