Star Wars Original Trilogy had 'it', but 'it' is hard to explain.

Originally posted by: darkhelmet

Lucas didn't like to write scripts, and it took him a year to write only 13 pages of an original draft. The script was waaay out there; if it hadn't been toned down, SW wouldn't exist as we now know the original 1977 film. From the details in the introduction of the official film script published in 1994 by O.S.P. Publishing, Inc., it probably would've been more like a fantasy film than a sci-fi film.

Actually the 13 pager he wrote between january and may of 1973. The 140 page rough draft is what took him a year, and really i think if it was cleaned up it would make a pretty exciting space fantasy picture (its quite different from Star Wars).



Yes, i agree. Lucas originally wanted the bad guys to be the humans and the good guys to be (mostly) aliens but of course this wasnt really doable in 1977 except for some pretty dodgy man-in-suite effects. As it stands Lucas was able to throw in a good percentage of non-human characters in the mix (the droids, chewbacca) but then having the rest of the speaking parts played by humans balanced it out and allowed audiences to connect to the principles whilst still being wowed by the unearthly characters. If Lucas had gotten his way there would have been much less humans and im sure the audience connection would not have been as strong.

I remember reading or hearing somewhere that Lucas only ended up writing 30% of the dialogue for Star Wars (if someone can confirm this and tell me what the source is, I might finally be able to stop feeling like I'm taking crazy pills). If the studio really was concerned that this film wouldn't make much money, and they probably were a little concerned since the decision to allow Lucas to make his film followed on the heels of one of the worst first fiscal quarters of Fox's history, then it makes sense if they asked him to work with some other writers.

Originally posted by: zombie84
Well actually Lucas wrote most of American Graffiti, THX 1138, ESB and ROTJ himself, but while he was doing that he was getting valuable input from his friends (i.e. Coppola saw every draft of SW). The substandard PT writing is a combination of more formal and stilted subject matter, the fact that his skills have decreased and the fact that he had little input in the scripting phase.

If you look at his filmography as a screenplay writer on IMDB.com, the ratio of story writing to script writing is substantially higher. He isn't credited with screenplay at all for ESB and only as co-writer for ROTJ, though the stories for both are his. I believe Lucas can have great ideas for stories as evidenced by the great adventures of the Original Trilogy and by those of the Indiana Jones films as well, but as a script writer, his dialogue is always pretty wooden. THX1138 owes more of its emotional effect to the lack of dialogue than it does to its presence.

I'd definitely like to know what was going on in Lucas's world for the PT that hindered him from getting great script input from others. Aside from that, I think his filmography shows that his skills as a script writer were not necessarily substantial to begin with, and any decrease in his writing skills would go far to explain the PT scripts.



Good point. Not being much of a fantasy fan myself, I'm glad the movie turned out to be a "Space Western" (thanks bad_karma24)!

Originally posted by: zombie84
Actually its the reverse. After Lucas had written the final draft, while shooting was about to commence in England, his friends Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz visited him and did a quick polish on the script which mainly improved dialog (Huyck and Katz also co-wrote Graffiti with Lucas). In Annotated Screenplays it states something like about 30% of the dialog is attributed to them (they also added some of the humorous bits like chewie scarring the mouse droid). Fox actually had nothing to do with it, Lucas asked them himself at the last minute.

If you are interested in seeing where a lot of the ideas behind the OT germinated the Annotated Screenplays is a very informative source. If you want to read the actual early scripts themselves they are available at the JEDI BENDU SCRIPT SITE

Originally posted by: darkhelmet
If you look at his filmography as a screenplay writer on IMDB.com, the ratio of story writing to script writing is substantially higher. He isn't credited with screenplay at all for ESB and only as co-writer for ROTJ, though the stories for both are his. I believe Lucas can have great ideas for stories as evidenced by the great adventures of the Original Trilogy and by those of the Indiana Jones films as well, but as a script writer, his dialogue is always pretty wooden. THX1138 owes more of its emotional effect to the lack of dialogue than it does to its presence.

I'd definitely like to know what was going on in Lucas's world for the PT that hindered him from getting great script input from others. Aside from that, I think his filmography shows that his skills as a script writer were not necessarily substantial to begin with, and any decrease in his writing skills would go far to explain the PT scripts.

Yeah, you are on the right track i think. His stengths are in storytelling, editing and visuals, but he lacks in character and emotion, which is what his collaborators provide. Huyck and Katz wrote most of the dialog for Graffiti while Lucas wrote the scenes and the general tone of the film, and the result is a remarkable convincing portrayal of the 1962 cruising era (combined with a terrific cast made it even more compelling).

