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Anchorhead

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12-Jun-2005
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8-Jun-2025
Posts
3,691

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Post
#160107
Topic
Interesting transcript from online chat about George Lucas on how Empire turned out...
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/160107/action/topic#160107
Time
Originally posted by: ricarleite
I just wished someone would confront him about those things on an interview

He most likely won't agree to an interview without first seeing the questions ahead of time. He's not going to allow someone to put him in an uncomfortable position or embarrass him. The questions would have to be very general. No one's going to be able to ask him - "Mr. Lucas, how come you castrated the character of Han Solo by making him shoot in self defense instead of keeping him as a no-so-trustworthy smuggler that kills someone outright?"
Post
#160070
Topic
phantom menace first thoughts
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/160070/action/topic#160070
Time
Originally posted by: battlewars

what were your first thoughts when viewing this 16 year gestating piece of crap?

I remember thinking that there were too many story tangents with a lot of insignificant characters, all of which had nothing to do with the main story.
I think it's terribly written. There's nothing there. It's all over the place. There's no real story. No real development to follow. I went back and gave it a second chance to see if it made more sense after it had a chance to soak in. It didn't. It's like a weird stage play, it seems one dimensional. The characters aren't interesting or life-like.

It's just a bad film - regardless of what it's a part of.

Post
#159569
Topic
My take (long)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/159569/action/topic#159569
Time
Originally posted by: CO

I grew up with the story of Luke, and that is how I will always see it. It is a shame because the younger generation who love the PT now are missing out on a great experience of just watching the original Star Wars for what it originally was, a fun space adventure with lovable characters and really cool bad guy. Now they look it at as some inferior special effects movie, that is totally out of place with the first three prequels they just watched. I guess it's their loss.

very well put, CO.

Post
#159541
Topic
My take (long)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/159541/action/topic#159541
Time
Originally posted by: JennyS1138

I don't agree that the story was complete, even though Star Wars could have been a stand alone movie.

I think that's exactly what it was intended to be. That's what I meant by complete. It was a finished story in the form it was released in. I didn't need to know what happened after the princess gave the medals to the heros. The fairy tale was over...and it was a wonderful adventure in the process.

Nothing at all wrong with a second installment, by the way. Star Trek, James Bond, Batman, etc have all been fun series but each one doesn't depend on the one before it to even make sense. That's Lucas' biggest weakness - he had one story that he tried to stretch across 6 films. That would be possible if he actually started from the beginning and planned them all out, but he didn't. He finished the story after the first movie and then changed his mind - several times over, trying to reinvent the original in the process. What a tangled web he's woven.

On an unrelated note - Jenny, I believe you may have the best signature on the board.
Post
#159494
Topic
My take (long)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/159494/action/topic#159494
Time
The people that weren’t around 28 years ago, only have what Lucas says now to go by. Some of them just blindly follow him anywhere and hang on his every word as though his almighty Star Wars Saga – the greatest story ever told - is the be all, end all.
Lucas isn’t some sort of literary god or film savant. He’s just a guy that wrote a screenplay back in the 1970s and turned it into a film.

Those of us that loved that film when it was first in the theaters, watched and read every interview we could get our hands on. We listened to what the director and actors said about the film and it’s story. It was an outer space adventure along the lines of a fairy tale – hero rescuing princess - good guy vs bad guy with a damsel in distress waiting to be saved. All set against the backdrop of a futuristic (to us) military struggle as opposed to something like medieval England.

It was a single story. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. It had the main characters with a few sidekicks thrown in for depth. That’s all, no grand, 30 year unfolding space saga of the rise and fall of a boy as he becomes a man and has to ultimately be saved by his children.
NONE of that story was there. It wasn’t hinted at. It wasn’t planned for. It hadn’t been considered, and there was no need or place for it in the movie The Star Wars.
All because - it didn’t exist. The early script was a story surrounding Annikin Starkiller, Luke Skywalker, and General Vader. Separate characters, unrelated to each other. Minor tweaks would later eliminate Starkiller and Luke Skywalker would be a teenager instead of a 60 year old man.

With what ultimately became the movie Star Wars, we could let our imaginations run wild thinking about what might happen next or wonder about all the far away worlds the characters may have come from. When I was sitting in the theater every week in 1977, I was a billion miles from home, on a wondrous adventure. My imagination made the story gigantic.

After the success of the movie, Lucas saw the opportunity to make more, to try and capitalize on his success. That would prove much harder than he realized. Having a completed story already, he had to go about the task of adding a second installment. That wasn’t too hard since you can imagine more things for the characters to do. All you have to do is come up with a reason for them to have to do them. That’s where Lucas failed as a writer. He had no more story in him and his struggle to invent one was weak. He ended up just shrinking the previous story and trying to conjure up all sorts of history that ended up being almost too thin to span another film – let alone 5 more. The movies continued to get larger while the story continued to get smaller.

