Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#326 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Dec 24, 2015 9:50 am

Even the minor changes in Empire look bad. Again, Lucas just wants to show more without any sense of taste. I keep comparing it to a bad virtuoso drummer who throws in fills all over the place without knowing when to stop.

Look at those hallway shots during the escape - in the original, it feels claustrophobic, but then he adds all those stupid vista views and suddenly it's a distracting tourist hangout. "Look out those windows!" then "Oooh! A gigantic balcony view of the city!"

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jindianajonz
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#327 Post by jindianajonz » Thu Dec 24, 2015 11:23 am

hearthesilence wrote:Even the minor changes in Empire look bad. Again, Lucas just wants to show more without any sense of taste. I keep comparing it to a bad virtuoso drummer who throws in fills all over the place without knowing when to stop.
See, your mistake is in viewing this film as a work of art. As an extended toy commercial, it makes perfect sense to showcase these minor characters and spaceships a little bit more.

On a more serious note, I'm very torn about the changes that were made. Some of them (Vader's "Nooooo", the new Jabba's Palace song) are absolutely terrible. But I actually like some of the scenes that open up the world a bit more, like the Cloud City vistas or extra action in Mos Eisley, though admittedly Lucas did go a bit overboard with some of these. I wonder how a transition from the open edges of cloud city to the claustrophobic depths you describe would have worked, as if the characters are slowly being suffocated as they walk towards Vader. But I always felt that building up a world where every on screen character felt like the tip of a thread the audience could easily follow into another adventure was the biggest achievement of Star Wars, and I actually like the changes that help make that world feel a little bigger.

I also prefer the new Wampa: Star Wars has always been about putting fantastic creatures and vehicles in full view for the audience to gawk at, and changing this tactic for a single scene never really made sense to me. I always got the impression that Kershner was unhappy with the costume and wanted to try and hide it from the audience, rather than a sense of mystery about what the creature really was.

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Trees
Joined: Sun Sep 27, 2015 4:04 pm

Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#328 Post by Trees » Thu Dec 24, 2015 12:55 pm

jindianajonz wrote: I also prefer the new Wampa: Star Wars has always been about putting fantastic creatures and vehicles in full view for the audience to gawk at, and changing this tactic for a single scene never really made sense to me. I always got the impression that Kershner was unhappy with the costume and wanted to try and hide it from the audience, rather than a sense of mystery about what the creature really was.
Same thing that happened with Spielberg and the shark in JAWS. Turned out for the better, I think, when we see less and our imaginations are able to fill in the gaps. Same thing with Scott's ALIEN.

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jindianajonz
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#329 Post by jindianajonz » Thu Dec 24, 2015 1:20 pm

I understand that ambiguity can be a huge boon in certain situations, I just don't see it as fitting Star Wars' peculiar storytelling style. Though after watching through some more of those videos showing comparison scenes, I will agree that many of the CGI additions were used excessively, and should have been reduced even if I wouldn't advocate for their outright removal.

I also wonder if how much if the animosity towards the CGI scenes stems from the fact that they were poorly done with primitive technology. If Lucas were to go back again using modern techniques, and deliver a product that was more seamlessly integrated, would they be as hated as they currently are?

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solaris72
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#330 Post by solaris72 » Thu Dec 24, 2015 1:59 pm

jindianajonz wrote:I also wonder if how much if the animosity towards the CGI scenes stems from the fact that they were poorly done with primitive technology. If Lucas were to go back again using modern techniques, and deliver a product that was more seamlessly integrated, would they be as hated as they currently are?
That's certainly part of the problem, but even if they were seamless- part of what is amazing about Star Wars is how much they did with the technology of the time. Having watched untouched versions of the OT recently, I really like some of the seams and the places where the movies' reach seems to exceed their grasp. It gives them a certain dimension of personality. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the new movie, but it is a product of its time, and the OT films are a product of theirs, and it's counterproductive in my view to try and make the OT a product of another time.

