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What do you LIKE about the EU? — Page 15

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Anchorhead said:

 

I had to jump ship.  I made it through 15 chapters before I had to say goodbye to the Prequel references.  I was fine for a few chapters with an occasional name-check, but after a mention of Grievus, Mustafar, a couple of mentions of Gunguns, and a few other things I know are Prequel, I was quickly losing interest.

The final straw was last night, near the end of chapter 15.  When one of the main characters gets a promotion to work on the Death Star while it's being constructed, he asks his commander - "No poodoo, sir?". 

I reread the line, stopped, pondered whether or not to continue with a book I was already losing interest in, removed my book marker, closed the book, got out of bed, walked into the other room, and pulled Heir To The Empire off of the shelf. Two chapters in, It's much more what I was looking for.  It's also written with a little more serious feel.  

Regarding the prequel references;  My issue is two-fold.

1.  The novel had a feeling of everything must be viewed from a Prequel point of view.  The references seemed forced and were completely unrelated to the story.  Either by direction from Lucas, who does get peripherally involved with EU - or - maybe Reeves and Perry are just big fans of the Prequels and wanted both sets of films to be one big happy family.  The cynic in me says marketing (Lucas).  Maybe it was both.

2. I'm a linear guy.  Events that took place in 1977 came before events that took place in 2000 - even in a film franchise.  Having a prequel story is fine, but I won't ever rearrange my feeling of actual time to accommodate it.  For me, the story of the construction of the Death Star should be told from the 1977 point of view.  There is plenty of story there without having to pander to the prequel fan base or serving the franchise marketing machine.

While not a deal-breaker, I was also wearing out on the silly references. Just because it takes place in another universe, not every single thing has to reflect that.  It has a few too many instances of metaphors that mean nothing to the reader, which to me negates the point of even having a metaphoric reference in the first place.  "The commander knew so & so was slower than an ovalangk during murjonen season" or "Val woke up hungry for some esssontan meat and gghrewq eggs".  Honest to God, it was like reading a damn Ikea catalog.  Please.

 

I should have listened to my dog.  True story; Just after I bought the book and before I started reading it, he pulled it out of my bag while I was at work one day and chewed a big chunk out of a corner of the back, tore up the last 20 pages or so, messed up the spine, and tore the cover.  I was just going to struggle with that last chapter if I got that far.  Turns out it won't be an issue.

 

 

 

This book (which I have not read and likely never will) is essentially one giant retcon.  It was an attempt to mesh several inconsistent ideas into a cohesive story.  With Bevel Lemelisk, Qwi Xux, Poggel the Lesser, and a myriad of other contributors to the Death Star's design, the authors intended to make the OT, PT, and EU explanations fit.  Thus, the PT references are unavoidable; it was ingrained into the fabric of the story.

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Well, as I've said, I didn't read it, but if you recall, he and his people had the plans to the "ultimate weapon" at the end of AOTC.  I believe this is all smoothed out in the book.  But I do believe a facepalm is warranted :)

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Anchorhead - your post made me want to watch Graffiti, which made me check out the Wiki page too... according to that, George wanted Marcia to cut the movie but ended up doing most of it himself after the studio-chosen editor left.  ?

Also, the scenes in THX where THX and the other guy (Can't remember his name) are wandering away from the spotless prison and find the hologram guy, and especially the scene of THX racing from the biker cops at the end and climbing the tunnel are pretty great.  The smoke curling around the vehicles, the muted sound - and the use of Mozart against the sunset/rise. 

Glad to hear/see you're enjoying HTTE... the feel of the world (with respect to the OT as a whole, not just SW77, which probably matches better with the Daley novels and such) and the characters is pretty spot-on, I think.

"Star Wars films are basically silent movies. And they're designed as silent movies, therefore the music carries a -- has a very large role in carrying the story, more than it would in a normal movie."  -GL

"NOO! NOOOOOO!!" - Darth Vader

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American Hominid said:

Anchorhead - your post made me want to watch Graffiti, which made me check out the Wiki page too... according to that, George wanted Marcia to cut the movie but ended up doing most of it himself after the studio-chosen editor left.  ?