To cover his tracks and try to explain away the discrepancies and plot holes, he’s lied about what he said and did back in the 70s and he’s removed and digitally altered the previous films to try to revise history. That doesn’t work when all the people involved in making them and the fans following the films are still around to call him on it.

A great many of us were there in the 1970s George – we saw the film, we watched the interviews, we read the script, we heard what you said about the story.
Post
#159257
Topic
Do you think Lucas really knows there is demand for the O-OT on DVD?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/159257/action/topic#159257
Time
Originally posted by: Cable-X1
Yeah....isn't it unholy ironic that we're cheering for the money makers instead of the artist here???

It is indeed, but I'm pulling for the suits also. Give me the first film in it's original form and I'll be very happy. After that, I won't care if he releases 10 different versions.

The first version of the first film, George, that's all. As the band Nazareth put it....." I aint asking for much"

Post
#159159
Topic
redeeming lucas
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/159159/action/topic#159159
Time
Originally posted by: Cable-X1

Adam....you haven't seen the entire OOT and yet you come here and sprout all your bullshit.

A clever troll doesn't need a history with the subject matter of a forum. They need only a basic understanding of the subject matter and knowledge of what most of the members like and dislike. After a little lurking to get a feel for the level of moderation, they join and start contradicting the views of the others accordingly. It's control for them. They can make people react remotely and through the anonymity of the internet. It's power and notoriety they lack in their real world.

Post
#159060
Topic
Rank the changes made to the OT from worst to best (or least worst?)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/159060/action/topic#159060
Time
Originally posted by: battlewars

well there you go, lucas has no damn clue

That's it really. He's lost his ability to keep up with all his bullshit about how it's now actually the story he had in his head back in the 70s.
His constant altering of, and lying about the first films to try to make them fit the current films (28 years later), is where his weaknesses as a story teller\writer really show themselves.
A truly great writer would have made the new story fit in with what they had already written decades earlier. They would have done this by deep thinking and using their imagination. Since he can do neither, his only recourse is to remove scenes and erase the performances of actors that don't fit the new(and much weaker) storyline and that contradict his lies about the past.

In doing so, he's had to shrink the story significantly as well as the imaginary, vast universe it takes place in and that all the original characters came from. The story used to be something on par with the enormity of the Milky Way Galaxy. Now it's a little story that could take place in our solar system.

In 1977, Star Wars was a giant, wondrous, magical, outer space adventure story with a hero, a princess, a vigilante, a mentor, a villain, and an array of creatures from far away imaginary worlds.

Now, it's just a family squabble bedtime story where everyone lives happily ever after.
It's no different and no bigger than The Wizard Of Oz - turns out that the lion was only uncle Zeke.

Post
#158568
Topic
redeeming lucas
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/158568/action/topic#158568
Time
Originally posted by: Adamwankenobi
Originally posted by: Anchorhead
Originally posted by: Adamwankenobi
I wouldn't really have a problem with it.

You don't know how you'll feel about it twenty years from now. You can't.


And neither can you.



But I can know, and I do know. The movie I saw as a kid 28 years ago has been altered considerably. Scenes have been added, characters changed, added, and removed. The whole story has been altered. I don't like the changes. I don't like what someone did to the film I saw as a kid.

The movies you're experiencing now (prequels), are still the same and it's still now.
The movies I experienced as a kid (originals), are not and it's 28 years later.

You can't see your future - but I can see my past.
Post
#158563
Topic
redeeming lucas
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/158563/action/topic#158563
Time
Originally posted by: Anchorhead
...after he removes scenes with actors you are watching now and replaces them with actors that weren't even born when the prequels were filmed and then lies and says it's what he actually had in mind way back in 2004 ...
Originally posted by: The Bizzle
but he's already done that...There's stuff added


No. He hasn't. He's only enhanced the movie from what it was a couple of years ago - with footage or CGI that was done at the same time as the original, with the same actors. He's not changed the story or the characters.
You won't be able to understand the difference until you experience it. You won't be able to experience it until a long time has passed. That's just the way it is.
Post
#158535
Topic
redeeming lucas
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/158535/action/topic#158535
Time
Originally posted by: CO

As I said, somewhere down the road Lucas is gonna change something that you think is wrong, and he'll say as always, "These are my movies, and this is my vision." And you'll be bitching like the rest of us.


That's it in a nutshell. Prequel lovers don't understand yet because no matter how hard they try, no matter how much they think they can understand -- they can't understand twenty years from now.

Years from now, after Lucas makes major story and character changes to your beloved prequels, after he inserts scenes that didn't take place, after he removes scenes with actors you are watching now and replaces them with actors that weren't even born when the prequels were filmed and then lies and says it's what he actually had in mind way back in 2004 - then and only then will you finally understand.