The Hermit's Journey. To arms, prequel defenders, to arms!

[Winter]

Okay as I've been rather nagative towards The Last Jedi I do want to take the time to go over the one thing I like about it and that's the Luke and Rey subplot. While I didn't much care for Rey's overall arc and I really, REALLY did care for Luke contemplating killing his nephew while he was asleep on the grounds that he MIGHT turn evil the scenes between her and Luke are easily the best in the movie. It has the best world building moments you really feel like these characters have a connection and Ridley and Hamill have fantastic chemistry and of course the best line in the movie comes from Luke during his training of Rey, "Impressive. Every word in that sentence was wrong."

And you want to know the best part, and it ties in perfectly with Chuck's videos, all of this, what most people consider the best part of the movie which includes everyone who hates the film, all George Lucas. According to a number of people who work at Disney the plot between Luke and Rey was the basic plot of what was suppose to be Episode VII before it was moved over to Episode VIII due to Disney not wanting the first film to bomb. And all the stuff around TLJ, the stuff I and many other fans don't like, that wasn't Lucas' idea. Many of these elements, Finn and Rose's filler plot, Holdo, and the whole chase was either not Lucas' or was ideas taken from scenes that were meant for the other films.

So yeah, Lucas still has a lot of great ideas in his head and I do hope he gets to return to his galaxy one day for one more time.

[unknownsample]

One thing Chuck mentioned was how the criticism of TPM was in part driven by fans online, this is born out by this piece of clickbait

http://www.gamesradar.com/star-wars-epi ... e-reviews/

[Sir Will]

If it was Lucas's plan to make Luke an asshole who abandoned his friends, family, and the galaxy, then I hate him too.

[Karha of Honor]

If it was Lucas's plan to make Luke an asshole who abandoned his friends, family, and the galaxy, then I hate him too.

I would be alright with it if i saw it happen in a reasonable fashion on the big screen as long as the events of the movie do not leave the galaxy a grimdark place.

[Linkara]

There are other terms that apply to George Lucas that are less kind, and also accurate.

So, yes. Genius Creator.

And also rather derogatory and insulting terms, like "director who needs at least two people to keep him from running off into the fields and going crazy", apply too.

There are some that I won't post, mind you. I'm not as cruel as I once was, in my youth. Still more young at heart than anything else though.

I'd say more "Genius idea man." One thing I kind of disagreed on with the Hermit's Journey was that it seemed to try to explain away a lot of the faults of the piece and excusing the man who made those faults. I do GET the logic of where Lucas was coming from in some of his decisions for the Prequels... the problem is that they're still bad ideas, regardless. Anakin could still have been a teenager and been traumatized by being separated from his mother; Qui Gon Jin did not need to exist when it could have been Obi Wan, young and impulsive and fresh onto becoming a Jedi Knight, who saw this young boy and decided to train him when he wasn't ready; powerful Sith figures that he keeps needing to replace; the tragedy of Darth Vader being about losing his wife instead of being actually seduced by the dark side... in theory, these things do work with how Lucas' saw the logic, but in actual practice it just didn't work at all.

Lucas himself knew he wasn't a good writer... yet decided to take it upon himself to be the writer and set things in motion before the scripts had a first draft. And frankly, that attitude is completely mind-boggling for me as it is. Maybe it's because I'm a low-budget filmmaker where I HAVE to be conscious of that budget, but the idea of starting the construction of sets, props, and casting people and securing all these things before you actually KNOW what is and what isn't going to be in the movie is insanity to me, especially since it puts you on a deadline crunch where you have to cut corners EVERYWHERE and don't have time to revise your work to make it the best possible thing to film. He didn't NEED to start the ball rolling until he had this in hand. It kind of made sense for Empire and Return because they needed to strike while the iron was hot and logistics were still in the air especially since it wasn't originally designed as a trilogy, but there was no NEED to do the prequels at this point, meaning he could have taken his time to make sure they were the best possible thing for filming before a single speck of paint was put on a prop, but he didn't. And he should have known better.

[SFDebris]

It was difficult, and in retrospect I probably should've made it one part longer. The tricky part of it was that there is so much baggage connected to the perception of Lucas during this period that I felt any fair comparison demanded seeing things from his point of view, that it was the only way to remove the common, monolithic viewpoint for a moment and see the larger issue in how and why Lucas approached things as he did. This effort seems to give the impression that I'm excusing Lucas his mistakes rather than making clear that these were the reasons he made them, that in his mind at the time they were the right ones. I had hoped to make more clear that the same obsessiveness that allowed Star Wars to become what it was also was the reason for the issues you speak of. His experimental film desires overlapped with Star Wars so that he would focus his attention in the wrong places, and insist on personal involvement to a degree that overtaxed his abilities due to time. With the exception of Jedi, each of the films was an experiment for Lucas (Jedi's was only "can I get a puppet to direct for me" and learned "no" the hard way), and so that meant where he wasn't personally engaged wasn't given the attention it needed. Lucas had sound plans, but he stumbled sometimes because he was too often fascinated with what he could do rather than focus on what he needed to do.

