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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 1, 2020 15:50:32 GMT
I face-palmed..my face..into the previous universe. I just, I struggle with stuff like this. I struggle to understand the mindset. How do they not know? How do they not realize in the plainest sense the effects that such an external agenda -- seemingly pushed to the level of mandate -- has on the integrity of storytelling as a thing that should be born from personal, artistic inspiration? Yeah. But even ignoring that, look at how shallow his views are. Star Wars was universally appealing. Why? Because it's a morality tale. It's about values and content of character. Innocence, honor, bravery, greed, fear, etc... Inherently accessible and relatable to everyone. His views are the complete opposite. They are anti-Star Wars. He's judging people by the color of their skin and other immutable traits, with the intent of seeing themselves (not the inner self, but the external characteristics). To Abrams, your physical attributes are what define you. It's pure narcisism and he sees that as something good, something to be promoted and indulged. This is not storytelling. It's propaganda. It's all the more ridiculous and two-faced because the lead characters are still white. The Sequel Trilogy focuses on the sundering of a white family with immense power and influence in the fictive galaxy of Star Wars, and it's largely about that family's pain, with the narrative built around the idea it can be healed and made whole again. The non-white characters are basically just a bit of balm/emollient to buttress the main story, which is predicated on the idea that white anxiety, white failure, and white sadness are superior to all reciprocally lesser non-white variants. Even the storyline of Poe, at its peak in the middle film, delivers a blow against his non-white ethnicity: he should have listened to and mindlessly trusted his older white-woman superior. So what if one white woman replaces another in the chain of command? That's normal and good. Why? Because being a woman is given more SJW points than race/background. In other words, some immutable aspects of one's identity, under the SJW code, are "better" than others, or given a higher priority; which is most certainly in opposition to the idea that one's character -- one's beliefs and values, and especially, one's actions and deeds -- determine who one truly is. And to think: The people lecturing and browbeating others about this stuff are the same people who sneered at the prequels; and, in Abrams' case, in particular, couldn't resist scorning Jar Jar. A character who, as a reviled minority (he's not even human), played by a non-white actor, should be top of their list for protecting and championing, especially if they really care about pursuing virtue as much as they do about signalling it. Instead, he's thrown under the bus for cheap humour; all so that Abrams can dogwhistle to prequel haters that Star Wars is better out of the hands of Lucas, and that they're the people who understand his creation better. As in the case of Holdo, you should automatically trust these people to do a good job, and not question anything they do. Because questioning is tantamount to insubordination; even treason. Yes, there is progress to be made in this world, and I'm very left-leaning myself. But you can't force it through (no pun intended). Not when you sacrifice/murder other things along the way. In the words of Ian Malcolm: Disney were so obsessed with bringing "diversity" to the screen, they didn't stop to think if they should. And so they ended up with the park failing, dinosaurs running riot, etc. Lucas cultivated a garden paradise. They designed a faulty theme park. After rejecting perfectly solid blueprints that Lucas gave them. In their arrogance, they thought they could do better. But the eventual box-office takings and fan backlash (even critic backlash) to the sequels proves how their attempts to aggressively have things their way wasn't the right approach. Their choices have have harmed the brand, left a bad taste, and created conditions where people are clamouring for more nourishing entertainment. All of which Lucas avoided -- even though it has taken the fanbase a long time to recognise what he was up to all along. I've used this quote before, and I've no shame in using it again: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." -- Jonathan Swift |
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Post by Pyrogenic on Feb 1, 2020 18:08:01 GMT
I'll never get over the ballsy-ness of Lucas saying "if they don't like [TPM] they can go back and watch The Matrix." As opposed to the public sentiment that if you don't like the ST you must be a racist, sexist troglodyte. Or Abrams' excuses. I don't know, Lucas' statement is just not something I could see Disney saying. For them, it's the viewers fault. The Phantom Matrix "Obviously when you get a small group of fans who hate something, it becomes compounded by the internet. The press picks up the internet like it's a source. They don't realize it is just one person typing out their opinion." - George Lucas |
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 1, 2020 21:55:53 GMT
I'll never get over the ballsy-ness of Lucas saying "if they don't like [TPM] they can go back and watch The Matrix." As opposed to the public sentiment that if you don't like the ST you must be a racist, sexist troglodyte. Or Abrams' excuses. I don't know, Lucas' statement is just not something I could see Disney saying. For them, it's the viewers fault. The Phantom Matrix "Obviously when you get a small group of fans who hate something, it becomes compounded by the internet. The press picks up the internet like it's a source. They don't realize it is just one person typing out their opinion." - George Lucas A press. A net. A press. A matrix. |
