the crimes of george lucas ('90s on)

Lucas actually comes across ok in this article from the BBC about his new film Red Tails... right up until the very last line.

Could have been worse, I was figuring it was going to say "Next up will be his Jar-Jar Binks biopic."

In the last decade and a half, Lucas has given “Star Wars” several “final” cuts. For the 1997 special edition, he made Greedo, a green-skinned alien, fire his blaster at Han Solo because Han’s murdering Greedo in cold blood — as the 1977 version had it — struck him as a violation of his own naïve style. For the new Blu-ray version of “Return of the Jedi,” Lucas added Darth Vader shouting, “Nooo!” as he seizes the evil emperor in the movie’s climactic scene. Lucas made the Ewoks blink. And so forth.

When fanboys wailed, Lucas did not just hear the scream of young Jedis; he heard something like the voice of the studio. The dumb, uncomprehending voice in his Socratic dialogues — a voice telling him how to make a blockbuster. “On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie,” Lucas says, referring to fans who, like the dreaded studios, have done their own forcible re-edits. “I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’ ”

Lucas seized control of his movies from the studios only to discover that the fanboys could still give him script notes. “Why would I make any more,” Lucas says of the “Star Wars” movies, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/george-lucas-red-tails.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

How you like that, Mr. Hitler

“Once this is finished, he’s done everything he’s ever wanted to do,” says Rick McCallum, who has been producing Lucas’s films for more than 20 years. “He will have completed his task as a man and a filmmaker.”

i imagine this quote slowly rising in pitch and intensity

lol

Maybe then he can go back and add flying cars to American Graffiti.

looking forward to his personal art films tbf

hopefully all slow-mo exploding porpoises

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2305/2417520927_3644ec59cd.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ntDYjS0Y3w

Lucas seized control of his movies from the studios only to discover that the fanboys could still give him script notes. “Why would I make any more,” Lucas says of the “Star Wars” movies, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

― max, Tuesday, January 17, 2012 12:19 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

So - basically, guys, we made a difference. All those terrible crimes did not go unpunished.

Note, though, that he hasn't defintively stated whether or not he will continue to work in the medium of building meter data.

Then it's all been for nothing IMO.

now you can turn yr attention to the post-Jackie Brown crimes of Tarantino

yeah that's just what we're gonna do

good

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.politicsdaily.com/media/2008/07/297.full.jpg

in the re-release, Nice Guy Eddie shot first

digitally subbing jar jar binks for tarantino's cameos would be great, though...

i really shouldn't make a 'meesa garage say dead gungan storage' joke, should i

But on the brighter side -- _Star Wars Uncut_ is finally out in a clean straight-through version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ezeYJUz-84

Why would I make any more,” Lucas says of the “Star Wars” movies, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

I like how he's acting like he is taking all of his toys and going home when everyone is just happy and relieved.

"Lucas, who is 67 and still in possession of the full pompadour"

I hope that "Uncut" inadvertently becomes the definitive version in everyone's minds, just to spite Lucas. I'm just sort of skipping through it randomly and my favorite so far is the Yellow Submarine-looking segment.

Love that star wars uncut. Watched it all the way through yesterday. So much fun seeing the different ways people have gone about tackling their 15sec segments.

I did the same. It was great! The common denominator is foil.

Mr Veg showed me some of it, it's really cool!

it's basically impossible to get your hands on a '77 release version of Star Wars now, right?

Watched a few minutes of Uncut -- cute, but points off for using that "Episode IV" shit in the crawl.

well you're not going to like that they remade the extended version either

I probably wdn't notice, haven't watched SW since the '90s

On the bright side, the "Episode IV" title crap was added in 1981, and afaik that was the only change that was made until the revisionist 90s

interesting, i grew up seeing the 'episode iv' in the beginning and just always assumed it was in the original theatrical release

GL was making Star Wars changes from day one. In 'Empire of Dreams' Mark Hamill talks about getting a call on opening day to schedule some time to re-do voice work for the mono release.

