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Leave George Lucas alone, for the love of Yoda!

Posted By Chris Matarazzo On In artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo,movies | 10 Comments

You know what I am sick of? George Lucas bashing. That’s what I am sick of. That said, I don’t think George Lucas is the Jesus of movie makers. I like Star Wars well enough. I really like Indiana Jones. The guy is great, but I’m not going to declare him the Shakespeare of Hollywood. He makes good, entertaining films with enough depth that they hold up for numerous viewings. What more can you ask?

But can we admit something, please? The original Star Wars trilogy is not the apex of film-making. Are those films the equals of Citizen Kane or Lawrence of Arabia or, heck — Schindler’s List? No. Of course they are not.

So, why, when Lucas made the second trilogy, did people act like he was spitting on the grave of Mother Theresa? — or even like he intentionally demolished a church he had built so many years before?

The Indiana Jones films are better than Star Wars, I think. This is certainly due to Spielberg’s genius. But I would wager that even Spielberg doesn’t see them as his finest work. I’m sure he is proud of them. He should be. They are iconic and wildly entertaining. But, as an artist, I think he has reached higher vistas.

So, why, when he and his pal George made Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did people react as if they had laid a big fart and floated a fedora on it? Why do they seem to act as if the two actually conspired to make a bad movie?

Oh, I’ll tell you why. But not yet.

Cut to earlier today and the question that inspired this article: My seven-year-old, a huge Indiana Jones fan (and a lad committed, he says — albeit not without some disappointment — to being an archaeologist one day, even if they don’t really carry guns and whips), asked me, “Dad — what was the very first Indiana Jones movie?” It was then that it occurred to me: the kid simply did not experience Indy the way my fellow forty-somethings and I did. We saw one movie and waited for the next and the next and the next, etc. I made sure my boys saw them each, the first time, sequentially, but, now, they pop them in all of the time and watch them over and over, including Crystal Skull and even “Young Indiana Jones.”

See, we oldies waited, and as we waited, we built up expectations, learned quotes, bought Yoda T-shirts (and, consequently spent prom night with a bag of Doritos and a Lindsay Wagner [1]poster) and, over the years, allowed the earlier movies to grow into legendary megaliths in our own minds. The question is: are the earlier Indy movies and the Star Wars original trilogy really that much better than the new ones? — or better at all?

Granted, there are things not to like in the new ones. CGI in the new films makes certain things hokey. Jar-Jar is annoying. But, as a whole, are they really worse as films? (I can never, ever again watch the desert chase scene in Last Crusade. Enough, already. And those teddy bear guys in Jedi? Cripes.)

(Somewhere, a guy with a goatee and a soggy Slurpee cup just sputtered and said, “Really? Sure. Yeah. This guy should be critiquing Star Wars,” called his friend by voice-command on his new Droid and said, “Yeah, Cooper? Dude. That arts dope on When Falls the Coliseum just called Ewoks ‘little teddy bear guys’!” — to which, they sang out, in unison: “Tool!”)

Wait for it . . . Here come the flood of reasons why Lucas has “lost it” and why I am an idiot to compare the new films to the old ones, blah, blah, blah. And I accept everyone’s opinions, but I also accept that even though there is a lot to criticize about the old films, no one does it because the movies are thought of  as classics — which they truly are. But the viewing public is much less likely to see a follow up to a classic as a future classic than they are to pre-judge it as a substance-less cash-in.

Well, there is only one way to really answer my question. When my boys are my age and their generation of Indy and Star Wars fans have lived into adulthood with both the originals and the sequels, we will ask them. It will be interesting to see the opinions of mature minds that have taken in the movies as a group and not as cinematic miracles that became a challenge fueled by decades of idealization — and quoting. Lots of quoting.

Chris Matarazzo’s ARTISTIC UNKNOWNS appears every Tuesday.

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Chris Matarazzo [5]

Chris Matarazzo is a writer, composer, musician and teacher of literature and writing on the college and high school levels. His music can be heard on his recent release, Hats and Rabbits [6], which is currently available. Chris is also the composer of the score to the off-beat independent film Surrender Dorothy [7] and he performs in the Philadelphia area with the King Richard Band. He's also a relatively prolific novelist, even if no one seems to care yet. His blog, also called Hats and Rabbits [8], is nice, too, if you get a chance...