Ironically everyone saying he was racist or sexist are being that themselves. Everyone forgets that all the major leaders were women in Star Wars. Mon Monthma, head of the Rebellion anybody?
I love my boy George, but I don't think that's what people are talking about. All those major female characters who are leaders are white. George did make Star Wars more diverse in the prequels but most of the major characters are still white. I don't see that as an issue, but in universe humans should be much more diverse than what we see in the films
Also are they forgetting about Lando and the voice for Vader who are all part of the main cast? This particular criticism from media outlets seems just as myopic as the nonsensical “Apu”controversy several years ago.
Your wrong Its modern now Im wrong Its modern in the future Apperently, accodring to white people, black people want heroes who are like them (painted black( and fat because thats respectful)) Ut instead of being a comedy skit or a preaching sermon, its just a slice of life. You cant i erse in that or get away from life by seeing a part of life thats different by going i to a political sermon thats going to increase your chances of electing certain polititians. Sometimes you you need exactly what you have but some changes. Asian cultures need insane grinding, but you actually get something, becuase their life is insane grinding and does nothing. Black people dont need black actors in movies and mores in video games (white guys painted black)(or) (fat because thats respectful), they need people with their conditions, not a racist idiology pandering to them pretending to care. No one (should) wants racist velma from a white person who hates black people so your getting disrespected and convinced to vote who they want (a white person, probably). R2-d2, c-3p0. Thats the black people. There we go. Relate to them. They are fricking heroes too, respected by the righter treating them as realisitic life in a realistic worl
Your wrong bud It’s modern now. No im wrong Its modern coming up in the future Hes right It basically has crap to think about. Instead of having to do some comedy skit about racism bad, its just there and people are living their lives and have to deal with it. With all this need to see heroes that are me and relatable crap now adays that is actually just comunism, instead of getting lectured, it has a slice of life aproach, showing things as if this is real life, rather than teaching a messege, becuase we can see someone upset about misstreatment and u derstand. There we go black people. R2-d2, c-3p0, these are the guys just like you. You dont paint, how about conditi
Absolutely, I mean you don't get much more diverse a universe than having a fricken walking humanoid dog person and fish people admirals who are treated like equals deserving the same basic human rights and freedoms.
@@ScottMcMaster-er4xj the black people who the white people think what they want is people like them can get that in r2-d2 and c-3p0 i stead of heroes painted black but white people (in video games (called mores))) or black washed nonsense like the polite make them fat because the white people arent racist. You can have a hero, look, the black chick is fat, enjoy the disrespect scooby doo.
Yeah. Two in each trilogy. I mean I can easily accept those were different times and don't join the critics in that regard, but the mental gymnastics to deny underrepresentation is just as silly. Leia leads the rebellion on paper but she had only a fraction of screen time, wasn't wielding a lightsaber or actively taking out the bad guys. Same with Padme.
Isnt it so funny and ironic how the race of characters only matters when THEY say it matters? It’s like how they have a weird double standard or something
Ironically, these criticisms are old. I remember seeing an interview on Johny Carson with Carl Sagan saying the same thing about the original 1977 star wars. It's just people who really don't care about star wars or movies in general and just want to criticize the most popular thing or to promote their own ideas.
George Lucas is awesome. And the people that are insulting him need to stop. And why do I feel like the people calling George racist is mainly coming from people from Twitter.
I do not have Twitter and definitely think Star Wars is racist now. It is impossible not to be racist when your whole casting process is based on race and when your whole story writing is about representation and diversity. Americans don't understand what racism is and think that positive racism does not exist. Racism Is thinking about race all the time
The internet has really broken ya’ll. It’s so tiring. It’s not “disney fans” it’s weirdos on twitter who cry about everything. And I dislike georges star wars and disneys about the same so.
@@TheGreatestJediOfAllTime makes sense it’s from twitter. Also old republic Star Wars xoogs George Star Wars and Disney Star Wars so it’s no real big deal if his movies get flak
Are they seriously accusing Lucas of being racist while he's married to... a black woman? People like to be mad at succesful people but this is on a whole new level. George's explanation shows how much thought he's put into his universe. How every character was thought out. He certainly also made his mistakes, the prequels being the prime example but at least everything was considered and everything felt genuine. That's probably why Star Wars usually outperforms other sci-fi universes.