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Post by Pyrogenic on Feb 2, 2020 20:14:45 GMT
The Rise of Skywalker is chock full of certain types of stylistic portent and gloom (as well as cheer and humor) that summons a distinct quality I think can pinpoint precisely: ANIME. This has been mentioned before in a few places, but there’s something about the heedlessness of the total package that reminds me of this genre. I’m not really an expert, but I am fairly familiar with at least the feel of anime…and it’s not that this is limited to only the tonalities of the movie. But noticing this led me down a quick rabbit hole, hopefully, into the most crucial component of this observation, which is the movement of the action. There are a lot of films that attempt to re-create anime style in live action, but TROS might be the most successful of them. You can do a neat little experiment where you imagine the same scenes, but sort of overlaid in whatever generic anime imagery you wish and then see how well they “click” in that form. Like, if everything else were the same except it was depicted in anime-style imagery, TROS would suddenly work perfectly. *Dark Rey Turns Head…Hisses* This may be true for other movies as well, but something about this one really felt like they nailed it – you can hear the appeal of the bold dialogue, kinetic action, scene focus, dynamism, ridiculousness, exaggeration, punchiness, romance, FAN SERVICE, etc. with this assumption in mind. There may very well be other stylistic influences from other genres that stand out to others, but it feels obvious to me that this modal shift is intentional. The randomness of it all…as an extension of the etymology of MANGA (“rambling, aimless picture”) seems particularly solid with this juxtaposition, too. Too many specific examples to mention, plus I don’t really have the movie in front of me to list them, but yeah. It shows up in the other SW movies with different sub-genre emphasis (I am reminded of Palpatine’s dramatic arm movements hurling the senate pods at a leaping Yoda in ROTS, for example, being very reminiscent of anime psychic gesturing), but TROS perfected it to the point where it’s a noticeable manifestation throughout.
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 3, 2020 7:02:01 GMT
The Rise of Skywalker is chock full of certain types of stylistic portent and gloom (as well as cheer and humor) that summons a distinct quality I think can pinpoint precisely: ANIME. Nice topic! It seems that certain anime productions influenced J.J. Abrams (less sure about Rian Johnson) in the making of TFA and TROS. With TFA, for example, Abrams appears to have been heavily influenced by the Hayao Miyazaki creation "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind". It was the MSTRMND review of TFA that first alerted me to this: www.mstrmnd.com/node/2541From there, assay the following video: A short article went up about the connections between the two films in December 2017: comicbook.com/anime/2017/12/19/star-wars-hayao-miyazaki-connection-anime-nausicaa/Again, a brief video link is provided: I provided this other link earlier in the discussion, but here goes: For TROS, it seems that Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio (and even, perhaps, Rian Johnson) possibly took some cues from a recent anime film called "Your Name", concerning the fateful connection between Rey and Kylo: nerdist.com/article/star-wars-fan-theory-your-name-anime/More on both films: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(film)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_NameIn summary: A lot more has gone into the making of these movies than most fans seem to realise. We are quickly taken back to your thinking points on the concept of intertextuality. Essentially, all media is a grand act of cross-pollination. How cool that Star Wars has, once again, been able to draw from a transcendent storytelling format that originates in East Asia, and which is now becoming increasingly entrenched in modern Western youth culture. Indeed, old fogeys that complain about how "disgusting" the link between Rey and Kylo is, or those obsessed with an implied romantic connection between the pair, might simply be exposing a generational bias, much as older generations have tended to revile new forms of musical expression and the new youth culture that emerged in their wake, such as parental hostility to upstart genres/movements like rock 'n' roll, punk, and hip hop. Total lack of morals, disgusting, hideous, vile, the end of civilisation, etc., etc. If you're asking me, Abrams really seemed to find his mojo with TROS. In retrospect, he was holding back in TFA -- afraid of going full "MANGA". Perhaps fan response to TLJ gave him the confidence to be a little more vigorous. What did he really have to lose? TROS is a fun grab-bag/pastiche. More Abrams than Abrams. Tripped out, kitted out, dolled up, suited up, and ready for combat. It is far more boofy and crass-fantastic than expected. Who else could have made this movie; when else? It has a lot of silly yet smart and inspirational stuff within its glittering walls. Lots of cool brush strokes, a raft of little moments, hints of a vibrant personality. Everything, if you ask me, that was essentially lacking in TFA. Even TLJ doesn't offer this set of thrills. The RJ movie is a far more disciplined film. TROS is the Sequel Trilogy off the chain. This one is almost like a first draft: i.e., the type of Star Wars film you don't normally get to see. It got sick of being confined to art books, archives, web leaks, etc., and became real. Thank you, JJ, for releasing the herd and finally letting it roam free. Now it's worth it.
