“We’ve been called a bunch of whiny fanboys,” says Alexandre O. Philippe, whose wry and entertaining documentary The People Vs. George Lucas opens at Bell Lightbox after its Canadian premiere at Hot Docs earlier this year.
“We even received a few death threats. I think that people got hung up on the title, and assumed that it was just a movie version of the Star Wars bashing that you find online. But the idea was to make a film that was a balanced debate.”
He succeeded on that count: edited together out of amateur videos, Internet ephemera and interviews with pop-culture experts and disgruntled fans alike, The People Vs. George Lucas unfolds as a referendum on whether or not George Lucas has been too overzealous in controlling — and in some cases rewriting — the history of his beloved fantasy franchise.
“The central question of the doc,” says Muratore, “is whether Star Wars belongs to George Lucas, or to his fans.”
Not surprisingly, Lucas didn’t choose to participate in the project, although producer Robert Muratore says that his team did reach out. “(Lucasfilm) has been courteous to us. They say ‘we welcome the debate.’ But they don’t think it’s appropriate to participate in it themselves.”
This courtesy extends to the fact that there are plenty of clips from the Star Wars films in The People Vs. George Lucas, all of which Muratore explains has either been cleared or falls under the terms of fair use.
But the bulk of the footage was gleaned from far less official sources: the most enjoyable bits of the film are comprised of fan videos that spoof, honour and in some cases wildly reimagine scenes and characters from the series’ universe.
“We put out a call in 2007 encouraging fans to voice their opinions and send us their films, says Philippe. “And we got 600 hours’ worth of submissions, which was really kind of crazy.”
