George Lucas is one of the most influential filmmakers of all time, not because of the breadth of his filmography, but because of its cultural significance. His Star Wars Saga, the epic space opera that began in 1977 with the release of Episode IV: A New Hope, has been a fixture in pop culture entertainment for over 40 years, and changed the way we look at movies. With every new film he created in the Star Wars Universe, he pioneered new storytelling ideas, new technology for capturing them, and groundbreaking new visual effects to bring them to life.
Lucas sold Lucasfilm in 2012 to Disney, and Disney has spearheaded the last three films in his nine-part Star Wars Saga, as well as expanded it with a few stand-alone features. The Disney produced films have been divisive to Star Wars fans, but even Lucas’s own creations caused tumult among the community built around them. As fans anxiously await Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, the final installment in Lucas’s vision, we look at 5 reasons why he should return to Star Wars (in some capacity), and 5 reasons why he should stay far, far away.
SHOULD RETURN: HE HAS NEW ORIGINAL IDEAS
Star Wars fans eagerly anticipated Episode VII: The Force Awakens, only to feel like it was a repackaged version of the same storyline from Episode IV: A New Hope. They then went into The Last Jedi similarly jaded, and felt that all originality had been taken from the Star Wars Saga.
George Lucas’s plans for Episodes VII-IX may have involved some aspects of the Star Wars mythos fans didn’t like, such as more enthusiastic emphasis on the Whills, creatures similar to midi-chlorians that dictate the will of the Force and prove to be behind every major event in the galaxy, but at least he had wholly original ideas that weren’t more of the same.
SHOULD STAY FAR AWAY: HE CAN’T WRITE DIALOGUE
Though the Disney sequels have made fans a little less dismissive of Lucas’s prequel films, the prequels still can’t be vindicated for their atrocious dialogue. Filled with fine thespians capable of conveying lines with subtle emotional resonance, they were reduced to muttering a diatribe of maudlin nonsense.
The only person to really emerge unscathed from the encounter was Ewan Mcgregor, who will soon reprise his excellent Obi-Wan Kenobi role in a series for the Disney+ streaming service. As for his co-star Natalie Portman, an Academy Award winner, all of her charm managed to be completely stripped away with the dialogue she had to say.
SHOULD RETURN: LUCASFILM NEEDS GUIDANCE
While there are creative directors like Pablo Hidalgo working on the Star Wars franchise as part of the Lucasfilm Story Group, there are often numerous voices and minds involved with getting a Star Wars film made. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was crammed full of creative personnel, from scrip writers to producers and directors that had to work together to get it made well.
Lucas probably thought Lucasfilm was in good hands when he named Kathleen Kennedy its president after he sold it in 2012, but Kennedy has also been blamed for a lot of the creative blunders the franchise has experienced. A technically savvy executive producer, she may lack the visionary qualities that a person like Lucas possessed.
SHOULD STAY FAR AWAY: STAR WARS BELONGS TO NEW FILMMAKERS
If you watch Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, you’ll become acquainted with a zealous young up-and-coming filmmaker fresh from film school and eager to cut his teeth on new original stories. In his youth, Lucas despised the big studio system and the commercialization of narratives, and so set out with other like-minded creators (Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola) to make his story his way.
Lucas understands that by its very nature, Star Wars is a young film maker’s franchise. It needs to be shaped and molded by young creators with new and original ways of thinking. He recognized he became set in his ways, and that directors like J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson, and others needed to contribute their vision of that galaxy far, far away.
SHOULD RETURN: HIS FILMS CHANGE THE CINEMATIC PARADIGM
Like fellow visionary film maker James Cameron, when George Lucas makes a film, it shifts the paradigm of cinema. It introduces new technology, new methods of shooting, and new ideas about how cinema can communicate stories. Not all of the innovation Lucas created has been appreciated, but much of it has become the norm.
Just like the original trilogy utilized Steadicams and scale models to greatly improve special effects sequences, the prequels utilized green screens to place actors in front of locations that didn’t exist to enhance environments. Both practices are commonplace now, much like shooting digitally, another aspect Lucas pioneered.
SHOULD STAY FAR AWAY: HE’S A CONTROL FREAK
Like anyone who has spent years of their life devoted to realizing their greatest creation, George Lucas was protective of his work. Star Wars was a story before it was a franchise, and he had to fight to get it made. Studios didn’t see much of a future in it back in 1977, and Lucas had to ensure that even if he never saw a dime from the release of A New Hope, he got the sequel rights to make the other two movies and get his trilogy vision.
On the set of the films, Lucas was known to be a control freak, who couldn’t handle clowning around on set between his actors, or any incompetency with his crew. By the time Return of the Jedi was made, his health was suffering as a result of being so neurotic.
SHOULD RETURN: IT WOULD UNITE THE FANDOM
While Lucas can be attributed to generating the first sparks that incited the fandom, Disney can be blamed for fanning the flames. Since the creator of the Star Wars Saga stepped away from the franchise in 2012, the fandom has only grown more quarrelsome and fractious.
For many Star Wars fans, the Disney sequel films made the prequel films look better by comparison, and they were seen in a new light as being worthy successors to the original trilogy. With Lucas returning to a prominent role in Lucasfilm, perhaps the fandom will decide to unite once more under his guidance.
SHOULD STAY FAR AWAY: KEVIN FEIGE
It was recently announced that Kevin Feige, the Marvel producer responsible for turning the Marvel franchise into one of the most dominant in the world, will be making his own contribution to the Star Wars Universe. A big Star Wars fans himself, Disney hopes he’ll do for Star Wars what he’s done for Marvel.
The sequel trilogy by Disney has proved divisive for fans, with many seeing them as overblown, thoughtless messes banking on fans’ nostalgia to turn a profit. With Feige even rumored to be taking over as head of Lucasfilm in the wake of president Kathleen Kennedy’s shortcomings, the era of George Lucas having any authority over Star Wars may be at an end.
SHOULD RETURN: TO CONTINUE PUSHING TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT
At a time when most space-faring movies were considered ridiculous farces, no more entertaining than a Flash Gordon serial and devoid of complexity or depth, Star Wars sought to change all that. It did so by surpassing its peers in technological advancement, making film critics and audiences stand up and pay attention.
The technology Lucas and his crews pioneered was used as the foundation for two separates companies; Industrial Light and Magic and Skywalker Sound. Those companies are used to create some of the biggest blockbusters and culturally significant films of the modern era. Even the Marvel movies go through them to ensure a brilliant finished product.
SHOULD STAY FAR AWAY: HE CAN’T DIRECT ACTORS
Lucas hasn’t made it a secret how much he doesn’t like working with actors, and his casts haven’t made it a secret how he’d replace them all with droids if he could! Harrison Ford famously explained that if Lucas could get away with not using actors to create his stories, he would.
Both Mark Hamill and Hayden Christensen, who play Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker, both have expressed hos difficult it was to get any sort of feedback from Lucas about their characters. They were often frustrated trying to find their motivation for scenes, when Lucas was more focused on getting the visual effects right,
