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George Lucas’ ex-wife Marcia Lucas shares her negative reaction to an early preview of the Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace.
Marcia Lucas, film editor for the original Star Wars trilogy and ex-wife of Star Wars creator George Lucas, shared her initial reaction to seeing Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
The recent biography Howard Kazanjian: A Producer’s Life about Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark film producer Howard G. Kazanjian features a foreword from Lucas as well as interviews. In the latter, Lucas praises her ex-husband as “a good guy and a talented filmmaker” before sharing her emotional response to seeing an early screening of The Phantom Menace.
“But when I went to see Episode I—I had a friend who worked at ILM, who took me as a guest to a preview—I remember going out to the parking lot, sitting in my car and crying. I cried,” Lucas recalled. “I cried because I didn’t think it was very good. And I thought he had such a rich vein to mine, a rich palette to tell stories with. He had all those characters.”
Released in 1999, The Phantom Menace has received harsh criticism from Star Wars fans in many areas, such as its dull, politics-heavy plotline and its inclusion of Jar Jar Binks, who became one of the most hated film characters in the franchise. Lucas echoed two common criticisms of the film: the relationship between a young Anakin Skywalker and Padmé and the film’s dated CGI. “I thought it was weird that the story was about this little boy who looked like he was six years old, but then later on he’s supposed to get with this princess who looked like she was twenty years old,” Lucas shared. “There were things I didn’t like about the casting, and things I didn’t like about the story, and things I didn’t like—it was a lot of eye candy. CG.”
Lucas didn’t reserve all her Star Wars criticism for her ex-husband George. She also shared her disdain for the Disney-produced sequel trilogy, explaining that she doesn’t like Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and calling her “really smart and really bright,” before suggesting that she and The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams “don’t have a clue about Star Wars.” Lucas criticized the decisions to kill off Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, as well as the lack of explanation for Rey’s Jedi powers. “The storylines are terrible. Just terrible. Awful. You can quote me,” she concluded. “J.J. Abrams, Kathy Kennedy — talk to me.”
All nine films in the Star Wars Skywalker saga are streaming on Disney+. The franchise will return to the big screen with Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron on Dec. 22, 2023.
Source: Howard Kazanjian: A Producer’s Life, via The Direct
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