While attending a panel discussion at the Sundance Film Festival yesterday, George Lucas, the man who created the original Star Wars series—a phenomenon that launched an industry-wide push for increased spectacle and tie-in merchandising—and directed Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace—a slick effects reel that pushed film into the digital age, while also putting acting, pacing, and basic storytelling a distant second—has declared that movies today are “more and more circus without any substance behind it.”
Nearly in the same breath in which he attacked modern movies’ flash over substance, Lucas also defended that technological flash, saying, “All art is technology. That’s the one thing that separates us from animals.” (Well, that and opposable thumbs, the gift of speech, a broad emotional spectrum, and the ability to recognize that Revenge Of The Sith was much better than the two films that preceded it, but still pretty crummy.)
Lucas also took the time to take a shot at YouTube, saying he never could have predicted its success, and adding, “I would never guess people would watch cats do stupid things all day long.” Lucas does, however, believe that people would watch Hayden Christensen.