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Hey guys, Remember when Star wars had writing like this? — Page 7

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I think Lucas has the right to do what he wants to the movies. I have the right to call grandma a cunt, too. It's just kind of uncool.
Just to get back the Marquand thing for a second, I really doubt that he and Lucas had a bad relationship. Marquand had a cameo as a scout driver, and was also the voice of Jabba's torture droid. Both these things were near the end of production, and I doubt they would have happened if they didn't like each other. There's even stills and footage on the dvd of them clowning around in the walker. Also, when people say Lucas wanted a "puppet director he could control", I really doubt it. His 3 choices ahead of Marquand were David Lynch, David Cronenberg and Spielberg. If he just wanted a puppet he never would have been interested in those guys.
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Originally posted by: Guy Caballero
I think Lucas has the right to do what he wants to the movies. I have the right to call grandma a cunt, too. It's just kind of uncool.


Bravo!

"Among many things I have to be thankful for are you, the fans. I know that some of you haven't liked every single thing that I've done with the saga, and that you have a strong sense of ownership over all things Star Wars. But take that passion and devotion and channel it into a creative project of your own."
-George Lucas
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Originally posted by: JediRandy
Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Originally posted by: JediRandy

He’s speaking out against the movie COMPANY posthumously altering the 3 Stooges material… last I checked Luca$ isn’t dead (contrary to some fans wishes) and Fox isn’t inserting Jar Jar into the cantina scene.

COLOSSAL difference…if the 3 stooges were alive and wanted to reshoot a scene, I'm betting GL wouldn't give a shit....


That's the difference you can't seem to grasp.


Interesting interpretation, although it doesn't seem to match the actual quote, where he says that he is upset with the possibility of his children not being able to enjoy the same version of a film as he did. Don't believe he specified under what circumstances, but to have such specific guidelines seems contradictory to the purpose of the original statement, doesn't it?


Link?


Up until May, the quote was featured on the main page of this site. I'm honestly not sure where else it can be found.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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According to Empire of Dreams, Lucas had no choice but to get a non-American director for Return of the Jedi due to his departure from the Director's Guild of America. They had excessively fined him for The Empire Strikes Back's absence of any opening credits, and because he didn't want Irvin Kershner paying those DGA fines himself, he covered for him. He knew it would only happen again if he got an American to make ROTJ, and was so impressed by "Eye of the Needle" that he asked Marquand to direct.

Now that I think about it, Lucas's departure from the DGA might have a lot to do with why he decided to direct the prequels himself.
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Yes, I think we can all agree that Lucas is well within his legal rights to do whatever the hell he wants to the movies that he has "ownership" over. He still has no artistic license to do so, but that's just my opinion.
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Originally posted by:Fang ZeiAccording to Empire of Dreams, Lucas had no choice but to get a non-American director for Return of the Jedi due to his departure from the Director's Guild of America. They had excessively fined him for The Empire Strikes Back's absence of any opening credits, and because he didn't want Irvin Kershner paying those DGA fines himself, he covered for him. He knew it would only happen again if he got an American to make ROTJ, and was so impressed by "Eye of the Needle" that he asked Marquand to direct.

Now that I think about it, Lucas's departure from the DGA might have a lot to do with why he decided to direct the prequels himself.


I say to anyone who watches the EOD Documentary on the '04 DVD, watch out cause there is alot of revisionism. I NEVER heard of Spielberg once ever possibly directing ROTJ, and I was shocked when I heard that. Now is it true, I don't know.

But Spielberg did ask Lucas to direct the PT movies, and Lucas said and I quote, "No, Star Wars is my baby." I remember reading that back in 1998 before the PT started, and that is why I question whether this Spielberg directing ROTJ is just a new myth of the revisionism by Lucas yet again.

Lucas said before the PT he was going to direct Episode I, and then let someone else direct Episode II & III, and well the rest is history. Now Lucas has a right to direct his movies, but don't deny ever saying it, and that is what he does. I think he took so much crap from his fans with TPM and Jar Jar, he felt he had to redeem himself with Episode II, and when the same fans said this is just as crappy, there was no way he was going to pass on Episode III when that was the real red meat of the story. I think Lucas ego got in the way of letting someone else step in and direct and also write the screenplay, while he developed the story.

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Yea I remember now, on the Leonard Maltin interviews he says he might direct one of the prequels but will probably get other people to do the others. I would've been happier to see him out of the director's chair completely and make for a more aesthetically pleasing saga with only episode IV under his direction. Of course, the interview was a couple years before the SE's were released (although they are mentioned in the interview) and that was really the ditch Lucas dug for himself and the OT.