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captveg
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#331 Post by captveg » Thu Dec 24, 2015 2:19 pm

The only changes I like are the ones that they for did technical gaffes: Vader's saber being white in SW when the blast doors close being fixed to be red, for example. Otherwise, yeah, leave it alone.

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Trees
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#332 Post by Trees » Thu Dec 24, 2015 3:48 pm

Would be nice to get a release that only cleans up technical issues. Blade Runner Final Cut is not 100% only technical cleanups, but it's more along those lines.

Then again I do like some of the new x-wing shots in New Hope. :D

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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#333 Post by BrianInAtlanta » Thu Dec 24, 2015 5:16 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Just curious, is there anyone here who saw the first film in it's original release?
Yes. We ran the trailer before some of our movies at the UGA film theater that summer. I heard about a preview a couple of weeks before its official opening in a two-fer south of Chattanooga. The other theater was showing "Smokey and The Bandit" with a line around the building. Practically no one was there to see "Star Wars". I enjoyed it tremendously as a throwback to the 30's and 40's serials I had seen on early Saturday morning TV as a child. My friends, very much into Peckinpah, Aldrich, Ford, etc., considered it childish junk from the get go. To me, it was a nice change from the endless car chase-destruction movies that constituted action cinema in the early-mid 70's. Plus I enjoyed the little film student references to The Searchers, Rio Grande, Sanjuro.

I've just seen the new one and it's a fine job of revving the series back up although I wonder whether it will fall apart on the second film once the nostalgia rush of the return is over (see, or rather don't "Quantum of Solace", "Star Trek Into Darkness", etc.). And speaking of references
SpoilerShow
I enjoyed the outright steal from Kurosawa's "Sanshiro Sugata" for the final light saber battle in "The Force Awakens".

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aox
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#334 Post by aox » Sun Dec 27, 2015 10:21 pm

Probably deserves it's own thread independent of Star Wars, but we don't have a "George Lucas" thread. But did any of you catch Charlie Rose's interview with George Lucas this week:

http://www.charlierose.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

IMO, Lucas really came off as somewhat defensive and bitter; nonetheless, the most interesting quote to me had nothing to do with Star Wars. Lucas stated that filmmakers "as long as they weren't criticizing the state" had more freedom in the USSR to create what they wanted in the 1960s/70s. This is interesting in regards to the Russian/Soviet film industry history and Mosfilm. I get what he is saying, but I don't think it's that simple. Regardless, that is the first time I have ever heard an American director say something like that.

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domino harvey
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#335 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 27, 2015 10:56 pm

We don't need a Lucas thread, this is the perfect place to put that link

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jindianajonz
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#336 Post by jindianajonz » Sun Dec 27, 2015 11:01 pm

domino harvey wrote:We don't need a Lucas thread, this is the perfect place to put that link
What if we want to talk about the rest of his filmography??

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domino harvey
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#337 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 27, 2015 11:09 pm

We already have a seven page thread devoted to Radioland Murders, what more do you want?!

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bearcuborg
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#338 Post by bearcuborg » Mon Dec 28, 2015 12:52 am

While we're off topic... I just saw American Graffiti for the first time this year, and loved it...till the end. With all the tweaking done to Star Wars, why the hell and not fix the one film that needs it most? No postscript for the female characters at the end?

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domino harvey
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#339 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 28, 2015 2:15 am

We have thread for American Graffiti and THX 1138, which coupled with this is why we don't need a Lucas thread. Anything you want to say about him or any other project that doesn't fit neatly into one of these threads: pick the most closely relevant thread and put it there. We are not doing the Malick thing again here.

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knives
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#340 Post by knives » Mon Dec 28, 2015 7:43 am

aox wrote:Probably deserves it's own thread independent of Star Wars, but we don't have a "George Lucas" thread. But did any of you catch Charlie Rose's interview with George Lucas this week:

http://www.charlierose.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

IMO, Lucas really came off as somewhat defensive and bitter; nonetheless, the most interesting quote to me had nothing to do with Star Wars. Lucas stated that filmmakers "as long as they weren't criticizing the state" had more freedom in the USSR to create what they wanted in the 1960s/70s. This is interesting in regards to the Russian/Soviet film industry history and Mosfilm. I get what he is saying, but I don't think it's that simple. Regardless, that is the first time I have ever heard an American director say something like that.
Skolimowski has actually said some similar things in the past, though that is with him coming from both sides of the curtain an experience which Lucas has not.