 

I was going by an in-depth piece on Marcia Lucas, written by Michael Kaminski on his Secret History Of Star Wars site. The full article is here;  http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/marcialucas.html

This is the portion dealing with the editing of American Graffiti;

Lucas looked at Graffiti footage every day and explained what he wanted from Marcia and Fields--the only time he ever spoke to his wife during the hectic post-production schedule. Walter Murch came onboard as sound editor, and they together collaborated on the difficult task of cutting the music to fit the scene.

Marcia argued George out of his original approach to the structure of the film, which depended on a more rigid construction of cross-cutting the different narratives, and she also was crucial in giving scenes longer time to breathe, as Lucas then insisted on cross-cutting much more frequently (as seen in Attack of the Clones--Marcia's criticism was that the scenes either never developed or they lost their dramatic momentum by aborting so quickly). 

Verna Fields left once the rough cut had been assembled, since she had another job lined up, but the film was almost an hour too long, so for the next six months Marcia cut the film down along with Lucas and Murch. For the next cut, Marcia listened attentively to George and made the film the way he instructed. It was a disaster.

Because of the interlocking narrative structures, the film could not simply be trimmed up in a conventional sense because removing one scene, or part of a scene, affected the next narrative thread and threw off the rhythm of the film. Lucas remarks: "You literally can have a film that works fine at one point, and in one week you can cut it to a point where it absolutely does not work at all." [xxxix] Now it was Marcia's turn at bat- -she took over and re-cut the film on her own this time, while George worked with Walter Murch on the sound design.

By January 1973, Marcia had assembled the film for a test screening. The release would be controversial--the test audiences absolutely loved the film, yet the studio executives thought it was terrible.....

Eventually, the film was released, though the studio trimmed off a couple minutes of footage. It nonetheless won rave reviews........American Graffiti was a powerhouse hit that was an absolute audience-pleaser. It grossed over $100 million dollars, and when calculated in terms of budget-to-gross may be the most profitable film ever made


 

The highlight is mine.  I think that is the thing that made Star Wars work so well. The time the audience is given,  so they can feel the emotions.  To me, that is a crucial element missing from  Return & Phantom (can't speak to the last two films).

 

Glad to hear/see you're enjoying HTTE... the feel of the world (with respect to the OT as a whole, not just SW77, which probably matches better with the Daley novels and such) and the characters is pretty spot-on, I think.

Man, I am digging it.  Got Dark Force & Last Command on order.  Side note;  When Mara is having dinner, she has a glass of wine with it - not a glass of fermented otranian hun fruit nectar, or some such bullshit from Reeves and Perry.  Zahn is about story, not nerd fluff.

 

By the way, what did you think of American Graffiti?

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off topic: wouldn't a criterion collection trilogy consisting of THX 1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars be awesome? This popped into my head because of some of the discussion about the high quality of George's films in the 70s. I remember a movie reviewer talking about the similar themes in all three of these films - that they could be considered a trilogy of sorts; the parallels between Kurt in AG and Luke in SW are interesting.

on topic: I actually liked Dark Empire - except for the return of Boba Fett. It was nice to see Leia getting to be a Jedi at last. I really enjoyed the artwork and aesthetic of the universe as well. The early 90s were great times for the EU - and Star Wars in general. We all had such dreams then...

 

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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I can't imagine ever doing that. 

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*facepalm*

My EDITS will make it worth his while.

Get your head out of the gutter.

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I'm Anchorhead and I approved the above conversation.  ;-)

 

All goofing aside;  Even though I do sometimes touch on it, you guys have no idea how much I hate the idea of the Prequels - as they were released.  The story, execution, casting, Lucas' revision of history, etc. I find it all vulgar.

A prequel story? - absolutely.  Prequel story Lucas released? - absolutely not.

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Anchorhead said:

All goofing aside;  Even though I do sometimes touch on it, you guys have no idea how much I hate the idea of the Prequels - as they were released.  The story, execution, casting, Lucas' revision of history, etc. I find it all vulgar.

A prequel story? - absolutely.  Prequel story Lucas released? - absolutely not.

The problem with the prequels - besides all the problems you listed - is that there can be no drama or tension when the outcome is already known to the audience. I mean, we know Obi-wan is not going to die in them right?

