An Open Memo to Geoge Lucas... Please Stop it Already!

To:              George Lucas
From:          M. David Lee III
Re:              The Star Wars Franchise
Date:           May 23, 2005

Let me first start off by saying... my name is David and I am a self admitted, "Star Wars" Geek. (Insert... "Hi David") 

The original Star Wars film, released in May of 1977 was a perfect blend of special effects and story.  No one had ever seen anything like it before and truth be told since.  George Lucas created a world... a galaxy if you will... far, far away that was breathtaking in it's appearance and scope.  That movie... re-titled later as "A New Hope" in 1981, was the reason I became a filmmaker.  The second I walked out of that theater after seeing Star Wars, I went to the library and started to read up on filmmaking and special effects.  I had found my calling, I wanted to be a filmmaker.

For me, that Star Wars was a complete film.  From the beginning to the end, it was perfection.  When, "Empire Strikes Back," came out in 1980, I was still equally excited.  And for the most part it followed up Star Wars with a decent story, great effects and sets, and the best theme ever for a villain... John William's "The Imperial March," Darth Vader's theme.  And while Empire Strikes Back is a darker film, you can see the early seeds of a problem.  Lucas's story is not complete because he leaves a cliff hanger that takes you to the third film, "Return of the Jedi."  My main problem with Empire Strikes Back, is the same feeling I have with trilogies in general.  When you know there is another film around the corner, you don't complete any one story except the last.  The original, Star Wars, was designed as one picture.  There were no plans to spin it off into another film, in fact the studio didn't even really want the film at first.  Then when it hit big it was, "What can we do now to follow this hit."  Boom Empire Strikes Back, comes up, but with an end that will get us to a third film.

Now I don't want to continue to break down all of the other films, because that would take too long and none of them have been as good as the original or Empire Strikes Back.  This rant is more of an open memo to Mr. Lucas for what I hope WILL be the final episode of the Star Wars franchise, "Star Wars...Revenge of the Sith."

George... stop making Star Wars films.

That's really all that needs to be said.  This final film will make a ton of money and for some "SWG's" (Star Wars Geeks" this film will be fine.  However for those true fans... and mind you they tend to be those who were old enough to remember what was before Star Wars, in 1977 and saw the film in the theaters then, this film is a let down.  I left the theater after seeing it and wanted to almost cry.  I felt cheated and heartbroken.  Why you ask... well let me list some of the reasons in no particular order for you:

1.   While some of the special effects were impressive, I felt like I had spent about 2 hours watching a video game.  There was no sense of a world outside of a computer created set.  Fans who've only seen the re-released versions of the film on VHS or DVD on their t.v.'s at home have no idea how beautiful the cinematography was in the original, Star Wars.  To see Luke come up from his Uncle's home and look across a barren planet as the sun set in the original was amazing.  In "Revenge of the Sith" everything is created by computer and it all looks like a video game.

2.   The characters were lifeless...  The cast has some great stars and actors in it, not always the same two things... yet Lucas wastes their performances with corny one liners and bad jokes.  I wanted so desperately to care for these people, but I didn't... not even Yoda.

3.   Little diversity...  Nice to know that after all that time in space there are only two African Americans... Lando Calrissian(Billy Dee Williams) and Mace Windu(Samuel L. Jackson) oh and one Latino Senator Bail Organa(Jimmy Smits), ... enough said on that point.

4.   Love story?   George we get it... you don't deal well with man-woman stuff.  Which also probably explains why a large majority of male SWG's are single.  When you can't show any emotion and you have more of an attachment to mechanical and computer inanimate objects than a real human being... this just in folks... you've got problems!

5.   Cute and Tidy...   I realize this is the last film before A New Hope, but how they tied up so many loose ends so quickly, especially in the last third of the film was about as bad as any "Love Boat" episode with only one day left aboard the ship.  Nothing so complicated as the Star Wars universe could be wrapped up like Lucas did in this one.

6.   Mom and Dad... leave the kids at home!   Revenge of the Sith, is rated PG-13, yet how many kids under the age of 13... with and without their parents were in the theater when I saw the film... how about a million!  How many of them were mature enough to watch the violence and understand anything... how about none of them.  Parents, shame on you for taking kids who are not ready to see this film to this film.  You want to catch up and wrap up the series... get a baby-sitter and go yourselves... leave the kids at home!

I could go on, but I won't.  I think you get a sense of my problems with the film.  And while it has many, many, many flaws, for me it ranks as the 4th best of the series... 1. The original Star Wars, 2. Empire Strikes Back, 3. Return of the Jedi, 4. Revenge of the Sith, 5. Attack of the Clones, 6. The Phantom Menace...aka Jar Jar Binks mistake.

I got into filmmaking because of Lucas and the original Star Wars and other than my first film I ever made... "War with the Stars," also 1977 a lost classic... I have yet to make another effects film.  As I left the theater on Saturday I wondered if I ever would.  For me I want emotion in my characters.  I want a story that is complete and full.  I want the highs and lows of life and I am not saying it can't be done within a special effects film, because it was done once to perfection... a long, long time ago.... only then it was called, Star Wars... nothing more... nothing less.