You act like something got taken away from him.
I think it might be more apt to say they feel it was taken away from them.
When the R rated Joker movie breaks 1 billion I personally can’t picture TROS won’t make it too.
Broom Kid said:
his focus turned more to being a CEO than to a creative.
What about being a creative CEO?
People are going to make a big spin out of any time a studio cancels a project when they’re all lined out ahead of time like this. I don’t think it’s such a mark against Star Wars, more proof just in general to take those predetermined timelines with a grain of salt. It will happen again, I’ve also included this unrelated picture.
I would attribute a lot to rust as well, and the fact that not all the same people were involved. He asked his director pals but everyone would rather place their bets on the guy who hadn’t directed since the first one and basically retired for 10 years, I think you can see it just in the quality of TPM compared to ROTS, the clunk factor is considerably lower. But on ideas I sympathize, how many after the first Star Wars would have said Yoda was a seriously bad idea if they only ever read it on paper? It’s harder to judge than in retrospect the bad ideas from the good.
Honestly I think if the prequels were built up to and George tested more of his prototype visual ideas like he did with young indiana jones via a television show produced sometime during the mid 90s establishing this prequel setting with maybe an even older Jedi order, we would be in MUCH better shape by the first prequel.
Lucas is obviously a visual control freak but I would imagine all the sky replacements come from how easy it is to do and was one of the earliest effects tricks that sort of became the go-to shorthand for describing post in digital and what you could do with the budding technology, you can find an old interview of Scorsese referencing sky replacements as well.
A few comparisons:
Opening logos
Opening shot
Tatooine sky changed (sand reverted to pre-2004)
Desert shots
All R2 rocks changed
Sandcrawler shot doesn’t change in brightness like in the old SE
Binary Sunset
Ghost Luke error removed & fly removed from the next shot
Tractor beam matte painting
Lightsabers
Jabba scene transitions redone ('97 Jabba’s tail no longer visible for a few frames)
Wow, okay so it has been pretty seriously desaturated then, a little overkill in the opposite direction in my opinion but maybe it evens out on high contrast monitors and average tv displays.
Well there was Lynch…
The Phantom Menace. It just dawned on me that the story it tells is nothing more than the backstory to the backstory. We did not need it at all. In fact we don’t need AOTC either; we could have started the PT with the opening scene of ROTS and gone from there.
To be fair it is episode 1, but yeah it’s just so boring, that’s definitely the longest lasting problem for me, plays out like a tv pilot, ROTS might be too far in I still want the arc, but we got a whole Luke arc without starting when he was 9…
I don’t agree with Kasdan’s take on ROTJ but I do think they blinked and if anything could truly be undone I would have wished Gary Kurtz never left, but that’s not really an idea so instead I’ll go with Leia really shouldn’t have been so sidelined in ROTJ.
I think the truth of the matter is having Kurtz around wouldn’t have changed much. Most of the issues present in ROTJ were brought up in the Lucas/Kasdan/Marquand/Kazanjian story meetings. The fact is that Lucas was calling the shots, and Kurtz would have ultimately acquiesced to him, same as the others (the reason TESB is great is because Kurtz basically let Kershner do what he wanted, not because he was keeping Lucas in check).
I’d want Marquand out too, no offense Marquand, but he was less of a creative drive whereas having Kurtz around just on set was another layer of someone who really did understand the story, certain silly things might have been averted but we’ll of course never know, and of course I still think ROTJ pulls it together by the end, just not quite firing on all cylinders to the degree I’d qualify the first two.
This may be one of those if a tree falls in the forest type questions, but if an Artoo is more convincingly placed behind CGI rocks do I like CGI rocks now?
I don’t agree with Kasdan’s take on ROTJ but I do think they blinked and if anything could truly be undone I would have wished Gary Kurtz never left, but that’s not really an idea so instead I’ll go with Leia really shouldn’t have been so sidelined in ROTJ.
Need to see that Jabba scene in motion but agree with everyone else the new color makes a much nicer blend, and I hate that scene!
Dropping the really broad terms might be for the best, the larger almost philosophical level of discourse to be had about what defines art or an artist may be worth having as its own conversation, but far off the beaten path from the initial point. We need words that we can all agree on their definition, there’s so many splinters where we will inherently feel differently, about death of the author, auteur theory, “movies” vs “films”, etc. Sincerely I have softened my own view a little, I really don’t like being the bully and though Disney is a powerhouse empire themselves which often makes it feel like punching up, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to hold the new movies themselves to the impossible standards that is recapturing the lightning in a bottle that was the OT. That said, fans like myself comparatively do feel the invisible hands of corporate takeover muddying the waters, remember Disney had that whole thing about not wanting to see limbs getting chopped off, as well as the underlying sense the new property holders would much rather rest on their laurels and print what they knew worked when they bought it than truly expand into more original material, such as decades ago when the original founding studio heads like Jack Warner retired and sold their companies to Coca-Cola and so on. Course that’s a rock and a hard place, as Dave Chapelle put it, “where art meets corporate interests…” but I think both ends here have a biased starting premise: either that the new films cannot and never could have been truly authentic within the context of their creation (center cannot hold), OR that the means and ideas are inconsequential so long as the execution remains high. Both can be true, from a certain point of view.
That perspective really makes the 4KSE look like a desaturated 35mm scan. But I can’t really tell, other than the bluray being over sharpened along with some other color strangeness, how much is related to the way that the bluray was cleaned up vs use of a different source. The vignette, was it corrected for the bluray or is it more present from another scan after they decided not to use the blurays?
