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Post by Subtext Mining on Aug 23, 2020 11:37:50 GMT
I love this George Lucas interview with Chris Nolan, particularly from 25:00-38:00. Here he talks about his style of filmmaking which drops you into another world without explaining all the details. m.youtube.com/watch?v=7VRYKlnEP7oFor example, elsewhere he's described THX 1138 as "a film that's not about the future, but rather a film from the future." In other words, if you were to watch a movie that takes place in New York, and the characters run by the Empire State Building, you don't need to explain to the audience what the Empire State Building is, they know it. So a quick pan past it is ok. Now Star Wars, for example, takes place in a galaxy we know nothing about. Yet Lucas uses the same kind of style one would for a film about our world which we're familiar with. He doesn't hold a long shot on the Death Star, he doesn't explain what Darth Vader is (monster, human, robot?), he doesn't even explain blue milk, it's just there. (Yet he mentions how he does leave enough clues to paint the picture). He goes on to describe how he got this idea from Kurosawa films which drop you right into feudal Japan without explaining any of the nuances of feudal Japan. They're not films about feudal Japan, they're films from feudal Japan. Most outsiders don't know the background of what's going on, but they still enjoy it. Quote from the video: GL: I said look, I'm gonna assume that we've been here. This is just like, you know, shooting Batman. You know what New York looks like, it sort of looks like Gotham, Gotham looks like New York - ok fine, cars, whatever, we've been there before, we know what this is all like. So I didn't stop for anything. And I didn't hold on my matte paintings. I said, you know, Death Star. We've all seen a Death Star. There's the Death Star. You don't have to linger on it! Just as if it were the Empire State Building. You know, just, ok, that's fine... ...Everybody said "My Gosh, that's so fast. The pace is so fast." You know, if you look at that movie, it's not fast! In those days it was so fast, and it was fast because you didn't know what anything was. So you were busy trying to take it all in and you didn't have time to do it. Now you do know what all that stuff is, you're very familiar with it, you grew up with it just like the Empire State Building. So the movie has got a normal kind of pace. Lucas has also once said American Grafitti is supposed to feel like a documentary, and I think this is a philosophy he uses in all his films. He just throws you into a story and you're just a fly on the wall watching it unfold, therefore exposition of details and backstories would feel unnatural. I've always enjoyed that sort of thing as well. And in Star Wars I thought it worked very well as one of its defining and endearing aspects. And as said in the interview, after one becomes familiar with the SW universe the films do seem to "slow down". However, the downside is you get people who complain when things aren't spelled out and explained in detail. But hey, I guess going over it all is part of the fun. "I know the answer is George Lucas didn't think this through." - TFN user |
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Post by Cryogenic on Jun 14, 2021 4:09:55 GMT
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Post by Subtext Mining on Jul 21, 2021 17:12:19 GMT
That is interesting! I'm guessing he means that nothing ever really happens there and nobody pays it any mind. Quite like Mayberry, to make a Ron Howard connection. Which is what makes it so odd that the Trade Federation would block that place of all planets. Which is also why the Senate wouldn't be too concerned about it. |
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Post by Cryogenic on Jul 21, 2021 22:54:47 GMT
That is interesting! I'm guessing he means that nothing ever really happens there and nobody pays it any mind. Quite like Mayberry, to make a Ron Howard connection. Which is what makes it so odd that the Trade Federation would block that place of all planets. Which is also why the Senate wouldn't be too concerned about it. Well, yeah. I was thinking of its expansive, idyllic beauty, but your political musings are more apt. Naboo is basically nowhere (Tatooine is double nowhere). Yet it's also incredibly cultured and pristine. As the Wikipedia entry says: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NabooBasically, all things the Trade Federation and the Sith would happily like to see wiped out, if they can't pervert/exploit them for their own ends first. Ancillary material also describes the Naboo as "genteel". And Sidious tells Nute that "Queen Amidala is young and naive", and that "controlling her will not be difficult". So Naboo is being picked on because it's an object example of everything that stands in their way -- everything that must be controlled and ultimately crushed and destroyed. Though, in one of life's little ironies, Alderaan is blown up but Naboo is left alone. Maybe there was even some vague sentiment left over in Palpatine for the planet somewhere. Heck, Endor even looks like Naboo from orbit -- like it is being used (for the shield generator and as a lure for the rebels) and threatened instead of Naboo. It's funny to picture Palpatine superstitiously fearing the Gungans and anymore Jar Jar-like shenanigans. Perhaps there's also a chilling warning from Lucas that art and science alone cannot save us if the political system is rotten and only built to cater to the wealthy and the corrupt. |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 16, 2021 19:23:08 GMT
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 17, 2021 15:30:08 GMT
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Post by eljedicolombiano on Sept 17, 2021 20:22:40 GMT
"We live in very cynical times. They're very mean spirited. It's very hip to make fun of people and put them down. Everybody's put down for Everything. And the big criticism of Star Wars in the beginning was that it was naive, it's hope filled, it's very young, it's wide-eyed, it's very Polyanna-ish in its optimism. It's everything anti-hip"- George Lucas
“Star Wars has always struck a cord with people. There are issues of loyalty, of friendship, of good and evil…I mean, there’s a reason this film is so popular. It’s not that I’m giving out propaganda nobody wants to hear…Knowing that the film was made for a younger audience, I was trying to say, in a simple way, that there is a God and that there is both a good and bad side. You have a choice between them, but the world works much better if you’re on the good side.”- George Lucas.
