John McCain: The George Lucas of Politics

Desperately searching for blog post topics, I came upon the metaphor that John McCain, in his quite bizarre and desperate presidential run, has become the George Lucas of the political scene... out of touch and angry when criticized for being so. So, in my need to fill the Interwebs with more political content, what follows is my reasoning for said argument. You may find it a bit thin, but my friend did a funny photoshop for the thesis after I pitched it to him, so here's the blog post that goes along with it...

1.) GEORGE LUCAS CONSIDERS HIMSELF A MAVERICK, TOO: Lucas prides himself on operating outside the Hollywood system, self funding his "Star Wars" prequel trilogy and producing all three films far from the dreaded Sarlacc Pit that is Los Angeles. The only problem is, Lucas isn't doing something better than what Hollywood does... he's just isolated himself and lost touch with everything, creating some disastrously bad work in the process. The Hollywood system, like the one in Washington, may be "broken," but George Lucas sure can't fix it. Some fresh blood from young artists with great vision and new ideas are the elements needed to reinvigorate the movie biz. Sorta like what's going on in this election cycle.

2.) LUCAS HAS BETRAYED EVERYTHING PEOPLE ONCE LOVED ABOUT HIM: "Star Wars" was never "The Godfather," but the original trilogy had lightness, fun, invention, and imagination. The new trilogy is slow and ponderous and awkward and ugly and shot in front of green screens, creating some of the most unwatchably stiff performances by very good actors in screen history (kinda like McCain's debate performances... bah DUM!) The magic that his fans once believed in is totally gone, and he doesn't understand that.

3.) AND HIS FANS CRITICIZING HIM FOR BETRAYING EVERYTHING THEY LOVED ABOUT HIM JUST MAKES HIM DEFENSIVE: Like McCain, Lucas received a lot of criticism for his recent work. But instead of thinking about what his fans who made him a billionaire were trying to communicate him, he angrily bad mouthed the people who got him where he was in life to the press. Before "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" even came out, Lucas told an interviewer that "We're gonna have a bunch of angry people saying, ''You're a bunch of a--holes, you should never have done this. You've ruined my life forever. I loved Indiana Jones so much and now it's ruined.'' Well guess what, George? Most of your fans do think you ruined the franchise with CG monkeys and aliens and, the worst crime of all, an extremely slow, overly complex, and boring story... a story which you insisted on telling even when Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford clearly hated the idea. Maybe you could stop being so stubborn and set in your ways and look at what's going on around you and realize the reason people don't like your work is that it's not what people expect of someone with your track record. Instead of getting defensive, do better and live up to the high expectations you've earned over your (once) illustrious career.

4.) JAR JAR BINKS IS STUPID AND INEXPERIENCED: I'm stretching here for sure, but does no one else see the similarities between Sarah Palin and the much hated Jar Jar? I think it's mostly the annoying voices...

And that, George Lucas, is why Barack Obama is winning.

Here's the slightly disturbing photoshop job, made by my friend Mike Consiglio: