The ‘Star Wars’ success that left George Lucas feeling disappointed
Seeing as George Lucas is the creative maestro behind the legendary science fiction franchise Star Wars, he might consider himself to be proud beyond his wildest achievements. However, even the all-time greats of the cinematic medium can sometimes experience moments of regret when it comes to parts of their career, as Lucas once found.
Of course, there are few who would argue against the impact that Star Wars has made on the cultural world, even though perhaps not all the films have been aligned in quality. The truth is that pretty much everyone on the planet has heard of the iconic movie series in one form or another.
Still, even despite the fact that Star Wars helped Lucas become a huge household name in the world of cinema (and healthily lined his pockets to boot), the director could not help but be somewhat dissatisfied with the way that some of the movies went down. Speaking with the BBC, Lucas once pointed out how he was “disappointed” with how A New Hope turned out.
“Well Episode IV was not really finished because I didn’t have the money, the time or the technology to finish it. At the time, I was kind of upset about it. People were going, ‘It’s marvellous! How do you feel?’ And I was saying, ‘I feel it’s only 50 or 60% of what I wanted. I’m really disappointed, I’m really sad, it bothers me to watch it'”.
Episode IV – A New Hope was the film that kicked off the entire Star Wars franchise. Simply titled Star Wars upon its original release in 1977, the movie first told the story of the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance, who are trying desperately to destroy the Empire’s Death Star. In addition, it was the first time sci-fi fans were introduced to truly iconic characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.
However, because the film was the first in the line of Star Wars movies, the truth was that Lucas felt that he wasn’t able to make it as he would have wished. Of course, things got better financially for the next movies, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but even then, Lucas felt that they still suffered somewhat.
“And to a minor degree, that was true on the next two films, partly because I was financing them myself, and they were more complicated,” the director admitted. “I did those films in a Special Edition to finish them off the way I meant them to be.” Here, Lucas is referring to the advice he took from his friend and fellow director Steven Spielberg, who told him to do a digital retouch of the first Star Wars movies, as he had done with E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.
The final versions of those efforts, though, were ones that Lucas was again disgruntled with, noting in an interview with Collider, “In those days, social media wasn’t as profound as it is today, but what was just beginning erupted in a loud negative voice saying, ‘How could you ruin our favourite childhood film?'”
It’s clear to see that with the most iconic science fiction franchise of all time to his name, George Lucas often can’t catch a break. However, the truth is that the director and creator is something of a perfectionist, so he was always doomed to feel disappointed in one way or another.
