oojason said:
So without Marcia introducing that ‘time-element’ - ‘a countdown clock’ - the ‘Death Star wasn’t about to destroy the Rebel Base’… this is what RocketJump alludes to, no?
The time clock came later in the editing to prop up the tension however the story point for the Death Star intending to destroy the Rebel Base was always there.
INT. MASASSI OUTPOST - WAR ROOM
On the computer display board, several of the markers
indicating rebel fighters go dark. The princess gives
Old Ben a look of amused surprise at Luke’s boldness.
GENERAL DODANA approaches the princess.
DODANA
Over sixty percent of our craft have
been destroyed. The probability
projection shows little hope. The
Death Star will be in position to
fire on us shortly. We will be
destroyed. We must escape while
there is still time.
Third draft - 1 August 1975, page 98 of the transcript
This has been implied in the revised fourth draft as well:
TARKIN
Enough of this! Vader, release him.
This bickering is pointless. Lord Vader
will provide us with the location of the
rebel fortress by the time this station is
operational. We will then crush this
rebellion with one swift stroke.
Revised fourth draft - March 15 1976 (with April 19 revisions), page 18
INT. DEATH STAR CONTROL ROOM
An officer approaches Governor Tarkin
OFFICER
Sir, we analyzed their attack plan,
and there is a danger. Should we
make plans to evacuate? Your ship
is standing by.
TARKIN
Evacuate! On our moment of triumph?
I think you overestimate their chances.
Ditto, page 147
Do you honestly think triumph only meant the starfighters’ destruction and not the base’s? Or “one swift stroke” somehow meant they would invade the planet as opposed to outright destroy it? The animations and voice overs were for emphasizing, making it clearer they were on a time limit.
Also, in that video you linked, she says:
“…we decided, you know, the thing that was missing was a time clock. Like, how much time does Luke have to make this shot before something as horrible as that happened?”
“We” who? Rocket Jump implies it was Marcia alone that came up with it while simultaneously not mentioning that she, Paul, Richard and George worked in the editing of the sequence as well so it’s just as likely the idea came from either of them.
They also very heavily imply Marcia came up with the intercutting, when in fact it was Richard Chew. First RJ’s version:
“It was literally sitting there, waiting to be blown up. This is where Marcia Lucas came in. The first thing she did was recut the trench run, basically from the ground up. This included removing Luke’s first run”
Now the real version:
“For me, one of the biggest contributions I made to the film was a suggestion I made to George to intercut Princess Leia and the Rebels on their station with Luke making the run to destroy the Death Star. I had the idea that if we could put Princess Leia in jeopardy and then simultaneously have Luke try to destroy the Death Star in order to save her and the Rebels, it would just provide much more tension to the ending. Originally, these were not simultaneous events; they were separate. Without this crosscutting, whether Luke blew the Death Star on time or not wouldn’t have had the same tension. If you look at the film, in the scenes with Leia, there’s no dialogue that’s on camera in synch because all the footage was taken from other scenes of the Rebels in the war room, and all the information that you’re getting as to how close the Death Star is to the Rebels is either on animated screens or off-screen dialogue through a PA system. But in Leia’s dialogue, for instance, there wasn’t really any of the exposition that would indicate that they were in jeopardy. That was all created in the editing, as was the crosscutting between the action and the shots of Darth Vader before he got into his fighter and Tarkin, the Peter Cushing character.”
From Star Wars The Annotated Screenplays, page 104
And here he is saying virtually the same in a shorter format:
“One of the biggest contributions I made to the film was a suggestion to George to intercut Princess Leia and the Rebels in their station with Luke making the run to destroy the Death Star,” remembers Richard Chew. “I had the idea that if we could put Princess Leia in jeopardy and then simultaneously have Luke try to destroy the Death Star in order to save her and the Rebels, it would just provide much more tension to the ending. Originally, these were not simultaneous events; they were separate.” Luke’s Death Star attack was also intercut with footage of a seemingly anxious Governor Tarkin, although the absence of dialogue specific to the attack in these scenes betrays the editors’ sleight of hand. Like the Leia footage, much of this Tarkin material was culled from scenes that were originally supposed to occur elsewhere in the film. The sequence was ultimately made to work by intercutting new second-unit footage of Death Star personnel preparing to fire the battle station’s giant laser.
From The Cinema of George Lucas, page 106
What’s that Chew? “Whether Luke blew the Death Star on time or not wouldn’t have had the same tension.” On time for what? The Death Star was just “sitting there, waiting to be blown up.” What could’ve given Chew such an idea, I wonder? 😃
It’s hilarious how RJ credits almost everything to Marcia. The intercutting? Marcia. The time clock? Marcia. Removing Luke’s first run? Marcia.
To which each point, it actually goes:
The intercutting? Richard.
The time clock? Unknown, but wouldn’t surprise me if it was Richard yet again.
Removing Luke’s first run? Unknown.
