Morning Rants and How George Lucas is a big fat dumb head
I went from a very passive mood, this morning, to very hot in a matter of two seconds. Kind of strange that something like a news headline can change my mood so quickly. Which leads me to my rant:
Today, when I turned on my work computer and sent it to one of the sites I check news on I came across this news article. In short, so you don’t have to read it unless you want to, George Lucas is now going to sell the original Star Wars trilogy in the original theatrical versions on DVD.
It should be no surprise to anyone that I think the man is a phony and an idiot. I don’t think he could direct his way out of an open box that came to the top of his calves, but I did like the original Star Wars trilogy as they were seen in the movie theatres. However, when he decided to finally release the original trilogy on DVD the only way fans would EVER be able to get a legal copy on DVD was his altered and updated versions of the film. I didn’t want those, I don’t like them, but I bought them anyway because, regardless of what I feel about Lucas, they are good movies. Even with his fiddling with something that was good, great even, the way it was.
He made millions, possibly hundreds of millions, on those DVD’s. I was suckered, as were thousands of other fans of the original trilogy, and I went out and dutifully plopped down my $50.00 to $70.00 because I believed that Lucas was not lying and that he did have control over his movies and that we, the fans, would have to live with our old, in the box, VHS tapes of the original releases. Admittedly, I’m good with that, but not so much that pulling up a webpage and seeing that news release made me happy, ecstatic, or eager to go out and plop down MORE money for something I own in two or three different formats.
What I’ve been learning, of late, is how little some people can be trusted. George Lucas certainly cannot be trusted. When he says something, we, his paying and viewing audience SHOULD NOT believe him. We shouldn’t. He is a liar. I wish there was a way to force him to actually refund the money I’ve shelled out on his movies for more than twenty-five years. I mean, come on, how can we believe anything he says if, when the market conditions seem right, he is going to reverse what he said and do the exact opposite.
Granted, I want the original trilogy on DVD in the original format. They don’t have to be reengineered, reinvisioned, reshot, restored, re-anything. I don’t want or need that. What I do want, and need, is for this man to start being honest with the public.
Which then leads to why Hollywood isn’t making the money it wants to be making right now. The entire industry is not being honest with the viewing public. There is this cottage industry around Los Angeles that tells the studios what they want to hear.
“This will be a blockbuster… and here’s why.”
Movie success is determined on the amount of money that is made at the box office. Not on DVD sales (though, from what I understand, half of the budget for any movie is expected to be recouped in DVD sales). Because of that, the studios will take the same, tired, old plot and the same, tired, old story and reshow it again and again and again to moviegoers until they stop going to the movies and then Hollywood says it’s not their fault and that the movie going public should support their movies no matter what.
Sounds like an industry built on entitlements to me.
Instead of building a product (production) that will entertain and influence the public to want to return time and time again, the exact opposite is true. How tired can you get of the same story being told that you feel it a waste of time to waste $7.50 or $10.00 on a ticket to see a movie? I like to buy movies on DVD and haven’t purchased a recently in theatres movie in months and months. Mostly, I spend considerably less and buy classics that I know I will enjoy and then watch them over and over again.
George Lucas, returning to my rant, doesn’t understand the movie going public anymore than he understands his own trilogy. I’ve made statement after statement after statement after statement about his lack of vision and the lack of creativity. If anything can be said, he’s a great businessman. If nothing should be said it’s that he has this creative vision that surpasses that of the ordinary man.
Needful to say, I am pretty upset about the whole Star Wars thing. It’s not right. It’s not proper. And George Lucas has, once again, made himself into a fool for making statements that, I believe, he had no intention of living up to. It’s all about the bottom line.