What was the difference for the PT? Well, all of his circle of friends have basically drifted apart. When he wrote Star Wars he would share all the drafts with his filmmaking friends such as Coppola, Milius, DePalma (who actually re-wrote ANH's opening crawl), Ritchie, Kaufman and of course his brilliant wife Marcia who is one of the unsung heroes of the American New Wave IMO. He took all of their comments and criticism and reshaped the story based on their input. Then he had Katz and Huyck do a rewrite of the dialog, and of course he had a fantastic editing team that made the most out of the material he shot (which included his wife, who won an oscar for the film--the only oscar the Lucases ever had). ESB and ROTJ had similar circumstances, although he was more secluded from his original friends. But he still had conferences with Kershner, Kurtz and Kasdan and of course Kasdan rewrote the final drafts of the film (and then you have some better directing to boot). True ROTJ is a little weak but that really has to do with the fact that story-wise they wrote themselves into a corner with a lot of it. Anyway, by the time he got to the PT he basically just wrote it all himself. Even in 1983 there was an interview where he basically says that the story is in his head so much that he doubted anyone could get it out just the way he wanted it. Frank Darabont was approached in 1993 to be a co-writer but the need for him never arose--because Lucas basically kept on writing on his own. He did it all by himself, and thats why the critical hand of a co-writer is sorely missed.



The book is wrong. Theres so much misinformation about the early drafts of Star Wars. By his own admission he began it in January of 1973, just as he finished the editing of American Graffiti, and by May he had a 13 page adaptation of Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress that he called The Star Wars. He basically started over and wrote a new full-length script that was about 140 pages or so and was completed in May 1974, one year later.


Thank you for clearing up the script writing percentage for me. I guess I've been just so disappointed with Lucas's latest efforts, I was hoping the answer was as easy him having had a huge amount of help on the script. I'm tossing out my unused crazy pill prescription as we speak.

Would be interesting to know how much difference those script changes made. Is the pre-Huyk/Katz-influenced script out on the Bendu site? (I'm at work and need to get off the forum soon.)

Thanks for all the info zombie84!

Originally posted by: The Dark Lord
i totally agree, i caught these movies in the theater the first time around, and never stopped watching them. it's my first and last great obsession.
CO asks a great question: why are these movies so timeless and popular regardless of culture, and shouln't i be bored with them by now? to be sure, the mythic elements are resonant across civilizations and definitely help to make star wars accesible to all, but it's only a formula. few other films employing these tropes come close to the emminent watchability of the OOT.

ultimately i think it was a complex of variables:
1. mythic goodness
2. fantastic chemistry between actors (lucas sensibly spent a great deal of time on casting)
3. great writers helping lucas out
4. he borrowed the coolest stuff that kids from his era grew up loving and imitating on the playground, and blended all of these very FUN elements with "impeccable taste and panache" (westerns, flash gordon type serials, monster movies, war movies) into a delicious cinematic souffle. they're so much FUN to watch, and i think that accounts for a lot.
5. most importantly, he was plain lucky. everything just clicked while making these films. he had the right people surrounding him at the right time and the right place and he was a hungry, young artist desperate to prove himself. everything fell into place, and to his credit he birthed a work of genius.

with the prequels lucas was far from being a desperate artist. the primary concern was no longer the manufacture of profoundly artistic films; he was more concerned with advancing the technology of movie making. being surrounded by yes-men probably doesn't help. the emperor wears no flannel ... ewww.

Originally posted by: SKot
Here's my shot at one of the things 'it' was, for me... and why the OT had 'it' and the prequels didn't:

In the OT, everything was tangible and rooted in the real world. It felt like you could really be there and touch everything. It had weight, it was used, slightly dirty and dinged-up. I really felt like there was a place I could go where I could stand on the decks of those starships. I could walk out in that desert and find a half-buried gaffi stick there. Even the models felt like they were really there, like they were solid and affected by gravitational pull somehow. And the cantina creatures, who were just guys with rubber masks on their heads... I related to them more because they were solid and humanoid. It all seemed like it existed, somewhere.

The prequels looked very real in most cases, but somehow just didn't have that weight or tangibility. Too many sets didn't exist behind the actors. Too many creatures were just high-tech cartoons. Somehow, that world was just hollow. And regardless of the skills of the actors, I could never be in touch with the scenery like I was with the OT.

CG should be used as a tool, not a crutch... and even then only to enhance and not to replace.

--SKot

Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Well, if Lucas really didn't want them to be viewed as two trilogies, he wouldn't keep releasing the OT as a box set, and the movie artwork wouldn't have two sets of colors: silver for the OT and gold for the PT.

Originally posted by: Wesyeed
I felt the characters in the OT were people... real people...