Wed. October 31
George Lucas Just Saved Star Wars by Firing George Lucas
So at long last, George Lucas has decided to get out of the moviemaking business. He’s selling out Lucasfilm, including all of its properties and moneymaking storylines, to the Mouse. This is a good thing. Maybe even a great thing.
To understand why, we need to back up a bit to understand more about who George Lucas is and who he isn’t. And here’s the first step I’d like you to take before we go any further: banish from your head any assumption that George Lucas even likes Star Wars. Assume, for the sake of argument, that he doesn’t like it at all.
Done? Good. Now we can proceed. You’ll be surprised how much of what happened makes sense.
I didn’t really understand George Lucas, despite living on an uninterrupted diet of his films for most of my childhood years, until I read The Making of Empire Strikes Back, a recent book which tracks the process of the best film of the Star Wars saga and includes all sorts of stories from the set about the clashes between Lucas and director Irvin Kershner. Around the time the book came out, Lucas publicly declared that Empire was the worst Star Wars movie, to the shock of many fans.
But Lucas had his reasons for saying this. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Lucas was at a pivotal point in his life and career. He had just made it huge, bigger than anyone expected, bigger than he could ever have dreamed, with the original Star Wars film. Corporate obligations are weighing on him. He’s frustrated and stuck on the script, working with multiple writers and junking much of what they suggest. And if there’s one thing Lucas hates, it’s writing. Here’s a few excerpts:
“George made an analogy between the real estate business and the film business,” says Weber [Lucasfilm CEO]. “There are three rules in the real estate business: location, location, location. And three rules in the movie business: script, script, script.” . . . Lucas had written Star Wars himself, out of necessity, but he did not enjoy the job, which was laborious . . .
With Brackett [the original scriptwriter] hospitalized, everyone waiting to get started, a locked-in production schedule, and no other writer on hand, Lucas was left with no choice but to write the second draft himself. “George doesn’t like to write,” Kershner says. “He hates writing.”
Lucas’s initial script is a mashup of ideas, and lacks nearly every memorable line which ultimately made it into Empire (even “Do, or do not, there is no try,” the oft-quoted Yoda line, is not Lucas’s). The side by side comparisons of Lucas and Kershner are night and day. Here’s just one comparison:
Lucas’s Yoda: “Not material are we. Luminous beings are we, tied together by the Force. Yes. There are two of you . . . your body and your energy.”
Kasdan’s Yoda: “Luminous beings are we [pinches Luke's skin], not this crude matter.”
There’s another extensive conversation between Kershner and Harrison Ford about the script and directing changes for the Carbonite scene, illustrating how many of the elements fans love were completely absent from Lucas’s version of the film. In almost every circumstance, Kershner or producer Lawrence Kasdan are slicing away the fat of overwritten dialogue, useless scenes, throwaway shots, and the rest, bringing it down to the essence of story and scene with zen efficiency.
When you understand how Lucas writes, you understand why the characters in the prequels sound the way they do, reciting dialogue that’s an insult to wood. Harrison Ford infamously complained “you can type this s***, George, but you sure can’t say it”, and Lucas even jokingly called himself “the King of Wooden Dialogue”. But by the time the prequels rolled around, Lucas had become uneditable, all-powerful, impossible to defy. At the time of Empire he was still a nouveou riche member of the rising new Hollywood directorial stars, but not yet the corporate behemoth he would become. You start to see why Jar-Jar sounds the way he did. No wonder the prequels feel like a forced process of a guy doing something he doesn’t want to do, and poorly.
Even the smallest scene in Empire is thought through with more care than anything found in the prequels. In Lucas’s director’s commentary on Episode II: Attack of the Clones, he repeatedly talks in a mildly bored tone about being forced to do multiple expositional scenes to bring along viewers with the oppressively dull plot. Compare that to this, from Kershner:
“The admiral says to one of his officers, ‘We don’t need those bounty hunters. They’re the scum of the galaxy,’” Kershner notes. “Then the admiral, who is standing below them in the control pit, is startled because, hanging over the edge of the bridge area, are 10 toes, huge claws with lizard-like skin–and you wonder, ‘My god, what’s attached to that?’ He looks up and you see a lizard character glaring down at him. But his disgust is not that it’s some alien creature, but that it’s an immoral creature. [laughs] That was not in the script, of course, his reaction to the toes, but that’s what I mean by an interpretation with humor. The imperials are all very pure looking and very clean, they’re all humans. And yet he’s reacting to the bounty hunters’ immoral motive. They work for money. Even the Imperials think they’re doing good for the galaxy. There’s no such thing as people desiring to be evil, they’re evil for a purpose. They want to do good.”
