No magic here.
But just felt like posting this since I feel he's so darn overrated.Originally had written this at IMDB.
"in the case of George Lucas, a more apropos myth than that of Prometheus might be the tale of Midas, the king whose touch turned everything to gold, making ordinary contact with the world impossible. Midas became the richest man on Earth but was unable to enjoy his riches, unable to even eat, since he couldn’t eat gold. He became, like Tartarus (another myth), cursed to have earthly pleasures always within sight but forever out of his reach. The Midas/Prometheus syndrome is perhaps emblematic of our times and of our fascination with, and worship of, celebrities. Men like Howard Hughes, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson were all in their way victims, both of their own lust for glory (gold) and superiority (divinity) and of the public’s equally neurotic need to give it to them. For these tragic public figures, as for Midas, a gift became a curse, as whatever “genius” they once possessed was swallowed up by the insatiable demands of celebrity. When it comes to leading God’s favorite children (artists among them) astray, fame is indeed the devil’s trump card. (See The Devil’s Advocate for a dramatization of this law.)
As the most visible embodiment of this grim tradition, George Lucas is a figure of legendary, nigh- godlike dimensions who is yet almost wholly devoid of creative abilities or even rudimentary human virtues. Baldly stated, Lucas is the most inept filmmaker ever to attain the status of movie giant, yet his reign his supreme. The three Star Wars “prequels”—occasional pleasures of The Revenge of the Sith notwithstanding—embody everything that is wrong with Hollywood, with pop culture in general, and, if we stretch it, the world at large. Here is a mystery to ponder upon. Lucas may have the power, and even the vision (in the most basic sense), of a cinematic genius, but he has none of the talent to match. He is a prince with the sensibilities of a toad, so utterly out of touch with anything beyond his masturbatory fantasy world that he can no longer be considered human in the usual sense. His films seem to have been made by a committee of androids, or by a computer program designed to simulate human sentiment yet with next to no idea of what drives human beings (or good melodrama). The result is a fantastically elaborate, multi-million dollar puppet show in which the CGI creations (such as General Grievous in the last film) have infinitely more personality than the actors, and in which even Ewen McGregor and Samuel Jackson are reduced to soulless action figures. That is the Lucas touch.
As a “world class director,” Lucas’ staging of scenes is roughly on a par with a sixth grade school play. Actors walk on, speak excruciating lines, go through the necessary motions, and walk off again, or die, or fade away, making way for the next creakingly unconvincing characters to do their thing. Lucas’ grandiose vision grinds along with all the relentless purpose of a combine at harvest time; his “touch” with actors is so numbingly awful that the movies play like a read-through of the script before shooting. Costing millions of dollars in special effects, sets, and costumes, the results are mind-boggling in their wastefulness; uncalculated amounts of time, energy, ingenuity and talent are swallowed up by the black hole of Lucas’ talent, leaving audiences with a sloppy, vapid, apathetic rendering of what remains a potentially devastating tale of power and loss. The tragedy of the tale pales in comparison to the tragedy of its (non-) execution. Lucas lacks any aspirations beyond that of a slightly autistic prepubescent, desperate to create his own universe to hide in. Is this not Hollywood in a nutshell?[1]
What happens when fame, success, obscene wealth and power, and complete “artistic” freedom are granted to a filmmaker with no discernable talent? Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. George Lucas has come as close to absolute power in Hollywood as anyone has ever dreamed of; though his “vision” has remained more or less intact in the thirty years since he dreamed up his space saga (devouring Joseph Campbell and Carlos Castaneda books and splicing them with “Flash Gordon” TV shows), his ability to do justice to it has not. Whatever creativity Lucas once possessed has now been absolutely corrupted. Yet in the last of the films, the soaring, intergalactic mythos that young Lucas dreamed up all those years ago can still be glimpsed from time to time, albeit dimly. The pay-off to all that went before (not just to the last two—redundant—prequels, but retrospectively adding a whole new layer of pathos and tragedy to the original movies), Sith contains by far the richest and most challenging ideas of the series; if only Lucas had handed the reigns over to someone with the necessary talent to do justice to them (as with Empire Strikes Back, written by Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Irvin Kershner, the only film in the series that approaches a work of art), the film might have been a genuine classic. It would have justified the hopes, expectations, and devotion of millions of fans who had grown middle-aged waiting for it. Instead, what they got was final, uncontestable proof that, if Lucas has any talent at all besides marketing, it’s a talent for bowdlerizing his own inspiration and reducing grand tragedy to artistic travesty.