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Post by Cryogenic on Sept 17, 2021 21:12:00 GMT
I love George Lucas!
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Post by smittysgelato on Sept 18, 2021 4:18:14 GMT
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Post by Cryogenic on Sept 18, 2021 15:59:38 GMT
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Sept 18, 2021 17:13:50 GMT
It's disturbing to me that you remember phrases I used on that message board years and years ago.
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Post by Cryogenic on Sept 18, 2021 21:44:17 GMT
It's disturbing to me that you remember phrases I used on that message board years and years ago. Did you have any in mind?  |
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Sept 19, 2021 5:52:39 GMT
It's disturbing to me that you remember phrases I used on that message board years and years ago. Did you have any in mind? i can't remember what I said this morning. |
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Post by Cryogenic on Sept 19, 2021 16:20:57 GMT
Did you have any in mind? i can't remember what I said this morning. It's more... incidents or certain conversation strands I remember. Two things I strongly associate you with, particularly since you created the threads, are these topics: boards.theforce.net/threads/the-beauty-of-the-pt-has-love-blinded-me.31382805/boards.theforce.net/threads/yin-yang-in-the-clouds-on-naboo.31405857/Interestingly, you created both of those threads in November 2010, only twelve days apart. Samnz later created another thread about the latter (in which he alludes to yours) shortly after the boards reopened in September 2012: boards.theforce.net/threads/yin-and-yang-in-attack-of-the-clones.50003503/I had a post in there (#Reply 5) of some relevance: boards.theforce.net/threads/yin-and-yang-in-attack-of-the-clones.50003503/#post-50014947...because... A certain Mike Klimo later made identical observations in his Ring Theory: www.starwarsringtheory.com/ring-composition-chiasmus-hidden-artistry-star-wars-prequels/7/Klimo claims he found the yin-yang symbol in the clouds in AOTC by "scrubbing through Attack of the Clones" and that if he'd "been drinking anything at the time I would've done a spit take": mynockmanor.com/star-wars-ring-theory-an-interview-with-the-author-mike-klimo-and-why-you-should-read-it/That's funny, 'cos when I saw that page on his Ring Theory, I would have done the same thing if I'd been drinking.  I'm sure he visited TFN and saw Samnz's thread, particularly as he claims in that same interview that it took him two years to complete his theory; and his theory was published in October 2014, roughly two years after Samnz created his thread and I made that reply. And you never know, but some of Klimo's musings in his Ring Theory may have gone on to inspire Rian Johnson, since "The Last Jedi" is more on the theoretical/thematic side of things, and Rian was busy hammering out his screenplay when Ring Theory splashed down in cyberspace. Given what a Twitter maniac RJ is, and how much buzz there was about it in the geeksphere at the time, I'm sure Rian must have heard about Klimo's little theory when it was published. So, yeah... we're all connected... someway, somehow. But whether or not we're acknowledged is a different matter. |
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Post by Cryogenic on Sept 21, 2021 3:16:08 GMT
A straight steal from a post I just made in our General grievances thread. Cos y not? An enjoyable trio of "ROTS George" (2003 to 2005) quotes explaining the tonal divide -- and the ultimate stylistic/storytelling unity -- between the PT and the OT: |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 21, 2021 10:28:13 GMT
More quotes pertaining to the differences in design between the two trilogies. Found in the Episode I featurettes: On the first films I purposely avoided very 'intense design' cultures. So I kept the costumes very, very simple and the costumes were designed not to draw attention to themselves. And in the new film, the costumes do draw attention to themselves. They have to because they're in a more sophisticated society. And to do that and keep it timeless is much more difficult. I very scrupulously avoided fashion in the first three movies. I just got around it, I just avoided it. But I'm discovering more and more in [TPM] I walked right into fashion, and I haven't balked so I'm just going to be faced with it and it will be very interesting to see what happens.  