Hey George, first of all, I just wanted to congratulate you on yet another blockbuster movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. Really, not many can pull off that many hits in a row.
However, Mr. Lucas, I do infact take umbrage with several areas of your methodology. I guess we’ll go ahead and address Star Wars, Episodes 1 – 3. You know, the most recent ones that for some reason defied natural chronological order. No one was more excited than I was when Episode One came into theaters. Glee shot through my body; finally I could be apart of something I’d missed out (damn your ovaries, mother.) I waited, and waited…many hours in line, and then huzzah! All I’d waited for…everything…now lay infront of me.
Then that theme music, George. That God damned theme music, the scrolling story line…
Needless to say, I was quite disappointed. I didn’t expect perfection, but I did expect some level of competency that only you could deliver. After all, the original triology was something of a life-altering happenstance for me. I didn’t expect you to exceed your Sistine Chapel, just follow it up with at the very least a “The Last Judgement”, or something. Something that I could still look at as a masterpiece, despite it’s small but easily over-looked flaws.
But I didn’t get that. In fact, most of us feel the same way. The “us” I refer to being of course Star Wars geeks and fanatics the world over. But that was okay. I looked past the god-awful abomination that was Jar-Jar Binks, and held my head high in hope for Episode Two.
Then Episode Two came out. Somehow, like an Alzheimer’s patient in the Spring time celebrating Christmas, I had nothing but even higher expectations. “Okay”, I reasoned, “ever Da Vinci had his missteps. Now that he’s gotten the turd out of the tanker, we’re going to be cooking with gas!”
I can’t even tell you what happened in Episode Two. My brain has blocked that out of my head, much like a victim of a major car accident. I only have the nightmares now…there are screams, and I don’t know why.
Episode Three was, quality wise, HOW EPISODE ONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN!
So then you put it to bed. I generally only look at the actual first three installments as the Star Wars legacy. I’ve made peace with this, too.
Then I start hearing talks about resurrecting Indiana Jones. Now…heres the thing, Lucas, and I need you to pay very close attention to me: It is nearly god damned impossible to fuck up Indiana Jones. NEARLY.
It’s a dude in a Fedora, with a whip exploring shit and fighting Nazis. How do you fuck that up? It writes itself. IT. WRITES. ITSELF.
Yet somehow…you fucked it up.
Two hours of what should have been the most exciting cinematic adventure I’ve had in at least three years, was met with boring special effects, impossible premise, and…ailens?! Are you shitting me?
The prop for the Crystal Skull looks like it was bought on clearance at a Spirit Halloween store. REALLY?
The magic behind the original three Indiana Jones movies is a simple formula: as professor of archeology searching for some thing cool, with a whip, some facial hair and a fedora. Occasionally throw in an Asian Kid, or Marion…or Sean Connery…or Nazis and guess what, thats it! A big fuck rolling ball…
I think whats happened here, Mr. Lucas, is that you’ve lost touch with proper imagination. When that big boulder rolled after Indy, it was complex in it’s simplicity…yet…now you have Indy hiding in a fridge to avoid a nuclear-fuck-fire-ball-holocaust?
CGI doesn’t make a movie better. Look at those Nazi faces melting, for example. It looked so fake that it was amazing. Now just because you’ve got some more expensive toys, it doesn’t make up for the lack of story-telling, and attention grabbing scenarios as you once had. The tools don’t make the craft, the craftsmen makes the craft. Like John Lennon once said, “I’m an artist, you give me a tuba, and I’ll get something out of it.”
You got lucky so many times, it isn’t even funny. Star Wars shouldn’t have worked, let alone three consecutive times. Same with your early involvement with Indiana Jones…but yet again, lightning struck three more times.
Now this dreck. This absolute pile of cinematic crap. If the name Indiana Jones hadn’t been stapled to this, and Johnny New Director came along with Georgia James and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls…well, Johnny New Director would be directing the next sequel to “2 Girls 1 Cup”, and thats just the truth of the matter.
A.I. was horrible…at least two of the three newer Star Wars were abortions on film, and now you’ve ruined Indiana Jones. This new Indiana Jones movie sucked, George. It SUCKED. I never thought, in my entire life that that statement would ever cross my lips. Ever. EVER.
Now I feel I owe it as a service to people to spare them the coin, and suggest that they just go see Iron Man, which has practically been the only movie worth seeing all year, minus Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Charlie Bartlett. Hell, 21 was better than this.
George, it’s time to listen to the throngs of fans that sat in seats across the world, and had their hearts broken by you yet again. It’s time to just let Indiana Jones rest in peace, and let us come to conclusions about what actually happened after The Last Crusade, which you should be sued for false advertisement, pal.
It’s too late for the Star Wars franchise. It has a horrible black eye thats nearly impossible to completely look past. Like a cop stumbling into a domestic abuse situation, some one should be jailed for that because she damn sure didn’t walk into a door. No one is that clumsy three times. No one.
We don’t care where our beloved characters come from. Thats what all the novels were for. In case we actually did get curious, we’d pick up the book…and with the advent of the internet, we now have…regretably…fanfic.
You once were a detractor of CGI. You used to work with your hands, and let your mind roam. Now you let a MacBook Pro, and your mouse do all the work.
Star Wars certainly deserved better, Indy deserved better, and the fans George…they as well deserve much better than this.
Maybe don’t molest our childhood memories anymore? I know you don’t need the money, god knows you’ve gotten plenty from me alone. I know I’m not the only chump that bought the VHS boxset of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, then the subsequent dvds, and then the remastered versions.
The shirts, the action figures, the books, the paraphernalia. You went from a visionary to a whore in over 25 years. What the hell happened?
You’ll take these enormous figures as a sign to shoot Indy part 5. I’ll go see it, and then write another one of these letters in vein.
Just…next time you get the urge to bilk something that was so good to everyone involved…don’t.Theres a billion other things you could do with all that money. Might I suggest philanthropy? Scientology? Darfur? They are all the rage these days.
In closing, I want to apologize for coming off crass and rude. The truth is, I wouldn’t write this open letter if I hadn’t once had such a vast and unending river of respect for you. I still do as well, but feel that sometimes it’s much better to let sleeping dogs lie.
I also feel you owe me an apology.
Sincerally, Aaron Hale.