An insightful (The) New Yorker essay on George Lucas
I never had the animus towards George Lucas as other genre fans. As such, it's nice to read a complimentary essay on this controversial icon.
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“The Force Awakens” isn’t a bad attempt at resurrecting the old “Star Wars.” But it proves once and for all the folly of this kind of nostalgia. The thrill that cannot be recovered—by Lucas or Abrams or Rian Johnson—is the thrill of discovering the “Star Wars” universe for the first time. That’s the thrill that Lucas created.
I suspect Lucas is of two minds about his new puffing-up. On the one hand, he has seen his films—on “Charlie Rose,” he called them his “kids”—cloned in the manner that an army was once raised by the evil emperor on the planet Kamino. We’re so deep in the Reboot Era that we forget what a weird and dispiriting feeling that must be.
On the other hand, it must be satisfying to see his gifts as a director, so long forgotten, be praised. “The Force Awakens” makes it once again possible to think about George Lucas as a man of imagination, of conviction, and (minus Jar Jar Binks) of taste—as a brilliant appropriator rather than an average one. It took a forgery to get him called an artist.
More at:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-george-awakens