 

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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theprequelsrule said:

Anchorhead said:

All goofing aside;  Even though I do sometimes touch on it, you guys have no idea how much I hate the idea of the Prequels - as they were released.  The story, execution, casting, Lucas' revision of history, etc. I find it all vulgar.

A prequel story? - absolutely.  Prequel story Lucas released? - absolutely not.

The problem with the prequels - besides all the problems you listed - is that there can be no drama or tension when the outcome is already known to the audience. I mean, we know Obi-wan is not going to die in them right?

 

Bologna.

How likely is it that James Bond is going to die in any of the movies he's in, or Superman, or Luke or Han in the OT? 

That fear of danger or death is mostly irrational in practically all of the movies we watch and enjoy.  The fact that it's irrational and that we know better doesn't mean it can't still be suspenseful.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi said:

theprequelsrule said:

Anchorhead said:

All goofing aside;  Even though I do sometimes touch on it, you guys have no idea how much I hate the idea of the Prequels - as they were released.  The story, execution, casting, Lucas' revision of history, etc. I find it all vulgar.

A prequel story? - absolutely.  Prequel story Lucas released? - absolutely not.

The problem with the prequels - besides all the problems you listed - is that there can be no drama or tension when the outcome is already known to the audience. I mean, we know Obi-wan is not going to die in them right?

 

Bologna.

How likely is it that James Bond is going to die in any of the movies he's in, or Superman, or Luke or Han in the OT? 

That fear of danger or death is mostly irrational in practically all of the movies we watch and enjoy.  The fact that it's irrational and that we know better doesn't mean it can't still be suspenseful.

But we don't know the outcome. We can guess, but we don't know. That small doubt is important.

At any rate the Bond films are poor examples - very light and shallow entertainment based almost entirely on infantile wish fulfillment and the fantasies of the bored middle-class. The books are a little better.

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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Shakespeare spoiled lots of his endings in the first few lines of his plays. That becomes part of the dramatic suspense--you know the ultimate fate of the story, but what you don't know if how things unfold, who does what, and knowing how things turn out gives you new dramatic mechanisms to use. You can use it to mislead and twist the viewer, knowing she or he expects certain things, or you can use their knowledge to play up the drama. A more banal instance of the latter is in horror films where the audience knows a monster is lurking behind a door but a character doesn't--the suspense becomes not "is there a monster behind the door?" but instead, "no, don't open that door!" and then the audience has to squirm in suspense wondering how the character will survive.

Anyway, most blockbuster movies like Star Wars are predictable. Will Luke beat the bad guys? Yes. Will he save the princess? Yes. Will he survive the ordeal? Very probably. But how does he beat the bad guys, what situations does he have to get himself out of, and how does the princess get rescued? This is the suspense structure of Star Wars. That's also one reason why it was downright shocking when Luke got his ass kicked in ESB and all the good guys lost--that's not supposed to happen!!

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zombie84 said:

That's also one reason why it was downright shocking when Luke got his ass kicked in ESB and all the good guys lost--that's not supposed to happen!!

Yes!

A good example of this in my mind is Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge!.  From the very start of the movie, Evan MacDonald tells you that Satine is dead at the end of the story.  Then it flashes back and we see a very lively Satine, and we forget that she will die.  Then they show her coughing up blood and fainting, and we kind of remember.  Then they flat out tell us she is going to die again.  Then more coughing- more blood.

Then, at the end... SHE DIES!  And it takes most of the audience by surprise and it is very sad and very emotional.

Sure, it's not a direct analogue of "fear of death" for the main character... but I think you are overestimating the effects of a small % of possibility that a main character will not win the day and may not live.  I think, as RLM said, the "Obi-Wan recklessly jumps out a window on the 182nd floor and flies through space-traffic, is shot at, falls several more stories, and lands comfortably in the passenger seat of a space convertible with a quip already on his lips" scene does far more to damage your sense of fear for these characters than the fact that you know he lives to die as an old man.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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zombie84 said:

Shakespeare spoiled lots of his endings in the first few lines of his plays. That becomes part of the dramatic suspense--you know the ultimate fate of the story, but what you don't know if how things unfold, who does what, and knowing how things turn out gives you new dramatic mechanisms to use. You can use it to mislead and twist the viewer, knowing she or he expects certain things, or you can use their knowledge to play up the drama. A more banal instance of the latter is in horror films where the audience knows a monster is lurking behind a door but a character doesn't--the suspense becomes not "is there a monster behind the door?" but instead, "no, don't open that door!" and then the audience has to squirm in suspense wondering how the character will survive.