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thirtyframesasecond
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#341 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Mon Dec 28, 2015 11:12 am

Was Paradjanov directly criticising the state?

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Trees
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#342 Post by Trees » Sun Jan 03, 2016 1:18 pm

I finally got around to watching that Charlie Rose interview with Lucas. To me, Lucas is always a very interesting interview subject. He's a fairly knowledgeable, well read and thoughtful person. Sometimes his ego gets the better of him, but generally he has a lot to share with the world.

He really started squirming, though, when The Force Awakens was brought up.

Lucas has been talking about these "small, personal films" for decades now but never doing anything about it. I hope that will change, and he will get down to business. It was interesting to hear him talking about the Russian filmmaking system. As much as Tarkovsky and others complained about it, Lucas has a point. Also interesting was Lucas's claim that he wants to find "new ways of telling stories" visually, without dialogue or traditional cinema structures. That quest sounds at least somewhat similar to what Malick has been doing lately.

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Manny Karp
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#343 Post by Manny Karp » Sun Jan 03, 2016 4:40 pm

Trees wrote:Lucas has been talking about these "small, personal films" for decades now but never doing anything about it. I hope that will change, and he will get down to business.
I adore his first three films, and you can see the experimental influences as well as the traditional. Nothing has irked me more though than hearing him whine - for almost 40 years now! - how much he'd rather be making small art films. Well George, nothing and no one is stopping you. It's obvious he'll never do it, which is a shame. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised if, upon his death, a trove of such films was discovered. But let's not kid ourselves like's been doing for the last half century.

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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#344 Post by hanshotfirst1138 » Sun Jan 03, 2016 8:19 pm

Manny Karp wrote:
Trees wrote:Lucas has been talking about these "small, personal films" for decades now but never doing anything about it. I hope that will change, and he will get down to business.
I adore his first three films, and you can see the experimental influences as well as the traditional. Nothing has irked me more though than hearing him whine - for almost 40 years now! - how much he'd rather be making small art films. Well George, nothing and no one is stopping you. It's obvious he'll never do it, which is a shame. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised if, upon his death, a trove of such films was discovered. But let's not kid ourselves like's been doing for the last half century.
Hell, Lucas could literally find any independent film he wanted to make out of his own pocket.

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aox
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#345 Post by aox » Sun Jan 03, 2016 8:37 pm

Manny Karp wrote:
Trees wrote:Lucas has been talking about these "small, personal films" for decades now but never doing anything about it. I hope that will change, and he will get down to business.
I adore his first three films, and you can see the experimental influences as well as the traditional. Nothing has irked me more though than hearing him whine - for almost 40 years now! - how much he'd rather be making small art films. Well George, nothing and no one is stopping you. It's obvious he'll never do it, which is a shame. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised if, upon his death, a trove of such films was discovered. But let's not kid ourselves like's been doing for the last half century.
He had something like 13 years between the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983 until preproduction began on The Phantom Menace in 1996(?), and we got... Howard the Duck. I know he was also intent on being a full time devoted father (which is absolutely admirable). But, I feel like he squandered a good portion of his filmmaking life.

I haven't been a huge fan of Coppola's late period "small" films beginning with Tetro, but I think they have been interesting and even sometimes noble attempts. I always think of them when I think of Lucas lamenting that he only wants to make small films during the third act of his life. But, that probably has more to do with the fact that they are contemporaries and peers and is admittedly a lazy comparison.

