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Post by jppiper on Nov 15, 2022 3:57:17 GMT
...and I just can't help but be angry again that we didn't get Lucas' sequel trilogy. I remain to this day unconvinced that there ever was one. Scraps and notes and brainstorm puddles etc., certainly. But a plan? A vision? Not feelin' it. I suppose that allays, for me anyhow, the holistic mediocrity that has since followed. If I've a point of contention -- a lamentation, even -- it was the failure to seize in the wake of that six-part Saga a run at Star Wars cinema truly standalone yet proportionate in its aims. Alas... There was no Need for a ST you can't top the ending of ROTJ |
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Post by Seeker of the Whills on Nov 15, 2022 16:26:36 GMT
I was about to say that you don't necessarily need to like a thing to work on it, but the way Gilroy says it and then brags and takes all the credit for Rogue One is just wrong in my opinion. You have to have some kind of respect to play in another person's sandbox. Somehow I get the feeling that he isn't a very humble person. My estimation of Rogue One went down a little, even though I see it as Gareth Edwards' movie, and I've already dropped Andor due to lack of interest. The critics may like Andor, but the fanbase hasn't really embraced it, I think. It's the least watched live action show on Disney+. Tony Gilroy does come across as an arrogant person. It's kind of funny that he thinks he's hot shit, but his series, as you just pointed out, isn't doing too well in the streaming stakes (despite receiving strong acclaim). The craftmanship of "Andor" is, for the most part, outstanding though. In fact, that's probably the reason I'm sticking with it. In my case, I'd be a hypocrite to slay "Obi-Wan" and then reject "Andor" before the end of its first season. So I'm seeing it through till then. I completely respect your own decision, however. I don't have much insecurity, either. I mean, at the end of the day: Marvel, D.C., LOTR, "The Matrix", "Harry Potter", even stuff like "Game Of Thrones" and "Stranger Things" -- they're all "geek" entertainment, are they not? It's just interesting that the prequels uniquely get tagged as "kids' movies". Yes, George Lucas himself has emphasised that Star Wars is for kids, but when the new people at Lucasfilm do it about the prequels in particular, it feels like they're dumping on them and saying, at the least, they're less than they should have been. The smuggled-in implication is that the backstory of the OT should have been heavy and rich and more adult-like in tone and execution; more, perhaps, in the vein of Peter Jackson's violent treatment of LOTR or Christopher Nolan's procedural take on Batman. There is, after all, a significant contingent of fans who proclaim TESB as the best in the series, and who say that Lucas lost his nerve after that film and pandered to kids in ROTJ, with many of them taking their cue from Gary Kurtz. So when Rian Johnson praises the prequels for being a lesson about the rise of fascism, it feels like he's still bracketing that praise within a broader context, shaped by his earlier "cynicism" that he sketchily concedes he "might have had about them" in earlier years. I reckon people like John Knoll and Doug Chiang probably like a lot of the way the prequels were carried off, although I don't recall them giving their opinions on the movies or the trilogy overall. Most of them at LFL are pretty quiet about liking the prequels, if they actually do. It's really quite lame for a company that aggressively pursues woke ideology where everyone is supposedly encouraged to embrace their true self and use whatever pronouns they like. Yet, somehow, just saying a set of Star Wars movies were done brilliantly and don't deserve 99% of the hatred thrown at them is too much for anyone at the company to come out and say. I understand your disdain. It comes to us all. Unfortunately, without Lucas, there isn't a guiding mind who is clear on what Star Wars is, or is not. Thus, everyone has a different idea about how to do Star Wars, or how it ought to be done, and some scrambling and backtracking was probably inevitable. Although Lucasfilm itself was not in disarray when Lucas was in charge, he probably did neglect it to some degree in later years, and even looking aside the technicality of Disney pulling the plug, he basically let an important daughter company like LucasArts die on its arse before he sold. George may be great, but he's far from perfect. Good art can and often does emerge from discord. "Art from adversity" 'n' all that. Although it's fine to be critical (as I often am of Disney/LFL), we shouldn't always believe the negative hype. The production values of Andor are good, better than Obi-Wan's I would say, and I liked the world building in the first couple of episodes. Oh, and seeing Coruscant from orbit again was great, and the way it was proclaimed to be the "capital of the galaxy" satisfying for a PT fan. I think Johnson's wording that he "might have had" cynicism about the prequels is important. I view it as meaning that he has risen above his immediate reaction to them on release, and made peace with them. Even though they may not be "his" Star Wars, he sees the value they hold for other people. He has "unlearned what he has learned". The whole Canto Bight section of TLJ reads to me as a love letter to the prequels. The design of the city that evokes Naboo, the interior of the casino that evokes the opera from RotS, the goofy CGI creatures and oddball humor, fathier racing resembling podracing, the Force-sensitive slave boy with an alien master, etc. And he did put in a direct homage shot to RotS. My main take away from the whole Disney situation is that they screwed up majorly by not having a proper central nervous system in place when they started making new Star Wars content. I remember the so-called "Story Group" was hyped up quite a lot in the very beginning, but I haven't heard anything about them in a while. Were they disbanded at some point? Either