Respecting creators including George should always take precedence to your beliefs.
Woah!
A civil respect, or a general respect? For sure.
Acknowledging their efforts, achievements and the content you enjoy, love or that resonates? Of course.Yet the truth (or facts) should come first. Before the ‘precedence’ turns into blind respect, which then turns into idol worship. Where facts and the truth are then ignored because of that idol worship. Something that a great number of Star Wars fans have ignored when putting George up on a pedestal is the actual history of Star Wars, and also ignoring George’s attempts to both retcon, change and suppress parts of the history.
He may not of had every detail planned out but he had a broader sense of things to create story points for later. Mark Hamill spoke in the 80’s how George planned to end things on another plane of existence. This sure feels like someone who had an idea of where they wanted to go. Maybe not every detail as even he said he didn’t have but enough to know the broader strokes to create new storylines.
This was talked about only recently by you and another member on here? Where Lucas is quoted it was only had a vague “notion” and that “It wouldn’t be part of the main story, but a sequel to this thing” (Luke’s own personal story).
So it was not much other than a vague idea for a future story for Luke, and not for Lucas’s Sequel Trilogy. So the claim of Lucas having these “broad strokes”, “broader sense of things”, or “plans” for the Sequel Trilogy does not apply here.
In the end unfortunately many rejected him as they didn’t feel these concepts connecting Midi-Chlorians and the Force fit into Star Wars, when in reality they have always been there and align even with things Joseph Campbell talked about. Star Wars was always building to something bigger. It becomes even clearer the more you watch his six films.
It is important to remember that Midichlorians have not always been there in Star Wars. Despite Lucas trying to change history and insert his retconned quote to pass off ideas that came to him only later when writing the Prequels.
Has anyone found a mention of Midichlorians before Lucas’ writing for the TPM? If the term Midichlorians always existed in Star Wars it would not be difficult to prove for Lucas himself or Lucasfilm, but we have no evidence. Nothing other than Lucas’ famous retconned quote in a failed attempt to try and provide that evidence.
I hope you do not take my post as aggressive or an attack on you Stardust1138. You have a beautiful way with words and I enjoy reading your posts. But I feel I must highlight where I disagree, where the facts or evidence of the history does not add up (such as passing off Lucas’ vague idea for a possible future Luke story as his ideas for the Sequel Trilogy, with even Lucas himself saying this idea was not a part of the main story).
To quote Lucas in 1997: “[The whole story has] six episodes…If I ever went beyond that, it would be something that was made up".
You can respect but not always agree with someone. It’s common courtesy I find. There’s no need to insult someone or call anyone names or accuse them of x and y when we’re just as guilty of doing the very same things in our own lives in different ways. No one is perfect. We’re all flawed and make mistakes. George has his fair share but has every right to do what he feels is best as it’s his story at the end of the day. He’s always been one to change his mind. All creative people are like that. I’m a creative person. I never stick to the same ideas from one moment to the next. I always want to make my story better. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Especially as it’s my vision. Just as Star Wars was/is George’s vision. He can do whatever he pleases with it. It may belong to all of us but it’s also ultimately because of him we have it to begin with. Creators don’t have a responsibility to please or to give us what we want. Their job is to make something personal to them. Hopefully it’s morally responsible and helps us in some way but that’s a whole different topic. I’d say though George did that and then some.
I did have that discussion. It’s hard to say as both Steven Spielberg and Rick McCallum said the Prequels and Originals were part of his process with the Sequels. We also have Mark Hamill’s words. We don’t know what George personally was thinking behind closed doors. He probably truly believed for a long time the story would end at six but left open certain things in the event he decided to make the last three or at the very least for The Clone Wars series. However as The Clone Wars evolved he saw potential in continuing the saga. Darth Maul for example returned in 2011. The same year he started developing his treatments for the Sequels. He probably started drawing more lines of where he could go with the Sequels as they were never as fleshed out as the other trilogies. There’s nothing wrong with that. Stories grow and change. The 80’s to 2011 is a long time to be carrying the same story. Of course it would evolve. It sort of has to as your sensibilities change but your core remains the same.
It’s not to say Midi-Chlorians have been there from the beginning but there’s plenty to say they don’t contradict things in the Original Trilogy. They were only three films part of a six or nine film saga he planned. Midi-Chlorians enhance things we learn in the Original Trilogy or vise versa if you decide to watch the films in the order George intended us to watch them. Things don’t seem like an accident. They just happen. Like Anakin building C-3PO. It’s not a coincidence but merely part of the story.
Not at all. Thank you for your kindness and words. It’s good we can’t all agree. We all have a personal certain point of view of how we see things. The only one though that knows at the end of the day what was or wasn’t the original intention is George. I tend to give him the benefit of doubt because of everything I said above. I’m confident in saying I think he had a plan. Nothing definitive probably but a plan that evolved nonetheless of where he wanted to go with his films. How much was there from the beginning? I’d say some vague notions with themes and with the Whills.
“Originally, I was trying to have the story be told by somebody else (an immortal being known as a Whill); there was somebody watching this whole story and recording it, somebody probably wiser than the mortal players in the actual events. I eventually dropped this idea, and the concepts behind the Whills turned into the Force. But the Whills became part of this massive amount of notes, quotes, background information that I used for the scripts; the stories were actually taken from the Journal of the Whills.”
“If the first trilogy is social and political and talks about how society evolves,” Lucas says, “Star Wars is more about personal growth and self realization, and the third deals with moral and philosophical problems… The sequel is about Jedi knighthood, justice, confrontation, and passing on what you have learned.”
From all we know about his Sequels these things track.