ATMachine

Biggs Darklighter was born with that mustache.

I think that’s an issue with the production design on a lot of modern films. The materials are too high-quality and too well-designed for what would realistically be in that setting. See also: any live-action depiction of Superman’s costume since Superman Returns.

Along with postmodernism TLJ also exhibits a disturbing glibness in its storytelling.

Why is Holdo so ridiculously secretive? It doesn’t matter, she just is!

Who is Snoke and how did he rise to such power? Who cares, he’s boring, let’s kill him!

And Canto Bight is described as a place where the people lord it over the poor and oppressed, but instead of using this to further the plot – say, by having Rose & Finn fall under suspicion & be exposed as Resistance spies after they feed a beggar – we get the asinine “shuttle parkers” gag.

I applaud that article writer for acknowledging the obviousness of Abrams & Johnson’s clashing ideas, rather than trying to rationalize it away (like fans sometimes do with both this and the obviousness of Vader not being Luke’s father before 1980).

RogueLeader said:

Agreed. The real answer was just like you said, Lucas’ relaxed views on continuity and if it is really that important. There’s definitely ways to explain it though I think. I did use to feel that it was one of the weaker elements of the OT, as far as it having very little set up and feeling tacked on. But over time I’ve realized the very PG incest vibes give Luke another similarity to King Arthur, who in some iterations of his legend had unknowingly slept with his own sister, resulting in Mordred, who would go on to betray Arthur and destroy Camelot.

Not really prequel related I suppose. Though you could argue the prequels parallel Arthurian legend as far as the Republic being like Ancient Rome which feel in the time before Arthur, and his father Uther Pendragon being analogous to Anakin in some ways. So the prequels continue that tradition of mirroring real myths that the OT started.

I don’t think these parallels were intentional but they do make me enjoy them more. Repeating ideas, even if it was unknowingly.

Some parallels with Arthurian legend were definitely intended with the third draft of SW 1977, where Ben Kenobi has a mechanical hand. Like how Bedivere, the knight who takes Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake, has one hand in some versions. Plus the battle where Luke’s father died is called “the Battle of Condawn”, echoing Camlann where Arthur and Mordred died.

And Gene Roddenberry frequently showed his black-&-white print of The Cage on the Trek convention circuit back in the 70s.

The Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker would be a nifty alternate title.

“Combine Han and Biggs.”
– George Lucas’ notes about ideas for the Star Wars third draft, 1975

SilverWook said:

The Ewok movies had traditional opening credits.

Back in 1984-5.

Opening credits are a thing of the past on most TV shows nowadays. On US network broadcasting it cuts into the ever-expanding commercial time. The main reason Game of Thrones had one is it was the best place to stash the on-screen version of the books’ endpaper maps.

Even online-based shows like Star Trek Discovery just have a ten-second title card. I wouldn’t expect much more than that in The Mandalorian.

Booman said:

Here’s one that I found pretty recently, it’s the sort of thing that hides in plain sight and blows your mind when you finally connect the dots in your head.

So if you have some knowledge of the production of the original Star Wars, you’ll know that the Falcon’s early design was ultimately repurposed and used for the (much larger) Blockade Runner. It would have had a linear interior, basically a single hallway running the length of the ship.

It wasn’t until I saw the following production image that I realized the interior set design from the abandoned “linear falcon” concept made an appearance in the finished film. When compared to the sketch it’s almost an exact match.

I assume that this particular set was built as the Falcon’s interior, and quickly redressed for use as Princess Leia’s ship. This would mean that the Falcon’s original design made it way further into production, which is something I was absolutely unaware of. It’s just weird to think that the famous scene of Leia putting the plans in R2 technically takes place in what was once the Millennium Falcon’s interior.

And that small corridor was originally supposed to be the whole set for Leia’s starship – the large, gleaming white corridor with rectangular walls was a late addition during filming, using extra money Lucas got from Fox.

I think those “pipe/vent things” in the third picture were originally supposed to be escape pods.

SilverWook said:

This site has a photo of the Rebel helmet prototype.
http://www.starwarshelmets.com/original_rebel_pilot_helmets.htm

Also another shot from ESB.
http://www.starwarshelmets.com/original-TIE-helmet-costume-overview.htm

It’s definitely a prototype Rebel pilot helmet then. The mouthpiece is the same.

Looks like a modified pilot helmet with the roundel repainted and a large visor. I wonder if it’s a prototype of the stormtrooper or TIE pilot helmets, or even of the early full-face Rebel pilot helmets from the first film’s storyboards.

