Steven Spielberg: When George (Lucas) and I were in Hawaii and I agreed to direct Raiders, George said that if I did wind up directing the first one that I would need to direct all three. He said he had three stories in mind. It turned out George did not have three stories in mind. We had to make up all the other subsequent stories..."
Sound familiar? Like any other criticisms on George Lucas's work? And this isn't any chump talking (though I would hardly call ChefElf a chump), this is Steven Spielberg, master filmmaker and one of Lucas's best friends!
There's more. Something else I noticed...
Steven Spielberg: (On Temple's opening scene) George's idea was to start the movie with a musical number. He wanted to start the whole film with a big Busby Berkeley dance number...that was George's contribution..."
In his interview on the 1997 VHS release of Return of the Jedi- Special Edition, Lucas had this to say...
George Lucas: In the Jabba the Hutt scene there was a little musical number which we never really had the time to shoot. When we were doing it, the production was running behind and everyone was racing. We managed to catch just a couple of shots of the band and we put a little bit of music in it, but it was meant originally to be a big musical number; which I thought would be funny in the middle of a Star Wars film."
Return of the Jedi was shot in London, 1982, then released in summer 1983, when Spielberg was shooting Temple of Doom.
Lucas took the idea he couldn't complete in Jedi and used it for Temple.
All of these films borrow (plagiarize?) from 30's serials, etc. I recall someone insightfully saying that what made the original Star Wars trilogy great was the talent of others who were only under the supervision of Lucas. And Indiana Jones is Spielberg's accomplishment (and Spielberg always credits his actors, editors, photographers, etc. He recognizes the team effort.)
At this point, I'm not sure why George Lucas is considered to be the creative visionary he is credited as being.
Any thoughts on any of this?
This post has been edited by 84summers: 03 December 2007 - 05:49 PM