The SW Saga of 1975: ATM's Take — Page 3

"This is not the reality you're looking for."

Just slogged through all the pages of this thread. I must say, what a load of old rubbish!

How could you possibly expect anyone to believe all this?

Why, thank you. I think I will.

Take all that ridiculous emphasis on hair and eye colours, for instance. No writer worth his salt would specify things so minutely in advance of casting the actual actors for their parts.

I could go on, but I think that's enough evidence for the moment.

Ouch! A hit, a very palpable hit!

Well played, good sir.

 But..but..ATM is clearly taking recreational drugs and channeling 1969 era David Bowie,  because he's like,  you know,  coming up with his own version of Star Wars,  without being paid by a film studio to do so!!!!  

 (end sarcasm)

  Come on!  ATMachine is clearly taking recreational drugs and channeling 1969 era David Bowie, because he's, like, you know,  coming up with his own version of Star Wars, but not being paid by a film studio to do so!!!!

(end sarcasm)

ATMachine said:

"Who ever said George Lucas was a good writer?

Besides, in the 1974 rough draft, he very clearly stated that Princess Leia Aquilae had auburn hair and blue eyes, while both secondary protagonist Clieg Whitsun and Annikin Starkiller's brother Deak were blond.

Of course, back in the 1970s, GL had a certain amount of flexibility when it came to the appearance of his characters. Han Solo was almost played by a black actor, remember, and the first choice for Obi-Wan Kenobi was actually Toshiro Mifune.

Luke Starkiller himself was almost played by dark-haired Jewish actor Will Seltzer. But Mark Hamill, who turned up almost at the end of the casting sessions, not only had the acting chops; he also fit GL's vision of Luke as a blond Flash Gordon type.

Mind you, this flexibility seems to have evaporated by the time of the prequels.

Watch the making-of documentary on the TPM DVD and you'll see GL pass over a child actor who was clearly the better choice for young Anakin, in favor of the "cuter" (and blonder) Jake Lloyd, who was much worse in terms of flubbing his lines.

That's the peril inherent in trying to find an actor to fit your pre-existing mental image precisely. GL should have remembered the wisdom of his younger self."

^^^^^^^^^^This.   Home....freakin'.....run. 

ATMachine said:

You see, I have to go now. My planet needs me.

The last time I heard someone say those words, the individual in question died en-route. 

Hey, this thread's been abandoned by its Maker!

I think I'll take it for a test drive. I'll try not to damage it too badly.

And I'll try to bring it back... someday.

*ahem*

Monkey Island 3a: The Secret Revealed or Your Money Back!

Then Morpheus spoke, unlocked his word-hoard:

"Give Lucien the book."

> give book

You give The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Darth Vader to Lucien.

To your great surprise, he gives you another book in exchange. It feels quite real to the touch.

The title on the spine, in faded gold letters worn by age and sunlight, is The Merrie Comedie of the Redemption of Darth Vader.

Prelude to the First Day of the Trilogy

On the evening before the final battle, the small band of rebel heroes gathered at Caer Cadarn. Here, in their secret hidden base, they prepared for their last stand against Arawn Death-Lord, whose power was absolute and unchallengeable.

The longtime Assistant Shepherd, Matt Fitzdrake, and his friend, Elenia the Blacksmith's daughter, were sewing the final patches on their tattered and frayed battle standard, which would be unveiled with the coming of the dawn.

They knew, or thought they knew, that their cause was hopeless. Yet they were glad to fight for it anyway, because it was worth fighting for.

Suddenly, the hair on the backs of their necks stood on edge.

A great crackle of electricity filled the room. Brilliant orange Meteors streaked through the musty castle air. For a brief moment, an entire galaxy seemed to fill the space before their eyes... then, the space around them returned to normal.

Except, where there had been seemingly empty air, there was now a sword embedded in an anvil.

Together, the two heroes did their best to make out the inscriptions.

They had more difficulty with this than might be imagined, because the writing sometimes seemed to change even as they looked at it.

But they managed to make out something of the underlying meaning, nonetheless.

This is what it said:

EGA

"Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of all England." 

VGA

"Draw Dyrnwyn, only thou of noble worth, to rule with justice, to strike down evil. Who wields it in good cause shall slay even the Lord of Death."

