Recently, a friend of mine (via Twitter) was lamenting the passing of the great Dennis Hopper.  To do so, he questioned why someone so great was gone while others survived.  It is a common juxtaposition, one repeated on message boards worldwide every time we lose a great entertainer.  This time, my buddy mentioned George Lucas as one of the regrettably living.  To quote Popeye, “I’ve had alls I can stands and I can’t stands no more!”

First of all, if Dennis Hopper heard you say that, he’d jump on your chest and rip your spinal chord through your sinuses.  The two were friends and colleagues.

I am tired of hearing seemingly intelligent human beings make the most asinine statements like “George Lucas raped my childhood.”  That’s a popular one, regurgitated from the mouths of immature 40 year old fanboys on a daily basis.  First of all, using “rape” to describe a cinematic experience is a little like saying “your starving to death” because you really want pizza and all mom has in the pantry is some crappy Fig Newtons.  It is hyperbole, and bad hyperbole at that.

Secondly, in no way imaginable in the universe did George Lucas erase or destroy your childhood.  You short term memory ingrates, he gave you your childhood!!  Without him, you are not rescuing Princess Leia from the backyard sandbox, you’re not quoting C-3PO in college essays, and you are sure as hell not as big a science fiction fan as you are now.  Nothing that can be done today has any bearing on your enjoyment of Star Wars back when you were in Garanimals.

You don’t like the special editions?  I suppose you like to nitpick the plot complexities of Golden Books in your spare time as well.  They are basically the same movies, it’s not like he changed the ending so Chewbacca pulled a Rambo mission on the Death Star to lower the shields.  The plot remains the same.  That being said, yes he should absolutely make the original edits available to any and all who want them.  I for one am getting tired of carrying around my laser disc player every time I want to see Han shoot first.  Also, I completely disagree with Hayden Christensen being the ghost at the end of Return of the Jedi.  But I still like the movie.

Ah yes, the prequels.

 You are all so up in arms over the prequels.  Is it because Uncle George didn’t come out and shower you with hundred dollar bills for your birthday?  Is it that he didn’t simply film six hours of your deepest Storm Trooper fantasies, fulfilling your every childish desire?  Is that why today grown men throw temper tantrums over a science fiction movie?  The prequels and their supposed “failure” are all about expectations and our inability to manage them.  All we knew about potential pre Luke story lines was two words: Clone Wars.  So, for 30 years we all thought the prequels would be a trilogy of nothing but ass kicking.  They weren’t, get over it.

But don’t fret crybabies, have you seen The Clone Wars cartoon?  It is everything you wanted from the prequels, so why don’t you just adjust your thinking.  The Clone Wars are now the fabled prequels of your youth, and Episodes 1-3 are the pre-prequels and you can relax and just accept them for who they are.

Does Jar Jar stink?  Yes, but not nearly as much as Jake Lloyd’s “acting.”  Is the romance between Anakin and Padme a little on the forced side?  Absolutely.  Should Lucas have directed the prequels?  Not in a thousand years.  Remember, he neither directed Empire nor Jedi, so at least he should’ve had an “actor’s director” co-helm the film with him so some of those wooden performances got cleaned up.  Rank them however you like, but all in all, it is still freaking Star Wars and Star Wars is awesome.

And coming up we have The People vs. George Lucas, an indulgent exercise in filmmaking that will no doubt prey on the wallets of haters everywhere as they come together like Philadelphia sports fans to spit on the very thing that they love.  It should be like watching an Ain’t It Cool News message board come to life.

But let’s step away from Star Wars for a moment.  Virtually every other movie made today owes something to the legacy of Lucasfilm.  Industrial Light & Magic owns special effects.  THX is to cinema sound what Rolls Royce is to automobiles.  He co-founded American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola.  PIXAR began as a division of Lucasfilm.  He has helped pioneer the advent of digital cameras.  Oh and he is the biggest independent filmmaker of all time.  You do realize Episode 1 was an independent film right?  You know what that means?  George has “F-you” money like you will never see.  He paid for that thing out of his wallet.  The dude’s a pimp.

So listen, am I being tongue and cheek here?  Of course I am.  If I really hated these haters as much as they say they hate Lucas, I’d be just as much of a moron as they are.  But I do believe they need a wake up call.  I love movies and I love Star Wars, but it is time for people to let it go and cease flipping out over mole hills.  Let’s get the original edits released on Blu Ray and call it a franchise.