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George Lucas Thinks Today's Movies Suck, Is Confused By Cat Videos
George Lucas flanked by two of his creations (Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images for AFI)
George Lucas took shots at the film industry at a Sundance Film Festival panel on Thursday, calling the films that Hollywood churns out "more and more circus without any substance behind it."Lucas was joined by Robert Redford for a panel about film storytelling, and the two dove into their own personal histories of Hollywood in the Seventies, with Lucas regaling the audience with stories about his antipathy towards the studio system. He bemoaned the direction that Hollywood had gone in, bemoaning that movies have, "Gotten to be more and more circus than substance," according to Deadline. He said that the mindset of the studios today was, "Let's see how much blood comes out when he splats."
Although it seems like the pot calling the kettle black, since many attribute the blockbuster-driven model of Hollywood to Star Wars (and Steven Spielberg's Jaws), Lucas defended his space opera, saying, "If you go into Star Wars and see what's going on there, there's a lot more substance than circus."
It could just be a case of Old Man Yells At Cloud, as 70-year old George seems baffled by the State of Entertainment in 2015. "I would never guess people would watch cats do stupid things all day long"
Variety mentions Lucas also slammed Hollywood executives by saying they were "generally not the most sophisticated people in the word," and added "you do not want to be oppressed by people who are not as smart as you are."
"The studios to me were something to run away from."
Lucas has worked outside of the studio system for the majority of his career, founding Lucasfilm in 1971. In 2012, he sold it to Disney for $4 billion. "All the money is in the action figures," he said.
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