August 13th, 2008
The Washington Post‘s Ann Hornaday dares to take on George Lucas:
Friday marks the release of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” an animated spinoff that Lucas executive produced and that looks like precisely what it is: a television show that has been puffed up into a feature-length advertisement for itself…. But it’s time to admit it: He’s not a storyteller. For all of Lucas’s command of myth, symbol and sweep, the nuances of narrative still elude him…. Once “Star Wars” became a multi-billion-dollar economy unto itself, when the movies increasingly served not “the story” but the games and the sound systems and the effects business and the lunch boxes, Lucas’s weakness became his greatest strength. Who needed story when the audience would be satisfied with spectacle? He got rich, and we got Jar Jar Binks.
Hornaday compares Lucas to Thomas Edison (and not in a good way). She goes after THX 1138 and American Graffiti. And now she and anyone related to her will never, ever, ever, ever be invited to Skywalker Ranch. Ever.
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