The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

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kayone73
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The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

I just saw this premiere at a local indie theater this weekend and it's a fantastic 2 hr look a Star Wars fandom and their initial views of George Lucas as the all-knowing all-father and how that view has morphed into it's current incarnation today. Also wonderful use of SW fan films, many of which you've probably already seen on youtube. Go check it out when it hits your local theatre.

http://www.peoplevsgeorge.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoc3roT81nU
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Amadi Akintunde
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

>George Lucas raped our childhood song

Is the fanbase really this butthurt? I'm a Star Wars fan, I watched the Originals and then the Prequels, same as everyone else. I enjoyed them. Sure, after a while you notice the quality between them but honestly, what was so "childhood rapingly" horrible about the Prequels aside from the dialogue and acting direction?
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Arbiter GUNDAM
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

I think that part of it was that IM and message boarding and such was gearing up around about the time we got the Star Wars Special Editions in 1997 and I think that's about when people heard the Lucas was doing the prequels. So the internets for almost two years endlessly speculated and built up Episode 1 into THE GREATEST MOVIE IN THE HISTORY OF MAKIND. Then May 1999 rolled in and we got the REAL Phantom Menace.

Now I'm not one of those people that likes to say that George Lucas raped my childhood. My primary grievance where SW is concerned is actually the great majority of the Expanded Universe (books, comics, games etc.) Do the Prequels have their flaws? Yes. Do I hate Lucas for what he did? No I don't. I DO hope that a few years after he passes someone will remake the prequels!

That and the fact that many Warsies don't like that the bad acting and directing and such are now "canon."
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

I enjoyed Revenge of the Sith. There, I said it.
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Amadi Akintunde
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

G-Slayer wrote:I enjoyed Revenge of the Sith. There, I said it.
Same here. If anything it was the one of the Prequels that actually had the feel of the Originals. It was the best of the three, naturally.
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Apparently I'm the only person on Earth that liked the prequels just as much as the originals.
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kayone73
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Going into the film, I thought it was going to be purely a fan-driven skewering of Lucas, but it actually offers a balanced view of the whole thing and brings rabid, irrational fanboyism into the light and criticizes them for losing touch with reality as much as Lucas for his foibles.
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Well being as fair as I can, I did enjoy the prequels, but I have to say, more so when I was younger. As much credit as you can give the man for everything that he's done in his life, you have to admit that the prequels have a lot of flaws that the originals don't have.

On the other hand, rabid internet-fueled fanboyism has also played a part.
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halo1000
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

DuelGundam2099 wrote:Apparently I'm the only person on Earth that liked the prequels just as much as the originals.
Nope, I'm sat next to you in that boat, however, said boat is only a small lifeboat judging by the number of people I know that insist the originals were better. I first saw the originals at the cinema in 1997 and I thought they were great, I enjoyed them countless times on VHS as well. I saw each of the prequels at the cinema also and enjoyed them no more or less than the originals.

I think the originals were just different, not better. The prequels came at a time when we had a lot of other really good sci-fi films out, while the originals came when most sci-fi films were somewhat cheesy and Star Wars was a genre that took itself seriously and thus were successful. Once the prequels got announced, the hype generated around them made people expect something far better from episode 1 than what we got. At the end of the day, episode 1 was simply an establishing movie to setup all the future characters and events, it was never supposed to be the 'be all end all' of Star Wars movies.

If people want to talk about something truly crap from the Star Wars franchise then they should play Force Unleashed 2.
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kayone73
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

A lot of fans who grew up with the original trilogy often regar them now with high strength nostalgia glasses, because of the mythology it established among a generation of kids, much like reverence to a god or parents, kind of blinds them from obvious faults. From a technical standpoint the story is not original it's your derivative multi part heroes journey but done w such panache it's been embraced by our generation like the Greek myth heroes did ppl 2000 years ago

the movies themselves now are...ok, and pretty cheesy in some respects by current standards but the storytelling was simple and solid. The modern trilogy couldn't go to that kind of simple storytelling again but the docu explains well what went so wrong w the first movie, that Lucas was still marketing towards kids...just like the original SW film was. A lot of kids actually liked Jar Jar a lot while adults thought it was the most god awful POS to be included in the franchise (how quickly we forget about ewoks).

