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Disney CEO admits Lucas hated The Force Awakens...


jimmorrisson

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...in addition to gaming Lucas to sign anti-disparagement agreements which explains Lucas walking back his likening Disney to "white slaver" and the terse review ("It was a beautifully-made movie") of The Last jedi. All of this comes from Disney CEO Bob Iger's autobiography.

 

Below are a few excerpts the Bob Iger book:

 

• Early on, Kathy brought J.J. and Michael Arndt up to Northern California to meet with George at his ranch and talk about their ideas for the film. George immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren’t using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations.

 

• The truth was, Kathy, J.J., Alan, and I had discussed the direction in which the saga should go, and we all agreed that it wasn’t what George had outlined. George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded.

 

 

• At some point in the process, George told me that he had completed outlines for three new movies. He agreed to send us three copies of the outlines: one for me; one for Alan Braverman; and one for Alan Horn, who’d just been hired to run our studio. Alan Horn and I read George’s outlines and decided we needed to buy them, though we made clear in the purchase agreement that we would not be contractually obligated to adhere to the plot lines he’d laid out.

 

• He knew that I was going to stand firm on the question of creative control, but it wasn’t an easy thing for him to accept. And so he reluctantly agreed to be available to consult with us at our request. I promised that we would be open to his ideas (this was not a hard promise to make; of course we would be open to George Lucas’s ideas), but like the outlines, we would be under no obligation.

 

• I’d been so careful since our first conversation not to mislead him in any way, and I didn’t think I had now, but I could have handled it better. I should have prepared him for the meeting with J.J. and Michael and told him about our conversations, that we felt it was better to go in another direction. I could have talked through this with him and possibly avoided angering him by not surprising him. Now, in the first meeting with him about the future of Star Wars, George felt betrayed, and while this whole process would never have been easy for him, we’d gotten off to an unnecessarily rocky start.

 

• Just prior to the global release, Kathy screened The Force Awakens for George. He didn’t hide his disappointment. “There’s nothing new,” he said.

 

• In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies. In this one, he said, “There weren’t enough visual or technical leaps forward.” He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t appreciating the pressure we were under to give ardent fans a film that felt quintessentially Star Wars.

 

• We’d intentionally created a world that was visually and tonally connected to the earlier films, to not stray too far from what people loved and expected, and George was criticizing us for the very thing we were trying to do. Looking back with the perspective of several years and a few more Star Wars films, I believe J.J. achieved the near-impossible, creating a perfect bridge between what had been and what was to come.

 

 

• Even though he had issues with the film, I thought it was important for George to be at the Force Awakens premiere. He didn’t want to come at first, but Kathy, with the help of George’s now-wife, Melody Hobson, convinced him it was the right thing to do. Among the last things we negotiated before the deal closed was a non-disparagement clause. I asked George to agree that he wouldn’t publicly criticize any of the Star Wars film we made. When I brought it up with him, he said, “I’m going to be a big shareholder of the Walt Disney Company. Why would I disparage you or anything you do? You have to trust me.” I took him at his word.

Edited by jimmorrisson
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I cant imagine why or how Iger thought he could go into a totally new frontier and believe he or just anybody else could recreate the Lucas magic. Bringing Abrams in was an even worse idea.

 

https://imgur.com/H9uPWpj

 

I'll take JJ over RJ any day.

 

I'll take unoriginal Star Wars over longest and most pointless chase scene I have ever seen.

 

Of course, I'd be thrilled if they just sacked KK, and gave her position to Dave Filoni. He seems to be the last one to really get Star Wars at Lucasfilm (no great surprise considering how closely he worked with Lucas)

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Just prior to the global release, Kathy screened The Force Awakens for George. He didn’t hide his disappointment. “There’s nothing new,” he said.

 

• In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies. In this one, he said, “There weren’t enough visual or technical leaps forward.” He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t appreciating the pressure we were under to give ardent fans a film that felt quintessentially Star Wars.

 

• We’d intentionally created a world that was visually and tonally connected to the earlier films, to not stray too far from what people loved and expected, and George was criticizing us for the very thing we were trying to do. Looking back with the perspective of several years and a few more Star Wars films, I believe J.J. achieved the near-impossible, creating a perfect bridge between what had been and what was to come.

