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World of Westfahl |
Encyclopedia Introduction |
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Acknowledgements
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(1944– ). American director, writer, and producer.
Produced: The Empire Strikes Back (and story and co-edited,
uncredited) (Irwin KERSHNER 1980); Raiders of the Lost Ark
(and story and co-edited, uncredited) (Steven SPIELBERG
1981); Return of the Jedi (and co-wrote with Lawrence
Kasdan and co-edited, uncredited) (Richard Marquand 1983); Twice
upon a Time (animated) (John Korty and Charles Swenson 1983);
The Ewok Adventure (and story) (tv movie) (Korty 1984);
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (and story and co-edited,
uncredited) (Spielberg 1984); Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
(and story) (tv movie) (Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat 1985); Droids
(animated tv series) (1985-86); Ewoks (animated tv series)
(1985-87); Captain Eo (short) (Francis Ford Coppola 1986);
Howard the Duck (Willard Huyck 1986); Labyrinth
(Jim HENSON 1986); Inside the Labyrinth (tv documentary)
(Des Saunders 1986); Star Tours (short film for amusement
park ride) (1987); Willow (Ron HOWARD
1988); The Land before Time (animated) (Don BLUTH 1988);
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (and story and co-edited,
uncredited) (Spielberg 1989); The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
(tv series) (1992-93); Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood
Follies (tv movie) (Michael Schultz 1994); Young Indiana
Jones and the Attack of the Hawkmen (tv movie) (Ben Burtt
1995); Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's
Eye (tv movie) (Carl Schultz 1995); The Empire Strikes
Back: The Special Edition (and co-edited, uncredited) (Kershner
1997); Return of the Jedi: The Special Edition (and co-edited,
uncredited) (Marquand 1997); five direct-to-video films derived
from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, all with introductory
title The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: The Adventures
in the Secret Service (Vic Armstrong and Simon Wincer 1999),
The Masks of Evil (Dick Maas and Mike Newell 1999), The
Mystery of the Blues (Carl Schultz 1999), The Spring
Break Adventures (Joe JOHNSTON and Matthew Jacobs 1999),
and The Trenches of Hell (Wincer 1999).
Appeared in (all documentaries): The Making of
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" (video) (1981); The Making of "Indiana Jones
and the Temple of Doom" (tv) (Frank Marshall 1984); The Hero's Journey:
The World of Joseph Campbell (tv) (Janelle Balnicke, William Free, and
David Kennard 1987); George Lucas: Heroes, Myths and Magic (tv) (Jane
Paley and Larry Price 1993); The Making of Disneyland's "Indiana Jones
Adventure" (tv) (1995); From Star Wars to Star Wars: The Story of
Industrial Light and Magic (Jon Kroll 1999); The Unauthorized Star Wars
Story (video) (1999); The Stars of Star Wars: Interviews with the Cast
(Kent Hagen 1999).
It would have been hard to predict, back in the 1970s,
that a commentator would someday think of that word in connection with Lucas;
for during that decade, he wrote and directed two films that, to this day, can
astonish viewers with their strong narrative drive and fresh, youthful energy.
First was American Graffiti (1973), which almost qualifies as a fantasy
film due to the artful way that Lucas entirely excises his young protagonists'
parents from the scene, granting the graduating teenagers one magical night to
be the lords of misrule over their small-town world. This was followed by Star
Wars, a universally appealing science fiction adventure that requires no
additional praise in these quarters. Yet even then, there were signs of
another, less appealing Lucas lurking within the magnificent entertainer, for
he had earlier begun his professional career by writing and directing THX
1138, a plodding film that traversed familiar dystopian territory with a
turgid schoolboy earnestness unenlivened by its undeniable visual panache. And
this would be the Lucas everyone would later get to know very well.
Unusually given full rights to all merchandising related to Star Wars,
Lucas emerged from the film as a multimillionaire, capable of doing
anything he wanted to do. And what did he do? First, let us recall
his good deeds. He crafted solid stories and enlisted capable directors
to produce two respectable sequels to Star Wars, and after
teaming up with his old buddy Stephen SPIELBERG
to create Raiders of the Lost Ark, he proved that he was the
only producer in town who could make Spielberg tolerable. (Unfortunately,
he apparently paid less attention to his producing duties when Spielberg
went on to direct the film's inferior sequels.) He entered into a
partnership with the Walt Disney folks to create some enjoyable amusement
park attractions. And, seeking to spread the gospel of state-of-the-art
special effects throughout Hollywood, he founded Industrial Light
and Magic, Inc., to provide first-rate service to innumerable films
of the 1980s and 1990s, permanently raising the industry's standards
and contributing significantly to the development of the computer-generated
effects that can now transform even the direst of films into a stunning
visual experience.
