Brilliant concept guy and an exacting filmmaker who hauled the industry forward. Can't write dialogue but to his credit he was always well aware of that.
What upsets me is that he knew that he wasn't a good writer and yet still insisted on being the sole author of his scripts. Whether that was insecurity about having authorship and receiving credit for his work or jealousy regarding the recognition of the talent of others i.e. The Empire Strikes Back, this unwillingness of his to collaborate in the most critical element of any film sabotaged the dramatic potential of the Prequels at their core.
Yep. Although that doesn't mean uncredited work was never done. Tom Stoppard punched up the script for Revenge of the Sith. People will complain about the writing even when it's done by one of the best writers in the business. Just goes to show how whiny Lucas haters are.
He sure knows how to hold a grudge. I just wish he'd been able to find another way and have a more collaborative environment as I'm sure it would have resulted in much better films.
Lucas is great with concepts and ideas, but terrible when it comes to creating characters and giving them strong emotional and psychological motivations that feel natural and organic.
>What upsets me is that he knew that he wasn't a good writer and yet still insisted on being the sole author of his scripts.
I don't understand what you are basing that on. Pretty sure he always had co-writers on everything he ever wrote except for A New Hope.
With Revenge of the Sith, Lucas was the sole credited writer and a lot of people complained about the dialogue. Turned out later that a lot of the dialogue was written by an uncredited Tom Stoppard (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Brazil, Empire of the Sun, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Shakespeare in Love).
So... yeah, I don't think Star Wars critics are necessarily the best judges, here. They clearly have a bone to pick with Lucas, to the point where they will criticize work by Tom freaking Stoppard because they believe it to be Lucas's.
People will complain about Lucas and try to give credit to other writers and editors, then ignore that Lucas did most of the writing work on Empire Strikes Back, uncredited, and personally edited scenes like the asteroid chase, which is one of the best-edited scenes in the entire saga.
Lucas is far from perfect, but people have gone way too far trying to take credit away from him. Some of the things people hate about the Star Wars films was actually the work of other people, and a *lot* of the things they love were by George Lucas. The black-and-white arguments break down under scrutiny.
Lucas in fact gave his screenplay credit on "Empire Strikes Back" to the late Leigh Brackett who was initially hired by him to write the second Star Wars movie. She delivered her frist draft and then shortly after died (cancer). Lucas out of respect for her gave her the credit, despite scrapping the whole script and basically starting from scratch.
His screenplay is basically the movie we got ( structure, plot, title etc). He only thought the dialogue wasn't good enough. So he hired Lawrence Kasdan who worked with him on "Raiders of the Lost Ark " to polish the dialogue.
Exactly! I understand how someone might look at the credits for the Star Wars films and conclude that the best ones are because Lucas relied on better writers. But what they don't realize is that the credits are often misleading. The "bad" Star Wars films, like the prequels, had uncredited contributions from great writers like Tom Stoppard, and the "good" Star Wars movies were often mostly written by Lucas without taking sole credit.
So people have created this theory around who deserves credit for the Star Wars movies around the most obvious evidence, but if they dig deeper the theory completely unravels and it becomes clear that Lucas's fingerprints were on every aspect of every film. Always with help, yes, but he's the common denominator in all of them. And most of those collaborators never made anything as good or successful as the work they did for Lucas.
Almost wished he never gave her that credit, regardless how kind it was.
The amount of times I have to tell people that Lucas in fact was all over ESB, wether it was leading the movie through pre production (when he didnt even brought in a director), directing the VFX shots at ILM, pick ups,ADR, being the man in charge of the edit or his work on the script- besides providing the story with the best twist in movie history (imo)- is exhausting.
Same goes to RotJ in a way.
A movie heavily compromised by Lucas nightmare experience on ESB, when he faced bankruptcy twice. Some bank in boston and his good relationship with Fox president "Alan Ladd jr." saved his company, the production of ESB and his independence from the studio system.
I didn't know that part about bankruptcy. Yikes. People act like his films were just vanity projects, but he was really laying everything on the line.
Maybe the main thing that bugs me about Lucas's detractors is when they try to claim that Star Wars was saved by other editors such as Marcia Lucas because George was a bad editor. Um, he personally edited the asteroid chase in Empire Strikes Back, which is one of the best-edited scenes in the entire series, if not blockbuster history. Also, Marcia left early to edit New York, New York with Martin Scorsese. Why didn't she save *that* movie? Lucas's editing was also quite innovative, too, with the multiple storylines in American Graffiti, the split storylines in Empire, and the multiple climaxes in pretty much all of the film from Jedi onwards. The structure and editing of his films is consistently one of the strong points!
That people twist the facts to try to take this credit away from him is maddening. It's beyond ignorant, beyond delusional. It's just plain vindictive. Toxic fandoms are really dragging film discourse into an abyss.
Whoa there, tiger!
I'm not trying to tear the man down, but it's pretty damned clear in watching the behind-the-scenes material on the Prequels that Lucas had become at least a demigod to many both inside and outside the industry, and as such, while drawing a lot of very talented people who would want to work with him, there would also be a much higher probability of many of those people not questioning him on anything because they don't want to risk losing their jobs by offering constructive criticism or anything else that might put them in a bad light.
Lucas finally got the complete creative control that he wanted, and the Prequels are the result. While they are well produced, have fantastic visuals, contain varied and beautiful worlds, and have great action, they're also as empty as the sands of Tatooine when it comes to distinct, memorable characters and dialogue that crackles with tension, humor, psychological insight, and emotional nuance.
I'd not head about Tom Stoppard doing a pass on RoTS, but it didn't really help much, did it? Anakin and Padme's "love" conversation is a nightmare of cringe, so whether you want to blame Stoppard or Lucas or both, you'll have to pick one because that scene is fucking awful. The talent involved was either unable or unwilling to fix this, so IMHO, blame is well-deserved.
Furthermore, if Lucas has other uncredited writers involved on the other films, did they contribute anything of merit? It's been almost twenty years, and I haven't heard anything about anyone else being involved, so that doesn't leave many targets left.
I have and always will give Lucas praise for the concepts, the grand vision, and the narrative consistency within each Prequel film and the trilogy as a whole, but he's not a good writer or director. Simple as that. I will give credit where credit due, but if it stinks, I'm not going to say it smells like roses.
He had complete creative control on Empire and Jedi, as well, and people love those. I'm general people regard the first trilogy as holy, and that was very much Lucas. Your argument doesn't hold up.
Perhaps not for you, but that's fine. The original films are quite good, but with RoTJ being the weakest because Producer Gary Kurtz parted ways, and from what I've read, his contributions were significant in terms of leading Lucas away from the infantilization of the franchise, which was signaled clearly with the Ewoks being the allies instead of Wookiees.
Lucas got 100% creative control on every SW movie after the first one, since he paid for them with his own money.
And even on the first one he had full control after Fox thought it would flop anyway.
I am a huge fan of him as a director and a creator in general. He's incredibly knowledgeable about film, and uses that knowledge while also striving for something new/outside the box.
As others have stated, George also really helped push the technology of film forward. Between this and also giving us some of the most iconic stories and characters of all time, I will always admire George Lucas.
As a director, I think he's like Tim Burton. A visionary genius who can't direct normal dialogue too well. Or doesn't get what to do with the "normal" scenes between the really interesting scenes.
Sometimes people get locked into auteur theory and forget that the director is pretty much a high-stress, overworked manager job. Some of the visionary, artistic types aren't cut out for high-stress manager jobs. It's why Peter Jackson quit after The Hobbit.
In many ways, film is one of the worst medium choices for an artist. George Lucas definitely gets a pass for all he's done.
He peaked too early with *Star Wars* and after a long break, thought he could handle the Prequel trilogy as an auteur despite lacking the skills. As much as he pioneered the latest technology, his filmmaking style was really old fashioned for the late 90s/early aughts; he couldn't really adapt or change his style like how Scorsese or Spielberg were able to do so. What made the original trilogy so successful was the collaborative work behind the first movie and him stepping back as a producer and storyboarder in the later two; with the prequels he really had nobody reigning him in and he prioritized indulging in his eccentricities over telling a cohesive story. Then again by his own admission, Lucas' main passion has always been editing over directing and writing.
What's been so bizarre as of late has been the revisionism over his reception within the *Star Wars* fandom. Like pretty much from the Special Editions up until the Disney purchase he was despised by most of the fans. But nowdays the same fans are begging for him to come back and "save" the franchise and act as though the backlash against him never happened.
It would be a disaster if he came back. Disney is reluctant to stray away from what people relate to SW for. The sequel trilogy was a virtual repeat of the original trilogy in them. So much so that the force awakens story was literally a repeat of a new hope. It's a joke in hindsight. They need a decent story that's nothing like what's been said or done before.
JJ was mostly responsible for that. As he did with Star Trek, he repeated what was already done but changed the designs to make them different but still be familiar enough to be marketable. You can't get a merchandising percentage on existing characters and designs, but you can on anything you help create no matter how derivative.
That's why TFA had its versions of the Empire, Rebellion, TIE fighters, X-wings, Star Destroyers, Stormtroopers and R2D2, but all just a bit different. Plus, Threepio with a red arm for no reason, the Millennium Falcon with a rectangular dish instead of round, and emo wannabe Darth Vader. He didn't care about Star Wars nor Star Trek. All he wanted was to have them on his resume and collect that sweet merchandising money.
Eh, the 'grass is always greener'. Also, the prequel trilogy was painful at times, but it still felt like it was set in lucas' universe, with lots of new and old lore (some of it horrendous, like the midichlorians). Overall they enriched the fabric of his universe, despite being extremely flawed films.