All in all, they're just movies and rabid fans are idiots who wish hate upon a man for 'raping their childhoods' Michael Bay style.

Still I will agree that Indiana Jones & the Crystal Skull was pretty awful, dunno how Spielberg got away with dodging most of the blame for that disaster
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

I kinda agree with what halo0100 said. I saw the originals countless times (It seemed I saw The Empire Stikes Back about a dozen times when it was back in theaters in '97) and loved them from the first moment.

When the various prequels came out, I saw them all and enjoyed them and because of my age at the time (I turned nine in May '99), I thought Phantom Menace was amazing, like most kids that age probably did (It seemed everyone my age at the time did), which plays into what kayone points out. Since I've gotten older, my views and opinions have changed, but I still enjoy the prequels. I do like the original trilogy more, but I don't think the prequels are nearly as bad as most people make them out to be (Although Attack of the Clones probably deserves a lot of what it gets...). They have their flaws, but what doesn't?
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Amadi Akintunde
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

mcred23 wrote:I kinda agree with what halo0100 said. I saw the originals countless times (It seemed I saw The Empire Stikes Back about a dozen times when it was back in theaters in '97) and loved them from the first moment.

When the various prequels came out, I saw them all and enjoyed them and because of my age at the time (I turned nine in May '99), I thought Phantom Menace was amazing, like most kids that age probably did (It seemed everyone my age at the time did), which plays into what kayone points out. Since I've gotten older, my views and opinions have changed, but I still enjoy the prequels. I do like the original trilogy more, but I don't think the prequels are nearly as bad as most people make them out to be (Although Attack of the Clones probably deserves a lot of what it gets...). They have their flaws, but what doesn't?
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Rondo Mina Sahaku
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Now that a few years have gone by, I have to admit I do enjoy The Phantom Menace to some degree. It was a little over-long (the story of Anakin's childhood could've been condensed into the first third or so of a much better film), Jar-Jar was a really bad joke, the midichlorian thing and all the time spent on the inane pod racing aside are still sore spots, and Qui-Gon Jin was sorely under-used, but it was alright. And Revenge of the Sith, as long as the focus was away from Anakin's relationship with Padme (yes, including the infamous "NOOOOOOO~O!"), wasn't a bad movie. I mean, I imagine the ewoks weren't taken too kindly to when Return of the Jedi first came out, but they've since been welcomed into the Star Wars mythos with open arms.

I still can't say anything good about Attack of the Clones, though, if only because the heavy focus on Anakin & Padme's excruciatingly badly-written relationship was way too distracting (among many, many other things).
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Amadi Akintunde
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Rondo Mina Sahaku wrote:Qui-Gon Jin was sorely under-used,
Qui-Gon was underused? Dude, that should go to Obi-Wan. Seriously, if you removed him from that whole film (sans the final duel) nothing major would have changed.
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halo1000
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Rondo Mina Sahaku wrote:Jar-Jar was a really bad joke.
Rondo Mina Sahaku wrote: I mean, I imagine the ewoks weren't taken too kindly to when Return of the Jedi first came out, but they've since been welcomed into the Star Wars mythos with open arms.
Simon Pegg was right, Jar Jar Binks did make the ewoks look like fucking Shaft. And I did enjoy the acheivement in Force Unleashed 2 for drop kicking 20 ewoks, although FYI, one of the only bits of that game I did like...
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kayone73
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Rondo Mina Sahaku wrote:
I still can't say anything good about Attack of the Clones, though, if only because the heavy focus on Anakin & Padme's excruciatingly badly-written relationship was way too distracting (among many, many other things).
You wanna hear something funny? While were discussing the prequel trilogy in this thread, I can clearly remember the good & bad in Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith, remembering scenes vividly. When it comes to Attack of the Clones and the comments about how awful it was I kept drawing a blank, not flat out disagree but couldn't remember at ALL what people hated about that movie.

