George Lucas Was Disappointed With Lack of Originality in ‘Force Awakens,’ Disney Chief Bob Iger Says
Posted: 2019-09-24 08:14pm
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/09/georg ... 202176208/“Star Wars” creator George Lucas wasn’t a fan of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” when he first saw it, Disney CEO Bob Iger claims in his new book, “The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO of The Walt Disney Company.” The recently published biography includes plenty of juicy tidbits about Iger’s past and current run at Disney, including a number of compelling anecdotes about the many big names and creative types in his orbit. After the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney in 2012, that list came to include Lucas, whose original space opera has become a driving force for the House of Mouse.
And yet Lucas wasn’t too jazzed about the first film to come from the Disney acquisition, the J.J. Abrams helmed hit “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” In his tell-all (via Screen Rant), Iger writes of Lucas’ first viewing of the film: “Just prior to the global release, Kathy [Kennedy] screened ‘The Force Awakens’ for George. He didn’t hide his disappointment. ‘There’s nothing new,’ he said. In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies. In this one, he said, ‘There weren’t enough visual or technical leaps forward.'”
According to ComicBook.com, the new film didn’t really stand a chance with Lucas from the outset. Elsewhere in the book, the outlet finds a mention of Lucas’ initial reaction to Disney’s planned plots after the 2012 purchase of Lucasfilm, which also didn’t go over so well with the creator. As ComicBook.com notes, when Disney bought Lucasfilm, the purchased included three “Star Wars” outlines for new films, though Disney was not contractually obligated to use them going forward.
When Disney met with Lucas to tell him what they were planning for their new films, Iger writes, “George immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren’t using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations. … Now, in the first meeting with him about the future of ‘Star Wars,’ George felt betrayed. And while this whole process would never have been easy for him, we’d gotten off to an unnecessarily rocky start.”
And yet, there’s some hope for a final Skywalker Saga film that suits Lucas’ sensibilities. Earlier this year, Abrams told IGN that Lucas assisted with the script for his upcoming series-ender “The Rise of Skywalker,” also directed by Abrams.
In April, Abrams told the outlet, “This movie had a very, very specific challenge, which was to take eight films and give an ending to three trilogies, and so we had to look at, what is the bigger story? We had conversations amongst ourselves, we met with George Lucas before we started writing the script. … These were things that were in real, not debate, but looking at the sort of vastness of the story and trying to figure out, what is the way to conclude this?”
After writing and directing the original “Star Wars,” Lucas received story credits on both “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” while handing the reins to other directors. He then wrote and directed the entire prequel trilogy, which was highly successful financially but not as well reviewed as the first three films.
Iger’s book, “The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO of The Walt Disney Company,” is available now. Disney will release “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in theaters on December 20.
So there we have it, confirmation that Lucas disliked Ep 7 and what the sequel trilogy is about, and the story didn't really "evolve" from the original drafts. Sure, SOME aspect of Lucas' concepts and ideas might have ended up in the movie, but it seems that Bob Iger himself is saying they actually disregarded most of what Lucas wrote.
So people who keep defending Disney and LFL in saying how the producers and directors followed the ideas set up by Lucas is basically wrong and falling for corporate speak far too easily.
And I strongly agree with the statement made by Lucas in saying there is nothing new about the sequel movies. I think the "spirit" of SW has never been about sand-dunes, rusty spaceships and "realistic saber duels". I think that's just what some of the OT fans wanted, and those OT fans sabotaged the potential of the SW franchise moving forward because they want to recreate the 1970s and 80s.
The "spirit" of Star Wars has been about offering the viewers an escape into a larger universe with fascinating stuff to see visually. Without the visuals and groundbreaking SFX, SW would just be a fairly run-of-the-mill story we've heard a thousand times. It's Lucas' ability to set the story within an interesting universe that made SW what it was for many people.