This is a fun, smart documentary that chronicles the fall of George Lucas in the eyes of his fans and mines their conflicted attitudes towards a man they belove yet revile.  At root, it’s a story about how gods disappoint.

The social impact of Star Wars can be overstated (one fan references Shakespeare), but there is no denying that Lucas’s 1977 film was revolutionary not only in how it changed movie entertainment, but in its creation of a legion of fans dedicated to its ethos.  They just don’t just love Star Wars; they revere it and deem it participatory in their lives.  They wear the outfits, make their own film homages (the clips of these movies are the highlight of the documentary), buy the toys and products and countless DVD releases, and endlessly debate the impact of the film.  And the nature of its creator, who once gave them sun and now provides only darkness.  This goes beyond Spock ears.

The first third of the documentary shows Lucas’s rise from geeky auteur, hostile to the Hollywood machine, to corporate titan, overseeing not just Star Wars but the technical transformation of Hollywood films in general.  And then the fun begins. First, Lucas re-envisions his Star Wars trilogy.  He brightens things up, adds some more incredible effects, and best (or worst, if you’re an acolyte), changes a few scenes.  The ensuing furor is atomic.  Fans are particularly incensed that Lucas changed the character of Han Solo, who in the original picture shot a bounty hunter point blank, but in the “re-envisioning” returned fire only after the bounty hunter shot first (the bounty hunter missed from 2 feet, a failure that makes fans apoplectic).  As one disgruntled fan notes, “It’s as if Martin Scorsese cut out some killing from The Departed because he realized he had an 8 year old son.”

As fun as the collective kvetching is over that change, the roil becomes greater when the fans attack Lucas’s decision to erase the first cut of the trilogy.  I did not know this, but you can’t get a DVD of the original movies.  Lucasfilms even intimates that the original prints are destroyed.  And boy does this make the Star Wars fans nutty.  They point to the hypocrisy of Lucas’s opposition to Ted Turner’s colorization of black-and-white films and say, collectively, “Aha!”  You can almost see Lucas in a dark room, on a throne, wickedly chuckling at their discomfort.

While the outrage over Lucas’s authoritarian control over his original work is pitched, the response to the release of his execrable second set of films is a hilariously bitter pill.  Oh, did these folks want to love those films, having waited sixteen years for them. And their recollections of how they felt when they realized the pictures sucked are almost heartbreaking.  One fan explains that he saw The Phantom Menace over a dozen times hoping he would just get it.

The documentary is really made by the fans who gave the interviews. Their love is pure, their hostility to a Jar Jar Binks poetic, and yet, they all seem to have a good sense as to how ridiculous they look as grown ups incensed, and even enslaved, by George Lucas.

This documentary is directed by Carl Colby, the son of the subject, former CIA Director William Colby. In all likelihood, therein lies the problem. Carl is torn as to which themes to stress, much as he is torn by the legacy of his father.  He settles on three.  First is a straight up documentary about a clandestine Cold Warrior who saved Italy from Communism and was critical to the Phoenix Program, eventually rising to the directorship of the CIA, where he was battered by Congress’s withering post-Watergate assault on the Agency.  Footage from Italy, Vietnam, and congressional hearings is provided, along with interviews of numerous members of the American power structure at the time, including Donald Rumsfeld, Bob Kerry, Bud McFarlane.  Bob Woodward and many others. This part is occasionally interesting, but since critical emphasis is placed elsewhere, the historical report lacks any real depth.

Carl Colby also presents a portrait of his family, with the strict and moralistic William Colby at the head, his wife Barbara at his side, as they were stationed from post to post. The interviews with Barbara Colby are affecting as she explains how her husband worked and the impact of Catholicism on his personality, and there are some charming vignettes, but we don’t get much of a sense as to how Colby interacted with anyone in the family.  Occasionally, Carl’s voiceover expresses disappointment about his father’s secretive nature, but there are no real insights.  Carl drops hints of various issues (an epileptic and anorexic sister, a late in life divorce), but they are only given the most cursory treatment (we never learn that, in fact, the sister died in 1973).  For a man “nobody knew,” secrets are to be expected, but we should get better from a son. 

Carl offers a third, more personal theme – the effect of having such a mysterious and enigmatic father. This aspect of the film is the weakest and most awkward. Very abruptly at the end, we’re informed that in 1996, Colby took a canoe from his Southern Maryland home after dinner and was found days later, dead.  The coroner concluded that Colby drowned after a stroke or heart attack. Carl does not provide an alternative theory though he strongly suggests the miserable, guilty William Colby did himself in, after some wine and clams(?)  Carl has been quoted as saying, “Call it whatever you like. I think he’d had enough of this life.”

Carl tells us – as he has in some form or fashion throughout the documentary – that Daddy wasn’t there for him, intoning, “I’m not sure he ever loved anyone and I’m not sure I ever heard him say anything heartfelt.”   Given the limited presentation, and in particular the absence of remembrances from William Colby’s other 3 children and his second wife, Carl’s view strikes me as unique.  Indeed, Carl told The Washington Post “I preferred the old dad, not the new . . . The old dad taught me how to sacrifice. The new dad . . . was just an ordinary guy with ordinary desires.”  That says a lot.  It is as if Carl has settled on his father as a dark, tortured soul and the coda to his life – a love affair with another woman that lasted 13 years that was by all accounts happy – didn’t fit his meme, so he ignored it.