CO, now that you mention it, TPM was arguably the dirt he used to bury it.
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I don't really buy into the whole "deleting crew/actors from the films is disrespectful" argument. Cast and Crew are fleeting in screen credit--how many crew members that worked on the films that didn't recieve credit? Daily camera assistants and camera operators, electrics and grips and art P.A.'s--hundreds of people dont have screen credit because screen credit is not given to everyone. Similarly, your work is subject to end up on the cutting room floor at a moments notice--i've shot dozens of scenes where all my hard work and the countless manhours of dozens of people has been rendered nill by its deletion from the show. Its not disrespectful, its just the way movies are made. In this case, with the edit of the film still evolving 20 years later, a few more people got cut out of the film (while adding a slew of more technitions and thespians). Its just the nature of the business.

As for Marquand, his being british had nothing to do with guild trouble--theres plenty of american directors who aren't part of the DGA, for example Irvin Kershner. Kershner didn't want to do ROTJ anyway because he resented Lucas and Lucas never asked him because he resented Kirshner. Lucas was forced to use non-union directors because he chose to not comply with union rules by including head credits, which really is not an unreasonable demand from the union. Of course, they socked it to him with a ridiculous fine (i guess because they felt that Lucas had made so much money without proper credit sequence to the cast and crew who made it all possible--again, probably bad for the film but really not too unreasonable a dispute from the union's perspective, whose job is to protect its workers with things like proper credit).

Lucas planned on only directing TPM but then he just enjoyed working on it. He decided to direct the other two even before TPM was released, so its not an ego thing--he kept talking about how he wanted to return to directing and then he finally did because he realised how much fun it was now that he had no financial or technological pressure on him.
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Even in 1983 there was still a guild hassle about opening credits? Geez, when did they stop with that? Other movies from that era also had no opening credits (Tron, 1941, even Godfather and West Side Story didn't either, and that was before) how did they handle it?
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Even in 1983? Those kind of issues are still fought today. Those restrictions exist for a very specific reason, and its to ensure that key artist are credited upfront--kind of ego-centric if you think about it, but the whole concept of screen credit is somewhat ego-centric, and not unreasonable. Coppola i may not have belonged to the DGA at the time he made Godfather, though i could be mistaken. I think the DGA's main beef with Lucas was that he broke a fairly substantial rule for such a major motion picture, and the artists who gave him all his wealth were not properly credited according to union regulations. Back in 1977 head credits were a big deal--in fact, at that time it wasn't uncommon for films to have all the credits at the head. This in fact is how films were initially made--all of the credits that you see nowadays at the end of the film appeared at the beginning, and once the actual story of the film ended it simply faded to black with a copyright symbol instead of the lengthy scrolling credits at the end like today. In the 70's, the head credits first began to be truncated, and you had a long head credit sequence that usually credit the major artists and then at the end you had a more exhaustive sequence. Today this rule is much looser, and most films have only a brief opening credit sequence compared to the pre-1980's films-- i guess this is an effect of the so-called MTV generation, refusing to sit through three minutes of credits and instead wanting immediate action, and so the credits are almost all saved for the end. Its not so much a big deal now, although there still are still issues with films that omit opening credits completely, but in 1977 it was very radical.
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Originally posted by: Guy Caballero
Even in 1983 there was still a guild hassle about opening credits? Geez, when did they stop with that? Other movies from that era also had no opening credits (Tron, 1941, even Godfather and West Side Story didn't either, and that was before) how did they handle it?

Something I've wondered myself, as this still happens today.

Originally posted by: zombie84
As for Marquand, his being british had nothing to do with guild trouble--theres plenty of american directors who aren't part of the DGA, for example Irvin Kershner. Kershner didn't want to do ROTJ anyway because he resented Lucas and Lucas never asked him because he resented Kirshner. Lucas was forced to use non-union directors because he chose to not comply with union rules by including head credits, which really is not an unreasonable demand from the union. Of course, they socked it to him with a ridiculous fine (i guess because they felt that Lucas had made so much money without proper credit sequence to the cast and crew who made it all possible--again, probably bad for the film but really not too unreasonable a dispute from the union's perspective, whose job is to protect its workers with things like proper credit).



True, and Lynch and Cronenberg passing on the project was probably due more to them wanting to try other things. I remember reading somewhere that Lynch didn't want to have to play in someone else's universe, or something like that.
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Originally posted by: zombie84

Lucas planned on only directing TPM but then he just enjoyed working on it. He decided to direct the other two even before TPM was released, so its not an ego thing--he kept talking about how he wanted to return to directing and then he finally did because he realised how much fun it was now that he had no financial or technological pressure on him.


