The People VS George Lucas! The SXSW Interview!

I’m going to start this off by stating my obvious bias towards Alexandre Phillipe and The People VS George Lucas. Alexandre was nice enough to ask me for my opinion to include in the film and, with my help, the opinions of a few Geekscape friends as well. After seeing the film, it really does feel like one big, almost out of control panel discussion on the work and influence of George Lucas. The film rolls pretty deep, even from the perspective of a well informed geek (the entire section about George Lucas testifying against the colorization of black and white films I found revelatory) and does as thorough a job of presenting as many diverse views as possible in a two hour film. My personal bias isn’t completely born out of my close ties to the film though.

I can’t stand the prequels. I don’t see any value in them. They’re a post-Sonics Shawn Kemp, completely uninspired and forgetting of the ground work laid to get them to that point. They lack clear stories and a protagonist. I can’t even name anyone likable in the prequels! Beyond that, they perform the most unholy of unholy acts: they make the original movies worse!

I had original 1977 Star Wars sheets through college (wow… my college social life makes a lot more sense now.) I read every book and comic in the expanded universe. I could sing the Ewok song from Jedi verbatim. Screw quoting lines from the holy trilogy… I could reproduce R2D2’s beeps AS THEY WERE HAPPENING ON SCREEN! Fuck it. I don’t have to prove my Star Wars devotion to you. I started Geekscape and that should say enough. Without the holy trilogy, there’d be no Geekscape. And that’s how much the prequels hurt. Those things came out… I watched them… and then I walked away.

And I’m not alone. If anything, The People VS George Lucas gives voice to many passionate people like me (some of who you know) and their own intensely personal relationships with a man that almost all of them have never met!

Here’s my video interview with Alexandre explaining it all. Enjoy and discuss how YOU feel.