Ambiguous Name: George Lucas Throwback

George Lucas Throwback.

1.) George Lucas is known for lots of things, many of them negative. This is a positive trope. 2.) Does this not seem YMMV to you? 3.) Is it even a thing?

Actually, there is context to this, as Star Wars and Indiana Jones are throwbacks to the space operas and action serials of yore respectively for instance.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:19:35 PM by EarlOfSandvich

Not sure if it's YMMV - it's supposed to be something intentionally done by the creator.

Yes, there's some logic behind it, but's it's still a very Bad Trope Namer. This is by no means what people most think of when they hear "George Lucas."

I agree, not YMMV.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:55:30 PM by Routerie

I had no positive or negative feelings towards the trope name when I first saw it. I was just confused as hell as to what it meant.

... the negative feelings towards Lucas came afterward.

edited 29th Apr '12 12:20:13 AM by DRCEQ

It's a name that has some explanation within the name itself, being a throwback which is exactly what the trope is about. A straight up bad name would be "George Lucas Syndrome," funny enough George Lucas Love Story was the early name for Romantic Plot Tumor (renamed when it was noticed that a small percentage of his movies suffer from it). While Lucas is known for a lot of things, revisiting old movie genres is right next to the Re-Cut. A better rename would be the redirect Genre Throwback, but I don't see the current name as being all that horrible.

edited 29th Apr '12 1:09:03 AM by KJMackley

I don't see a wick check that would argue for that the name is ambiguous.

"Trope name suggests trope is different than the description" is not grounds for a rename.

... unless the name is a common phrase or term that suggests that definition for almost everyone.

But a check on this would be nice, or an argument that it's underused because of the name. (Of course, it's still rotten either way, but still.)

Nope. No "unless".

"Trope name suggests trope is different than the description and that's causing a problem" is proper grounds.

"Pre-existing term means something else" also flies sometimes but that isn't the case at all.

edited 29th Apr '12 3:14:47 PM by rodneyAnonymous

179 articles, 58 wicks.

Just a few examples:

• Ronin — Subjective.
• Super8 — Uses the term "appears", so subjective.
• The Twisted Tales Of Felix The Cat — Also seems to be used subjectively.
• Youve Got Mail — Seems to be using it subjectively. I know for one that the Nostalgia Chick hated this movie.

Most of the ones I'm finding are "This film appears to be a throwback to X".

There are a lot of objective tropes which are heavily suggested but still up to the interpretation of the editor (ie, character X didn't say it but his face screamed "I Did What I Had to Do"). What you are arguing is the use of word cruft, not trope misuse. Take out the "appears to be" and the examples still work just fine.

Yep. Youve Got Mail even has this line "The Ephron sisters admitted they were updating Parfumerie, a theatrical play by Miklós Lászlo (1903-1973) for a new generation." in the description. Not bad examples, just badly written.

We could just improve the examples then.

Read the trope. Might be getting the idea (although why it's named after George Lucas I don't really get). Then, I read the laconic. Only confused me even more. The laconic should be fixed.

"although why it's named after George Lucas I don't really get"

It's that Star Wars and Indiana Jones are based on the sci-fi and adventure serials Lucas grew up watching.

I like the name. First off, I disagree that Lucas carries automatically negative connotations. When someone says Lucas, Star Wars and Indiana Jones come to mind, not Jar Jar Binks and the anti-nuke fridge. Second, I understood this trope instantly. After all, Indiana Jones and Star Wars are probably the best examples of... well, the George Lucas Throwback. Those series are very much defined by their combination of nostalgic sensibilities and cutting-edge (for their time) production values. So, I'd rather have the name stay.

What I want to see before agreeing to a rename is solid proof that the trope is heavily misused, and that the cause of said misuse is the name, not minor and arguable details because people don't read the trope description properly. Otherwise renaming the trope isn't likely to fix anything.

edited 26th May '12 10:50:34 AM by Feather7603

I don't see how this trope is different from Spiritual Successor done well.

Spiritual Successor means "a sequel, in spirit if not continuity".

Precisely. So does this trope.

No, Spiritual Successor relates to a single work or franchise. This is about an entire genre. There's no one film that Star Wars can be said to be a successor, but it's definitely in the spirit of fifties serials like Commando Cody and Flash Gordon. Even then, it updated them in many important ways, and not just on the technical side. (There is a real feel in the first film of a wider universe and backstory.)

How's that? Star Wars is well-known to have been intended as a Flash Gordon film, except that Lucas couldn't get the rights for Flash. Linky. So yes, that is clearly a Spiritual Successor.

That is the first time I have heard that.

And I'm not sure it's true. Maybe GL wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie. But he didn't. The link says "the license wasn't available, so Lucas moved on to other ideas". The line between inspired by and spiritual successor is fuzzy, but the latter usually means "the creative team does not retain the copyright after a previous installment, but makes a sequel-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off."

"Clearly" is, at the very least, an overstatement. Inspiration (originality is overrated) is definitely drawn from Flash Gordon, but from other sources too. Other fifties serials, Kurosawa films... I think the Ep. IV parallels to LotR are especially glaring. (Reluctant hero must travel to the heart of enemy territory to destroy the ultimate weapon, for one thing...)

edited 26th May '12 3:26:29 PM by rodneyAnonymous

So even if it began as a Start My Own, it took on a life of its own.