"What George Lucas Thinks of the New Star Wars" Topic

"As of today there is exactly one month until Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters, and we'll finally get to see what director J.J. Abrams has done with the universe George Lucas created more than three decades ago.

So what does Lucas think of all this? Vanity Fair asked the legendary director about the new film and got his advice on what the franchise's new directors should know ("there's more to it than just spaceships") and what he hopes to learn from the new Star Wars (like, for example, what happened to Darth Vader's grandkids).

But the most interesting thing VF got from the director is his choice for his favorite Star Wars character: Jar Jar Binks…"

Jar Jar Binks????

From here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Obviously senile.

He's obviously messing with us.

Lucas should have asked for help after Empire

Too many excuses and blaming the lack of technology that hampered his vision----bad writing is to blame

I think the series has already hit rock bottom and it can only improve next month.

Well there is the theory that Jar Jar was the Sith Master that trained the Emperor…

Just when you thought a debate was running out of steam on TMP…

This is Madness! This is TMP! booting a topic into the black pit of despair.

and we didn't even mention GW….

Don't be too hard on Binks and ease off on coming up with new and increasingly imaginative ways to murder him.

Instead, hope that someone makes miniatures for that Gungan army you've always wanted to face off against the Trade Federation.

Sorry, their Gungan army transport ship was destroyed by a supernova.

There were no survivors.

Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it.

All the more reason to see Jar Jar dead.

Sorry, their Gungan army transport ship was destroyed by a supernova.

More reason to believe that Jar Jar Binks is the next Sith.

Sorry, their Gungan army transport ship was destroyed by a supernova.

There were no survivors.

The supernova was then eaten by a black hole.

The black hole then created a tear in space time and left our reality to reappear in a universe comprised entirely of lice.

Instead, hope that someone makes miniatures for that Gungan army you've never wanted to face off against the Trade Federation.

Typo fixed!

Who, sir? Me, sir! I have a Gungan Army.

George who?

I think they mean the American Graffiti guy…

…also brought us the Crime Against Humanity that was Howard the Duck.

and filthy stinky Ewoks. They eat their dead, you know.

Like I really care what that hack has to say after episodes I-III. If only he had stopped after the very first Star Wars he would have been one of the top directors of all time.

Whatever type of character you're drawn to, Star Wars has something for you. There's absolutely no reason to choose Jar Jar. Unless he thinks his personal influence can somehow pull that character out of universal disdain, I guess. But it's not going to.

You got your Gran Mof Tarkin – restrained, thoughtful, determined, merciless without malice.

You got your Aunt Beru, you got Wedge, you got your "we don't allow their kind in here" bartender.

And that's not even mentioning the big characters.

And don't forget Max Rebo, who got his own cookie in the Rebel Heroes pack way back in 1982, or whoever Return came out.

Anyone who wants to advocate for Jar Jar better give us a thousand words explaining that bizarre position.

And Random Die Roll is right, next month can only be a turnaround, but it may not be enough. People will certainly say, "that was better than one through three", but that's a pretty low bar.

I'm not even sure I'll go see it, and given how Star Wars fit into my mental landscape thirty five years ago that's an astonishing thing for me to type.

Star Wars has always been like a B52, a bunch of loose ideas flying in formation.

His haphazard mix of ideas was redacted by others into something a bit more coherent. In Star Wars is was Marcia Lucas and the Kurtzes who edited the footage into something decent and weeded out all the weird ideas into a decent story. Lucas then hired Kirshner for Empire. If you listen to the DVD commentaries Lucas keeps talking about technical stuff while Kirschner talks about characters, actors, story, motivation …

Jedi comes along and it's starting to fall apart. Lucas starts to become the omnipotent undisputed god of the series with nobody able to fix Lucas "let's make it up as we go" attitude to writing.

If Lucas has one weakness, it's that he's not a good storyteller and he's become increasingly isolated from dialogue and exchange of ideas and start to believe the genius he's attributed with (okay, you gotta admit his business skills are second to none) So he creates amazing films and it's the stupid, ungrateful public that doesn't "get it …"

@Patrick R: A colleague here said almost exactly what you said yesterday! The difference is that he believes Lucas is a Genius when it comes to the high level story arc. It's when he gets down into the detail that things start to come apart. He needed to get people to write for him and follow his plan as was done in B5. That is likel6y how Ep IV V and VI became so iconic. I do agree with you that VI was showing signs that things would go amiss. They should have stuck with Wookies and not Ewoks!

