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Nicklab:
It sure sounds like George Lucas has no interest in working with Disney on Star Wars.


George Lucas on his decision to "break up" with "Star Wars"

George Lucas, the mastermind behind the Star Wars franchise, says no more.

Lucas told Vanity Fair that he didn't want to be a part of the long-awaited seventh episode of the Star Wars saga, "The Force Awakens," because "it's not much fun" when you "go to make a movie and all you do is get criticized."

He spoke to "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose about his decision to never direct another "Star Wars" picture.

"The issue was ultimately, they looked at the stories and they said, 'We want to make something for the fans,'" Lucas said. "People don't actually realize it's actually a soap opera and it's all about family problems - it's not about spaceships. So they decided they didn't want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing so I decided, 'fine.... I'll go my way and I let them go their way.'"

This marks the first time Lucas is not intimately involved, which Lucas compared to a breakup.

"When you break up with somebody, the first rule is no phone calls. The second rule, you don't go over to their house and drive by to see what they're doing," he said laughing. "The third one is you don't show up at their coffee shop and say you are going to burn it... You just say 'Nope, gone, history, I'm moving forward.'"

The full interview will air on "CBS This Morning" in December, as part of our Kennedy center Honors coverage. Lucas is among this year's recipients.



I've got to say, I feel for the guy.  He is the reason why Star Wars exists at all.  He created it.  He brought it to us all with a supreme amount of effort and creativity.  The movies.  The characters.   All of the stories and toys.  Movie blockbusters as we know them today.  EVERYTHING. 

But the audience turned on him.  The audience did not share George Lucas's view that these were kids movies.  And when he went on to create the PT he lost a lot of the original audience.  I have repeatedly chalked that up to an unreasonable level of expectations on the part of the audience, compounded by the fact that their perception of the OT as an integral part of their childhood made it nearly impossible for George Lucas to please them.  And a lot of the hate that's been leveled at George Lucas for the PT really comes across as ingratitude. 

I don't really count myself as a PT hater.  Can I be critical of those films?  Sure.  But I don't have anywhere near the level of invective for GL that some people do.  My criticisms tend to be a bit more broad.  I think that the CGI advances were amazing, but perhaps striking more of a balance with practical effects could have served the story better.  And I think a comparable working situation to the OT where George Lucas would serve as writer / executive producer while another filmmaker stepped in as director might have helped as well.  When George Lucas collaborates with people, like Spielberg or Irvin Kershner, there have been some great results.  But I think at the heart of it all, George's stories are what made Star Wars great.  And that absence from Star Wars moving forward is something that has me wondering where things are going in terms of the big picture.

Matt_Fury:
I don't feel sorry for him.  He is the one who decided to surround himself with people unable or unwilling to tell him no.  He has great overall ideas, but he needs help writing a screenplay and he is not a very good director.

Pete_Fett:
There are great aspects of the PT and there are horrible aspects of the PT. I hate to sound like a "PT Hater Broken Record" but there were plenty of laughs in the OT and none of it was in-your-face silly slapstick. It was things that happened ORGANICALLY to the story that allowed for a laugh.

The best example I can think of off the top of my head is when Han, Leia, Chewie and C-3PO are running through Echo Base to evade the incoming Snowtroopers and get to the Falcon. At one point C-3PO finds himself on the opposite side of a door from the rest of the group, C-3PO stands there banging on the door repeating "Captain Solo, Captain Solo" and then gives up and says defeated "Typical" - the door then opens, Han grabs the droid and says "come on!". I'm sure we're all familiar with that scene. It works because of the well established characters and how we know they are to behave. Solo - the scoundrel with a heart of gold and the invaluable droid waaay to prissy to have somehow survived this long in this galaxy. The combination organically makes for good humor.

Flash forward 19 years from ESB and in comes Jar Jar - a character that Lucas many times has said was put into the movie "for the kids". We had no such bumbling idiot character in the OT, not even C-3PO came close. So with the introduction of this character came the sight gags - him stepping in poop, smelling farts, stumbling and bumbling his way through a battle, etc... None of that spoke to the core audience who grew up on the OT and made the OT an event to pass down to their children. Speaking as someone who had a young son when TPM came out who was 10 at the time, not even he enjoyed that ridiculous nonsense. Star Wars movies should appeal to "kids of all ages" not just five year old kids who have spent the first five years of their lives drooling on themselves watching horrible cartoons on Nickelodian (sp?).

I have had many discussions with my friends who are varying ages of 20-50 and we all agree if instead of trying to force (no pun intended) humor into the PT and instead let it come naturally through the interaction of well defined and acted characters the PT wouldn't be as maligned as it is today.

Think about this - what would TPM have been like if Jar Jar had been a noble warrior and former leader of the Gungans, exiled when Boss Nass came into power and when we first see him, with only a staff he is adeptly taking on several battle droids at once and only due to overwhelming odds needed Qui Gon to help him and because Qui Gon helped, he pledges a life debt to Qui Gon for standing next to him in the fight and turning the tide.

Cut out all the ridiculous nonsense and then when you go to Tatooine, allow for some of the humor to come naturally because he could be the proverbial "fish (or in this case amphibian) out of water" in a land with no water or moisture whatsoever. Add that you meet up with Anakin at the SAME AGE as Luke Skywalker, completely avoiding bad child actors and you find a GOOD actor who can actually show other emotions beside "spoiled jerk".

When it comes time for the end with the battle, Jar Jar goes to the Gungan people with the group to ask for help in fighting the battle droid army and finds them oppressed by the rule of Nass and his corrupt council, he challanges Nass for leadership of the Gungans, he is reminded of what happened last time, but this time Jar Jar defeats Nass, liberates the Gungans and they are happy to follow him into battle. Anakin gladly jumps into a fighter and is a great asset in space because of his skills in a cockpit, not because of how many times he can say "wizard" and "oops".

Lastly, you give control of the movies over to directors who can actually direct, not directors who provide direction by saying "okay that was good, but let's do it again, only this time do it better" - what the heck does that mean.

These are all simple things that could have made TPM at least modestly GOOD and watchable. Like Matt said in the previous post, Lucas surrounded himself with "yes men" who were so thrilled to be working on Star Wars they didn't care whether or not the Star Wars they were making was crap - and that is where the team behind the PT lost their way.

I find it awfully petty for Lucas to make that remark about how they wanted Star Wars to be about spaceships and not family drama. Unless Kasdan and Abrams totally throw us a curve-ball, I'm willing to bet that a HUGE part of The Force Awakens will be about family and who your family is. It's just that it will also be about spaceships and explosions, instead of humanoid amphibians doing a Jamaican Stepin Fetchit impersonation and stepping in crap for laughs.

Qui-Gon Jim:
I'll go you one better, Pete. The portrayal of C-3PO in AotC makes Jar Jar look like genius. How they totally got that character so wrong is mind boggling.

P-Siddy:
That whole droid factory scene is garbage.  It looks like a video game level idea that they decided to put into the movie: jumping, ducking, timing a run with mechanical arms, molders, smashers, cutters, etc.

I'd like to see a Rebels episode where Artoo's rockets get damaged beyond repair.

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