DominicCobb

TLJ definitely had overnight screenings in my area. I mean, understand that theaters will add more screenings according to demand. In my area there was enough demand to keep some theaters open 72 hours. But movies don’t necessarily automatically just make more money if they add screenings at 3am, only if the demand is high enough that people are willing to go at that time.

act on instinct said:

Agree shoehorned is the wrong way to put it, but these side characters really have only had about the same development going into the third film as maybe Jabba or Greedo from the OT, I want to connect, but I feel like I’m seeing more concepts of characters than full bodied established ones, I really need to see IX to declare one way or the other on a lot of the new characters.

I mean there’s only so much time and so many characters. Seems reasonable that some would end up with smaller roles and less development (like Greedo and Jabba).

Broom Kid said:

IIRC she said she wanted to be the mo-cap character? I remember her giving an interview before the movie came out where someone basically said the same thing to her and she was like “I wanted to try this type of acting, because it seemed like a rare opportunity, especially for something like Star Wars.” I might be misremembering that, but I do remember thinking something similar before I was told she really wanted to do it, and was surprised.

I think that and she explicitly said she wanted to do mo-cap characters for a bit in big name movies (this and Jungle Book) because she didn’t want people watching a family movie and remembering her role from 12 Years a Slave.

Personally I don’t really get the shoehorned complaints for TLJ. To me, being shoehorned in means having a role that fills no purpose. Maz’s role in TLJ was short and served an understandable, narrative purpose. Considering she wouldn’t have really fit anywhere in TLJ’s story, I thought her cameo was pretty much the one way to include her that wouldn’t have felt shoehorned in. As for TROS, considering we know officially nothing at all about her role, it seems weird to declare one way or another.

George Lucas on the ANH commentary: “It’s more of a fantasy film than a science fiction film.”

It depends though on how you are with kids. My parents and others were constantly introducing me to movies, so being sat down to watch a big deal movie was never a problem. When I got into my teenage years was when I started discovering things for myself, which is great in its own way, but I’m forever thankful that I was introduced to specific movies as a kid.

Anyway, release order is certainly the best way to do it. But there’s definitely an argument to be made that seeing TROS in theaters is something you won’t want them to miss, in which case you could skip the prequels and spin-offs and etc. to expedite the process.

SilverWook said:

Arguably, he already killed millions if not billions of people before getting the stones. Gamora’s home planet for example. This is no Would you kill baby Hitler? conundrum.

Not just that but he and his army were literally in the process of trying to kill the heroes and destroy the Earth (and he does the exact same snap as the previous Thanos, only unsuccessfully because he didn’t realize there were no stones).

That said, considering you can do apparently anything with all the stones, it is odd that Tony chose to the same sort of snap decimation that Thanos did.

NeverarGreat said:

RogueLeader said:

This is somewhat related to discussion regarding the opening crawl we’ve been having on Nevarar’s TFA thread, but I wanted to move this conversation over here since it isn’t necessarily just about his edit. I wanted to have a conversation regarding how the politics in the films reflect real-life politics, and how this perspective can affect one’s approach to editing the Sequel Trilogy.

The political situations in the previous films seem to reflect real-life American politics in very general ways. In the OT, the Empire was America. Nixon was the Emperor. The rebellion was like the Viet Cong or the objectors/protestors in America, like the hippie movement.

In the prequels, George made parallels between Nute Gunray and Newt Gingrich, Bush and Vader and Cheney and Palpatine. Seeing a democracy become a dictatorship. “You’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists”.

In the sequels, what could that parallel be?
The rise of nationalism and the alt-right?
The election of Donald Trump?
So, which angle to by which to handle the New Republic would fit most appropriately with a contemporary American political analogy?

American politics seem totally divided between two sides. The idea that the Republic has been split into two parties, one allied to Old Republic ideology vs another that wants to restore Imperial strength, would seem to reflect the total division of the Democratic and Republican parties today (in a more extreme away obviously). The “death” of the New Republic could parallel the democrats losing the 2016 election and leading to the political upheaval we’ve see on a daily basis the past few years.

Not trying to say this interpretation is fact. George openly made liberal parallels with his films, so I figure it would be appropriate to strengthen similar parallels that are in the sequels as well.
And you can make parallels between the GFFA and the US, but the rise of nationalism globally has been a major talking point in recent years, so the ST fitting with that in a general sense fits too.

So I guess the question boils down to how the opening crawls could be worded (or things in the films themselves) to match this metaphor? Should the First Order be an open “nationalist” movement or be something hiding in the shadows and then striking from the cover of darkness? Should the Republic be trying, but struggling, to deal with this movement, or are they not taking it as seriously as they should be? I’d like to get suggestions that consider the real-life parallels.

What makes the most sense for the ST, in regards to how the OT and PT also reflected the real-life politics of their times?

I’m liking the way Nev is currently leaning with his, but I just wanted to carry that discussion over to here in order to talk about it more generally.