I'd say Lucas is quite good in the ideas department, but as Yoda would say "Ideas alone a good movie do not make."
Lucas is the guy who writes in one continuous stream of consciousness, tossing in a plot point without much of a clue how it will turn out and when it comes to continue it he makes up something on the spot without even checking what he actually came up earlier. That's why old Obi is such a creep for fondly remembering how he cut off his best friend's limbs and left him to burn alive or how he and Yoda don't seem to have much of a plan beyond training Luke and feeding him a bunch of lies not even taking into account he might be just as mentally unstable as his dad and take it badly. Ditto for completely ignoring Leia to the point that Yoda has to remind Obi Wan about her …

You can see some of this in the making-of documentary for the fourth Indiana Jones movie, there are pretty clear signs that Ford and Spielberg had issues with Lucas' "contributions".

Andrew Walters my Favorite Star Wars character is Jar Jar Binks do you have a problem with that?

And you said "Anyone who wants to advocate for Jar Jar better give us a thousand words explaining that bizarre position" now I have my reasons for saying Jar Jar is my Favorite character and I don't have to give you a thousand words let alone one word my reasons for my appeal of this character are my own.

Now some of my friends ask me why I like Jar Jar and I tell them while some of them don't like Jar Jar they do respect my views and can understand them.

As for George Lucas saying Jar Jar is his Favorite I stand by George saying that so good for George.

One last thing in my area I run some Star Wars games using the Wizards of the Coast gaming figures and one game I run is The Battle of Grassy Plains now for some who don't know this is the Battle where the Gungan Grand Army met Trade Federation's Droid Army.

So I try to recreate(the best I can)the Battle or at least part of the battle on a tabletop.

To this point I've acquired a large number of Battle Droids and also a large Gungan Army of some 300 figures including Shieldbearers,Kaadu a Faamba and of course Jar Jar Binks.

My first game I ran was in early 2009 with my friend Jay(who passed away in Nov of that year).

I had close to 1,000 figures on the table and the Gungans won this Battle.

I've since run this game 8-9 times over the years and the people who play it really liked it so for me that's the bottom line.

I still don't understand the vile hatred of this character that people feel but for myself I'll keep doing what I've been doing and that's that.

But… on all those interesting wargames… what your friends/oponents think about Jar Jar Binks?

Amicalement
Armand

Well, if you apply the whole "Hero with a thousand faces" Campbellian-myth to the Phantom Menace, it turns out the character which best fits the mould for the hero's journey actually is Jar-Jar.

That's a good question Armand first off we've done 8 or 9 Grassy Plains games and the Gungans have won about half of them and all the people who took part in the games I would say that it's a mix view regarding Jar Jar there were some who liked him,some who didn't and some who didn't care one way or the other.

My friends(except the one who helped me)didn't take part although some helped me during the playtests for the game.

But some of my friends don't like him and some don't care for him but they all understand where I stand and they like me for standing my ground about Jar Jar.

For myself wheither you like Jar Jar or don't like Jar Jar I'm fine with that but when you start saying vile things about how you want to see Jar Jar die is just plain wrong.

I remember when WOTC came out with Knights of the Old Republic in which Jar Jar was included.

I read how some people if they got the Jar Jar figure wanted to destroy the figure some even held a Burn Jar Jar party which I think was over the top.

But there were some who eventhough hated the figure used him in games and found that he was very useful in their games so go figure.

I have to say that all those Gungans I used in the Grassy Plains games are mine which is over 300 but less than 400 and I'm very proud of my Gungan Grand Army.

Yoda does not want you to hate Jar Jar.

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

The assassin ready to get Jar Jar Binks. link

It's truly amazing just how crazy this is with all the efforts to kill a fictional character.

You all need to get a life.

I get it you hate this character but can't you leave it at that and be done with it instead of all the vile and nasty things you've said about this character?

Edit: snipped.

On second thought, never mind.