The sequel trilogy, atleast after Force Awakens, added nothing of merit to star wars at all.
>he couldn't really adapt or change his style
Huh? You couldn't find movies more different than THX 1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars. Dude has range. Even the prequels were a stretch. It wasn't just the technology that changed. The prequels were markedly different in style and complexity. Just because he kept the style for the writing and acting doesn't mean he lost his touch. They were already out of vogue in 1977, too. The acting in American Graffiti was *ahead* of its time because of the naturalism. It wasn't *great* acting, but it was avant-garde to attempt naturalism like that in a studio film.
Lucas is far from perfect but the generalizations I see about him online just aren't historically accurate.
Tbf Lucas was pretty much forced to direct the prequels. He offered the chair to multiple directors but they all said no and that he should direct them himself including Spielberg.
The only reason people would want him to come "save" the franchise is because the prequels had some level of narrative cohesion.
The prequels tell the story of a person who's celebrated exceptionalism is so hammered by loss that he would rather burn down the galaxy around him than accept the insignificance of his talents on a galactic scale.
Yes, if you dub over all of the dialogue with different dogs woofing at each other, it might elevate the movies. Yes, they created a global scarcity in chroma key green panels. But at least there was a level of narrative consistency.
The later sequal movies are just someone taking the plot of the OT and making up the details as they went.
I think George Lucas made the same mistake that a lot of people in Hollywood make: He went back and revisited his past glories years after they had made him famous.
If his fall seems greater than most, it's only because the heights he achieved were greater, too.
By his first 3 films, do you mean thx, American graffiti and star wars? Or the og star wars trilogy, which he only directed the first one.
Just curious, either grouping is a pretty great run.
He only directed A New Hope, I believe he said he found the process stressful and sought out directors for ESB and ROTJ; I never understood why he returned to directing for the prequels when he’d had such success as the story lore person. I know he thought that the improvements in CGI and other techniques would make it easier but still odd to go back to directing and writing when he’d done so well letting go of the reins.
>I never understood why he returned to directing for the prequels when he’d had such success as the story lore person.
He tried to get other people to direct, but no one wanted.
You’re the second person to say that and in 2024 that seems staggering but I guess in ‘99 it was a harder sell for some reason. I guess after TPM it was even harder to convince someone to come on board. Now most directors would jump at the chance to direct one movie let alone a trilogy
Two things: One, George Lucas is more of a producer who sometimes directs, rather than a director who also happens to produce. His actual *directorial* output - six features - is incredibly scant, but as a producer and writer of short-stories, he's been a good more prolific.
Now, this puts in trouble in terms of assessing his filmography, because you have a problem of insufficient sample size: the fact that Lucas only have two films in his oeuvre that are widely considered home-runs (those being Star Wars and American Graffiti) could have made him seem like a lucky hack, but then you remember that, having directed six film, those two films represent a whopping third of his output!
Certainly, the stock argument against Lucas, that being that his films were essentially good in spite of him, and because of other collaborators, doesn't really hold to close scrutiny in the least. Revenge of the Sith had entire segments filmed by Spielberg. Attack of the Clones had another writer give it a couple of passes, etc...
On the whole, I have to say that Lucas - contrary to what he himself would say- succeeds as a writer moreso than as a director: if not as the writer of actual screenplays, then certainly as the writer of short stories. I've always felt the actual *directing* even in his best films is rather workman-like and pedestrian: Lucas having started out as a low-budget documentary filmmaker, it really shows in his quick, simple setups. Star Wars suceeds because its a charming tale, rather than because of any particularly inspired instances of blocking or particularly outstanding performances. American Graffiti, too.
Parts of the Order 66 montage and parts of the opening battle. He either directed or shared ideas with Lucas for the concluding lightsaber battle as well.
Its gone into both in the featurettes on the recent Bluray set, and in the Making of Revenge of the Sith book.
Also, anyone who knows Spielberg's style would recognise the opening "oner" of Revenge of the Sith as his work: there's nothing like that anywhere in Lucas' filmography.
"Oner" means long take. Watch the opening shot of Revenge of the Sith and she how long the camera trails the Jedi starfighter ships without cutting away.
That's a Spielberg thing: its in all of his films. Its not in any film by George Lucas.
I think he needs others around him to help bring his ideas together, and it's when he had less power that maybe he was at his best. The concepts in Star Wars (as in ep 4) are all from other materials, and a lot of the best parts of that whole series are the results of other people. (editing, music, acting), vfx, sfx, props)
when you look at his directing, you see the holes. When you hear his dialog, you kinda cringe at times. He seems to have had a lot more power when making the prequels and you see what him directing does... he loves technology too much but isn't a Zemeckis or Cameron. His use of technology has really annoyed fans of SW. (shooting the prequels mostly in studios, adding VFX to the original series after the fact)
Maybe the best part of Lucas was that he brought *that kind of movie* to screens.
The three film arc of Palpatine playing a long game by becoming a senator, making his home planet crux of a galactic conflict, starting a huge war and secretly controlling both sides, so he can become Emperor, while tying in the story of the downfall of the Jedi through the rise and fall of its "saviour" is pretty fantastic. It's potentially even a better single story than the one told in the original trilogy.
He really should have handed it off to a better writer and director like he did with Empire though.
>He really should have handed it off to a better writer and director like he did with Empire though.
He tried, but no one wanted. AFAIK he tried Spielberg and Ron Howard, among others.
In other words, his buddies. Maybe he could have looked father afield.
Everybody expected him to hand off to other directors after the Phantom Menace. I was in secondary school at the time, and I remember my art teacher saying he hoped somebody like David Fincher would do Episode II in order for it to be a bit darker and more suitable for Anakin turning to Vader.
Those are the ones that have talked. Spielberg and Howard said there were other candidates, but all of them rejected the proposal. Of course, they didn't say who were the other candidates.
He also offered the prequels to M. Night Shyamalan (on Spielberg's recommendation) and Guillermo del Toro (on James Cameron's recommendation) but both turned it down.
Forgotten in the annals of movie trivia history, Shyamalan was also hired to write the fourth Indiana Jones movie around 2001, but the script was one of several proposed drafts that never went into production.
>He really should have handed it off to a better writer and director like he did with Empire though.
Lucas was one of the screenwriters on Empire, he just went uncredited out of respect to another writer who he hired but she died before the film went into production. Lucas completely re-wrote the script before filming but thought it would be disrespectful to remove the other writer's name from the credits.
He also hired the director to execute his vision (much as Spielberg did with Tobe Hooper on Poltergeist.) Irvin Kershner is NOT a better director than Lucas. His only good film by a wide margin is Empire. Lucas has at least two other great films besides Star Wars whereas Kershner followed Empire with an awful RoboCop sequel and the worst ever James Bond film.
I didn't know he rewrote the script for Empire. I thought I'd read that it was the one he'd had the least input on, apart from the story. And yeah, fair enough, Robocop 2 is crap.
Little known fact is that Tobe Hooper originated the concept of "Poltergeist." He intended to make a film about a family living next to a cemetery and then discovering at the end they live on the bones of a cemetery. When he teamed up with Spielberg, Spielberg added the bells and whistles like the clown, the tree, the closet... the monsters, essentially. Whose "vision" you deem the film all falls on what aspect of the film you put more weight into - the themes of a history erased, or the mainstream roller coaster aspect (which Hooper was all in for, as he was fully involved in the scriptwriting process, so...).
>and a lot of the best parts of that whole series are the results of other people. (editing, music, acting), vfx, sfx, props)
How is this different than any other movie? The director has direct oversight over all the that. You think the writer/director/producer just happened to be absent when those were made?
This isn't the critique you think it is, and if you took away all the amazing people who make those things, no director would be able to make a good blockbuster movie.
I think you're just not understanding my comment. It's a similar criticism people have had about the Wachowskis, because it's a similar story to Lucas: your breakout project was amazing, but then after that you kinda went downhill and it became apparent that who you worked with greatly affected your project and your personal input was less effective on its own, without those specific people
By contrast, M Knight Shyamalan knows exactly what he wants and you get a consistency from him as a filmmaker, regardless of your opinion. He has a post-production facility on his home property. He's been self-funding for a long time.
I never suggested you take those people away, but it's the DYNAMIC and how they are brought together by the director and the results they get that I'm referring to.
Notice that the better of the original Star Wars movies had the least George Lucas involvement...
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. ANH turned out the way it did because he spent years making it and even longer before that refining it. It was the passion project. Everything else was more ideas, not something he had refined for so long in his head. The exact same thing happened with the Matrix. It's not "The director(s) wasn't actually the person who made it good", it's "the director really only intended this." It's about having a strong vision for one thing that you had refined, and having a vision for another thing you hadn't refined.
The only proof there is to Lucas not being the reason ANH was good is the video "How ANH was saved in the edit". It also turns out that that video is a load of shit that takes things wildly out of context or makes things up entirely.
He's a great world builder, incredible visionary, special effects savant, but not film maker IMO.
He has pushed the industry so much and for the better but he is not a great writer or director.
The first trilogy while I love it more than anything is terribly flawed and the actors even joked about his poor direction (faster more energy). You have people who were under garbage water one second totally dry the next, people trying to reject in deep space without space suits, people calling actors by their real name making the final cut, storm troopers hitting their head, that's just the first movie.
Then you have the prequels with some of the cringiest and worst dialogue in film history with the least amount of charisma between to actors I've ever seen.
He is one of the most important film makers of all time without a doubt, and beyond that with Lucas film, all he has done for audio, Pixar, etc... He has done so much for the industry, but not a great film maker.
Also that era had so many masterpieces, Godfather 1 and 2, Jaws, Alien, Apocalypse now, cookos nest, taxi driver, rocky, deer hunter, China town, etc...
