George Lucas is a genius. He created the most influential movie franchise in history and envisioned that merchandising would be where the real money was. He deserves a lot of respect-he has built a media empire, pushed VFX and makes a solid filmmaker.
But that was a problem. He was just too good and was given too much influence and power. No one would tell him “no.” And he was swayed by power and became….weird.
1. He is bitter about The Force Awakens
One cannot blame Lucas for selling Star Wars. He poured his heart into creating a universe he was passionate about, and everyone loved it.
But it is hard to deny that the movies are divisive. The vitriol from fans got to Lucas. The sale was tacit that Star Wars belonged to someone else: Everyone.
His initial interviews on The Force Awakens were optimistic, but he eventually winced at the prospect of sitting down and watching the thing:
“I gotta go to the wedding. My ex will be there, my new wife will be there, but I’m going to have to take a very deep breath and be a good person and sit through it and just enjoy the moment because it is what it is and it’s a conscious decision that I made.”
TFA did business, and with each record, it broke, yet another dash of salt was poured on Lucas’ $4 billion wounds. It came to a head at his Christmastime interview with Charlie Rose.
“All those Star Wars films … I loved them, I created them, I’m very intimately involved in them, and I sold them to the white slavers that take these things and uh, and … [laughs]”
2. He said the best Star Wars movie is actually the worst one
The Empire Strikes back is a favorite for both fans and critics. From its soundtrack to dark ending, everything has remained iconic.
But Lucas does not think so. At the Publicist Guild Awards in 2007, he sneaked in a sharp backhanded compliment to the best movies ever.
“George Lucas, giving the award to Sid Ganis, who was the in-house publicist on Star Wars: Episode Five – The Empire Strikes Back, said, ‘Sid is the reason why The Empire Strikes Back is always written about as the best of the films, when it actually was the worst one.'”
At this point, the Prequels had been made, so George is, in fact, asserting that the movie where Darth Vader tells Luke he’s his father is actually worse than the one where Natalie Portman eats a CGI pear.
3. His original ideas for Return of the Jedi were insane
If you are a Star Wars fan, you may have heard about the original “dark ending” to Return of the Jedi that did not make it to the screen. This climax saw Han Solo bite the dirt while Luke flew off, leaving Leia to pick up pieces of a shattered republic.
Another had Obi attempting to return to life before his consciousness disappeared. It was Obi-Wan who was to be keeping the Emperor’s power, which would make sense of him “becoming more powerful than you can imagine” in death.
At one point, there were going to be 2 Death Stars in RoTJ, one which the Rebels would have blown up and the other, destroyed in the same time Darth Vader death-hugged Palpatine into a pool of lava.
If Lucas operated as he did in the Prequel Trilogy, we might have seen every part of this show on the screen at once.
And we have not gotten to the most ridiculous idea.
Lucas was talking to his screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan when he said:
“Luke takes his mask off. The mask is the very last thing — and then Luke puts it on and says, ‘Now I am Vader.’ Surprise! The ultimate twist. ‘Now I will go and kill the [Rebel] fleet and I will rule the universe.'”
4. He sent tons of petty Cease-and-Desists
Although Lucasfilm gained a reputation for being generous when it came to allowance of fan works, they had a fair share of copyright claims.
Kids at the Palos Verdes Peninsula High School wanted to make a musical on the movies they loved. They were charging at the door, but it is not like they were getting paid. This was in all likelihood a non-profit deal, and funds collected would go to the budget of their stage production of Space Jam: The Musical. The show sold out for 3 nights, and then the letter came. Lucasfilm heard about the high school play’s success and shut it down. Because no one should have fun.
Back in the day, the Queen Frontman would enter his shows on the shoulders of a glittering Darth Vader as his steed, which is pretty much the most badass way anyone has ever made an entrance. But it wasn’t cool at all for Lucasfilm, who eventually put the kibosh on one of the coolest team-ups of all-time.
Even if it is not George Lucas and rather the LucasFirm legal team sending the lawsuit threats, the fact remains that people under the big man’s employ rooted out joy and promptly destroyed it.
5. He made crazy demands of video game developers
Plenty of good-looking Star Wars games have been canceled over the years, but one promising title focused on Darth Maul. Developer Red Fly had hopes for its actioner starring the Phantom Menace. The pitch was good; they compared gameplay to a Star Wars version of the Batman Arkham games. Though envisioned as an origin story for the character, the premise evolved into a full-on sequel that centered on a Maul who survived Episode I.
Prepped with this knowledge and scared shitless, Red Fly wanted to make the best impression. They had heard that Lucas was a fan of Darth Talon. So for the meeting, they placed 2 elaborate statues of each character side-by-side on the table.
Red Fly was not finished with the pitch before Lucas got up and walked over to the statuettes of Talon and Maul. He turned the figures around to face each other, and pushed them together. “They’re friends,” he said.
It is hard to know what Lucas wanted out of it as it sounds like he wanted B-tier Star Wars villain to be the center of a god-like game. This did not help the project, but it was doomed no matter what – Darth Maul’s game may have been canceled along with Star Wars 1313 after the Disney buyout anyway.
At one point during the development of the shooter Fracture, George said that he did not like the name of the protagonist, Mason Briggs. That is a fair point, as in the lexicon of video games, “Mason Briggs” is as generic a name as “Lord Gamington.” Lucas proposed B.J. Dart.
Lucas floated name ideas like “Darth Insanius” and “Darth Icky.” No one said anything, as they could not laugh in his face or tell him that those are the worst ideas.
6. He went absolutely nuts editing the Prequels
Pay attention to Anakin’s hair, specifically around his ear and up at his forehead. It seems to… move, right? That is because Lucas is splicing 2 different takes into one. He liked what Ian McDiarmid was doing, As his Palpatine has always been on–point, but he wanted to use Hayden Christensen’s performance from another take.
Lucas told his editor to splice another scene in the name of clarity. To fix a mistake made on-set, Captain Panaka was de-synced and recombined with the rest of the shot.
To be fair, the practice worked. One wouldn’t notice this maybe because they have not watched the movies more than one time in the theater.
Take-splicing is a common practice in Hollywood; something like David Fincher’s Gone Girl relies on cutting and snipping and re-pasting. So you can thank George Lucas for the fast-the approaching film apocalypse where every new film is a Special Edition of itself.