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Manny Karp
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#346 Post by Manny Karp » Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:43 am

aox wrote:
Manny Karp wrote:
Trees wrote:Lucas has been talking about these "small, personal films" for decades now but never doing anything about it. I hope that will change, and he will get down to business.
I adore his first three films, and you can see the experimental influences as well as the traditional. Nothing has irked me more though than hearing him whine - for almost 40 years now! - how much he'd rather be making small art films. Well George, nothing and no one is stopping you. It's obvious he'll never do it, which is a shame. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised if, upon his death, a trove of such films was discovered. But let's not kid ourselves like's been doing for the last half century.
He had something like 13 years between the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983 until preproduction began on The Phantom Menace in 1996(?), and we got... Howard the Duck. I know he was also intent on being a full time devoted father (which is absolutely admirable). But, I feel like he squandered a good portion of his filmmaking life.

I haven't been a huge fan of Coppola's late period "small" films beginning with Tetro, but I think they have been interesting and even sometimes noble attempts. I always think of them when I think of Lucas lamenting that he only wants to make small films during the third act of his life. But, that probably has more to do with the fact that they are contemporaries and peers and is admittedly a lazy comparison.
I agree about Coppola and his recent films. When I listen to interviews with him from the past decade or so, my heart swells with admiration and inspiration; what he says about the value of art and its place in our lives might otherwise be trite or privileged but it never fails to move me because of his open and utter genuineness.

When I see interviews with Lucas I just feel withered and have to remind myself that this was once the fellow who was simultaneously inspired by Lipsett's 21-87 and John Ford's The Searchers and trashy serials, who basically did what Tarantino is doing but 25 years earlier, who may have been the most formalist director of his generation. I think he really could have been a great abstract filmmaker; look at the way he photographed technology like cars or tools or control panels, his use of wipes and other archaic editing devices, his fascination with strange textures and sounds.

I just don't understand what he's so miserable about. It's a little embarrassing, honestly.

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Trees
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#347 Post by Trees » Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:10 am

It kind of seems like he's stuck -- paralyzed right now. He keeps talking about the small films he's going to make, but so far, even based on this interview, there seems to be no evidence that he's moving forward with any of them. I hope people are wrong, and that he's actually going to do something and surprise people, fairly soon.

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jindianajonz
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#348 Post by jindianajonz » Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:27 am

Based on that interview, it sounds like he wants to make these films and sit on them/share them only with close friends, so I'm not sure if we will ever get a chance to see that.

Either way, he came off as very conflicted during the course of that interview. Early on he talks about how awards don't matter, but somewhere around the midpoint he lists a few awards that he won with a sense of pride. He also states that he never really grew up on movies, but later references "the movies [he] grew up on". He seems to excoriate the artless capitalistic film industry, but readily acknowledges that he helped create that beast, and that his own financial success is what will allow him to make these personal films without studio interference.

Most interesting of all, however, is how he seems to draw a strict line between artistic films and commercial films, but still talks about trying to put "messages" into Star Wars. He doesn't elaborate on this point very much, but it makes me wonder if he took his own supposed failings in the original trilogy too hard, and decided that if he couldn't successfully marry art and commercial appeal, nobody could. A rather narrow minded view, but it would help explain why the prequel trilogy comes off as such a cash grab.

All in all, he does come across as a bit rudderless at this point, wanting to make art without a clear idea of how to get there. Of course, there's always an off chance that he does have some clear vision, but for whatever reason wants to hold it close and keep it from the outside world (Perhaps he can't take the criticism that has plagued his work over the last 20 years?). More than anything else, though, it feels like Lucas the Artist has been so stifled by Lucas the Businessman, that despite his desire to get back into film, he doesn't really know how.

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Trees
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#349 Post by Trees » Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:41 am

I think he has always placed Star Wars into a unique category -- a hybrid of art and commerce. He definitely does not consider it to be strictly commercial, as he does with Indiana Jones, for example. He pointed out that difference in this Charlie Rose interview.

He says he is going to make small films for himself, but then directly contradicts that by saying such endeavors would be futile and useless. My guess is that if he does make some films, he will definitely share them, but will try to seriously downlplay expectations. Maybe he puts them out on Netflix or something.

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Star Wars Franchise

#350 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Jan 04, 2016 6:18 pm


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