George Lucas to retire, stop making more Star Wars films: Turns out George Lucas is just as brittle as any other man. Because you – yes, you - scared him off into retirement and away from making another Star Wars film.
In an interview with the New York Times (via The Guardian), Lucas seemed to take this whole backlash from his aspirations to change the original Star Wars trilogy for the millionth re-release seriously:
"I'm retiring," Lucas said. "I'm moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff." However, he said he would not rule out making a fifth Indiana Jones film before bringing his commercial career to a close. (uh… objection?)
The 67-year-old film-maker refused to apologise for making changes to his original Star Wars films through the addition of computer-generated imagery which many fans of the movies felt jarred with the more naturalistic look of the trilogy.
"On the internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie. I'm saying: 'Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.'"
"Why would I make any more," Lucas says, "when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?" - The Guardian
"We got him. It's over. It's over! Justice!" *cries* – The Internet
This is good for several reasons: 1) the blatant commercialization of an iconic franchise can finally stop (maybe), 2) the possibility of George Lucas opening up his creative bank towards other projects not in relation to movies (again, maybe), 3) more unconventional Star Wars stories in form of cartoons, television programs (like the Star Wars-Mad Men dream mash-up found below), etc., and 4) the "nuke the fridge" thing was actually his idea. Wait, what?
Lucas also addressed widespread disbelief towards a scene in 2008's poorly received fourth Indiana Jones film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which saw the intrepid archeologist surviving a nuclear bomb test by hiding in a fridge and resulted in the term "nuke the fridge" entering the film-making lexicon as shorthand for a creative blunder.
The movie's director, Steven Spielberg, said he was responsible for the scene in an interview with Empire magazine last year, but Lucas said his friend was "just trying to protect me". He defended the scene's legitimacy, suggesting that "the odds of surviving that refrigerator – from a lot of scientists – are about 50-50."
"Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that's ever remotely true. Facts, schmacts."