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Post by Ingram on Feb 3, 2020 9:09:00 GMT
The Rise of Skywalker is chock full of certain types of stylistic portent and gloom (as well as cheer and humor) that summons a distinct quality I think can pinpoint precisely: ANIME. This has been mentioned before in a few places, but there’s something about the heedlessness of the total package that reminds me of this genre. I’m not really an expert, but I am fairly familiar with at least the feel of anime…and it’s not that this is limited to only the tonalities of the movie. But noticing this led me down a quick rabbit hole, hopefully, into the most crucial component of this observation, which is the movement of the action. There are a lot of films that attempt to re-create anime style in live action, but TROS might be the most successful of them. You can do a neat little experiment where you imagine the same scenes, but sort of overlaid in whatever generic anime imagery you wish and then see how well they “click” in that form. Like, if everything else were the same except it was depicted in anime-style imagery, TROS would suddenly work perfectly. *Dark Rey Turns Head…Hisses* This may be true for other movies as well, but something about this one really felt like they nailed it – you can hear the appeal of the bold dialogue, kinetic action, scene focus, dynamism, ridiculousness, exaggeration, punchiness, romance, FAN SERVICE, etc. with this assumption in mind. There may very well be other stylistic influences from other genres that stand out to others, but it feels obvious to me that this modal shift is intentional. The randomness of it all…as an extension of the etymology of MANGA (“rambling, aimless picture”) seems particularly solid with this juxtaposition, too. Too many specific examples to mention, plus I don’t really have the movie in front of me to list them, but yeah. It shows up in the other SW movies with different sub-genre emphasis (I am reminded of Palpatine’s dramatic arm movements hurling the senate pods at a leaping Yoda in ROTS, for example, being very reminiscent of anime psychic gesturing), but TROS perfected it to the point where it’s a noticeable manifestation throughout.
Maybe. It's a take, one of the more flattering. Such trending is not without a certain logic as the past decade or so has witnessed certain breathless-like Anime hypervisual characteristics metabolized throughout mainstream Western-pop media. Perhaps Abrams quoted the likes of Hayao Miyazaki consciously or perhaps he merely unconsciously followed in the river currents of, say, James Cameron, whose Avatar shares with The Rise of Skywalker, strikingly so, a fetish for sweeping, photogenic, exaggerated-nature vistas and slow motion virtuoso action style; Cameron himself inspired in broad strokes by both Anime cyberpunk along with Miyazaki's whimsy expressions of elementalism when finally undertaking said Pandora-set epic. Alita: Battle Angel (also produced by Cameron), Doug Liman's Edge of Tomorrow, from Rupert Sanders' Snow White and the Huntsman and the live-action Ghost in the Shell, the Wachowskis' Jupiter Ascending... all of these movies stand as direct or indirect fully realized fusions of Anime into Hollywood sci-fi-action/'Princess'-heroine-fantasy on a big budget scale; all of which to me feel that much more the sisterhood to Episode IX than the stuff of Lucas' Saga.
Hell, Rey is practically costumed like a goddamn Airbender, with her staff and Wuxia-monk hair, floating Zen while levitating rocks in the jungle. When riding her skiff over titan surf or her and Kylo arch-gliding over its crashing waves the Miyazaki vibe is palpable. Also during the scene where the Falcon makes a getaway from the Star Destroyer hangar bay; Kylo leaning slanted into the blast force as Rey performs some kinda nigh-suspended aerial business onto the Falcon's boarding ramp. The heightened staging-and-physics of Anime is all over this shit.
