In defense of George Lucas -- Adilbrand Noblesword's Hall of Warriors

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Date Posted: 15:19:20 01/18/03 Sat
Author: Mt. Healthy Mountaineer
Subject:

In defense of George Lucas
In reply to: Adilbrand 's message, "Imagine if George Lucas had been at the helm of this film!" on 00:17:34 12/19/02 Thu

Before bucking the trend of everyone here, let me state a few things for the record:

1. I have not yet seen the Two Towers movie, but if it even comes close to the Fellowship in quality it will be amazing because the Fellowship was a tremendous movie, a true labor of love for he and his team.

2. I do agree that the Fellowship of the Ring is a notch (or two) above the Attack of the Clones and many, many notches above the Phantom Menace.

3. I am not disparaging the work that Jackson did on the LOTR - having watched his documentaries on the making of the movies, I wonder at how he pulled it off and how he did not collapse from a nervous breakdown.

That said, let me proceed:

In defence of George Lucas, it is really not quite fair to compare the two series since there are really two different movie-making processes going on here. The Star Wars series is basically the product of just one man - the characters, the filming, the special effects, the stories, etc. over the course of 25+ years.

The other is the product of a team of people, a worldwide effort that spans at least 5 generations over the last 85+ years.

More specifically, Lucas is a film-maker. He had a great idea for a series of sci-fi films when no one was doing sci-fi. Everything was disco and cop movies. Unlike Tolkien, Lucas did not have the luxury of working on movies in his spare time - it was his livelihood. So, he got a chance to make one of his movies and he butchered its screenplay and characters in order to make it work by itself and we have our beloved Episode IV - the only one that can stand alone of the bunch. (However, I can think of no good reason for Episode 1 to have sucked so bad - unless he just tried too hard. He certainly had time.)

So, groceries were bought, bills were paid and "Wow!" he had a big hit and was able to continue and make more movies. But, the movie business is like the music business - you've got to keep making sequels while they're hot or people will forget (or the actors could die - like almost happened to Mark Hammil - imagine if 'Luke' had died rather than just injured himself). So Episodes V and VI are made, but without all of the little details and nuances that multiple re-writes and time would have resolved. Thus, the desire on Lucas' part to tinker with the older movies.

Compare it with Tolkien. He began creating Middle Earth more than 20 years before the Hobbit was printed and nearly 40 years before the Fellowship of the Ring was published. There were no deadlines, no need to rush to keep the public's attention. Tolkien did not have to meet the payroll of a "Tolkien-films" conglomerate. He had Time. We all know that time helps the writing process as much as good grammar and spelling.

Peter Jackson, brilliant and dedicated as he is, did not have to create a single character - he interpreted them with the help of a legion of fans who know the series like the back of their hand. It is much easier to modify an existing idea than come up with your own. The actors were inspired by the script, the books (they mentioned reading them throughout the movie, esp. the scenes they were currently filming), art and from LOTR fans.

And to paraphrase Bubba from Forrest Gump - That's all I got to say about that. However, comments are always welcome and encouraged.

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Replies:

In offense of George Lucas -- mvd, 16:36:20 01/20/03 Mon
Re: In defense of the original comment -- Adilbrand, 21:45:19 01/20/03 Mon