【House of Pleasures (House of Tolerance)】

Although on House of Pleasures (House of Tolerance)the script page George Lucas is a man of too many words, in real life he is a man of too few. Those of us interested in the life of the shy Star Wars billionaire must make do with the tiniest of insights into his thinking about what Disney is doing with his former intellectual property.

So news that Lucas told The Last Jedidirector Rian Johnson his movie was "beautifully made," according to a THRreport that quotes his private secretary, needs to be carefully parsed. It may not be the full-on compliment it sounds like.

Context you must have, young padawan.

Lucas saw his original ideas for episodes VII (The Force Awakens), VIII (The Last Jedi), and IX (still unnamed) thrown in the trash post-Disney sale. He hasn't been shy about letting us know that.

In a 2015 interview with the now-disgraced Charlie Rose, Lucas disparaged Disney for saying they wanted to do something "retro" and "for the fans," whereas he had endeavored to do something new with each movie -- whether the fans liked it or not. He compared the situation to having his children held hostage by "white slavers."

Lucas later issued a rare clarification, apologizing for the "inappropriate" remark and asserting he was "thrilled that Disney has the franchise." But it's notable that his only other public Force Awakenscomment was kind of a subtle dis: "I think the fans are going to love it,” he told the only journalist who managed to catch him on a red carpet. "It's very much the kind of movie they’ve been looking for."

Talk about damning with faint praise.

Lucas was much, much more effusive the following year with the release of Rogue One. Director Gareth Edwards enthused about getting a lengthy and praise-filled call from Lucas once the creator had seen the film and loved it. "I can die happy now," Edwards told Mashable, summarizing the call. "I will take that conversation to my grave. If I could only get one review ever, it would be from George."

We're guessing he said a little bit more than "the fans are going to love it." A positive review makes sense: Rogue Oneseamlessly connects to the 1970s visual style of Lucas' original Star Wars in a way The Force Awakens, for all its homage, did not. Rogue One's plot aligned it with the kind of against-all-odds World War II picture George always loved.

And Lucas simply had less skin in the game, since Rogue Onewasn't a saga episode that had replaced one of his story treatments.

But now here comes The Last Jedi,which is. And the loss of George's input lingers. Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, said this to Metrojust last week: "What I wish is that they had been more accepting of [Lucas]' guidance and advice. Because he had an outline for VII, VIII and IX. And it is vastly different to what they have done."

Hamill then apologized for being a "stick in the mud," and graciously pointed out that the new movies "are more popular than ever."

So George thinks the movie is "beautifully made." And indeed it is; even the handful of negative reviews for this critically lauded about-to-be-a-hit have heaped praise on Johnson's visual style. It's hard to love movies like Lucas does and and deny this film looks amazing, that it just pops off the screen in so many aesthetically interesting ways. (This is not a spoiler; look at the trailers).

But one can think a film is beautifully made and still inherently dislike it -- especially if you know what might have been had they made your movie.

We'll keep an eye on the creator's minimalist pronouncements for any further reviews. In the meantime, we can at least state that The Last Jediis probably George Lucas' second-favorite (and second least-favorite) of the three Disney Star Wars films so far.