Very surprised no one has posted this yet.
He basically tells critics to F off and that he puts on a Jar Jar hat when he is alone.
…I suspected as much. 
I was just about to post a link to that same video but you beat me by 20 minutes.
Was it just me, or did anyone else find his neck so very distracting?
you both beat me by a good hour…and his neck was very distracting…
The “short” crack Lucas made on Jon was classic
I just learned something really funny…
George Lucas’s Blockbusting that he is pitching? He didn’t write it.
WTF? Really?
That Fresh Air episode is up, I’ll have to listen to it.
The jiggly neck bit that distracted you folks? Well in certain Occult circles that is known most commonly as “The Well of Souls”, sometimes, in the more obscure references as the “Sack of Tears”. Thats where ol’ Georgie keeps the vanquished souls of all those fans who fell in love with the original trilogy only to be betrayed when the prequels came out. He stores the essence of their suffering in that jiggly bit and feasts every solstice, replenishing his demonic energies.
Lucas was surprisingly funny, self deprecating, didnt take himself seriously at all, I enjoyed it. And of course Jon Stewart was fantastic as usual. Although Im not sure I buy his copout about making the originals as a young man. Anyone with any sense can tell the prequels are much worse from a story point of view.
I dont have any kids, but if I did, and they told me they didnt like A New Hope, but they loved Phantom Menace… Well, frankly, theyd be up for adoption. 
It’s pretty obvious that he didn’t write major plot points of the second two movies beforehand either.
Oh, I thought maybe he was becoming a Hutt… I kept thinking that if Jon got out of line during the interview the floor would drop out from under him and he would fall into a Rancor pit.
You guys are shallow. And petty. And superficial.
…and god help me so am I. I couldn’t look away! I thought it was going to leap off his neck and run away!
Or for him to say…‘RrrrrrrrIBIT’!
Count me in as a superficial one too. I just kept thinking to what he looked like back in 1977. Also, I didn’t think anyone could gain so much weight on just their neck. :eek:
Still, it was a fun interview. Come on, the guy at least has a sense of humor about himself. I have to give 'im credit for that.
Taking yourself lightly, net plus.
Taking your life’s work lightly, not so much…
Not to mention taking lightly the very people who made him the eccentric billionaire he is today. 
Well spoke. His rationalizations have rationalizations. The best comment I read was, “Yeah, when I was twelve the Phantom Menace was the first Star Wars I ever saw and I loved it! Then I grew up and realized it was a pile of garbage.”
I have thought long and hard about this as the prequels anger me to no end. His fundamental flaw was that he set about making a film for children. That was his goal…a film for children. When J.K. Rowling went about writing Harry Potter she did not write it for children, it was simply marketed to children as the publisher could never imagine adults would want to read about magic and wizards. When George Lucas wrote Star Wars he didn’t write it for children, he wrote it for adults and it happened to be accessible to children.
When he wrote Phantom Menace he wrote it for children, not adults. He has said so. He has surrounded himself with yes men and now sees it as virtue, not failure, that he botched his legacy.
/rant off
That’s the thing about George that has always puzzled me. He is so nonchalant about Star Wars. He doesn’t think of it as his life’s work, to him it was a hobby. He has no respect for its influence, IMO. It’s obvious his passions are elsewhere. He treated the prequels (and even V and VI) as a pet project and it shows. He wanted to show off the technical achievements of ILM, to push the envelope. He did that.
I mean I just don’t understand. If you don’t like to write, etc. Why the frak not hire someone else to do it? Craaaap, I woulda done it for free. Oh well.
George does make an interesting point. My generation grew up watching IV, V, VI and love it. The next generation loves I, II, III. But I wonder. Will the next generation grow up and still appreciate and look fondly back on I, II, III?
Yeah, that’s what makes me worry about humanity, and not George.
I think (as was mentioned above) they’ll get over it. But I’m an optimist at heart.
Excepting the lawn. Off.
though the Clone War cartoon is intended for children, I find the writing and story telling a lot better than the prequels. so i wonder if the target audience range is truly the cause of prequel to fall short.
perhaps ultimately it’s like what frakkintalos said. He wrote the prequels just so that he can show off what ILM can do. So from the pod race in Episode I, to hundreds of jedis fighting in a arena in Episode II, they were all designed to fit the story to show off the technical advance.
I do think Episode III was a much better film. Though the lengthiness of the lava fight probably also has something to do with wanting to show off the effects.
Honestly, I don’t think they will Talos. The reason is even giving the prequels a LOT of lattitude, from a story perspective they are not good story telling. Who is the main character? What’s his motivation? Why does he do what he does? You can’t definitively answer those questions for Eps 1-3, you can for 4-6.
And please don’t mention it goes into it in the book. If I have to look to a book to explain what’s going on in the movie, the movie didn’t do it’s job.
To be honest, even the books didn’t help. I think the reason people say that is cuz they allow their own imagination to fill in the blanks for them. I give props to George where he deserves 'em, but the man cannot write dialogue. George, listen to Harrison, “You can write this shit but you can’t say it.”
The Fall of Anakin Skywalker is a pretty easy concept. There are plenty of examples in literature to draw from. The ball was dropped. We (the audience) did not get it, so it failed.
No doubt, the prequels (and originals) are visually stunning. They are magic. It really is a galaxy far, far away. It takes our imaginations there and keeps us wanting more. It’s like meeting an absolutely gorgeous person and your heart races. You are speechless. Then, they open their mouth and utter some trite, shallow, or uninteresting comment. balloon burst
I heard George Lucas on Fresh Air (NPR) two nights ago as well. Good interview but cut kind of short! He spoke a lot about how he never thought he and his friends (Speilberg, Scorsesi “Marty”, etc.) would become the “old men of the movies”. They were just a bunch of guys who loved cinema and wanted to participate in what was at the time a very exclusive club.
Also found this for you Star Wars and Magnum fans!
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