Since 2010's South By Southwest film festival, The People Vs. George Lucas has been touring across the globe. Making it's way through the film festival circuit, and countless international screenings. The film tells the story of devoted Star Wars fans, their passion and love for the franchise, and their love/hate relationship with the man who created it, and who in some peoples eyes has spent the last three decades destroying it. Obviously, I speak of George Lucas.
The question that director Alexander Phillipe is trying to answer is; Once an artist releases a piece of art to the public, when does his ownership end and become the property of the audience which has embraced it? And, how much right does that audience have to complain about the changes a creator makes to a beloved tome? Yet, one has to wonder if that is even the right question to ask, when Lucas' intention was to create something much more than a work of art.
George Lucas has stated numerous times, that when he set out to make the original Star Wars in 1977, he was trying to create a modern myth. He studied the writings of Joseph Campbell. An American mythologist who espoused the idea that mythologies and religions all across the world are based on the same elementary ideas, or archetypes. Lucas applied these archetypes to his Star Wars script and each subsequent sequel & prequel. What Lucas never realized, was that when you build a masterpiece with the building blocks of religion, you are likely to have a zealous reaction from audiences that may eventually result in something akin to religious fervor.
Over the past 34 years, Star Wars fans have been devoted, passionate, and opinionated. Which isn't at all surprising. In a day and age when organized religion is on the decline and established cultural traditions are increasingly forgotten, someone or something has to step in for generation of impressionable youth. For the kids of the late 70's and the 1980's, that something was Star Wars. That someone was the man they affectionately call The Creator. Yet, as often happens with the hallowed beliefs of our childhood, we can become disillusioned with what we see as contradictions or false doctrine within those beliefs as we become older and more mature.
The same has obviously happened with the "Holy Trilogy" and the generation that first grew up with the Force and the saga of Luke Skywalker. However, with religion one seems to think that they can never address they're doubts & frustrations with God or their given deity. With Star Wars, however, they can. In fact with a flesh & blood creator not only can they complain about these things, but because that creator is human we feel free, almost entitled to be belligerent about it.
Which brings us back to The People Vs. George Lucas. For the better part of two hours, Phillipe assembles an army of fans and experts to provide testimony in what almost amounts to a 'Holy' list of grievances. Certainly this isn't the first time that the disgruntled Star Wars fans have had a cinematic pulpit for their gripes. Indeed the films of Kevin Smith and the Star Wars homage Fanboys are ripe with dialog about these complaints. However there has never been a film for the fans themselves to tell George just how much he has hurt them, and how.
The People Vs. George Lucas doesn't pull a punch. Star Wars fans put their true feelings on the line about everything from From the 17 year gap between Return Of The Jedi and the Star Wars prequels, The lackluster quality of those prequels, to the revisionist history that Lucas has engaged in with numerous updates and changes to the original three films. However, even with the unchained passion and frustration of the die hard fans fully on display, there is no doubt that PVGL is a work that comes from a place of true and unmitigated love. Because if Star Wars fans didn't love the films, they would never be so passionately pissed off.
With all of it's passion, urgency, and yes fun The People Vs. George Lucas gives the devoted Star Wars fans a public platform to finally air their emotionally charged grievances. For all the world, and yes, even the 'creator' to see. Die hard fans will see a little bit of themselves in this lovingly organized and crafted love letter. Lucas is never made out to be a villain or a bad person, but enthusiastic and snarky fans find a way to profess their love with a heavy amount of bitching and complaining. Which turns out to be unbelievably entertaining.
-Admiral Duke
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