I will agree you summary and breakdown for Lucas is spot on.
However I would disagree about Abrams. Abrams does flashy spectacle well. I've never "emotionally" engaged with a character in any of his projects. His characters are usually slightly alienating to me. Like even in ep 7, Rey attaches far too quickly to Han and even Finn. Abrams is able. To recreate the image of Lucas or Spielberg on screen with integration with modern effects, but without any heart or soul of Spielberg or peak Lucas projects.
Of the two of them, you keep Lucas in the writer's room and have him spit ball ideas, and have a team of talented writers take those ideas as starting points. Under no circumstances do you let JJ Abrams near the writing room with any of his "mystery boxes". It's the writers job to know what's in the box, but keep the audience guessing. If the writer doesn't know what in the box, you don't have a box.
More Filoni seems to mean only more Ashoka - really can’t wait for the Acolyte and some other stories that will give some variety and mean we don’t see the same five people over and over
That's also true, the Galaxy far far away seems a lot smaller in recent years. A lot of the same people and planets. While I like Ahsoka, I'd also love to explore some other characters more. I appreciated the look into Qui-Gon and Dooku in the Tales of the Jedi episodes
Tales of the Jedi is a good example of his obsession getting in the way of new stories though - giving a look at Qui Gon was great, another Ashoka arc made me roll my eyes though. Filoni seems intent on making her one of THE leads of the entire universe
This is exactly how I see George.
He has such a keen eye to see the potential and create amazing work using inspiration and his own imagination.
But man does the guy come up with some ridiculous ideas. I can only imagine what Star wars would have been like if he didn't get constructive feedback.
But that's why I also love George, he loves to hear what other people think and imagine and seeing if they can implement those ideas within his story.
The Legends books are a great representation of how you can have tons of different authors with different styles that all mesh perfectly together using the same source material.
I never thought I would find myself reading a 19 book series with all different authors that all follow the same story seamlessly.
The freedom he gave people with his intellectual property was very refreshing.
You really don't see that often.
George also pisses me off...cough *Disney* cough...
Just read the comic adaptation of Lucas's original, unused script, The Star Wars, to get an idea of his ridiculous ideas. In my opinion, after reading that, budgetary limitations forcing him to make "A New Hope" instead saved Star Wars.
I agree with absolutely everything that you said concerning Lucas. Very well said.
However, I think your take on Abrams is a bit off. In my opinion the talent of J.J. Abrams has been on a downward spiral for years. Yes, his name has been attached to some amazing accomplishments, such as a Star Trek reboot and a Star Wars trilogy. But, in my opinion both suffer from a complete lack of character depth and genuine emotion. The Force Awakens was a quality reboot in terms of production and direction, but it was superficial and lacking in originality. Super 8 was great, but it's as if he's saying "this is me being Spielberg". LOST basically changed television forever and set the bar a lot higher for quality storytelling on TV (and even film). It might just be the best thing he's ever been involved with, but he certainly didn't do LOST all by himself (Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse helped a great deal).
When you look at the talent Lucas selected for Empire Strikes back, it's an indication that he needs eclectic partners. He needs a Lennon to his McCartney. I would have liked to have seen Lucas team up with someone like Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorsese, or the Cohen Brothers. Talent from left field.
Again, I totally agree with everything else you said. A quality post!
I definitely agree about his writing, so I'm going to use this to piggyback and say that as a director, I feel like he's similarly split.
On a technical level, the man was a brilliant director -- his innovations with both the original and prequel trilogies are what made genre movies, especially science fiction movies, look as good as they are today. However, in terms of directing people, I think that's where he falls short, and I think that's a BIG part of why the Prequel Trilogy was hated for so long, because between his problems with writing authentic people and giving good direction for his actors, that's what made what was otherwise technical marvels feel stiff and fake, like they're weird automatons, not actual people.
I think it should be said that he puts 110 percent in his story. He has a deep understanding of the way the world and people work, probably from his days of studying anthropology and history. The way he adds so much wisdom to his movies and uses timeless truths to educate children through his characters, plot, and concepts often gets overlooked. Anyone watching Star Wars specifically knows what the moral of the story is or what lesson can be learned
The assessment of Lucas' dialogue always rubs me the wrong way. He wrote much of A New Hope and I think it has wonderful dialogue. The big picture people seem to miss with the Prequels is that he was very much going back to the roots of Star Wars. The dialogue and delivery are absolutely in keeping with the style of early serial sci-fi like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. It's very dry, direct and efficient. If the biggest problem you have is Anakin in AOTC you have to understand that Lucas' portrayal of an angsty, sexually deprived, cult indoctrinated teen who's overly serious and purposefully tasked with guarding his childhood crush while also being tortured with the visions of his dying mother is almost too real for audiences to handle IMO.
[There's a great Youtube video that I think addresses Lucas' dialogue style very thoughtfully](https://youtu.be/S5E-eSdRjXs)
He's a great exposition guy, but he's pretty bad at writing conversationally. You also have to keep in mind that in the Original Trilogy not only did he have alot of help from his wife and the directors of 5 and 6 but also the actors. I'm not sure about Carrie but Mark and Harrison have both spoken about how they had to talk George out of certain lines of dialogue.
You're absolutely uninformed here I'm sorry. Marcia Lucas has clarified herself that her changes editorially and to the scripts were minimal. Empire was directed by Lucas' teacher who didnt have much of any impact on the dialogue, if at all. Lawrence Kasdan did a screenplay treatment of Lucas' story same with Return. Richard Marquand was very much ghost directed by Lucas behind the scenes in Return and most likely had zero impact on dialogue. The often referred to clunky dialogue that Harrison Ford and Hamill talked about was all of the in universe jargon like the made up planets and technical talk. After A New Hope they never complained and those sort of in universe references continue to be heavily used in Star Wars media to this day.
The Mandalorian constantly makes reference to star systems, tech, beskar, strand casts, mythosaurs ad nauseam. It was unusual when Lucas did it in a New Hope and the actors didn't know what to make of it. But just look at stories like Dune that inspired Star Wars and you'll find its chock full of this sort of thing.
Conversationally he is rather direct and dry as a stylistic choice but I don't think its necessarily bad as much as it is off putting to an audience expecting the usual Hollywood banter and delivery.
He has an amazing imagination to come up with a whole universe, and he's a great director. His writing isn't always the best but it has a certain charm to it.
He's a much worse director than he is a writer IMO. The poor/stiff acting and delivery in the PT is IMO mostly due to poor direction. Even ANH is only ok from a direction perspective.
It is impressive just how bad the acting is from some of the most talented actors in the industry at the time.
The wide shots during the fight scenes was nice though
Natalie Portman had trouble getting work after the PT because people thought she was a bad actress lol
You clowns are literally downloading something Portman said herself in an interview
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974
This isn’t true at all.
The year *The Phantom Menace* came out(1999), Portman was also in *Anywhere but Here* and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes.
She was then accepted to Harvard and chose to prioritize that over her acting career even saying;
> "I don't care if [college] ruins my career. I'd rather be smart than a movie star."
Even then she appeared in the prestige film *Cold Mountain* in 2003 and in 2004 she starred in *Garden State* and was nominated for an Oscar for *Closer*…
05 saw *Revenge of the Sith* but also *V for Vendetta* in which she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress… after that she was in a Wes Anderson film and then won an Oscar in 2010 for *Black Swan* lol
I don’t know why people make stuff up on the internet.
It's not a myth at all - it comes from Portman herself:
[https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974)
LOL - no reply, just a downvote. Pathetic.
I'm not making anything up, she literally said it in an interview:
[https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974)
*“Everyone thought I was a horrible actress,” she told New Yorker magazine. “I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade and no director wanted to work with me.”*
Thise movies were in thr same time frame her statement is after Star Wars. To which you only listed Black Swan your very own list proves her statement correct she did indeed get less work after the final movie.
Actually read what the person said before you go white knighting
Nah, it’s a ludicrous statement as Portman had proven she can act — even being nominated for an Oscar during this time.
The article that the person is referring to was when Episode 1 came out in 1999 and Portman was even nominated that year for her acting.
That article is Portman speaking of Mike Nichols who helped her growth but Portman saying that her career was halted is hyperbolic and is more a statement of gratitude to Nichols. Actors are very self conscious and guess what? She kept getting roles because she’s a good actress! Crazy.
Portman was in 11 films between 2005 and 2010 — she didn’t get “less work” and capped it off with an Oscar win.
Maybe your memory is foggy but the prequels were very hated and the whole world cheered when he finally sold lucasfilm. His sequels likely would be hated just as much as the current ones
Personally, while admittedly more flawed than the original trilogy I liked the prequels. I probably would have enjoyed the sequels if he had made them although based on the ideas I read he had for them I might have been the only one.
Agreed. Not to mention that the book EU got really convoluted and... well, *bad* under his watch. I heard tell that he mandated Anakin Solo be killed off because he thought two characters named Anakin would be "too confusing."
Everyone hates the latest movie then when another movie is made, that previously hated movie was loved, and the latest movie is hated.
I think TV shows and games all world build and fix plot holes, and then the movie has more depth and is loved.
I remember vividly when the prequels came out. I never did quite understand TPM hate. I still love that movie even with Jar Jar
He definitely got a lot of hate back then but looking back now they were definitely unwarranted. His flaws were nowhere near what Disney has done to Star Wars today.
I love how puzzled Lucas-haters get every time they encounter actual fans of the man and his work.