If Lucas understands this distinction, he gives no sign of it, then or now. Compare this, of course, to the entire prequels—where I still have no clear picture of the motivations of nearly any of the evil characters, besides wanting to break or enforce trade embargoes of some kind. I’m sure the export/import bank factors in there somewhere.
But it’s not just that he doesn’t want to write Empire’s script, and is forced into it anyway (though Kershner would drastically change it). Lucas also doesn’t want to direct the movie. In fact, he seems to want to distance himself from the story that’s made him a multimillionaire, and is almost overeager to find someone else to take it up. Emphasis mine:
“I’ve retired from directing,” Lucas says [in a memo regarding finding a director for Empire]. “If I directed Empire then I’d have to direct the next one and the next for the rest of my life. I’ve never really liked directing. I became a director because I didn’t like directors telling me how to edit, and I became a writer because I had to write something in order to be able to direct something. So I did everything out of necessity, but what I really like is editing.”
Ah, so that’s his true calling: sitting in a room by himself editing what someone else has written and someone else has filmed. Odd, considering his position as the original storyteller . . . but it gets even odder still. Unless he hates Star Wars, in which case it makes perfect sense.
The book details how, once the filming was done, Lucas discovered to his frustration that Kershner had given him a lot less film to work with in the editing room. Lucas may have claimed that editing is what he enjoys most, but he wants to approach it with an overabundance of material. He talks in interviews about how he wants everything to be like a documentary, a ton of material to work with once you get into the cutting room. Lucas finds Kershner has filmed more sparingly, with very limited options and his own reworked dialogue and shots. After the first cut is done, Lucas leaves for Japan, where he and Francis Ford Coppola are producing Kagemusha. He can’t wait to rid himself of Star Wars, but it keeps pulling him back in.
No wonder the prequels feel like a forced process of a guy doing something he doesn’t want to do, and poorly. No wonder he seemed so uninterested in telling a real story in the universe, as opposed to just throwing CGI at the screen and shooting reaction shot after reaction shot, usually with characters talking while sitting on couches, or doing soap opera-esque looks out the window before turning back. No wonder the whole thing feels soulless and empty.
Lucas’s role in the process seems to be more along the lines of that of an initial inspiration for characters and a story, but a creative mind who slowly came to resent these characters and how they took over his life and career, turning him into a corporate figure instead of a movie editor. Maybe that’s why others, such as the video game creators at BioWare or the fans who’ve created full story arcs (such as the brilliant Darth Side, a fantastic look inside the mind of Darth Vader) tell better stories than Lucas himself does.
Now, there’s potential to correct the error that was corrected in Empire but sadly restored in the prequels: George Lucas in the director’s chair. Maybe Disney will treat the franchise as Dan McLaughlin recommended they should all along.
Lucas is a man of considerable gifts, and some of these are still evident in the prequels–his imagination, his talent with special effects, his gift for the pacing of action sequences. But he has always had weaknesses as a filmmaker–he has no talent for directing actors, his dramatic and especially romantic dialogue can be horrendous–and one thing he did well in the original trilogy (well-timed wisecracks and one-liners) seems to have ossified in the intervening years as he went from quirky and ambitious film buff to merchandising tycoon.
All of that would have mattered a lot less if Lucas had made the decision to bring in the best help he could get from talented directors and writers to work over the films and make them wonderful and realistic and human . . . the use of a revolving door of directors has worked quite well for the Harry Potter films, for example. If Lucas had only been willing to get the input of some other people, he could have worked with better dialogue, better performances, and people to point out huge mistakes before they hit the screen.
Disney has indicated they plan to use a method approximating this, with a new Star Wars film scheduled every two-to-three years. For my own part, I’d wager Disney is smart enough that they’ll likely make wiser choices than Lucas did. With the right directors and the right storylines in place, Disney can easily make back the $4 billion they spent on LucasFilm in short order. There will be missteps, sure–but I also suspect Joss Whedon, Brad Bird, or any of the other potential directors who fell in love with this universe as teenagers are unlikely to try anything as stupid as Lucas’s prequel choices, when there were suddenly “heroes on both sides,” wooden dialogue was interrupted with anti-Republican undertones, and the Force turned out to be nothing more than genetic superiority. These are not the choices of someone who cares about his story all that much–it’s the choices of someone who just wants to power through it all so the process can be over as soon as possible.
