Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Again, they gave him four billion dollars...

Ah, the old "when your enemies are
closing in flail wildly and hope they
just go away" tact. Let's see if it works.
Well that's a bummer. In theory. Huh? No, not the President's insane, rambling press conference today wherein he baselessly accused Democrats of committing all the crimes they're accusing him of committing. I'm talking about George Lucas and-what's that? Yeah, I know the brewing scandal that might, but probably won't bring down the Trump administration is way more important, but I just can't. I mean, did you watch the press conference? He's a lunatic and our democracy is spiraling towards collapse. I'm going to talk about Star Wars instead. It's less likely to give me an aneurism.

Pictured: George Lucas making Star Wars.
Also pictured: some other people. 
So the aforementioned bummer is that Bob Iger, former CEO of Disney, says in his memoir that George Lucas felt betrayed that the company didn't use his story ideas for the Star Wars sequels. Which sure, he created Star Wars. Ok, not singlehandedly and it's basically a Flash Gordon/Foundation mash-up but it's still his baby and when he sold it to Disney they bought his outline for more movies but were careful not to commit to using them and indeed went off in their own direction.

And however you feel about the Star Wars prequels, you've got to at least feel for Lucas. Star Wars was a huge part of his life for decades.
A huge part of his life, which made it weird that he tried
so hard to kill it with his terrible dialogue and pacing...
Don't be too proud of this
technological terror you've constructed...
On the other hand, Lucas' story outlines would have been all midichloreans all the time. You know, the thing everyone points to as the moment they realized that The Phantom Menace was some bullshit. Oh yes, according to a companion book for a TV documentary about sci-fi-it's a long walk, but bear with me. According to this book, George Lucas wanted the Star Wars sequels to be about the "microbiotic world...this world of creatures that operate differently than we do. I call them the Whills [and they] are the ones that actually control the universe."

Sorry, butt-hurt that that they didn't
make his magic space germ trilogy.
Which is preposterous and the opposite of what anyone wanted to see, but at least Lucas admitted that "a lot of the fans would have hated it..." And I suppose that's the first step towards realizing that maybe it's time to step back and sell out to Disney, but what was he even thinking? I know we've been piling on the poor guy for years, but like a scab you just want to pick at how fundamentally he seems to have misunderstood why people liked his movies. And just on a cynical level, he merchandised the shit out of the original trilogy, you'd think he'd have an eye for what the fans want. Yet here we are, talking about how butt-hurt he is that Disney didn't make his magic space germ movie.

Anyway, don't feel too bad for Lucas, his name is forever linked with Star Wars and he did get like four billion in cash and stock out of the deal. Four billion. With a 'b.'
See what I did there? Because The Force Awakens is basically
a greatest hits of the first three movies? Well, if I have to explain it...


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