American Hominid

DavidBrennan said:

American Hominid said:

To me, the prequels had some pretty evocative designs/preproduction work too:

 [....]

  

Granted, some of that was not used as-is, but I don't think there was a lack of interesting design. Though I do see a difference in how McQuarrie's work, along with  the rest of the artists on the OT, creates a sense of "world" in me that some of the prequel art does not.  This might be due to the use of traditional media and generally sketchier aesthetics (there are some nice prequel pieces like that too).  I'm not sure. McQuarrie's world definitely feels more lived-in, but I also like the nouveau/deco/early 20th century feel that shows up in the prequel designs, especially in TPM.

I do think that the OT, though it was created and viewed as a spectacle when it was made, struck a nice balance between good filmmaking and showing off the designs. I think the PT got progressively more showy, and it can just seem garish.

Not only did they seem to construct shots specifically to show off the design work (in very in-your-face ways, I mean), there were so many designs that it was hard to keep track of things. I never felt the OT was impoverished in its numbers of new ship/character designs per movie.  It became a bit overwhelming in the prequels.

I think one major distinction between the PT and OT art can be viewed by contrasting the Alderaan design - and bear in mind that the above Alderaan design is among the more detailed and grand designs used for AOTC or ROTS (by far, in my opinion).  It's clearly more of an impressionist design, whereas Ralph McQuarrie's were much more tactile and definitive - and yet every bit as grand (in my opinion).

 

I highly recommend the book, The Illustrated Star Wars Universe. which features I think almost all of McQuarrie's great paintings (woven together in a faux travelogue of the galaxy by Kevin J. Anderson).

TISWU is one of my favorites. :)

And that's a good point - McQuarrie's work, and the OT in general, is much more modernist/minimalist in flavor than the PT. In some ways this is intentional (Theed, etc).  But in other ways it probably reflects the changing styles in illustration, architecture, and design over the last 30-40 years.  Personally I tend to prefer the "70s-80s future" look.

To me, the prequels had some pretty evocative designs/preproduction work too:

Granted, some of that was not used as-is, but I don't think there was a lack of interesting design. Though I do see a difference in how McQuarrie's work, along with  the rest of the artists on the OT, creates a sense of "world" in me that some of the prequel art does not.  This might be due to the use of traditional media and generally sketchier aesthetics (there are some nice prequel pieces like that too).  I'm not sure. McQuarrie's world definitely feels more lived-in, but I also like the nouveau/deco/early 20th century feel that shows up in the prequel designs, especially in TPM.

I do think that the OT, though it was created and viewed as a spectacle when it was made, struck a nice balance between good filmmaking and showing off the designs. I think the PT got progressively more showy, and it can just seem garish.

Not only did they seem to construct shots specifically to show off the design work (in very in-your-face ways, I mean), there were so many designs that it was hard to keep track of things. I never felt the OT was impoverished in its numbers of new ship/character designs per movie.  It became a bit overwhelming in the prequels.

His art has really inspired me, both just within SW and in design, painting, and illustration generally. McQuarrie's paintings are often even better at hinting at a world, allowing the viewer to wonder, than finished films or graphic novels. Art like his presents snatches of realities, leaving the rest to be populated by the audience's imagination.

I'd like to point out that in the last image, he's working on a matte for Empire in which he painted in a differently lit roof to the Falcon; the on-set lighting didn't please him, so he fixed it.  The cool part is... did you ever notice that?

EDIT: Ha, looks like Spilka and I had the same idea!

That's interesting - do you have any intuitions about what Luke's mother would be like? 

(I presume that's why you would stay away from prequel depictions of said character.)

If you were going to fill in your timeline for the Bantam-era EU, why not fill it in with things that reference those other stories but are good, like the X-Wing novels and I, Jedi? The latter pretty much retells the JAT but from another character's point of view (the whole book doesn't focus on this, but it is in there) and it seems like a lot of people prefer that book's take.

(I actually didn't mind DE so much, probably just because of the volume of spacecraft designs.)

(Whoa, similar post!)

I actually like some of the paintings.  They remind me of the one of the things I like(d) best about SW - the pre-production, EU, and trading card artwork that made it feel like a universe.  I mean, that's what SW is to me, so Boba Fett riding a giant lizard, absolutely, put it in there.

This kind of thing:

The covers, on the other hand - I haven't seen them up close so it's probably unfair of me to judge, but it kind of looked like they were photos run through a Photoshop filter from what I saw.

Something that I believe is driving many changes is the evolution of the prequel storyline. 

It vaguely focused on Ben's story when the the OT was made, but as the PT was developed, Anakin became more and more the main character til eventually the six-film saga became "The Tragedy of Darth Vader."  The addition of Hayden and the "NOOO"s to Jedi are, I think, efforts to emphasize Anakin's place as the (now) main character.  A more fatherly Anakin ghost makes sense for Luke's journey, but now it's all about Anakin.  Adding a line that reminds us of ROTS obviously makes us conflate ROTS Anakin with ROTJ Vader. 

