George Lucas doesn’t assume the practically all-white casting of his “Star Wars” movies is an issue.
The 80-year-old director, who wrote and directed the unique 1977 fantasy-adventure himself earlier than handing the reins for the remainder of his trilogy off to different filmmakers, returned to the director’s chair for three not-so-popular prequel entries starting in 1999.
Whereas the beloved franchise has intergenerational legions of followers, critics in recent times have famous the dearth of racial variety throughout each trilogies — one thing Lucas addressed Friday on the Cannes Movie Competition, the place he’s set to obtain an honorary Palme d’Or.
“They would say, ‘It’s all white men,’” Lucas mentioned, per Selection. “Most of the people are aliens! The idea is you’re supposed to accept people for what they are, whether they’re big and furry or whether they’re green or whatever. The idea is all people are equal.”
Lucas produced the World Struggle II drama “Red Tails” (2012), which targeted on Black airmen. However his “Star Wars” movies have confronted this specific criticism for the reason that first film’s launch, together with from famed astronomer Carl Sagan.
“It’s extremely unlikely that there would be creatures as similar to us as the dominant ones in ‘Star Wars,’ and there’s a whole bunch of other things — they’re all white,” he mentioned on “The Tonight Show” in 1978. “The skin of all the humans … oddly enough, is [white].”
Black “Star Wars” characters embrace Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) and Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson). Jar-Jar Binks, a CGI alien, was additionally performed by Black actor Ahmed Finest, and villain Darth Vader was voiced by James Earl Jones.
Lucas argued Friday that “there were a few Tunisians who were dark” within the authentic movie, that Williams was a serious a part of the 1980 sequel, and famous Jackson’s character was a “top Jedi.”
However in “Star Wars,” anti-droid prejudice could be very actual, he mentioned.
“People are always discriminating against something and sooner or later, that’s what’s going to happen,” he reportedly mentioned on the pageant. “I mean, we’re already starting with AI, saying, ‘Well, we can’t trust those robots.’”
Lucas offered his Lucasfilm manufacturing firm in 2012 to Disney $4.05 billion. On Friday, he criticized Disney’s follow-up movies — and mentioned he’s the one one “who really knew what ‘Star Wars’ was.”
“When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost,” he mentioned, per The Hollywood Reporter. However that’s the best way it’s. You give it up, you give it up.”