Anakin/Darth Vader, as conceived in Lucas’ story, could have become one of the great tragic, mythic embodiments of Luciferic despair in the history of movies. Instead, we get Hayden Cristensen, whose suitability for the role seems to hinge upon having as little charm (or acting ability) as Mark Hammil (Luke Skywalker, Anakin’s offspring, whose birth in this movie coincides with Anakin’s transformation into Vader). In one of the film’s less hackneyed examples of Lucas-speak, we’re told that fear of loss is the route to the dark side. Anakin’s ominous dream of his wife Padme’s death during childbirth leads him to embrace the dark side, in the hope of gaining sufficient power to save her. But when Anakin gushes to Padme, “We can rule the galaxy together!”, she is understandably non-plussed (as is the audience, hearing this comic book crap). Anakin’s conversion to “evil” (which the opening scrawl helpfully informs us “is everywhere”) is so swift and complete that, within a few scenes (his eyes glowing yellow to signal his malevolence), he has turned his power on his beloved Padme and brought about her premature death. The fact that it was Anakin’s visions of Padme’s death, his fear of losing her, that drew him to the dark side and ensured the visions came to pass (and the possibility that it was the Sith who sent Anakin his dreams, for this very reason) is never touched upon in the film. Lucas isn’t interested in developing the darker undercurrents of his mythos, only in expostulating it; and this he does, with painful deliberateness and an almost frightening lack of artistry.
How can we reconcile Lucas’ interest and affection for such mythic concepts with his complete indifference to exploring them? In the first three films, the mythos was a thin but satisfying backdrop to the action, a casual, organic underlayer for the fairy tale, leading to action yarn that children, teenagers, and adults could all enjoy in their varying ways. Those movies (even the lifeless and mechanical Return of the Jedi) carried audiences along with humor, suspense, and a genuine sense of exhilaration and romance—attributes the second trilogy is almost wholly lacking. Lucas became so immersed in his “vision”—and in the self-importance of mythmaker—that the story weighs his movies down. There is no lightness or sense of play to the action anymore, only the dreadful pressure of expostulation, of seeing the damn thing through to its end. If any of the last three Star Wars films had been the first, there never would have been a Star Wars franchise at all, because no one would have cared enough to come back for more. Looking back, thirty years on, it might not have been such a bad thing.
Lucas created, or adapted, some beautiful archetypes. The fallen avatar-turned scion of darkness; the twins separated at birth but reunited by destiny; the Force; Han Solo, the heroic scalawag (easily the best character in the series, and there is nothing in the prequels to compensate for his absence); the mythic order of the Jedi Knights; the wise old Master Yoda—all elements of a rich, dreamlike fable to answer audiences unconscious need for myth and fantasy, both in life and in movies. Now they are just more plastic figurines to clutter up the toy store shelves, and all the richer, more soul-stirring elements have been lost in the shuffle of mass-marketing.[2]
George Lucas isn’t really to blame for all this, any more than Anakin or Adolf Hitler are to blame for what they turned into, taken over by their base natures and the lust for power. The Machine is stronger than any individual. By responding to a correspondingly dark need in society, Anakin, like Hitler, and like Lucas, became the reflection of a collective dementia. The Republic had to create its Dark Lord to become the Empire, and a world that turns a crass and shallow dream merchant like George Lucas into the most powerful cultural force in movies—that world gets the entertainment it deserves. Lacking insight into his own mythos, Lucas has proved blind to the implications of his own vision. By hitching his creativity to Hollywood’s combine, he moved inexorably over to the dark side. He may have conquered the world, but he paid the traditional price for it. Now everything Lucas touches turns to plastic."-JH
Hollywood Will Eat Itself.
