This
documentary, featuring comments from Star Wars fans all over the world,
gives voice to the profound disenchantment so many felt towards George Lucas as
he has re-tooled his beloved franchise over the years. Speaking as a first generation fan myself –
(ages 4-10 as the original trilogy was coming out) – I share all these
subjects’ love-hate attitude towards Lucas, who was a visionary storyteller in
the 70s and a brilliant filmmaker too (no small feat), but gradually evolved
into a mogul who abandoned the director’s chair to focus entirely on managing
the Star Wars brand name. The
film does a lot more than merely let disgruntled and fanatical enthusiasts list
their gripes, though; it presents a good handful of fairly damning arguments
against Lucas’ ideas and practices, and weighs those against genuine admiration
for what he’s done well, plus his right as creator to do what he feels is best
for his creation. The biggest charges
are: 1) that his “improvements” of the original trilogy, pasting GCI effects
into the films, were an insult to the craftsmen and collaborators who labored
to make those practical visual effects that everyone fell in love with; 2) that
his prequel trilogy is a horrendous step down in quality and charm in
comparison to the original films; and 3) that Lucas, despite moments of good
humor, has demonstrated actual contempt for the films’ fans by re-writing
history with his insistence that the films no longer officially exist as they
did during their initial runs, that his never-ending upgrades are always to be
regarded as the only possible versions. Wisely,
the film ultimately accedes that the issues are too complex, and truly
unprecedented, to resolve in 90 minutes.
To what extent can an artist really retract his own work from a vast
audience that already has it so ingrained in its soul, without expecting a
backlash? An even more pertinent
indictment against Lucas’ career is provided by his one-time cohort Francis
Ford Coppola, who – (in an older interview not conducted for this film) – laments
the who-knows-how-many? films Lucas could’ve made in the years after Star
Wars’ cataclysmic success; the personal, artistic films that he had longed
to make all along, the films that his accumulation of power and freedom was
intended to facilitate. Coppola himself
finally achieved this dream only very recently, but Lucas has yet to follow
suit, though technically it is still not too late. For my part, finally, I have always
considered the real Lucas trilogy to be the three features he wrote and
directed in the 70s; THX-1138 (1971), American Graffiti (1973)
and the first Star Wars (1977).
These films had humanity, humor, were grounded in anthropology and
mythology, and were executed in a rigorous cinematic style; all things that
appear only in ghostly form in the later Star Wars films, making Lucas’
failure that much more tragic, not at all unlike his screen alter-ego Anakin
Skywalker/Darth Vader.
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