How George Lucas Lost His Integrity…and Why It’s So Important
betterhumans.coach.me
betterhumans.coach.me
Worth pointing out that they're reviews of the prequels.
Funny coming from the guy who directed the I,II and III which notoriously did not care about making any kind of sense, story-wise, and instead focused on special effects (look at the making-of movies, Lucas was in awe of all the CGI he could do then) with paper-thin characters on screen.
I don't blame Lucas too much. SW worked a lot because of the effects so Lucas tried to push the envelope has he did before. But yeah, drowned in the technical side of making pictures while making the rest utterly bland. But look, fully CGI grass fields.
Sunshine was very good, too - the script had logical holes in it that could swallow an entire galaxy, but the actors were so good, and the atmosphere so dense it was still a really, really good SciFi movie. Again, the special effects were good, but used sparingly.
So not all hope is lost.
I found Sunshine quite poor, too. First the whole story makes no sense (even the largest spaceship you could build would anyway be way too small to do anything meaningful, it's so obvious it's preposterous), and the last scene is a deal breaker: after they succeed, you see a woman and a child playing on the snow. Oh, I thought people were starving on Earth, but no they are actually enjoying the snow and winter sports? So what was the big emergency all about? That was stupid.
This piece is garbage and it shows in the very first section. I've now watched the interview for a second time. The quote about white slavers was an obvious attempt at a joke, but it keeps getting repeated and abused. Why? Because shock-effect at clickbait. It even gets stuff like this on hackernews!
But don't get me wrong. I also don’t think Mr. Robertson is trying to deceive us. I truly believe that he believes in every word he says.
It certainly isn't just link-material for his principles and www.willpowered.co website...
What's the implication? If you really love SW you shouldn't complain when the brand is ruined?
As a willpower coach he could have found the force to not publish this clickbait story.
Probably the worst type of junk if this stuff hiding behind fair criticism to advertise fake talent.
Artist makes something awesome -> people get attached -> artist starts making moves against -original- fan base's interest for the sake of larger financial success -> -original- fans get mad at their success.
This happens in the music industry. An artist will sign to a label where they lose control over their lyrics or thematics and their original following will feel betrayed. But that sense of betrayal can make fans overlook how it was for the betterment of the artist. They attained the success that every artist dreams of! Maybe they made sacrifices to the 'integrity' (however you define it) of their craft, but they reached an extent of financial security and wealth that they always wanted for doing what they love.
"Artists deserve to make good money!!" "Wait no.. artists should feel ashamed of reaching success because it hurts my feelings!!"
I understand where the fans are coming from, but I think it's just as reasonable to view "selling out" as "reaching success"- which makes me happy for the artist.
Much like hollywood white-washing. Why not complain about this kind of thing? Framing it as "original- fans get mad at their success" is not correct - fans are mad that the product changed; They are mad the artist chose not to fight for the integrity of the product, and just took the money straight away.
You equate success with watering down the product, but it doesn't have to be that way. Plenty of artist have fought before.
> They are mad the artist chose not to fight for the integrity of the product, and just took the money straight away.
That product's time is over because the artist says so. No consumer of art is promised a qualitatively consistent stream of content. Don't like it? Then don't buy into it. Just because fans have an emotional attachment to an expired product does not mean it should continue to be created if the artist doesn't want it to be. Why should it? If their new product is not worth the price it goes for, then it will fail.
> You equate success with watering down the product, but it doesn't have to be that way. Plenty of artist have fought before.
And I'm sure plenty have fought and failed as well. If the artist wants to pick the quickest route to financial success, however they define that wealth, then it does have to be that way.
Not every artist wants to go through the "fight" that you mention. And that's fine- they reached the success they wanted because of their hard work that led up to that point.
Sure, artists have the right to sell out. And fans have the right to criticise them for it, and their reputation with the original fan base damaged. What else are you arguing?
I disagree with the idea that artists should be shamed for selling out.
Artists often have to pivot. ZZTop is one; they can be divided into the pre/post beard eras. You can only push the envelope of boogie for so long and then you have to cartoon yourself or otherwise get weird.
"After the massive success of The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas realized that he was making 3 times as much revenue in toy sales than he was for the actual films. Thus, if he could sell more toys, it would mean more projects for Lucasfilm, and even less need for studio financing."
Three paragraphs down it becomes clear that this idea originates in a quote from Gary Kurtz, whose context for these statements is left completely unexplained, leaving the reader to dig further. No evidence is provided to support the conclusion the author has come to and instead the author has inferred Lucas' motivations from the Kurtz quote almost verbatim.
This is but one example of this type of writing in the article. Every point the author makes is supported by similarly spurious reasoning. I suggest future readers to just give this one a pass and not make the mistake of reading something whose opinion you might already agree with and looking past its bad writing.