There are remnants of the original thoughts in the films.  "When I left you, I was but a learner," Ben calling Vader "Darth," Vader not being a real viewpoint character in ANH... etc.

Was reading a thread elsewhere, with several people chiming in, mentioning how the 2006 DVD set with the GOUT included has been allowed to go out of print.  So not only would there not be DVD versions of the films available (seems odd, as a lot of people still use DVDs) and also there would (again) not be theatrical versions available. 

Is this true?

Reactions, if it is?

I'm torn as to whether to ever get this.  I'm not pre-ordering it, and I'm not particularly pleased with some of the changes (beyond the aesthetic issues, they also serve to unify the OT and PT - a goal I understand, but if you're gonna try to mix them, preserve the originals too! Ugh).  But the deleted scenes, even in not-so-great quality, are something I've wanted to see for a long time, and the Archives thing looks cool (assuming there are some little-known props and models in there).  I heard there is a concept art gallery on there as well, and that's always been one of my favorite aspects of SW.  So... I dunno.

Clearly they're adding the subtext that Anakin was not the true Chosen One but R2 is - what with the rock rolling from his cave.

I'd have to see these at higher res, but so far I actually kind of like the ewok eyes and the Jabba door (I don't like how every shot in every movie has to have motion in it now, but I do like the added sense of scale).  Even the dug isn't a bad idea - I like their design - but he does look out of place since everyone else is motionless and in little crevices. 

On the other hand, krayt scream is terrible (the original was fine, and I'd even take the Boga scream as a plausible prequel reference, even though I generally like to remember the original contexts of the films).  And the Vader "NOOOO" very nearly ruins that scene for me.  It might actually do it.  See, I love the music in that scene, it's just fantastic and conveys everything that needs to be conveyed.  Adding vocals that seem out-of-place both aurally and conceptually... bleh.

ESHBG said:

Wait a minute, I am confused at what you are saying here, as "Bring my shuttle" was not in the OOT, it was in the SE, so you were watching the '04 DVDs.

No, "bring my shuttle" was the original, in the SEs it was changed to "Alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival."

Something I wish was included in the deleted scenes: more Owen and Beru, and/or more Homestead, from Episode 2.  I always got the impression from the OT that there was more of a connection there, and it would be nice to see what was actually filmed and then shaved down.

And this type of thing does exist:

This conversation is also in the novelization - it might be that, having seen the SE version of the film and read the novel, they blend in the mind's eye and ear?

To my knowledge it was never in a released version of the film, but it was definitely shown at least once in another media - I can't remember if it was an 'entertainment news' show or a documentary, or possibly both.

pittrek said:

Stuff

Ha, I like how the cut Tattooine stuff is like American Graffiti in space.

Though the woman reminds me of the dream-guy living behind Winkie's in Mulholland Drive. 

And I'm sure she's supposed to be the same old woman from TPM, anyway. ;)

Do I spy more Mustafar duel scenes (or ONE such)?  I wonder if this includes just more pyrotechnics or if perhaps there is some dialogue.  I have long had an edit idea, and more back-and-forth between Anakin and Obi-Wan would help...

No "Lando brings Luke inside the Falcon" scene?  Was this ever finished, anyway?  I know parts were filmed.

No "Obi-Wan explains the 1981 version of the prequels to Luke on Dagobah" scene.  I at first wondered if this had to do with trying to make the creative process of the films seem more straightforward than it actually was (the whole "it was planned from the beginning" thing).  But then, the "Alternate Luke and Biggs Reunion" would seem to be the longer version of the scene partially restored in the SE, where Red Leader tells Luke that he met Skywalker's father, a heroic pilot, when RL was just a boy.  In other words, that scene contains bits of an older backstory (this time, even older than Jedi's) as well.  So I dunno.

Who is the "old woman on Tattooine" from ANH? Some of these scenes, I've not heard of/don't know what they're referring to...

The Qui-Gon scene in ROTS - very much appreciated.  The Lost Twenty, Bail Organa in TPM, Maul vs. QG on the landing ramp, the raid on the control ship, the wampa, Yoda's test (could be the lightsaber/metal bar scene or the frying pan scene, if filmed)... all likewise. 

The idea of getting "new" OT-era bits of film is exciting - it feels less like seeing random stuff left in a back room than finding actual artifacts from a galaxy far, far away.

I'm especially looking forward to seeing lost bits of the Battle of Endor.

Whoa, that image is so... retro-looking.  I like.  It looks like a WEG (or other 1980s/1990s) pic, but with prequel characters.  Perhaps a good side to the mixing the styles of the trilogies?