I’m tired of everybody attacking George Lucas. You can’t understand Star Wars without understanding George Lucas. You can’t understand Star Wars without understanding the politics behind it the movies. Wow. George Lucas is right. People are forgetting what Star Wars is.
@@myronstokes5585 yeah he is, all of his movies that aren't Star Wars are forgetable, and OT was made with the help of many talented people, he only capitalised on it by making Prequels.
I totally agree with what George Lucas said in the interview. This criticism from media outlets is not only myopic but feels like a grifters straw man especially when there are minorities and female characters part of the main cast.
I know I might get some flak for this comment but I don’t really care. It was in the 1970s when Lucas came up with the idea for Star Wars and the first film came out in 1977, over 45 years ago. In 1977, Jimmy Carter just became the US President, the USSR was still in full swing, the Vietnam war just ended. It was probably decades before many of you reading this comment were born. Times were different. You can’t judge 1977 by the standards of 2024 because again many of you reading this likely weren’t alive in 1977 and were there to witness the times and the hardships inflicted on the world. I myself was born in the early 2000s but I do somewhat understand the times of the 70s because of my passion for history.
And there were tons of political scandals going on too, not unlike today. And the film industry was all anti-heroes and gray morality, and most science fiction films were weird and abstract with downer or ambiguous endings. Star Wars stood out because it was broke the conventions of the time and gave us something that different from all that stuff.
Very true. I always felt the gungans were portrayed in a racist light, racist towards primitive peoples. But at the time Lucas thought them up, just about every westener still viewed primitive people as simpletons or as children in need of our civilized guidance. Cant blaim people for being a product of the times they grew up in.
@@MrLennart1976 The Gungans were clearly Jamaicans, the Sand People were Arabs, and the Neimoidians were Asians. Lucas came from a time when you could use stereotypes because the people being mocked had no way to say anything about it. And even if they did complain the general public would tell them to shut up. Today that’s impossible.
Star Wars has always had strong female characters. Leia & Padme are badass, we don’t need forced changes like disney has been doing. Woman can look up to characters like that just fine.
GL is pretty based for these statememts. Makes me wonder how much sass we could have seen all these years, but I think he's spoke at the right time. If he said this when he sold his move-businesses he would have been trampled by hates, and if he had tried to say this in a few years in future it could have been lost in the crowd. GL hit the perfect moment with the release of StarWars back in the 70's to capture the imagination of the people, and I think he still has enough social clout today that he can say what we'd love to here - as he just did - to embolden a huge number of people. There is a reason why good sense used to be called common sense.
On the droids?? I mean, they kinda deserved the discrimination since they were part of the havoc in the prequels. And ai being weaponized... well, we'll know sooner or later if it can be trusted with no human direction
I really don't understand the "It's offensive because there's no black people in it" argument. I never have. By that logic, none of us should be able to enjoy The Land Before Time, The Lion King, or A Bug's Life because there are no humans in those movies at all. If you want to say something is offensive, at least do so based on what it is, instead of what it isn't.
its even more stupid when you realize a good majority of his prominent characters were black and or a woman in power😂 its like the woke people watched his movies with a blind fold and assumed everyone were white guys
I would say the prequels lacked strong female characters more than the originals. Say what you will about Padme in the first two movies, but by the end she just becomes a victimized and abused mother, not exactly a hero. I think the Clone Wars (which George had significant input on) really helped this problem with the addition of Ahsoka, Ventress, Luminara, Shaak Ti, Satine, etc. etc. and Padme was a much better character, in my opinion, there.
Unless if you consider that being a mother is heroic. Trying to keep your feet on the ground and your judgement clear when the whole galaxy is shattered around you, when right and wrong are less clear than ever and that all your co-senators are falling for the Empire.... And all of this while you're carrying children.... Feeling the life sucked out of yourself but trying to survive a few minutes more to give birth in your last breath.... is so badass.
