George Lucas...

Okay, I admit, I am that guy. I am that guy that believes George Lucas had a great imagination for creating the Star Wars universe, and how I admired that he wanted to do things his way. I was that guy, well until the prequels. Then I realized that George actually had people with good imaginations to challenge him on the original prequels. While I didn't really enjoy the prequels because of either the writing not making sense, to the everywhere you look is greenscreen, to the droll acting. I was still willing to say George Lucas did a lot for films, and I still admit that. BUT...my respect is lower than it use to be for him.

In a interview for the NY times Lucas said this:

 When fanboys wailed, Lucas did not just hear the scream of young Jedis; he heard something like the voice of the studio. The dumb, uncomprehending voice in his Socratic dialogues — a voice telling him how to make a blockbuster. “On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie,” Lucas says, referring to fans who, like the dreaded studios, have done their own forcible re-edits. “I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’ ”
Lucas seized control of his movies from the studios only to discover that the fanboys could still give him script notes. “Why would I make any more,” Lucas says of the “Star Wars” movies, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

Okay...he is absolutely right, these are HIS movies, HE made them. YET, he had help, it wasn't just him making them he got advice from the Producer Gary Kurtz, to the director of Empire strikes back Irvin Kershner to writers Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett. It was a group effort but YET these were GEORGE LUCAS' movies, and he has every right to feel that way from the fans. Here is the problem, George Lucas became too big of a force (pardon the pun) in hollywood, this caused the arrogance to become more and more. The issue I have of Mr. Lucas, is there doesn't seem to be acknowledgement of the fans. It has become a disdain for them. This is disturbing because if it wasn't for the 'fanboys' George Lucas wouldn't be as powerful as he is today, and Star Wars would be a B movie. But because fan's saw the original star wars and later Indiana Jones, they saw the talent that Lucas had. After he made those movies and the 90's came Lucas was losing ground to other up and coming film makers. This basically came to him writing the Prequels, granted with different people. Basically no one to challenge him, like Gary Kurtz. Instead we got Rick McCollum who seems to be a cheer leader for whatever George Lucas says.

I know George Lucas would never read this but I want to say this, if you want to know where he went wrong it's when he started to disregard the fan as a person who will go see whatever the title Star Wars is put on. Many of us 'nerds' have spent too much money on his latest projects and now that he says he's retiring I couldn't be happier, I just wish he did it when he was on top and not after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the crystal skull. It's a shame he became a Hemingway in the end...