George Lucas is retiring from blockbusters.

Bullwinkle wrote: Except for maybe another Indiana Jones film. He's going to make small, personal films. He explicitly says he's done with Star Wars because of fans critical of the series.

So...thanks, fans critical of the series!

He has been claiming the bit in bold for at least 10 years now. So far he hasn't come up with shit.

I would like to put on record the most colossal ass stretching fuck you to that fat necked bearded cunt who has done his best to completely rape the shit out of something magical, that I now understand must have either been an accident or the result of some other fucker who never got the credit for it. I hope you choke to death on your midichlorians you fucknut, and fuck every single person involved in any way with any of the new films, or retools of the originals. That is all.

And here I was worried that anvil would never come out of his shell.

I prefer ANY of the OT lightsabre duels to ANY of Yoda's lightsaber seizures. Not fun to watch and just downright boring and terrible.

Darth Maul is the only really impressive saber-user cuz the guy that plays him is good and looks natural moving around with one.

The OT saber fights feel very real, raw and viseral. They feel clumsy which is great because Luke doesn't know what he's doing and Vader hasn't used his saber for anything except cutting cheese for the last little while. He hasn't had any youngling padawans to carve up and has grown lethargic. You can't help but think that Palpatine in Return of the Jedi while watching Vader fight his son and looking all slow is thinking to himself, "dang, I need a new sith. This is nothing like my first wife, Darth maul"

For those of us that are a little older, try to remember how BAD ASS Obi-Wan seemed when he had to pull out his saber in the cantina to settle everyone the fock down. It was like the ultimate trump card. I don't want to have to use this thing but you give me no choice. It's SOOOOO cool.

The prequels RUIN this magic because the jedi are honest-to-God using the sabers every second they can. From the padawans swinging them around with the blast shields on inches from each other's heads to the infamous early scene where Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon pull out their sabers on the Trade Federation blockade ship because THEY HEARD A NOISE. It's SO STUPID

I think this guy deserves our respect. I'm going to wish the creator of Star Wars, one of the most imaginative movie storytellers of his time, a happy retirement. There's a reason his movies lasted as long as they did and became embedded in pop culture. The guy was a fucking visionary. His special effects were miles ahead of anyone else at the time. He literally dragged the rest of the movie industry into the computer era. He co-founded Pixar which did ground breaking f/x for Star Trek: the Wrath of Khan and then got snapped up by Steve Jobs.

So what if his later stuff sucked? His legacy is already well established.

On the other hand, a once great artist doesn't get a pass on his later in life douche-baggery just because he once worked magic.

If Leonardo DiVinci went back 20 years later to monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie and used some spray paint to put a picture of Kermit the Fucking Frog onto the Last Supper...you wouldn't say "Oh well, his painting..guess he can do what he wants."

No one's giving him a pass. Everyone knows he got stale but that doesn't wipe out his early accomplishments. He made a significant contribution to film. Other people built on that.

mikecl, no one is talking shit about 1970's George Lucas. We're talking shit about the Lucas that has surface in the last couple decades who has worked tirelessly to destroy the reputation of 1970's George Lucas. We loved that guy, we hate this new guy. He does not deserve our respect.

BOOOOOOOOOOOO to all you prequel lightsaber battle haters!

I fucking LOVED THEM. Why? Precisely because they weren't "real" sword fights. Jedi and Sith are fucking super-beings in that universe. They are Metachlorian-juiced out warriors that should be able to the crazy-assed shit we see in the PT.

I loved seeing the Force push, saber throws and aerial maneouvers. That was ridiculous at times (see Yoda vs...anyone) but it was highly entertaining.

His name no longer has any meaning, he's more jugular than man now, twisted and evil.

The best lightsabre fight ever is Vader lecturing Luke while he beats his ass down. Nothing can beat that and it has nothing to do with the acrobatics.

THX 1138 is still his best film either way. Although I heard he's fucked that one over too, haven't seen the new version.

mikecl wrote: No one's giving him a pass. Everyone knows he got stale but that doesn't wipe out his early accomplishments. He made a significant contribution to film. Other people built on that.

Its not about him getting stale...its more about him trying to completely change his accomplishments. The fact that he changed his movies and then made a big fuss to not let the originals be seen is what pisses me off. How long did it take for the original trilogy to come out on DVD in its untouched form? I missed them on DVD and now they are out of print! Now that blu-ray is out I have to wait all over again. I still have to watch this shit on VHS if I want to enjoy it they way it was meant to be seen lol.

Also the special effects on the Rancor looks better than any of the CGI stuff in the prequels...just saying.

Yeah, I'm mostly with Egg Shen and repoman, here. I've been thinking about this, and as far as I can tell, Lucas is unique. Lots of creators did something great at the beginning and then turned stale. But I can't think of another one who then went back and ruined the only work that made him great, not just by tainting it with a terrible backstory, but by actually altering the original work and then (essentially) only letting the new stuff be seen. Has anyone else ever done this? (Spielberg pussified E.T., but that's only one film among many.)

Although mikecl does have a point...the immediate and future influence of Star Wars on film can't be erased, regardless of what Lucas did to it later.

The difference between Lucas and Spielberg is that Spielberg almost instantly regretted that pussification of ET, apologized for it, said it was a mistake, and made the original version available on the same DVD as the fucked up one.

There is no way in hell George Lucas can be credited with the original trilogy. I haven’t done any research on this and I don’t need to. This just simple common sense. Suppose you hear a kid playing a guitar half decently, and said kid then to gives you a CD and tells you to “listen to this recording I made”. You play the CD and out comes a kickass solo the likes of which few people in the world can produce. What’s the only logical explanation? The kid is trying to pull a Milli Vanilli on you is what. Or maybe I should say “pull a George Lucas”.

I mean c’mon, this assclown somehow managed to get poor performances out of Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, and Liam Neeson. Those are four Oscar nominees people. And somehow those are the only Hollywood films I’ve watched where it feel like I’m watching a Spanish Soap. For those who have been spared the horrors of a Spanish Soap, the acting in those is a hair above a decent high school play.