Dear George Lucas

Dear George,

I guess I just need to say what I need to say and be done with it. I've tried to start this letter a number of times, but keep erasing it all, trying to find the right words - I just want to be sure that I get this right. We've been through so much together, you and me and all my money, haven't we? I've been needing to talk to you for so long, but you've been so busy for the past 10 years making those 'movies' and counting all of my money (do you still swim naked through your vault like you loved to do?) and I got caught up with puberty and finding college kids to buy me alcohol and light petting and it just never seemed like the right time. Maybe if I had been braver, came to you with my concerns when they first arose we wouldn't be at this point. So, for that, I blame myself... but then again, we've never been too good at really talking to one another, have we? It's all seemed so one sided... I always feel like I've been sitting in the dark for hours while you told me the same stories over and over again. Well now look at us, after all these years and I don't even recognize you anymore.

The good ole days

I began to get worried way back in 83 with Return of the Jedi... Empire was so good and Reagan was in office and we were all flying high on love and the bull market. You knew the expectations were high, but you were so confident and sure of yourself that I fell under your spell for a third time. And you know what, George Lucas? You did it. The movie was great - critically acclaimed, moving, compassionate, lots of shit blowing up - I couldn't have asked for more, but looking back now, I can see where it began.

Yes. Fuck yes.

No - The first sign

But then, we started drifiting apart. Those few years after Jedi, well, there were some soul-searching quiet moments there, weren't there? I didn't hear from you much, but I was always there, waiting for when you'd let me back in. I knew you still cared for me, my parents always paid for the shipping on those Star Wars figures you kept sending me, and I knew when the time was right we'd be back together. Then, in 1986 Christmas came early. Or so I thought. You didn't send lightsabers and Millennium Falcons and a galactic struggle between good and evil. I know Harrison was away working on other projects, but, George Lucas, and I say this with nothing but love for you - what the fuck, man? 3 years of silence and you try to make up for it with Howard the Duck?

....seriously?

As the technology kept getting more advanced you let your imagination run wild. I stood by your side the whole time, George Lucas. When you wanted to print some more money and remade the trilogy? I was right there with you and sat through them all again, feeling like we were making our way back to where we once were. Even though you tried to gay-up Han Solo, I let it slide as mid-life liberal remorse for a gentler world.

Un-Gayable

And things were good for a time - I hit a rough patch and had to sell all of the figures you sent me through the years to pay for my first year of school, but I still had you, and you had my money and it was like 1977 all over again.

But let me get down to brass tax here, George Lucas, you know I've never minced my words --- things didn't last. The build-up to the prequels was unfathomable, the hopes and aspirations and dreams of our future together riding the wave of fanboys' wet dreams all over the world and all you had to do was do the same thing you did 20 years earlier. We're not talking a high dive or flying trapeze or a 50 year old running a marathon. All you had to do was tell the same story in the same way, and everything would have been ok. All you had to do George Lucas, was flash some lightsabers, cut up some aliens and show some shit levitating. And this is what I got.

Why?

I know that you and me weren't talking at the time, but was there no one you could run that one by? Did you let anyone read the script? Was it something I said? I guess you can see where this is going now. Over the next 6 years you threw shitty movie after shitty movie at me, expecting your old confidence and flannely-aloofness to charm me as it used to. But its just not enough anymore, George Lucas. We've changed, you, and me, and my wallet. Gone are the days when it will just open its bi-fold for you anytime you feel frisky. I need something more than a mere shadow of what we once had -- I need the real deal - I need a Darth Vader thats evil because he's a fucking bad-ass, not because he's a whiny 20 year-old with a crush. I need a hot heroine who will strip down, not put on makeup with a paint-roller. I need a rough-around-the-edges smuggler type who's willing to gamble everything for the girl. I need a Boba Fett that isn't the unadulterated brother of every storm trooper in the galaxy. I need Jedi who don't lay down and die when an old man jumps over a table at them. God, George Lucas, I don't even know what more I can say.

But just when I thought you had hit rock bottom, when I thought there was no possible way you could screw the pooch any worse, you pulled the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen you do. On the darkest day, in the remotest, coldest corner of hell, I suppose I could defend Jar Jar if I was really put upon. But in no way could I ever conceive how you could possibly consider this a proper move in our relationship. Worse than the time you whored out the franchise for the Holiday Special, worse than the Ewoks spin-off, and even worse than the idea that Anakin Skywalker crafted C-3PO himself, you went and outdid everything I thought you capable of -- I hope you're not playing stupid, George Lucas, you know exactly what I'm talking about--

Put em together and what do you get?



Ziro the Hutt. Or Truman Capote. I still can't tell.

A quarter century and 4 billion dollars later and the best you can come up with is a transexual-ish gay slug? What the hell, George? Can you name one character you've created in the past 25 years who hasn't sucked ass? Mace Windu (Samuel L Jackson? SERIOUSLY)? Count Dooku? If I can give you anything for when you walk away, its this - FILM A MOVIE WITHOUT CG AND IT MIGHT NOT MAKE SOME PART OF ME DIE. So, George Lucas, I just want you to know that we are done and I'm over you and I don't want you calling anymore or writing me or sending me your catalogues or trying to convince me that R2 can fly because we all no that makes no goddamn sense. I don't want us to forget the good times we had, but seriously, we're done now. I can't put myself through this anymore. So please, don't try to contact me or my money, we don't want to talk to you.

Until you make a Ziro the Hutt figure. I'll probably still buy that.