I hope that this discussion doesn’t run afoul of the new-ish political rules of this forum, but I definitely had worldwide rightwing movements in mind when trying to write the crawl. As you say, it was already an aspect of the originals so it made sense to continue that tradition. This paragraph in particular is probably the closest I’ve dared come to making an explicit reference to American politics:

In his absence, leaders from a thousand worlds have forsaken the fragile Republic in favor of the IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER, which has vowed to return strength to the galaxy through the designs of the once mighty Empire.

Yeah I mean, that’s a pretty good way of getting as close as you possibly can to “Make the Galaxy Great Again.”

I think at this point Boba Fest has too much baggage, between EU fan expectations and the canon realities of the character. A new Mando allows a completely blank slate (which is what made Boba interesting in the first place).

Broom Kid said:

This is, I believe, the first time post-release tinkering has happened at Lucasfilm since the purchase. Up until now there’s been no “versions” of anything.

The TFA home video release extended the credits. Plus you could conceivably count the intro changes to the digital versions of I-VI. But yes, this is the first significant tinkering we’ve seen.

Director found (Deborah Chow, veteran of many a prestige drama, including the Mandalorian). Unclear if she’s directing the whole thing or just some of it.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/obi-wan-kenobi-tv-series-finds-director-deborah-chow-1243984

Yeah we had a discussion along these lines awhile ago. My idea is the complacent New Republic angle, or at least that’s how I frame it in my current crawl:

Luke Skywalker has vanished. Without the Jedi, the mysterious FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker has been destroyed.

Failing to convince the complacent New Republic of this growing threat, General Leia Organa hastens to form a brave RESISTANCE to reignite the fight against the dark side.

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts….

Are they for sure on Tatooine? Is Tatooine just like the scum and villainy capitol of the galaxy? I guess that wouldn’t exactly contradict Luke’s “if there’s a bright center to the universe…”

Tobar said:

They’ve redubbed the Emperor with Ian McDiarmid for The Siege of Lothal

I have so many questions.

mykyta-R4 said:

Good news 😃 More Star Wars from people who love Star Wars!
Does anyone know if the film for cinema or Disney+?

At this point I don’t think anyone knows anything.

Roobyoo said:

At least we can all agree that he would respect old characters more than Johnson/Kennedy did.

Never safe to assume Star Wars fans will agree on anything (for instance, in this case, I do not).

NeverarGreat said:

DominicCobb said:

FreezingTNT2 said:

There’s a problem I don’t see anyone talk about: ever notice how almost anytime the movie needs to suddenly go somewhere else, a character is stunned unconscious? Poe, Finn (twice), Kylo, Leia, and Rose are all knocked out so the scene can move to another location across the galaxy. It’s almost like the writers don’t know how to end a scene, so they just knocks out a character to take a nap. It’s like watching The Room: the reason every scene ends with “Oh, I’ve gotta go” and cuts to a location shot is because Tommy Wiseau is lazy and has no idea how to switch from scene to scene.

I think if you actually examine the instances where those characters are knocked out you’ll notice your thesis isn’t really accurate in anyway.

I wouldn’t say in any way. Sure, the scene doesn’t always cut to one across the galaxy afterwards, but it’s true that this movie has a ton of people being knocked out to the point where it feels like a screenwriting crutch.

I mean, that’s a different argument than the one I responded to.

FreezingTNT2 said:

There’s a problem I don’t see anyone talk about: ever notice how almost anytime the movie needs to suddenly go somewhere else, a character is stunned unconscious? Poe, Finn (twice), Kylo, Leia, and Rose are all knocked out so the scene can move to another location across the galaxy. It’s almost like the writers don’t know how to end a scene, so they just knocks out a character to take a nap. It’s like watching The Room: the reason every scene ends with “Oh, I’ve gotta go” and cuts to a location shot is because Tommy Wiseau is lazy and has no idea how to switch from scene to scene.

I think if you actually examine the instances where those characters are knocked out you’ll notice your thesis isn’t really accurate in anyway.

RogueLeader said:

I"m a little curious to what their metrics are for using or not using his story. I’m guessing them not following his treatment beat-for-beat translates as “not using his treatment”. But, there does seem be some elements and story ideas that did carry over from his treatments to the films so far. Not everything, like the Darth Talon-inspired character, Felucia as a location, possibly multiple Skywalker grandchildren. On the other hand, Luke in exile, one of the grandchildren turning to the dark side, the Uber character, exploring the nature of the Force, all seem to be things that may have origins in George’s treatments.

I think a big example of this is Luke in exile. Luke did seem to be in exile in George’s Episode VII, but he apparently came out of hiding when the Kira character came looking for him, but Ardnt kept running into the issue of Luke taking the spotlight before we have time to relate with the new characters, so that was shifted.