Ah, but there are bad deeds to recall as well. He
burdened Return of the Jedi with his insufferable and shamefully
exploitative new products, the cuddly Ewoks, later paraded before a befuddled
public in two television movies, an animated television series, and endless
merchandise, all of which garnered the popularity they deserved, which was
absolutely none. Unlike producer Spielberg, who would occasionally employed
talented directors, Lucas preferred nonentities, and he soon became a
specialist in producing Dull Fantasy films—live-action, animated, or some
combination thereof. If you are ever suffering from severe insomnia, a film
festival of Twice upon a Time, Labyrinth, Howard the Duck,
Willow, and The Land before Time will provide many hours of
soothing slumber. In the meantime, he took up with mythology scholar Joseph
Campbell, discovered just how Mythic he and his Star Wars were, and
abandoned a previous reclusiveness to pontificate endlessly about his ouevre of
works and other Deep Matters for various documentaries.
As the 1990s progressed, matters only got worse.
Inspired by a sudden determination to address the scandal of young Americans's
ignorance of American history, and somehow envisioning that he had the power to
solve the entire problem by himself, Lucas launched a lavishly expensive
television series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which implausibly
planted its precocious hero amidst various key events and personages of the
early twentieth century as a way to painlessly provide young viewers with the
important historical information that they lacked. However, these contrived
adventures failed, in the end, to be more interesting than a droning lecturer,
although Lucas stubbornly persevered with the doomed project by means of
additional television movies and video rereleases in the apparent belief that
he would eventually make a mint by selling these films to American schools. Unfortunately
for Lucas, despite other bad decisions that have plagued the American
educational system, replacing American history classes with showings of Lucas's
bland epics was, and is, an idea that will never fly.
He then revisited the scene of old glories by dressing
up and re-issuing the three Star Wars films, but all of his added scenes
and special effects only managed to make the films slower, less cohesive, and
worse. For the revamped Star Wars, what was the point of re-inserting a
boring, pointless scene with Harrison FORD's Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt,
replacing the other human actor with a computer-animated alien, other than to
prove that it could be done? But what Lucas did to Richard Marquand's Return
of the Jedi was particularly reprehensible: recognizing that the film's
outcome was a less than happy one for the isolated Luke Skywalker, now bereft
of family, friends, and lovers, Marquand evocatively crafted a subdued
conclusion, with the victorious forces quietly celebrating around a campfire as
Luke wanders off for the cold consolation of friendly waves from his ghostly
departed companions. But Lucas, feeling that there was something insufficiently
gee-whiz about all of this, added some colorful new scenes of spontaneous
celebrations on various other planets and re-edited the old footage to make
things zippier and more cheerful. Marquand's heirs should have sued to have his
name removed from the credits.
All of this jiggering with the past, of course, was
merely the prelude to Lucas's triumphal return to the director's chair at the
helm of a new Star Wars movie, the disappointing Star Wars: The
Phantom Menace, endeavoring to further diminish the impact of the original
film with additional layers of convoluted backstory. Still, one must be careful
not to overreact to this film: it isn't awful, it's lively and colorful and
holds your attention, it's a reasonable way to spend two hours with a bag of
popcorn. But coming from a director who has spoken so much about the profound
mythic meanings that underlie all human narratives, The Phantom Menace
is a stupefyingly meaningless exercise. What is this film attempting to say
about the human condition or the nature of the universe? Why should we care
about the fates of these characters or their worlds? Science fiction is
purportedly a genre of ideas, and even the lethargic THX 1138 recognized
and tried to wrestle with ideas, but The Phantom Menace is utterly
bereft of them; it is as if Lucas, having long pondered the true significance
of humanity's more enduring stories, has lost the ability to devise enduring
stories of his own. Like the frills added to the first three films, The
Phantom Menace appears to have been made simply to show that it could be
done. Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was a bit more lively, and the
role of Jar-Jar Binks was thankfully minimized, but the series seems to be
becoming more and more preoccupied with backroom politics and less with
derring-do, as if all those years in Hollywood were finally draining Lucas's
last bit of spirit.
Still, the Lucas of today knows that he can do no
wrong, and just as he persisted in grinding out Young Indiana Jones adventures
in the face of mounting criticism, he will persist in completing his second Star
Wars trilogy, and then he will likely go back to re-edit and further
"improve" all six of the films. All of these projects are sure to thrill
diehard fans and to earn tons of money. However, for true film lovers, the only
pleasures left to derive from LucasFilms, Incorporated are to seek out American
Graffiti and the original Star Wars, study and cherish them, and
remember that a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, George Lucas was a
filmmaker worth watching.
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