Another paragraph from Rinzler’s book that further confirms it:
While at one time Lucas contemplated making two movies out of the first draft—ending
the first with the escape from the Death Star, and having the second start with the
crash landing on the jungle planet, and close with the attack on the space fortress—instead
he combined and juxtaposed many of the more exciting scenes into a shorter, tighter
single film. Another of his notes on structure reads, “time lock” to add suspense:
“the empire has a terrible new weapon, a fortress station so powerful it can destroy
a planet, possibly even a sun. It must be stopped before it can be put to use.” By
transforming the space fortress from a floating, somewhat meandering locale, in the
first draft, into a horrific planet-destroying weapon, Lucas turned it into a character
as well as an all-important structural
And the cherry on the top, Carrie Fisher’s video test:
“…but our only hope is to destroy it before it destroys us.”
Anyways…
Except, the RJ video didn’t do that. It didn’t do that at all.
It definitely and absolutely did that. Look, I get that you fell for the narrative hook, line and sinker. But, that’s simply not true.
Why did they present George’s reasoning as Paul Hirsch’s reasoning?
They present this Paul quote from Rinzler’s book:
“In the first five minutes, we were hitting everybody with more information
than they could handle. There were too many story lines to keep straight:
the robots, the Princess, Vader, Luke. So we simplified it by taking Luke out,
and you don’t introduce Luke until he actually becomes a part of the story.”
While willfully ignoring what immediately follows after:
“But it also made the picture a lot weirder,” he adds, “because the main characters
became the robots, which is a wonderful idea. It’s very George. And the reason it
works is that George invested the characters with a human sense of humor. It also
made the planet they land on work as an alien place. Before, by showing Luke on the
planet, there was no mystery: You knew the planet was inhabited by people. But now
when you go to the planet with the robots, you don’t know what you’re going to find—the
first characters you see are Jawas—which gives it a whole air of exotic mystery.”
George also felt that there was no reason to see Luke until he became an
active participant in the story. But it was not an easy decision to make to just
delete those sequences; Marcia fought to keep them in, and the four scenes
with Luke and his friends were tried in different places.
This part also points out how Marcia wanted to keep the scenes the “professor” blatantly disapproves of.
And yet so what if it did highlight Marcia’s contributions, or Richard Chew, or Paul Hirsch - or all 3 of them. Why not? It doesn’t take away from George - nor attacks or discredits him - it simply highlights the effect good and clever editing can have upon a film.
That would be fine IF it was true, but it isn’t.
And if it was about the editors, how come they never mention John Jympson? It gives the impression George made the first cut, called the British cut in Rinzler’s book, implying all the poor editing choices were on him instead of John. George never intended the movie to be like that cut. They intentionally mix all the cuts together.
It was after George fan-boys & zealots watched that vitriolic Nerdonymous video did they seemed to be triggered into somehow thinking what you claim above.
I’ve always disagreed with George on so many different topics including not releasing the original cut on home video. I watched RJ’s video first, I couldn’t put it in words but I could tell something was off about it. I didn’t watch Nerdonymous’s video until much later and since then I’ve been cross-referencing to check how accurate all these videos that talk about the behind the scenes really are.
^ Nerdonymous seems to get quite triggered and angry about it too… the agenda seething through… as he progresses with his “some fans”… “they want to burn him (Lucas) to the ground” & “they want to take everything away from him” spiel; whilst showing a FactRepublic image stating some of Marcia’s contributions to the film, and some of what she edited - for which she won an Oscar for (along with Hirsch and Chew).
First of all, Nerdonymous’s full quote for proper context:
“Some fans who don’t like what Lucas did with the Special Editions and or don’t like what he did with the Prequels aren’t satisfied with criticizing him on these bases. They want to burn him to the ground, they want to take everything away from him. Because they believe they did something unseemly to their childhood or something. That is why Star Wars was saved in the edit as opposed to it just went through the normal editing process that all films go to through.”
Second, I’ve never got the impression this meant he is “anti-fan preservation”. It’s crystal clear “everything” in this context means George’s contributions because that’s what the whole subject of the video is about.
So when you try to claim: “It just makes everyone that wants to see the theatrical versions look bad.” - is that an attempt at gaslighting? (I hope not). If it is, kindly knock it off.
That’s a textbook example of accusing others of what YOU are guilty off, especially with the weak excuses provided.
You may want to think about wising up there - doing something a little more constructive other than being an apologist for a vitriolic youtuber… who has issues with fan preservations.
Look in a mirror, you’re being an apologist for deceptive fans or, in this case, a pretend film school. And for the last part, either provide proof this is the case or knock it off.
On here, we acknowledge and highlight the many contributions of everyone who worked on the Original Trilogy films - especially those who have been written out of the official history, or have had their roles downplayed, or diminished.
And when were Marcia or Paul or Richard written out of the official history? Rinzler’s book wouldn’t exist otherwise. If that somehow is not “good enough” in Marcia’s case, he interviewed her in his Howard Kazanjian book.
Just because it makes some get so triggered to the point of fuming, here’s yet another video that goes much more in depth dispelling the Marcia and/or the editors “saved” the movie narrative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LsxGGjyZ_Q
If you’re going to attack George, do it for the things he ACTUALLY did. Like his handling of David Prowse, insisting the saga was “always” about the tragedy of Darth Vader when for a time there was material, like the first editions of the books, that officially called it “From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker” and/or the old reliable “Greedo shoots”. Don’t make up false narratives or straight up lie in how much he was involved in his films just to dunk on him.
