He gives the impression that he's trying to be joking about it to avoid trouble, but means it in reality.
Here's another couple of snippets from a meeting between George Lucas, Alan Dean Foster and Charles Lippincott:
Lippincott: There's something Alan and I talked about. . . that I hadn't talked to you about too much. But the whole idea of the dark lords , Do you see them as many dark lords and he's only one still?
Lucas: Ah. . . the way we've got it now is that he's the only one left. But that's what you had, right?
Foster: OK. He's the only one left that we know about which means that we can bring in other lords if we want to.
Lucas: I think that's all right.
Lippincott: Yea. because the only reference you made was on page 13. "Fear followed the footsteps of all the dark lords."
Lucas: I don't think I really caught that.
Lippincott: third sentence from the top.
Lucas: oh. Well, why don't we just go through it page by page? Most of the stuff is so little. The only thing I've got is actual size. Because it's the first thing. It's this prologue. The only thing . . . I think we started off on the wrong foot. I was going to try to just write something up, but I didn't get to it. Yet. So maybe we can discuss it. Rather than do a explanation of the . . . it's the excerpt from the journal of the wills. Rather than saying the emperor was. . and all of that stuff. . . some of it was, to me, it's the logic of it was different from what I was going for. I noticed in the script, you sort of used just a little bit but it wasn't enough to make any difference. Cause I had it where what happened was like -- well, vaguely, like Nazi Germany. Or like Richard Nixon. It's like a REpublic and Senate and at one point, the president decided he would rather be called the emperor than the president and sort of passed. And as people began to realize it, alot of the senators began to be bought off and were intimidated and pretty soon there wasn't any Senate anymore. There was still a Senate, but it wasn't as strong and pretty soon the emperor was becoming a furer. And nobody could stop him. It was like when they had a minor revolution -- when he branded all of the J as traitors. Had them eletrocuted to get rid of them, and he began to get more fascist, using cruder techniques. Pretty soon the republic was no longer a republic. And then he decided not to call it the republic anymore. He decided to call it the New Empire.
Lippincott: Do you want to talk about your sequel?
Lucas: Yes.
Foster: Just a question, really. I know this is supposed to be an independent book but by the same token I wanted to ask you if there was anything in particular you wanted to see.
Lucas: Yes. It's also fairly -- I wanted to hopefully influence some of the input to make it practical to make a sequel film.
Foster: I will try . . . I will be cannibalizing verbally everything you've built.
Lucas: It's also things I've learned just in the process of this. .. adventure. The big advantage is that it would be devised a way of having alot of the stuff take place more or less in ships or on something like a desert planet without building a wilderness. It's the city and sets that killed us. If we could do something that was much more of a monsters against men or them getting trapped in a desert type environment or having a lot of ship stuff...
It is entirely reasonable to believe with only Star Wars in the can that a great deal had to be created on the fly.
I don't get why it is so controversial, except that starting in the 90's Lucas pretended he had all 9 films in his head and then on paper from the beginning.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
skyjedi2005 said:
It is entirely reasonable to believe with only Star Wars in the can that a great deal had to be created on the fly.
I don't get why it is so controversial, except that starting in the 90's Lucas pretended he had all 9 films in his head and then on paper from the beginning.
Does anyone have a link to an interview of George Lucas stating that he had the whole story planned out from the beginning?
Cthulhunicron said:
Does anyone have a link to an interview of George Lucas stating that he had the whole story planned out from the beginning?
This is an interview given by Lucas in 1995; it's one of three interviews released as part of the digitally remastered box-set that was released the same year. Lucas specifically states (at approximately six-and-a-half minutes) that he had the backstory for both the prequel films and the original trilogy planned out.
"The Dark Side of the Force has clouded their vision, my friend. Hundreds of senators are now under the influence of a Sith Lord called 'Darth Sidious.'" --Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus
He specifically states that he knew the relationship between Luke, Vader\Annikin and the twins when he was originally writing Star Wars two years before it was released. However, The original screenplay is wildly different than the 1977 film and absolutely nothing like the next two films.
The first screenplay has Luke Skywalker as a 60-year-old general, Annikin Starkiller is 18 and living with his father, Leia is a 14-year-old princess and Vader is a general in the Empire, not some legendary masked\cloaked figure.
None of the story or relationships Lucas continually claims were always part of his Original Vision® are even remotely present or even possible.
That he can sit there and state all those lies with a straight face is insulting. That he thinks no one will challenge him or bother reading the original screenplays or 1977 interviews shows how colossal his ego really is.
Anchorhead said:
That he can sit there and state all those lies with a straight face is insulting. That he thinks no one will challenge him or bother reading the original screenplays or 1977 interviews shows how colossal his ego really is.
You'll get no argument from me, as I've lost count of the number of times I've heard him claim to have either planned or written everything in advance. He's also stated repeatedly that Mace Windu was the first character he developed for Star Wars, although he wasn't able to find an appropriate actor for the part until Samuel L. Jackson was cast.
My question is to Lucas is, "If you created the character of Mace Windu first, why not use him in the Obi-Wan role for A New Hope? There were any number of African American actors who could have played Windu's part effectively (Paul Winfield comes to mind, as Jackson's career was in its infancy). Count me among those who isn't sorry Lucas is no longer calling the shots where these films are concerned.
"The Dark Side of the Force has clouded their vision, my friend. Hundreds of senators are now under the influence of a Sith Lord called 'Darth Sidious.'" --Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus
Do you know what? I don't think you're really Christopher Lee!
Christopher Lee said:
Anchorhead said:
That he can sit there and state all those lies with a straight face is insulting. That he thinks no one will challenge him or bother reading the original screenplays or 1977 interviews shows how colossal his ego really is.
You'll get no argument from me, as I've lost count of the number of times I've heard him claim to have either planned or written everything in advance. He's also stated repeatedly that Mace Windu was the first character he developed for Star Wars, although he wasn't able to find an appropriate actor for the part until Samuel L. Jackson was cast.
My question is to Lucas is, "If you created the character of Mace Windu first, why not use him in the Obi-Wan role for A New Hope? There were any number of African American actors who could have played Windu's part effectively (Paul Winfield comes to mind, as Jackson's career was in its infancy). Count me among those who isn't sorry Lucas is no longer calling the shots where these films are concerned.
People believe it, though. And it probably has worked to his advantage.
Just look at how many people have become enraged this last week after hearing that we may not be getting the version of VII that George envisioned so many years ago. His holy, untouchable scripture has been thrown out in favor of "fan fiction".
^No doubt. For all his faults, Lucas does understand how sell a product. It's not all surprising that people would prefer his alleged vision for the saga over that another writer or director. However, that doesn't change the reality that Lucas no longer has any say in what's ultimately published--either in print or on-screen.
"The Dark Side of the Force has clouded their vision, my friend. Hundreds of senators are now under the influence of a Sith Lord called 'Darth Sidious.'" --Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus