“Why would I make any more when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?” Direct quote from George Lucas about Star Wars as printed in the New York Times yesterday. Woah. Read on.
Part of Lucas’ decision comes from the frustration he’s experienced as a result of his new film Red Tails, which tells the story of the all-black Tuskegee Airmen squad from World War II, which has nothing to do with Star Wars. Hollywood executives weren’t thrilled with the idea and one didn’t even show up to the screening. “Isn’t this their job?” Lucas told the NY Times. “Isn’t their job at least to see movies?
“I’m retiring,” he said. “I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff.” But that statement only counts for blockbuster films, Lucas is going to spend time making smaller, more personal films, says the Times.
Though his issues with Star Wars fans stand. The NY Times think studio interference in his early films like American Graffiti and THX 1138 may have something to do with him holding onto the Star Wars reigns so tightly. “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.’”
Though, oddly enough, Lucas hired a Star Wars fan to direct Red Tails. The Times says Anthony Hemingway said, “May the force be with you,” at the end of his first interview for the job and felt like jumping out of a window afterwards because he was so embarrassed.
So no, Lucas doesn’t’ hate all Star Wars fans even if some of them think so. Starting next month, all six films are going to be re-released in 3D.
(via New York Times)
