Take a break from work: watch a trailer…
Did Lucas ruin our childhoods with the prequel trilogy? Is Jar Jar Binks the antichrist? Does any sane person believe Greedo shot first? These questions and others will be explored in this fans-talk-back documentary about George “Insert Expletive of Your Choice Here” Lucas.
Producer Vanessa Philippe, in the press release that accompanied the notice of this trailer’s debut on YouTube, notes that the film is 100 percent independent. But, you know, the same could be said of The Phantom Menace…
The People vs George Lucas is slated for release in 2010.
This sort of thing just makes me want to tell Star Wars fans to get over it. Your favourite director made a bad film or three. Poor you. We’ve all been through it. I didn’t much rate the Coen brothers’ Ladykillers remake, but you don’t see me making a whole bloody documentary about it.
Yeah, Der Bruno is right, because Ladykillers had just as much influence on our collective childhoods as Star Wars.
Sarcasm aside, Der Bruno, the reason you’re not making a documentary about The Ladykillers is because nobody cares. Star Wars is a phenomenon, like it or not, and the fact that we can enjoy the films themselves, or hate them, or enjoy hating them, is one thing. But being able to watch, and enjoy, movies about people who love or hate Star Wars too is something entirely different.
Maybe it’s a little tiresome, but it’s also fascinating.
Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon in a way no other set of movies has ever been.
When you say “Star Wars fans”, you’re talking about half the population of the Western world.
I think a whole bloody documentary is fully justified… and maybe you just don’t have the creative drive to make one about the Ladykillers remake.. (but then again… would anybody watch it?)
Hah Newbs.. looks like I took just a little long to write that post.
This clip from Spaced deserves a mention, I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWDWl_nEcoY
Sarcasm aside, Der Bruno, the reason you’re not making a documentary about The Ladykillers is because nobody cares.
Well, yeah, that’s the whole point of my post – nobody should care. I’ll bet you’d be pushed to find many people outside of a very small fringe of hardcore Star Wars fans who are going to watch this documentary. But it exists. Because there are some fandoms out there whose self-involvement is limitless.
To compare like with like – do you see any documentaries picking apart why the Colin Baker era of Doctor Who misfired, or why the Avengers movie was terrible? No. These things caused Doctor Who and Avengers fans just as much disappointment and anguish as Star Wars fans felt when they sat down to watch The Phantom Menace. The difference is, those fandoms moved on, while here we are, nearly ten years after the release of The Phantom Menace, and people still can’t get over it being bad.
Why is the release of a lame prequel treated as if it’s the Kennedy assassination? Yes, I get it, you all loved Star Wars when you were growing up. Everyone had films and shows they loved when they were growing up. It’s not just you. These days every single franchise gets dragged through the ‘re-imagining’ mangle, and more often than not it proves to be a bad idea. Why is this case special?
movies about people who love or hate Star Wars too is something entirely different. Maybe it’s a little tiresome, but it’s also fascinating.
It’s a lot of the former and very little of the latter.
Holy SHIT! Way to start off the clip with MC Frontalot!
Der Bruno… I don’t think you do get it. Literally every other franchise you’ve brought up was just that… a franchise.
Sorry to repeat it, but Star Wars isn’t. It’s something much, much greater. We’re talking about a cultural phenomenon that we’ve all been more or less constantly exposed to for decades.
You keep talking about ‘Star Wars’ fans as if they’re some kind of fringe group who don’t have any connection to the rest of society, rather than, to a greater or lesser degree, half the people in the Western World.
Half the western world? Really? A billion or more people consider the Star Wars films such a cultural touchstone as to be personally affronted when the quality of the movies wanes, or if their writer/director makes choices they disagree with? Seriously?
I almost didn’t watch the trailer for fear it was going to be another childish bitchfest about George Lucas as a person. I’m glad to see that, as the trailer is cut, it seems more like a critical analysis of said childish bitchfests.
Look, no filmmaker, Lucas included, goes into a project trying to make a bad film. Also, every filmmaker, Lucas included, is trying to make money from their project. Yet these are the attacks against him: he deliberately frelled up the films in an attempt to suck money from poor unsuspecting innocents. If that statement doesn’t seem ridiculous to you, you might want to consider reevaluating your perspective on things.