George Lucas has stepped down from on high to speak some words to his adoring fans about the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
He says, “When you do a movie like this, a sequel that’s very, very anticipated, people anticipate ultimately that it’s going to be the Second Coming. And it’s not. It’s just a movie. Just like the other movies. You probably have fond memories of the other movies. But if you went back and looked at them, they might not hold up the same way your memory holds up.” Really? Sure, I’ll give you Speed 2: Cruise Control, but Raiders of the Lost Ark holds up quite well, IMO. He continues, “We came back to do (Indy) because we wanted to have fun. It’s not going to make much money for us in the end. We all have some money. … It would make a lot of money if you weren’t rich. But we’re not doing it for the money.”
This can go two ways my friends:
1. The movie sucks and Lucas knows it.
So George sees the final edit and shakes his head. “Only thing that could make this worse is JarJar… I better address the nation.” And then releases this statement to bring us out of our adrenaline soaked haze of anticipation so that he doesn’t have to endure another letter writing campaign by the rabid fanboys.
2. The Movie is going to be great, but not as great as everyone has built their hopes up to be.
Lucas likely blames the superhype of the prequels to its failures. I actually think this too. I for one, enjoyed the Star Wars prequels, and though they had their flaws, I felt they stayed true to the franchise (mostly) and a lot of people might have enjoyed it more if they were expecting them to suck. Would we have forgiven Darth Flannel if he had warned us about JarJar? Probably not, but the gesture would have been nice.
I am voting for #2.
Setting the expectations low guarantees success. This is why I don’t buy my wife flowers. Ever. Then when I finally do, she will think she is the luckiest girl on the planet. (I gotta work harder – I’m not hot) I try my best to treat movies the same way.
If I get too excited about them, they will only let me down.