Anyway, most blockbuster movies like Star Wars are predictable. Will Luke beat the bad guys? Yes. Will he save the princess? Yes. Will he survive the ordeal? Very probably. But how does he beat the bad guys, what situations does he have to get himself out of, and how does the princess get rescued? This is the suspense structure of Star Wars. That's also one reason why it was downright shocking when Luke got his ass kicked in ESB and all the good guys lost--that's not supposed to happen!!

This is true of 2011. I don't know if this was as true in 1977. Remember, Star Wars was only the second "blockbuster". 

Two points in regards to the "does predictability negate tension" argument:

First, I feel that if a movie really draws you in you aren't sitting back and analyzing it. You aren't thinking to yourself; "I know what happens next". Very few films do this. I remember one reviewer saying how he had completely forgotten Han Solo because the space battle at the end was so exciting. Result? When the Falcon swoops down out of the sun to save Luke it is an incredible moment (original audiences were cheering in their seats). Should we, as adults, have guessed that Han would come back? Yes. But did we? No. That is what it means to have made an engrossing experience and a great film.

Second; making a prequel is not the same as making a predictable film. In a prequel we know right down to the specific details the fates of the characters (killed by Darth Vader in a duel on the Death Star to allow Luke and his friends to escape). I'm sorry, but you cannot have any drama if these characters are central to the film.

Conclusion - the prequels main character should have been Luke and Leia's mother, since her fate was the only one that was somewhat in doubt (pre-prequel fandom often debated if she really had died or not).

 

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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That's like saying there's no drama if you watch the film a second time.

And there's more to drama than when a given character will die.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi said:

That's like saying there's no drama if you watch the film a second time.

And there's more to drama than when a given character will die.

I perhaps overstated it a bit. But there is certainly less drama.

You know, I'm liking my own idea more and more; a prequel series mainly about Mrs. Skywalker. That would have been ballsy.

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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theprequelsrule said:

xhonzi said:

That's like saying there's no drama if you watch the film a second time.

And there's more to drama than when a given character will die.

I perhaps overstated it a bit. But there is certainly less drama.

 

I will admit that there is inherently less drama if you know for sure that someone won't die in a scene that is basing its suspense on the question: Will he die?

However, I still think you are overestimating it.  I think it's extremely common to create suspense that is 100% contradictory to what the audience knows.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I think the prequels should never have been made. As Red Letter Media pointed out, they were made just for money and because George "thought it would be neat". George used to tell stories because he felt he had something to say that was important.

Star Wars was made (in part) because THX failed; it told essentially the same story and had the same themes. Lucas felt it just might cause people to take action instead of just depressing them (like THX did).

 

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

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Prequelsrule, I think you raised a good point about suspense. It's predictable that Han will return to save the day, but you forget about it at the time because the trench run holds your attention.

Thats like any film, too. If you stopped and thought about it, obviously Indiana Jones will survive any calamity thrown his way no matter how absurd, you know he won't die, but the film tricks you by engaging you so you can't stop and realize that. It creates the suspension of disbelief, not only of the film's world, but that the character is mortal and could die.

Any prequel film is the same. You know Obi Wan will die on the Death Star helping Luke escape so they can take stolen plans to the rebel base. But you aren't thinking that when you watch the prequels. Well, maybe you are, but if so its because the film is boring and that's the problem, not that you know where the characters end up.

Is it boring to watch Robert DeNiro in Godfather II? You know he's just going to end up chasing a kid around a garden with an orange in his mouth and plop to the ground dead as a doornail from a heart attack. Yikes, no dignity there. But no--those DeNiro prequel scenes are the best in the entire 9-hour Godfather saga.