0:17 anyone who's watched 'Strange Magic,' an animated fairytale musical by lucasfilms, will know that he is genuinely quite commited to exploring this theme. Really interesting statement, puts the usage of aliens in star wars under a different light .
Because White people apparently can't have their own spaces free of all these others. Blacks get enclaves. Asians get enclaves. He'll, blacks still get their own colleges.
When people talk about heroes in these flicks they aren't talking about the mothers & fathers, princesses & princes, and background characters that helped win the day. They were mostly concerned about who got to kick the most tail and do the actual fighting. It's all well and good to have a character be good at their job, it's another thing having that character do all of the traditional punching, flying, and kicking of the bad guys arse that stands out the most in an action flick. I understand his response though, but it could seem evasion to some not in the know. Sometimes I you gotta read into the comment of a critique or maybe ask them what they *really* mean when they say *Hero* because it's often lost in the cracks if you're not specific.
The lunacy of the internet holds no bounds, I'm sure everyone has come to that conclusion at one point or another during they're time online. Whether it's because of some political opinion, some gaming beef or just some drama that makes no sense. Everyone should be free to criticise everything, and most people are free to do so. That doesn't mean there aren't criticisms that don't match the thing they're criticising. Calling Lucas a racist, sexist bigot is one of those things. Leia Organa and Padmé Amidala are among the most badass women in fiction. And then there's the likes of Mace and Lando. Literally 2 of the most iconic Star Wars characters.
Star Wars has always been diverse With characters like the bad ass Māori bounty hunter jango fett and is army of clones, mace windu, James jones as the voice of Vader, and lando calrisan
Not just that, but the first three films were made in the 70s and 80s. Having Billy Dee Williams at the administrator of Cloud City and later hero of the rebellion drove the actual racists bonkers. It’s tough to get across just how much more open racism was then across more of society than today.
This reminds me of Peter Jackson being pressured into apologizing for not ethnically diversifying Lord of the Rings. The controversy seems suddenly fabricated out of thin air.
I love how they are calling him a racist despite that in real life is married to a black woman, despite all of the minority characters in Star Wars, and that in both the prequel an original series, the leading female is the one that honestly thinking with her brain and leading the rebellion
true 😂 he even made the strongest human jedi in the prequel and clone wars series a black man but for some reason new fans think he hates black people.
Never minded it, way too much. Besides, even I'm still weirded out flying with female TIE pilots in TIE Fighter Total Conversion's Classic campaign, since Legends doesn't seem to have any of them in its lore, but I can understand why there's a lot of them in other universes like the Alt-universe and TFTC's Reimagined campaign.
Lucas still knows what needs to make one a hero, unlike recent Marvel movies who just makes certain people hero 'because that's what woke people would do'
@@thewatcher7940it’s not about the certain people being a hero, it’s when those certain people are portrayed as a perfect hero with no character development because of their race or gender, leading to a boring Mary Sue story. Similar to the Star Wars sequel trilogy with Rey, you have this nobody who grew up doing nothing but scavenging be an amazing pilot, can speak wookie, and beats Kylo Ren, who was Luke’s best student, despite never using a lightsaber before. I’m not saying that Rey was the only reason for the sequels being terrible either because the writing and story structure was bad in general, but if they made her a well written character, maybe the sequels would have been received better
@@thewatcher7940also as another example can you believe the backlash from the black community if they made ant-man black, they would be mad that he was a thief despite his character progression throughout the movie. And that is what Disney is afraid of, they probably would have made him without any flaws to not upset the black community if he was black
Yeah, I feel bad & sorry for George Lucas all those decades he produced those epic & superbly talented Star Wars films from 1-6 & what Disney & Kathleen Kennedy are doing is just ruining his hard work on it however Jon Favreau & Dave Filoni are doing an amazing job on The Mandalorian series which is the only good Star Wars series including the rebels. The only good modern Star Wars film that’s great is Rouge 1.
He also preferred to find small-name actors, or even nobody actors, for his cast. That is a kind of diversity often overlooked. Chewbacca was played by a man working as an orderly in a hospital, not even an actor.