You bringing up the awful Anakin/Padme relationship scenes...yeah now I know why my brain blocked it out, as a safety mechnism
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Mu La Flaga
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Just to throw my lot in with this thread I don't hate the prequel movies.
For me they were all decent entries, Revenge of the Sith being the better entry, I do prefer the original trilogy though.

A funny note on Revenge of the Sith.
I read the book before seeing the movie come out and actually, I imagined Anakin's yells being more like force screams as his hatred became more apparent an his body was badly burnt.

Just my opinion though, that and Darth Vader giving a rather hammy sounding "Nooo!"
I was expecting it to be more bitter and like quieter and lashing out kind of Darth Vader.

That is just me though.

As for Jar Jar, I think I blocked him out of my memories of Phantom Menace, fortunately his role was greatly reduced in the other 2 movies.
C3P0 replacing him to an extent was welcome, VERY welcome change of humor.
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Amadi Akintunde
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Mu La Flaga wrote: A funny note on Revenge of the Sith.
I read the book before seeing the movie come out and actually, I imagined Anakin's yells being more like force screams as his hatred became more apparent an his body was badly burnt.
The events in that book are apparently more canon than its film counterpart, or so the author says.
Though I did not personally watch him do it, I received from LFL a Word document of Revenge of the Sith with Mr Lucas' edits, which was distinct from the edits I'd already gotten from Sue Rostoni and Howard Roffman and the rest of the LFL crew, and this document was edited in such a detailed fashion that even individual words had been struck off and his preferred replacements inserted, as well as some passages wholly excised and some dialogue replaced with the dialogue from the screenplay. If that's not line-editing, I don't know what is.

What's in that book is there because Mr. Lucas wanted it to be there. What's not in that book is not there because Mr. Lucas wanted it gone.

Period.
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Raiden
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

I don't mind the prequels either, well aside from the obvious complaints. Episode II's only enjoyable parts are the last 10 minutes...it just took so much time to get up to cause he paced it so slow. I remember distinctively laughing really hard the first time i saw Yoda fight..nobody saw that coming.

And speaking of fighs, I have to give the prequels credit for making lightsaber fights so much more enjoyable and exciting than in the original trilogy. In the original, it just seemed like they were just swinging it randomly and didn't have much choreography/martial arts like influence put into it.
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Amadi Akintunde
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Re: The People vs George Lucas (SW fan documentary)

Raiden wrote:I don't mind the prequels either, well aside from the obvious complaints. Episode II's only enjoyable parts are the last 10 minutes...it just took so much time to get up to cause he paced it so slow. I remember distinctively laughing really hard the first time i saw Yoda fight..nobody saw that coming.

And speaking of fighs, I have to give the prequels credit for making lightsaber fights so much more enjoyable and exciting than in the original trilogy. In the original, it just seemed like they were just swinging it randomly and didn't have much choreography/martial arts like influence put into it.
The fights in the Originals had much more emotion and meaning packed into them, really. I loved Episode V's ending duel because it felt so... genuine.

The choreography in the Prequels were great too but... that's just it. It was all choreographed to music and didn't really draw emotion from the audience. They were beautiful aesthetically, and helped show how well the lightsaber could be manipulated in battle, but other than that, the combatants didn't feel like they were trying to kill, or heck, hit each other. I suppose Obi-Wan vs Anakin can be exempt from this, but even then there were certain parts in which the two were being unnecessarily flashy. The duels in the prequels were awesome, but they were choreographed to a point where they felt "too" choreographed. You can definitely see this during all of the main duels throughout the Prequel Trilogy.
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