Lucas' attitude

I posted this over in Ady's ESB:R thread but as it's kind of off on a tangent, I re-started it as its own thread.

It started with the mention of the Falcon cockpit shots being cropped in tighter on the '04 discs to make it looked more cramped.

doubleofive said:

Ripplin said:

Why would they even do something like that in the first place?

Something about Kersh building a new cockpit that wasn't as cramped as Lucas wanted (I think it was in Rinzler's ESB), so he must have decided to make it look smaller in 2004.

More and more I think there are three reasons why Lucas has gone wild trying to "dumb down" the OT and why the PT came out the way it did...

his kids.

He built up a family in the intervening years between the trilogies and in raising them, he probably got himself into the habit of talking down to them, having to simplify everything and make everything they encounter glaringly obvious instead of challenging them to put some thought into things.  This attitude carried over to the films starting with the SE's in 97 and only got more extreme as the PT came together and he futzed with the OT more for the DVDs.

Hence, we get all this justification for "wanting" to zoom in the cockpit shots to make them look more cramped, "wanting" to show the Wampa, "wanting" to show Vader's shuttle bringing him back to the Executor, "wanting" Greedo to shoot first, "wanting" to show Jabba in ANH, and so on.  I think that he doesn't really "want" to make these changes, but somewhere in his head he thinks he "needs" to change things to make the films easier for kids to understand.  "I always wanted it that way" is an excuse that nobody can argue with him about, so that's what he goes with when someone challenges him because he's afraid to admit the truth in public.

Nah Lucas has always been overly descriptive and never trusted the audience, it was Kurtz who insisted on the force being ethereal and Lucas wanted the Kiber Crystal , then Lucas went back and agreed with Kurtz on compromise.

But that was before the yes men and sycophants.

Some of the worst Prequel ideas seem to have been discarded ideas from abortive drafts of the first film star wars known now as episode IV.

These prototype scripts are available for all to read on the jedi bendu script page.

I cannot prove it but i am more than willing to believe a lot of material left out of the first 3 films and discarded was simply used in the prequels because of no budget constraints and no being fought by the studio or his helpers to weave a coherent narrative, a big part of which was Marcia's sensibilities as an editor.

The most enjoyable human elements were stripped almost completely away beginning with the phantom menace in being replaced by snazy graphics that pop off the screen and say " look at me im a special effect.  No story need apply look at the pretty backgrounds pay no attention to the nonsensical story or the bad acting." And horrendous pacing and bad editing, not to mention how they ruined a good many john Williams pieces with the edits they did.

It happens everywhere. It is said by many that Coppola had to be heavily coerced into putting over an hour back into The Godfather and that the ending was crafted by a studio editor in the nick of time.

I posted in the SE comparison thread about the cockpit croppings. I think on ESB they decided to make things look a bit less hokey and fake-by making the cockpit more crowded/lived in/battered. But the crew was a very good one who knew just how to frame shots so that there is enough information in the composition in order to tell the story. The 04 adheres to the idea that "tighter=better or more intense". This is not the case, and it does nothing to the cockpit scenes except screw with the original cinematographer's composition. If you weren't there that day, composing the shot, why are you messing with the framing?

How did I know skyjedi would be the first to respond?  :-\

Every sci-fi film goes through development phases when ideas are pitched, twisted around and then either included or discarded.  The Force/Kiber Crystal thing was back in the treatment & writing phase - I don't think Kurtz was involved that far back.

I also agree that a large part of the PT was "look at all the toys we have", both literally and figuratively.  I don't deny that the "unlimited power" he gained towards and during the PT compounded the problem, what I'm trying to figure out is when and where did the "make the kids happy" mentality start?

I'm not sure what to say anymore. Lucas has always had questionable taste, but his lack of hubris in the 70s meant he was willing to accept criticism and surround himself with others whose skill sets complimented his own. The result was one good (THX 1138), one great (American Graffiti), and one Top 10 All Time Film (Star Wars).

What happened? Quite a few things.

• Lucas seems to have lost a lot of his skills as a filmmaker in the years between Star Wars and TPM (20 years between directing films)
• Lucas began to believe his own press.

• I think a lot of the actors had problems with blue screen filmmaking.

• CGI also ages badly; far worse than models (which will always look real since they are real. This was not as apparent in the 90s as it was today. TPM looks quite bad in 2011, but was already showing it's age when ROTS was released.

• There was also no real time to reflect after each film about how to improve the next film (if Lucas secretly did feel it was a failure). He should have has someone else writing a rough draft of Clones while he was filming Menace.

When Lucas was filming Star Wars, Lucas was Luke. George is at his best when making stuff based on his life (Star Wars, Graffiti). As RLM said, there was no real reason to make the prequels - no psychological need burning in George's soul. The heart of Star Wars was Luke's struggle, which is something we could all relate to. Star Wars was about the story, and it is clear that the main reason the prequels were made was because George wanted to realize his dream of creating a photo-realistic world with CGI. When he made Star Wars he wanted to tell a story, and was frustrated because he felt that the special effects (as a tool) were not good enough to help tell the story. The story was always central though.

I agree with all comments in this thread. Even the contradicting ones.