But just felt like posting this since I feel he's so darn overrated.Originally had written this at IMDB.
"in the case of George Lucas, a more apropos myth than that of Prometheus might be the tale of Midas, the king whose touch turned everything to gold, making ordinary contact with the world impossible. Midas became the richest man on Earth but was unable to enjoy his riches, unable to even eat, since he couldn’t eat gold. He became, like Tartarus (another myth), cursed to have earthly pleasures always within sight but forever out of his reach. The Midas/Prometheus syndrome is perhaps emblematic of our times and of our fascination with, and worship of, celebrities. Men like Howard Hughes, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson were all in their way victims, both of their own lust for glory (gold) and superiority (divinity) and of the public’s equally neurotic need to give it to them. For these tragic public figures, as for Midas, a gift became a curse, as whatever “genius” they once possessed was swallowed up by the insatiable demands of celebrity. When it comes to leading God’s favorite children (artists among them) astray, fame is indeed the devil’s trump card. (See The Devil’s Advocate for a dramatization of this law.)
As the most visible embodiment of this grim tradition, George Lucas is a figure of legendary, nigh- godlike dimensions who is yet almost wholly devoid of creative abilities or even rudimentary human virtues. Baldly stated, Lucas is the most inept filmmaker ever to attain the status of movie giant, yet his reign his supreme. The three Star Wars “prequels”—occasional pleasures of The Revenge of the Sith notwithstanding—embody everything that is wrong with Hollywood, with pop culture in general, and, if we stretch it, the world at large. Here is a mystery to ponder upon. Lucas may have the power, and even the vision (in the most basic sense), of a cinematic genius, but he has none of the talent to match. He is a prince with the sensibilities of a toad, so utterly out of touch with anything beyond his masturbatory fantasy world that he can no longer be considered human in the usual sense. His films seem to have been made by a committee of androids, or by a computer program designed to simulate human sentiment yet with next to no idea of what drives human beings (or good melodrama). The result is a fantastically elaborate, multi-million dollar puppet show in which the CGI creations (such as General Grievous in the last film) have infinitely more personality than the actors, and in which even Ewen McGregor and Samuel Jackson are reduced to soulless action figures. That is the Lucas touch.
As a “world class director,” Lucas’ staging of scenes is roughly on a par with a sixth grade school play. Actors walk on, speak excruciating lines, go through the necessary motions, and walk off again, or die, or fade away, making way for the next creakingly unconvincing characters to do their thing. Lucas’ grandiose vision grinds along with all the relentless purpose of a combine at harvest time; his “touch” with actors is so numbingly awful that the movies play like a read-through of the script before shooting. Costing millions of dollars in special effects, sets, and costumes, the results are mind-boggling in their wastefulness; uncalculated amounts of time, energy, ingenuity and talent are swallowed up by the black hole of Lucas’ talent, leaving audiences with a sloppy, vapid, apathetic rendering of what remains a potentially devastating tale of power and loss. The tragedy of the tale pales in comparison to the tragedy of its (non-) execution. Lucas lacks any aspirations beyond that of a slightly autistic prepubescent, desperate to create his own universe to hide in. Is this not Hollywood in a nutshell?[1]
What happens when fame, success, obscene wealth and power, and complete “artistic” freedom are granted to a filmmaker with no discernable talent? Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. George Lucas has come as close to absolute power in Hollywood as anyone has ever dreamed of; though his “vision” has remained more or less intact in the thirty years since he dreamed up his space saga (devouring Joseph Campbell and Carlos Castaneda books and splicing them with “Flash Gordon” TV shows), his ability to do justice to it has not. Whatever creativity Lucas once possessed has now been absolutely corrupted. Yet in the last of the films, the soaring, intergalactic mythos that young Lucas dreamed up all those years ago can still be glimpsed from time to time, albeit dimly. The pay-off to all that went before (not just to the last two—redundant—prequels, but retrospectively adding a whole new layer of pathos and tragedy to the original movies), Sith contains by far the richest and most challenging ideas of the series; if only Lucas had handed the reigns over to someone with the necessary talent to do justice to them (as with Empire Strikes Back, written by Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Irvin Kershner, the only film in the series that approaches a work of art), the film might have been a genuine classic. It would have justified the hopes, expectations, and devotion of millions of fans who had grown middle-aged waiting for it. Instead, what they got was final, uncontestable proof that, if Lucas has any talent at all besides marketing, it’s a talent for bowdlerizing his own inspiration and reducing grand tragedy to artistic travesty.