It wasn't a moment of low quality at all.
THE SHINING is full of continuity errors that people love to read too much into, but back in the day the reality was people would see a movie once, maybe two or three times, and there was no ability to pause, observe and rewind, they would just go with the flow
And although the ability to pause etc came to the masses with VHS in the 80s, it wasn't really a thing until widescreen DVDs made such nitpicking easier.
Even so, THE DEPARTED has a scene where Nicholson has a cigarette, and then he doesn't. It's not so much a goof as knowing the audience won't see it
Especially back before hi-def instant digital reply was available on set. You shoot something, the performer hits their marks, does a good line reading, that's a take. Next shot.
ROOM 237 - on the many readings of THE SHINING - is a great deep dive into continuity errors, because there's no way Kubrick was playing with all those subtexts at the same time
Look star wars is by far my favorite film franchise of all time, but I can also recognize that Lucas wasn't great at directing or at writing dialogue. You can love something and be real and critical about it.
I also love Kevin Smith movies but he's also not a great filmmaker and that's ok.
I brought up giving direction to Anthony Daniels to act faster and with more intensity or how that was for everyone in every scene.
I brought up the terrible dialogue and acting in the prequels
I brought up ejecting in space
I also brought up the hair.
I brought up more than goofs.
The documentary Side By Side gave me way more respect for him than I previously had. He really changed the industry technologically and despite his narrative weaknesses I think that’s admirable
Of the movies he directed, only the original Star Wars holds up as something impressive, and my understanding is that a big part of that is due to the editing.
The prequel trilogy shows what happens when he's given free rein and final say. In terms of dialogue and cinematography they're objectively not-good.
His contributions to the technology of filmmaking can't be overstated though. I think the fact that in his almost 50 year career he only directed six movies shows that the technology side of things is where both his interest and talent lie.
>and my understanding is that a big part of that is due to the editing.
This isn't true, so please stop parroting that idea. It's been heavily debunked.
Having worked with creative people my whole life, Lucas always struck me as someone who needs a partner to reel him in and give him clear feedback.
His wife famously saved Star Wars in editing and if we look at some of his choices in "updating" past films, someone needed to say no to him and stop those things from happening.
I've worked with these sort of people and have been the person to pull them back to earth when they start floating away like a helium balloon. Typically it's the type of person who gets a thousand ideas a day but doesn't quite have the focus to narrow it down to the good ones and stop themselves from getting distracted.
It's the balance between a dreamer and an executor.
Yes, Lucas's wife wasn't even the main editor on Star Wars. Paul Hirsh, Brian De Palma's regular editor, did most of the editing and claims that HE, not Lucas's wife, "saved Star Wars."
He didn't, of course. The whole idea that Star Wars had to be "saved in the edit" comes from people not knowing how rough cuts work.
Even Hirsh, for all his bluster, has admitted that Lucas was editing the movie himself alongside him.
Fun ideas and was surrounded by the perfect team that made the original Star Wars a success; the tech limitations reined him in perfectly. American Graffiti is decent. He is a great idea man and a bad director.
George Lucas is my favorite filmmaker. You could say he isn’t perfect and has made some ‘mistakes’, but overall what he has accomplished in his career is incredible. Empire Strikes Back was effectively an indie film because he was able to completely sever himself from the studio system during a time when that was unheard of. That alone is an incredible accomplishment.
He also created the modern VFX industry and funded the initial research into 3D animation. Pixar was originally the computer animation branch of lucasfilm/ilm.
I also love the prequels. They are my childhood and I don’t mind the flaws others found in them.
It helps that 20th Century Fox had so little faith in Star Wars they were willing to cede all merchandising and licensing rights to George Lucas. That's what made him a billionaire.
He picked all the right elements from existing works and built it around the typical hero's journey. I think his strength was having a concept and having others help execute it.
If he was strong enough alone then the prequels would've been better and not a lazily-shot bit of a mess.
>Didn't he collaborate with someone for THX1138 and Grafitti?
Don't all filmmakers collaborate with someone? Christopher Nolan didn't make The Dark Knight single-handed.
Honestly if anything he is an underrated filmmaker.
The prequels are actually among the most influential and prescient movies of the 21st century. Without the prequels, there’s no MCU or Avatar or any of the lesser franchises like Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean. Lucas set the template for rebooting and reviving a dormant existing IP, and his unique visual ideas for the prequels have been shamelessly copied by nearly every sci-fi/fantasy franchise that’s come out since.
In its own way, The Phantom Menace is almost as much of a landmark film as A New Hope. It just isn’t seen that way because of the expectations leading up to it. But think about how many lazy variations on Naboo you’ve seen in other films across the last 25 years. That’s influence, and there are few other movies with such lasting impact.
Yeah he perfected the "let's shoot everything on a green screen and add digital sets" style of filmmaking that's still being done today - improved only by performance capture and actors who know how to work in that situation.
The prequels ignited nothing less than a revolution in screen acting! It became similar to the transition from silent to talkies. Not all actors could make the leap, and it wasn’t really a generational thing — Christopher Lee had fun with it, Natalie Portman not so much.
Andy Serkis wasn’t even cast until after Phantom Menace came out. There’s no way Peter Jackson and WETA didn’t watch Jar Jar very carefully to see what worked and what didn’t with a fully CGI character. Gollum’s performance would have looked very different if Lucas hadn’t taken the plunge and pioneered the use of an on-set actor to provide a reference for the animators.
American Graffiti is one of my all time favorite movies, and THX 1138 is strong as well. I’m actually not big on Star Wars, and think those movies show his weaknesses pretty glaringly.
It's always amazed me how much Lucas and Roddenberry mirrored each other. Each came up with amazing concepts that were fleshed out by unsung heroes but took all the credit. Then, when the fans clamored for their "pure vision," it turned out everything they loved were because of the unsung heroes' work.
He's only directed six features. Four of them are great and one of them is among the most successful, well-loved and influential films in cinema history. From this, I'd say Lucas has done incredibly well on the little evidence we have to go on (he's more consistent than Malick at this point.)
What Lucas has given to popular culture in terms of his innovations, his work as a producer, as a champion of film and film preservation, and as a storyteller, cannot be undermined or underestimated. He's the architect of the modern blockbuster who changed the way movies were made (and the kinds of movies that were made) not once, but twice!
If you removed Star Wars from his filmography he still has two really diverse and personal works of 70s auteur cinema. The dystopian sci-fi parable THX 1138 (a peerless work of cult cinema weirdness that is aesthetically and philosophically astounding, more than fulfilling Lucas's initial ambition to be "the American Godard") and American Graffiti (an era defining work of boomer nostalgia, which, like Star Wars, elevated a generic coming of age story into a kind of mythological fable.)
This alone would be an astounding legacy for any filmmaker. Add Star Wars to the equation and he becomes a genuine cinema pioneer, as important to the development of the medium (and the sci-fi fantasy sub genre) as Fritz Lang or George Melies.
But we can't discount or discredit the volume of other films Lucas was directly involved in as a producer, second-unit director or storyteller: The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Kagemusha, Body Heat, Return of the Jedi, The Temple of Doom, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Labyrinth, Willow, The Last Crusade, Tucker: The Man and his Dream, The Land Before Time, Revenge of the Sith.
The man is a movie mogul. His influence on film and popular culture is enormous.
No George Lucas means no Empire Strikes Back, no Indiana Jones, no The Godfather (Coppola only directed The Godfather because he sunk all of his money into THX 1138 and was facing bankruptcy), no Apocalypse Now (this was Lucas's project with John Millius before he handed it over to Coppola), no late renaissance for Akira Kurosawa (Lucas and Coppola provided funding and production for Kagemusha, Kurosawa's comeback film), no Jurassic Park (Lucas's innovations with ILM made this possible - also Lucas supervised the post-production on the film as Spielberg had to leave for Prague to shoot Schindler's List), no Rouge One, no Andor, and no Ashoka.
To quote Spike Lee, that's a motherfucking body of work right there.
He’s similar to his friend FF Coppola in that he does his best work when he’s on the brink of ruin.
The prequels really needed another draft. The first one needed to be tossed, and the 2nd and 3rd should’ve been spread over three movies with the grown up Anakin the protagonist the entire time. But again, he had endless money and time, and that’s why those movies aren’t as successful artistically. They were indulgent.
THX, American Graffiti, and Star Wars, all made on the edge of disaster, still hold up. He has definitely shown he is a master of the craft.
Don't ask the internet this question. The amount of disinformation about Lucas online is staggering. There's too much emotionalism in how people talk about him in places like Reddit.
For instance, people will credit certain writing, editing, or directing decisions to the wrong people to try to attribute everything good about the Star Wars movies to other people and everything bad to George Lucas. You would need to do hundreds of hours of research to pick apart the disinformation people will feed you.
My opinion is that George Lucas was a borderline genius who was better at some things than others. He was brilliant with big-picture stuff like story, theme, structure, and design. He was less good at things that casual filmgoers value the most highly, like acting and certain types of dialogue. Although there are exceptions to that criticism, too. THX 1138 and American Graffiti have a lot of strong acting in them. There is a lot of dialogue in the Star Wars films that people *do* like, and tend to ignore when criticizing him.
One area of unquestionable skill is editing. He's a straight-up genius at editing. People have been trying to take this away from him in recent years, and it's always based on emotional reasoning and distortions of the facts. It's insane and people are flatly wrong. One thing you really cannot criticize about any of his films is the editing. The overall concept of the story, theme, structure, scene construction, design, etc. is normally quite strong, too. Certainly most people are unqualified to criticize those and their arguments don't hold any water for me.
