On Twitter and in public, I've already been assailed as trying to project my own beliefs onto how successful this documentary is. I only saw it two days ago. I should have had something posted on it yesterday, but it just didn't do much other than disappoint me, so I've avoided writing about it out of annoyed indifference.
I've fully confirmed what friends who caught the first screening told me: the movie is weak tea. What could have been a fairly-balanced "trial" of Lucas and his actions instead undercuts itself completely in the closing 15-20 minutes.
The structure of the film chronologically follows Lucas' life and career. It basks in the glow and glory of the early life of Star Wars and proceeds into the era of the Special Editions and the prequels. Too many talking heads to count chime in, with the most direct and efficient being Some Came Running's Glenn Kenny.
He digs at the heart of the most indisputable argument to be made against Lucas: regardless of the fact that he created and owns Star Wars, he's committed an act of gross vandalism by "destroying" the original version of his first trilogy. The most compelling minutes are spent holding up the utter hypocrisy at play when Lucas insists that the "incomplete" versions no longer exist, and that it's his right to change the historical record however he chooses.
People vs. George Lucas is a better document of the fan culture than it is any sort of thesis on the man himself. The movie serves as a primer to both sides of various arguments about Lucas, but pads out the runtime with tons of fan films and takes an extended side-trip to the story of the Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation fan film.
After nailing Lucas on various fronts and appearing to build toward something, the fourth part of the film falls back to "but guys, he did give us Star Wars, and it is pretty awesome, right?" TPvGL presents an airtight case and then drops the charges for ridiculous sentimental reasons. The only way I can wrap my head around this logic is that the heavy seasoning of info about the fan culture throughout is intended to serve as the argument in favor of absolving all sins, but that's a load of shit.
On DVD & Blu-ray, we have four cuts of Blade Runner, three of Brazil, three of Close Encounters, and two each of E.T. and THX1138. Lucas is so insecure with the theatrical release versions of Star Wars that all we have are non-anamorphic widescreen "bonus disc" versions that are completely unrestored even though such material exists.
Theoretical Blu-ray editions of the original trilogy will likely forego the original cuts entirely. Even this ridiculous oversight is watered down by the decision to forgive all transgressions by the overly-reverent makers of TPvGL. "Let's have a debate" doesn't mean "let's make some arguments but then chicken out, act like nothing happened, and be pals."
As much time as TPvGL spends talking about the re-editing of the Holy Trilogy, the misnomer title makes me wish I could edit this movie down to only the sections that deal with background on Lucas and the hypocrisy in his alleged crimes against the cinema. Honestly, just give me a the Glenn Kenny & Francis Coppola bits, the clips from Spaced, and the British guy who makes the Lucas-handjob analogy and I'm good.
The argument that this is a good introduction to the ongoing fan debate only holds water in a vacuum. Who, precisely, has no point of reference whatsoever to this? Newborn infants or children who don't care and love Jar-Jar Binks? Of those who would care, who hasn't already participated in their own iterations of all the arguments presented?
Those disposed toward forgiving will forgive, and the prosecution will not relent in its disapproval. Being elated that an argument you've had with friends for years is now a movie isn't enough for me to find much compelling about this work. There was lots of potential here, but they chucked it right out the window. The People vs. George Lucas is all hat and no cattle.