Would the reaction to TFA be the same if George Lucas had directed the movie.

Well people loved when he took most of the plot from ANH and used in TPM and ROTJ.
So I guess it would be similar to now.

I just couldn't see George making this movie so it's a bit difficult

 

the reaction would be more minimal because it is GEORGE who is directing and peopl would only blame him for his own faults instead of Disney and JJ "rebooting" the movies
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I would still have disliked it as it would have been a real weird move for Lucas. You see, it's not who directed it but what they did with it. Let's pretend that George Lucas was in fact the one who made TFA, wouldn't us fans have been bothered by Rey's use of the Force? Why would Lucas create such an intricate story and show us the hard work you needed to do and the guidance you needed to have to become a Jedi just to give us a character that could learn everything on the fly? How dumb does that make Luke seem?

Then you get the Aliens or lack of them. Lucas created a world were there were aliens who were not just fan nods but part of that universe as well. He did that with the OT and he improved on it greatly with the PT. Rodians, Nikto, Twi'Leks, Bith, Quarren, Aqualish ect were not just characters to see a second and say oh look they included him as a fan nod like they did in RO nor were they things you just completely erase from the galaxy as they did in TFA, these aliens LIVE in the SW galaxy and they are just as important to the story as humans are. I'm all out to see new background aliens but not at the expense of erasing every single one that came before.

Another thing I would have been bothered with Lucas was the way he would have turned the awesome ending from ROTJ into something meaningless. Why would George show us a Rebellion that finally triumphed against the Empire, a Luke who overcame all odds and who was the iconic symbol of the Return of the Jedi and a Han and Leia that against all odds finally had their happy ending together just to give us a next movie where the Rebellions victory in ROTJ meant nothing as a new and improved Empire just popped out of nowhere and put our heroes in a worst situation than they were before, it made Luke seem as a washed up loser who was completely out of character compared to what the OT had shown us and it showed us that Han and Leia failed at everything they tried to do together?

If it had been Lucas who would have done all of this, I dare say that I would have greatly been MORE angry at him than I am with JJ Abrams!

 

you do realize that he was writing TFA since at least 2010, right?

 

Yeah but I'm pretty sure he would have still done things WAY differently than what JJ did. Lucas had come up with nasty ideas ever since the OT but he always stopped and thought things through even if he had written them. Han and Lando dying, Luke failing ect were many things that Lucas had thought of but he always went on a more light happy direction.

 

oh yeah, he deifnitely would have. "nasty" though, i dont think so. He actually allegedly wanted to star literal younglings. the new direction of LFL rejected mostly all of george's concepts regardless of what is said.
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Not to be rude by how can we compare Lucas taking certain plot elements and using them in other movies to JJ making TFA be a complete rehash of ANH? Unless you are a hardcore fan and are looking for similarities you will never say TPM or ROTJ are the same thing as ANH. I grew up with SW and I have grown surrounded by die hard fans and I have to say that not even once had I ever heard fans saying that Lucas made TPM and ROTJ the same as ANH. Not even Trekkies who hated SW and used anything they could to make ST look better ever came up with the pretext that Lucas just copied the same plot over and over. It wasn't until TFA came out and fans complained that it was just an unoriginal rehash of ANH that l started hearing the whole these movies had the same plot thing. Even people that flat out hated the PT never used that argument until TFA came out. Bad acting, too much CGI, stupid Jar Jar character, lack of practical effects, bad story, racist stereotype character ect all this and more were the arguments about the PT but not once did I ever hear the whole Lucas used the same plot thing until TFA.

 

Let's begin by assuming that Lucas couldn't film a movie so fresh and genuinely funny like TFA. I'm not blindly shooting on him, but I think that in the 3 prequels his vision of cinema resulted pretty static and didactic. So no, the movie would have been quite different in any case.

Second, you're assuming that the SW fanbase act according to logic. Basically, the average fan wants what he wants: TFA was not what a part of the fandom wanted, a clever soft remake of ANH with a female lead. So, they would have bashed GL because of his "lost creativity" or whatever. They actually did it with John Williams, and TFA soundtrack is simply gorgeous.

Third, the fandom in general is highly impressionable. After the first "Mary Sue" critic, every Disney/ST/JJ dectractor started bashing the movie for its "feminist agenda", but when you make them think about how similar Rey's arc was to Anakin's or Luke's, they say: "At least TPM was original" (which is wrong).

