Star Wars: Fox Execs Told George Lucas Young Anakin Would 'Destroy the Franchise'

[Project 501D13R]

As do I. Utterly depressing how his life turned out.

What happened to him?

[Drutt]

The Prequels were excellent from a narrative/story perspective, and were visually excellent too.

The scripts were simply dire, though. When you have an actress as talented as Natalie Portman and even she can't make the role work...

The Prequels were perilously close to being really good movies. If Lucas had brought in some talented script writers and had a few people around him willing to say no (including on casting decisions, such as Jake Lloyd, who was cast over a kid who nailed the audition), they could have been quite excellent. Lucas is one of those people who excels at a macro level, but fails on the more mundane. He needed to delegate and leverage people who had skills he didn't, and he failed to do so.

[Zeta333]

snip

instead, disney managed to do it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

What happened to him?

Was bullied in school. Turned to drugs. Was speeding and crashed his car, went to jail. Is now being taken care of at a mental facility IIRC/or was discharged to be taken care of at home.

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Also the Jar Jar actor was also ridiculed and nearly committed suicide, but thankfully he managed to get out of that dark place. He is now happily married.

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Also sad that Hayden Christiansen got so much shit for his role. If you've seen him in other stuff you know he can act well, but unfortunately it was too much and he decided to bow out of the limelight and stop acting altogether.

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I think Natalie Portman was the only up and coming actor whose acting career survived the Prequel hate. Everyone else was already pre-established (Samuel Jackson, Liam Neeson, Ian McDiarmid, Christopher Lee, etc)

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People try to equate a few fans on twitter mocking Rose Tico as the same thing as the prequel actor bullying, but it was nowhere near on the same level. Not even close.

[Bodonius]

Oh god yes, jar jar so hard life apart from all the money, its like almost a regular person apart from more money

If face showed yes i get your point

[Xilurm]

If it wasn't for Kathleen we wouldn't have anything new with Star Wars. No The Mandalorian, no Rebels, no Clone Wars and none of the other upcoming shows and movies. George was adamant he didn't want to expand the universe beyond the 'Skywalker Saga'.

No. If it wasn't for Disney. She didn't have anythign to do with it. She doesn't give a flying fuck about the franchise. Put Dave Filoni and Jon Favreu in charge and the franchise will be safe.

What a clueless comment that is.

[DeltrusDisc]

Lucas has kind of always been Star Wars' worst enemy, he created an amazing universe but as an actual storyteller he's too narrow minded and overall just not good. I'm no disney lover but he should have given up the reins to someone else a long time ago

Thankfully his narrow-mindedness did not stop him from approving the absolute gobs of EU stuff into full canon.

Then Disney decided to say all of that rich lore and the stories are all non-canon now. Disney ruined something they could have used to their great advantage. The countless amount of books for post-ROTJ could have been used to a massive benefit.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Execs generally don't know what they're talking about.

I mean in this case they were petty on the money the movie more or less ruined the actors life and was the start of lucas getting so much hate that he didn't want to make movies any more.

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Thankfully his narrow-mindedness did not stop him from approving the absolute gobs of EU stuff into full canon.

Then Disney decided to say all of that rich lore and the stories are all non-canon now. Disney ruined something they could have used to their great advantage. The countless amount of books for post-ROTJ could have been used to a massive benefit.

Lucas never approved any thing into canon he flat out said the Eu is its own canon and not part of his own. the only thing he did in terms of EU canon was say they can't show X and Y like anakin having a father.

Disney in contrast has been pulling stuff from the EU into the new canon left and right.

[Ivanstone]

Original series: Good story, good direction, poor effects.

You're kidding right? The Original Series had pretty good effects for its time. Those effects still hold up pretty well to this day.

[Shibito]

Prequel didnt ruin star wars, the late 3 movies did.

[Aurabolt]

Also the Jar Jar actor was also ridiculed and nearly committed suicide, but thankfully he managed to get out of that dark place. He is now happily married.

On a related note.

John Boyega (Played Flynn) recently commented on how his character was treated in the last trilogy. His character had a large role in the first one, a diminished role in the second and was barely there in the third. He said he basically regretted taking the role and felt he wasted his time especially with the character's diminished screen time in the second and third movies. Basically, he felt he was set up to fail. Fortunately for him, his acting career survived the Star Wars movies.

[Bodonius]

Prequel didnt ruin star wars, the late 3 movies did.

Prequel all movies sucked, almost all of it. Some part of the last movies was ok, but with big errors.

[Rendark]

Anakin didn't destroy star wars, Lucas and Disney did. The prequels would have been trash with or with out kid Anakin.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

On a related note.