CD Talkie

"My name is Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal."

StoryDroid

"Nur wer das Fürchten

nie erfuhr,

schmiedet Notung neu."

SCUMM

"Yea, I will drink thy blood gladly, that so I may forget the blood of Beleg my master, and the blood of Brandir slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly."

SCI

‘Come not between the dragon and his wealth! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.’

Perlenspiel

"You must unlearn what you have learned."

--

Overture

"They're my movies."

--George Lucas

"Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design."

--Darth Sidious/Emperor Sheev Palpatine/Darth Plagueis/Emperor Sate Pestage

"Your pious meddling has foiled my dream of an eternal empire, bound together under One Rule... MINE!”

--The King of the Dead Ones, LOOM

"Originally, the story was about an older brother coming to find his younger brother, who's living on a farm, so that together they can rescue their father, an old Jedi. The older brother is a battle-hardened warrior. This character evolved into Han, the other side of Luke and an older brother figure. Ben Kenobi developed from the father figure into a friend of the father."

--George Lucas to Alan Arnold in 1979, Once Upon a Galaxy by Alan Arnold (p. 223), 1980; quoted in The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski, Appendix B (p. 465), 2008

"People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as “when life begins” or “when it should be appropriately terminated,” but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.

 

These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tomorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with “fresher faces,” or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor’s lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new “original” negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.

 

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten."

George Lucas, speaking at the Library of Congress, 1988

The sides of the room start to spin, slowly at first, but gaining speed, like a centrifuge.

 

MUTT

What are they, space-men?!

 

Harold Oxley is suddenly and completely restored to his normal self.

 

OXLEY

Inter-dimensional beings, in point of fact.

 

INDY

(surprised)

Welcome back, Ox.

 

[...]

 

INDY

Where did they go?

 

(looks up)

 

Space?

 

OXLEY

Not into space. Into the space --

 -- between spaces.

--Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008); directed by Steven Spielberg; cinematography by Janusz Kaminski

‘I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.

‘ “I liked white better,” I said.

‘ “White!” he sneered. “It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.”

--JRR Tolkien, "The Council of Elrond," The Fellowship of the Ring.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

John 1:1, King James Bible

"Rule One: The Doctor lies."

--Doctor Who

Epigram: THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN THE HEAD AND HANDS MUST BE THE HEART!

--Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, Metropolis

"Physician, heal thyself."

--Star Trek II: The Undiscovered Country (dir. Nicholas Meyer)

The Adventures of Luke Starkiller

as taken from the

"Journal of the Whills"

by

George Lucas

(Saga I)

STAR WARS

(revised fourth draft/shooting script, March 15, 1976)

But wait... if Star Wars is Saga I, what is Saga II?

--

"... and in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, 
and he shall be known as The Son of The Suns."

-- Journal of the Whills, 3:127 (as excerpted in The Star Wars, 1975)

--

And now for something rather different.

It's...

--

Welcome to the Age of the Great Guilds.

WILLOW

A Fantasy Adventure by George Lucas and Brian Moriarty

(with a little help from Andrew McCarthy)

Caer Cadarn

Dungeon

There is a sword and anvil here.

There are no obvious exits.

What wouldst thou deau?

> get sword

GREAT SCYTHE: TAKEN.

A gentle voice whispers in your ear, not altogether reassuringly:

"Well done, good and faithful servant."

Then another voice speaks, echoing and deep, yet somehow less scary than the other:

THE BASIC POWER OF THE UNIVERSE HAS BEEN UNLEASHED.

You've learned at least 19 new notes!

> drafts learn

We have top men working on it right now.

> who

Top. Men.

> cast TEMBLOR

(using whatever comes to mind)

S-H-S-R

In Space Quest II, Sludge Vohaul dies... for at least one game.

In two different places, a volcano erupts.

In an emerald city, a diamond chalice begins to shatter under the weight of the impending future.

In the newly created Realm of Undead, meanwhile, a powerful earthquake rocks a long-neglected Museum. A forgotten stone tablet, not touched by living hands in uncounted years, falls from its resting place on a wall to the ground and shatters.