There’s also some stormtrooper upper body armor painted black attached to it.

That IG droid is painted white, like K-3PO in Echo Base. (K-3PO also has a red Captain’s insignia painted on, which looks rather like a large vampire bite.)

I recall hearing that 4-LOM’s torso was based an unused mold for C-3PO from the first film.

It mentions IG-88, “Tuckuss”, Dengar, Bossk, and Boba Fett all by name:

The group standing before Vader is a bizarre array of galactic fortune hunters: there is BOSSK, a slimy, tentacled monster with two huge, bloodshot eyes in a soft baggy face; TUCKUSS and DENGAR, two battle-scarred, mangy human types; IG-88, a battered, tarnished chrome war droid; and BOBA FETT, a man in a weapon-covered armored space suit.

And during filming, Zuckuss’ name – then spelled “Tuckuss” – was intended to apply to Dengar (and vice versa?), while the script doesn’t mention 4-LOM at all.

Combined with Inception, maybe.

I think it’s so far outside of any studio graphic designer’s experience these days that it isn’t even given a thought.

Yeah. I find it weird how some people think one set of fictional stories is somehow more “authentic” than another set of fictional stories.

And a lot of the hard work of making such an effects-heavy film believable lay with ILM. Therein lies the difference between Star Wars and something like Starcrash.

Before the SFX shots were inserted, I imagine the film looked a lot rougher & harder to visualize. Especially for the New Wave generation of filmmakers in Lucas’ circle of friends, whose films were usually set in contemporary society, and by & large didn’t rely on that sort of post-production effects work.

MikeWW said:

DominicCobb said:

MikeWW said:

SilverWook said:

I thought it was documented that a British editor did the first rough cut?

In any case, the Oscars Marcia Lucas, Richard Chew, and Paul Hirsch received for editing Star Wars speaks for itself.

The way I know the story is that a British editor (not sure how he became involved) did a cut without Lucas really watching (I think he was busy), Lucas sees it and hates it, scraps it and starts over with new picks, who each take a chunk of the movie under his supervision and in collaboration with him.

Yes, that’s correct.

If Star Wars was “saved in editing,” which I don’t think it’s fair to say it was, then it was saved in editing by, primarily, Lucas himself.

Lucas is obviously a man of many talents and from the start of his career always seemed more interested in visuals, sounds, and editing, rather than actors. And it’s not surprising to me that he stopped directing after the health problems he faced on Star Wars, though I don’t know why he never did get back around to making that experimental stuff. Who knows, probably the becoming a business man and parent just took priority.

Part of me thinks he HAS made them. He made a comment once about only showing them to his friends.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a “fuck the haters” attitude after all the prequel reactions.

Seconded.

The “British editor” was John Jympson, who was specifically hired for the role of editor. Lucas thought his work was too slow-paced and didn’t use the best takes.

Of note is that Jympson wasn’t Lucas’ first choice; he wanted Richard Chew in that role from the beginning, but Jympson was already licensed to work in England, which was no small issue in those days.

I don’t know about that. I think technology evolving in fits and starts is plausible. Plus the persistence of certain types of tech. I mean, we have iPads and touchscreens now, but we’re also still using computer keyboards that are fundamentally the same as those from 20 years ago.

Wow, that article gets so much wrong. Hindsight is 20/20, of course.

It is interesting that Robert Watts was apparently planning at one point to film ROTJ’s desert scenes in Tunisia and the Endor scenes in Germany’s Black Forest.

A sign of GL and company’s exhaustion with SW & desire to just “get it done” that both locations ended up being filmed in the US, I suppose. Rather like the US-based filming of the similarly creatively bankrupt Crystal Skull.

Maybe so. Still, the SW 1977 Empire is evil enough to build and use a weapon that blows up entire planets, so the theme doesn’t really fit the depths of its villainy IMO.

Morgan the Boost said:

screams in the void said:

I can’t believe that in all my years of viewing the film hundreds of times, I never picked up on this . Turns out Vader had a theme before the Imperial March that was a lot more subdued in the original film . The video they link to near the bottom of the page really makes one aware of it . Now I will never be able to not notice it on future viewings !..http://episodenothing.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-music-of-star-wars-that-we-never_16.html

By the winged devils of Onderon! I KNOW that piece of music, could hum it… but my brain never thought of it as a THEME/MOTIF in that way. It’s overshadowed in my brain box by the more dynamic Imperial March, which is strengthened by being in multiple films.

It’s a very low-key motif. More fitted to represent a bureaucracy than a regime of terror. Hardly surprising that John Williams thought better of it in subsequent films.