That's how it looks with the addition of the PT, yeah... but I was talking about how it appears to me when looking at the OT and pre-prequel sources only.

DuracellEnergizer said:

I don't see anything wrong with shades of gray in Star Wars. Hell, one of the main reasons that the PT-styled Sith suck so much is because there are no shades of gray in the way they're written. 

QFT.

(Though I can see how Anakin's turn was supposed to be identified with, I think.) 

Antagonists - and protagonists, for that matter - who are each simply avatars for one side of a binary system of objective morality are boring and hard to identify with.

I don't think the OT was fully black and white, and I don't even mean the fact that Anakin showed the possibility of redemption.  Even in SW77, Vader's motivations for learning the dark side (in the backstory) might have been understandable. For example, I got the sense that he was frustrated with his lack of progress under Obi-Wan, and was tempted by the easier way to access power.  This impression was only strengthened by ESB.  The Empire was about ruling and maintaining a rigid hierarchy and inflexible standards.

Those are all understandable motivations. Even if I tend to disagree with people who actually evince them, I can often see where they're coming from. I know they're called the 'evil Empire' in the scroll, but I think the brutality of their methods can account for this; their goals being overtly 'Evil' is unnecessary, and uninteresting.  GL said around the time ROTS came out, no one counts themselves as evil.  Everyone does things for reasons that are right to them.  And in that, I think he was right.

Note also that at the time of the OT, only Vader was called a Dark Lord of the Sith.  GL knew this was to refer to a dark side group, but neither the Empire nor Palpatine himself were called Sithly.  Also, (possibly as a result of this) the Sith were presented in the EU as a culture, one that focused on dark side magic, but not the only one.  Dark siders didn't necessarily have to have any particular cultural affiliation, and light siders didn't either (which is how you saw a lot of Dark Jedi and also light side sects like the Aing-Tii).

In the PT, I definitely got more of a binary between the Jedi and the Sith as representatives of the two sides of the Force. 

(As an aside: for me, the Force works better as simply Power, a Life Force for the universe, which can be accessed within normal natural constraints (light side) or by ignoring those limits (dark side).  If the universe is a bottle containing the Coke of the Force, a light sider would access it by unscrewing the cap, which is a bit more complicated and time-consuming, while a dark sider would just break the bottle and let it pour out.  But I digress.)

I think in the PT and the EU after it, the Jedi and Sith were placed in binary opposition and their conflict was upscaled from simply involving two groups of Force users who chose different methods with very different levels of collateral damage to one involving the structure of the Force itself.  To me, this is different from much of what we saw in the OT.

EDIT: Maybe that last sentence really gets at something: it might be different if the OT gave the impression that the Empire was about the return of a dark side Culture and their desire to rule the galaxy.  But given the way we mostly see the admirals, stormtroopers, etc, and the fact that while both Vader and the Emperor use the dark side they don't seem to have any explicit shared cultural affiliation except 'Imperial,' making the Empire instead "really" about Sith factional domination feels mismatched.  It seemed to me like it was about certain political ideologies, for which the dark side was a tool of enforcement.

Lucasarts isn't making this because the Fantasy Flight X-Wing game isn't a video game, it's actual physical miniatures (like Micro Machine-size, I'm presuming).  It's more closely tied to tabletop roleplaying than anything else (FFG also recently acquired the SW RPG rights).

xhonzi said:

American Hominid said:

Because the Sith were excluded from the post-Jedi Bantam EU, you had a lot of random dark siders and Imperial remnants. 

Were they excluded intentionally?  Or did no one really work them in?

I mean, they were in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2, right?

I'm pretty sure they were actually excluded.  They were shown in the EU stories taking place before the movies (thousands of years before), and artifacts from this period were seen in post-movie-era sources (like holocrons and the Dark Temple in Mysteries of the Sith) but no actual Sith (except Darth Vader). 

This probably had to do with GL's plans to possibly use them in the prequels (the Sith as dark siders go back to the second draft of the first movie, where a Jedi apprentice named Darklighter falls to the dark side, teaches the Sith the dark side - they were pirates before this - and they all become the bodyguards of the Emperor).  Zahn wanted the Noghri to be called "Sith" originally because Darth Vader was already known as "The Dark Lord of the Sith." But no one knew what that meant, so he wanted to tie it in to his story... GL/LFL said no.  When Veitch and the rest started working on TOTJ they wanted to have an ancient dark side sect and GL said, use the Sith, that's what they're supposed to be anyway.

Towards the end of the Bantam run, people were actually clamoring to see the Sith as villains in the "current" story period.  The creators of the New Jedi Order series of books originally wanted to use the Sith but were rebuffed by LFL, so they used extragalactic aliens instead.  So I'm fairly sure their use was tightly controlled by LFL.

