After the success of Star Wars Lucas proclaimed he always had envisioned Star Wars as a trilogy. I call BS, he got lucky that his wife was working for him as an Academy Award winning editor, once she got tired of his coldness she dumped him for another loser and Lucas never made another good film again. Indiana Jones movies were great because Spielberg did most of the work.
shareI don't know about GL's marriage situation, but, otherwise, yeah you're pretty close.
shareSomething sure happened. I've seen a documentary about Lucas' version of Star Wars being abominable, and only became the tightly knit classic it now is after extensive editing by Paul Hirsch. Who knows how accurate that is, or what Lucas would have ended up with on his own, but his track record post-SW is dismal. My hunch is that he's always been a hack, and he was in the right place at the right time to catch lightning in a bottle with his Star Blazers/The Hidden Fortress mashup.
shareI think he was better as an idea man. And I said was, not is.
shareHack or not...we’d all love to trade places with him.
He set out to do “Flash Gordon” and they laughed him off and probably giggled as they left him with merchandising rights to his Japanese-inspired space opera.
Who’s laughing NOW?
We’d all love to be in his place but in hindsight...I wouldn’t have sold the rights to Disney seeing as they took a big dump with their butt ugly, uncharismatic new cast of characters outside of Daisy Ridley.
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You replied to me. I didn't say he was a hack. Another poster did. Regardless, you are correct.
shareAnd YOU are right.
But the “idea” was hardly original.
He’s an “idea” man who simply got lucky following the same formula that the “Seven Samurai” makers followed- copied American Westerns, replacing cowboys with Samurai. Then American filmmakers responded in kind.
Along comes Lucas who just followed the exact same trend.
Nothing genius about it but led to $billions$.
Good for him.
Personally, I’d rather see a sequel to SPACEBALLS then another dismal Disney Star Wars film.
What IDIOT cast those films?
Someone who thinks “ugly” is in?
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I don't think he was a hack. I think he was good at what he did: building stories and shooting movies. Then, the writers he worked with, the other directors, the editors, the producers, the people helping him - they were all great at their jobs, too, and Lucas let them do their jobs (or was forced to).
Around Return of the Jedi, he started sacrificing other people because he wanted to do the story his way. Gary Kurtz's unceremonious exit post-Empire Strikes Back is a warning sign. That's why Return of the Jedi is a toyetic sorta film, designed to market ewoks. It's still a good movie in a lot of respects, but Lucas was starting to listen to his own judgement (or ego, whatever you want to call it) at the expense of the good sense and craftsmanship of others.
So, not a hack, just not a master of all things. Once he tried to be, the quality of the films suffered.
Kind of cold and ungrateful.
Lucas created it all. Sure, he needed help by other talented people to tweak his ideas and help him edit it and put it together well but you come off as if he is some talentless hack and others are responsible for Star Wars.
True the films were better when he had some talented people around him to help him get his vision to the screen in the best way, even when the script and details needed to be tweaked but George is the visionary who thought it all up.
You seem to have some problem with George Lucas.
George Lucas “thought it all up”?
He didn’t “think up” Akira Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress”.
He borrowed quite a few of its elements for part 1, The Phantom Penis.
And the characters of Tahei and Matashichi became R2D2 and C-3PO.
Then he made us vomit by creating Jar Jar Binks, who was inspired by GOOFY. HIS idea!
The geniuses AROUND him had to tweak on the run.
Vader was supposed to have samurai armor.
It was others like McQuarrie and Mollo who ditched Vader’s original samurai armor in favor of a motorcycle suit and a Nazi helmet.
Lucas was LUCKY to have such people around him.
Jar Jar Binks is what you get when you let the REAL George run riot.
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"Jar Jar Binks is what you get when you let the REAL George run riot." Good observation
shareI don't doubt that he had some kind of vague ideas for continuing the movie series. But the details weren't necessarily fleshed out very well, leading to various inconsistencies among the movies.
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