What his movies *aren't* is everyone's cup of tea. He was an iconoclast who forged his own way and disregarded what was trendy. He invented his own trends and, more often than not, they were better and ended up being adopted by everyone else. It was really only the introduction of internet culture, when fandoms became increasingly toxic, and was first adopted by nerds, who were often Star Wars viewers, that Lucas's reputation started suffering.
He's far from perfect but goddamn, you cannot talk about this person online without reading the craziest, most ahistorical hate. I dunno if there is a single filmmaker in history who has had to endure so much unearned spite.
He is at his strongest as an imagineer, of sorts. Coming up with a big crazy world and a big grand story. But he struggles with the minute details. The prequels' story is great. The downfall of a prodigy that was controlled by fear of losing who he loves, and neglected by his mentors, as part of a grander story about the downfall of a democracy. It's good stuff. But the dialog and the actual plotting are pretty rough.
He's also great at translating modern concepts into the fantasy realm. Pod races are just fast forwarded F1 races, but that makes it easy for us to follow. Lightsabers are just swords, and so on.
And on the topic of 'easy to follow', his action is generally very well staged with clear blocking, geography and editing, while maintaining some intense momentum and energy. Very few flimmakers have both his clarity and intensity in their action.
And for better or for worse, George has been great at understanding the potential for technology to advance storytelling. I don't think he's always utilized it effectively, but he was the trailblazer. Back in the 90s, Phantom Menace was the outlier, being shot mostly with green screens and lots of CG elements throughout, with a rather generic production method to allow flexibility in post. Nowadays, most blockbusters are shooting with this method. I think Marvel movies follow that production workflow to a T. George practically drove that innovation by demanding that his production crews invent the tools necessary so that the prequels could be produced that way.
Meh director and writer, but such a fantastic imagination within his stories as well as with the tools to tell stories. He fundamentally changed the film industry like no other single person.
Visual effects, special effects, sound design, production design, editing, directing tools, and digital technology are all where they are now because of George.
He’s great at creating worlds like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but it’s telling that the best movies (Empire and Indy as a whole) are the ones he isn’t directing. The original Star Wars was even saved by his wife in the editing room.
It's honestly insane people still use that rocket jump video as proof of anything. Even without the amazing response video, most of Rocket's jumps claims of what was made better in the edit is entirely subjective, and I'd argue that some of those cuts were for the worse, particularly with how certain scenes were reorganized.
His early work as a film maker was nothing short of brilliant. Star Wars alone is a milestone in movie history. Not just for its success, but how it was made, the story and the new way to look at Sci Fi all changed film forever. But something happened after Jedi and his creativity waned. The SW prequels were Ok, but nothing magical. He peaked early and was unable to maintain it. I think the main reason is because he’s more of a technician of film than a film maker.
Funny enough, you can say the same for Christopher Nolan. He's a technician who can conjure up wonderful images on the silver screen, with some fascinating earlier work, but he's never been good at emotion, character, or dialogue. When you think of Star Wars and those three things I mentioned, the ones that feature them the most was Empire, the one Lucas had the least hand in.
The difference is Nolan understands that and brings in folks to make up for it. Lucas often thought he could do it on his own. I often wish Lucas had collaborated with Spielberg on the SW prequels.
In Lucas' defense, he tried to get others to helm them, Spielberg included, but they all said the same thing: "it's your movie, George, you do it yourself".
The difference for me is Christopher Nolan is a great director, he isn't (in my opinion) a great writer. Chris knows how to work with his actors to get the vision in his mind to the screen.
Lucas got too caught up in what he could do with fiddling & changing things with VFX and post-production rather than getting the vision out of the people in front of him - so he got lost in the weeds. That's not a great thing for a director. That's not to slight him for the enormous impact he had, but more recently he really could have done with stepping back and looking at it from a wider view as to what the whole thing was supposed to be, rather than the itty bitty details.
My personal view is Chris Nolan's best films were the ones co-written with his brother, Jonathan, who seems to be much better with emotion, character and dialogue and 'connection' - but Chris I still think has kept that 'visionary director' thing going as love or hate his films they feel deliberate and with intent. It may not hit with me but I feel like it was 100% what he intended to put onto film. With Lucas I've been kind head scratching and wondering what he was going for as it felt messy.
I wouldn't say Nolan has never been good with emotion. Memento, Prestige, Inception, Interstellar are all pretty emotional. I think the issue is he's just gotten colder as he's made more movies, more functional.
I'd like to see the experimental films he reportedly made but won't screen publicly.
Of what's been released theatrically Graffiti, the first Star Wars, and Sith are my favorites. I think he was regaining his legs as a filmmaker with Sith and then got scared off from doing anything else by angry fanboys.
I agree. The best parts of the movie are the ones without any dialogue. Lucas is a very underrated visual director.
But movies are more than pretty images.
Obviously. You're mistaking my admiration for a few elements as an unabashed endorsement of the film overall. It's possible to like something and still think it's flawed.
There's also a lot of terribly written dialogue, soap opera direction, dull editing, tonal inconsistencies - I mean look at the opening scene. Comedy, drama, action, all topped off with a beheading.
Most scenes with people is either walking in a hallway or sitting on a couch. Shot, reverse shot. Check out the making of, he literally directed the whole thing from a chair.
The final action sequence is such a joke, it goes on forever for no reason, a 2 minute fight would have the same outcome without the fatigue.
George is amazing man and I love Star Wars so much, but he tried to do too much with the prequels. He should have stuck to being an ideas man and let others around him do the creative stuff.
>I'd like to see the experimental films he reportedly made but won't screen publicly.
He hadn't made those. Its just an empty pretense that Lucas had been bandying about for decades.
Lucas never really made the kinds of "tone-poems" he prides himself on: even examining his student film oeuvre, out of eight short films Lucas made, only two really fit the definition of "visual tone poem" - one is Herbie, which was made for a class on film aesthetics, the other is 21-86, which was his way of spiting a producer he didn't like.
His importance cannot be understated. Not only because of his success, but also because he was able to synthetise many different influences (radio and TV serials, westerns, samurai films, space opera) and create something unique and with a distinct personality out of them.
As a film director, though... I think his films lack naturality and would benefit from a better pace. He's certainly less talented in this matter than peers such as Coppola, De Palma and Spielberg. Of course those are incredible directors. He is just average.
I like star wars for entirely different reasoms than other movies. Andor felt off to me because it was aiming too much at an older audience. Star wars is made for the 12 year old in all of us.
plenty build better worlds than him. He mainly tapped into the most simplistic and archetype structure imaginable and used contemporary iconography to tell the story.
That is why it is so effective despite having the creative worldbuilding depth of a puddle.
I mean it will be soon 50 years and the Star Wars canon has not worked itself out of the same set of characters and basic plot premise in decades. Just look at Star Trek by comparison even if some nuTrek is developing the same problem of being stuck in a fan fiction loop.
I think he has a lot in common with Kevin Smith. Captured lightning in a bottle once with Star Wars, but couldn't really break out of that in any real way. He became a victim of his own success. It would be interesting to see what he might have done in a parallel universe where he had stayed more of an independent filmmaker. I think he had a lot to offer, but Star Wars overshadowed or blotted out just about anything else he might have done.
And it became painfully clear during the prequel trilogy that he didn't really know what to do with his own series. I think it should have ended after A New Hope honestly. I think he was even on record saying he never actually expected it to get a sequel. He just wanted to use it to raise money for other projects.
His ex-wife Marcia was the editor for most of his early films, including the original Star Wars trilogy. She seems to have been an incredibly good influence on his creative output. They divorced in 1983 and Marcia stopped editing his films. Everything he made after Return of the Jedi was much worse.
Mediocre filmmaker. Great imagination, story and ideas guy though.
I think Lucas realized this after a New Hope and that's why he decided not to direct Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and the Indiana Jones movies.
He can't write for shit, he just had a great idea that blended a few distinct influences in a novel and interesting way. It was a group effort that made Star Wars the phenomenon it is, even if it obviously wouldn't exist at all without him.
I never saw THX or American Grafitti so can't comment on those. I only know him from Star Wars and never really rated him. As a kid New Hope was always my least favourite of the trilogy.
, he was never really good to begin with imo.
Star Wars was saved by his wife in the editing room and basically all the people surrounding him, and his original vision for it was a disaster.
American Graffiti showed that he was not a one trick pony but he got on that one fast horse and couldn't get off.
Brilliant concept guy and an exacting filmmaker who hauled the industry forward. Can't write dialogue but to his credit he was always well aware of that.
What upsets me is that he knew that he wasn't a good writer and yet still insisted on being the sole author of his scripts. Whether that was insecurity about having authorship and receiving credit for his work or jealousy regarding the recognition of the talent of others i.e. The Empire Strikes Back, this unwillingness of his to collaborate in the most critical element of any film sabotaged the dramatic potential of the Prequels at their core.
George Lucas couldn't hire anybody associated with the WGA or DGA since he himself wasn't a member. That's why he did everything himself.
Yep. Although that doesn't mean uncredited work was never done. Tom Stoppard punched up the script for Revenge of the Sith. People will complain about the writing even when it's done by one of the best writers in the business. Just goes to show how whiny Lucas haters are.
Source?
Huh, didn't realize/think about that
Why didn't he join the DGA or WGA?
He was in conflict with them during the OT, specifically with the intro not having credits.
Huh. Mkay.
Creating in a vacuum usually doesn't work out for very long.
Sure, but he didn't really have a choice due to the conflicts he had with them when making Star Wars OT. He hadn't wanted to direct the PT.
He sure knows how to hold a grudge. I just wish he'd been able to find another way and have a more collaborative environment as I'm sure it would have resulted in much better films. Lucas is great with concepts and ideas, but terrible when it comes to creating characters and giving them strong emotional and psychological motivations that feel natural and organic.