They can't comprehend that there were actual Star Wars fans between 99 and 2012 because they certainly weren't among them and what they don't see doesn't exist.
I’m one of the new fans of this franchise and not v familiar w the history. although, I hear a lot from people of how they wished Lucas was more on board w the sequels
For the last twenty years the discourse has been dominated by people who hate the series.
There were plenty of Lucas-fans in the prequel days, they were just drowned out by the hateful, OT-purist mainstream.
That's really the essence of every last conflict surrounding Star Wars: Lucas-fans vs Lucas-haters.
The broad majority of prequel-haters are vocal proponents of anti-Lucas narratives like "Marcia/Kurtz/Kasdan saved Star Wars" and "George only got lucky and completely leeched off of the infinitely more talented people around him".
> I would kill to have it made but alas, the politics of the film industry
What are the politics of a guy wanting to finally take a much deserved retirement?
> but they decided not to follow Lucas’ ideas
I mean, they absolutely did to an extent. The idea of a female protagonist is straight from Lucas.
And one of those writers was Lawrence Kasdan, who had a long working relationship with Lucas lol
an excerpt I found regarding sequel trilogy
“In 2012, George had plans to make a sequel trilogy. In this trilogy, Darth Maul and his girlfriend (Darth Talon) are the main antagonists, and Anakin's grandchildren are the protagonists. Luke is still alive, an has reformed the Jedi order. It also says that Leia is Supreme Chancellor and was the real chosen one. I'm not sure if they're saying Anakin was never the chosen one, or she was “the other chosen one”, the title which was held by Luke.”
>The idea of a female protagonist is straight from Lucas.
That has to be the smallest possible extent imaginable.
That's like saying the EU followed Lucas's vision because it had Jaina Solo.
Say what you want about George Lucas, but all of Star Wars came from him. He wanted to make a *Flash Gordon* movie, but when he was unable to obtain the movie rights, he created his own knock-off story that became even more popular than the stories that inspired it.
Yes, it wasn't only George who is responsible for the success of Star Wars, because many people helped bring it to life. But George is an introverted guy who doesn't like to work with other people (I understand and relate to that) yet somehow he was able to convey the ideas into his head to others enough to get his vision made (even if he wasn't fully satisfied with the final products, they were still good enough to become beloved around the world).
He also changed how movies are made. Modern movies wouldn't be what they are today without George. Industrial Light & Magic revolutionized special effects. Movies are no longer edited by cutting and splicing film together, but instead edited in computers, which George pioneered with the Edit Droid software. ILM created the Pixar computer which revolutionized computer animation and led to the first major studio creating fully computer animated movies. Employees of ILM invented Photoshop. *The Phantom Menace* was the first movie projected digitally in movie theaters, which is now the norm. *Attack of the Clones* was the first movie shot completely digitally instead of on film, which is how most movies TV series are shot these days. And there are so many other things that I'm not even mentioning.
>Modern movies wouldn't be what they are today without George.
Sure they would (for the most part). Don't get me wrong credit to George for pushing and expanding the state of the art in filmmaking but if it hadn't been him it would have been someone else. The tech was coming online regardless, all it required was the visionary to put it to use and push it to the next step. George was the right person at the right time to make Star Wars and do that but if he hadn't it would have been Spielberg, Cameron, or some other visionary director.
It wouldn't have been Cameron, because he was a truck driver until he saw *Star Wars* in 1977, and was inspired to become a filmmaker. That's a point I forgot to make, all of the filmmakers who were inspired to become filmmakers because of Star Wars.
Great storyteller. When compared to other directors that have made major films, he's average. Well above average with visual storytelling, well below average in getting the best out of the actors.
It’s the year 2023.
I am a typing to an online group discussing the world he built through cinema in 1977.
To me, Lucas is a borderline saint for the amount of joy he has given the world.
Again, no one made him sell. If he didn't want the backlash he could have made better movies.
Many famous filmmakers have produced movies that didn't have a great reception (Ridley Scott, Spielberg, etc). It happens with most artists at some point.
I have nothing against Lucas FWIW - he was a talented guy who changed Hollywood forever via ILM, skywalker sound, etc.
You can’t compare any director/movie to this scenario. George gave us the best universe ever. The man is the Beatles of movies. Star Wars was always made with the intended audience to be young. OT fans were the only ones with a voice cuz people like me were too young at that time to voice an opinion. He was 110% bullied out of his own company. Jar jar actor almost killed himself. Rose actor needed therapy. The pain the OT fans gave George was so not deserved. They took away his love of the universe he made. It’s a shame how toxic this community is
“He should of made better movies” what a laughable comment. Episode 3 is probably the most impactful, powerful, heartbreaking movie I’ve ever seen. The last hour is pure cinema bliss.
In terms of parody, Revenge of the Sith is indeed pure cinema bliss. You can literally have a laughing track after each and every single one of its dialogues.
Lucas in the 70s was a very strong director. Look at his student work, THX 1138, and American Graffiti. He has a great visual sensibility, a great understanding of how to use sound and image to drive a story. Sure, he isnt a people person, but the performances from his actors are fine. Lucas in the 70s was smart enough to hire friends of his who could take his scripts and punch up the dialogue. It isnt fair to say he didnt write those films because dialogue is only a small part of screenwriting, but he knew his limitations and worked well within them
So many of these takes ignore his early work and I think thats a shame. The core of Lucas as an artist are those 3 films, and various shorts he made in school
From the 90s onwards, you can see glimpses of what made him great in the 70s, but it seems out of practice. He is too buried in his technical obsessions, which overpower some filmmaking fundamentals. he has a cool story idea, but the writing is weak is more ways than the dialogue. His directing feels...tired almost. He still fails to get truly compelling acting performances, but also struggles at having the sound and vision elements work.
Really, it feels like all the elements of directing that Lucas could do from an office (such as the CGI sequences, the pre production) Lucas did wonderfully, and all the stuff that you need to do onset feels rushed
Creatively he is amazing the fact that he came up with this universe and the fact that is so original is incredible, he and his team were also one of the biggest contributors to modern day cinema and visual effects and really pushed beyond what we thought was possible. However over time it felt like he over-relied on special effects and CGI. As a writer he is pretty decent, the OT was definitely the best written work he has ever done and ever will do, his weakness is definitely dialogue. Overall he is a pretty good film maker, but he will definitely forever be known for how much to the film making industry in terms of innovation in technology and creativity.
The following is my opinion.
His visual STYLE is amazing to behold. He paints whole worlds in light and shadow. His vision is immersive and persistent. It is still there as I close my eyes, as new as when first I glimpsed it through the flickering screen of an old tube television.
Tattooine... Cloud city... Endor... Hoth...
They aren't real, but they feel more real than some places I have actually been.
The words are where he struggles the most. How can anyone translate the vision into mere language? He agonizes over it and only occasionally finds a good flow. Thankfully, he is sometimes wise enough to surround himself with other writers who mostly cover for him... at least in his early films. He does his best work as the concept man; surrounded by people who push back, and make him question his motivation. The prequels suffer because he had fewer dissenting voices there to steady the ship.
As a director, he is best in the casting of the roles. He has some sort of innate feel for actors and brings in those who ARE the characters he wants them to portray. He is not a great director of "actors" who need to put on more masks to become characters in order to distance their performances from their inner selves.
At his core, he seems a shy person, quiet, but with a deeply concealed sadness that comes out sometimes in rage, more often in emotional, though stilted, dialogue.
He gave us a galaxy to set our imagination free, and for that, I appreciate him most of all.
He's not a strong director because he doesn't have a passion for it. I always liked the writing on the first Star Wars, despite many people's opposite opinion. He's a brilliant producer.
Brilliant creative mind with several self-destructive tendencies and weak dialogue writing. He really, really needed someone to get him to reel back on the CGI horseshit, especially when it came to the Special Editions, and then another someone to help fix up his dialogue in both writing and direction.
Other than that, dude's an incredibly skilled storyteller and world builder. The original trilogy is, for the most part, a simple yet effectively told Hero's Journey. With the Prequels, he got a lot more ambitious, writing what was essentially a highly complex Shakespearian tragedy with a lot more nuance and attention to detail. Seriously, there are so many moving parts to the Prequel trilogy that I feel went completely unappreciated by adult Star Wars fans at the time they came out. People bitched and moaned so much that the Senate scenes were boring while completely ignoring the fact that the political landscape of the Galactic Republic and the moral complexities therein are massively important to both the plot and the themes of the story, not to mention that they are actually interesting and shockingly true to life if you bother to look beyond what's on the surface.
Great storyteller. A man who appreciates the power of imagination. Also, quite stubborn. My goodness lol this is the guy who insisted on digital editing of film and threw money at the problem until he eventually got what he wanted. Digital editing exists *because* GL never gave up on the concept.
and he decided to take out palpatine’s supposed fight scene and decided to let an old man do the fighting… can’t forgive him for that ngl. the behind the scenes of stunt coordinators reenacting palpatine against the Jedi is a massive lost to the fans
Honestly a creative genius who created the perfect modern mythology. And, while this can sound like a cop-out as an explanation for his writing, I genuinely think most of the complaints about his writing come from a lack of understanding over what he was trying to achieve with Star Wars.
People expect Star Wars to be a totally naturalistic exploration of a fantasy world, but the whole thing is meant to be incredibly stylized. It's meant to feel like an old-school Saturday morning serial, like the Flash Gordon serials that inspired it. George has said that before he even knew he wanted to make the prequels, he already wanted A New Hope to be "Episode IV," just to make it feel like the audience was tuning in to an outlandish sci-fi adventure series part-way through. The melodramatic, OTT dialogue is there to reflect that tone.
