It’s being pretty widely reported that George Lucas is hanging up his spurs and retiring… It makes a good headline:
“George Lucas is Ready to Roll Credits”
or even more boldly: “George Lucas to Retire”
but if one reads the New York Times profile of George Lucas, you don’t get the idea he’s planning to retire at all. He’s not even going to quit filmmaking. In, what I think is great news, George Lucas has said that he’s going to return to the more personal filmmaking of his early days.
How many of you have actually watched THX-1138 or American Graffiti? Both are masterpieces of personal filmmaking. If George Lucas can come back to that, I welcome the change. As much as I unreservedly love the Star Wars movies (all 6 of them), his earlier directorial efforts are better films, each rating high on my list of favorite movies.
What Lucas is backing off on is the blockbusters because we’ve chewed him up and spit him out. (Well, not me, but those who bitched and moaned the loudest about the films he made.)
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?”
Can you blame him?
I say bring on the personal films. I’ll be first in line to see them.