There hadn't been a popular space opus in eons when SW came out, Hollywood mostly expected it to stiff... so probably even Lucas wasn't confident enough to think he was gonna make 5 more.

also he invented the idea of the 'first trilogy' much later, come on now

I supposed so, but I haven't "read up"

I don't think Lucas was that confident in his ability to sell at all by that point. American Graffiti didn't really make up for the fact that THX 1138 was a battle where he wouldn't make cuts the studio wanted and then it bombed. The whole American Zoetrope enterprise had kind of bombed itself by the time he came around to Star Wars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_sequel_trilogy

Given the initial success of Star Wars, the pressure on Lucas to produce a sequel grew.[4] The extension of the initial film into a franchise, originally an homage, became a reality. Over time, conflicting reports concerning the number of sequels have been published.[4][6] In 1978, a Time magazine article reported that the newly formed Star Wars Corp. would be producing "Star Wars II, and then, count them, ten other planned sequels."[7] By the release of The Empire Strikes Back, Nicholas Wapshott was writing that "at least a further six films are planned." Wapshott noted that the stories were different from the original Hollywood serials by having individual stories despite their overall arc: "Star Wars may be the first feature film serial made up of consecutive stories."[4] In 1983 the nine-film saga was reported by a Time article[8] and The Times review of Return of the Jedi,[9] in The Washington Post[10] and the "9-film epic saga" plan continued to be repeated into the late 20th century and early 2000s.[11][12][13] The authors of the 1983 Time article briefly described the prequel trilogy, which they said would portray the "political intrigue and Machiavellian plotting that led to the downfall of the once-noble Republic." Of the sequel trilogy, they wrote, "Their main theme will be the necessity for moral choices and the wisdom needed to distinguish right from wrong. There was never any doubt in the films already made; in those the lines were sharply drawn, comic-book-style. Luke Skywalker, who will then be the age Obi-Wan Kenobi is now, some place in his 60s, will reappear, and so will his friends, assuming that the creator decides to carry the epic further."[8]

apparently as early as 1978 they were talking about a bazillion other Star Wars movies but the whole triple trilogy thing didn't get codified until 1983

http://webspace.webring.com/people/vm/mikebeidler/starwarsliteraturecompendium/blmcnty2.jpg

Can't find the first two panels, but here's the payoff

I think the real crime of george lucas was to not admit he has a mental defect that causes him to wake up every morning and NOT think "hey I'm kind of tired of Star Wars, how about if I give it a rest"

Oh wait, here it is:

http://webspace.webring.com/people/vm/mikebeidler/starwarsliteraturecompendium/blmcnty1.jpg

it's basically impossible to get your hands on a '77 release version of Star Wars now, right?

i found it on vhs at goodwill a couple weeks ago for $1

I don't think the originals are on blu-ray but you can still buy the DVD dual pack, I believe.

Ah yes, the infamous DVD where they used the crappiest original transfer they could for the non-SE's.

And I believe also screwed up its aspect ratio

Is the preferred approach for SW fans still to download cleaned-up copies of the laserdiscs? lol

Yes it is and its a reason why there's such a long thread of hate devoted to George Lucas.

There is a "Despecialized" version from the usual channels online

Pretty sure the Holiday Special is what made it clear to him that he couldn't just pass Star Wars off to other filmmakers, which was his original plan. At first he wanted it to be like James Bond, with different people making SW movies, maybe in sequence, maybe prequels, maybe following different characters and stories, etc. The absolute disaster of the Holiday Special sort of put a nail in the coffin and solidified the 'This is my vision' aspect of the whole thing. I think that's the best explanation, really.

yeah, but Empire was largely handled by other filmmakers and screenwriters b/c he was working on Raiders of the Lost Ark on another part of the planet, and is a reason why that film is the best.

I was reading something elsewhere about how Lucas' divorce being one of the most important ones in Hollywood in the last 30 years. You had the most powerful independent(sorta) filmmaker severing connections with the one person in existence who could tell him "no." After that, he could happily wander off into any batshit unregulated direction he wanted.

Hell, Marcia Lucas saved SW, and one of the rumored reasons why Lucas kept/keeps changing & re-editing the flick is to get her name offa the credits and cut off her royalties.