My arguments are very generic, but it's what I experienced arguing around the web about TFA. This movie is mostly hated because of some prejudice. Lucas would have probably come into the same general blame, when some popular personality would have noticed this or that flaw. It happened with TPM, but my impression is that, in 1999, there were some more coherent critics. Watch "The people vs GL", or the evergreen Plinkett's review. That generation went into some intelligent debate about how SW ended to be the movie TPM was.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 9, 2017, Original Post Date: Jun 9, 2017 ---

Except for the fact that TFA hasn't "the same plot of ANH", at all. And it's what I meant with: "The fanbase is impressionable". Anyway, this kind of reactions generally depends on expectations. Nothing to do with an actual analysis of the movie. If you look close, you will notice that every "rehashed" element is taken out of its original place. There's an obvious intent of following the OT, I'm not denying it, but I think the rehash critics are quite weak, because the movie tells a different story from ANH, but it does it by reusing some core element of ANH. Do you remember the very first Lego SW sets? Well, do you remember that, in the back of the boxes, there were the images of ghe alternative buildings? Look at TFA like the alternative building of ANH. The fact is that it's not a remake.

 

My opinion wouldn't have changed at all, others I don't know but I don't read critics, the only one that matters is mine.

 

Here you go, an article from 2005: http://www.killermovies.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-376002-tpm-and-anh-are-kinda-similar.html

Sure, TPM is more subtle and intriquette, but under the surface you'll find a pretty similar story.
TFA at least has a completely new main arc (finding Luke), but yeah... TFA's rehash is way too obvious. Starkiller base was a huge mistake.

 

Assuming that the destruction of the Republic would have been a central plot point in any case, do you think that without a Death Star rehash, but maybe with another type of super weapon (a giant ship; a Spaceballs transformer thing...) the movie would have looked less a remake and more original?

 

I think that the destruction of the Hosnian system was terribly underdone. There is little to no build up or context (social-political), so to me that entire arc seemes rushed, unnecessary and failed to have an impact.
I think that arc either should have been more developed or just left out altogether (maybe leave it to the middle chapter of the ST). It also makes the sequel's job much harder, as what could possibly be worse than the destruction of an entire system?

That being said, I'm not against superweapons in Star Wars, but if they already chose to use one, than at least create an original design (like a sith Temple or whatever)...

 

But in that case it would be a rehash anyway, but with a different surface.

I'm not defending the Starkiller. I'm fine with it but it's the weakest part of the movie. I'm only bothered that Hosnian was not Coruscant. Of course it would have been much more emotional, and without need of explanation.

 

The sheer irony of this post is ridiculous.

Young highly sensitive to the force Skywalker is found on Tattooine. He is trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi. Meets a princess. Falls for the princess (ewww). Inexplicably is better than most pilots and is able to destroy a giant ship.

SKB was a maguffin and largely unimportant to TFA. Whereas the Death Star is the entire plot of ANH. The movie singularly hinges on them destroying the Death Star. Using SKB was a fairly big mistake IMO and they should have just made it a superweapon on a planet not it's own planet. Because it didn't matter. It was just a symbolic castle to rescue Rey from when Kylo kidnapped her.

TFA is much closer to ROTJ than ANH if you want to be hyper critical.

Yes, Star Wars has always been a bunch of recycled plot points. Some early reviews of ESB were calling it nothing new from ANH.

 

You all underestimate the destruction of the Republic as a plot point. That's the plot point that could turn TLJ to be deeply different from TESB.

 

Because they don't want to see it.

People have a set level of expectations. If the films do not meet up with crazy high personal expectations that can almost never be met by a large studio movie, the movie will be torn apart by them and never be good.

 

I mean, we all agree on the fact the Starkiller was a weak part of the movie, maybe the weakest. Ok, I kinda liked its design and the way the shooting scene was portrayed, but it was a subplot, nothing more. Anyway there's an obvious mirroring intent between the destruction of the Republic and the destruction of Starkiller. Each side has lost its stronghold, and now are both weak and desperate THE SAME WAY. This means that it could be the first time in SW that the factions at war act in a sort of parity, or at least the first time since the Clone Wars, even if in that case both sides were strong the same.

This could lead to a dramatic tension actually newfor a SW movie. If read in this way, the Starkiller/Republic plot point gains a little more deepness. But it's just my speculation.

 

Agreed. SKB was just there to be a familiar trope and "comfortable". It was there for the 7 year old seeing their first Star Wars movie. Nothing more and nothing less.

I agree and think RJ has shown desire in moving towards what you are saying with a lot of focus on the new political dynamic with SKB being destroyed and the Hosnian system also destroyed. I think this will be Laura Dern's characters main plot focus.

 

Thank you! TFA was not a movie about the destruction of Starkiller Base, just as A New Hope wasn't a movie about destroying the Death Star. Sure, those things happen in the films, but that's not their point. They're meant to establish characters in a setting, bring in future plot points, and ultimately entertain.

SKB and the DS have similarities, but I think it's silly how people act like they've uncovered some great secret by drawing these comparisons. It was intentional, because it's the backdrop of the larger story being told (a story apparently a lot of people missed while feigning creativity).