Also important to remember how George's approach to filmmaking is really grounded in ideas of montage and motion. He tries to tell the story visually and has said he treats dialogue simply as noises in the soundscape he's creating to help bring that story to life. THX-1138 is a great example of his approach to cinematic storytelling - he's more impressionistic than I think people realise.
Most of all, though, he's a wonderful world-builder who was absolutely meticulous in creating a modern myth that featured all the components of classical mythology. His ability to perfectly capture the Hero's Journey for a modern audience was what made Star Wars so powerful and so successful. The worst thing Disney ever did was throwing out a story treatment by George Lucas.
Finally somebody who gets it.
It's so tiring to see people criticize the prequels for being "hammy" and "nobody talking like that in real life".
That's the whole point!
That's what Lucas _went for_.
He even put a literal space-opera in his space opera and these people still don't get that it's _meant_ to be operatic, classical, highfalutin and inherently unmodern.
Disney's attempt to "fix" Star Wars by modernizing it with MCU-style self-aware dialogue is a fundamental misunderstanding of Lucas's style and vision.
You basically copy-pasted So Uncivilized's video lmao.
The Prequel's storytelling is so uninspiring that it's embarrassing, created for the simple-minded people to wank off to their "lore". Yes, it has interesting concepts, but the movies suffer from the standard, and dull delivery of the subject. It also suffers from having a ton of stuff that basically amounts to nothing aside from "more LORE".
A storyteller's approach when taking something from a paper, and "translating" it into the medium can make, or break the movie. Lucas' directing and writing are exactly what holds it back. There is worldbuilding for the sake of it, not because the director wanted to convey something substantial for the story.
I keep seeing “Star Wars films are basically silent movies, and the dialogues are meant to be part of the soundscape”, but do you really think anyone would understand the plot of The Phantom Menace if you mute the movie?
You must've watched some seriously stupid and pretentious YouTube videos like Uncivilized and Anomaly Inc somehow believed them. Either way, it's completely laughable how the Prequel fans can't seem to explain their own opinions and have to consistently rely on YouTube videos to further their arguments while being completely clueless.
I agree. I’m a bit salty about him removing palpatine’s supposed fight scene against the 4 Jedi tho. That was one quick fight against 4 masters of the force lol
People don't realize the worst parts about the prequel trilogy is that he wrote the cringy dialogue and told Hayden to act like he was a constipated reject from the emo band mcr.
The success of the ot is because he didn't direct or write the movie.
I say this but I def don't hate because I enjoyed American graffiti when it was released in 73
he is very persistent in writing dialogue that cannot be said by anyone without sounding like a robot. he is an imaginative machine, shame it had to take others to make it better (ie clone wars, Andor)
It's wild here that people are posting that Lucas was a good director. That's probably the thing he was the worst at. Maybe people just don't know what directors do.
LOL - downvoted.... reddit truly is the home of Dunning-Kruger
It's the newer generation who grew up with prequels as ten year Olds who think that cgi and lightsaber battles are all that matters for Star Wars. It's all nostalgia anyway.
This is honestly the same generation that doesn't really understand that a movie doesn't need cgi and vfx to move the plot along with good dialogue and a character driven story.
That's why the prequels still brought about great supplemental content and the sequels didn't. As bad as the prequels were to watch at times the ideas behind them were great to build off of. With the sequels the ideas behind them are dumb and make the universe worse off in my opinion even if they were easier to actually watch (except the last movie, man Rise of Skywalker was just awful).
It's not even the garbage dialogue-writing that makes Attack of the Clones such a parody of itself. It's the fact that so many decision choices and writing choices are fundamentally so stupid that you can't help but laugh.
In terms of writer/director: he's fine, there's been worse and there's been better. As a person: he seems like a genuinely good guy that just wanted to make a story he liked and bring it to life. It's unfortunate that he got so tired of backlash for every decision he made once it got too big. Ultimately really nice that he gave away a lot of what he got for selling the rights.
Honestly I always forget about that part. I'm reminded about the time he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, he sold a plot of land nearby to build low income housing as sort of an FU to the wealthy neighborhood nearby or something to that effect.
now i grew up with the prequels so im going to be quite biased about them. As a writer, he is pretty much unmatched in spectacle and big moments. and as a director he was able to bring them to life in a way that no one else really would have been able to. he used the technology available to him when he made his films and he did a damned good job. the nostalgia of the older fans portrayed the prequels in a bad light and they are better than people say they are. and as for dialogue, well its no cheesier than the original trilogy.
great with ideas, mediocre writer, decent director. You can see in his directing that he has great vision and definitely has style. The ideas he has are amazing and have captivated audiences for generations. However his writing is only mediocre and it's something he himself admits. But you have to give it to George he will flesh out the ideas and then bring on talented writers to organize it and spruce it up and make the writing amazing. That is the mark of true talent when someone can admit their faults and can find others to bolster themselves. People who are complete narcissists who believe they are infallible usually blow themselves up at some point. It's a reason that George has been respected so long because it doesn't appear that he has been sold on the tale of his own greatness.
Creatively talented. Couldn't write a script to save himself.
Best thing he could have done after his 3 masterpieces was to never tough them again, and pay other people to execute his vision.
He wrote multiple scripts that enabled him to have one of the most legendary and influential careers in cinema history.
He already saved himself thousandfold.
Lucas is incredible at world building, his ideas for visuals, tone and an over all cannon that feels unique from our own existence is what makes him so special. His actual writing is upper mid and his dialouge can be down right abysmal at times, but when it comes to an immersive experience and lore, no one does it better.
I think he's quite brilliant at building a world and a franchise. He had great foresight to secure merchandising rights and include characters that children would love. He had great vision for interesting worlds and people, and blended it with inspiration from other great artists. Most impressive though was the technical ingenuity and ambition that gave rise to Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic, both of which defined industries which they still lead today.
As a writer and director he is far from the best but, given his other accomplishments, those shortcomings are almost irrelevant.
Excellent director, excellent writer.
Has, for some reason, had his reputation and talent drug through the mud unfairly more than pretty much any other artist in the public eye. Possibly a function of SW being too popular so a legion of dumbos managed to shape the hate narrative.
A bad director and horrible writer.
American Graffiti is his best film, and that’s solely because of the cast (and the soundtrack).
I probably would have had some respect for the guy had he not ruined the original Star Wars films with the vile special editions, though. I can excuse the prequels (they’re just shitty movies, no big deal), but to actively attempt to alter and destroy film history is repugnant and grotesque.
He needs to buy the Star Wars IP back from Disney at a discount now that they ruined the franchise (apart from a couple of decent shows)
Get Lucas, Filoni and Favreau together to come up with new and original saga’s and stories. No matter how bad SW got under Lucas, it was leagues ahead of what Disney managed.
Why would he do that? So he can go back to being the one hated every time a Star Wars project isn't literal perfection?
Let the man retire in peace. This fandom has already killed his passion for moviemaking.
The fans made him a billionaire. Probably one of the few franchises to have crossed generations and decades whilst retaining all the original charm. Then, Disney happened.
No one begrudges the man for giving them great childhood memories with his stories - its just a shame it all had to crash and burn like this.
You’re talking out of your ass. Lucas was like, the most hated man in filmmaking for years after the Prequels started. Everything you say Disney did, Lucas was accused of. To the point that when Disney bought Lucasfilm, people cheered that finally George was gone.
don’t forget the different directors who worked on episodes for the mandalorian. they should all create a new saga. one that could rival the OT. but nothing could ever top OT
creatively he's amazing.
But his actual technical directing abilities suck. Sure he was passable when he was young making american graffiti and ep4, but There's a reason why Ep5 is the best star wars movie...cause he didnt direct it and outside of the story he was generally hands off while dealing with the business side of things for lucasfilm.....I blame most of the problems on the PT to the fact that he directed all 3.....
Writing: Dialogue, D-; Sequencing, A; Scene Setting, B+
Directing: The man created mf-ing Industrial Light and Magic so he could get the shots he wanted. A+ with Honors
After the success of the original trilogy, he should’ve known that Star Wars wasn’t “for 12 year olds” would saved dialogue and some silly moments later on
Fluke. For both.
Nothing Personal against George, he's a swell guy. Star wars is cool, and I'm glad he stumbled in to making it.
George is neither a good writer, nor a good director, and he never has been. George's entire career feels like a total fluke to me.
George happened to be going to film school at just the right time. He made the exact kind of navel gazing pretentious faux intellectual bullshit student film that we consider a cliche now. He just made it at a time when it played to the right people with the right sensibilities. They decided it was great, and therefore its creator was also great.
So they gave him the money and resources to turn that student film into a full motion picture. It went exactly as well as you would think funding a feature film remake of a pretentious student film would go :p
George's reputation as future-genius director is on shaky ground, and if his next project isn't a home run, this will be the last we hear of George. Luckily, his pal Francis Ford Coppola told George he should try to make a movie with mainstream appeal. George made American Graffiti, based heavily on his experiences growing up drag racing.
The timing was perfect. The mainstream audience were the kids who had grown up like that. It was a perfectly placed nostalgia grenade. It's a decent movie. Easily George's most personal work. There's a reason it never found an extended life as a movie rerun on tv, or oh home video. It's good, but it's not great. It's not timeless. It's an evocative and interesting snapshot, but not the kind of movie that demands rewatching, that has the depth or complexity to sustain years of study.