John Boyega (Played Flynn) recently commented on how his character was treated in the last trilogy. His character had a large role in the first one, a diminished role in the second and was barely there in the third. He said he basically regretted taking the role and felt he wasted his time especially with the character's diminished screen time in the second and third movies. Basically, he felt he was set up to fail. Fortunately for him, his acting career survived the Star Wars movies.

Daisy Ridley seems to be doing pretty well. Ridley is doing a lot of stuff for Disney. Oscar Isaac and John Boyega seem to be doing fine, each getting to star in a really big movie (X-men Apoclaypse, Pacific Rim 2) and getting lots of side gigs. Kelly Marie Tran hasn't done anything big like the other three, but she seems to be doing okay and getting work.

[DeltrusDisc]

I mean in this case they were petty on the money the movie more or less ruined the actors life and was the start of lucas getting so much hate that he didn't want to make movies any more.

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Lucas never approved any thing into canon he flat out said the Eu is its own canon and not part of his own. the only thing he did in terms of EU canon was say they can't show X and Y like anakin having a father.

Disney in contrast has been pulling stuff from the EU into the new canon left and right.

Source? I remember him approving a lot of things as part of the official Star Wars lore.
Disney officially said a bunch of stuff was no longer part of canon and has randomly a few times taken things that were apart of the EU and haphazardly used them, to try to maintain fan happiness, conveniently after they said all that stuff was no longer canon and began disappointing fans.

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Daisy Ridley seems to be doing pretty well. Ridley is doing a lot of stuff for Disney. Oscar Isaac and John Boyega seem to be doing fine, each getting to star in a really big movie (X-men Apoclaypse, Pacific Rim 2) and getting lots of side gigs. Kelly Marie Tran hasn't done anything big like the other three, but she seems to be doing okay and getting work.

Hasn't Boyega kinda been abandoned since he spoke ill of Disney or whatever?

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Anakin didn't destroy star wars, Lucas and Disney did. The prequels would have been trash with or with out kid Anakin.

Precisely.
Including or not including the kid doesn't make up for all of the other junk that ruined the rest of Phantom, not to mention all the issues with episodes 2 and 3.

Have these people not paid attention to the RedLetterMedia Plinket reviews? The movies were just bad. Poorly directed, poorly written.

[George Lucas]

The way I see it:

Original series: Good story, good direction, poor effects.

Prequels: Good story, poor direction, good effects.

Sequels: Poor story, good direction, good effects.

It's like they can only pick 2.

The way I see it:

Original series: Without post production and effects those movies wouldn't have been recognized by anyone. The story was okayish. The direction ranged from bad to a bit above average.

Prequels: The story was again okayish. The direction was bad and the effects at the time were average but aged poorly.

Sequels: The story ranged from okayish to horrendous. The direction ranged from average to irritating. The effects were average for contemporary movies, but how they will age only the future can tell.

[DeltrusDisc]

The way I see it:

Original series: Good story, good direction, poor effects.

Prequels: Good story, poor direction, good effects.

Sequels: Poor story, good direction, good effects.

It's like they can only pick 2.

Are you crazy?
The originals, from the 70s and 80s, had some of the best effects for their time, and because they used so many practical effects, stand up to this day, still looking great. Please specify what effects were poor. For a low-budget franchise (they did not have the money they had available to them in the 90s and 00s for the prequels) they really did well back then.

If anything, I'd argue the trilogy whose effects really aren't standing well to the test of time is the trilogy that relied most heavily on digital effects: the prequels. Watch them now and holy smokes, do a lot of effects look painfully fake. See: Dexter Jexter (or however you spell his dumb name).

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Source? I remember him approving a lot of things as part of the official Star Wars lore.
Disney officially said a bunch of stuff was no longer part of canon and has randomly a few times taken things that were apart of the EU and haphazardly used them, to try to maintain fan happiness, conveniently after they said all that stuff was no longer canon and began disappointing fans.
.

There are two worlds here; There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe—the licensing world of the books, games and comic books.”

– George Lucas, Cinescape, July 2001

“I don’t read that stuff. I haven’t read any of the novels. I don’t know anything about that world. That’s a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions.”

https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2019...20the%20novels.

as to what Disney has done with the canon they said all of the EU were legends and that like a folk tale it may have a grain of truth or may be completely made up, excluding post return stuff obviously. as to what they have brought into canaon there's been a ton of stuff with alot of fan favorites like thrawn.

[talwynn]

Lucas had a great vision for worlds but he is kinda terrible at storytelling.

I totally agree with that. He is a phenomenal producer, but the best Star Wars stories are not written by him.

[threads]

I'm glad I was like 7 when the prequels came out. Didn't notice the cringe dialogue I just liked pod racers and lightsabers. Still like rewatching the prequels cause of nostalgia.