Good catch, Pyro. |
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 3, 2020 9:47:17 GMT
Hell, Rey is practically costumed like a goddamn Airbender, with her staff and Wuxia-monk hair, floating Zen while levitating rocks in the jungle. When riding her skiff over titan surf or her and Kylo arch-gliding over its crashing waves the Miyazaki vibe is palpable. Also during the scene where the Falcon makes a getaway from the Star Destroyer hangar bay; Kylo leaning slanted into the blast force as Rey performs some kinda nigh-suspended aerial business onto the Falcon's boarding ramp. The heightened staging-and-physics of Anime is all over this shit. Yep. And those are all moments I loved -- along with Pyro's GIF-based example of Rey slicing Kylo's TIE silencer in the desert (Pasaana), Kylo smacking down goons in the opening sequence (Mustafar), Rey running the Jedi decathlon on the jungle world (Ajan Kloss), Rey skyping with Kylo on Kyoto (Kijimi), and Palpatine deliriously hamming it up and blasting all the ships on Sith World (Exegol). TROS is a beautiful-looking movie with many visually-delectable moments within it. I'm glad you caught that one of Kylo absorbing the blast wave of the Falcon leaving the First Order ship as he watches Rey cat-leaping toward it. Hella cool. Very different to the Lucas movies, perhaps, but the imagery in these moments conveys a lot of force. In my mind's eye, it's perhaps how I envisioned the sequels looking, all along. |
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 5, 2020 3:01:36 GMT
ILM has just released a short-but-sweet visual effects explanatory reel:
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Feb 5, 2020 5:48:01 GMT
ILM has just released a short-but-sweet visual effects explanatory reel: I gotta say, Rey is so obviously on a wire a few times in this movie, including her first scene, and it takes me out of the picture. Maybe if it was just one flip where she slices the TIE fighter it wouldn't be distracting, but the first scene with the rocks and the Carrie footage really looks corny and it's hard not to notice after that. |
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 5, 2020 14:30:39 GMT
ILM has just released a short-but-sweet visual effects explanatory reel: I gotta say, Rey is so obviously on a wire a few times in this movie, including her first scene, and it takes me out of the picture. Maybe if it was just one flip where she slices the TIE fighter it wouldn't be distracting, but the first scene with the rocks and the Carrie footage really looks corny and it's hard not to notice after that. Well, I'm pretty sure it's a stunt double slicing the TIE fighter/silencer, and it's an exhilarating enough setpiece that it doesn't bother me. If there is dicey wire work elsewhere, I'm not sure I care. Could be viewed as a fitting homage to the earlier "optical" age of film. It's pretty darn obvious that Christopher Reeve is on a wire in some scenes of the earlier "Superman" movies, but it doesn't really harm my investment in those movies. The fact that we're talking about wire work where Rey is concerned is indicative of a stylistic leap -- no pun intended -- between the former ST entries and the concluding one. It's something I greatly enjoyed when watching TROS at the cinema. |
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rayo1
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Post by rayo1 on Feb 5, 2020 14:55:36 GMT
Those VFX shots are so lit. Another job well done, ILM.
But so much for shooting on a real desert and all that...