Zombie, with all due respect, Lucas has admitted to hating writing and directing even during the PT shoots. I think that is his cover to do Episode II & III that he enjoyed TPM so much, and IMO, I don't buy it one second.

I really think Lucas saw the reaction to TPM, and there was no way someone was going to do a better job with Episode II & III and all Lucas was left with was a 2 hour Jar Jar fest. If you watch the PT documentaries, the only movie he did have fun with was TPM, and I honestly believe after that, he was going through the motions.

Just watch TPM documentary, it is the one great thing of the PT. It documents from the beginning right up to the premiere, and gives really good insight. It shows the first screening with McCallum, Burtt, and Co. and just watch their reactions right after TPM, they were in shock! McCallum is stonefaced, and Lucas starts running his hand through his hair and says, "I may have gone too far on this one."

AOTC & ROTS documentaries don't give any of that type of inside look on the process, all they are is to showcase Speical Effects. I think Lucas saw what fans thought of TPM, and he has been trying to get back to respectability ever since, and witness his comment on Stephen Colbert show last month:

Colbert: George, do you own all of the SW movies on DVD?

Lucas: Um, I think so, well maybe not TPM!

Now I think that was pretty funny at Lucas poking fun at himself, but that joke signifies what movie SW fans laugh at the most, well next to AOTC.

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When he says he "may have gone too far", he is just talking about how fast he cut the ending together.

He says he really liked how these have been turning out. He seemed to be the most satisfied with Revenge of the Sith.

Your focus determines your reality.
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If you read any interview with Lucas from 1973-1980 he says how much he hates directing. Then if you read any interview from 1981-1985 he says that doesn't hate directing, he just finds himself in a position to produce. Then if you read any interview from 1986-1993 he says how much he wants to return to directing. Even though he finds the actual on-set production to be not so stimulating, he had indeed be itching to direct, and in many many interviews from the mid and late 90's he says that he loved returning to directing. Even in April 1999, when he spoke to the Star Wars Insider before TPM even came out he says that he had already decided to direct the next two films because as soon as started filming TPM he realised how much he enjoyed it. Thats also why he directed some of Young Indy in 1992 and 1993, because he wanted to direct but only if he could enjoy it and in both examples are a well organised, low-stress product.

As for his "I may have gone too far," he's talking about the overall wildness of TPM--the characters, the editing and the effects. His only solution, since everything has already been shot, is to simply re-edit it to lessen the pace and relief some of it. This is best revealed in a meeting with McCallum that takes place shortly after: "I've done it more extremely than i've done it in the past and the film is designed to be that way so you can't undo that. But we can lessen the effect of it [through editing]. I mean if its intense for us a regular person is going to go nuts."
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The simple answer is that Lucas did go too far. To paraphrase Jurassic Park, he got so caught up in figuring out whether or not he could, he didn't stop to think if he should.
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My own opinion is that Luca$h doesn't like directing that much and I think it shows in his work. As zombie84 has indicated, Luca$h enjoys it when he's got a stress-free environment and can set his own terms. But I'd hardly hold that up as a picture of a passionate director, prepared to defy all odds to achieve his "vision" (there's that damn word again...). Also, he has always been known to be an "editor's" director. He makes little lego pieces for his film that he can then put together in one of his favourite environments, the editing room.

I don't think Luca$h directs actors at all well. I think that, overall, in an ensemble sense, the most solid performances of the saga are in ESB, under Kershner. Come the PT, with people like Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen, who needed a lot of hands-on direction and coaching, it's clear to me that they didn't get it, hence the superficial performances from both of them. It's also notable that the likes of Liam Neeson, Christopher Lee and Samuel L Jackson fell back on their standard schtich, giving less vibrant performances than any of them are capable of. It's clear to me that the older, more experienced actors, like Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Ian McDiarmid, fare much better than younger performers like Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman. The more experienced actors are, the better capable they are of directing themselves, to an extent.

It is also my own opinion that Luca$h is a great ideas man but, when it comes to bringing those ideas to the screen, he needs a lot of help. He can't write a script without a lot of other people to re-structure it and write better dialogue for the characters. Not only that, but he needs other people to help him visualise his ideas and then bring them to a concrete reality (as far as film-making can, of course!).

