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  1. Culture
2 November 2012updated 05 Oct 2023 8:23am

Gilbey on Film: Disney saves Star Wars from its creator

George Lucas was always the franchise's worst enemy.

By Ryan Gilbey

It’s been a long time since the words “Star Wars” caused me to experience anything resembling excitement. But the news this week that Disney has plonked down $4.05bn for Lucasfilm, and the rights to make further instalments in the series, prompted from me an unexpected and boyishly shrill bleat of delight. I gave up long ago on the prospect of this franchise producing anything of cinematic worth. With the exception of the excellent second episode, The Empire Strikes Back (yes, yes, chronologically it’s the fifth in the story), the series has zoomed straight from drab (Star Wars, Return of the Jedi) to disastrous (The Phantom Menace), leaving in its wake millions of disillusioned fans—such as the actor Simon Pegg, who has spoken widely of the crushing disappointment of the second trilogy, and of the mistakes made by its creator, George Lucas:

He’s so distrusting of everybody around him; he only trusts himself. That’s a damaging thing for an artist, or for someone who works in a collaborative medium like film. You need to collaborate. Even if you’re an auteur, you still work with other people. In the first three, he clearly had to collaborate. And that’s why those films are better than the last three, when he did it on his own. No one would question him in the end – everyone was frightened of disagreeing with him. When really, he needed someone to say, “Hang on. No, this is a terrible idea.” And he needed to listen to those people. And he just didn’t. So I see it as a bit of a shame; I don’t see him as a villain.

Well, that’s the wonderful news about the Disney buy-out: it removes Lucas from the director’s chair. Lucas was always the Star Wars films’ worst enemy. I realise that without him, they wouldn’t exist. But he was also the man responsible for squeezing the life out of his creation; he lost touch quickly with Star Wars as entertainment and began to prize it only as collateral. And that’s long before we even get around to contemplating his cavalier selling-off of its characters to advertise electrical appliances and mobile phone networks.

With Disney in charge of Star Wars, there is, suddenly, a new hope. Lucas will still serve as creative consultant on the subsequent movies in the series – the first of which will be released in 2015, with more to follow every two or three years. But with the presidency of Lucasfilm handed over to Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg’s producer for 30 years, the field is open for some original and adventurous talents to collaborate on the unthinkable: a watchable, even thrilling new Star Wars film. I believe Disney and Kennedy will be mindful of the widespread criticisms levelled at the last three episodes, and will seek to reinvigorate the franchise with a complete talent transplant. There’s no danger of tarnishing the brand – the brand is creatively defunct. Now is the time for the sort of boldness that led Lucas to launch Star Wars into a sceptical marketplace the first time around.

It can’t be a coincidence that The Empire Strikes Back represented one of only two occasions on which Lucas entrusted the series to another director. (In that case, it was Irvin Kershner; the less successful Return of the Jedi, which erred just the wrong side of the movie/toy commercial divide, went to Richard Marquand.) Empire also benefited undoubtedly from other, more playful hands at the typewriter: Leigh Brackett (whose credits included The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo and The Long Goodbye) and Lawrence Kasdan (who also scripted Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi, and made his own directing debut with Body Heat).

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The resurrection in recent years of Batman and James Bond has demonstrated that the reboot approach can pay dividends, artistically and commercially. If Disney has any sense, it will set its sights on pulling off the same species of reinvention, bringing back to the fold the old fans and their children (and grandchildren). I probably don’t need to say that there’s no place in the new Star Wars for Jar-Jar Binks. But now I’ve said it anyway just to be on the safe side.

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