Must.....refrain...... from.......bashing......George

Yeah.

I actually saw this a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, more for the issues it raised than as a documentary itself. I really enjoyed this episode as a discussion of structure in a documentary; thanks, guys!

As a non-Star Wars fan (I kind of just watched the original trilogy last week…), I've always been fascinated by the fandom's relationship to Lucas, and I thought that The People Vs. George Lucas offered an even-handed look at that; yeah, there was plenty of nitpicks that people familiar with arguments against the prequels or Lucas in general have heard eight million times, but there were also people taking Lucas' side and defending his right to do whatever he wants with his intellectual property. As you guys mentioned, I think there is an issue of entitlement—he ruined my favorite childhood movies, now he sucks!—involved, but there's also the give and take of a creator and his fans in the digital age, which is something we're still hashing out. Fandom, especially, tends to operate on a "THE AUTHOR IS DEAD!" level, so to have a creator who is so visibly still kicking, even in texts that are now thirty years old, complicates things a lot.

As you guys say, Joss Whedon as a good example of a creator involved but not too involved with his fans and who doesn't take himself so seriously. I think, as a non-Star Wars person and general young'un, I'm so used to Lucas as he is now—reclusive and reviled by his fanbase—that I was kind of stunned to see his reputation beforehand as brought up both in the documentary and in this episode.

So, not a good example of the documentary form, but, as someone this documentary might be defended as being for, it succeeded in bringing up interesting questions. I came away feeling a lot more thoughtful about Lucas.

Who is Chris Gore and why do you hate him?

I must admit, my irrational hatred mostly comes from the magazine Video Games and Computer Entertainment. It was a great read, aimed at the more, if not intelligent, then at least non 8 year old market. Gore comes in as editor, and suddenly it's all cheat codes, big print, and even dropping all coverage of computers. Makes you cry.

Film Threat was fun, when I was a teen, but I soured on it about the time The Crow came out. The magazine had done a review of the work print of the film shown just after Brandon Lee's death, trashing it... then, when the actual movie came out (you know, the thing that wasn't just an assemblage of rough footage) it got praised to high heaven with no mention of the previous review. I gave up on the magazine not long after that.

To be fair, the videogame magazine business went that way all at once, not just VG&CE. A LOT of magazines did that around the same time and paid the price. RIP Next Generation, tho EDGE lives on and is still pretty decent. Not as good as it used to be, tho. There were a few teams who basically said "no, we don't want to make an EGM or PC Gamer clone, we want to keep doing this our way", and those people got their magazines outright cancelled. It was more of a publisher thing than an editorial one.

So what you guys are saying is that you've been living & breathing prequel-hate for 15 years, so you're over it. Through the looking glass. Level 10.

Level 1. What's Star Wars?
Level 2. Oh, I've heard of Star Wars. They're cool movies.
Level 3. The OT is great, the prequels suck!
Level 4. Let's discuss endlessly how the prequels suck
Level 5. Let's discuss endlessly how the prequels can be improved
Level 6. Lucas raped my childhood and I'm going to break into Skywalker Ranch and demand reparations and a re-edit
Level 7. Whatever George. Star Wars is now ruined, from the juvenile special editions to the infantile prequels to the cartoons to the whored-out-to-anyone over-commercialization.
Level 8. Burns all Star Wars stuff in a funeral pyre and says an an anguished good bye.
Level 9. The pain is fading, the memory is dim. No longer care if Jar Jar is inserted everywhere into the OT and the next Star Wars movie was a Jar Jar origin story.
10. What's Star Wars?

From the comments on this forum over the years, some people are on various points on this continuum. Perhaps it's analogous to Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours idea. You gotta do x amount of hours of grieving before you're out the other side.

http://www.slashfilm.com/george-lucas-d … ore-128349

Place your bets now...

Maybe you guys have already heard/read/seen this... but, if not, please enjoy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop … -2012.html

> I believe Lucas has come out since this, and said this was all some weird joke.
Whatever. It's priceless. That's what this is !

And if anyone cares about my opinion on the Star Wars flicks, here goes:
I grew up with 4-6, loved them ! Was pumped for 1-3.
When I saw them in theaters, I was blindly in love with the fact that I had new Star Wars films. After the "honeymoon phase" wore off of me, I realized all of the things that I didn't like about them.
I started railing against 1-3, and against all of the "improvements" to 4-6.
It has been too many years, and I have spent too much energy hating these things, so, now I am at the point that I still don't like 1-3. I do not own them and I do not want to own them.

I considered buying the blu ray set of all 6 films(to get all of the bonus features). - but, when I found out he had made MORE changes, I cancelled my pre-order. He won't get anymore of my money.
I don't hate him. I just think that he continually makes poor decisions(for us), but, great decisions(for business).
The episodes 1-3 just simply exist now.

I just found out I am going to be a dad(!), and I've decided to share the original trilogy with my children when they are old enough to watch movies.

George Lucas, when you decide to re-release episodes 4-6 on blu ray, with bonus features(which, I know you will)..... I shall consider purchasing that. But, no more for you, until then.

Kathleen Kennedy might soon have the power to reverse all of Lucas' dumb-arse 'additions' to the Original Trilogy...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18314956

Hey look at this.

Ridley Scott, same as George Lucas.

Killed a perfectly good (2 ep.) franchise with poor prequel.

I've been meaning to post this for a while now, but I keep forgetting.

For a genuine, but humorous take on Star Wars in a courtroom scenario, check out Star Wars on Trial.

Basically a bunch of authors and essayists (many of whom have authored Star Wars related material) got together, chose topics to debate, and presented an argument for and against each, including opening and closing statements.