way, they didn't seem to work out. While I'm not a fan of the Marvel movies, I have to admit that they got something right by having an overseer in Kevin Feige, who clearly knew the material and was able to instill consistency in the franchise. Filoni is probably the closest Star Wars has to that kind of person, and I think he should have been the Feige for the series. Hell, I would have taken Gilroy or pretty much anyone else, as long as there would have been a consistent vision. ...and I just can't help but be angry again that we didn't get Lucas' sequel trilogy. I remain to this day unconvinced that there ever was one. Scraps and notes and brainstorm puddles etc., certainly. But a plan? A vision? Not feelin' it. I suppose that allays, for me anyhow, the holistic mediocrity that has since followed. If I've a point of contention -- a lamentation, even -- it was the failure to seize in the wake of that six-part Saga a run at Star Wars cinema truly standalone yet proportionate in its aims. Alas... You're probably right, but isn't that essentially how the prequels were made, and to some extent TESB and RotJ as well? Lucas started with a script for ANH, which he mostly fulfilled with that first film, and then he was left with scraps which he extrapolated to build the story of TESB and RotJ. For the prequels, Lucas says that he only had a rough outline for the backstory of the OT, which he didn't even think he could make into films originally. So he really only started to fill in the blanks when he started to write the script in late 1994, and the art department was brought in not much later, because Lucas liked to work concurrently with them, as they could bounce ideas off each other. I think it was in the RotS commentary that Rick McCallum said that they never received a completed script. Lucas kept changing things all the way through to the release. But when it came to the sequel stories, Lucas was laying important groundwork with his TV shows, The Clone Wars and Underworld. I think Lucas took those ideas, that were building towards other ideas he had had for ANH, of gangsters and criminals coming into power after the Emperor's death, and combined them with ideas he had for the sequel trilogy back in the 70s/80s. The idea of delving deeper into the Force and the Whills has its roots in the early SW treatments and Lucas' ideas for the sequel trilogy, which he in the 70s called much more ethereal. So I would say that Lucas' vision for Star Wars has always been in flux and he's worked kind of off the seat of his pants. |
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Post by Samnz on Nov 18, 2022 8:42:35 GMT
To be perfectly fair, we have to remember that Lucasfilm has always left a lot to be desired in terms of "Prequel Pride" - even when Lucas was still in charge. Simon Pegg was hired to voice a character on TCW when Lucas was still heading the company (and that very show), so there's that. I also remember a "Saga celebrating video" released by Lucasfilm many years ago that featured the Prequels for like a minute out of six. At the latest when the RLM "reviews" were released and irrationally hyped, the Prequels were treated like the ugly stepchild by Lucasfilm themselves. Notwithstanding, it would be nice if Lucasfilm at least nowadays managed to hire filmmakers who actually like the whole work that Lucas did, ideally even understanding it. Personally, I can tolerate guys like Johnson a bit more than Abrams or the two Seeker of the Whills mentioned because I feel he shows more self-reflection and - although being a child of Hollywood and loved by the industry - seems to hold a tiny bit of that "rogue filmmaker mentality" within him that Lucas personified. In regard to Lucas and the Sequels, I also think that making them was probably a late development and a result of him having fun playing in his own sandbox in the most relaxed way (TCW) and the company struggling to make any money outside the Star Wars brand. Red Tails failed financially and although Strange Magic was not released until the Disney era, that movie also seemed ill-fated by the time Lucas sold. |
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Post by Seeker of the Whills on Nov 19, 2022 18:57:44 GMT
To be perfectly fair, we have to remember that Lucasfilm has always left a lot to be desired in terms of "Prequel Pride" - even when Lucas was still in charge. Simon Pegg was hired to voice a character on TCW when Lucas was still heading the company (and that very show), so there's that. I also remember a "Saga celebrating video" released by Lucasfilm many years ago that featured the Prequels for like a minute out of six. At the latest when the RLM "reviews" were released and irrationally hyped, the Prequels were treated like the ugly stepchild by Lucasfilm themselves. Notwithstanding, it would be nice if Lucasfilm at least nowadays managed to hire filmmakers who actually like the whole work that Lucas did, ideally even understanding it. Personally, I can tolerate guys like Johnson a bit more than Abrams or the two Seeker of the Whills mentioned because I feel he shows more self-reflection and - although being a child of Hollywood and loved by the industry - seems to hold a tiny bit of that "rogue filmmaker mentality" within him that Lucas personified. In regard to Lucas and the Sequels, I also think that making them was probably a late development and a result of him having fun playing in his own sandbox in the most relaxed way (TCW) and the company struggling to make any money outside the Star Wars brand. Red Tails failed financially and although Strange Magic was not released until the Disney era, that movie also seemed ill-fated by the time Lucas sold. The Lucas sequel trilogy may seem like an afterthought and a mishmash of ideas he had for other projects around the time (TCW, Underworld, Maul game), but I think he was pretty carefully planting the seeds with those to develop the sequels. I came across this clip yesterday of Lucas saying that he isn't a fan of sequels unless they are organic to the material. I think his ST would have organically grown out of those other projects, and combined with his ideas about the Whills which he had had since the 70s, we would have gotten something truly spectacular. |