Another thing seems to be a Skywalker grandchild falling to the dark side. That did seem like a story point, but potentially something that happened in the first movie (or in flashbacks?). I think George has issues with killing his darlings, but at the same time Iger seems to describe it as not using his treatments at all, when there clearly seems to be some elements that were carried over. But like I said, maybe since they decided not to use the general plot, but kept some ideas, was enough to considered it as “not using his treatments”.

It is nice that we got insight from Iger, and a little surprising that he admits that he could’ve handled it better with George. If anything, this just makes me really want a Making of The Force Awakens book!

I mean, Iger probably isn’t involved enough remember the minutia of the treatments too well. The fact that JJ and co.'s creative process grew out of George’s outlines and included some elements probably doesn’t register for him. The bottom line was they let them do what they wanted with TFA, and it was different enough for George to end up without any sort of story credit.

pleasehello said:

It’s hilariously ironic that George Lucas originally conceived of Star Wars as a throwback to the old movie adventure serials, and then criticizes TFA for being a throwback to the Original Trilogy (a throwback of a throwback).

The irony is especially palpable in his quote from when the film came out: “They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that.” Right, because George fucking Lucas has never done what you might call a “retro movie” in his life.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

DominicCobb said:

it’s ironic SW went back to film once digital reached filmic quality

Perhaps digital has matched film in terms of perceived resolution, but this is not the same as quality. Whether you’re referring to quality as merit or quality as characteristic, IMO, digital lags behind film in the former, and is completely different in the latter.

Maybe “film-esque” quality would have been the better word for what I was trying to say.

ChainsawAsh said:

Voiced by Taika Waititi. “Hey min.”

ChainsawAsh said:

Hal 9000 said:

Create fake ‘mono mixes’ for the other movies by changing arbitrary things and releasing in low quality.

I thought this was the worst ideas thread, not the BEST IDEAS EVER thread!

Broom Kid said:

True, but this is some Ant-Man quantum-realm fiddling, haha. But it’s also not like I’m the one in the lab cutting the stuff together either, so my two cents aren’t even worth that, I understand. Just wanted to put it out there that as someone who is very tuned to this sort of thing through consuming untold number of fan-derived projects, the first example posted in here would read as “seamless.”

Unfortunately, for the ones of us who are tuned in to this sort of thing, when it’s slightly off, it feels completely off.

I mean yeah it’s ironic SW went back to film once digital reached filmic quality, but it’s all a matter of approach. George always tried to push technical limits and go for the next big thing. He didn’t shoot digital on AOTC and ROTS because he preferred how it looked, he did it because it was new and made the effects easier. Filmmakers like JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson always shoot on film, just because that’s the look they prefer. When it came to making new worlds and environments, for Lucas that was his first priority - on ROTS before he even wrote a word of his script he’d assigned his art department to draft up as many new planets as possible. It’s just a different approach, naturally when you finally have a different filmmaker on the series they’ll have their own way of approaching it that won’t necessarily prioritize what Lucas prioritized. On the one hand it’s weird to me that that’s all he cared about in regards to his opinion of TFA, but on the other hand to an extent it seems like that was what he cared about most when working on the PT too.

Ultimately the truth of the matter is that the Star Wars the fans came to love in 77 was not the Star Wars George had in his head. Obviously we can get into the weeds in regards to the specifics of what they did with TFA but at the end of the day a Star Wars movie made by a Star Wars fan was always going to look quite different than what George had in mind.

ChainsawAsh said:

Well, the quotes from Iger’s new book seem a little more damning than past reporting, but it does also paint a picture of George kinda just throwing a hissy fit because they decided not to use his outlines and being unwilling to judge the final result of TFA on its own merit.

You know how many of the people who hated it were fans who didn’t like the direction the story/characters went in? Imagine how it’d be to be George Lucas and for it not to go in the direction you wanted. I’m sure he was pretty crotchety about it. The irony of course being that they actually did utilize many elements from his outlines. With $4bil the sour grapes seem a little unjustified, but of course it doesn’t seem like he was too terribly upset about it, considering he continued to meet with the directors of all the following films and visit many of the sets.

The “your” and “mother” especially both sound clipped. Some reverb should help.

NeverarGreat said:

Tobar said:

I have a feeling a lot of TFA edits are gonna have a bit of a continuity issue on their hands, as I’m sure they’re going to use the Leia “I don’t care” scene in TROS.

But how? Since the Republic has been turned into a planet-sized bowl of cocoa pebbles, they would have to change everything except that line.

It’s much more likely to me that they would use a scene that was shot but never released, like the one where Maz gives Leia the lightsaber.

Anyone interested in what they might be able to use could probably look to the novelization. I haven’t read it in a while so I don’t remember how much more fleshed out the Leia stuff was, but it certainly utilized some deleted moments. Considering how she specifically mentions the senate in that one scene it might be hard for them to use, but also, who knows. There’s definitely more deleted footage of her they didn’t give us, but I wouldn’t count out that they might repurpose and recontextualize the couple moments we got on the blu-rays.