George Lucas created one of the most influential franchises in movie history in Star Wars, capturing the imagination of a generation of great filmmakers like Dennis Villeneuve. Star War’s impact and legacy are undeniable, but after its original trilogy, the franchise hit some rough patches with the prequel trilogy. George Lucas had more ideas about the world he created and wanted to push the new technology that was developing in filmmaking, resulting in Lucas settling on making the Prequel films. Here is why George Lucas’ Ex-Wife cried after watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
Marcia Lucas was the editor for the original Star Wars trilogy, winning an Academy Award for editing Star Wars: A New Hope. She was a crucial part of making the original trilogy as extraordinary and groundbreaking as it. Lucas has some thoughts about where the franchise ultimately headed with the prequel trilogy and everything wrong with it. In a new biography detailing the life of producer Howard Kazanjian, Marcia Lucas explained why she cried after seeing The Phantom Menace, saying:
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. 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.
Marcia Lucas was so disappointed with The Phantom Menace that she cried in her car. She says she didn’t think it was very good at all. Her disappointment seems to stem from the lack of imagination and George Lucas not utilizing such a rich to its full potential, which resulted in a movie that’s a far cry from its predecessors. The amount of potential with such great characters seemed like a no-brainer on paper but, in practice, was lacking. Marcia Lucas would go on to say:
...and 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.
One of the biggest and weirdest problems with The Phantom Menace is the age difference between Anakin, played by Jake Lloyd, who was eight years old, and Padme, played by Natalie Portman, who was double Lloyds age. Marcia Lucas took issue with this choice because the film positions Anakin getting with Padme romantically, which makes no sense and is odd since one actor is a child and the other looks like a grown woman.
George Lucas was in complete control of his vision during the prequel trilogy. There was no one like Marcia Lucas reigning him in. The consistently bland and corny dialogue is a symptom of George Lucas’s control of the prequels. Lucas directed and wrote A New Hope, but the best movie of the franchise, The Empire Strikes Back, was written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Irvin Kershner. The original trilogy benefited from outside views and collaboration from people like Marcia Lucas, and the prequels seemingly lacked.
Lucasfilm may be concerned with Star Wars fatigue, as the number of shows and movies has ballooned to such a large number over the past few years. There are plenty of new Star Wars properties in the works, including the Obi-Wan Kenobi series starring Ewan Mcgregor. Star Wars is still one of the most dominant forces in pop culture and shows no signs of slowing down soon.