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Post by jppiper on Nov 21, 2022 20:22:10 GMT
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Post by jppiper on Feb 7, 2023 1:59:00 GMT
What Marcia Lucas says in this video really makes her come across like a nasty woman. Regurgitating accusations of racism that have been debunked for years and in many ways attacking her former hushand personally like that in public is just plain bad style. I do get when people say they feel Lucas and company didn't put enough attention to potential racist interpretations of accents and looks, but claiming the movie is racist is beyond absurd and defamatory. Lucas is known to be left-leaning, Portman is Jewish, Best is black, Silas Carson has an Indian mother, Doug Chiang is of Chinese descent and they all came together to make a racist movie, playing and drawing racist caricatures? Seriously, this claim is just stupid. However, I'd be very hesitant to disrespect people who might feel offended. There are groups that have been terribly mistreated - blacks, gays, others - and their subjective feelings have to be respected. Being exposed to hostility for a long time can make people sensitive and thin-skinned and feeling hurt is a real experience, even if there were no bad intentions involved. That's just my opinion, but Marcia? I lost all potential respect for her. And TV tropes says she's the Heart of Star Wars! |
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Post by tonyg on Feb 7, 2023 18:28:44 GMT
Is not innovative, actually. During the pre-production of ROTS Lucas wanted to see Anakin with a more rebel look. Some of the crew proposed Anakin with tattoos and similar hairstyle. Of course, Lucas said it was too much. |
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Post by jppiper on Feb 7, 2023 18:44:29 GMT
tonygThere's also the description on the piece saying that Anakin should have been a thuggish criminal completely missing the point of what George was trying to do
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Post by jppiper on Feb 16, 2023 6:51:29 GMT
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Post by tonyg on Feb 16, 2023 18:41:54 GMT
The general stupid cliches. As you wrote, sigh. |
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Post by Somny on Feb 16, 2023 18:57:30 GMT
Equivalent of a sheet of paper smeared with feces. |
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Feb 16, 2023 19:06:13 GMT
I ain't clicking on that. Y'all should know better lol
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Post by jppiper on Feb 18, 2023 20:57:53 GMT
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Post by jppiper on Mar 10, 2023 20:00:31 GMT
What Marcia Lucas says in this video really makes her come across like a nasty woman. Regurgitating accusations of racism that have been debunked for years and in many ways attacking her former husband personally like that in public is just plain bad style. I do get when people say they feel Lucas and company didn't put enough attention to potential racist interpretations of accents and looks, but claiming the movie is racist is beyond absurd and defamatory. Lucas is known to be left-leaning, Portman is Jewish, Best is black, Silas Carson has an Indian mother, Doug Chiang is of Chinese descent and they all came together to make a racist movie, playing and drawing racist caricatures? Seriously, this claim is just stupid. However, I'd be very hesitant to disrespect people who might feel offended. There are groups that have been terribly mistreated - blacks, gays, others - and their subjective feelings have to be respected. Being exposed to hostility for a long time can make people sensitive and thin-skinned and feeling hurt is a real experience, even if there were no bad intentions involved. That's just my opinion, but Marcia? I lost all potential respect for her. And TV tropes says she's the Heart of Star Wars! GEORGE WAS THE HEART OF STAR WARS NOT HIS OVERRATED BITTER EX-WIFE!!! |
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Post by jppiper on May 4, 2023 18:57:24 GMT
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Post by Somny on May 4, 2023 21:47:36 GMT
Some of the details highlighted in this writer's overwrought recounting of the duel make me love it all the more.  |
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Post by jppiper on May 6, 2023 20:00:25 GMT
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Post by Somny on May 7, 2023 1:33:48 GMT
With regard to the comments about ANH: Movies are not real. Different rules apply. |
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Post by smittysgelato on May 7, 2023 4:11:39 GMT
With regard to the comments about ANH: Movies are not real. Different rules apply. I have not read the article because the chances of it being worthwhile are low, so I choose not to inflict it on myself. BUT YES, to this idea that movies are not real needs to be broadcasted frequently until it sinks in. The tyranny of realism must end! |
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jtn90
Ambassador
Posts: 66
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Post by jtn90 on May 7, 2023 9:27:27 GMT
This person explained well the Padme death scene and what got? people saying, "you explained it better than te movie did, but in the movie it was presented in the lazyest way possible, If only the movie showed what you are presenting, I don't want to imagine what Padme is feeling, I whatn to see it!"
I encountered a lot of people disregarding prequel defenses as "excusing bad writting"
Is really the rule of "Show don't tell" as sacred and always essential as people say? because maybe these are the same people who say thet is better not to see the Shark in Jaws or seeing the battlefield full of corpeses of a battle is better than seeing the actual battle.
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