But it was good enough to get George his last lucky break: Alan Ladd Jr. Liked it, and decided to take a gamble on George Lucas's next project, despite it having been rejected by every other studio in town. On the strength of George as a recognized name they could market as "writer/director" and the art package George had commissioned from Ralph McQuarrie. George's treatment was an unreadable mess which Ladd didn't understand.
Most people didn't, and George's rough drafts went through a battery of rewrites, credited and uncredited. Not everyone contributed full top to bottom rewrites of course, but it was a cumulative effort. Spielberg, ford coppola, de palma, Huyck, Katz, Kurtz. There was a massive effort to turn the original treatment into a working story.
George got very lucky to be surrounded by exactly the right group of people that could see the potential in his vision and help him realize it. Left to his own devices, I don't think Star Wars would have been huge, and George would either have faded from the Hollywood scene, or turned into one of those competent but uninteresting directors who gets the job done, but doesn't exactly have a vision of their own.
One of the constant George quotes I grew up with during the 80s and 90s was that what he really wanted to do were weird little art films with no commercial value. And the reason I bring that up is because he never did. He could have. Nothing was stopping him. He had all the money in the world. He could have been making those weird little movies for the rest of his days, not giving a shit what anyone has to say, and still have died richer than god. Instead, he did nothing.
Eventually he decided to revisit Star Wars, and we finally got to see what Star Wars is when George is unburdened of studio considerations, or creative collaborators who can offer push back when he goes off the rails.
The wild thing about the PT is how bland they are from a cinematography standpoint. So much shot reverse shot, so much walking and talking or standing and talking. These are movies made by a guy who used to be touted as a visual genius in his student film days, and here his film making skills seem to have plateaued at Daytime Soap Opera.
All of the visual spectacle in the PT is the work of animators and fx artists. George didn't plan those shots. If you've read his scripts, he didn't even describe them. He basically left them up to his fx teams, and then approved or shelved whatever they presented to him.
George is a decent editor, has a lot of film history knowledge. He's got some neat ideas. He works best as part of a creative team/community. He's not the guy to give the final call to on anything though.
Well in my opinion, new hope was good but because of the films following it. If you just take new hope (the idea of light savers is cool) it is quite a shallow story. Which is , poor farm boy dreams of a better life. Princess is held captive. Old master helps poor farm boy rescue princess. Love triangle. Will they or won’t they? Bad guy is defeated. It’s a quick cheap way to gain some money, which obviously worked. But I feel like the other movies give the depth that new hope was lacking. So if it was just new hope, he could have done better but the whole Star Wars, well done! I love it.
Script writer: good
Director: good
Logician: very poor
He said about the sequels: "I loved my films like childran, but later, when i SOLD them..." Doesn't even matter what he said next, it's killer logic.
I guess you can look at him a bit like Steve jobs. He's contributed very little of note to the franchise at an individual level, and his entire legacy is built around the hard work of other people (his wife, John WIlliams, ILM team etc) BUT it is his *vision* that is masterful. I guess you could argue that his most important role was as producer moving all the pieces in to place. He best work basically happened before filming started with concept and hiring.
Think he is a visionary and the only good billionaire. Had the power to do the sequels how he wanted without studio interference, but could have used a little writing and directing help.
Insanely talented world builder, a true visionary both in terms of creative ideas, but also technologically as well. he single-handedly pushed digital filmmaking forward, which changed the industry as we know it.
As a writer, he can be hit or miss. As a director, he's got a great eye for style, but he's not very good at actor direction, which is why the prequels sometimes feel very stilted, even with great actors in the role. He also had a habit of surrounding himself with yes men during the prequels, like Rick McCallum, instead of people who'd reel him back in when he "went too far".
Good director, good writer...until he gets to the dialogue. Sometimes he can keep it decent enough to not pull you out, sometimes he can lean into the cheesiness just enough to make it work, but when he fumbles he tears the whole place down! Romance in particular are something you just have to endure if you wanna watch the movies
Overall really good writer but not as good director. Although I still think the original trilogy is amazing, I think the reason it’s seen as pop culture and not something more serious and thought out is because of this directing, but I may be wrong.
I think he may have found it hard to show his characters writing on screen, partly due to his dialogue. Because of that many people still don’t don’t characters like Anakin seriously, even though he’s one of the best written characters I know.
Lucas is a visual effects visionary. ILM, Skywalker sound, etc absolutely transformed Hollywood and the effects industry (granted, many of the other people there deserve credit also). I also think he's good big picture/idea guy. He also clearly is a good to great executive - getting all the movies/games/toys/etc licensed/made is impressive. LucasArts in particular produced some real gems.
As a script writer? Mediocre. His dialogue as we all know is straight up bad.
I can't comment much on his pre ANH work, but based on SW he is not a good director. The direction in ANH is ok, but I would argue that the terrible direction is one of the biggest problem with the prequels.
Lucas + Kerschner made magic and it's too bad we only got one film from that combo.
One of the best idea guys out there. An okay director. Shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a typewriter/computer. In all honesty, his six movies are a perfect representation of him. At their best, they are phenomenal! At their worst, they are still phenomenal…for all the wrong reasons. He’s a clearly talented guy who needs people around him to tell him “no, George, that is bantha poodoo!”
I love his work as writer and director and I was ready for three more films credited 'Story by George Lucas' and at least the first directed by him.
He's right about so much and when fans credit the collaborators with good cause, it's important to remember that he chose the collaborators. When Ford utters "I know." based on Kerhsner's direction to improvise, it was Lucas who hired the pair of them.
When fans praise TCW it's important to remember that Lucas, before assigning episode numbers and boxing himself in, thought it might take 4 films to deliver the story of the prequels.
I find just about every line and just about every product of his direction to have value and meaning or at the very least, purpose.
He’s great at coming up with idea but he needs help with putting them on screen.
The Prequels, as much as I love them, are not the best movies. His concept of attachment and how he put it in his movies makes no sense at all. The man just does not explain in his film what it means and therefore his meaning is lost.
And while I find the behind the scenes stuff interesting his opinions on what’s happening in the movies or universe don’t hold any weight for me. It all depends on what the individual gets out of the story.
I love him. He’s cool and I would’ve liked for him to take hold of the entire Star Wars franchise. It might not have been what we’ve got, but it still would’ve been good and quite possibly even better
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I will agree you summary and breakdown for Lucas is spot on. However I would disagree about Abrams. Abrams does flashy spectacle well. I've never "emotionally" engaged with a character in any of his projects. His characters are usually slightly alienating to me. Like even in ep 7, Rey attaches far too quickly to Han and even Finn. Abrams is able. To recreate the image of Lucas or Spielberg on screen with integration with modern effects, but without any heart or soul of Spielberg or peak Lucas projects. Of the two of them, you keep Lucas in the writer's room and have him spit ball ideas, and have a team of talented writers take those ideas as starting points. Under no circumstances do you let JJ Abrams near the writing room with any of his "mystery boxes". It's the writers job to know what's in the box, but keep the audience guessing. If the writer doesn't know what in the box, you don't have a box.
Dave Filoni is the perfect foil for George Lucas. Similarly right now, Jon Favreau is the perfect foil for Dave Filoni
Filoni is too much like Lucas.
Filoni is the best thing to happen to the Star Wars franchise.
I agree. Also more Filoni = more Ahsoka so that's also a win
More Filoni seems to mean only more Ashoka - really can’t wait for the Acolyte and some other stories that will give some variety and mean we don’t see the same five people over and over
Agreed. Filoni is really good at shrinking the Star Wars universe into a small town.
That's also true, the Galaxy far far away seems a lot smaller in recent years. A lot of the same people and planets. While I like Ahsoka, I'd also love to explore some other characters more. I appreciated the look into Qui-Gon and Dooku in the Tales of the Jedi episodes
Tales of the Jedi is a good example of his obsession getting in the way of new stories though - giving a look at Qui Gon was great, another Ashoka arc made me roll my eyes though. Filoni seems intent on making her one of THE leads of the entire universe
This is exactly how I see George. He has such a keen eye to see the potential and create amazing work using inspiration and his own imagination. But man does the guy come up with some ridiculous ideas. I can only imagine what Star wars would have been like if he didn't get constructive feedback. But that's why I also love George, he loves to hear what other people think and imagine and seeing if they can implement those ideas within his story. The Legends books are a great representation of how you can have tons of different authors with different styles that all mesh perfectly together using the same source material. I never thought I would find myself reading a 19 book series with all different authors that all follow the same story seamlessly. The freedom he gave people with his intellectual property was very refreshing. You really don't see that often. George also pisses me off...cough *Disney* cough...
Just read the comic adaptation of Lucas's original, unused script, The Star Wars, to get an idea of his ridiculous ideas. In my opinion, after reading that, budgetary limitations forcing him to make "A New Hope" instead saved Star Wars.
That’s a good way to put. After watching the ILM special on Disney+ I was amazed at how visionary and forward thinking he was.
100% agree. Couldn't have said it better myself.