Beneath a sky of perpetual twilight, a crystalline starship lands, and promptly disintegrates itself.

Four astronauts in variously colored spacesuits stand where, moments before, had been a wondrously strange enigma.

One of the astronauts, the man in green, removes his helmet, revealing a perfectly chiseled Teutonic face with a shock of blond hair.

He promptly begins flailing about wildly, as if the atmosphere of the planet is deadly poison. Finally, he collapses on the ground.

A moment later, he gets up again, perfectly healthy.

What a wise-guy that Ludger Brink is!

--

A wild exit appears!

It leads: WEST

What wouldst thou deau?

> w

Suddenly, the Goodsoup family diamond materializes in your right coat pocket, courtesy of the 1-800-STAR-WARS shopping channel.

Meanwhile...

In a high-security chamber deep within the dark heart of the Imperial prison planet Alderaan, Ben Kenobi levitates the Kiber Crystal into his hand. His eyes light up, and it appears he is renewed with a new inner strength.

"Always did like Horace Greeley."

--Jo "Captain Tripps" Ashburn, THE DIG

"And so Kyle Katarn, clad all in black, armed only with his trusty golden lightsaber, set out once more into the desert of Utapau, in search of his former master, Mara Jade, who had now fallen to the Dark Side."

--Andrew McCarthy, THE DIG

"Tools can be the subtlest of traps. One day, I know, I must smash the emerald."

"My Lord?"

"But that day can wait."

> wait

Time passes...

"This is your life, Dream-Sneak. And I'm crushing it out with my hands."

...

"Thank you, John Dee."

--Neil Gaiman, THE DIG

"Now let's see... is it the big green triangle or the little red circle?"

"Shut up and push, Ken. My baby's getting impatient."

/Ken and Cora push BOTH OF THEM

--THE DIG

The second voice speaks once again.

Applause breaks out for a considerable span of time.

"Really?"

"Well... yes and no. Sorry about the deception. It was all a big joke, you see? I had the treasures right here all along. You just had to know how to ask."

To your great confusion, the voice now divides itself in two. One side is male, the other female. But they speak in unison nonetheless.

EROS:

ERIS:

PUCK:

"It was freely given and well earned."

"Rise, my friend."

"You did it, Boston."

"Thank you, Boston."
"We all thank you, Boston Low."

"Attention, all hands.

This is your commander speaking ...

I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your fine performance during our recent episode, "A Stitch In Time Saves Gamma Nine."

So, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you..."

/camera cuts away before this risks turning into a Monty Python sketch

...

1ST SITH

Darth, did you feel that?

Darth stands and stares at the crystal.

2ND SITH

Was it an omen? What is it?

VADER

Something old has been awakened. The Force has suddenly grown stronger.

--The True History of Star Wars, 2015

--

A wild treasure chest appears.

> get chest

You take the chest and stuff it in your pants. Ouch.

> open chest

(using the Distaff)

E-C-E-D

I'm assuming you meant the one in your pants. OK, then. How fortunate we don't have the graphics budget to depict this indignity.

The chest is open! How surprising.

> look in chest

What do we have here?

It's the Original Theatrical Star Wars Trilogy on Blu-Ray!!!!!!

And all of the other Special Edition releases, alongside it!

And--

USE FORCE SIGHT SPARINGLY OR YOU'LL SPOIL THE SURPRISE!

OK, George.

By the way... thanks!

"I'm Batman!"

Sure, and I'm Frank Herbert.

You might want to take that silly helmet off, by the way. It makes you sound like you're wearing a scuba mask or something.

"Friends applaud, the Tragedy is over."

--Ludwig van Beethoven, probably

The Divine Comedy is just beginning anew.

--George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Brian Moriarty, Noah Falstein, Dave Grossman, Hal Barwood, and Sean Clark (and the other ghosts, now recalled to life)

Meanwhile...

..."as the knights of old quested for this treasure, so shall you!"

Would that I prove worthy!

This won't last long...

They're not so cute when they can get you permanently banned.

ATMachine said:

Why, that's me! You've guessed my secret:

I always thought sock monkeys were cute.

 Worst. Apology. Ever.

Until Ric Olie is allowed back, I don't want to hear it.

I've got more than a bad feeling about this.