By Lisa Fary
George Lucas added more fuel to my rage train on Monday. Listen up, George. Please stop talking. You’re not helping yourself.
Indiana Jones only becomes complicated when you have another two people saying ‘I want it this way’ and ‘I want it that way’, whereas, when I first did Jones, I just said, ‘We’ll do it this way’ — and that was much easier. But now I have to accommodate everybody, because they are all big, successful guys, too, so it’s a little hard on a practical level.
What’s that? Widdle Georgie wants to have his way? Is Widdle Georgie gonna cry, now?
No, but he is going to lecture on enthusiasm and facing the future. . .
Really, with the last one, Steven wasn’t that enthusiastic. I was trying to persuade him. But now Steve is more amenable to doing another one. Yet we still have the issues about the direction we’d like to take. I’m in the future; Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m trying to push it to a whole different place.
Got news for ya, George. No one was that enthusiastic. Harrison Ford carried on as a cardboard cut out of himself for the first forty-five minutes to an hour. I wasn’t that enthusiastic about it myself and considered walking out of the movie. (Then Marion showed up to save the movie’s second half and all was well. Pretty much.)
I’m sure Spielberg was trying to drag Indiana Jones back to the past. . . Indiana Jones was good in the past. Dare I say “awesome” in the past. Maybe it should stay there.
George, just stop tinkering with your work. Star Wars and Indiana Jones were near perfect before you took them out of the “Completed” pile and started pasting glitter in places that didn’t need it.
If you really feel the need to tinker and make adjustments, George, I’d suggest turning your attention to Captain EO: Remastered, in which you digitally remove Michael Jackson from the film and insert The Jonas Brothers.
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.







…well, maybe George was right, before he had whatever weird experience it was that turned him into a creature entirely made of suck.
That is possibly the most truthful short article I’ve ever read in my life. I’m always glad when I find I’m not alone in thinking that Lucas has become something of a whiner. Think his prequel Anakin rubbed off on him?
And, of course, this is all to prevent him from actually having a NEW idea….tinkering with francises that already exist (and have for over 20 years) is MUCH easier than keeping your finger on the pulse and figuring out a new story to write.
Oh, I think Anakin is George Lucas, from the Lucas perspective: he’s the most talented, but his contemporaries doubt his vision. Anakin’s downfall is everyone’s fault but his own and he not only refuses to admit when he’s made a mistake, he refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
Nice article, Lisa, and totally true. I’m with Alpha-Girl on this one. Yes, Mr Lucas made us all geeks, and yes, we’re grateful but enough with the belly-button-picking. Have the courage to know when you were producing things people wanted to watch and the wisdom to know that that time is past.
Ok, as an ‘artist’ he could find himself in the position of the famous band that can’t bear to play the hits that made them famous because they’ve done it so many times. In that case, branch out and do something new, fresh and creative. Don’t rehash old stuff in then get irritated when everyone complains. Have the courage to do something completely new. Start a fresh franchise. Form a band. Branch out into sculpture. Knitting. Anything that will get the creative juices flowing. Just stop looking at your back catalogue and for goodness sake, throw away the glitter.
I’m nowhere near the first to say this, but Luke was the star of the original trilogy, and hee was totally against the establishment, a rebel, having to fight like hell to get things done. Anikin is the star of the second trilogy, and he’s a totally self-absorbed whining idiot who completely sells out to power and becomes their willing ass-slave, and not coincidentally, the very thing that Luke fights against. More plainly: Lucas himself has become a total anathema to what he was thirty years ago, so how could the movies not suck?
So.
Anyone else boycotting this crappy-looking new “Clone Wars” film? I know I am!