[RobbyB1982]

Man, we need a full SFdebris/Linkara crossover video at some point.

And not just providing the Janeway voice for that one Voyager comic.

It IS both of ya'lls tenth anniversary....

[Madner Kami]

It was difficult, and in retrospect I probably should've made it one part longer. The tricky part of it was that there is so much baggage connected to the perception of Lucas during this period that I felt any fair comparison demanded seeing things from his point of view, that it was the only way to remove the common, monolithic viewpoint for a moment and see the larger issue in how and why Lucas approached things as he did. This effort seems to give the impression that I'm excusing Lucas his mistakes rather than making clear that these were the reasons he made them, that in his mind at the time they were the right ones. I had hoped to make more clear that the same obsessiveness that allowed Star Wars to become what it was also was the reason for the issues you speak of. His experimental film desires overlapped with Star Wars so that he would focus his attention in the wrong places, and insist on personal involvement to a degree that overtaxed his abilities due to time. With the exception of Jedi, each of the films was an experiment for Lucas (Jedi's was only "can I get a puppet to direct for me" and learned "no" the hard way), and so that meant where he wasn't personally engaged wasn't given the attention it needed. Lucas had sound plans, but he stumbled sometimes because he was too often fascinated with what he could do rather than focus on what he needed to do.

Give it time, imo. The public's view of George Lukas is still fairly vitriolic and your piece might be a spark that starts a reevalution of the person, away from the current public perception.

[Winter]

It was difficult, and in retrospect I probably should've made it one part longer. The tricky part of it was that there is so much baggage connected to the perception of Lucas during this period that I felt any fair comparison demanded seeing things from his point of view, that it was the only way to remove the common, monolithic viewpoint for a moment and see the larger issue in how and why Lucas approached things as he did. This effort seems to give the impression that I'm excusing Lucas his mistakes rather than making clear that these were the reasons he made them, that in his mind at the time they were the right ones. I had hoped to make more clear that the same obsessiveness that allowed Star Wars to become what it was also was the reason for the issues you speak of. His experimental film desires overlapped with Star Wars so that he would focus his attention in the wrong places, and insist on personal involvement to a degree that overtaxed his abilities due to time. With the exception of Jedi, each of the films was an experiment for Lucas (Jedi's was only "can I get a puppet to direct for me" and learned "no" the hard way), and so that meant where he wasn't personally engaged wasn't given the attention it needed. Lucas had sound plans, but he stumbled sometimes because he was too often fascinated with what he could do rather than focus on what he needed to do.

Give it time, imo. The public's view of George Lukas is still fairly vitriolic and your piece might be a spark that starts a reevalution of the person, away from the current public perception.

I hope so, George Lucas is a awesome person and doesn't deserve all the hate he's getting. I've actually met Lucas, I had a chance to really talk with him and while I have my issues with the Prequels I do still enjoy them and over the years, while they're still flawed, they have aged fairly well and I still watch them whenever I get the chance. I personally like them more then the Disney Era films, though there still good, and without the Prequels we would never have gotten The Clone Wars 2D and 3D animated series and given that KotOR started off as a Clone Wars game until it was changed then we might never have gotten KotOR which means we might never have gotten Mass Effect or Dragon Age.

Does Lucas have his faults, yes. But I am in complete agreement with Chuck that when you weigh all the good he has done when compared to the bad, its clear to see that the former outweighs the latter.

[Linkara]

It was difficult, and in retrospect I probably should've made it one part longer. The tricky part of it was that there is so much baggage connected to the perception of Lucas during this period that I felt any fair comparison demanded seeing things from his point of view, that it was the only way to remove the common, monolithic viewpoint for a moment and see the larger issue in how and why Lucas approached things as he did. This effort seems to give the impression that I'm excusing Lucas his mistakes rather than making clear that these were the reasons he made them, that in his mind at the time they were the right ones. I had hoped to make more clear that the same obsessiveness that allowed Star Wars to become what it was also was the reason for the issues you speak of. His experimental film desires overlapped with Star Wars so that he would focus his attention in the wrong places, and insist on personal involvement to a degree that overtaxed his abilities due to time. With the exception of Jedi, each of the films was an experiment for Lucas (Jedi's was only "can I get a puppet to direct for me" and learned "no" the hard way), and so that meant where he wasn't personally engaged wasn't given the attention it needed. Lucas had sound plans, but he stumbled sometimes because he was too often fascinated with what he could do rather than focus on what he needed to do.

Hey, no worries - while I criticize that bit of it, it probably did need to be said to help reduce the general hate he's gotten. While I still lay the faults at his feet, I really do appreciate getting to hear about the creative process and his logic behind the decisions - especially the idea of Jar Jar MEANT to be Toshiro Mifune in Seven Samurai. It doesn't make the character GOOD to me, but it clicks into place why at the time it seemed like a good idea.

And indeed these helped profile Lucas more and explain his directing style beyond "clearly he just wanted to play with special effects."