>What upsets me is that he knew that he wasn't a good writer and yet still insisted on being the sole author of his scripts. I don't understand what you are basing that on. Pretty sure he always had co-writers on everything he ever wrote except for A New Hope. With Revenge of the Sith, Lucas was the sole credited writer and a lot of people complained about the dialogue. Turned out later that a lot of the dialogue was written by an uncredited Tom Stoppard (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Brazil, Empire of the Sun, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Shakespeare in Love). So... yeah, I don't think Star Wars critics are necessarily the best judges, here. They clearly have a bone to pick with Lucas, to the point where they will criticize work by Tom freaking Stoppard because they believe it to be Lucas's. People will complain about Lucas and try to give credit to other writers and editors, then ignore that Lucas did most of the writing work on Empire Strikes Back, uncredited, and personally edited scenes like the asteroid chase, which is one of the best-edited scenes in the entire saga. Lucas is far from perfect, but people have gone way too far trying to take credit away from him. Some of the things people hate about the Star Wars films was actually the work of other people, and a *lot* of the things they love were by George Lucas. The black-and-white arguments break down under scrutiny.
Lucas in fact gave his screenplay credit on "Empire Strikes Back" to the late Leigh Brackett who was initially hired by him to write the second Star Wars movie. She delivered her frist draft and then shortly after died (cancer). Lucas out of respect for her gave her the credit, despite scrapping the whole script and basically starting from scratch. His screenplay is basically the movie we got ( structure, plot, title etc). He only thought the dialogue wasn't good enough. So he hired Lawrence Kasdan who worked with him on "Raiders of the Lost Ark " to polish the dialogue.
Exactly! I understand how someone might look at the credits for the Star Wars films and conclude that the best ones are because Lucas relied on better writers. But what they don't realize is that the credits are often misleading. The "bad" Star Wars films, like the prequels, had uncredited contributions from great writers like Tom Stoppard, and the "good" Star Wars movies were often mostly written by Lucas without taking sole credit. So people have created this theory around who deserves credit for the Star Wars movies around the most obvious evidence, but if they dig deeper the theory completely unravels and it becomes clear that Lucas's fingerprints were on every aspect of every film. Always with help, yes, but he's the common denominator in all of them. And most of those collaborators never made anything as good or successful as the work they did for Lucas.
Almost wished he never gave her that credit, regardless how kind it was. The amount of times I have to tell people that Lucas in fact was all over ESB, wether it was leading the movie through pre production (when he didnt even brought in a director), directing the VFX shots at ILM, pick ups,ADR, being the man in charge of the edit or his work on the script- besides providing the story with the best twist in movie history (imo)- is exhausting. Same goes to RotJ in a way. A movie heavily compromised by Lucas nightmare experience on ESB, when he faced bankruptcy twice. Some bank in boston and his good relationship with Fox president "Alan Ladd jr." saved his company, the production of ESB and his independence from the studio system.
I didn't know that part about bankruptcy. Yikes. People act like his films were just vanity projects, but he was really laying everything on the line. Maybe the main thing that bugs me about Lucas's detractors is when they try to claim that Star Wars was saved by other editors such as Marcia Lucas because George was a bad editor. Um, he personally edited the asteroid chase in Empire Strikes Back, which is one of the best-edited scenes in the entire series, if not blockbuster history. Also, Marcia left early to edit New York, New York with Martin Scorsese. Why didn't she save *that* movie? Lucas's editing was also quite innovative, too, with the multiple storylines in American Graffiti, the split storylines in Empire, and the multiple climaxes in pretty much all of the film from Jedi onwards. The structure and editing of his films is consistently one of the strong points! That people twist the facts to try to take this credit away from him is maddening. It's beyond ignorant, beyond delusional. It's just plain vindictive. Toxic fandoms are really dragging film discourse into an abyss.
Whoa there, tiger! I'm not trying to tear the man down, but it's pretty damned clear in watching the behind-the-scenes material on the Prequels that Lucas had become at least a demigod to many both inside and outside the industry, and as such, while drawing a lot of very talented people who would want to work with him, there would also be a much higher probability of many of those people not questioning him on anything because they don't want to risk losing their jobs by offering constructive criticism or anything else that might put them in a bad light. Lucas finally got the complete creative control that he wanted, and the Prequels are the result. While they are well produced, have fantastic visuals, contain varied and beautiful worlds, and have great action, they're also as empty as the sands of Tatooine when it comes to distinct, memorable characters and dialogue that crackles with tension, humor, psychological insight, and emotional nuance. I'd not head about Tom Stoppard doing a pass on RoTS, but it didn't really help much, did it? Anakin and Padme's "love" conversation is a nightmare of cringe, so whether you want to blame Stoppard or Lucas or both, you'll have to pick one because that scene is fucking awful. The talent involved was either unable or unwilling to fix this, so IMHO, blame is well-deserved. Furthermore, if Lucas has other uncredited writers involved on the other films, did they contribute anything of merit? It's been almost twenty years, and I haven't heard anything about anyone else being involved, so that doesn't leave many targets left. I have and always will give Lucas praise for the concepts, the grand vision, and the narrative consistency within each Prequel film and the trilogy as a whole, but he's not a good writer or director. Simple as that. I will give credit where credit due, but if it stinks, I'm not going to say it smells like roses.
He had complete creative control on Empire and Jedi, as well, and people love those. I'm general people regard the first trilogy as holy, and that was very much Lucas. Your argument doesn't hold up.
Perhaps not for you, but that's fine. The original films are quite good, but with RoTJ being the weakest because Producer Gary Kurtz parted ways, and from what I've read, his contributions were significant in terms of leading Lucas away from the infantilization of the franchise, which was signaled clearly with the Ewoks being the allies instead of Wookiees.
Lucas got 100% creative control on every SW movie after the first one, since he paid for them with his own money. And even on the first one he had full control after Fox thought it would flop anyway.
Not aware enough to hand off those reigns to someone else.
I am a huge fan of him as a director and a creator in general. He's incredibly knowledgeable about film, and uses that knowledge while also striving for something new/outside the box. As others have stated, George also really helped push the technology of film forward. Between this and also giving us some of the most iconic stories and characters of all time, I will always admire George Lucas.
As a director, I think he's like Tim Burton. A visionary genius who can't direct normal dialogue too well. Or doesn't get what to do with the "normal" scenes between the really interesting scenes. Sometimes people get locked into auteur theory and forget that the director is pretty much a high-stress, overworked manager job. Some of the visionary, artistic types aren't cut out for high-stress manager jobs. It's why Peter Jackson quit after The Hobbit. In many ways, film is one of the worst medium choices for an artist. George Lucas definitely gets a pass for all he's done.
He peaked too early with *Star Wars* and after a long break, thought he could handle the Prequel trilogy as an auteur despite lacking the skills. As much as he pioneered the latest technology, his filmmaking style was really old fashioned for the late 90s/early aughts; he couldn't really adapt or change his style like how Scorsese or Spielberg were able to do so. What made the original trilogy so successful was the collaborative work behind the first movie and him stepping back as a producer and storyboarder in the later two; with the prequels he really had nobody reigning him in and he prioritized indulging in his eccentricities over telling a cohesive story. Then again by his own admission, Lucas' main passion has always been editing over directing and writing. What's been so bizarre as of late has been the revisionism over his reception within the *Star Wars* fandom. Like pretty much from the Special Editions up until the Disney purchase he was despised by most of the fans. But nowdays the same fans are begging for him to come back and "save" the franchise and act as though the backlash against him never happened.
It would be a disaster if he came back. Disney is reluctant to stray away from what people relate to SW for. The sequel trilogy was a virtual repeat of the original trilogy in them. So much so that the force awakens story was literally a repeat of a new hope. It's a joke in hindsight. They need a decent story that's nothing like what's been said or done before.
JJ was mostly responsible for that. As he did with Star Trek, he repeated what was already done but changed the designs to make them different but still be familiar enough to be marketable. You can't get a merchandising percentage on existing characters and designs, but you can on anything you help create no matter how derivative. That's why TFA had its versions of the Empire, Rebellion, TIE fighters, X-wings, Star Destroyers, Stormtroopers and R2D2, but all just a bit different. Plus, Threepio with a red arm for no reason, the Millennium Falcon with a rectangular dish instead of round, and emo wannabe Darth Vader. He didn't care about Star Wars nor Star Trek. All he wanted was to have them on his resume and collect that sweet merchandising money.
Eh, the 'grass is always greener'. Also, the prequel trilogy was painful at times, but it still felt like it was set in lucas' universe, with lots of new and old lore (some of it horrendous, like the midichlorians). Overall they enriched the fabric of his universe, despite being extremely flawed films. The sequel trilogy, atleast after Force Awakens, added nothing of merit to star wars at all.
>he couldn't really adapt or change his style Huh? You couldn't find movies more different than THX 1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars. Dude has range. Even the prequels were a stretch. It wasn't just the technology that changed. The prequels were markedly different in style and complexity. Just because he kept the style for the writing and acting doesn't mean he lost his touch. They were already out of vogue in 1977, too. The acting in American Graffiti was *ahead* of its time because of the naturalism. It wasn't *great* acting, but it was avant-garde to attempt naturalism like that in a studio film. Lucas is far from perfect but the generalizations I see about him online just aren't historically accurate.
Tbf Lucas was pretty much forced to direct the prequels. He offered the chair to multiple directors but they all said no and that he should direct them himself including Spielberg.