I've got no problem with the existence of the Sith as a sect, it's just that they seem to have been made into less of a specific Dark Side culture and more of just generically Evil nasties.  Palpatine was sort of this in the original films, but Vader struck me as actually having nobler intentions despite his forceful and violent methods.  I thought that was the difference between light and dark - means versus ends.  Some Force-users would try to use the Force by disrupting the natural flow of things as little as they could.  Others would try to accomplish whatever they could, not caring about the consequences - these would be dark siders. Jedi might refer specifically to the first group, and/or more generically to Force-users as a whole (like "Xerox" being both vernacular for "copy" and also a brand name), while Sith would be a specific culture which depended on dark side magic, but certainly not the only one.

Anchorhead said:

Would you like to play a game?

A non-EU-related point, just a cool thing I noticed: Paul Le Mat (John Milner in Graffiti) would have made a good Anakin if the prequels were filmed at the time of the OT.

            Le Mat                         Shaw

Anyway, there's something I like about the Bantam era EU, even if I dislike some of the particular stories from that period.  The creators working in the SW universe during the 1990s had a very limited amount of background information from Lucasfilm, and this included things like the date of the Clone Wars ending around the time when Episode I was eventually set - which makes these stories artifacts of earlier versions of the SW story. 

Also, because there was so little official information available about the Jedi and the Republic, etc, the authors had to go off their inferences from the films, which I think often turned out to be similar to fans' inferences and different from certain prequel definitions. 

The Jedi in the Bantam era were less organized (even though Luke did train a group in a temple), less dogmatic, and less militaristic.  I think a lot of people took the OT Jedi to be "normal" for Jedi, which is why in TOTJ (for instance) some are system guardians who operate in groups of master (knight?) + apprentice(s), while others are reclusive masters like Yoda.  Ghosts were standard. 

(I think some of the above is why Qui-Gon seems well-liked.  He acted like the Jedi we all expected to see and thought was the standard - following his own rules but still acting nobly.  Especially interesting when we consider that his character traits were originally Ben's.)

Also, the Emperor was a bad guy but not a representative of an ancient faction.  Vader was the Dark Lord.  People say Star Wars was always a story about good and evil, but even if that's the case I think the prequels took this to a whole new, external level with the prophecy, the Chosen One, and the Jedi and Sith as almost avatars for the sides of the Force.  The events of the OT were always pivotal, but not necessarily to the structure of the Force or Destiny or anything larger than the characters/populace of the galaxy and their political structures. Or at least that was the sense I got.

Because the Sith were excluded from the post-Jedi Bantam EU, you had a lot of random dark siders and Imperial remnants.  This might have gotten repetitive, but I think it's even more so now, because now they all identify with the same culture (with variations).  The whole of SW history seems now to be increasingly embodied only in a struggle between the Jedi (paragons) versus Sith (always Evil - chaotic?  lawful?).  This also has the side effect of blowing the Force up to such a proportion that fewer stories can focus on non-explicitly-Force-using characters.

Sorry if that was too ranty.

Also, Anchorhead - another book you may like (it's one of my faves): The Illustrated Star Wars Universe.  It's from 1995.  It's set up almost like National Geographic, with profiles of the OT planets each told by different characters - an anthropologist who visits Tatooine, an Imperial scout who hates his assignment to Endor, a slimy political yes-man from Coruscant, a poet from Alderaan.  Throughout, there are pieces of art done for the films (concept design work by many artists), complimented by quite a few specially-done paintings of various planet/culture-related scenes by Ralph McQuarrie.  The stories are written by Kevin J Anderson, whose novels were not my favorites, but this book works for me.

That reminds me - it's always interesting when the film concept artists do work for the EU.  I like the consistency of styles.

xhonzi said:

American Hominid said: 

I just listened to a podcast interview with Tim Zahn the other day where he talked about this exact concept, and how he purposely approaches his stories this way.

 Link, please?

http://functionalnerds.com/2011/07/episode-065-timothy-zahn/

The specific comment starts around 22:18, but there are interesting bits sprinkled throughout, depending on what you're into.

Anchorhead - Ah, I didn't know that about the film.

AG was really good.  Like I said I'd seen it before but it was a long time ago... I'd forgotten a lot.  I appreciated the various character moments (duh), though I also really liked, narrative-wise, the way Curt basically wanders around behind the scenes of the "cruising" world inhabited by the other characters. 

I've currently got a story percolating through my head and a lot of things from Graffiti seemed applicable/helpful, though I guess that means I was kind of seeing it in a more inspirational/clinical way.

Good catch on the wine.  I always remembered bruallki and kaf. ;)

prequelsrule said:

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.

Absolutely.  I can almost see the covers in my mind.  And I too remember that article on the 'thematic trilogy'; wish I could find it now.

zombie said:

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!!

I just listened to a podcast interview with Tim Zahn the other day where he talked about this exact concept, and how he purposely approaches his stories this way.