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I wish the Star Wars movies didn't have episode numbers

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Without the limitations of episode numbers, we could have Star Wars movies taking place in between ROTS and Star Wars. Not only that, wouldn't there be a greater chance for non-Lucas produced Star Wars films? With the definitive episode numbers, we're restricted in terms of future Star Wars movies.

 

George Lucas was seduced by the dark side. The OOT ceased to exist in his mind and became the Special Editions...." "They're more maching now than movies. Twisted and evil."
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No!! That wouldn't fit in with George's original vision!!

I had a vision once, but it later turned out to just be the result of consuming some hallucinogenic mushrooms I found in the backyard.

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Actually, that was one of GL's TRUE original visions for SW.  Go read that "Secret History of Star Wars" online book.  Somewhere in there is an early quote from Lucas about each film being stand alone, possibly with characters from previous ones, but each would be from a new writer/director team, a la James Bond, with Lucas being the SW equivalent of Ian Flemming.

Which explains why ANH wasn't called "Episode IV: A New Hope" back on 5/25/77.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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Yep, Ziz is right.  In Lucas's original twelve movie plan, each film would tackle another aspect of the universe, under different directors, following different characters, and not necessarily in chronological order, even though the movies would still be numbered.  The shooting script for Star Wars was titled:  "The Adventures of Luke Starkiller As Told in The Journal of the Whills Chapter One The Star Wars" or something similar.  It just wouldn't have mattered what the numbers were in term of chronology.  It would have been similar to The Chronicles of Narnia before they went back and f'ed up the numbering of that series.

However, as to your question, Jenny.  I'm glad those restrictive episode numberings are there as it provides something of a lock to keep from making any more movies and ruining Star Wars even further.  I mean, even that doesn't matter, as The Clone Wars proves and both the new TV series. 

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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the reason he hadn't labeled ANH episode IV was 'cause he didn't think it would do all that well in theaters and since it did, he retitled it a new hope. Fox was on his crack about finishing or even having the idea of a star wars movie. so george hid TESB and ROTJ.

Originally it was one big movie, but the script was a little long and had too many gaps in it. again, i like having a firm grip on the timeframe of when events occured.

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rcb said:

the reason he hadn't labeled ANH episode IV was 'cause he didn't think it would do all that well in theaters and since it did, he retitled it a new hope. Fox was on his crack about finishing or even having the idea of a star wars movie. so george hid TESB and ROTJ.

Originally it was one big movie, but the script was a little long and had too many gaps in it. again, i like having a firm grip on the timeframe of when events occured.

 

Except that none of what you have "a firm grip on" is true. The "one big movie" story is a flat-out lie. Back in '77, the only script that existed was for ANH (which wasn't ANH at the time).

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It wasn't meant to be one big long movie, but there was the intention to create one long story in the form of The Journal of the Whills. Whatever his reasoning, GL decided to start in the middle rather than the beginning because he hadn't actually thought of the beginning and didn't have an ending written up beyond some sketchy ideas.

As for the episode numbers, it would probably have worked out well without them, but we're stuck with them now due to all the backtracking made over the years over how many parts there were supposed to be...

 

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well they didn't do star wars episode VII for clone wars, whose to say he doesn't make a movie that takes place during the great sith war. he could just title it, "KNights of the old Republic".

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Whew, rcb and astromech, you're both making my head spin.  The first Star Wars movie was the first chapter.  There was never any intention to "start in the middle" nor was he holding back anything resembling the sequel movie plots for later.  He had a single script, one that had several completely different drafts as he fine-tuned the story, but whatever he was working on was one story.  And it wasn't a single story that contained the plots for what would later become ESB or ROTJ either.  As someone mentioned earlier, only a few action sequences, like an asteroid chase and a wookiee battle were later reused in the sequels.  But all this story about holding back episode numbers or having one big master script that was cut down into thirds is simply Lucas propoganda to make it look like he had the whole thing thought out from the beginning, which is simply not true in the least.

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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rcb said:

the reason he hadn't labeled ANH episode IV was 'cause he didn't think it would do all that well in theaters and since it did, he retitled it a new hope. Fox was on his crack about finishing or even having the idea of a star wars movie. so george hid TESB and ROTJ.

Originally it was one big movie, but the script was a little long and had too many gaps in it. again, i like having a firm grip on the timeframe of when events occured.

 

 Dude, you guys really have to stop listening to Lucas cause that is a load of shit, plain & simple.

The first draft of ESB is title ,'Chapter II, The Empire Strikes Back, November 28-Dec 2, 1977 by George Lucas and Leigh Brackett

Not until the 5th Draft is it titled Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back by Lawrence Kasdan & Leigh Brackett.