Fans of the franchise are certainly skeptical about these new movies after being forced to suffer through Lucas’s bitter meanderings through the universe he inspired. But should they be? While Lucas will remain as a creative consultant, Disney has already shown the ability to produce action packed crowd pleasers for children and adults alike, and their success with trusting Marvel’s Avengers to Whedon was admirable. And really, your childhood can only be destroyed in front of you once. How much worse could it be?
A final aside: I’ve joked for decades among my friends that the definitive proof that time travel will never be invented is in the fact that George Lucas was not mysteriously murdered by someone who appeared out of thin air in 1981. I may need to stop telling that joke now, because perhaps the reason they didn’t do it was so this sale could happen. If so, that is a comforting thought.
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I don’t get the Joss Whedon worship. Particularly as it applies to reinvigorating the Star Wars franchise. Avengers was okay…but Whedon was also the guy who wrote the awful script for Alien Resurrection.
He wrote the initial script for A:R. The initial script and what was actually used in the filming were completely different as the director was ALSO a scripwriter himself and made quite a few changes. And barely spoke any english at the start of filming. Not to mention that the script Whedon turned in was a rewrite of his earlier script which used a Newt clone.
Plus scripts go through several rewrites and not always for the better.
Maybe, but Whedon was also the guy responsible for Firefly. That in itself should be a major argument for worship right there.
But that’s the thing.. ok, it was Lucas’ project.. why isn’t this observed as an addiction in society? I need one more hit, Chewie! There just *isn’t* enough Star Wars written by 50,000 other people.. I need billions- nay, trillions of dollars more spent on shiny Star Wars to feel at rest! If it’s Lucas who wants to continue or not, that should be it. I mean, there’s noone *relying* on it, especially if the new movies will be 7-9 with a whole new cast of spoiled youth to star in. As if there’s not enough landfills with Star Wars merchandise. If it’s not Lucas, it’s officially a cult. Lord of the Rings/Hobbit/Silmarillion was Tolkien’s bit, and after being adapted, now the addiction starts and they’re making up new stories.
Makes you wonder about the Bible.. and yet people think Religion is confined to those ‘holy books’. This surge of Corporate Mechandise Fanboy/Girlism is the new material religion. It’s disguised as art, but it’s programming 30 years in the making – started with the 80s and now those kids are the ‘responsible adults’ not shedding their childhood.
Personally, I’d like to see someone revisit the prequels, not like Lucas did in 1997 to update the original trilogy, but to rework the prequels into something worth watching. I’m certain that there won’t be as many fans holding onto the original incarnation as dogma (a la Han shot first) if someone comes in to redo it better.
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I could begin an essay that spans 10,000 pages but I won’t.
In brief, my grading of movies is as follows:
1. Induces coma
2. OK – might re-watch a few scenes…in about a decade
3. Pretty good; memorable; enjoyable…maybe even VERY good.
4. Re-defines the genre…awe-inspiring…when is the next viewing? … when will the DVD be released? …. Dearest heavens, do NOT let the studio screw it up with an unworthy sequel ! ! !
Needless to say, Movies like Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were in the 2-3 range, and some of the elements of AOTC and ROTS approached 4. And in contrast, A New Hope, and Empire were certainly 4, with Return of the Jedi being 3.35 (Strangle the marketers with their own intestines over those damnable Ewoks).
And for contrast, movies like ‘Private Ryan’ ‘Good Fellas’ ‘Casino’ ‘The Departed’ ‘Batman-The Dark Knight Rises’ ‘BladeRunner’ and ‘Brazil’ were in the 4+++ range. ‘Alien’ ‘Aliens’ ‘Terminator’ ‘T2′ also fit this grade.
As an aside, I hardly find it surprising that 15+ years ago Disney was working on a live action Star Blazers (Space Battleship Yamato in Japan), which my 9-year-old mind thought was a a rip-off of Star Wars, but it turned out that Star Wars likely borrowed from Space Battleship Yamato, but that is another story.
My point is that Disney LOVES LOVES LOVES huge, tent pole EVENT movies, because they can SELL large volumes of merchandise tie ins. VERY large volumes. I almost shed a tear over the absence of a John Carter Warlord of Mars Action Figure Collection…
Space Battleship Yamato (Live Action) could certainly fit that mold WITH THE CORRECT TALENT (which Hollywood is notorious for fouling up, but I digress).
It is entirely possible that Disney can introduce directorial and script writing talent that will propel future Star Wars endeavors to the 4 range, or even the 3.35 range – and that would give the franchise another 35 years of relevance; cultural relevance; something that touches people on an emotional level and stays with them as an immensely positive experience.
