Star Wars Nerds Have Made George Lucas and J.J. Abrams' Lives a Living Hell
Way to go, nerds.
By Matt Miller
Nov 30, 2015 @ 2:52 PM
Star Wars Entertainment
You probably think that directing Star Wars means you live in a world of Leia bikinis, front row seats at pod races, and all the Billy Dee Williams-branded Colt 45 you can drink, but oh you're wrong. Throughout the last few months, as Star Wars hype has started to gather energy in its ionization chamber, the obsession has turned on the film's creators, past and present.
In a lengthy new feature from The Washington Post, George Lucas has a bunch of depressing things to say about his life after creating the most beloved science fiction franchise in history.
Partly so he doesn't have to read the worst about himself and his movies, Lucas says he has assiduously avoided the Internet since 2000 — no Facebook, no Twitter, no e-mail even — but that doesn't mean he avoids people.
On being forced to change an exceedingly minor detail in Star Wars: A New Hope because people would not stop obsessing over it:
When Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is threatened by Greedo, a bounty hunter working for the sluglike gangster Jabba the Hutt, Han reaches for his blaster and shoots Greedo by surprise underneath a cantina table. In the new version, it is Greedo who shoots first, by a split second. Deeply offended fans saw it as sacrilege; Lucas will probably go to his grave defending it. When Han shot first, he says, it ran counter to "Star Wars' "principles".
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On the selling of the franchise, and Lucasfilm, and a messy divorce:
"Now I'm faced with this awkward reality, which is fine," Lucas says. Extending the metaphor, he says it's like when a grown child gets married. "I gotta go to the wedding. My ex will be there, my new wife will be there, but I'm going to have to take a very deep breath and be a good person and sit through it and just enjoy the moment, because it is what it is and it's a conscious decision that I made."
You'd almost feel bad for him, if you didn't know the guy made $4 billion on the sale of Star Wars and Lucasfilm to Disney alone. And it's not over. In an interview with Good Morning America, Abrams revealed the insane pressure of not wanting to give away any plot details ahead of the film's December 18 release. "Here's the thing: I obviously don't want to ruin the movie for people," Abrams said. "It's so important to us that we not give too many details and oversell it, which is very hard in a movie like Star Wars."
In order to keep things secret, he placed some rather nutso restrictions on the entire cast and crew during filming and post-production. And this is coming from a guy who, initially, didn't even want to direct the damn thing because he knew that "one reason Lucas had decided to sell was the personal attacks he'd suffered over the years from overzealous fans who had their own ideas on how to run a movie dynasty," as Esquire's Mike Sager wrote in a recent profile.
As of today, fans have probably only seen a grand total of 5 minutes of Star Wars: The Force Awakens from a combination of trailers and teasers released over the last year. That's approximately 3.6 percent of the movie, and already there are forums, comment threads, and blog posts dedicated to ripping the movie apart. Even when only one single 30 second teaser was released last year people were freaking out over the three-bladed lightsaber. Anyway, maybe it's just best to crack a Colt 45, and forget about all the nerds.