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 5, 2020 19:36:57 GMT
Those VFX shots are so lit. Another job well done, ILM. Exactly. Doesn't it look gorgeous? I seriously love all the blue in the palettes of TROS. And 16,000 ships in the final battle. Yowza! It's interesting how the films feed into each other on this level. Not only do we have Kylo flipping a poor Final Order guy to the ceiling, echoing his grandfather flinging that rebel to the ceiling in the climax of "Rogue One", but the final battle at the "spiritual capital" of the Sith seems to be, ah... inspired by the rebel fleet amassing above Scarif, which you might call the "technical capital" of the Empire, in the final act of the Gareth Edwards movie. Like JJ just had to "one up" it. Or I suppose a better analogy would be Episode IX -- all of Star Wars -- grabbing the "invincibility star" in Super Mario. The "ILMVFX" channel is pretty cool! Not a lot of uploads, but all the new Disney films are represented. It'd be great to have all the Star Wars movies on there, of course. They did shoot in Jordan, at a place called Wadi Rum -- first used for a little Star Wars film called "Rogue One", for scenes on Jedha, and also a major filming location for "Lawrence Of Arabia", deepening those Star Wars vibes all the more. Here's a short video about the TROS location shoot from the channel FilmJordan: You can see a bit more location filming in this behind-the-scenes video reel: Also: For the third time running, Annie Leibovitz took stunning behind-the-scenes photos for a Sequel Trilogy movie. You can see some of her incredible shots of the cast and crew of TROS in the Jordanian desert in this Vanity Fair article: www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/star-wars-cover-storyHere's a bit more about the location chosen for TROS: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_RumRemember: A chunk of ROTJ, the "last" of the Lucas movies, was shot in a desert (Buttercup Valley, Arizona and Death Valley, California). Lucas later complained that he could have shot the entire Sarlacc sequence on a soundstage, and no-one would have been able to tell the difference. So TROS is keeping up the Star Wars tradition and doing a nice rhyme with the Lucas bookends (TPM and ROTJ). In that regard, JJ also kept true to his philosophy that real locations, especially real deserts and "John Ford landscapes", were -- to him -- bread-and-butter Star Wars, and they would be a part of the visual iconography of the Sequel Trilogy. Of course, you could still charge that TROS is saturated in digital effects. Yeah, it is, like basically every other blockbuster movie of the past ten years or more. However, it utilises a multifarious range of visual effects techniques, and like TFA and (most of) TLJ, it was shot on film. So it's got a foot in both worlds: the digital era and the physical/chemical era. But if it weren't kitted out with all manner of visual bells and whistles, it just wouldn't feel like a Star Wars movie following the prequels. Not even connected to my defence of TROS, but as a bonus item, I just found this page and I think it's pretty cool: www.thennowmovielocations.com/2019/08/star-wars-return-of-jedi.html |
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Post by mikeximus on Feb 6, 2020 4:20:18 GMT
I face-palmed..my face..into the previous universe. I just, I struggle with stuff like this. I struggle to understand the mindset. How do they not know? How do they not realize in the plainest sense the effects that such an external agenda -- seemingly pushed to the level of mandate -- has on the integrity of storytelling as a thing that should be born from personal, artistic inspiration? Yeah. But even ignoring that, look at how shallow his views are. Star Wars was universally appealing. Why? Because it's a morality tale. It's about values and content of character. Innocence, honor, bravery, greed, fear, etc... Inherently accessible and relatable to everyone. His views are the complete opposite. They are anti-Star Wars. He's judging people by the color of their skin and other immutable traits, with the intent of seeing themselves (not the inner self, but the external characteristics). To Abrams, your physical attributes are what define you. It's pure narcissism and he sees that as something good, something to be promoted and indulged. This is not storytelling. It's propaganda. Exactly... One of the great things that Lucas did, and in keeping with the teachings of Campbell, was to remove the obviousness of his political leanings, and concentrate on the mono-myth. The mono-myth being those common themes that can be found in all cultures, even the ones separated by time and distance. Example, A New Hope. Lucas originally intended A New Hope to be his view on Vietnam, where Lucas actually sympathized with the Viet-Kong, making them the "Rebels" and the Empire was actually the representation of the USA. While Lucas's political view may have never changed, what he did do was strip that specific political view away, and left those themes that we all could agree on, regardless of political ideology. This is the mono-myth. Not just the Heroes Journey, but, that commonality that we all share. This is why I love the Charlie Rose interview that Lucas gave a few years ago. He boils down what Star Wars is, the passing down to our youth of our basic cultural expectations. Lucas was not about fighting the culture wars, like the current Disney group of filmmakers want too. Lucas wanted to emphasize the obvious cultural values we all share and should celebrate, not what makes us different. |
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Post by Alexrd on Feb 6, 2020 10:11:56 GMT
Indeed. But even the whole Vietcong reference is not exactly political. As Lucas managed to explain in various instances, what he admired and found inspiring in the Vietcong was the fact that a small, ragtag, guerrilla-style force overwhelmed a superior, technologically advanced threat. The example of the Vietcong stuck with him because that happened while he was a young adult. But he became fascinated with it and found other examples throughout history. It's that apolitical premise that stands out, and it doesn't get in the way of the story. And it's one of his recurring themes throughout the movies (Rebels vs Empire, Ewoks vs Empire, Gungans vs Droid Army).