If the Disney acquisition is successful children born only a few years ago will nag the living daylights out of their parents for a chance to see the movies on the big screen (if that concept even exists in the future, given the ubiquity of huge flat screens @ 1080P resolution – who knows?) and not to mention, buying Wookie cereal and teddy bears.
I am cautiously optimistic in that the reports so far have intoned that Lucasfilm talent will remain largely in place, with Kennedy being promoted to Disney President, reporting to the CEO.
She will executive-produce 7, with 8 and 9 will be likely for her as well. If Disney has its Mouse-ears to the ground, and listens to the fan base (not very difficult these days, with the glorious inter-webz) it can be a win for fans, a win for the studio and a win for the franchise.
Then again it could get screwed up so bad that I, as an old man, can show the DVDs to little ones and tell them “I remember a time when this here was relevant…culturally relevant…but that was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….”
I agree with your assessment of the current inventory of the six extant films:
(1) Movies 1 and 2 (Eps 4 and 5) were brilliant, epochal achievement. So much so that even the renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell used SW lore to explain ancient mythological concepts while being interviewed by Bill Moyers.
(2) Movie 3 (Ep 6) a worthy sequel that was ultimately ruined by the unforgivable introduction of the Ewoks — a clear smack in the face for adult followers of the storyline.
(3) Movie 4 (Ep 1) was an utter train wreck, truly a disgrace.
(4) Movies 5 and 6 (Eps 2 and 3) established a great prequel lore but the wooden acting and over-reliance on CGI made these two films tolerable, but ultimately disappointing.
Oh, by the way, did I mention that I’m more of a Star Trek fan? And just FYI, Picard >>> Kirk.
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I could have told you this years ago. Eps 1, 2, and 3 were released about in step with the three LOTR movies, and comparing the two showed that given equal special effects (and the Balrog was up to anything Lucas ever put out), having a writer (Tolkien) who could write and a director (Jackson) who could take a book and make it into a coherent movie by being aware of things like you can take 10 pages of scenery description and show it with a 15 second camera panorama.
George was a black hole level of suck by comparison.
You’re absolutely right. I labored like a stevedore to pretend that the prequels were good. I saw Phantom Menace four times,trying to get that Star Wars Feeling from it. I saw Attack of the Clones twice, and believed myself entertained.
Then I saw Fellowship of the Ring, and the spell was broken. I saw Revenge of the Sith once, and could summon almost no enthusiasm for it.
Perfect. Describes my experience perfectly. At the risk of parroting your words, I told myself – after first viewing Phantom Menace – that I was an adult now and it was still the same Star Wars I saw when I was six years old. But I watched the original trilogy again and went back to see Phantom Menace and doubt began to seep in (seriously, among all the other criticisms of the prequels, what is with Lucas’ OBSESSION with showing the landing of ships? Can that not be implied once or twice? Do we HAVE to see every single ship land when it arrives?). My viewing of Lord of the Rings also obliterated my illusions of the prequels, but it also left me with another disappointment; I had resisted the criticisms of Lucas’ unoriginality, but when I viewed LOTR through a Lucas perspective, I saw so many elements he clearly lifted from that saga that I just about gave up entirely on any more Lucas product (Kingdom of the Crytal Skull sealed the deal for me). I realize there are a lot of similarities in fantasy tales (which is what Star Wars is), but the similarities were far too numerous. To wit:
- smallish central figure, who’s an orphan, lives with his uncle, possesses great power of which he is unaware.
– wandering rogue-ish character who has destiny to fulfill, pretends he doesn’t care about it, winds up with princess.
– two sidekick/comic relief figures who play tertiary parts.
– Powerful wizard character who dies and returns as a luminous being who disdains technology for mystical powers.
– destruction of a seemingly impenetrable fortress by unlikely means involving smallish central figure.
Andrew, Sgt. York > I am in the same boat as you – seeing a movie as an adult versus seeing it as a child – worlds apart.
Similarity to LOTR – it’s not just SW that apes LOTR – X-Men, Star Blazers / Yamato, even the re-booted BSG can find their roots in LOTR (which itself finds its roots in many mythological tales).
If the creative team wants to get it right, they will know where to look, borrow heavily, and promote relentlessly.
Then again they could fail miserably and you’d have rioting in the streets (ok, near the comic book stores most likely).