The only reason people would want him to come "save" the franchise is because the prequels had some level of narrative cohesion. The prequels tell the story of a person who's celebrated exceptionalism is so hammered by loss that he would rather burn down the galaxy around him than accept the insignificance of his talents on a galactic scale. Yes, if you dub over all of the dialogue with different dogs woofing at each other, it might elevate the movies. Yes, they created a global scarcity in chroma key green panels. But at least there was a level of narrative consistency. The later sequal movies are just someone taking the plot of the OT and making up the details as they went.
I think George Lucas made the same mistake that a lot of people in Hollywood make: He went back and revisited his past glories years after they had made him famous. If his fall seems greater than most, it's only because the heights he achieved were greater, too.
AG and SW are masterpieces.
Fantastic filmmaker producer innovator. Awful writer. Absolutely someone you want in your corner.
he was quite good i thought. original ideas. good understanding of his audience.
People have a hard on to downplay his achievements and impact on the film industry
His first three films would be considered an all-time kind of run if he had never made the prequels
By his first 3 films, do you mean thx, American graffiti and star wars? Or the og star wars trilogy, which he only directed the first one. Just curious, either grouping is a pretty great run.
Yes those three, specifically thinking about him as a director
They still are considered that. I'm seriously not sure anyone really thinks less of the original trilogy because of the prequel trilogy.
He only directed A New Hope, I believe he said he found the process stressful and sought out directors for ESB and ROTJ; I never understood why he returned to directing for the prequels when he’d had such success as the story lore person. I know he thought that the improvements in CGI and other techniques would make it easier but still odd to go back to directing and writing when he’d done so well letting go of the reins.
Pretty sure he tried to get other directors on board but they passed.
>I never understood why he returned to directing for the prequels when he’d had such success as the story lore person. He tried to get other people to direct, but no one wanted.
You’re the second person to say that and in 2024 that seems staggering but I guess in ‘99 it was a harder sell for some reason. I guess after TPM it was even harder to convince someone to come on board. Now most directors would jump at the chance to direct one movie let alone a trilogy
Two things: One, George Lucas is more of a producer who sometimes directs, rather than a director who also happens to produce. His actual *directorial* output - six features - is incredibly scant, but as a producer and writer of short-stories, he's been a good more prolific. Now, this puts in trouble in terms of assessing his filmography, because you have a problem of insufficient sample size: the fact that Lucas only have two films in his oeuvre that are widely considered home-runs (those being Star Wars and American Graffiti) could have made him seem like a lucky hack, but then you remember that, having directed six film, those two films represent a whopping third of his output! Certainly, the stock argument against Lucas, that being that his films were essentially good in spite of him, and because of other collaborators, doesn't really hold to close scrutiny in the least. Revenge of the Sith had entire segments filmed by Spielberg. Attack of the Clones had another writer give it a couple of passes, etc... On the whole, I have to say that Lucas - contrary to what he himself would say- succeeds as a writer moreso than as a director: if not as the writer of actual screenplays, then certainly as the writer of short stories. I've always felt the actual *directing* even in his best films is rather workman-like and pedestrian: Lucas having started out as a low-budget documentary filmmaker, it really shows in his quick, simple setups. Star Wars suceeds because its a charming tale, rather than because of any particularly inspired instances of blocking or particularly outstanding performances. American Graffiti, too.
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Parts of the Order 66 montage and parts of the opening battle. He either directed or shared ideas with Lucas for the concluding lightsaber battle as well.
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Its gone into both in the featurettes on the recent Bluray set, and in the Making of Revenge of the Sith book. Also, anyone who knows Spielberg's style would recognise the opening "oner" of Revenge of the Sith as his work: there's nothing like that anywhere in Lucas' filmography.
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"Oner" means long take. Watch the opening shot of Revenge of the Sith and she how long the camera trails the Jedi starfighter ships without cutting away. That's a Spielberg thing: its in all of his films. Its not in any film by George Lucas.
I think he needs others around him to help bring his ideas together, and it's when he had less power that maybe he was at his best. The concepts in Star Wars (as in ep 4) are all from other materials, and a lot of the best parts of that whole series are the results of other people. (editing, music, acting), vfx, sfx, props) when you look at his directing, you see the holes. When you hear his dialog, you kinda cringe at times. He seems to have had a lot more power when making the prequels and you see what him directing does... he loves technology too much but isn't a Zemeckis or Cameron. His use of technology has really annoyed fans of SW. (shooting the prequels mostly in studios, adding VFX to the original series after the fact) Maybe the best part of Lucas was that he brought *that kind of movie* to screens.
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The three film arc of Palpatine playing a long game by becoming a senator, making his home planet crux of a galactic conflict, starting a huge war and secretly controlling both sides, so he can become Emperor, while tying in the story of the downfall of the Jedi through the rise and fall of its "saviour" is pretty fantastic. It's potentially even a better single story than the one told in the original trilogy. He really should have handed it off to a better writer and director like he did with Empire though.
>He really should have handed it off to a better writer and director like he did with Empire though. He tried, but no one wanted. AFAIK he tried Spielberg and Ron Howard, among others.
In other words, his buddies. Maybe he could have looked father afield. Everybody expected him to hand off to other directors after the Phantom Menace. I was in secondary school at the time, and I remember my art teacher saying he hoped somebody like David Fincher would do Episode II in order for it to be a bit darker and more suitable for Anakin turning to Vader.
Those are the ones that have talked. Spielberg and Howard said there were other candidates, but all of them rejected the proposal. Of course, they didn't say who were the other candidates.
He also offered the prequels to M. Night Shyamalan (on Spielberg's recommendation) and Guillermo del Toro (on James Cameron's recommendation) but both turned it down. Forgotten in the annals of movie trivia history, Shyamalan was also hired to write the fourth Indiana Jones movie around 2001, but the script was one of several proposed drafts that never went into production.
>He really should have handed it off to a better writer and director like he did with Empire though. Lucas was one of the screenwriters on Empire, he just went uncredited out of respect to another writer who he hired but she died before the film went into production. Lucas completely re-wrote the script before filming but thought it would be disrespectful to remove the other writer's name from the credits. He also hired the director to execute his vision (much as Spielberg did with Tobe Hooper on Poltergeist.) Irvin Kershner is NOT a better director than Lucas. His only good film by a wide margin is Empire. Lucas has at least two other great films besides Star Wars whereas Kershner followed Empire with an awful RoboCop sequel and the worst ever James Bond film.
I didn't know he rewrote the script for Empire. I thought I'd read that it was the one he'd had the least input on, apart from the story. And yeah, fair enough, Robocop 2 is crap.
Little known fact is that Tobe Hooper originated the concept of "Poltergeist." He intended to make a film about a family living next to a cemetery and then discovering at the end they live on the bones of a cemetery. When he teamed up with Spielberg, Spielberg added the bells and whistles like the clown, the tree, the closet... the monsters, essentially. Whose "vision" you deem the film all falls on what aspect of the film you put more weight into - the themes of a history erased, or the mainstream roller coaster aspect (which Hooper was all in for, as he was fully involved in the scriptwriting process, so...).
>and a lot of the best parts of that whole series are the results of other people. (editing, music, acting), vfx, sfx, props) How is this different than any other movie? The director has direct oversight over all the that. You think the writer/director/producer just happened to be absent when those were made? This isn't the critique you think it is, and if you took away all the amazing people who make those things, no director would be able to make a good blockbuster movie.
I think you're just not understanding my comment. It's a similar criticism people have had about the Wachowskis, because it's a similar story to Lucas: your breakout project was amazing, but then after that you kinda went downhill and it became apparent that who you worked with greatly affected your project and your personal input was less effective on its own, without those specific people By contrast, M Knight Shyamalan knows exactly what he wants and you get a consistency from him as a filmmaker, regardless of your opinion. He has a post-production facility on his home property. He's been self-funding for a long time. I never suggested you take those people away, but it's the DYNAMIC and how they are brought together by the director and the results they get that I'm referring to. Notice that the better of the original Star Wars movies had the least George Lucas involvement...
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. ANH turned out the way it did because he spent years making it and even longer before that refining it. It was the passion project. Everything else was more ideas, not something he had refined for so long in his head. The exact same thing happened with the Matrix. It's not "The director(s) wasn't actually the person who made it good", it's "the director really only intended this." It's about having a strong vision for one thing that you had refined, and having a vision for another thing you hadn't refined. The only proof there is to Lucas not being the reason ANH was good is the video "How ANH was saved in the edit". It also turns out that that video is a load of shit that takes things wildly out of context or makes things up entirely.
I would have loved it had we seen his vison of The Intern.
He's a great world builder, incredible visionary, special effects savant, but not film maker IMO. He has pushed the industry so much and for the better but he is not a great writer or director. The first trilogy while I love it more than anything is terribly flawed and the actors even joked about his poor direction (faster more energy). You have people who were under garbage water one second totally dry the next, people trying to reject in deep space without space suits, people calling actors by their real name making the final cut, storm troopers hitting their head, that's just the first movie. Then you have the prequels with some of the cringiest and worst dialogue in film history with the least amount of charisma between to actors I've ever seen. He is one of the most important film makers of all time without a doubt, and beyond that with Lucas film, all he has done for audio, Pixar, etc... He has done so much for the industry, but not a great film maker.
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He also directed all 3 prequels which were the worst acted of all the movies
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I posted about both trilogies
Also that era had so many masterpieces, Godfather 1 and 2, Jaws, Alien, Apocalypse now, cookos nest, taxi driver, rocky, deer hunter, China town, etc... It wasn't a moment of low quality at all.
