Why Can't George Lucas Direct Human Beings?

[Mike 03]

This post is an extension of my prior posts about Natalie Portman and Harrison Ford.

I don't get it. How can a man as visionary as George Lucas be so incompetent as a director?

What it is about this guy, that he can invent brilliant visuals, but is completely tone deaf when it comes to directing actors?

This has to be one of the major mysteries of American Cinema.

[JTG of the PRB]

1. Well, in order to direct human beings, one must usually BE a human being.

It's a little-known fact, but in 1991 the "real" George Lucas was abducted and replaced with a Lucas-like driod to take his place on earth in order to allow an advanced alien race to study us from afar. In order to blend seamlessly into the "original" Lucas' place, the droid was filled with knowledge of Lucas' life, his works, and the universe he created in Stat Wars. The Lucas droid was also pumped full of every known movie cliché and programmed to write dialog that would seem just good enough to be passable to those who were not paying attention, but poor enough to allow nobody to suspect that it was, in all reality, written by a droid.

[tigereye]

2. they weren't as bad as the guy who played jedi Anakin

It's weird, isn't it? Spielberg is much more competent at eliciting quality performances, I think. I remember hearing that Alec Guiness thought his lines were absurd.

[kwassa]

3. Because he doesn't know anything about human beings.

he is a film techno-geek. Like several other prominent directors of his generation, including Speilberg, he learned about people by watching movies, not experiencing life. Most of what he does as a film director is lifted from other sources, and not original to him at all, including the original Star Wars movie. He has the weakness of that generation; no theater background.

He is great at film technology, and has maximized his strengths.

I can't watch many of his films. They are slick and empty and have no real psychological or emotional core to them.

[Zomby Woof]

4. American Graffiti

He did a fine job there. He captured pre-Vietnam teenage America (1962) with lots of empathy and humor. It was the end of innocence for his generation.

[jeff30997]

6. THX 1138 was pretty good too.

He had a very low budget but managed to make a decent S-F movie IMHO.

[rcrush]

5. Satan.

He is attatched to his ball sack too much to concentrate on directing.

[Hanse]

7. Because he's lazy and doesn't like the process of directing.

He doesn't like to do more than one take, and he figures it'll get fixed in post production so that's why you end up with stormtroopers basing their heads on doorways and characters calling each other by the actors' names.

He liked the concept of directing back in film school, and never realized he wasn't cut out for it. That may have something to do with the billions of dollars he gets for directing crap.

[XemaSab]

8. I think he genuinely has no idea

why Indiana Jones and Star Wars were hit movies.

[DarkTirade]

9. It probably doesn't help that at this point in his career, he's surrounded by yes-men.

Although even if you look back at the early stuff he wasn't that great a director back then either.