The confessions of George Lucas

For me, coming out of a vacation news vacuum is like moving from still water to a class ten rapid in thirty seconds — there’s just too much to catch up on. [Didn’t you read anything while you were gone?–ed. Honestly, I didn’t surf the web at all and the only thing I read in a newspaper that caught my eye was a reprint of this Victor David Hanson essay blasting the concept of tenure.] Later on in the week I’ll try to deal with violence in Uzbekistan, the explosive situation in Afghanistan (and Newsweek‘s monumental f@#$-up that triggered the problem), but to start post-vacation blogging, let’s get to something really important… like George Lucas confessing his moviemaking sins. In an Entertainment Weekly cover story by Jeff Jensen (sorry, the story is mysteriously absent from EW’s Star Wars index page — which is one of many things wrong with EW’s web site, but that’s off-topic), we get this little tidbit from George Lucas about how he feels about the prequel trilogy:

[I]n discussing the process that birthed the prequels, Lucas finally seems capable of being candid. one are the If it made $400 million then it must have been good and The kids loved it! rationalizations (both of which can be strongly supported) that he peddled while promoting Clones. Now he volunteers that his prequel story line — derived from material he’d brainstormed over 30 years ago to inform his writing of Star Wars — was “thin…. It was not written as a movie. It’s basically a character study and exhibition piece about politics–two things that are not dramatic. [Not like] the dramatic story that was constructed for Star Wars. But I wanted to be faithful to it, so I didn’t construct other stories. It is what it is.” Nor did he want to consolidate Menace and Clones, either. Lucas felt that exploring “the full range of Anakin’s personality” made sense if three films addressed him at three different ages. And he wanted no hint of the dark side in Skywalker until Sith. “He has to start good and turn evil,” says Lucas. “You can’t have a monster turning into a monster. That’s not a story.” Lucas believes that his biggest gamble was starting the saga with Jake Lloyd’s gee-whiz kid in Menace. Even his marketing team was skeptical. “That’s a little bit why it got overhyped. People [here] were nervous if it was going to break even,” says Lucas of Menace‘s notorious promotional push. “I didn’t care. I said, ‘This is the story. I know I’m going to need to use Hamburger Helper to get it to two hours, but that’s what I want to do.'” By Lucas’ own calculation, 60 percent of the prequel plot he dreamed up decades earlier takes place in Sith. The remaining 40 percent he split evenly between Menace and Clones, meaning each film contained a lot of…filler. Or, in Lucas parlance, “jazz riffs… things that I enjoy… just doodle around a lot.”

I’m glad to hear that Lucas agrees with me about the quality of his last two films… except that Lucas didn’t cop to this when Episodes I and II came out. And the promotional campaign for Episode III has been just as heavy as the roll-out for Episode I. So I’m not getting close to a movie house for this one unless there’s multiple independent confirmations that the movie is good. [But in the Jensen story the Star Wars-obsessed Kevin Smith is quoted saying, “Sith will not only enthrall the faithful, but it’ll pull the haters back from the Dark Side.”–ed. Two words: Jersey Girl.] To date I’ve been able to resist the siren song of Revenge of the Sith. Reading Jensen’s story and thinking about Lucas’ execrable “Hamburger Helper” will make it even harder to turn me to the dark side. [You’ll see it at some point. It is your…. destiny–ed. Oh, go do promos for CNN or something.] UPDATE: Well, A.O. Scott praises the movie in the New York Times, but has this ominous line: “Mr. Lucas’s indifference to two fairly important aspects of moviemaking – acting and writing – is remarkable.” Meanwhile, Kelli nicely encapsulates my attitude towards Lucas — and asks an interesting question: “whether to take the kids.” Sith is rated PG-13. Discuss away!!