A letter to George Lucas

J. Kevin Tumlinson

This started off as a rant about George Lucas and his decision to screw up the original “Star Wars” trilogy. What I’ve found, though, is that I can’t get more than a paragraph into it without foaming at the mouth in anger. Who needs that kind of stress?

So I offer you this calm, relaxing image – think of flowers and puppies and butterflies landing on your nose and Han Solo shooting first and crappy digital effects and…oops. There I go again!

Well, it’s in me begging to be let out, so who am I to fight it?

Why, George, why? Why do you hate me? And all of your other fans? Why do you have such contempt for the movies that made you what you are today? Why, George, why do you hate them all? Why do you feel like the world is better off without what you have created?

Here are the facts, George… Han Solo shot first. Deal with it. He’s a smuggler and, for all intents and purposes, a bad, bad man. He makes his living off of the seedy underbelly of the Universe. He lives in a world where you only survive if you’re willing to cut a few throats. So of course he shot first, George. Greedo would have killed him otherwise. And that reminds me… Greedo isn’t a bad shot, George. He just isn’t. I mean, NO ONE is a bad shot at four feet, man! And supposedly Greedo has been doing this sort of thing for a while. I mean, for God’s sake, George, he and Han knew each other!

Here’s another question for you, George. If your intention was to go back to the body of work you created (and to which you own all of the rights), and fix all of the things that you wished you could have done better the first time around, why-oh-why couldn’t you have fixed the 4-inch jump that Luke makes when he turns on the light saber in Star Wars? I mean, you have Han stepping over Jabba the Hut’s tail (a very crappy digital effect by the way) in the most redundant scene in film history (didn’t Han JUST have this conversation with the pre-charbroiled Greedo? And if Jabba was there the whole time, why was Greedo even IN the movie?) – couldn’t you at least make the light saber reveal less crappy?

I’m sure I’m just being nit-picky, but do we really need all of those alien creatures added to make this seem like another planet? Was it really necessary to add a shockwave ring to the explosion of the Death Star? Does Hayden Christensen really need to replace the other actor who played Anakin in the final scene of Jedi? Isn’t that guy obscure enough as it is without you removing his only part in the movie?

Oh, that reminds me... I wanted to know… why are Obi-wan and Yoda still the same age as when they died? If Anakin reverted back to a younger age, shouldn’t they revert too? Shouldn’t we be seeing Ewan McGregor in that scene? I know, I know… this would have been the age at which Anakin “died,” because he went to the “Dark Side.” OR… and bear with me here for a second… it MIGHT be that you wanted to put your big star in the final scene of the original trilogy in an effort to legitimize the three new films in the series.

Let’s talk about those for a second, George. “Phantom Menace?” “Attack of the Clones?” Why do you want to turn your epic series of films into crappy 1950’s sci-fi dime novels?

Ok, ok, I admit it. I’m disappointed with you, George. You let me down. Me and all of your other fans. You really don’t like us much, do you? Was it the costumes? The props? Was it the fan films or the occasional homage in TV and film? Did our adoration of your work somehow offend you? I guess so.

So here it is… that last film is coming out and I’ll watch it. So will all of the others. And despite your attempts at revisionist history, we will all buy your new releases of the old films. We’ll watch, and we’ll complain. And eventually you’ll face a brand NEW type of fan. If you didn’t like all of the attention before, you are really going to hate it now. Because now, instead of praising you as a genius, we’re going to point out that you really don’t seem to know what makes your films good in the first place.

Do you think “American Graffiti” would have ever gotten any attention if it hadn’t been brought to us by “the man who brought us ‘Star Wars?’” Would we have cared? Would there be a THX or an ILM or a Skywalker Ranch without your success with these films? Would we even know who you are, if you hadn’t first introduced yourself through a teenage farm boy on a desert planet?

Your changes to these films indicates one fact clearly – you don’t really understand why people loved them. We didn’t care about the crappy sky shots or the bad special effects or the absence of digital monsters in the background. We didn’t care that Han Solo was a cut-throat smuggler who shoots first. We didn’t care about any of these things – we just loved the movies. They were fresh and inventive and something unlike anything we’d seen from Hollywood. They redefined cinema. And now you’re redefining it once again. You’re saying to us all that we’d better cherish the moments we see on screen and keep them firmly in our mind because they may start to fade out of existence soon after. You're saying to us that film isn't as permanent as it used to be.

You’re saying to us that we, the people who made you what you are, don’t matter in the least because you are a creator and your creation belongs to you and you alone.

Which, by the way, is complete garbage. The creations have never belonged to the creator. They have always belonged to the world. If you wanted to keep them for yourself, you should have burned the films before they were ever released. You created something and gave it to the world, and it became part of the lexicon. Now you want to scratch it out and write something else in its place. Too bad.

Here is my challenge to you, George. If this truly is all about your creative license, then when you’re finally done with the garbage that is the new Star Wars trilogy you should make another film. You, George Lucas, should write, direct and produce something new and exciting for the world. You, not your “people,” not your company, not your team…you. I haven’t seen anything in 30 years or so, and I don’t expect to see anything any time soon. So let me know when it comes out.

I will happily eat crow.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Publisher and Editor for ViewOnline Magazine at www.viewonline.com. He is a Houston Baptist University graduate with degrees in English and Communications. You can reach him by e-mail at kevin@viewonline.com. He likes his crow with soy sauce and a little brown mustard.