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 Star Wars / 6318
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Subject: 
Re: Senator Palpintine / Emperor
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.starwars
Date: 
Thu, 24 Feb 2000 17:58:02 GMT
Viewed: 
501 times
  
Just to add my useless two cents ...

I consider Lucas to be the greatest example of anti-pandering there is.  He
financed the production of Episode I (and ROTJ, I believe) with his own money, for
that express purpose: so that he could do exactly what he wanted to do.  He really
had very little monetary incentive to pander to anybody in particular:  Pepsi Co.
signed some huge contract prior to the movie's release for the right to use Star
Wars characters in advertising ... I don't want to cite numbers that will be wrong,
but I do recall the scale being the same order of magnitude of the total domestic
movie ticket sales.  I can check the number, too, since I have article on a shelf
at home.

Anyways, all that being said, I honestly feel that Lucas does things the way he
does them because that's the way he WANTS to do them.  Not because he has anybody
else to please, or because there are voices whispering in his ear.  In an age where
movie endings are more often than not dictated by the feedback of screening
audiences, I think that Lucas's work is the closest that theater has been to ART in
a long time; an unfettered expression of a personal vision.  Don't confuse that
with ENTERTAINMENT ... movies have fulfilled that role consistently.

Maybe he puts Jar-Jar in because he thinks it adds something to the movie, such as
enjoyment for people (or 10-year-old boys, which Lucas says is really what the
movies are targetted for).  If so, that's a personal decision, not "pandering",
which entails some manipulation ...  e.g. would be putting Jar Jar in to make
people like the movies, or make them buy the products, or simply to go see the
movie in the first place.

In any case, you can choose to like or not like all or part of Lucas's movies ...
but to be disappointed in any case seems ridiculous to me.  Nobody looks at an
artists paintings and says "I'm really disappointed with the artist because I don't
like this piece".  People may or may not like a piece, but they accept that as
indicating whether or not it speaks to them personally.  The Star Wars movies are
rarities, in that they are like art in that sense.  If people say that Lucas should
or should not have done something, then they're really complaining that Lucas
*DIDN'T* pander to them, and instead expressed his own vision.

Anyways, I could rant for much longer, but this is already ridiculously long, and
only peripherally tied to LEGO at this point.  Please forgive my impassioned speech
:)  Now, back to the brick ....

shaun ;)



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Senator Palpintine / Emperor
 
Very well said Shaun, very well said. -Will (...) (24 years ago, 25-Feb-00, to lugnet.starwars)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Senator Palpintine / Emperor
 
(...) Millions of whiny kids will love it if he is. But I'm going to stop now before this denegerates into another "Ewoks are cool" "Ewoks are stupid" spiraling thread of despair. James (URL) (24 years ago, 24-Feb-00, to lugnet.starwars)

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