 

Lucas' criticisms are surprisingly accurate here. I say 'surprisingly' because Lucas is not a good screenwriter and the best movies in the OT were ones that he didn't have much say in [ESB] or had extensively rewritten from feedback [ANH]. Yes, both TFW and TLJ were basically boring remakes of the first two movies of the OT. That being said, I wouldn't have trusted Lucas to do a better job. Anyone ever read the Dark Horse adaptation of 'The Star Wars'? His original vision of what Star Wars would be like was grotesquely, Ed Woodesque bad. Now, had they hired Zahn and Luceno, that would be a different story.

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I'll take JJ over RJ any day.

 

Agreed but even better give me a trilogy with the Nolan Brothers. They should know to leave the creative director or general director as the same over a trilogy since creative differences alter throughout which we saw.

 

 

Of course, I'd be thrilled if they just sacked KK, and gave her position to Dave Filoni. He seems to be the last one to really get Star Wars at Lucasfilm (no great surprise considering how closely he worked with Lucas)

 

I somewhat agree i think KK should be done for and gone, whilst I agree Dave is probably the best suited in the roster however he isn't exactly the greatest, he did destroy a lot of lore, ripped off a lot and wasn't exactly creative when doing so. He did rewrite an awful lot of the lore surrounding aspects already touched upon. He is still a company shill and that won't change he never truly thought about the fan base when he messed with the original clone wars nor did he care enough to take Rebels in another direction which he could have or at least stomped his feet a little to retain creative direction and vision.

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Agreed but even better give me a trilogy with the Nolan Brothers. They should know to leave the creative director or general director as the same over a trilogy since creative differences alter throughout which we saw.

 

 

 

 

I somewhat agree i think KK should be done for and gone, whilst I agree Dave is probably the best suited in the roster however he isn't exactly the greatest, he did destroy a lot of lore, ripped off a lot and wasn't exactly creative when doing so. He did rewrite an awful lot of the lore surrounding aspects already touched upon. He is still a company shill and that won't change he never truly thought about the fan base when he messed with the original clone wars nor did he care enough to take Rebels in another direction which he could have or at least stomped his feet a little to retain creative direction and vision.

 

I never did like the original clone wars so I guess I'm not really salty about that.

 

And considering he created TCW in conjunction with GL, I don't think we can really blame Dave for that anyway.

 

Also, I'm pretty sure he stomped his feet a lot to bring in EU material. Considering how strongly Disney wanted to go their own direction, I can just imagine him sulking around Lucasfilm until they let him bring Thrawn back to life (and I think he did an excellent job remaining true to his character).

 

Hard of course to say how many of the more questionable decisions (looking at you pacifist mandalorians and space whales...) were his.

Edited by MadDutchman
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I'll take unoriginal Star Wars over longest and most pointless chase scene I have ever seen.

 

In my opinion they should apologize the fans for Star Wars: The Last Jedi and recreate the movie, its really a terrible one, which does not make any sence story wise and also reality wise. Its just unimaginable that they would be chasing a cruiser that way, without having anyone else hyperspace in front and block them. Also they left the ship, hyperspaced away and came back, totally ridiculous. The story consistency also totaly off, where in the first movie the story started taking some shape, but Last Jedi messed it up completely. I can only wonder what the last part will bring.

 

Star Wars IV was a great movie, Star Wars V was the best and VI was OKisch. I personnaly liked the prequel trilogy, but I have to admit that III was quite weak. Thats why I couldnt imagine Lucas making Episodes VII, VIII, IX. What Disney has done is just wanting to continue the franchise to get their money back and make additional money from it.

Edited by merovejec
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Well George Lucas and the writers and editors hated The Phantom Menace.

And I bet he didn´t like the original trilogy because he didn´t have full control.

I think he just can´t be pleased :)

Edited by Ahwassa
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It's been reported that (at least one of) Lucas's plans for a sequel trilogy at the time of the sale was that they "were going to get into a microbiotic world. But there's this world of creatures that operate differently than we do. I call them the Whills. And the Whills are the ones who actually control the universe. They feed off the Force. If I'd held onto the company I could have done it, and then it would have been done."

 

If that's even remotely true, then I have to say I'm pretty glad that Kennedy/LucasFilms/Disney/Whoever ended up going in a very different direction -- even if Lucas did feel "disappointed" or even "betrayed" by the move.

Edited by DarthDymond
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