George Lucas and Robin Williams

[Jedieb]

I was watching Robin Williams on Charlie Rose last night and he was talking about a new internet project he's been working on at a site called audible.com. Williams has recorded a series of interviews and commentaries that people can download for a price. During the interview he mentioned that he had done an interview with George Lucas. I just went over there and found it at the following link:

www.audible.com/huffman/s...orge+Lucas (http://www.audible.com/huffman/store/basicSearchResults.jsp?action=Search&BV_SessionID=%40%40%40%400496348364.0976119864%40% 40%40%40&BV_EngineID=ialjichggjfbemfcgfjcfkmdgjg.0&data=George+Lucas)

You can get there just by going to the main site and searching for Lucas. I've only listened to the sample in which Williams and Lucas talk about why some fans hate Jar Jar. I might break down and spend the $1.98 to download the entire 30 minute interview later tonight. If any of you do buy let me know what you think of it.

[DvdJervs]

What did Lucas say about Jar Jar? I'm too lazy to go and listen to it for myself. :)

[Jedieb]

He basically said that "the fans" hated Jar Jar because they've never liked the comic relief in SW. They didn't like 3-PO and the Ewoks for the same reason. Now, I'm sure he meant "some" fans, but he did use the phrase "the fans". I've always liked the comic relief in SW. Whether it's Chewie acting like a "big coward" or 3-PO telling R2 to shut off. I just didn't think Jar Jar was all that funny. I think I'm going to go ahead and spend the measely $2, it sounds like a decent interview.

[Hart Kenobi]

It's not comic relief when the entire movie had Jar Jar. The action scenes should, rather, have been called action relief to a bad comedy movie.

[Jedieb]

If you go to audible.com you can get a free download just for registering. The Lucas interview is one of the freebies. I'm listening to it now and it's pretty good. At the beginning Lucas jokes about making a Howard the Duck SE with Howard done digitally and Williams doing the voice. He joked, "You hated it before, you'll loathe it now!" He was obviously joking, but as many of us know, Howard wasn't something he just provided money for. He was very active in the making of that film.

Some highlights:
-Jar Jar's price tag

[Jedi Master Carr]

I just finished listening to the interview and I really enjoyed, Williams is just nuts I liked his rendetion of Darth McVader. As far as Jar Jar goes I actually agree with him. In truth I never hated him, he was not my favorite character by I understood his purpose and even laughed at a few of the jokes. I was surprised that he said people hated Yoda, of course I'm too young to remember what the public reaction was to him, I know critics back in 1980 despised ESB just look at Rotten Tomatoes most of the reviews rate the movie as horrible so I guess those are the people he was talking about, of course times have changed. It will be interesting in another 20 years to see if Jar Jar is looked at differently, and I think he will be because by then the generation that loved him will be older and will have a different opinion of him.

[DvdJervs]

I daresay people's opinion of Jar Jar will also be greatly shaped by his performance in the upcoming episodes (he's going to be in Episode 2 at least). If people like him in that then opions of him in Episode 1 may change.

[Jedieb]

For some reason part of my last post got cut off. Jar Jar's price tag was around $29M.

I can remember that fan reaction to Yoda was much more favorable than Lucas described. None of my friends hated him when we first saw Empire. Some of the older posters here can back me up on this. I don't remember many negative comments regarding Yoda, and I can gaurantee you there was NEVER the level of dissapointment that's been generated by Jar Jar, not even close. I do remember some backlash against the Ewoks and the occasional criticism of 3PO, especially in ROTJ, but neither EVER approached the level of bashing that Jar Jar has. Again, I don't hate the character, I just don't think he's that funny.

[Jedi Master Carr]

As I said I think he may have meant critics since most of them back when the movie was released did hate the film. I think of read one that called Yoda a muppett of something to that affect. ESB was considered a disapointment to most critics I guess because it was so different from ANH.

[ReaperFett]

Almost every initial review of ESB I have seen despised Yoda.


Still think the only reason Jar-jar was hated was expectations

[Darth Hez]

I didn't mind Jar Jar at first. But unlike R2 and C3PO, he gets less and less funny everytime I watch TPM. Now I just tolerate his presence. I think the novel actually made Jar Jar a little more likeable, by the end he had matured somewhat and wasn't a complete buffoon. He may be a little more liked if he is less obviously comic in ep2. The funny thing about 3PO and R2 was that the humour was inadvertant on their part, whereas Jar Jar was too obviously added just to get laughs.

[Bromine]

Hez - exactly my feeling about Jar-Jar! It was like he was trying too hard to be funny. It didn't come as naturally to the character as it did to the droids, Ewoks, and Yoda.
That said, I didn't mind Jar-Jar in TPM, but he wasn't one of my favorite characters. (Liked the Gungans a lot, though.)

I feel bad sometimes for GL the way he always gets ragged on for stuff the fans and media don't like. I guess that's the price of success, but it just seems the media takes delight in singling out certain creative minds and ridiculing to death every little mistake they make. I mean, he's never said Star Wars is the greatest thing on Earth.
Then you have a movie like Titanic, which claims it IS "the greatest movie ever", and the critics don't really nitpick all that much. (Well, they did a little, but generally they just gushed about how wonderful it was.)

[Darth23]

I like Jar Jar - he was a LITTLE annoying, but that was more early in the movie than later. I had no problem with his particular 'fighting style'. :p I thought it was funny when QGJ saved ho the SECOND time, I loved his littel speech about how he ended up on the Princess' ship with the jedi, and I thought the energy binders bit was pretty good too. :)


I rememeber SOME comments about Yoda sounding like Grover, and just being a muppet, but overall I think he was pretty positively received. People STILL hate the Ewoks (which I never really understood).