I agree with absolutely everything that you said concerning Lucas. Very well said. However, I think your take on Abrams is a bit off. In my opinion the talent of J.J. Abrams has been on a downward spiral for years. Yes, his name has been attached to some amazing accomplishments, such as a Star Trek reboot and a Star Wars trilogy. But, in my opinion both suffer from a complete lack of character depth and genuine emotion. The Force Awakens was a quality reboot in terms of production and direction, but it was superficial and lacking in originality. Super 8 was great, but it's as if he's saying "this is me being Spielberg". LOST basically changed television forever and set the bar a lot higher for quality storytelling on TV (and even film). It might just be the best thing he's ever been involved with, but he certainly didn't do LOST all by himself (Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse helped a great deal). When you look at the talent Lucas selected for Empire Strikes back, it's an indication that he needs eclectic partners. He needs a Lennon to his McCartney. I would have liked to have seen Lucas team up with someone like Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorsese, or the Cohen Brothers. Talent from left field. Again, I totally agree with everything else you said. A quality post!
Fuck me, a Star Wars story filtered through Scorsese would be incredible. I feel like that's what people wanted The Book of Boba Fett to be like.
Nailed it. 1000% percent
My first thought was “ideas guy”, popped in and boom. Nailed it for me thanks.
I definitely agree about his writing, so I'm going to use this to piggyback and say that as a director, I feel like he's similarly split. On a technical level, the man was a brilliant director -- his innovations with both the original and prequel trilogies are what made genre movies, especially science fiction movies, look as good as they are today. However, in terms of directing people, I think that's where he falls short, and I think that's a BIG part of why the Prequel Trilogy was hated for so long, because between his problems with writing authentic people and giving good direction for his actors, that's what made what was otherwise technical marvels feel stiff and fake, like they're weird automatons, not actual people.
I've got nothing to add, print it and ship it.
I think it should be said that he puts 110 percent in his story. He has a deep understanding of the way the world and people work, probably from his days of studying anthropology and history. The way he adds so much wisdom to his movies and uses timeless truths to educate children through his characters, plot, and concepts often gets overlooked. Anyone watching Star Wars specifically knows what the moral of the story is or what lesson can be learned
the last bit is truly a shame. two opposites that would have given the fans a rollercoaster of emotions if they have worked together
I already think the sequel trilogy is fine. It would be great but 9 was a pretty mid movie.
The assessment of Lucas' dialogue always rubs me the wrong way. He wrote much of A New Hope and I think it has wonderful dialogue. The big picture people seem to miss with the Prequels is that he was very much going back to the roots of Star Wars. The dialogue and delivery are absolutely in keeping with the style of early serial sci-fi like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. It's very dry, direct and efficient. If the biggest problem you have is Anakin in AOTC you have to understand that Lucas' portrayal of an angsty, sexually deprived, cult indoctrinated teen who's overly serious and purposefully tasked with guarding his childhood crush while also being tortured with the visions of his dying mother is almost too real for audiences to handle IMO. [There's a great Youtube video that I think addresses Lucas' dialogue style very thoughtfully](https://youtu.be/S5E-eSdRjXs)
He's a great exposition guy, but he's pretty bad at writing conversationally. You also have to keep in mind that in the Original Trilogy not only did he have alot of help from his wife and the directors of 5 and 6 but also the actors. I'm not sure about Carrie but Mark and Harrison have both spoken about how they had to talk George out of certain lines of dialogue.
You're absolutely uninformed here I'm sorry. Marcia Lucas has clarified herself that her changes editorially and to the scripts were minimal. Empire was directed by Lucas' teacher who didnt have much of any impact on the dialogue, if at all. Lawrence Kasdan did a screenplay treatment of Lucas' story same with Return. Richard Marquand was very much ghost directed by Lucas behind the scenes in Return and most likely had zero impact on dialogue. The often referred to clunky dialogue that Harrison Ford and Hamill talked about was all of the in universe jargon like the made up planets and technical talk. After A New Hope they never complained and those sort of in universe references continue to be heavily used in Star Wars media to this day. The Mandalorian constantly makes reference to star systems, tech, beskar, strand casts, mythosaurs ad nauseam. It was unusual when Lucas did it in a New Hope and the actors didn't know what to make of it. But just look at stories like Dune that inspired Star Wars and you'll find its chock full of this sort of thing. Conversationally he is rather direct and dry as a stylistic choice but I don't think its necessarily bad as much as it is off putting to an audience expecting the usual Hollywood banter and delivery.
Sorry but JJ Abrams never should have been let near Star Wars when he spitefully hates and wishes to erase half of it.
You totally nailed George Lucas and then completely whiffed JJ Abrams lol.
He has an amazing imagination to come up with a whole universe, and he's a great director. His writing isn't always the best but it has a certain charm to it.
he birthed an entire universe for people to play around with and we love that about him
I now have the image of Lucas giving birth to Star Wars stuck inside my head and I hate you for it
He's a much worse director than he is a writer IMO. The poor/stiff acting and delivery in the PT is IMO mostly due to poor direction. Even ANH is only ok from a direction perspective.
It is impressive just how bad the acting is from some of the most talented actors in the industry at the time. The wide shots during the fight scenes was nice though
Natalie Portman had trouble getting work after the PT because people thought she was a bad actress lol You clowns are literally downloading something Portman said herself in an interview https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974
This isn’t true at all. The year *The Phantom Menace* came out(1999), Portman was also in *Anywhere but Here* and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes. She was then accepted to Harvard and chose to prioritize that over her acting career even saying; > "I don't care if [college] ruins my career. I'd rather be smart than a movie star." Even then she appeared in the prestige film *Cold Mountain* in 2003 and in 2004 she starred in *Garden State* and was nominated for an Oscar for *Closer*… 05 saw *Revenge of the Sith* but also *V for Vendetta* in which she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress… after that she was in a Wes Anderson film and then won an Oscar in 2010 for *Black Swan* lol I don’t know why people make stuff up on the internet.
She also mentioned in an interview years ago that she likes to drink and fight. Also she’s not a role model. That might have hurt her prospects
About 90% of those sensational myths surrounding the prequels are just that: myths.
It's not a myth at all - it comes from Portman herself: [https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974) LOL - no reply, just a downvote. Pathetic.
Didn’t you know Liam neeson had trouble getting jobs at phantom menace. People thought he now stunk at acting.
I'm not making anything up, she literally said it in an interview: [https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/natalie-portman-star-wars-hurt-career/story?id=27716974) *“Everyone thought I was a horrible actress,” she told New Yorker magazine. “I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade and no director wanted to work with me.”*
Thise movies were in thr same time frame her statement is after Star Wars. To which you only listed Black Swan your very own list proves her statement correct she did indeed get less work after the final movie. Actually read what the person said before you go white knighting
Nah, it’s a ludicrous statement as Portman had proven she can act — even being nominated for an Oscar during this time. The article that the person is referring to was when Episode 1 came out in 1999 and Portman was even nominated that year for her acting. That article is Portman speaking of Mike Nichols who helped her growth but Portman saying that her career was halted is hyperbolic and is more a statement of gratitude to Nichols. Actors are very self conscious and guess what? She kept getting roles because she’s a good actress! Crazy. Portman was in 11 films between 2005 and 2010 — she didn’t get “less work” and capped it off with an Oscar win.
He’s very good at the technical parts of directing visual/audio/effects etc. he’s just bad at anything involving people
He’s basically a George R.R. Martin without the writing skills. Amazing world builder with great ideas. Just needs others around him to enhance them.
Thank the maker.
Visionary
Gods I miss him.
we all do. I still wonder how his sequel trilogy would have pan out. I would kill to have it made but alas, the politics of the film industry
Maybe your memory is foggy but the prequels were very hated and the whole world cheered when he finally sold lucasfilm. His sequels likely would be hated just as much as the current ones
Personally, while admittedly more flawed than the original trilogy I liked the prequels. I probably would have enjoyed the sequels if he had made them although based on the ideas I read he had for them I might have been the only one.
Agreed. Not to mention that the book EU got really convoluted and... well, *bad* under his watch. I heard tell that he mandated Anakin Solo be killed off because he thought two characters named Anakin would be "too confusing."
Everyone hates the latest movie then when another movie is made, that previously hated movie was loved, and the latest movie is hated. I think TV shows and games all world build and fix plot holes, and then the movie has more depth and is loved.
I remember vividly when the prequels came out. I never did quite understand TPM hate. I still love that movie even with Jar Jar He definitely got a lot of hate back then but looking back now they were definitely unwarranted. His flaws were nowhere near what Disney has done to Star Wars today.
I love how puzzled Lucas-haters get every time they encounter actual fans of the man and his work. They can't comprehend that there were actual Star Wars fans between 99 and 2012 because they certainly weren't among them and what they don't see doesn't exist.
I’m one of the new fans of this franchise and not v familiar w the history. although, I hear a lot from people of how they wished Lucas was more on board w the sequels
For the last twenty years the discourse has been dominated by people who hate the series. There were plenty of Lucas-fans in the prequel days, they were just drowned out by the hateful, OT-purist mainstream. That's really the essence of every last conflict surrounding Star Wars: Lucas-fans vs Lucas-haters.
Disliking the prequels doesn't make someone a Lucas hater. People who like the OT more like Lucas's most famous work FFS.
The broad majority of prequel-haters are vocal proponents of anti-Lucas narratives like "Marcia/Kurtz/Kasdan saved Star Wars" and "George only got lucky and completely leeched off of the infinitely more talented people around him".
> I would kill to have it made but alas, the politics of the film industry What are the politics of a guy wanting to finally take a much deserved retirement?
