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PaperclipPerfector  29d ago (text post)   2700 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 7, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I've never watched this movie but I found this review interesting.

What is your overall opinion of George Lucas as a creator? Talented director but mediocre screenwriter? A hack on both fronts who got lucky once, aided by riding other people's coattails?

Great vision guy and good executive producer who desperately needs someone else to write the screenplay and direct the movie so his bad ideas can be shot down.

I think Lucas has great ideas: Star Wars and THX-1138 are both interesting concepts. I'm not sure how involved he was in the special effects for the Original Trilogy, but they were revolutionary for the time. I don't think he is a good screenwriter or director. The success of the first Star Wars (I refuse to call it "A New Hope" :)) can be attributed to a lot of luck (it originally wasn't going to even have a score) and creative tension and pushback from the actors and crew. Harrison Ford and Mark Hamil would change their lines or ad-lib; summarized pithily, famously, and probably mistakenly by Harrison Ford's "You can write this, but you can't say it". Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were not directed by Lucas. Empire Strikes Back in particular, widely considered the best of the Trilogy, had relatively little creative involvement by Lucas.

Excellent brainstormer but badly in need of someone with the power to push back on his worst/most indulgent ideas (several of the worst ideas he had in the prequels we're proposed for the original trilogy but got shelved when others rightfully told him no). I suspect he's better as a writer than a director, but that's trying to evaluate months of work from a few scenes of bts material.

How the world would be different if Spielberg hadn't deferred to Lucas and instead had taken the helm he'd been offered! Three fantastic films, the build-up of the chosen one, only to see him fall to the Dark Side in bits and pieces, obsessed by the loss of the attachments in his life which he'd been told to eschew from the start.

several of the worst ideas he had in the prequels we're proposed for the original trilogy but got shelved when others rightfully told him no

So in the prequel trilogy, he fell victim to protection from editors?

That's my take, at least.

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