Always in motion, is the future. I expect plans to change depending on how audiences respond, it’s all concept until it’s out. Studios generally aren’t very good at planning ahead, all cautiously about the next move. This franchise business and nu-marketing strategy of “phases” and “cinematic universes” is a gamble, they throw out that slide with a decade of projections, it’s all just smoke and mirrors until it’s made, and this administration studio has unarguably had a bit of a revolving door of creatives being shuffled in and out, with possibly just as many projects canned as have been announced (haven’t done the math, not sure if that checks out) or end up being restructured.
Personally I assume they have enough awareness of these things and have done a once over that may also be related to any ways they had already been planning to regrade or otherwise touch up for UHD or even left from the 3D re-releases.
In the roughs the extra exposition seems unnecessary and forced but the ideas are good, I’d try to find a way to establish it within the crawl.
Looking in good shape! appreciate the hue shift to more neutral greys where needed and nice levels adjustment.
DominicCobb said:
You’re absolutely right that Lucas always tried to push the boundaries of what’s possible on Star Wars, and that isn’t really happening post-Lucas (besides Tarkin/Leia in Rogue One). It’s basically the reason he complained about them, according to Iger’s biography. From my perspective, though, it’s kind of a ‘who cares?’ sort of thing.
As time has gone on, and the number of movies I’ve watched has grown exponentially, I’ve found that i’d much rather a movie be good than be “new.” Movies taking chances and failing are still unpleasant to watch, even if the intentions were noble.
and that’s probably the line in the sand, I just feel the exact opposite here.
I also just don’t want to discount Lucas himself, however much credit you want to give him he did now famously complain that TFA didn’t try enough to be new. I understand you may not hold the new films to this responsibility, nor hold an essentially bitter jilted ex’s sour grapes about a franchise he sold off in highest esteem, to invoke some others with credentials for what it’s worth this opinion also is shared by those from James Cameron to Simon Pegg who has even personally worked with JJ, granted you’re entitled to feel differently about the direction but it’s not an unfounded expectation that each trilogy was supposed to be spectacle with each their own distinct “wow” factor. Granted not an easy task to live up to and even to sympathize with the studios, why take the risk?
Broom Kid said:
I think placing the burden of “the new” on Star Wars as a primary motivating factor for watching it is only complicating many people’s ability to enjoy the films for what they’re individually trying to be.
My want for the new is motivated to serve exactly that purpose, I want the new films to be individual, the want to strive to push further and be better and exceed boundaries to me is within the bones of the message of Star Wars, your mileage may vary and I understand what you mean by vague messaging stacking the deck so the ST will never win, but I think that’s again all the more reason actually not to compete with the usual fair or the past and instead win on its own terms and be its own.
I’m not asking for the same leaps, but different ones, unexpected and untested, previously the movies always had their own ambitions to up the ante, sometimes to their failure. I’d say it’s matter of taste what you prefer that makes it good, I would rather take the chance than have a well executed typical Star Wars movie in line with what we’ve seen before, to my perspective the recipe for disappointment is in trying to go back home again and recapture former glory, what I want isn’t my personal idea of what the sequels should be, but for them to forge their own path.
Well I pretty much laid out I wasn’t automatically loyal to the brand, so no I don’t care so much who is making the most money or which brand is rated the highest. It’s what’s so special about Star Wars in a post Star Wars world. When the original Star Wars was made the team that would become ILM was flying by the seat of their pants, the technology that made the original films possible had to be invented, many didn’t believe in the film and it had no prior foundation of brand recognition to build upon. I personally take this context into consideration, and take the achievement of A New Hope as a pretty monumental one, enough that it not only worked, but changed the industry. So with that history there is a lot of expectation, seemingly impossible to live up to, but I’d like to see them try anyway. I know some might be fine if the new movies just looked like shinier versions of the old ones, with same but different adventures, I personally want to see the leap that Lucas made, to really push beyond what seemed possible. But the stakes are in the billions now so I understand why ST went throwback, but again I don’t care who makes the most money so I would have probably just preferred the version that audiences hated if it was a result of trying something really new.
Maybe Star Wars hasn’t been unique for a long time, but with an original vision (that everyone would have hated) I think it at least would have had a chance to be remembered in its own way, I now mostly hear it lumped together with the sea of other sequel reboots that all happened/are happening around the same time. After Guardians of the Galaxy I wondered how Star Wars could top it for the kids who were already getting their first kind of sci-fi adventure that way. I didn’t care for Avatar but I still am intrigued with what James Cameron will do for the sequel, I probably won’t like the story there either but I’m sure it will have more of the ambition I would have hoped from a next generation Star Wars. I think that’s why some are so excited for Dune, I remember being cautiously hopeful even for Valerian to deliver more of that lush world. For it to be a special event the event should be special, lately seems what we’re supposed to feel special about is that it’s Star Wars by default, I’m not willing to bow in allegiance to brand alone.
That’s what I expect too, and I wouldn’t blame ST if all future Star Wars shifted to exclusively streaming, more a change with the times. Hell, there should have been a live action show ages ago.
Does anyone think watching Agents of SHIELD led to increased attendance for Marvel movies? Or had any effect on that attendance at all?
I’m calling apples to oranges here for a few reasons, though it isn’t a bad example. First being Agents of SHIELD largely failing to be a success, basically never achieved buzz for anything, fans were not making a choice between the movies or the show as the movies were the clear victors and the show itself seemed largely to be a low rent commercial for the movies anyway rather than its own thing. Netflix series like Daredevil made an impression but again were sort of downplayed, to the point where I’m not exactly sure what kind of limbo state those shows are in now. With Star Wars there is something more unique going on being the first of live action shows within the universe (AND placed in a time period within the saga fans seem to keep wanting to return to) and definitely is seeing production value much closer to that of the movies than a traditional network show. Fans never had this choice with Star Wars before, maybe they would have made it and bailed on the prequels if they had an equally budgeted KOTR show or the Mandalorian then.
“Oh no!”
