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If you had your choice, would you have wanted George Lucas to stop after 1977? — Page 3

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TheBoost said:

 I dig all four Indy films as well. I'm curious what you dislike about the opening to Crusade? 

It's my post, but sort of got lost because I started getting a little wordy...

Instead of letting the character remain a little mysterious and larger-than-life, he insisted on giving us too much information. No more pondering how he may have grown into the character we'd loved for years - turns out he got the hat, the whip, the jacket, the scar, and the fear of snakes all on the same day, within a few minutes of each other, when he was just a kid.  Lucas story-shrinking at it's finest.

It's story-shrinking back-story that insures the viewer doesn't get to use his\her imagination.  Lucas can't have any of that.  Not only will he control what the fan base gets as far as quality of releases is concerned, he also has to control every minute detail of every character.

To me, the Indiana Jones franchise is heads & tails better than Star Wars because Lucas is kept in check by Spielberg & Ford. He doesn't get his way, so the films and stories are much better.

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Anchorhead said:

 

To me, the Indiana Jones franchise is heads & tails better than Star Wars because Lucas is kept in check by Spielberg & Ford. He doesn't get his way, so the films and stories are much better.

 This is an interesting point, and I look at the SW movies and Indy movies a bit differently.

Each Indy movie can been seen as their own standalone movie, with a beginning and an ending.   There really isn't a continuation from the first movie, other then the characters. 

Other then the original SW in 1977, each sequel IS part of a larger story, or a continuation that forces you to look at every movie as one entity.

So essentially you can like any Indy movie and really don't have to recognize all 4.  I personally love Raiders, but enjoy Temple of Doom because it is so dark.  Crusade is OK, and Crystal Skull is horrible, as I haven't watched Crusade since the early 90's on HBO, and Crystal Skull I will never watch again.

For SW movies, you are forced to pick on being a SW'77 fan, and OT fan, or a Saga fan.  It is very hard to be a SW & ESB fan, because Jedi is the ending of the story, so you have to take that in context.  But if you think Jedi sucks, then you almost have to be a SW'77 fan.  Same goes with the PT, if any of the PT movies blow, you are forced to being an OT fan.

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Funny you should mention that, Anchorhead. On another forum where discussion of a possible fifth Indy film is ongoing, someone expressed their feelings that the sequence leads directly into Indy stealing the cross from it's "rightful owner" when he grows up, and murdering people in the process. I've been pondering if they're right or not.

I wish we had an Indy forum on here sometimes!

Where were you in '77?

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 (Edited)

It does give a little history of his involvement with the Cross Of Coronado and ties in directly to him getting it back many years later.  I don't have a problem with that at all.  In fact, I thought it was a nice change from the previous openings where we were catching the tail end of a different adventure. I like those a lot too, by the way.

My problem with the circus train scene is that it's the unnecessary back story of all his character traits.  Like I said before; No more using our imaginations to wonder how he may have grown into the character throughout the course of his life. It turns out he got the hat, the whip, the jacket, the scar, and a fear of snakes - all on the same day - within a few minutes of each other - when he was just a kid. 

To me, it completely takes away from the depth of the character we meet at the beginning of Raiders. Once again, Lucas doesn't know when to quit. 

 

 

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It's a sequence that never really fit for me. Something just doesn't work out right. Everything about Indy, we find out in 5 minutes? I know this is a serial, but come on!

What do you guys like about KOTCS? I couldn't stand it.

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

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Anchorhead said:

It's my post, but sort of got lost because I started getting a little wordy...

Instead of letting the character remain a little mysterious and larger-than-life, he insisted on giving us too much information. No more pondering how he may have grown into the character we'd loved for years - turns out he got the hat, the whip, the jacket, the scar, and the fear of snakes all on the same day, within a few minutes of each other, when he was just a kid.  Lucas story-shrinking at it's finest.

