OFFICIAL NEWS George Lucas says he sold Star Wars to 'white slavers' and elaborates on TFA

I swear, i waited him to say that the movie lacked a charismatic character like Jar Jar Binks

Seriously

 

It would have been real interesting to see how ROTJ and the prequels ended up if he had continued working with Gary Kurtz.
Gary Kurtz may not have been good with the money (although it's hard to deny the value of his over-spending on The Empire Strikes back) but he wasn't afraid to question and improve upon Lucas's ideas for things.
I always got the feeling that Rick McCallum just let George Lucas do whatever he wanted to.

The prequels really needed someone to tell George that Jar Jar and midi-chlorians and senate meetings were not a good idea.

Had Jar Jar been more like Finn and had Young Anakin been a more like Rey or Ezra Bridger (strong, independent, alone), The Phantom Menace could have been right up there with the Original trilogy...

 

Lucas is a massive troll, who, like any troll, should be ignored. Let's be thankful that we can actually do that now.

 

Tweet of the day:

"George Lucas created STAR WARS and donated $4 billion to charity. Maybe let him say whatever he wants about THE FORCE AWAKENS."

 

Yes, do listen to it. The relevant part starts at around 45 minutes. I think that folks are making a mountain out of a molehill, as the interwebs are known to do from time to time.

He was joking when he talked about Disney being "white slavers"- he and Charlie Rose were both laughing when he said it. Maybe an inelegant choice of words, but he was being sarcastic because everyone thinks these big corporations are evil empires, so he was playing along with it. Along the same line, he also said he never takes money (investment, I presume) from real people, only corporations.

Later there's this one comment about Disney wanting a "retro movie" (apparently they wanted a reboot from the beginning, which was news to me) and he didn't want to do it. That's hardly a criticism at all, it's a statement of fact. They wanted that, and he didn't. No biggie.

I thought the interview was fine. Sure, he was a little flip, but this is just a director talking about the movies, not the President discussing foreign policy for pity's sake.

 

Well said.
In fact- not just "well said", but perfectly said. —Thank you.

I just finished watching the video from beginning to end. It ranged from awkward, to bizarre, to comfortable, to (seemingly) contradictory, -and bounced between each of those several times.

I went into watching this interview as "not really much of a fan" of George Lucas. I'm still not. However- it didn't take long to begin to appreciate his odd nuances of conversing. (He's charmingly kind of all over the map!) And overall, I enjoyed it. ...And just perhaps a bit less so- "not really much of a fan" anymore.

The fact that all some folks have drawn from this is an obscured, out-of-context, "snippet" ...is demonstrative of the level of culture we are living in; that is to say, -a tabloid-esque, sound-bite focused culture.

Sad.

 

Hey, I'd be a little bit upset too if the first line of the new movie was a jab at my last three movies-
"This will begin to make things right"

 

Eh, I think folks are overreacting a bit. The man did create Star Wars after all. I haven't watched the interview yet(I'll try and do that once I'm somewhere with a better internet connection), but even if he is being overly pessimistic and negative in the interview, what's the big deal. The man is in his 70s now, and I don't know about you guys, but I have seen plenty of friends and family start to get a little more cranky and less subtle with how they say things once they approach that age range.

The thing about George to remember above all else is that we wouldn't have any of the Star Wars films, spinoffs, this very forum, etc. without his drive to make Star Wars when he was a young man.

Even with the PT, even though it displeased many people, I have every reason to believe that George was trying to make good movies. He obviously knew going into making the PT that he wouldn't be able to please everybody, but there's no way that he could have anticipated the backlash that he got over those films. It has to hurt when you pour your life into making something and have everyone crap all over it, whether it is crap or not. It has to sting even more yet when you finally sell of your property and watch it prosper without you, all while one of the primary praises is that it is nothing like the last time you worked on it.

Another thing to consider about George is how much he has donated to charity through the years and how much he seems to care about children.

In other words, cut the guy some slack

 

I have to agree with Lucas for wanting to move forward with new planets and new spaceships in the ST and not wanting to keep it retro.

 

Some great insights on this thread, having watched this, I agree he's not bitter/angry/etc - he's definitely reflective and openly conflicted about giving away his life's work (and sharing the struggle of doing that). I think a lot of what he anticipates will show greatly when we see the Anthology movies emerge.

Exactly. It's lonely at the top. Very few have had his success in their respective industries, and I perceive even fewer have done so being the persistent "outsider".

I would love to hear how things evolved myself. My sense is the overall themes have been kept (Darth Vader's grandchildren; seeking balance in the Force; taking on a new grander enemy), but the story is substantially different and the execution of the movie is (obviously) something that stands on it's own.

I'm glad someone mentioned this... my sense is George was a masterful editor (blending visuals/sound/music with the principal photography... conducting it like a symphony). TFA is fantastic by all accounts, and I think it's fine to point out that it's missing good qualities we've gotten from GL in the other films. This doesn't make the movie better or worse, just different. In the end, Disney needs to find a way to get the franchise to live on without Lucas' help, though I wish they'd make a stronger attempt to bring him on as a consultant... get some kind of endorsement for their work.

 

Oh, George...

Take the advice of Henry Jones Sr. and just let it go!

He has entered cantankerous old man phase. It's too bad he can't retire gracefully. He's probably still pissed that his prequel trilogy was not universally loved, and that Disney has been doing their best to de-prequellify Star Wars to bring it back to its previous state, a move that is being so well-received by critics and the public.

 

If the Star Wars movies were his children, then he wasn't really a great father.
(Especially about the part about selling his children to 'white slavers' luls).

Happy he 'gave' us SW, but he is literally suffering from his own delusions of grandeur.

He is the kind of guy to goes to a restaurant, eats his whole meal, leaves, then writes up a one star review on Yelp.

Lucas gotta Lucas.

 

All Lucas wanted to do was make the fans happy. I think he knew that after the prequels he would never be supported to make another Star Wars movie, especially considering how he probably would've wanted to do it. He could either sit on it, or sell. Both of which I'm sure would be hard to handle in their own ways.

I wish Lucas would've had an opportunity to make a 7th film, but only if he was in the mindset of having it reflect the original trilogy.

 

Haha I'm not sure I'd go that far... man it's a real drag when your child hood hero lashes out at fans though! Though I do wonder from time to time if the PT was an epic attempt to spark the flames of nerd rage.

Ordinarily, if someone says they made Star Wars, then I'd say that earns them bragging rights. But in watching this video, you see him say things that could be mistaken for profound statements in the same way Deepak Chopra does.

& oh god that statement he made about Red Tails... for the love of god! No George... that film didn't suck because the cast was all black. It sucked because it was a terrible movie that was an insult to the real tuskegee airmen.

 

Lmao everyone jumping on george like they don't know exactly what he was getting at. Never change internet.

 

Holy blast, I guess George saw how marketing treated Finn who's essentially a run away slave and got pissed off. I'm sure his wife was like WTF!

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 31, 2015, Original Post Date: Dec 31, 2015 ---

Maybe he's hurt because he didn't intend for Rey or Random Solo twin to be an overpowered Mary Sue in the first movie. I doubt he would have gone that route.

 

I can sympathize with him and applaude him for his donations to charity.
But the flipside of the coin is that he is clearly out of touch with reality as far as his own artistic achievements and abilities are concerned.
I'm sorry but this is the man who almost outright blamed the public for not getting his intricate, political plotline and message of the prequels ( read *we* are too stupid to recognize the artistic radiance and political insightfulness of a scene like the Padme / Anakin meadow conversation ) and blames the failure of Red Tails on latent racism in the population.
His comments about TFA beeing unoriginal and basicaly fanservice are laughable in the face of characters like Jango Fett.

He has tried to take more and more credit for the authorship of Star Wars over the years, downplaying and ignoring more and more of his creative collaborators as the years went by, often contradicting himself with each iteration of the history and finaly proving how much those people meant by letting us all see the products of his absolute creative control - the success of TFA is nothing but Karma ( if I believed in such a thing ).

 

Lol, exactly. I came here to say the same thing.

 

Mary sues shouldn't exist in star wars. I would like Rey if she were written like a normal protagonist.

 

Yeah absolutely

They guy who gave us 9 years old Anakin. Hope you're being ironic. Must Be.

Ok that's me queue, i'm going to bed now, this was the last straw