Marcia Lucas Speaks Out Against The Sequel Trilogy

Words From Someone Who Was There At The Beginning

By Culture SlatePublished 3 years ago • 5 min read

On July 28, 2021, J.W. Rinzler sadly passed away. Roughly one and a half months after his demise, his probably last book Howard Kazanjian: A Producer's Life was published. It deals with the life and career of the famous film producer, who worked on movies like The Empire Strikes Back, Return of The Jedi, and Raiders of The Lost Ark and collaborated with movie-making giants like Alfred Hitchcock, Sam Peckinpah, Steven Spielberg, and of course George Lucas.

The foreword to the book is aptly written by Marcia Lucas, who regards Kazanjian and his wife Carol not only as close friends, but she also compares her own career to that of the producer – with both of them working in “post,” as she calls it (i.e. post production), somewhere in the shadows behind famous directors.

But the foreword to Rinzler’s book is by far not the only place with thoughts from George Lucas’ ex-wife, who has worked with directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola and who in 1978 won an Academy Award for her editorial work on Star Wars, together with Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew. When Star Wars was on the cutting room, Marcia’s task was to edit the space battle around Yavin IV, but her influence on the first Star Wars movie doesn’t end there: It was her idea to kill off Ben Kenobi and have him reappear as a spiritual advisor to Luke, and she also pinpointed the importance of Han Solo showing up and saving the day, so Luke could fire his proton torpedo.

One could argue that Marcia Lucas is not only a brilliant editor, but also knows a thing or two about storytelling. So it is most probably not an old woman’s “get off my lawn” nagging, when she deals a verbal blow at the sequel trilogy and the work of Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams in the part of Rinzler’s book that deals with the later part of Kazanjian’s life:

“I like Kathleen. I always liked her,” says Marcia Lucas. “She was full of beans. She was really smart and really bright. Really wonderful woman. And I liked her husband, Frank. I liked them a lot. Now that she’s running Lucasfilm and making movies, it seems to me that Kathy Kennedy and J.J. Abrams don’t have a clue about Star Wars. They don’t get it. And J.J. Abrams is writing these stories—when I saw that movie where they kill Han Solo, I was furious. I was furious when they killed Han Solo. Absolutely, positively there was no rhyme or reason to it. I thought, You don’t get the Jedi story. You don’t get the magic of Star Wars. You’re getting rid of Han Solo?”

But her critique on the Disney era of Star Wars doesn’t end with Episode VII:

“And then at the end of this last one, The Last Jedi, they have Luke disintegrate. They killed Han Solo. They killed Luke Skywalker. And they don’t have Princess Leia anymore.”

But it is not only the apparent disrespect for the heroes of the original trilogy that is infuriating Lucas; she also doesn’t agree with the decision to make a female character the lead of the new trilogy without giving her a proper backstory:

“And they think it’s important to appeal to a woman’s audience, so now their main character is this female, who’s supposed to have Jedi powers, but we don’t know how she got Jedi powers, or who she is. It sucks. The storylines are terrible. Just terrible. Awful.”

It seems that these quotes were made before the release of The Rise of Skywalker, where Rey’s linage was finally revealed. So maybe Marcia Lucas’ assessment of the sequel trilogy has changed after Episode IX, but it seems doubtful.

In another part of the book, which describes Kazanjian’s career in the 90’s, she also doesn’t talk kindly about the work of her own ex-husband, from whom she divorced in 1982:

“George is, in his heart and soul, a good guy and a talented filmmaker. I wish he would’ve kept directing [other kinds of] movies. But when I went to see Episode I—I had a friend who worked at ILM, who took me as a guest to a preview—I remember going out to the parking lot, sitting in my car and crying. I cried. I cried because I didn’t think it was very good. And I thought he had such a rich vein to mine, a rich palette to tell stories with. He had all those characters. And I thought it was weird that the story was about this little boy who looked like he was six years old, but then later on he’s supposed to get with this princess who looked like she was twenty years old. There were things I didn’t like about the casting, and things I didn’t like about the story, and things I didn’t like—it was a lot of eye candy. CG.”

Marcia’s opinion on the work of Lucas, Kennedy, and Abrams most probably won’t affect any future Star Wars plans of Disney/Lucasfilm, but it is still interesting to see what someone who was there in the trenches of moviemaking in the '70s and '80s thinks about what the saga has become afterwards.

Like all of Rinzler’s books, Howard Kazanjian: A Producer's Life is an endless treasure trove for any movie fan who wants to know more about the behind-the scenes work on some of the most famous blockbusters of the last two decades of the 20th century. You can purchase it here: https://amzn.to/3u4mKme

Written By Gerald Petschk

Sources: IGN

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