In other words, my own opinion is that Luca$h may own the legal rights to the SW movies and the ideas behind them, but he is very far from owning them artistically. An auteur he is not.
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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And yet, American Graffiti is loaded with great performances, by young, unproven actors! Wha' happened?
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Originally posted by: Guy Caballero
And yet, American Graffiti is loaded with great performances, by young, unproven actors! Wha' happened?


He had good actors in a story that was realistic and natural and that the actors could relate to and play with. Lucas did absolutely no direction actor-wise on the film, instead relying on a well-written script that was spruced up by Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck and that was very real because it was based off his adolescence, and instead filmed the movie documentary-style by pointing the camera at the actors from a distance and letting them improvise. A dialog coach was hired for any actor directing while Lucas supervised Haskel Wexler and the camera-related matters. Basically, American Graffitti was made in such a way that the performances came out natural. Lucas wasn't an idiot either--he knew he couldn't direct actors so he just let the actors go through the scenes on their own, and this plan was successful because the movie took place in a fairly modern time and with scenes and dialog that any 17 year old actor could relate to and realistically deliver. Lucas was even famous for using only the takes in which the actors made mistakes--lending their performances that awkward, unscripted natural quality that the film is famous for.

If you look at American Graffiti and Attack of the Clones you would never know that they were written and directed by the same man--the difference is that Lucas' lack of direction was perfectly suited for the contemporary comedy-drama but not at all for a melodramatic space tragedy.
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That's true, although I think the acting in THX1138 is quite good too, and that's not the most natural story or setting.
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I'm not trying to dig on Lucas much anymore, but in that setting, given the environment the characters live in, having more wooden performances is preferable, and then you have a very capable actor like Duvall or Pleasance in it, they're going to stand out above the material itself. I like THX-1138, but it's kind of all over the place, too, with its ideas. So, pointing the camera and not eliciting much from the actors (unless the actors themselves are much mroe in-tune with their performances), THX-1138 worked in that respect.

And I totally agree about American Graffiti. You had that wonderful touched up script by Katz and Hyuck! Plus some improvising by some natural actors.... you're points are right on that mark, Zombie84.
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Originally posted by: zombie84

If you look at American Graffiti and Attack of the Clones you would never know that they were written and directed by the same man--the difference is that Lucas' lack of direction was perfectly suited for the contemporary comedy-drama but not at all for a melodramatic space tragedy.


Not to defend Lucas on his directing, but I think the biggest problem with the PT, and mainly AOTC, is that Lucas tried to have this serious greek tragedy in space and still try to make it a 2 hour fun SW movie that was successful like the OT movies were.

The OT movies were perfect for Lucas's style and this quote say it all:

"In the kind of movies I make, I tend to stress the plot side of things. The nature of the characters are pivotal to the way they react to things. Usually the characters are archetypes to such a degree that it's not necessary to go into a lot of detail because I am not dealing with deep psychological problems. My films are storytelling movies, not character movies. So with that in mind, I try to get to the cleanest, to the most simple way of portraying things."
-George Lucas, The Annotated Screenplay, pg 168.

That quote goes against every thing he tried to do with the PT movies as that was clearly the character study of Anakin Skywalker and how he becomes bad.

Hey George, you said it, I didn't.

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The actors and the chemistry was just so much better in the OT that Lucas didn't have to do much, he just sat back and let them work. The PT had terrible actors who probably needed LOTS of direction, namely Portman & Christensen, and their was a lack of chemistry. Now the best actors in the PT was, of course, Ewan McGregor & Ian McDiarmid. Jimmy Smits also, but he was so crippled with his lack of screen time.
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Originally written by: George Luca$h in The Annotated Screenplay, p.168 (although he probably got someone else to write it and then just put his name to it)
In the kind of movies I make, I tend to stress the plot side of things. The nature of the characters are pivotal to the way they react to things. Usually the characters are archetypes to such a degree that it's not necessary to go into a lot of detail because I am not dealing with deep psychological problems. My films are storytelling movies, not character movies. So with that in mind, I try to get to the cleanest, to the most simple way of portraying things.
Excellent quote, CO!

I agree with you that this goes completely against the way he developed the PT. The plot became entirely driven by Anakin's character.
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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You can't fault the guy for trying to do something outside of his realm, though. I'm sure it would get pretty boring just to play it completely safe. I'm not defending the prequels, but maybe that was just an aspect that interested him. Maybe it didn't work out as well as he'd planned or what we as a movie-going audience expected in quality, but you can't blame the guy for trying. You can blame him for covering his mistakes by changing the old movies, though. I have no problem with the prequels as themselves. I just hate them because they led to the changing of the originals.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Mistakes are meant to be fixed.
Your focus determines your reality.