Shame on George Lucas

Rating: Null/10 (3 June 2006)

George Lucas is a soft-spoken man who has devoted much of the past 20 years of his life to caring for his adopted children. It is so clear from interviews with him and his children what wonderful Dad he is. It is too bad though that he didn't take the rest of the children in the movie-going public into consideration when he made this last series of prequels to the earlier Star Wars Trilogy. Before you give into being upset about my comments, please read on.
The original Star Wars was an amazing film not only in it's ground-breaking special effects but also in the fairytale storyline that hearkened back to the heroic stories of myth and legend in a modern way. The wisdom of the force and its positive, binding and loving nature, the unique characters and effective portrayals especially from Harrison Ford, Alec Guiness and the voice of the great James Earl Jones all served to make this a great film and one that we all young and old alike looked forward to seeing more of.
The second film was almost as good and many thought even better, but the third film seemed almost more inclined to "merchandizing" than to a fulfilling climax. But regardless the storyline was a positive one about right overcoming might, love conquering hate. It is true that the most popular character among the children then was indeed Darth Vadar. But remember he was not the main character, he was a dark figure but only in a two-dimensional movie serial way, much like Ming the Merciless was in the 1930's Flash Gordon serials. The only creepy character was the Emporer who we only see in the last installment. But throughout the whole series we see little in the way of overt violence and again the main characters that children would identify with are all the "good" ones on loving side of the force.
Now we come to the newer prequels and Lucas decides to make the main character Darth Vadar. So he spends a decade creating a storyline where the children get to identify with a lead character who everyone knows will be descending into evil. We see a sweet heroic little boy turn into an evil inhuman killer by the third film. Each subsequent film gets darker, more disturbing and the violence is ramped up in a far more unnecessarily overt and explicit manner than it had been in the earlier trilogy. But the key here is that the main character is Darth Vadar. This last film is way too dark for little ones and my children were not allowed to see this one. Especially awful and disturbing was the scene where Darth Vadar is going to kill the helpless children in the Jedi school. I don't think that Mr. Lucas despite his talent as a director really understands the power and impact of what innocent minds see on a movie screen and it is sad. He might have accomplished just as much monetarily and creatively and without all the trauma if he perhaps made Obi-wan the main character and Darth Vadar the second lead. Our focus would be with Obi-wan's journey and we even might have had sympathy for the darker Darth.
Plus much of the dialog is pure crap. I can't believe that Tom Stoppard had actually helped Lucas with the dialog. Some good paycheck Mr. Stoppard for a lousy job. The cast is loaded with talented actors who have proved their skills elsewhere but are miserably directed.
Lucas spent a great deal of time studying with Joseph Campbell, writer of the "Power of Myth". But he seems to have forgotten the power of catharsis and the impact it can have on an audience let alone young ones. I'm not saying it will destroy any child. But do our children need to see anymore abusive characters or scenes? Aren't there enough dark visuals out there on film, t, the news? Lucas should have exercised more sensitivity and responsibility in writing his trilogy. Again I say, seeing a sweet heroic little boy turns into an evil inhuman was one more thing our little ones did not need to see. Shame on you Mr. Lucas for not putting one tenth of the thought into this series that you did into the special effects and the running of your multi-billion dollar corporation. What profits a man to sell his soul for the world? But for "Star Wars"?