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 6, 2020 20:36:53 GMT
Indeed. But even the whole Vietcong reference is not exactly political. As Lucas managed to explain in various instances, what he admired and found inspiring in the Vietcong was the fact that a small, ragtag, guerrilla-style force overwhelmed a superior, technologically advanced threat. The example of the Vietcong stuck with him because that happened while he was a young adult. But he became fascinated with it and found other examples throughout history. It's that apolitical premise that stands out, and it doesn't get in the way of the story. And it's one of his recurring themes throughout the movies (Rebels vs Empire, Ewoks vs Empire, Gungans vs Droid Army). You're fairly correct. While the basic narrative and visual construction of the Original Trilogy is more general and archetypal than to be an allegory for any particular conflict, Star Wars nonetheless encodes a great fear and hatred of the State. It is constructed as a dire warning. And while Lucas delved into history when designing the films -- especially the prequels (big reference points: Caesar and the fall of Ancient Rome, Hitler and the Third Reich) -- Vietnam wasn't far from his mind when he began his mythic space opera. Copying-and-pasting from an old post of mine on TFN: boards.theforce.net/threads/the-empire-as-an-allegory.50021885/#post-51708381A couple of early GL quotations from "The Making Of Star Wars" by J.W. Rinzler: "A lot of my interest in Apocalypse Now (which Lucas was originally going to make; and with a different look and feel to the final Francis Ford Coppola film) was carried over into Star Wars. I figured that I couldn't make that film because it was about the Vietnam War, so I would essentially deal with some of the same interesting concepts that I was going to use and convert them into space fantasy, so you'd have essentially a large technological empire going after a small group of freedom fighters or human beings."
(p.8) "I grew up in the 1960s. I was very anti-corporation, and I was here in San Francisco, where anti-authority is even more extreme."
(p. 12) In a latter paragraph, Rinzler himself notes: "In enlarging the treatment to what became a nearly two-hundred-page rough draft, Lucas was continually aided by the transference of his Apocalypse Now ideas to the fantasy realm. Some of his notes scribbled on yellow legal pads are: "Theme: Aquilae is a small independent country like North Vietnam threatened by a neighbor or provincial rebellion, initiated by gangsters aided by empire. Fight to get rightful planet back. Half of system has been lost to gangsters... The empire is like America ten years from now, after gangsters assassinated the Emperor and were elevated to power in a rigged election... We are at a turning point: fascism or revolution."
(p. 16) Lucas was basically pitching his creation to himself. I wonder how a description like "The empire is like America ten years from now" went over in boardrooms run by old white men? And only twenty years after McCarthyism. Lucas was very much a Young Turk in the 1970s. He channelled his hatred and disgust into his creation. In a way, you could say his hate made him powerful. And the world saw Star Wars and saw that it was good. By the time the finished (art is never finished) product (art is not a product) made it into the theaters, some of Lucas' anger had likely been blunted, and some of that red-hot hatred had been dialled down. But going by the prequels, he never lost his dread of power and its myriad abuses. Between the OT and PT, he simply became more learned, and more determined to put to the screen a multi-faceted allegory and paean for democracy -- or an exploration/exhumation of the fragility of democracy and how it forever teeters toward fascism and tyranny. |
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Post by Alexrd on Feb 7, 2020 10:29:08 GMT
Right. I wouldn't exactly say that he was fueled by 'hatred and disgust' though. I don't think there was any hate driving the creation of Star Wars, but he was adapting concepts that he had just been working on for Apocalypse Now. Just to clarify I didn't mean that the political situation of Vietnam wasn't relevant to him. His private notes are informative of how he saw things and what he was trying to go for, but I think he was intelligent enough to recognize that making a movie so direct and specific not only wouldn't make a good (lasting) story, but would also turn off not just studio suits but the audience as well. People don't like to be lectured or talked down to unless in cases where they recognize some sort of authority. Art and entertainment is the place where people least expect it (or don't expect at all) so the push-back would be exponential. Authority, not authorship. Stories that last and resonate dwell on universal themes. In the end, that's what he went for and was fortunately successful. And it may have socio-political foundations, but it's not about politics or specific ideologies (or about preaching them). So much so that those foundations are recurring throughout history with politics/ideologies swapped around. P.S: There are two great in-depth interviews that go into Lucas's mindset and worldviews in relation to Star Wars: Bill Moyers - The Mythology of 'Star Wars' with George LucasOrville Schell - George Lucas: 'I'm a Cynic Who Has Hope for the Human Race' |