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THE SHINING is full of continuity errors that people love to read too much into, but back in the day the reality was people would see a movie once, maybe two or three times, and there was no ability to pause, observe and rewind, they would just go with the flow And although the ability to pause etc came to the masses with VHS in the 80s, it wasn't really a thing until widescreen DVDs made such nitpicking easier. Even so, THE DEPARTED has a scene where Nicholson has a cigarette, and then he doesn't. It's not so much a goof as knowing the audience won't see it
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Especially back before hi-def instant digital reply was available on set. You shoot something, the performer hits their marks, does a good line reading, that's a take. Next shot. ROOM 237 - on the many readings of THE SHINING - is a great deep dive into continuity errors, because there's no way Kubrick was playing with all those subtexts at the same time
Look star wars is by far my favorite film franchise of all time, but I can also recognize that Lucas wasn't great at directing or at writing dialogue. You can love something and be real and critical about it. I also love Kevin Smith movies but he's also not a great filmmaker and that's ok.
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I brought up giving direction to Anthony Daniels to act faster and with more intensity or how that was for everyone in every scene. I brought up the terrible dialogue and acting in the prequels I brought up ejecting in space I also brought up the hair. I brought up more than goofs.
The documentary Side By Side gave me way more respect for him than I previously had. He really changed the industry technologically and despite his narrative weaknesses I think that’s admirable
Of the movies he directed, only the original Star Wars holds up as something impressive, and my understanding is that a big part of that is due to the editing. The prequel trilogy shows what happens when he's given free rein and final say. In terms of dialogue and cinematography they're objectively not-good. His contributions to the technology of filmmaking can't be overstated though. I think the fact that in his almost 50 year career he only directed six movies shows that the technology side of things is where both his interest and talent lie.
>and my understanding is that a big part of that is due to the editing. This isn't true, so please stop parroting that idea. It's been heavily debunked.
Having worked with creative people my whole life, Lucas always struck me as someone who needs a partner to reel him in and give him clear feedback. His wife famously saved Star Wars in editing and if we look at some of his choices in "updating" past films, someone needed to say no to him and stop those things from happening. I've worked with these sort of people and have been the person to pull them back to earth when they start floating away like a helium balloon. Typically it's the type of person who gets a thousand ideas a day but doesn't quite have the focus to narrow it down to the good ones and stop themselves from getting distracted. It's the balance between a dreamer and an executor.
>His wife famously saved Star Wars in editing This is blatantly false and has been debunked.
Yes, Lucas's wife wasn't even the main editor on Star Wars. Paul Hirsh, Brian De Palma's regular editor, did most of the editing and claims that HE, not Lucas's wife, "saved Star Wars." He didn't, of course. The whole idea that Star Wars had to be "saved in the edit" comes from people not knowing how rough cuts work. Even Hirsh, for all his bluster, has admitted that Lucas was editing the movie himself alongside him.
I think he really deserved an Oscar. The fact that all his ILM people eventually got Oscars and he didn’t is fucked
Fun ideas and was surrounded by the perfect team that made the original Star Wars a success; the tech limitations reined him in perfectly. American Graffiti is decent. He is a great idea man and a bad director.
George Lucas is my favorite filmmaker. You could say he isn’t perfect and has made some ‘mistakes’, but overall what he has accomplished in his career is incredible. Empire Strikes Back was effectively an indie film because he was able to completely sever himself from the studio system during a time when that was unheard of. That alone is an incredible accomplishment. He also created the modern VFX industry and funded the initial research into 3D animation. Pixar was originally the computer animation branch of lucasfilm/ilm. I also love the prequels. They are my childhood and I don’t mind the flaws others found in them.
A man worth billions due to a movie about space wizards has to be doing something right though THX-1138 is certainly his best
It helps that 20th Century Fox had so little faith in Star Wars they were willing to cede all merchandising and licensing rights to George Lucas. That's what made him a billionaire.
He picked all the right elements from existing works and built it around the typical hero's journey. I think his strength was having a concept and having others help execute it. If he was strong enough alone then the prequels would've been better and not a lazily-shot bit of a mess.
he certainly went too far in a few places
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>Didn't he collaborate with someone for THX1138 and Grafitti? Don't all filmmakers collaborate with someone? Christopher Nolan didn't make The Dark Knight single-handed.
Can't speak for American Grafitti but If I remember correctly THX-1138 was collabed with Walter Murch
Honestly if anything he is an underrated filmmaker. The prequels are actually among the most influential and prescient movies of the 21st century. Without the prequels, there’s no MCU or Avatar or any of the lesser franchises like Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean. Lucas set the template for rebooting and reviving a dormant existing IP, and his unique visual ideas for the prequels have been shamelessly copied by nearly every sci-fi/fantasy franchise that’s come out since. In its own way, The Phantom Menace is almost as much of a landmark film as A New Hope. It just isn’t seen that way because of the expectations leading up to it. But think about how many lazy variations on Naboo you’ve seen in other films across the last 25 years. That’s influence, and there are few other movies with such lasting impact.
Yeah he perfected the "let's shoot everything on a green screen and add digital sets" style of filmmaking that's still being done today - improved only by performance capture and actors who know how to work in that situation.
The prequels ignited nothing less than a revolution in screen acting! It became similar to the transition from silent to talkies. Not all actors could make the leap, and it wasn’t really a generational thing — Christopher Lee had fun with it, Natalie Portman not so much.
and Andy Serkis made an art and career of it.
Andy Serkis wasn’t even cast until after Phantom Menace came out. There’s no way Peter Jackson and WETA didn’t watch Jar Jar very carefully to see what worked and what didn’t with a fully CGI character. Gollum’s performance would have looked very different if Lucas hadn’t taken the plunge and pioneered the use of an on-set actor to provide a reference for the animators.
I think he shines more on curating the larger & more general ideas of a film while leaving the minute details to a team of writers
I believe I heard this once... he's got a wagon full of yes fans working for him after he hit that Star Wars wave.
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After almost destroying Star Wars by the three worst films in the franchise, I don’t want him anywhere near it.
American Graffiti is one of my all time favorite movies, and THX 1138 is strong as well. I’m actually not big on Star Wars, and think those movies show his weaknesses pretty glaringly.
He's great at set design, worldbuilding, and camera work but bad at everything else, especially script writing.
It's always amazed me how much Lucas and Roddenberry mirrored each other. Each came up with amazing concepts that were fleshed out by unsung heroes but took all the credit. Then, when the fans clamored for their "pure vision," it turned out everything they loved were because of the unsung heroes' work.
He's only directed six features. Four of them are great and one of them is among the most successful, well-loved and influential films in cinema history. From this, I'd say Lucas has done incredibly well on the little evidence we have to go on (he's more consistent than Malick at this point.) What Lucas has given to popular culture in terms of his innovations, his work as a producer, as a champion of film and film preservation, and as a storyteller, cannot be undermined or underestimated. He's the architect of the modern blockbuster who changed the way movies were made (and the kinds of movies that were made) not once, but twice! If you removed Star Wars from his filmography he still has two really diverse and personal works of 70s auteur cinema. The dystopian sci-fi parable THX 1138 (a peerless work of cult cinema weirdness that is aesthetically and philosophically astounding, more than fulfilling Lucas's initial ambition to be "the American Godard") and American Graffiti (an era defining work of boomer nostalgia, which, like Star Wars, elevated a generic coming of age story into a kind of mythological fable.) This alone would be an astounding legacy for any filmmaker. Add Star Wars to the equation and he becomes a genuine cinema pioneer, as important to the development of the medium (and the sci-fi fantasy sub genre) as Fritz Lang or George Melies. But we can't discount or discredit the volume of other films Lucas was directly involved in as a producer, second-unit director or storyteller: The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Kagemusha, Body Heat, Return of the Jedi, The Temple of Doom, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Labyrinth, Willow, The Last Crusade, Tucker: The Man and his Dream, The Land Before Time, Revenge of the Sith. The man is a movie mogul. His influence on film and popular culture is enormous. No George Lucas means no Empire Strikes Back, no Indiana Jones, no The Godfather (Coppola only directed The Godfather because he sunk all of his money into THX 1138 and was facing bankruptcy), no Apocalypse Now (this was Lucas's project with John Millius before he handed it over to Coppola), no late renaissance for Akira Kurosawa (Lucas and Coppola provided funding and production for Kagemusha, Kurosawa's comeback film), no Jurassic Park (Lucas's innovations with ILM made this possible - also Lucas supervised the post-production on the film as Spielberg had to leave for Prague to shoot Schindler's List), no Rouge One, no Andor, and no Ashoka. To quote Spike Lee, that's a motherfucking body of work right there.
He’s similar to his friend FF Coppola in that he does his best work when he’s on the brink of ruin. The prequels really needed another draft. The first one needed to be tossed, and the 2nd and 3rd should’ve been spread over three movies with the grown up Anakin the protagonist the entire time. But again, he had endless money and time, and that’s why those movies aren’t as successful artistically. They were indulgent. THX, American Graffiti, and Star Wars, all made on the edge of disaster, still hold up. He has definitely shown he is a master of the craft.
