"The People vs. George Lucas" is a film that sets out to examine the animosity shared by a great number of Star Wars fans over the changes made to the Original Trilogy (among other grievances). Included here are interviewers with every known type of Star Wars fan: the casual goer, the passionate geek, and the bitter extremist who took his/her passion too far.
The film does raise some interesting questions at the heart of the matter:
1. What, exactly, does Lucas owe his fans? 2. Are the more bitter of the fanbase blinded by passion (and therefore cannot evaluate the new movies on their own merits)? 3. Perhaps most importantly, *Who Owns Star Wars?*
With a title like "The People vs. George Lucas", it's expected to see the man put on trial, so to speak. And to an extent, that's what we get here. But objectivity suffers when the film is anchored by fan interviews, and the only soundbites we get from Lucas himself are taken from talk show interviews and documentaries done years ago. And it's the preoccupation with the angry hordes that tends to bog down the film; a 90-minute movie tends to run long when things devolve into a fun and playful look at just how far these people take these movies.
So nothing is really answered here, aside from the obvious "Wow, these people are crazy!" sentiment, which we already knew before going in. It's no different than watching "Trekkies" just to laugh at the nerds. You end up asking yourself, "What's the point?"
5/10
The film does raise some interesting questions at the heart of the matter:
1. What, exactly, does Lucas owe his fans? 2. Are the more bitter of the fanbase blinded by passion (and therefore cannot evaluate the new movies on their own merits)? 3. Perhaps most importantly, *Who Owns Star Wars?*
With a title like "The People vs. George Lucas", it's expected to see the man put on trial, so to speak. And to an extent, that's what we get here. But objectivity suffers when the film is anchored by fan interviews, and the only soundbites we get from Lucas himself are taken from talk show interviews and documentaries done years ago. And it's the preoccupation with the angry hordes that tends to bog down the film; a 90-minute movie tends to run long when things devolve into a fun and playful look at just how far these people take these movies.
So nothing is really answered here, aside from the obvious "Wow, these people are crazy!" sentiment, which we already knew before going in. It's no different than watching "Trekkies" just to laugh at the nerds. You end up asking yourself, "What's the point?"
5/10