And from Doug Chiang: For the starfighter, for the good guys, it started out very differently because initially I thought the ships would be very angular like the X-Wing. But George wanted to go more towards the hand-crafted look. Episodes IV, V and VI kind of had the industrial mentality, in terms of spaceships were punched-out - they were kind of like plastic materials, things were kind of mass produced. It kinda happened with the industrial design in the United States. We had, ya know, an era in the '20s and '30s where things were more romantic and the craftsmen were the king. But then slowly as the industrial revolution took over, machinery and mass production became the norm. I'm not quite sure if this is George's take, but for me, when that pattern clicked, everything made sense in terms of designing for this film. Fine art was very important, especially to the Queen's people, they really appreciate it. You can tell in their architecture, and in their sculpture, and in their clothing and so forth. And so in Episode I, that element naturally carries over to their hardware, or their vehicles.  And once again, GL: I was very clever in the first Star Wars films in that I kept the design very simple and I avoided situations where I was gonna get into trouble design-wise. This one I'm daring to take the chance and see what happens. |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 27, 2021 15:41:09 GMT
When I have kids and people come up and, you know, are shaking and wanna say "you've changed my life", you feel good about that! No matter how many, sort of, intellectuals or whatever say, ya know, you're an idiot, you know that you've had an affect. And when I sit in a movie and watch people react, I know it works, and that's all I need to know. Because I know I've taken somebody on a trip that is going to make them a more interesting person and that's all I do. From this great interview with Bill Bradley m.youtube.com/watch?v=_DByPy8aEPw |
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Post by Somny on Sept 27, 2021 15:53:10 GMT
When I have kids and people come up and, you know, are shaking and wanna say "you've changed my life", you feel good about that! No matter how many, sort of, intellectuals or whatever say, ya know, you're an idiot, you know that you've had an affect. And when I sit in a movie and watch people react, I know it works, and that's all I need to know. Because I know I've taken somebody on a trip that is going to make them a more interesting person and that's all I do. From this great interview with Bill Bradley m.youtube.com/watch?v=_DByPy8aEPwI was waiting for the right context to share that particular quote from that really great interview. I'd happened upon it a few years ago. You beat me to the punch but thanks for spotlighting it!  In the same interview, Lucas claims that screening ANH for terminally ill children had an extremely positive effect on them and, in some cases, extended their lifetime.  |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 27, 2021 15:58:09 GMT
In the same interview, Lucas claims that screening ANH for terminally ill children had an extremely positive effect on them and, in some cases, extended their lifetime. Yes. Star Wars has the power to cheat death, in a way. From the Bill Bradley interview: GL: We discovered early on with Star Wars, because that was before video tape and everything so, we would get requests, with the first Star Wars, from hospitals. There would be a child who'd be dying and they'd say "can we see the movie? Because he's not gonna last the week." So we'd show him the movie and he would live for another six or nine months. And it wasn't once this has happened, it happened hundreds of times. And you just sort of say well, whatever we're giving them, whatever inspiration we give them, allows them to take the struggle further. And maybe embrace the fact that it may not be that bad in the end. |
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Post by Somny on Sept 27, 2021 17:42:56 GMT
Yes. Star Wars has the power to cheat death, in a way.  To elaborate a bit more on the initial quote: How many filmmakers can say they aim to make the viewer a more interesting person? It's a fascinating bit! It reminds me of a late college professor's emphasis on illuminating "wicked" social problems; complex problems without any remotely clear-cut solutions but which propel thought, activity and engagement. |
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I'm sure he visited TFN and saw Samnz's thread, particularly as he claims in that same interview that it took him two years to complete his theory; and his theory was published in October 2014, roughly two years after Samnz created his thread and I made that reply.