It's story-shrinking back-story that insures the viewer doesn't get to use his\her imagination.  Lucas can't have any of that.  Not only will he control what the fan base gets as far as quality of releases is concerned, he also has to control every minute detail of every character.

 

 I see your point, but its funny. I never even think of those moments. When I think on the opening of "Crusade" mentally I must gloss over those "Oh, so THAT's why" moments and just rememeber how fun the train chase is.

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I swear pretty much this exact same question was posed a few years ago. 

My answer back then was YES, and still is. My reasoning? That lies in some older thread buried around here somewhere.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I recently rented Crystal Skull, since my son's been on an Indiana Jones kick lately. I only saw it once when it came out, and I was able to enjoy it on some level, in spite of some really bad parts. My son liked it quite a bit.

THE GOOD: Cate Blanchett is always a treat in my book. The Russians are a worthy adversary, and the crystal skull is a great macguffin. The return of Marion was a good way to tie into the earlier movies, and they have some good repartee between them. The chase in the jungle between the boat-jeep things and trucks had some good action and was pretty well paced.

THE BAD (as if I need to repeat what many others have said before): Ford was too old, and so many of the fight scenes border on unbelievable. The ridiculousness of the fridge cannot be underestimated (are there fan edits that remove this?)

For me, the series took a turn for the worse with Crusade, which had too much of the inappropriate light-hearted humor that Lucas has become known for.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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Anchorhead said:

Easterhay said:

We would always wonder, though, what happened before episode four. .....We would always wonder...

No - we would not. 

In Star Wars, the audience were told what came before. Personally, I didn't need or want it shown to me in detail.  My imagination was enough to fill in any back story I may have had an interest in.  The mystery of the characters and the vastness of space served the story perfectly.

However, that's not how George works.  Fleshing out every tiny detail of back story is how George controls - and it's also great for franchising a story.  In my opinion, it also happens to be something he's not good at.  He tends to get writer's block rather quickly and ends up having to ham-fist his way out of it, e. g., Vader as father, Leia as sister, second Death Star, Lando as Han II.

He also seems to have an issue - the control mentioned above -  with wanting to explain every detail and nuance. The ridiculousness of Annikin Starkiller (who, by 1999, was an entirely different character than he was in George's original Grand Vision 1975 script) building 3PO is matched only by how completely unnecessary and pointless it is.  It is, however, a perfect example of how George does things - the present at the expense of the past.

He also did it with Indiana Jones.  Instead of letting the character remain a little mysterious and larger-than-life, he insisted on giving us too much information. No more pondering how he may have grown into the character we'd loved for years - turns out he got the hat, the whip, the jacket, the scar, and the fear of snakes all on the same day, within a few minutes of each other, when he was just a kid.  Lucas story-shrinking at it's finest.

I saw Phantom, just out of curiosity, and disliked it. I didn't bother with the other two.  I have zero interest in what came before Star Wars - not in 1977, not now.  Not ever.

You dig all the films - good for you.  You want to bait the board as you did in your Return thread - have at it.  However, if you're going to attempt to speak for me ("We would always wonder...") - expect some push-back.

Now, in the interest of disclosure;  I should point out that I really like all four Indiana Jones films. I'm an ongoing, from-the-start, fan of the franchise. However, the opening prequel portion of Crusade was done....poorly.

 

Sorry that you see my having an opinion that differs from yours as baiting (I don't disagree that some of my posts have come across as such).  I'm not so stupid as to think that enjoying the prequels is a minority opinion on a website called originaltrilogy.com but I am entitled to my opinion.

 

My use of the word "we" was too generic, I grant you.  As I say, I wouldn't expect to find too many PT fans here.

 

As it goes, I don't think Lucas comes anywhere Tolkien, though, when it comes to overegging the cake where backstory is concerned.  Not that I want to introduce Lord Of The Rings and its increasingly dull spin-offs to the conversation.

 

That's some bad hat, Harry
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I'm a saga fan and dig on all the movies. So no, I'm glad he kept going.

