I was given this link by someone who clearly held some very strong feelings about Star Wars, George Lucas and how events have unfolded according to GL, the media and fans in general. The ebook (which is free to download from the site) is very well written by an professional author who has done some exhaustive research in order to examine every aspect/timeline/circumstance that dealt with the origins and evolution of how and why Star Wars is what it is today.
After reading the first hundred pages or so of The Secret History of Star Wars I'm left with a couple of impressions.
1.) Whether he intended it or not, whether George Lucas wrote the line or Harrison Ford ad libed it, "I'm making this stuff up as I go along." is an Indiana Jones quote that seems to describe Mr. Lucas' approach to Star Wars and his portrayal of it's history. GL made up Star Wars on the fly because he was motivated to create a fun SCI/FI, big budget movie that he would enjoy watching himself. He clearly didn't have the Star Wars we know in mind when he originally decided to make the film. He came up with Star Wars because he needed something specific to put on screen, not just a vague notion of a Flash Gordon type story. That George put his butt in a seat, pulled together all of his influences and came up with the script for SW is something I'm sure we are all grateful for.
2.) After Star Wars was a hit, George did it again. He got the opportunity to make more Star Wars films and came up with some ideas that would further his story, making revisions to concepts he laid down (on the fly mind you) in the first film so that he would be able to keep moving things along. Whatever it was that we all thought Star Wars was when we saw it the first time, it had now been changed to be part of something much larger. For good or ill. I agree that GL's revisionist history of events is troubling. Maybe he thought fans of his movie would respect him and the subject matter more if he told a few white lies and made it seem that he'd always had a grand vision for Star Wars as if GL could be confused with the likes of Isaac Asimov or J.R.R. Tolkien.
In the end my take is that in spite of all the long hours, hard work and wrangling with financing/studios/critics/directors/actors etc. George Lucas seems to have had a lot of fun making 6 Star Wars movies and the guy made a huge fortune doing it. I didn't enjoy the other 5 films as much as I loved the first one but I did enjoy them all to one extent or another. I'm not willing to chuck my collection of Prequels and remastered original trilogy Star Wars dvds however I can completely identify with those of you who only own the original Star Wars on VHS and draw a line in the sand saying "This far. No farther!"
Perhaps, in order to keep things tidy, George Lucas should have created a separate universe to portray his "The Fall and Redemption of a Tragic Hero" story. I think we'd all feel more comfortable if he had.
However something tells me we'd have an opinion about that too.