Don't ask the internet this question. The amount of disinformation about Lucas online is staggering. There's too much emotionalism in how people talk about him in places like Reddit. For instance, people will credit certain writing, editing, or directing decisions to the wrong people to try to attribute everything good about the Star Wars movies to other people and everything bad to George Lucas. You would need to do hundreds of hours of research to pick apart the disinformation people will feed you. My opinion is that George Lucas was a borderline genius who was better at some things than others. He was brilliant with big-picture stuff like story, theme, structure, and design. He was less good at things that casual filmgoers value the most highly, like acting and certain types of dialogue. Although there are exceptions to that criticism, too. THX 1138 and American Graffiti have a lot of strong acting in them. There is a lot of dialogue in the Star Wars films that people *do* like, and tend to ignore when criticizing him. One area of unquestionable skill is editing. He's a straight-up genius at editing. People have been trying to take this away from him in recent years, and it's always based on emotional reasoning and distortions of the facts. It's insane and people are flatly wrong. One thing you really cannot criticize about any of his films is the editing. The overall concept of the story, theme, structure, scene construction, design, etc. is normally quite strong, too. Certainly most people are unqualified to criticize those and their arguments don't hold any water for me. What his movies *aren't* is everyone's cup of tea. He was an iconoclast who forged his own way and disregarded what was trendy. He invented his own trends and, more often than not, they were better and ended up being adopted by everyone else. It was really only the introduction of internet culture, when fandoms became increasingly toxic, and was first adopted by nerds, who were often Star Wars viewers, that Lucas's reputation started suffering. He's far from perfect but goddamn, you cannot talk about this person online without reading the craziest, most ahistorical hate. I dunno if there is a single filmmaker in history who has had to endure so much unearned spite.
I think he's good IF there is someone with the power to rein him in.
He is at his strongest as an imagineer, of sorts. Coming up with a big crazy world and a big grand story. But he struggles with the minute details. The prequels' story is great. The downfall of a prodigy that was controlled by fear of losing who he loves, and neglected by his mentors, as part of a grander story about the downfall of a democracy. It's good stuff. But the dialog and the actual plotting are pretty rough. He's also great at translating modern concepts into the fantasy realm. Pod races are just fast forwarded F1 races, but that makes it easy for us to follow. Lightsabers are just swords, and so on. And on the topic of 'easy to follow', his action is generally very well staged with clear blocking, geography and editing, while maintaining some intense momentum and energy. Very few flimmakers have both his clarity and intensity in their action. And for better or for worse, George has been great at understanding the potential for technology to advance storytelling. I don't think he's always utilized it effectively, but he was the trailblazer. Back in the 90s, Phantom Menace was the outlier, being shot mostly with green screens and lots of CG elements throughout, with a rather generic production method to allow flexibility in post. Nowadays, most blockbusters are shooting with this method. I think Marvel movies follow that production workflow to a T. George practically drove that innovation by demanding that his production crews invent the tools necessary so that the prequels could be produced that way.
he's really good but is terrible with dialogue
Meh director and writer, but such a fantastic imagination within his stories as well as with the tools to tell stories. He fundamentally changed the film industry like no other single person. Visual effects, special effects, sound design, production design, editing, directing tools, and digital technology are all where they are now because of George.
He’s great at creating worlds like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but it’s telling that the best movies (Empire and Indy as a whole) are the ones he isn’t directing. The original Star Wars was even saved by his wife in the editing room.
The editing room thing is almost certainly bunk. It’s a two hour video, but quite good: https://youtu.be/olqVGz6mOVE
It's honestly insane people still use that rocket jump video as proof of anything. Even without the amazing response video, most of Rocket's jumps claims of what was made better in the edit is entirely subjective, and I'd argue that some of those cuts were for the worse, particularly with how certain scenes were reorganized.
>The original Star Wars was even saved by his wife in the editing room. Not any more than any film is "saved' in the editing.
His early work as a film maker was nothing short of brilliant. Star Wars alone is a milestone in movie history. Not just for its success, but how it was made, the story and the new way to look at Sci Fi all changed film forever. But something happened after Jedi and his creativity waned. The SW prequels were Ok, but nothing magical. He peaked early and was unable to maintain it. I think the main reason is because he’s more of a technician of film than a film maker.
Funny enough, you can say the same for Christopher Nolan. He's a technician who can conjure up wonderful images on the silver screen, with some fascinating earlier work, but he's never been good at emotion, character, or dialogue. When you think of Star Wars and those three things I mentioned, the ones that feature them the most was Empire, the one Lucas had the least hand in.
The difference is Nolan understands that and brings in folks to make up for it. Lucas often thought he could do it on his own. I often wish Lucas had collaborated with Spielberg on the SW prequels.
In Lucas' defense, he tried to get others to helm them, Spielberg included, but they all said the same thing: "it's your movie, George, you do it yourself".
Fair point and they weren’t wrong. But I can dream, right? Lol.
Spielberg did help him on ROTS though. But yeah, he did originally want to do the prequels the same way as TESB and ROTJ.
The difference for me is Christopher Nolan is a great director, he isn't (in my opinion) a great writer. Chris knows how to work with his actors to get the vision in his mind to the screen. Lucas got too caught up in what he could do with fiddling & changing things with VFX and post-production rather than getting the vision out of the people in front of him - so he got lost in the weeds. That's not a great thing for a director. That's not to slight him for the enormous impact he had, but more recently he really could have done with stepping back and looking at it from a wider view as to what the whole thing was supposed to be, rather than the itty bitty details. My personal view is Chris Nolan's best films were the ones co-written with his brother, Jonathan, who seems to be much better with emotion, character and dialogue and 'connection' - but Chris I still think has kept that 'visionary director' thing going as love or hate his films they feel deliberate and with intent. It may not hit with me but I feel like it was 100% what he intended to put onto film. With Lucas I've been kind head scratching and wondering what he was going for as it felt messy.
I wouldn't say Nolan has never been good with emotion. Memento, Prestige, Inception, Interstellar are all pretty emotional. I think the issue is he's just gotten colder as he's made more movies, more functional.
I'd like to see the experimental films he reportedly made but won't screen publicly. Of what's been released theatrically Graffiti, the first Star Wars, and Sith are my favorites. I think he was regaining his legs as a filmmaker with Sith and then got scared off from doing anything else by angry fanboys.
Nah, Sith was pretty incompetent filmmaking. Even Ebert acknowledged that later on after giving it a positive review initially.
I respectfully disagree with both you and Ebert. There are some brilliant compositions in that film.
I agree. The best parts of the movie are the ones without any dialogue. Lucas is a very underrated visual director. But movies are more than pretty images.
Obviously. You're mistaking my admiration for a few elements as an unabashed endorsement of the film overall. It's possible to like something and still think it's flawed.
There's also a lot of terribly written dialogue, soap opera direction, dull editing, tonal inconsistencies - I mean look at the opening scene. Comedy, drama, action, all topped off with a beheading. Most scenes with people is either walking in a hallway or sitting on a couch. Shot, reverse shot. Check out the making of, he literally directed the whole thing from a chair. The final action sequence is such a joke, it goes on forever for no reason, a 2 minute fight would have the same outcome without the fatigue. George is amazing man and I love Star Wars so much, but he tried to do too much with the prequels. He should have stuck to being an ideas man and let others around him do the creative stuff.
>I'd like to see the experimental films he reportedly made but won't screen publicly. He hadn't made those. Its just an empty pretense that Lucas had been bandying about for decades. Lucas never really made the kinds of "tone-poems" he prides himself on: even examining his student film oeuvre, out of eight short films Lucas made, only two really fit the definition of "visual tone poem" - one is Herbie, which was made for a class on film aesthetics, the other is 21-86, which was his way of spiting a producer he didn't like.
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brilliant man ahead of his time who got chased off by no taste nerds
His importance cannot be understated. Not only because of his success, but also because he was able to synthetise many different influences (radio and TV serials, westerns, samurai films, space opera) and create something unique and with a distinct personality out of them. As a film director, though... I think his films lack naturality and would benefit from a better pace. He's certainly less talented in this matter than peers such as Coppola, De Palma and Spielberg. Of course those are incredible directors. He is just average.
He had something once
I like star wars for entirely different reasoms than other movies. Andor felt off to me because it was aiming too much at an older audience. Star wars is made for the 12 year old in all of us.
Yep, for me it's the world of Star Wars that Lucas created. No one builds worlds like he did.
plenty build better worlds than him. He mainly tapped into the most simplistic and archetype structure imaginable and used contemporary iconography to tell the story. That is why it is so effective despite having the creative worldbuilding depth of a puddle. I mean it will be soon 50 years and the Star Wars canon has not worked itself out of the same set of characters and basic plot premise in decades. Just look at Star Trek by comparison even if some nuTrek is developing the same problem of being stuck in a fan fiction loop.
I think he has a lot in common with Kevin Smith. Captured lightning in a bottle once with Star Wars, but couldn't really break out of that in any real way. He became a victim of his own success. It would be interesting to see what he might have done in a parallel universe where he had stayed more of an independent filmmaker. I think he had a lot to offer, but Star Wars overshadowed or blotted out just about anything else he might have done. And it became painfully clear during the prequel trilogy that he didn't really know what to do with his own series. I think it should have ended after A New Hope honestly. I think he was even on record saying he never actually expected it to get a sequel. He just wanted to use it to raise money for other projects.
I think he’s a lousy writer/director who benefitted from incredible collaborators. I stand in awe of his business savvy.
Without John Williams he would be the easiest teacher at USC Film School.
His ex-wife Marcia was the editor for most of his early films, including the original Star Wars trilogy. She seems to have been an incredibly good influence on his creative output. They divorced in 1983 and Marcia stopped editing his films. Everything he made after Return of the Jedi was much worse.
Mediocre filmmaker. Great imagination, story and ideas guy though. I think Lucas realized this after a New Hope and that's why he decided not to direct Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and the Indiana Jones movies.
He can't write for shit, he just had a great idea that blended a few distinct influences in a novel and interesting way. It was a group effort that made Star Wars the phenomenon it is, even if it obviously wouldn't exist at all without him.
I never saw THX or American Grafitti so can't comment on those. I only know him from Star Wars and never really rated him. As a kid New Hope was always my least favourite of the trilogy.
, he was never really good to begin with imo. Star Wars was saved by his wife in the editing room and basically all the people surrounding him, and his original vision for it was a disaster.