I feel we should accept he is one of the greatest directors of all time, and accept he is a normal human just like everyone else. Whatever he is thinking, it’s not his job to influence others. People who do get influenced by him either positively or negatively, are too egoistical.
He is saying the truth about why fans (eve minorities like myself) loved the originals as kids, the aliens made us reconsider biases we had toward other humans, and women felt validated and capable thanks to both the heroics and empathy of Leia and Padme. Disney has been performative this whole time since The Last Jedi; specifically with Canto-Byte and the 1950s aesthetic on that planet that didn't belong there, while the galactic republic was destroyed, how the hell is there any commerce enough to gamble when there isn't even a functioning economy? You can't have your rich vs poor or military's industrial complex analogies if you don't put in the work to have it make sense in universe.
Is George or his films perfect? No. But people are clearly forgetting Leia and Padme having lead roles with action scenes, Mon Mothma being made the leader of the rebellion and Lando and Mace who were heroes with prominent roles. These characters have also gone off to get a lot of EU content over the decades. We just saw Mon Mothma playing a big part in Andor. This is how to tell me your making an disingenuous take without telling me.
I love how expansive the universe seems in crowded scenes too. You can see dozens of different people from different planets in scenes like mos eisley. These planets are explored more in the clone wars too
All I get from that is that he doesn't bend the knee, so that's in his favor. The interviewer's mistake was to think he could lecture a priest of the movement.
George please remake Episode 7. 8 and 9 and give the Star Wars saga the ending it deserves. Then we can lay your fantastic story to rest and they can do whatever they like after that. There are no rules in this game and i know it would get incredible support and praise.
Star Wars white washing? One of the main characters is a Wookie covered in hair and the other is yoda a small green creature. If you can accept them as a main character then why are you caring about other characters so much. Also mace windo? Lando?
Nah this is fucking disgusting. Their version of Star Wars completely failed and is an embarrassment. But rather than except criticism and try to change, they attempt to claim that the original films were actually the bad ones. Do they hear themselves?
Lando as head of a giant gas mining operation. Leia and Mon Mothma as leaders of the rebellion. Mace as one of the highest ranking jedi. Queen Amidala leading the whole planet of naboo, followed by Padme as her successor. An Admiral that looks like a freaking fish. Did I forget anyone? Probably I did. Yeah, OG star wars is so racist and anti feminist. It's insane that anybody would dare to say otherwise. At least the ultimate villain is a stereotypical old, white cis man with some hair loss. - at least one thing they did right. Right?
And better yet, it's so well done that I didn't question why women and non-white men are in positions of power at all in the older movies, something a lot of modern shows and especially modern Star Wars fail to do. Before, it actually makes sense why they are in positions of leadership or significance, now they're often so bad at being leaders or generally insufferable to now I question if every woman or non-white person is casted because of a quota. I went from not caring who was on screen to being paranoid whenever anything besides white men are on screen, modern writers have failed THAT badly.
Rey is an example of how companies like Disney do things nowadays... Instead of making a strong woman, they create a woman that is perfect by default... Which results in being condescending towards women.
I think basically he was right about everything.He said about the original six movies and disney has done nothing but destroy the fan base and franchise
While Disney were still promoting the « damsels in distress » image of a princess until the early 2000, Lucas made Leia and Padme, two great examples of strong, well written woman characters who represent feminism without pushing agenda down our throat as Disney is now doing. Ironic as would say Palps
media is the joy and sorrow of our age. it means any unrestricted comments or any thought no matter how stupid get launched into the general population. if anyone asks a stupid question it becomes a tangible thing
George is right, although calling Han a guy who can't do anything on his own is a bit too much. But yeah Leia is awesome, Amidala is pretty competent on her own, Mon Mothma is cool in OT and legends (and Andor, in other disney shit she's goddamn awful). Leia also isn't a Mary Sue, she makes bad calls, she has a softer side to her, she can be pretty loud and annoying and lose control of her emotions a bit. She's very much human in OT, that's why fans love her
