Edinburgh 2010: The People Vs George Lucas

Posted on Wednesday June 23, 2010, 00:33 by Sam Toy in Under The Radar

Well, I was hardly going to come to a film festival and not watch a film about the Star Wars prequels debate. Like most diehard fans of the core movies in the saga, I’m a slave to pretty much anything new anyone has to say on the matter. However, as most of us also know, there's an awful lot of crap out there on the subject. I’m just pleased to report that Alexandre Phillipe’s film is really good.

Broken into chapters, The People Vs George Lucas has a straightforward mission – to debate the many now famous issues Star Wars fans have had not only with the prequels and the restored/special/altered editions of the originals, but also with the perceived change in Lucas’ stance on such matters over the years, and the context of how all of these things came about.

It’s that last part which I found most interesting, offering fresh insight into the situation – I wasn’t aware that Lucas successfully challenged Ted Turner’s attempt to colourise a large number of black & white classics, for one thing. For the most part though, it’s a lot of angry geeks (perennially funny to watch since The Comic Book Guy) going over discussions we’ve all had dozens of times on various Star Wars grievances, from Greedo firing first, to Jabba’s scene in Episode IV, to midichlorians, and of course, Jar Jar. But full credit to Phillipe and his team – even amongst all these arguments we’ve heard a bajillion times before, he presents (having painstakingly sorted through around 650 hours of interview footage, we were told at the post-screening Q&A) little tidbits many of us may have have missed – Jar Jar glancing into the camera in Episode II, for example, as well as some wonderful turns of phrase; Jarred Christmas’ wonderful post-climax milking analogy, and a woman’s downgrading of the now tired sexual molestation line are ones to look out for. Oh, and you also get some Holiday Special action in there, too.

If you want to level criticism, you could argue that TPVGL spends a disproportionate amount of time assembling the case for the prosecution. I'd say there are two good reasons for this: 1) It's funnier, and 2) The rebuttals are much simpler to articulate. It’s a subject with no shortage of opinions, and at times it can feel like TPVGL voices all of them – the only one missing is that of Lucas himself, or at least Lucasfilm, but you can hardly fault the filmmakers for that.

It’s a 100 odd minute barrage of (mostly eloquent, interesting and funny) talking heads, including, yes, Empire's doyen of all things Star Wars, Ian Freer. It's a vast, heady mix which can sometimes get dizzying, but – absolutely crucially for a subject like this - it’s never dull, or exclusive. Recommended, and I'd be looking for a general release later in 2010.