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 7, 2020 19:10:47 GMT
Right. I wouldn't exactly say that he was fueled by 'hatred and disgust' though. I don't think there was any hate driving the creation of Star Wars, but he was adapting concepts that he had just been working on for Apocalypse Now. Just to clarify I didn't mean that the political situation of Vietnam wasn't relevant to him. His private notes are informative of how he saw things and what he was trying to go for, but I think he was intelligent enough to recognize that making a movie so direct and specific not only wouldn't make a good (lasting) story, but would also turn off not just studio suits but the audience as well. People don't like to be lectured or talked down to unless in cases where they recognize some sort of authority. Art and entertainment is the place where people least expect it (or don't expect at all) so the push-back would be exponential. Authority, not authorship. Very true. Perhaps "hatred and disgust" was an overstatement. It might have been better to say that he channelled his anxieties and concerns into Star Wars, and as you said, he wasn't trying to lecture people or make them feel glum. The aim was to give people hope -- "A New Hope" -- and uplift them. There are, of course, various quotes from Lucas that attest to this being his aim. He was aware that darker, grittier films had come to dominate the cinematic landscape in the 1970s, and he was deliberately trying to move in a different direction after the box-office failure of his debut film "THX-1138", which was very austere and satirically morose and clearly designed to plug right into that era. Going from THX to "American Graffiti" is quite the leap, and Star Wars another leap again. Though, if you study them carefully enough, all three have this underlying dread of life and innocence being erased. As ever: Jar Jar is the key to all this.
Yes. Star Wars reflects its creator's intellectual leanings and examines history as a kind of cyclical machine of dread and dream. I have more to say about this in my upcoming AOTC essay-rebuttal. Ah! I've used both of those sources in my aforementioned upcoming AOTC essay-rebuttal. Look for it in a week or two.  |
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 8, 2020 16:20:32 GMT
Also during the scene where the Falcon makes a getaway from the Star Destroyer hangar bay; Kylo leaning slanted into the blast force as Rey performs some kinda nigh-suspended aerial business onto the Falcon's boarding ramp. The heightened staging-and-physics of Anime is all over this shit. For you, Ingram:  |
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Post by Ingram on Feb 8, 2020 19:28:23 GMT
Also during the scene where the Falcon makes a getaway from the Star Destroyer hangar bay; Kylo leaning slanted into the blast force as Rey performs some kinda nigh-suspended aerial business onto the Falcon's boarding ramp. The heightened staging-and-physics of Anime is all over this shit. For you, Ingram: Abrams and his teal. Lots of doubloon orange and ion teal happening in this thing.
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Post by Cryogenic on Feb 8, 2020 20:39:29 GMT
For you, Ingram: Abrams and his teal. Lots of doubloon orange and ion teal happening in this thing.
 In fairness, Abrams was quite understated with his blues in TFA; while TROS, by contrast, clearly has an ice/blue theme. And in the example of Kylo, we clearly have a call-back to the Millennium Falcon hastily departing from the hangar bay of that freighter in TFA. I only ask that question after I've done it.
Of course, there, the bad guys are all knocked over like tenpins, much like the stormtroopers in the shot above. Kylo has to be dramatic and different. It's funny. In TLJ, Rian Johnson has him skidding across the floor when Rey first "Skype calls" him. He can be so out-of-control one moment, and so anchored the next. But yes, Abrams does seem to dig a teal effect. On the other hand, I don't recall a great deal of orange outside of the jungle and desert planets. Blue is the dominant colour of TROS from the logo on down. Abrams getting his teal freak on and really indulging himself the second time around... in my opinion. |
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