WI: George Lucas, King of the Indies

I read something about George Lucas paralleling Darth Vader which inspired this; Starting off poised to be an underground, indie innovator artist, but -through the success of Star Wars- losing his way and becoming the kind of person he didn't want to be. He hated the corporatism that was taking over Hollywood, but now is head of a corporate Empire. He hated that movies were only being made for money, and became the head of a merchandising Empire. He hated studios and moguls altering past films and damned the wave of colorization going on in the 80's, but subsequently changed his own films and used CGI like it was going out of style, and damned the people asking him to change his films back.

So what if George Lucas did become an underground indie film maker? I don't know the necessary POD, whether Star Wars flops or never comes to be.
 
He would fade out of the business rather quickly.

The thing about the independent film genre (and most "independent" classifications) is that the people involved usually either make some transition to the mainstream or they remain obscure.

So, George Lucas is a nothing and a nobody.
 
Not if you ardently refuse a transition to mainstream films.

Beyond that, excepting people like Lucas and Spielberg, few have made the leap from independent to mainstream. It is not the standard mode of advancement in Hollywood.
 
Maybe instead of being such a big hit, or a complete flop, Star Wars is a modest hit at the box-office, and becomes a cult classic. Lots of cult films did come out in the 70's, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Phantom of the Paradise, so I guese it could happen.

Star Wars would be just successful enough for Lucas to make his low-budget sequal to Star Wars, Splinter in the Mind's Eye. The films remain odscure, but as the 80's go on, he makes several more films set in the Star Wars Universe. Maybe he makes 9 films like he originally said he would.

Today, The films would all be cult classics, not as well known or as popular as they are in OTL, but film critics and audiences would enjoy them for what they were.
 
Well, there's no LucasFilms, so you just butterflied away Pixar.

I hope you're proud of yourself.:mad:

On the plus side, without Star Wars, there's no Star Wars childhood rape. So millions of nerds will not be jaded, thus bringing peace to the Middle East...well, at least the basements of Middle America.

Independent films are a way for nobodies to become somebodies.

He would fade out of the business rather quickly.

The thing about the independent film genre (and most "independent" classifications) is that the people involved usually either make some transition to the mainstream or they remain obscure.

So, George Lucas is a nothing and a nobody.

What about David Lynch (who has a large following) and people of that stripe? It's not impossible to stay out of the corporate Hollywood limelight if you don't wanna be in it, and early on, and still now, George Lucas was against the corporatization and commercialization of Hollywood. Even now, George Lucas is very much still an independent film maker; he's just perhaps the biggest independent operation in film and has buddied up with the studio system.
 
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