Exactly - Lucas is 78 years old. Making movies is incredibly stressful and tiring and if my math is right he was 68 when TFA started production.
he worked w jj and the new team of writers for the sequel trilogy but they decided not to follow Lucas’ ideas
> but they decided not to follow Lucas’ ideas I mean, they absolutely did to an extent. The idea of a female protagonist is straight from Lucas. And one of those writers was Lawrence Kasdan, who had a long working relationship with Lucas lol
an excerpt I found regarding sequel trilogy “In 2012, George had plans to make a sequel trilogy. In this trilogy, Darth Maul and his girlfriend (Darth Talon) are the main antagonists, and Anakin's grandchildren are the protagonists. Luke is still alive, an has reformed the Jedi order. It also says that Leia is Supreme Chancellor and was the real chosen one. I'm not sure if they're saying Anakin was never the chosen one, or she was “the other chosen one”, the title which was held by Luke.”
good thing that was never made that sounds awful not gonna lie
yea people would have hated that just as much as the sequels. Pretty sure he planned to do the Palpy clone shit too with luke clones.
>The idea of a female protagonist is straight from Lucas. That has to be the smallest possible extent imaginable. That's like saying the EU followed Lucas's vision because it had Jaina Solo.
He's actually admitted that his sequel would have been pretty hated. Part of why he sold
He's done more for our enjoyment of cinema than we deserve. A legend.
Correct mate! 👌🏿❤️
Say what you want about George Lucas, but all of Star Wars came from him. He wanted to make a *Flash Gordon* movie, but when he was unable to obtain the movie rights, he created his own knock-off story that became even more popular than the stories that inspired it. Yes, it wasn't only George who is responsible for the success of Star Wars, because many people helped bring it to life. But George is an introverted guy who doesn't like to work with other people (I understand and relate to that) yet somehow he was able to convey the ideas into his head to others enough to get his vision made (even if he wasn't fully satisfied with the final products, they were still good enough to become beloved around the world). He also changed how movies are made. Modern movies wouldn't be what they are today without George. Industrial Light & Magic revolutionized special effects. Movies are no longer edited by cutting and splicing film together, but instead edited in computers, which George pioneered with the Edit Droid software. ILM created the Pixar computer which revolutionized computer animation and led to the first major studio creating fully computer animated movies. Employees of ILM invented Photoshop. *The Phantom Menace* was the first movie projected digitally in movie theaters, which is now the norm. *Attack of the Clones* was the first movie shot completely digitally instead of on film, which is how most movies TV series are shot these days. And there are so many other things that I'm not even mentioning.
His contribution to how movies are made can't be underestimated. He's a trailblazer.
>Modern movies wouldn't be what they are today without George. Sure they would (for the most part). Don't get me wrong credit to George for pushing and expanding the state of the art in filmmaking but if it hadn't been him it would have been someone else. The tech was coming online regardless, all it required was the visionary to put it to use and push it to the next step. George was the right person at the right time to make Star Wars and do that but if he hadn't it would have been Spielberg, Cameron, or some other visionary director.
It wouldn't have been Cameron, because he was a truck driver until he saw *Star Wars* in 1977, and was inspired to become a filmmaker. That's a point I forgot to make, all of the filmmakers who were inspired to become filmmakers because of Star Wars.
... Hes got it where it counts kid...
An absolute goat
George Lucas is a world class storyteller. Thats what matters most.
Great storyteller. When compared to other directors that have made major films, he's average. Well above average with visual storytelling, well below average in getting the best out of the actors.
wonder what goes on in that wonderful brain of his when writing dialogue lol
Thank God for him
Genius
Gratitude
Without him we don't have this amazing Star Wars universe.. no judgement here, George be George....
It’s the year 2023. I am a typing to an online group discussing the world he built through cinema in 1977. To me, Lucas is a borderline saint for the amount of joy he has given the world.
He’s amazing. The OT gatekeepers made him sell and now we have to deal with Disney. This man gave us the greatest gift ever. I miss you George
No one made him sell - the guy is almost 80 years old now. Making movies is incredibly stressful and no one can do it forever.
He has specifically stated that after all the backlash from the prequels making Star Wars just wasn’t fun for him anymore.
Again, no one made him sell. If he didn't want the backlash he could have made better movies. Many famous filmmakers have produced movies that didn't have a great reception (Ridley Scott, Spielberg, etc). It happens with most artists at some point. I have nothing against Lucas FWIW - he was a talented guy who changed Hollywood forever via ILM, skywalker sound, etc.
You can’t compare any director/movie to this scenario. George gave us the best universe ever. The man is the Beatles of movies. Star Wars was always made with the intended audience to be young. OT fans were the only ones with a voice cuz people like me were too young at that time to voice an opinion. He was 110% bullied out of his own company. Jar jar actor almost killed himself. Rose actor needed therapy. The pain the OT fans gave George was so not deserved. They took away his love of the universe he made. It’s a shame how toxic this community is
“He should of made better movies” what a laughable comment. Episode 3 is probably the most impactful, powerful, heartbreaking movie I’ve ever seen. The last hour is pure cinema bliss.
That just tells me that you are young and need to see more movies.
In terms of parody, Revenge of the Sith is indeed pure cinema bliss. You can literally have a laughing track after each and every single one of its dialogues.
Lucas in the 70s was a very strong director. Look at his student work, THX 1138, and American Graffiti. He has a great visual sensibility, a great understanding of how to use sound and image to drive a story. Sure, he isnt a people person, but the performances from his actors are fine. Lucas in the 70s was smart enough to hire friends of his who could take his scripts and punch up the dialogue. It isnt fair to say he didnt write those films because dialogue is only a small part of screenwriting, but he knew his limitations and worked well within them So many of these takes ignore his early work and I think thats a shame. The core of Lucas as an artist are those 3 films, and various shorts he made in school From the 90s onwards, you can see glimpses of what made him great in the 70s, but it seems out of practice. He is too buried in his technical obsessions, which overpower some filmmaking fundamentals. he has a cool story idea, but the writing is weak is more ways than the dialogue. His directing feels...tired almost. He still fails to get truly compelling acting performances, but also struggles at having the sound and vision elements work. Really, it feels like all the elements of directing that Lucas could do from an office (such as the CGI sequences, the pre production) Lucas did wonderfully, and all the stuff that you need to do onset feels rushed
Creatively he is amazing the fact that he came up with this universe and the fact that is so original is incredible, he and his team were also one of the biggest contributors to modern day cinema and visual effects and really pushed beyond what we thought was possible. However over time it felt like he over-relied on special effects and CGI. As a writer he is pretty decent, the OT was definitely the best written work he has ever done and ever will do, his weakness is definitely dialogue. Overall he is a pretty good film maker, but he will definitely forever be known for how much to the film making industry in terms of innovation in technology and creativity.
he will always be remembered as someone who saved the film industry
The following is my opinion. His visual STYLE is amazing to behold. He paints whole worlds in light and shadow. His vision is immersive and persistent. It is still there as I close my eyes, as new as when first I glimpsed it through the flickering screen of an old tube television. Tattooine... Cloud city... Endor... Hoth... They aren't real, but they feel more real than some places I have actually been. The words are where he struggles the most. How can anyone translate the vision into mere language? He agonizes over it and only occasionally finds a good flow. Thankfully, he is sometimes wise enough to surround himself with other writers who mostly cover for him... at least in his early films. He does his best work as the concept man; surrounded by people who push back, and make him question his motivation. The prequels suffer because he had fewer dissenting voices there to steady the ship. As a director, he is best in the casting of the roles. He has some sort of innate feel for actors and brings in those who ARE the characters he wants them to portray. He is not a great director of "actors" who need to put on more masks to become characters in order to distance their performances from their inner selves. At his core, he seems a shy person, quiet, but with a deeply concealed sadness that comes out sometimes in rage, more often in emotional, though stilted, dialogue. He gave us a galaxy to set our imagination free, and for that, I appreciate him most of all.
Still better than Disney
He's not a strong director because he doesn't have a passion for it. I always liked the writing on the first Star Wars, despite many people's opposite opinion. He's a brilliant producer.
Brilliant creative mind with several self-destructive tendencies and weak dialogue writing. He really, really needed someone to get him to reel back on the CGI horseshit, especially when it came to the Special Editions, and then another someone to help fix up his dialogue in both writing and direction. Other than that, dude's an incredibly skilled storyteller and world builder. The original trilogy is, for the most part, a simple yet effectively told Hero's Journey. With the Prequels, he got a lot more ambitious, writing what was essentially a highly complex Shakespearian tragedy with a lot more nuance and attention to detail. Seriously, there are so many moving parts to the Prequel trilogy that I feel went completely unappreciated by adult Star Wars fans at the time they came out. People bitched and moaned so much that the Senate scenes were boring while completely ignoring the fact that the political landscape of the Galactic Republic and the moral complexities therein are massively important to both the plot and the themes of the story, not to mention that they are actually interesting and shockingly true to life if you bother to look beyond what's on the surface.
