Ryan Reviews Alexandre Philippe’s The People vs. George Lucas [SXSW 2010 Film Festival]

As with many of my generation, my experience with the films of George Lucas, specifically the Star Wars films, have had their ups and downs. As I’ve stated time and again on the podcast, science fiction is my favorite genre, whether it is used in literature, television, or film. The Star Wars films were an early influence on this love. Over my life, I’ve owned multiple copies of the Star Wars action figures, the films themselves, whether that be on VHS, or DVD (unfortunately I was not of the right age or income bracket to fall into Laserdisc).

While I was not old enough to see the first film in the theater, I was born at a perfect time to grow up watching the films again and again, be marketed to with several generations of toy lines, cartoon series, and spin off TV Movies (I’m looking at you, Ewok movies). As each version of the VHS releases slowly hinted at the fact that George Lucas was attempting to improve upon the quality of his films, and slowly hint at his future intentions for the franchise, I had no reason to be afraid, I, like many, would take whatever was given, using whatever birthday and Christmas money I could squirrel away.

When the 1997 Special Editions of the films were released in theaters, I remember going again and again, straight from school to the movie theater, soaking up every moment of films which I had never been able to see on the big screen. At this point in my film viewing life, I still had not quite realized that people could make serious blunders when revisiting their films. I figured that, with so many people involved in these projects, so many eyes reading over a script, so many eyes viewing the film before it was released, that there was no way it could come out bad. I was certainly aware of the changes made in that first special edition of A New Hope: things like Greedo shooting first, lines of dialogue slightly altered, and of course, Jabba the Hutt being re-inserted into the film. I should also say that at this point in my life, technologically speaking, I was pretty active on the Internet, as far as reading lots of the early Star Wars Fan Sites, where I could read all about the various deleted footage that people knew about from all of the films, and the speculation as to what would be reinserted in the Special Editions. After seeing the Special Editions again and again in the theaters, I don’t think I saw anything that was so egregious as to make me question George Lucas as a filmmaker, and I was all ready for the Prequels to hit theaters. Sure, the Jabba footage looked terrible, but I was able to look past it, to see what the intention was. While it did feel strange that Greedo shot first, it wasn’t until many years later did I find out that there was such a visceral, negative, fan reaction to that, because of how it effected Han Solo’s character.

From 1997 to 1999 I was in full geek-hype-consumer mode. Every thing that was released surrounding the Special Editions, from Taco Bell and Doritos memorabilia, to soda cans, or TV Guide variant covers, leading to the release of Star Wars Episode One, The Phantom Menace, ended up in my room. The 6 months leading up to the release of Episode 1 was probably the worst, in terms of how consumed I was with Star Wars. It was also an interesting point in my education, as I was graduating in 1999, and I had no idea at that point what I wanted to study in college. That all changed when I saw the trailer for The Phantom Menace. After watching that trailer multiple times from the VHS tape that I had recorded from Entertainment Tonight, I knew that I wanted to be a part of the film business. One night I landed on Lucasfilm’s website, and I my plans for my post High School education and employment quickly formed in my head. I’d move to San Francisco, get an internship at Lucasfilm while I studied Film Studies at San Francisco State University, and eventually get hired on to work for the big man himself. While this isn’t what actually ended up happening, it certainly gave me the direction I needed in life, and has directly impacted everything that has happened to me since then.

The weeks leading up to the release of Episode 1 were a fever dream of movie tie-in consumption, from reading the novelization, the storyboards, going to midnight releases of the action figures at Toys R Us, skipping school to buy tickets for the midnight release, to skipping school the day after the midnight release, just to see the movie again and again. We’ve recently spoken about our first Midnight Movie experiences, and I touched on the fact that mine was this Episode 1 experience. It is fascinating to look back, over the past ten years of my life post-Episode 1, and think about how my life would be different had that movie not been developed. At this point, all of my experiences with Star Wars have overshadowed however good or bad the film was. I think we’ve all had our say, in some form or another, about what we would have done differently if we were in charge of The Phantom Menace, or any of the following films. Again, looking back now, I think it’s safe to say that I’m glad that that movie was released, that I saw it, and that it helped shape how I view movies to this day.

I wanted to share this long introductory story with you, to give you a frame of reference to where I’m coming from in describing the documentary: The People vs George Lucas. When I first wrote up the films that would be screening at SXSW 2010, that one obviously stood out, title alone, as something that I’d have to try and catch. I’ve seen many, many fan films regarding Star Wars, and Lucas, and there haven’t been many disappointing ones.

The film presents to the viewers, a mock prosecution, in a hypothetical trial, against George Lucas, for his various crimes against his fans. They use things like the Special Editions, and there subsequent priority over the original prints of the films, as evidence that George Lucas is in some way, abusing the people who will continue to pay for whatever he releases. The filmmakers also go into great detail, laying out how disappointing the prequel films were to many people. The film is presented in interview clips, with many recurring fans, from various conventions, comic book stores, and the like.

While it certainly treads upon familiar territory for many fans and critics of the Star Wars films, I certainly appreciated having all of the experiences consolidated into one space. I actually was interested in seeing a longer cut, as the director mentioned that he had to cut much of the footage down, as he had many, many hours to pull from. Some of the criticism I’ve read so far has touched on the fact that this film doesn’t bring any new arguments to the table, and that it’s mostly just fire for people who already have their pitchforks and torches at the ready. I don’t think that’s the case, as I’m sure there are still many out there that perhaps didn’t enjoy the Prequels, but have never gone to Comic Con, or had friends in their area that were as obsessed as they were, and wanted to endlessly debate them. I think this movie could serve as a jumping off point for those, to see what sort of resources are available to a disgruntled Star Wars fan. Ideas like Fan Edits are brought up in the documentary, a move I found exciting, due to my own interest in them, and the fact that not many people are aware of the concept. I also really enjoyed all of the coverage of the fan films, as Troops (a short “COPS” inspired Star Wars fan film) was something that also greatly influenced my desires to get into film-making, showing me that the technological resources were becoming inexpensive.

Is the film overly slanted against George Lucas? While the name may indicate that the filmmakers are simply disgruntled fans with a camera and a list of gripes, this is clearly a project stemming from a great love of Lucas, and all of the Star Wars films. They approach their list of grievances with a level of awareness as to the importance of the films in cultural history. They don’t argue as though they were combating Holocaust Deniers, they realize that these are, in the end, just pieces of art, open to interpretation.

I really enjoyed the documentary, I’m certainly going to buy it on DVD as soon as it’s available, hopefully with lots of bonus material that was cut from the final edit of the film. If you have a similar story regarding the Star Wars films, I’d recommend it. I’d say that you should have some grounded understanding of the Star Wars universe before going into the theater, as it gets pretty “inside baseball” at times, but I think that is what helps it sell the sincerity of all involved.

You can hear me discuss the film on our latest bonus episode, discussing all the films I saw at SXSW. I’m also going to embed a video I shot during the Q&A with the director of The People vs George Lucas, Alexandre Philippe.

Finally, I’d also highly recommend checking out their own website, at PeopleVsGeorge.com.