The best thing that ever happened to Star Trek was when it was taken away from Gene Roddenberry and given to Harve Bennett after the first Star Trek movie. Roddenberry created a vision of the future that people loved, but didn’t know what to do with it after a certain point. Sometimes someone with a bit more objectivity needs to step in.
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I really like the prequels! I grew up with them, and saw them as they were intended … for children. So much hate over kids movies? Come on. Lucas made some wonderful KIDS movies. At no point did he say he was making these movies for 40 year olds.
Making a movie for kids does not absolve Lucas of his failures in the prequels. I’ve got a book in me on how the prequels failed utterly at the standard of space operas. No one is going to say that the Star Wars movies are Deep or Provocative. But the original trilogy had protagonists and plots and story arcs and acting and dialogue that did not make you want to punch yourself in the head. I know this because I can still watch them today, as a grown-up, and enjoy the things in them that are good. Understanding the Heroe’s Journey of Luke Skywalker makes me appreciate the films more, not merely as an exercise of nostalgia.
By contrast, the prequels don’t work as films of any kind: kids, or otherwise. Episode I has no protagonist. Episode II has no plot. Episode III is lazy and underwritten. They pale in comparison to the first movies, by any objective standard.
If you like the prequels, fine. I like Weekend at Bernie’s. That doesn’t make it a good movie.
I watch kids movies all the time. PIXAR makes them every other year. I have no problem enjoying them. Kids movie doesn’t absolve – bad story, bad acting, bad dialogue, bad editing, horrible effects, crappy characters, nonsensical motivations, illogical plots, bad pacing, bad storyboarding, etc. etc. etc.
Reblogged this on 19andnerdy and commented:
Good article on Disney/Star Wars – related to something that’s going to pop up here tomorrow.
Enjoyed reading this Ben, but there’s a hole right in the middle of it. If Lucas was both all-powerful AND he hated writing and directing, then why did he choose to write and direct the prequel trilogy?
The “Lucas hates Star Wars” thing is ok for explaining one or two things Ben, but it’s completely at odds with the idea that this ALL-POWERFUL guy CHOSE to write and direct the entire prequel trilogy.
For the amount of power he had, if he really hated writing and directing he could have hired other writers and directors. Why didn’t he? The Kershner/Kasdan problem (not enough footage for Lucas’s editing tastes) would be easily mitigated by Lucas simply ordering that his writer and director shoot plenty.
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I’m not going to mention everything in the original article and in the comments I agree with (which is most of it). I am going to mention one of the bigger failures in the series that hasn’t been mentioned (or if it has, only in passing). Alot of people have pointed out what a failure Anakin is (dialogue, romance, the whole whinny thing, being a kid in the first movie). And that’s all true. Anakin needed to be established as a great character and he wasn’t. But even worse — his fall from the Light happens WAY TOO SOON. What’s worse, no one seems to recognize it. You probably think Anakin goes over to the Dark Side in Episode III. That is NOT true. Anakin goes over to the Dark Side in Episode II. All he does in Episode III is continue to do what he was doing in Episode II, which is whatever the hell he wanted. Anakin commits a WAR CRIME in Episode II. He mass slaughters a bunch of innocent beings. That isn’t falling to the Dark Side. That is GOING over to the Dark Side. Which makes it so hard to buy into the rest of the story. Padme KNOWS he did this — and she still marrys him??? WTF!?! It isn’t just that we know Anakin is going to fall that takes the suspense away from his betrayal in III, there’s no suspense because the guy is already evil. What’s more, he’s never even conflicted with it.
To continue with the LOTR analogy, Anakin should have been Boromir. A great warrior, but flawed. A boon companion, courageous warrior, but plagued by a character flaw that leads to his doom, and nearly dooms all of his friends. And that’s exactly what you get with Boromir. Every time I watch LOTR, I”m rooting for Boromir to overcome his flaws, I’m trying to deny the inevitable fall. I care about him because he is ultimately the most human of the Fellowship — capable of great good and great evil. Striving to win, but racked by doubt and worry. Flawed. It is NOT that we know the end of the story that ruins the suspense in the prequels. It’s that the prequels ruin the suspense. Anakin is never a hero. He is a silly child. A whinny, arrogant prick of a teen/young man. He isn’t flawed — he is irredeemably evil. It wasn’t just the lack of chemistry between the actors or the wooden dialogue — it NEVER makes sense that Padme would want anything but a restraining order keeping Anakin the Enraged Stalker Pyscho away from her. The tragic hero is the most well-used and well-understood trope of story telling. Seriously, HOW DO YOU SCREW THAT UP?
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