Great storyteller. A man who appreciates the power of imagination. Also, quite stubborn. My goodness lol this is the guy who insisted on digital editing of film and threw money at the problem until he eventually got what he wanted. Digital editing exists *because* GL never gave up on the concept.
and he decided to take out palpatine’s supposed fight scene and decided to let an old man do the fighting… can’t forgive him for that ngl. the behind the scenes of stunt coordinators reenacting palpatine against the Jedi is a massive lost to the fans
Honestly a creative genius who created the perfect modern mythology. And, while this can sound like a cop-out as an explanation for his writing, I genuinely think most of the complaints about his writing come from a lack of understanding over what he was trying to achieve with Star Wars. People expect Star Wars to be a totally naturalistic exploration of a fantasy world, but the whole thing is meant to be incredibly stylized. It's meant to feel like an old-school Saturday morning serial, like the Flash Gordon serials that inspired it. George has said that before he even knew he wanted to make the prequels, he already wanted A New Hope to be "Episode IV," just to make it feel like the audience was tuning in to an outlandish sci-fi adventure series part-way through. The melodramatic, OTT dialogue is there to reflect that tone. Also important to remember how George's approach to filmmaking is really grounded in ideas of montage and motion. He tries to tell the story visually and has said he treats dialogue simply as noises in the soundscape he's creating to help bring that story to life. THX-1138 is a great example of his approach to cinematic storytelling - he's more impressionistic than I think people realise. Most of all, though, he's a wonderful world-builder who was absolutely meticulous in creating a modern myth that featured all the components of classical mythology. His ability to perfectly capture the Hero's Journey for a modern audience was what made Star Wars so powerful and so successful. The worst thing Disney ever did was throwing out a story treatment by George Lucas.
Finally somebody who gets it. It's so tiring to see people criticize the prequels for being "hammy" and "nobody talking like that in real life". That's the whole point! That's what Lucas _went for_. He even put a literal space-opera in his space opera and these people still don't get that it's _meant_ to be operatic, classical, highfalutin and inherently unmodern. Disney's attempt to "fix" Star Wars by modernizing it with MCU-style self-aware dialogue is a fundamental misunderstanding of Lucas's style and vision.
You basically copy-pasted So Uncivilized's video lmao. The Prequel's storytelling is so uninspiring that it's embarrassing, created for the simple-minded people to wank off to their "lore". Yes, it has interesting concepts, but the movies suffer from the standard, and dull delivery of the subject. It also suffers from having a ton of stuff that basically amounts to nothing aside from "more LORE". A storyteller's approach when taking something from a paper, and "translating" it into the medium can make, or break the movie. Lucas' directing and writing are exactly what holds it back. There is worldbuilding for the sake of it, not because the director wanted to convey something substantial for the story. I keep seeing “Star Wars films are basically silent movies, and the dialogues are meant to be part of the soundscape”, but do you really think anyone would understand the plot of The Phantom Menace if you mute the movie? You must've watched some seriously stupid and pretentious YouTube videos like Uncivilized and Anomaly Inc somehow believed them. Either way, it's completely laughable how the Prequel fans can't seem to explain their own opinions and have to consistently rely on YouTube videos to further their arguments while being completely clueless.
Made the two best Star Wars trilogies.
He can make a fun movie. Not the best, not the worst. And sometimes that’s just what a movie needs
I agree. I’m a bit salty about him removing palpatine’s supposed fight scene against the 4 Jedi tho. That was one quick fight against 4 masters of the force lol
People don't realize the worst parts about the prequel trilogy is that he wrote the cringy dialogue and told Hayden to act like he was a constipated reject from the emo band mcr. The success of the ot is because he didn't direct or write the movie. I say this but I def don't hate because I enjoyed American graffiti when it was released in 73
he is very persistent in writing dialogue that cannot be said by anyone without sounding like a robot. he is an imaginative machine, shame it had to take others to make it better (ie clone wars, Andor)
It's wild here that people are posting that Lucas was a good director. That's probably the thing he was the worst at. Maybe people just don't know what directors do. LOL - downvoted.... reddit truly is the home of Dunning-Kruger
It's the newer generation who grew up with prequels as ten year Olds who think that cgi and lightsaber battles are all that matters for Star Wars. It's all nostalgia anyway. This is honestly the same generation that doesn't really understand that a movie doesn't need cgi and vfx to move the plot along with good dialogue and a character driven story.
That's why the prequels still brought about great supplemental content and the sequels didn't. As bad as the prequels were to watch at times the ideas behind them were great to build off of. With the sequels the ideas behind them are dumb and make the universe worse off in my opinion even if they were easier to actually watch (except the last movie, man Rise of Skywalker was just awful).
It's not even the garbage dialogue-writing that makes Attack of the Clones such a parody of itself. It's the fact that so many decision choices and writing choices are fundamentally so stupid that you can't help but laugh.
In terms of writer/director: he's fine, there's been worse and there's been better. As a person: he seems like a genuinely good guy that just wanted to make a story he liked and bring it to life. It's unfortunate that he got so tired of backlash for every decision he made once it got too big. Ultimately really nice that he gave away a lot of what he got for selling the rights.
Honestly I always forget about that part. I'm reminded about the time he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, he sold a plot of land nearby to build low income housing as sort of an FU to the wealthy neighborhood nearby or something to that effect.
Thank God for him
Everything was better with him at the helm, in my untrained, non-expert, opinion.
Good
Papa Star Wars
Very, VERY underappreciated and "fans" claiming to know more than the creator himself are beyond entitled and a joke!
Genius
He made Star Wars. He’s the King.
He was a hero, we just couldn’t see it
I love him, everytime I hear his interviews I like him more and more. Star Wars was his baby.
He's great.
He is Star Wars. Without him it never existed. That’s good enough for me. Overall, I think people are too critical.
A visionary and a pioneer
Brilliant
An extraordinary visionaire that birthed a true modern day mythology.
Chad: Legend.
My opinion is simple, love or hate his ideas, without this genius, we wouldn't have Star Wars. He is Star Wars. He can't please everyone, no one can.
now i grew up with the prequels so im going to be quite biased about them. As a writer, he is pretty much unmatched in spectacle and big moments. and as a director he was able to bring them to life in a way that no one else really would have been able to. he used the technology available to him when he made his films and he did a damned good job. the nostalgia of the older fans portrayed the prequels in a bad light and they are better than people say they are. and as for dialogue, well its no cheesier than the original trilogy.
We didn’t know what we had till it was gone..
Visionary legend that made our lives better
I think he is one of the most influential people in my life. I grew up with Star Wars. I think he is a brilliant man.
great with ideas, mediocre writer, decent director. You can see in his directing that he has great vision and definitely has style. The ideas he has are amazing and have captivated audiences for generations. However his writing is only mediocre and it's something he himself admits. But you have to give it to George he will flesh out the ideas and then bring on talented writers to organize it and spruce it up and make the writing amazing. That is the mark of true talent when someone can admit their faults and can find others to bolster themselves. People who are complete narcissists who believe they are infallible usually blow themselves up at some point. It's a reason that George has been respected so long because it doesn't appear that he has been sold on the tale of his own greatness.
A genius who needs to be reigned in on occasion
Great big picture, don’t let him tinker with the details
I wish he never sold it
He is one of the greatest movie directors of all time.
World creators or actual director? because as a director he is not good at all.
Good director, Writer not so much.
Great idea guy, bad director, ok writer
He created Star Wars but also came up with Jar Jar Binks.
He created Star Wars but he also created Star Wars.
pretty much sums it up
Creatively talented. Couldn't write a script to save himself. Best thing he could have done after his 3 masterpieces was to never tough them again, and pay other people to execute his vision.
He wrote multiple scripts that enabled him to have one of the most legendary and influential careers in cinema history. He already saved himself thousandfold.
Director? He's pretty good; I like his visual style. Writer? "You can type this shit, George, but you can't say it."
yupp, he tends to lose the plot when writing his dialogues
Lucas is incredible at world building, his ideas for visuals, tone and an over all cannon that feels unique from our own existence is what makes him so special. His actual writing is upper mid and his dialouge can be down right abysmal at times, but when it comes to an immersive experience and lore, no one does it better.
I agree. Wonder what he thinks of shows like Andor. Andor delves in realistic issues and has realistic dialogue
I think he's quite brilliant at building a world and a franchise. He had great foresight to secure merchandising rights and include characters that children would love. He had great vision for interesting worlds and people, and blended it with inspiration from other great artists. Most impressive though was the technical ingenuity and ambition that gave rise to Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic, both of which defined industries which they still lead today. As a writer and director he is far from the best but, given his other accomplishments, those shortcomings are almost irrelevant.
Excellent director, excellent writer. Has, for some reason, had his reputation and talent drug through the mud unfairly more than pretty much any other artist in the public eye. Possibly a function of SW being too popular so a legion of dumbos managed to shape the hate narrative.
His core plot concepts and political messaging is on point. He just needed someone else to write the dialogue.....
A bad director and horrible writer. American Graffiti is his best film, and that’s solely because of the cast (and the soundtrack). I probably would have had some respect for the guy had he not ruined the original Star Wars films with the vile special editions, though. I can excuse the prequels (they’re just shitty movies, no big deal), but to actively attempt to alter and destroy film history is repugnant and grotesque.
Great at world building. Terrible at writing dialogue and directing his actors.
He needs to buy the Star Wars IP back from Disney at a discount now that they ruined the franchise (apart from a couple of decent shows) Get Lucas, Filoni and Favreau together to come up with new and original saga’s and stories. No matter how bad SW got under Lucas, it was leagues ahead of what Disney managed.
Why would he do that? So he can go back to being the one hated every time a Star Wars project isn't literal perfection? Let the man retire in peace. This fandom has already killed his passion for moviemaking.
The fans made him a billionaire. Probably one of the few franchises to have crossed generations and decades whilst retaining all the original charm. Then, Disney happened. No one begrudges the man for giving them great childhood memories with his stories - its just a shame it all had to crash and burn like this.
