Poor George Lucas. The man is one of the greatest storytellers of all time, yet even IGN, the largest entertainment media company in the world, can’t appreciate his genius and misrepresents his words to suit their own agenda. This isn’t entirely surprising, as their reviews of Lucas’ Star Wars Prequels were beyond harsh (I refuse to link to them, but here are the scores; you can Google them if you want to read.)
Before we get into IGN’s misrepresentation of what George Lucas said about his Sequel Trilogy (to be fair, they aren’t the only ones, but they’re the largest), it’s important to establish that they do have an anti-Lucas agenda and a seemingly pro-Kathleen Kennedy agenda. It’s also important to recognize that 1) IGN never had a formal review for The Phantom Menace and 2) The man who reviewed Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith is the same person.
- The Phantom Menace – 7/10 (in DVD review, movie portion) 6/10 Okay (3D Version)
- Attack of the Clones – 4/10 Bad
- Revenge of the Sith – 6/10 Okay
Here are the Metacritic user scores for the Prequels. We’ll include The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi as well just to be thorough.
- The Phantom Menace – 6/10 (1,355 ratings)
- Attack of the Clones – 6/10 (1,149 ratings)
- Revenge of the Sith – 7.6/10 (1,679 ratings)
- The Force Awakens – 6.9/10 (6,949 ratings)
- The Last Jedi – 4.5/10 (7,290 ratings)
According to fans, Revenge of the Sith is the best Star Wars film since Return of the Jedi (8.3/10, 1,195 ratings.)
Revenge of the Sith is lauded as the best in the Prequel Trilogy, yet somehow The Phantom Menace has a score which is either higher or on-par with it according to IGN. Their Revenge of the Sith review admits that it’s the strongest in the Prequel Trilogy. You can draw your own conclusions from this quote from their review, though it’s utterly appalling and re-enforces the fact that IGN has perpetuated an anti-George Lucas agenda for almost 20 years and have attempted to destroy the legacy of one of the greatest visionaries of our time. It’s also incredibly condescending towards those who actually think it’s an excellent film and unnecessarily vicious in its’ attacks. Completely inappropriate.
“His preceding two chapters were so ill received by fans of the “classic” trilogy (Episodes IV, V, and VI)…and so thoroughly stupefied hapless newbies…that a root canal without anesthesia seemed preferable to another dose of the overwrought, self-important pabulum heaped upon viewers over the last six years.
In other words, Revenge of the Sith is not the “masterpiece” some make it out to be. It is, simply, a far more worthy installment than we’ve recently been fed. Its currently lofty status is a mirage, induced and perpetuated by the shameless hokum which preceded it.“
Now, let’s look at IGN’s Kathleen Kennedy Star Wars reviews. These are just simple facts being presented to establish an indisputable truth before we get to the crux of the issue at hand.
- The Force Awakens – 8.8/10 Great
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: 9/10 Amazing
- The Last Jedi: 9.7/10 Amazing
- Solo: A Star Wars Story: 7/10 Good
Now, I personally disagree with all of these scores, but you can draw your own conclusions if you read the reviews and the agenda they push. That’s not what this article is about, nor should it be. But it’s relevant. It frames and re-enforces, once again, the simple truth that IGN is a part of a large network of establishment entertainment media outlets putting Kennedy’s Star Wars on a pedestal, shilling for her version of Star Wars, while maliciously attacking George Lucas and his definitive vision as the creator of the Saga. They are co-opting the Star Wars fandom to frame a narrative. It cannot become any more apparent after reading this quote from their Last Jedi review and their distortion of Lucas’ words and plans for his Sequel Trilogy, which we’ll get to.
“Johnson manages to tell a deeply personal yet large-scale tale that gives every character a moment to shine. The film moves at a brisk pace, covering an impressive amount of ground while still finding time for slower, more methodical scenes, not to mention well-placed moments of levity. The first half is so exciting and involved that Johnson is able to hide the fact he’s setting up the truly stunning moments still to come. By the time The Last Jedi ends, the Star Wars universe feels like it’s been through an entire trilogy’s worth of revelations. That’s why it’s so satisfying to watch: it feels more like a complete story than your typical installment of Star Wars.
Jake Skywalker
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the quintessential Star Wars movie. It embraces everything in the franchise that came before while taking big risks to push the story into new and unexpected places.“
You can read our review here, but it’s obvious we did not see the same film, and we break down what worked and what didn’t work pretty well. Taking that into account, and given the huge fan divide over the film already documented (4.5/10 user score on Metacritic), are you saying the fans are wrong and critics know so much more? That’s the epitome of arrogance. Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi is the quintessential Star Wars film? That implies that it surpasses George Lucas’ vision, which is definitive, like it or not. There’s so much more that Lucas never got the chance to tell which is very fascinating and incredibly detailed, oozing with creativity and includes awe-inspiring world-building. There is no such thing in Rian Johnson’s film or in Kathleen Kennedy’s Star Wars. They’re simply leeching off of what came before.
So. Now we have all of that out of the way.
“This is Where the Fun Begins“
In mid-June, IGN came out with an article titled “George Lucas’ Star Wars Episodes 7-9 Would Have Explored Midi-Chlorians and the “Microbiotic World.”