If Lucas wanted Episode IV on Star Wars in 1977, the FIRST draft of ESB would read Episode V, not chapter II.  You guys have to stop watching the new documentaries cause Lucas is lying his ass off, to make it seem like he had this all planned from the start.

He wrote a script for Star Wars in the early/mid 70's, and had alot of excess plot points that he couldn't fit in a 2 hour movie, and he had some backstory notes on Darth Vader fighting Obiwan too.  He didn't have a prequel trilogy in mind, and didn't have a sequel trilogy in mind, let alone a trilogy in mind either.  He was making a serial type movie that had a true ending, but just in case it was a hit, he would make a sequel to that, hence Chapter II as the first draft to Empire, but had NO idea where the story would go.

Lucas totally changed the whole trilogy/saga after 1977, Luke & Darth Vader were related now, and you could have this prequel trilogy of how Darth Vader came to be evil, but none of that was there in the Original, and it is sad that Lucas has duped a whole generation of new SW fans.  Hey, that is why us old timers who saw the OOT in theaters are here to set things straight!

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The lack of an episode number is only meaningful to me in terms of the original film. It was originally intended to be a singular work and I kind of like that. Otherwise, my concern over the notion of different episodes ends with the original trilogy. I don't care what numbers are attached since those three films are the only special films. If they want to make some new films with new numbers they can go right ahead. They can start using decimals (like 1.5 or 2.7689) and I won't give a shit since I'm probably not going to watch them.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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CO said:
rcb said:

the reason he hadn't labeled ANH episode IV was 'cause he didn't think it would do all that well in theaters and since it did, he retitled it a new hope. Fox was on his crack about finishing or even having the idea of a star wars movie. so george hid TESB and ROTJ.

Originally it was one big movie, but the script was a little long and had too many gaps in it. again, i like having a firm grip on the timeframe of when events occured.

 

 Dude, you guys really have to stop listening to Lucas cause that is a load of shit, plain & simple.

The first draft of ESB is title ,'Chapter II, The Empire Strikes Back, November 28-Dec 2, 1977 by George Lucas and Leigh Brackett

Not until the 5th Draft is it titled Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back by Lawrence Kasdan & Leigh Brackett.

If Lucas wanted Episode IV on Star Wars in 1977, the FIRST draft of ESB would read Episode V, not chapter II.  You guys have to stop watching the new documentaries cause Lucas is lying his ass off, to make it seem like he had this all planned from the start.

He wrote a script for Star Wars in the early/mid 70's, and had alot of excess plot points that he couldn't fit in a 2 hour movie, and he had some backstory notes on Darth Vader fighting Obiwan too.  He didn't have a prequel trilogy in mind, and didn't have a sequel trilogy in mind, let alone a trilogy in mind either.  He was making a serial type movie that had a true ending, but just in case it was a hit, he would make a sequel to that, hence Chapter II as the first draft to Empire, but had NO idea where the story would go.

Lucas totally changed the whole trilogy/saga after 1977, Luke & Darth Vader were related now, and you could have this prequel trilogy of how Darth Vader came to be evil, but none of that was there in the Original, and it is sad that Lucas has duped a whole generation of new SW fans.  Hey, that is why us old timers who saw the OOT in theaters are here to set things straight!

dude, i'm not saying he had it all planned out from the beginning. i doubht that everything he says is true. i don't believe he can say, "padme was the mother of the skywalker twins," or "vader was always intended to be lukes father" or other crap like that. he had originally had the plot that obi-wan had killed his father. most of wat he planned back then, he didn't expect to have planned today.

 

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Just because a movie does not have an episode number does not make it a better film or suck any less.  Crystal Skull for instance, lol.

Star Wars was largely inspired by and was always intended to be a throw back to the 1930's and 40's Sci Fi serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.  Lucas watched these as a kid on adeventure theater on Kron-TV.  They were the edited down feature versions though.  He later saw the uncut Serial cliffhangers and then He preferred them in that format.

Lucas was a Huge Fan of the Genre.  He read all and collected all the ec books by Al williamson and frank frazetta growing up.  Later when he got rich in the eighties he purchased Alex Raymonds Flash Gordon Original Artwork from Russ Cochran.  Supposedly one of the pieces he purchased and Hung on his wall was 50 thousand dollars. I bet you anything if lucas still has it it is worth several times that now.

The Kurosawa Influence was there early on but largely because Lucas was thumbing through a book Written by his fiend Michael Richie which had a summary of The Hidden Fortress.   His 1973 treatment is almost word for word the same as Richies,lol.

Kurosawa Intrestingly enough consciously modeled himself and his Films After John Ford  director of westerns.

Lucas would later watch Fords films as an influence on the first star wars movie but originally experienced his vision filtered through the  director Kurosawa.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.