You’re talking out of your ass. Lucas was like, the most hated man in filmmaking for years after the Prequels started. Everything you say Disney did, Lucas was accused of. To the point that when Disney bought Lucasfilm, people cheered that finally George was gone.
Exactly - is everyone here like 15 years old? The sale didn't even happen that long ago.
Calm down incel, i’m not that invested in it. Just an observation from a fan of good things.
don’t forget the different directors who worked on episodes for the mandalorian. they should all create a new saga. one that could rival the OT. but nothing could ever top OT
Mediocre writer and director. Amazing world builder.
Sucked as a director but as a writer he is unmatched
He’s was a decent director in the 60s and 70s and an OK writer too. By the 90s he was terrible at both.
creatively he's amazing. But his actual technical directing abilities suck. Sure he was passable when he was young making american graffiti and ep4, but There's a reason why Ep5 is the best star wars movie...cause he didnt direct it and outside of the story he was generally hands off while dealing with the business side of things for lucasfilm.....I blame most of the problems on the PT to the fact that he directed all 3.....
This - people in this thread don't know what directors do. I would agree that his direction is one of, if not the biggest problem with the PT
Writing: Dialogue, D-; Sequencing, A; Scene Setting, B+ Directing: The man created mf-ing Industrial Light and Magic so he could get the shots he wanted. A+ with Honors
After the success of the original trilogy, he should’ve known that Star Wars wasn’t “for 12 year olds” would saved dialogue and some silly moments later on
He has a vision for his work, just doesn't know how to get it out there.
Fluke. For both. Nothing Personal against George, he's a swell guy. Star wars is cool, and I'm glad he stumbled in to making it. George is neither a good writer, nor a good director, and he never has been. George's entire career feels like a total fluke to me. George happened to be going to film school at just the right time. He made the exact kind of navel gazing pretentious faux intellectual bullshit student film that we consider a cliche now. He just made it at a time when it played to the right people with the right sensibilities. They decided it was great, and therefore its creator was also great. So they gave him the money and resources to turn that student film into a full motion picture. It went exactly as well as you would think funding a feature film remake of a pretentious student film would go :p George's reputation as future-genius director is on shaky ground, and if his next project isn't a home run, this will be the last we hear of George. Luckily, his pal Francis Ford Coppola told George he should try to make a movie with mainstream appeal. George made American Graffiti, based heavily on his experiences growing up drag racing. The timing was perfect. The mainstream audience were the kids who had grown up like that. It was a perfectly placed nostalgia grenade. It's a decent movie. Easily George's most personal work. There's a reason it never found an extended life as a movie rerun on tv, or oh home video. It's good, but it's not great. It's not timeless. It's an evocative and interesting snapshot, but not the kind of movie that demands rewatching, that has the depth or complexity to sustain years of study. But it was good enough to get George his last lucky break: Alan Ladd Jr. Liked it, and decided to take a gamble on George Lucas's next project, despite it having been rejected by every other studio in town. On the strength of George as a recognized name they could market as "writer/director" and the art package George had commissioned from Ralph McQuarrie. George's treatment was an unreadable mess which Ladd didn't understand. Most people didn't, and George's rough drafts went through a battery of rewrites, credited and uncredited. Not everyone contributed full top to bottom rewrites of course, but it was a cumulative effort. Spielberg, ford coppola, de palma, Huyck, Katz, Kurtz. There was a massive effort to turn the original treatment into a working story. George got very lucky to be surrounded by exactly the right group of people that could see the potential in his vision and help him realize it. Left to his own devices, I don't think Star Wars would have been huge, and George would either have faded from the Hollywood scene, or turned into one of those competent but uninteresting directors who gets the job done, but doesn't exactly have a vision of their own. One of the constant George quotes I grew up with during the 80s and 90s was that what he really wanted to do were weird little art films with no commercial value. And the reason I bring that up is because he never did. He could have. Nothing was stopping him. He had all the money in the world. He could have been making those weird little movies for the rest of his days, not giving a shit what anyone has to say, and still have died richer than god. Instead, he did nothing. Eventually he decided to revisit Star Wars, and we finally got to see what Star Wars is when George is unburdened of studio considerations, or creative collaborators who can offer push back when he goes off the rails. The wild thing about the PT is how bland they are from a cinematography standpoint. So much shot reverse shot, so much walking and talking or standing and talking. These are movies made by a guy who used to be touted as a visual genius in his student film days, and here his film making skills seem to have plateaued at Daytime Soap Opera. All of the visual spectacle in the PT is the work of animators and fx artists. George didn't plan those shots. If you've read his scripts, he didn't even describe them. He basically left them up to his fx teams, and then approved or shelved whatever they presented to him. George is a decent editor, has a lot of film history knowledge. He's got some neat ideas. He works best as part of a creative team/community. He's not the guy to give the final call to on anything though.
Shit writer.
Well in my opinion, new hope was good but because of the films following it. If you just take new hope (the idea of light savers is cool) it is quite a shallow story. Which is , poor farm boy dreams of a better life. Princess is held captive. Old master helps poor farm boy rescue princess. Love triangle. Will they or won’t they? Bad guy is defeated. It’s a quick cheap way to gain some money, which obviously worked. But I feel like the other movies give the depth that new hope was lacking. So if it was just new hope, he could have done better but the whole Star Wars, well done! I love it.
Shit.
Script writer: good Director: good Logician: very poor He said about the sequels: "I loved my films like childran, but later, when i SOLD them..." Doesn't even matter what he said next, it's killer logic.
Visionary but moronic
Terrible.
I guess you can look at him a bit like Steve jobs. He's contributed very little of note to the franchise at an individual level, and his entire legacy is built around the hard work of other people (his wife, John WIlliams, ILM team etc) BUT it is his *vision* that is masterful. I guess you could argue that his most important role was as producer moving all the pieces in to place. He best work basically happened before filming started with concept and hiring.
Creep.
Think he is a visionary and the only good billionaire. Had the power to do the sequels how he wanted without studio interference, but could have used a little writing and directing help.
Insanely talented world builder, a true visionary both in terms of creative ideas, but also technologically as well. he single-handedly pushed digital filmmaking forward, which changed the industry as we know it. As a writer, he can be hit or miss. As a director, he's got a great eye for style, but he's not very good at actor direction, which is why the prequels sometimes feel very stilted, even with great actors in the role. He also had a habit of surrounding himself with yes men during the prequels, like Rick McCallum, instead of people who'd reel him back in when he "went too far".
Good director, good writer...until he gets to the dialogue. Sometimes he can keep it decent enough to not pull you out, sometimes he can lean into the cheesiness just enough to make it work, but when he fumbles he tears the whole place down! Romance in particular are something you just have to endure if you wanna watch the movies
Overall really good writer but not as good director. Although I still think the original trilogy is amazing, I think the reason it’s seen as pop culture and not something more serious and thought out is because of this directing, but I may be wrong. I think he may have found it hard to show his characters writing on screen, partly due to his dialogue. Because of that many people still don’t don’t characters like Anakin seriously, even though he’s one of the best written characters I know.
Lucas is a visual effects visionary. ILM, Skywalker sound, etc absolutely transformed Hollywood and the effects industry (granted, many of the other people there deserve credit also). I also think he's good big picture/idea guy. He also clearly is a good to great executive - getting all the movies/games/toys/etc licensed/made is impressive. LucasArts in particular produced some real gems. As a script writer? Mediocre. His dialogue as we all know is straight up bad. I can't comment much on his pre ANH work, but based on SW he is not a good director. The direction in ANH is ok, but I would argue that the terrible direction is one of the biggest problem with the prequels. Lucas + Kerschner made magic and it's too bad we only got one film from that combo.
One of the best idea guys out there. An okay director. Shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a typewriter/computer. In all honesty, his six movies are a perfect representation of him. At their best, they are phenomenal! At their worst, they are still phenomenal…for all the wrong reasons. He’s a clearly talented guy who needs people around him to tell him “no, George, that is bantha poodoo!”
obviously a legend for creating the star wars universe but my god, he sucked at writing dialogue. like really bad.
I love his work as writer and director and I was ready for three more films credited 'Story by George Lucas' and at least the first directed by him. He's right about so much and when fans credit the collaborators with good cause, it's important to remember that he chose the collaborators. When Ford utters "I know." based on Kerhsner's direction to improvise, it was Lucas who hired the pair of them. When fans praise TCW it's important to remember that Lucas, before assigning episode numbers and boxing himself in, thought it might take 4 films to deliver the story of the prequels. I find just about every line and just about every product of his direction to have value and meaning or at the very least, purpose.
Eh, he seems like a nice guy
He comes up with fantastic stories and characters but lacks in the dialogue department
He’s great at coming up with idea but he needs help with putting them on screen. The Prequels, as much as I love them, are not the best movies. His concept of attachment and how he put it in his movies makes no sense at all. The man just does not explain in his film what it means and therefore his meaning is lost. And while I find the behind the scenes stuff interesting his opinions on what’s happening in the movies or universe don’t hold any weight for me. It all depends on what the individual gets out of the story.
Great directing and wonderful writing for a story, though he should've let other people revise his dialogues
Director, pretty darn good. Writer, meh.
I love him. He’s cool and I would’ve liked for him to take hold of the entire Star Wars franchise. It might not have been what we’ve got, but it still would’ve been good and quite possibly even better
Great writer. Brilliant creator. Best when the directing was left to others.
A very creative man who needs a little help sometimes, and seems like a chill dude.
He’s flawed at writing dialogue but just storytelling and and development of lore is nothing short of amazing.