George Lucas recently attended the 77th Cannes Film Festival where he received the prestigious Palme d'Or prize in recognition of his contributions to cinema. And he's made a lot of contributions. This is the man who made Star Wars, which more than any other movie is responsible for the blockbuster-driven cinematic economy we trade in today.
But there have been bumps along the way, and Lucas remembers them. For instance, the Star Wars prequel trilogy was criticized when it released two decades back, especially the first movie, 1999's The Phantom Menace. Speaking to a crowd at Cannes, Lucas said he thinks the backlash came from “critics and fans who had been 10 years old when they saw the first one” and didn’t want to watch a children’s film. He compared the way that people hated on the character of Jar Jar Binks to the way people didn't like the foppish droid C-3PO from the original trilogy. “Everybody said the same thing about 3-PO, that he was irritating and we should get rid of him. When I did the third one it was the Ewoks: ‘Those are little teddy bears. This is a kid’s movie, we don’t want to see a kids’ movie. I said: ‘It is a kids’ movie. It’s always been a kids’ movie.'”
"[The original Star Wars] was supposed to be a kid’s movie for 12-year-olds that were going through puberty, who don’t know what they’re doing, and are asking all the big questions: What should I be worried about? What’s important in life? And Star Wars has all those things in there. They’re buried in there but you definitely get it, especially if you’re young."
It's true that the Star Wars prequel movies have had a renaissance in recent years thanks to the people who saw them as kids growing up and celebrating them, so maybe Lucas is onto something when he complains about adults not wanting to watch a kids movie. On the other hand, a lot of the complaints about The Phantom Menace back in the day had to do not with the movie being childish (although those were there), but with it being boring and overly concerned with congressional hearings, not something most kids would enjoy.
I also raise an eyebrow at his defense of the Ewoks from Return of the Jedi, which were indeed derided as cutesy lunchbox fodder upon the film's release. It's true that the original Star Wars movie appealed to all ages, but the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, took a more serious tone, what with lead character Luke Skywalker getting his hand cut off and Han Solo getting betrayed and all that. There was a sense that the movies were growing up with the audience, so I can see the point of someone who thinks the easily merchandisable Ewoks in Return of the Jedi represented a regression borne less out of determination to delight children and more out of one to sell them plushies.
George Lucas: "A lot of ideas...got lost" in the Star Wars sequel trilogy
Lucas also talked about the Star Wars sequel trilogy, which was made after he sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion in 2012. “I was the one who really knew what Star Wars was … who actually knew this world, because there’s a lot to it," he said. "The Force, for example, nobody understood the Force. When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in sort of got lost. But that’s the way it is. You give it up, you give it up.”
This is a good deal more mild than when, in 2015, Lucas compared his sale of Lucasfilm to him selling Star Wars to "white slavers," an analogy he wisely didn't flesh out. Clearly, Lucas has some misgivings about what Disney has done with the Star Wars IP, but he never says too much in public, I suspect because he doesn't want to rock and boat and because he knows it would look a little gauche to whine about how Disney is butchering his baby after they paid him over four billion dollars for the privilege.
Lucas defends Star Wars against criticisms that it's lacking racial and gender diversity
Although I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to hear where that "white slavers" comparison was going. And speaking of ill-judged tangents about race, Lucas also addressed claims that his Star Wars movies weren't racially diverse, a criticism famously leveled by scientist Carl Sagan in 1978. “It’s extremely unlikely that there would be creatures as similar to us as the dominant ones in ‘Star Wars,’ and there’s a whole bunch of other things — they’re all white,” he said back then. “The skin of all the humans … oddly enough, is .”
Sagan made his criticism after the first Star Wars movie came out but before any others had released. “They would say, ‘It’s all white men,'” Lucas said of critics. “Most of the people are aliens! The idea is you’re supposed to accept people for what they are, whether they’re big and furry or whether they’re green or whatever. The idea is all people are equal.”
"In the first one, there were a few Tunisians who were dark, and in the second one I had Billy Williams, and the [prequels], which they were also criticizing, I had Sam Jackson. He wasn’t a scoundrel like Lando. He was one of the top Jedi."
Lucas further said that the only beings discriminated against in the Star Wars universe were droids. “That was a way of saying, you know, people are always discriminating against something and sooner or later, that’s what’s going to happen. I mean, we’re already starting with AI, saying, ‘Well, we can’t trust those robots.'”
You can decide for yourself whether you think Lucas' justifications address the criticisms. Let's move onto the next hot button topic he covered: the criticism that there aren't enough women with prominent roles in the Star Wars movies. “Who do you think the heroes are in these stories? What do you think Princess Leia was? She’s the head of the rebellion. She’s the one that’s taking this young kid who doesn’t know anything and this boisterous, I-know-everything guy who can’t do anything and trying to save the rebellion with these clowns … And it’s the same thing with Queen Amidala.”
"You can’t just put a woman in pants and expect her to be a hero. They can wear dresses, they can wear whatever they want. It’s their brains and their ability to think and plan and be logistical. That’s what the hero is."
I think George Lucas has Twitter.
The Star Wars universe carries on even though Lucas hasn't been a part of it for over a decade now. A new series, Star Wars: The Acolyte, premieres on Disney+ on June 4.
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