STAR WARS: EPISODE VII represents the first film in George Lucas‘ iconic saga to be financed and created by a major studio. Prior to this film, the six preceding movies were basically the world’s biggest independent films with Lucas funding their creation and 20th Century Fox handling distribution. Now that Lucas is out of the movie-making business, he has no problem sharing some harsh words regarding how he sees the current state of the industry.
Sitting down with Charlie Rose during an interview for Chicago Ideas Week, Lucas explained the problem with Hollywood studios.
“You’re selling creativity. Raw creativity from talented people. Now, the problem has always been the studios. Although the beginning of the studios, the entrepreneurs who ran the studios were sort of creative guys. They would just take books and turn them into movies and do things like that. Suddenly all these corporations were coming in. They didn’t know anything about the movie business.”
“The studios went back to saying, Well we don’t trust you people and we think we know how to make movies,’” Lucas said. “The studios change everything all the time. And, unfortunately, they don’t have any imagination and they don’t have any talent.”
Lucas goes on to explain the only reason he was able to get STAR WARS made was because the head of 20th Century Fox really liked AMERICAN GRAFFITI and trusted Lucas’ vision. Unfortunately today, we often see studios at odds with visionary directors like David Fincher and Darren Aronofsky because they want more control than the studio is willing to give up. But, we do often get places like Marvel where there is a creative vision that lends itself to some unique movies like GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY which share the same spirit as George Lucas and STAR WARS.
Some may say that studio oversight may have helped save the prequels when George Lucas had no one to tell him to hold back, but it will remain to be seen if Disney, Kathleen Kennedy, and J.J. Abrams can bring that independent spirit back for STAR WARS: EPISODE VII. I guess we will find out when it opens on December 18, 2015.