Five ‘Star Wars’ scenes George Lucas hated
A long time ago, in an industry long since changed, the Star Wars series thrived as an unprecedented commercial success, creating T-shirts, lunchboxes, pencil cases and, most importantly, movies that created a staggering amount of excitement. After the release of the first film in 1977, directed by George Lucas, the franchise stirred up great excitement for further sequels later down the line, with The Empire Strikes Back thrilling audiences in 1980 before Return of the Jedi capped off the trilogy in 1983.
As an original trio, the Star Wars franchise is considered to be one of the greatest of all time, but many of the series’ problems sprouted once Lucas decided to return to the world of lightsabers, Jedi and force powers in 1999. Released to a mad amount of fan hysteria, The Phantom Menace was supposed to be a frenetic blockbuster that would carry the Star Wars franchise into the 21st century, but the reality was far different.
These days, the Star Wars franchise isn’t in the best position, with Disney recently shelving Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron movie whilst a number of sub-par TV series rage on. The movies that were released weren’t exactly received very well either, with things going very downhill following the release of The Force Awakens in 2015 as fans turned on the series for its dull tendency to play it safe.
Looking back on almost 50 years of Star Wars, there is much that George Lucas now dislikes, so we’ve decided to collate some of his most regrettable decisions into a handy list below.
Five Star Wars scenes George Lucas hated:
Darth Vader’s reveal
The reveal of Anakin Skywalker’s face from beneath the mask of Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi is known as one of the most iconic moments in the whole of the original Star Wars trilogy, humanising one of the most sinister villains in cinema history. Still, despite fans loving the scene, Lucas was never too happy with the moment, thanks to the eyebrows of the original Anakin actor Sebastian Shaw.
Annoyed that Shaw’s eyebrows were so bushy, confusing the narrative that Vader’s face was badly burnt during his battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar, Luca later backtracked and shaved the brows for the DVD edition in 2004.
Jabba the Hutt’s introduction
Lucas regretted the look of the monstrous baddie Jabba the Hutt in Episode IV – A New Hope the moment the character hit the screen. Without the budget to properly do the villain justice, the first iteration of Jabba was played by Declan Mulholland and appeared just as a normal-looking bloke wearing a large fur coat. Though, in the end, Lucas was entirely unhappy with the scene, cutting it from the film entirely.
Just like our previous entry, Lucas sought to fix this mistake in a later special edition, with the director creating a CGI Jabba for the 1997 release, which was later updated in 2004 to look even better.
Return of the Jedi celebrations
Finally! The Empire has been defeated, Darth Vader became good, and Sheev Palpatine fell to his nasty demise. What song should we play to celebrate this momentous occasion? How about the Ewok ‘Yub-nub’ number? Though loved by fans, Lucas quickly regretted including the celebratory ‘Yub-nub’ song, sung by the Ewoks in the climactic scene of Return of the Jedi, where the good guys embrace and reflect on their victory.
As a result, in 1997, Lucas switched out the ‘Yub-nub’ tune with John Williams’ ‘Victory Celebration’ and added in new footage of celebrations also occurring on other planets like Coruscant, Naboo and Tatooine. Check out the original version of the celebration scene below.
Stopping the Star Destroyer
George Lucas rightfully saw the Star Wars series like his little baby and therefore demanded that he have a once-over on anything related to his franchise. Whilst it might not be from a movie, Lucas wasn’t best pleased with one famous moment from The Force Unleashed video game wherein the antihero, Starkiller, brings down a Star Destroyer from the sky using only the power of the force.
A little too excessive for Lucas, the director made sure to put space between his movie franchise and the video game canon as a result. Such moments were too much of a grandiose expression of fantasy power for Lucas.
The whole of The Force Awakens
Purchasing the Star Wars franchise on October 30th, 2012, for a staggering $4billion, Disney transformed the series with the release of their sequel trilogy throughout the 2010s. This started with The Force Awakens in 2015, which was something of a carbon copy of the original 1977 movie, following the same story beats whilst reusing character types and memorable set pieces.
The film was screened for Lucas ahead of the film’s release, and as stated in the book The Ride of a Lifetime by former Disney CEO Bob Iger, Lucas was deeply unhappy with what he saw, telling the President of LucasFilm, Kathleen Kennedy, “there’s nothing new”.