Still, if Lucas had called it a day back in 1977, I think critics and people generally would look back on ANH with a LOT more fondness. It'd probably be similar to how people think of the Wizard of Oz. In general, I think Star Wars would have a lot more popular catchet. The subsequent films (all of them) diminished that.

All I really want is each film as it was originally seen and heard in theaters; no fixes, corrections, "improvements" or modifications necessary.

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Easterhay said:

As it goes, I don't think Lucas comes anywhere Tolkien, though, when it comes to overegging the cake where backstory is concerned.  Not that I want to introduce Lord Of The Rings and its increasingly dull spin-offs to the conversation.

 

There are LOTR spin-offs? You mean the Silmarillion?

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I think there were other unpublished stories that Christopher Tolkien found, some of which he filled in himself. I guess you can't expect unfinished rough drafts to be very good, to be fair, Tolkien sr. would probably be horrified to know that people can read them today. They are more for a historical curiosity, I think.

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Relevant to this topic, a couple of years ago I created a cover for an alternate-universe release of the Star Wars DVD. In this alternate universe, Star Wars was a flop, but it received a superb restoration for its 30th anniversary.


http://www.erikstormtrooper.com/parallel_starwars_cover_preview.jpg

Click here for the thread.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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zombie84 said:

I think there were other unpublished stories that Christopher Tolkien found, some of which he filled in himself. I guess you can't expect unfinished rough drafts to be very good, to be fair, Tolkien sr. would probably be horrified to know that people can read them today. They are more for a historical curiosity, I think.

 I just think 'spin offs' isn't really the way to classify something like The History of Middle Earth and the other, largely academic works, that Christopher Tolkien has put out. A great deal of that is just annotated notes and much of it predates LOTR.

It's not like he's Frank Herbert's kid, spitting out crappy sequels of his own invention.

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Merry and Pippen are friends sharing a two-bedroom apartment in the city.  But when they have to bring in a third roommate to lower their costs, they can't possibly be prepared for what it will bring them.

Tune in tomorrow at 9 for the premiere of Smeagol and the City!

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TV's Frink said:

Merry and Pippen are friends sharing a two-bedroom apartment in the city.  But when they have to bring in a third roommate to lower their costs, they can't possibly be prepared for what it will bring them.

Tune in tomorrow at 9 for the premiere of Smeagol and the City!

 LOL

Other than "Children of Hurin" which JRR wrote all of before he died (Christopher did some fan-editing to make it presenatble) there really are no Tolkien spin offs. The closest is the videogames and MMORPGs.  Not that I'm complaining.

BUT even if his estate had authorized a LOTR saturday morning cartoon, a series of sequel novels, and a manga, there's a chance some of those might be enjoyable, and I still beleive nothing can take away from  a truly great story well told.

"Dune" is still a great novel, with some great sequels, and nothing Brian Herbert can do can make it worse.

"Star Wars" is still a great film, and nothing Lucas or anyone can do now can make it less of a great film (except of course surpressing the OOT, but that's another topic).

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Erikstormtrooper said:
http://www.erikstormtrooper.com/parallel_starwars_cover_preview.jpg

Click here for the thread.

What's wrong with the mono mix, as-is?

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There's one big mistake with that cover:

The "PG" logo uses the "Rated PG for ... " text that didn't exist until the early nineties.  The 1977 version would just be "PG" with no reasons why - the "Rated PG for ... " text is exclusive to the SE.

Other than that (and the implication that the true mono and six-track Dolby mixes aren't included), that's a pretty freakin' sweet "what-if" cover!

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Thanks for the kind words. That's much more scrutiny on the text than I expected. Maybe I should do a version 2.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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Oh, and yes, I caught the Willow Saga thing too.

That's frinking hilarious, in that gag-me-deadly sort of way.

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What about Howard the Duck saga.  Could have topped even the star wars prequels and holiday special in terms of awfulness.

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