Anakin/Darth Vader, as conceived in Lucas’ story, could have become one of the great tragic, mythic embodiments of Luciferic despair in the history of movies. Instead, we get Hayden Cristensen, whose suitability for the role seems to hinge upon having as little charm (or acting ability) as Mark Hammil (Luke Skywalker, Anakin’s offspring, whose birth in this movie coincides with Anakin’s transformation into Vader). In one of the film’s less hackneyed examples of Lucas-speak, we’re told that fear of loss is the route to the dark side. Anakin’s ominous dream of his wife Padme’s death during childbirth leads him to embrace the dark side, in the hope of gaining sufficient power to save her. But when Anakin gushes to Padme, “We can rule the galaxy together!”, she is understandably non-plussed (as is the audience, hearing this comic book crap). Anakin’s conversion to “evil” (which the opening scrawl helpfully informs us “is everywhere”) is so swift and complete that, within a few scenes (his eyes glowing yellow to signal his malevolence), he has turned his power on his beloved Padme and brought about her premature death. The fact that it was Anakin’s visions of Padme’s death, his fear of losing her, that drew him to the dark side and ensured the visions came to pass (and the possibility that it was the Sith who sent Anakin his dreams, for this very reason) is never touched upon in the film. Lucas isn’t interested in developing the darker undercurrents of his mythos, only in expostulating it; and this he does, with painful deliberateness and an almost frightening lack of artistry.
How can we reconcile Lucas’ interest and affection for such mythic concepts with his complete indifference to exploring them? In the first three films, the mythos was a thin but satisfying backdrop to the action, a casual, organic underlayer for the fairy tale, leading to action yarn that children, teenagers, and adults could all enjoy in their varying ways. Those movies (even the lifeless and mechanical Return of the Jedi) carried audiences along with humor, suspense, and a genuine sense of exhilaration and romance—attributes the second trilogy is almost wholly lacking. Lucas became so immersed in his “vision”—and in the self-importance of mythmaker—that the story weighs his movies down. There is no lightness or sense of play to the action anymore, only the dreadful pressure of expostulation, of seeing the damn thing through to its end. If any of the last three Star Wars films had been the first, there never would have been a Star Wars franchise at all, because no one would have cared enough to come back for more. Looking back, thirty years on, it might not have been such a bad thing.
Lucas created, or adapted, some beautiful archetypes. The fallen avatar-turned scion of darkness; the twins separated at birth but reunited by destiny; the Force; Han Solo, the heroic scalawag (easily the best character in the series, and there is nothing in the prequels to compensate for his absence); the mythic order of the Jedi Knights; the wise old Master Yoda—all elements of a rich, dreamlike fable to answer audiences unconscious need for myth and fantasy, both in life and in movies. Now they are just more plastic figurines to clutter up the toy store shelves, and all the richer, more soul-stirring elements have been lost in the shuffle of mass-marketing.[2]
George Lucas isn’t really to blame for all this, any more than Anakin or Adolf Hitler are to blame for what they turned into, taken over by their base natures and the lust for power. The Machine is stronger than any individual. By responding to a correspondingly dark need in society, Anakin, like Hitler, and like Lucas, became the reflection of a collective dementia. The Republic had to create its Dark Lord to become the Empire, and a world that turns a crass and shallow dream merchant like George Lucas into the most powerful cultural force in movies—that world gets the entertainment it deserves. Lacking insight into his own mythos, Lucas has proved blind to the implications of his own vision. By hitching his creativity to Hollywood’s combine, he moved inexorably over to the dark side. He may have conquered the world, but he paid the traditional price for it. Now everything Lucas touches turns to plastic."-JH
Hollywood Will Eat Itself.