This statement is categorically false. It’s clickbait at best, disingenuous and a misrepresentation of fact at worst. Given IGN’s history of viciously attacking George Lucas (documented in this article) and his vision of Star Wars, which is definitive, it’s a fair statement to say that there is a clear agenda at play here.
“Back in 2012, if George Lucas hadn’t sold Lucasfilm for over $4 Billion, he would have created a third Star Wars trilogy focusing on midi-chlorians and the “microbiotic world.
“Speaking of midi-chlorians, Lucas clearly understands the fan outcry with his introduction of them in Episode I, and says; “Of course, a lot of the fans would have hated it, just like they did ‘Phantom Menace’ and everything, but at least the whole story from beginning to end would be told.”
Lucas never states the Sequel Trilogy would have been about midi-chlorians. In an excerpt of a quote from George Lucas in the book The Making of Star Wars by JW Rinzler, Lucas had this explanation of The Force in 1977:
“The Force gives you the power to have extrasensory perception and to be able to see things and hear things, read minds and levitate things. It is said that certain creatures are born with a higher awareness of the Force than humans. Their brains are different; they have more midi-chlorians in their cells.”
The idea that midi-chlorians were created sometime after Return of the Jedi is a sheer myth; they’ve been there since the beginning and stating Lucas’ trilogy would have been about midi-chlorians is simply a clickbait story to create outrage.
The Journal of the Whills
A possible depiction of the Whills from ‘The Clone Wars’
With that said, this is what Lucas actually had to say regarding his vision for the Sequel Trilogy in a conversation with James Cameron, which is a fascinating exchange. The Sequel Trilogy would have explored the Whills, something which has mystified Star Wars fans for over 40 years.
GL: “Everybody hated it in The Phantom Menace [when] we started talking about midi-chlorians. There is a whole aspect of that movie that is about symbiotic relationships. To make you look and see that we aren’t the boss. That there’s an ecosystem there.”
JC: “There’s an ecosystem inside us called the microbiome that they’re just learning about now.”
GL: “[The next three Star Wars Films] were going to get into a microbiotic world. But there’s this world of creatures that operate differently than we do. I call them the Whills. And the Whills are the ones who actually control the Universe. They feed off the Force.”
JC: “You were creating a religion George.”
GL: “Back in the day, I used to say ultimately what this means is we were just cars, vehicles for the Whills to travel around in…We’re vessels for them. And the conduit is the midi-chlorians. The midi-chlorians are the ones who communicate with the Whills. The Whills, in a general sense, they are the Force.”
JC: “But you’re putting detail and a facade of science around an idea that’s pretty timeless, which is the spirit, the soul, heaven, causation. …But in your world-building, you’re going back to archetype, which is spirit, the godhead, all that sort of thing.”
GL: “All the way back to — with the Force and the Jedi and everything — the whole concept of how things happen was laid out completely [from the beginning] to the end. But I never got to finish. I never got to tell people about it.“
Originally, the Whills were The Force. Lucas decided that was a bit too complicated, so he scrapped it and replaced it with a more abstract idea.
“Originally, I was trying to have the story be told by somebody else (an immortal being known as a Whill); there was somebody watching this whole story and recording it, somebody probably wiser than the mortal players in the actual events. I eventually dropped this idea, and the concepts behind the Whills turned into the Force. But the Whills became part of this massive amount of notes, quotes, background information that I used for the scripts; the stories were actually taken from the Journal of the Whills.“
The “Shaman of the Whills” is also the one responsible for teaching Qui-Gon Jinn to retain his identity after death according to a scene which was cut from Revenge of the Sith. The Whills have always been an integral part of Star Wars, so a Sequel Trilogy entailing the Whills and the essence of what The Force is would have been a natural extension of the Saga.
“For My Ally is The Force, and a Powerful Ally it is“
George Lucas is one of the greatest storytellers and creative genius’ of our time. He’s a true visionary who crafted a Saga that literally changed the world. It is abhorrent that a “respected” media outlet would distort his statements over what his vision for the Sequel Trilogy really was simply to create outrage, and, over the course of 20 years, continue to viscerally attack him, attempt to destroy his legacy, and try to re-write history.
All we’ve done here is deal in facts; statistics, review scores, quotes, and exposing misrepresentation of truth, the propagation of an anti-George Lucas agenda that has, again, spanned decades and is well-documented. This is indisputable. We’re not attacking anyone. If you enjoy the new films, that’s fantastic. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and to speak as if we need to be told how to think is reprehensible, especially from the largest entertainment media outlet in the world.
To state that Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy’s Star Wars is somehow the “quintessential” version of Star Wars is categorically false, on an objective level. George Lucas is the creator of Star Wars. He crafted the lore, he wrote the story, he spent years and years researching and building the world and the characters. Then, to top it all off, to distort statements to fit an anti-Lucas agenda in order to create outrage, stating that his Sequel Trilogy would be about midi-chlorians when it is actually much deeper, and much more creative than anything we have been given thus far by Kathleen Kennedy’s version of Star Wars? Draw your own conclusion.
George Lucas and his masterful Star Wars Saga will stand the test of time and will be lauded for generations to come.
Thankfully, irresponsible journalism won’t. It’s only a shame we will never get the opportunity to see Lucas’ vision for Star Wars: Episodes VII-IX.