In an interview with Charlie Rose, George Lucas tried to explain “the downside” of his Star Wars movies. Since his movies were so successful, too many movie producers decided to “only do something that’s proven,” to copy previous movies.
“We’ve gotta remember: Star Wars came from nowhere. American Graffiti came from nowhere. There was nothing like it. Now, if you do anything that’s not a sequel, or not a TV series, or it doesn’t look like one—they won’t do it.” Lucas complained: “It really shows an enormous lack of imagination, and fear of creativity, on the part of an industry.”
Yes, many movies nowadays have sequels. But Lucas is utterly wrong on the history. It’s just not true that Star Wars “came from nowhere.” First, there were movies and TV shows about adventures in space. In the 1970s, Lucas wanted to make a new movie about Flash Gordon. From 1936 to 1940, there had been several movies about Flash Gordon. But Lucas failed to acquire the rights, so he had to concoct his own story. Hence, Star Wars echoes some of the same themes from Flash Gordon: space travel to various worlds, rebels fighting against an empire, a city in the clouds, etc.
Likewise, Star Wars echoes elements from other science fiction works and movies such as Metropolis (1927), Buck Rogers (1929), Forbidden Planet (1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Silent Running (1972). For example, the design for C-3PO is clearly derived from the robot in Metropolis. And one of its characters has a prosthetic hand in a black glove, like Darth Vader.
Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney.
And now, he’s disappointed that Disney chose not to take his ideas for the new movies. And, he complained: “They wanted to make a retro movie. I don’t like that. Every movie I work very hard to make them completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships, make it new.”
One might think: “Yeah, the new Star Wars movie copies many of the elements from the previous ones…”
But actually, Disney is doing what Lucas himself did!
Lucas made six Star Wars movies and he repeatedly copied many of the same elements. There was a Death Star in the 1977 movie, and it was blown up by the rebels. Then there was a Death Star in the 1983 movie, and it was blown up by the rebels!
Lucas says that he made the movies “completely different, with different planets…” But again, the planet Tatooine showed up in FIVE of his six Star Wars movies! Lucas might be impressed with his imagination about his various planets. But think about it: his planets are mostly just environments from Earth: a desert planet (Tatooine), an icy planet (Hoth), a swamp planet (Dagobah), a forest planet (Endor), etc.
Lucas should not be frustrated with Disney. They’re doing what he did. And they’re doing it pretty well—better than what Lucas did in his prequels.
I congratulate Lucas for making Star Wars and for selling it. And I congratulate J. J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arndt for writing the latest movie. What they did works pretty well, and I really liked it.
Still, in another article, I’ll complain about the lack of originality in the new movie!
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