from dvdempire

http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?userid=99366387888574&item_id=1423187&searchID=41171

http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?userid=99366387888574&item_id=1423186&searchID=41171

How weird does the 'Prequel Trilogy' look?

^^ Interesting question I don't know the answer though.

I had another thought on a dilema I might have. I hope Lucasfilm doesn't repeat history and go the same route they did with the Indy dvds they released back in May this year. It was the same Indy dvds as the previous release except some propaganda... I mean promotional material for the 4th film, but the thing that got me to buy them was the awesome cover art.

I already owned the first Indy box set but I was willing to rebuy the movies individually for the theatrical posters on the covers because they were oh so sweet. That and the fact that I had already seen the 4th film that I pretend doesn't exist and knew there wasn't a chance I was going let that on dvd enter my home, so a future Indy box set and potential triple-dip was out of the question.

Even if this new OT box set contains theatrical poster cover art I won't buy it, but I'll be just that little bit tempted if it does.

Excellent article. I can't believe I hadn't seen it until now.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/movies/29itzk.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=movies

Free to Follow His Heart Right Back to ‘Star Wars’

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Published: June 29, 2008

FUTURE generations will never need to establish a George Lucas museum, because George Lucas has already built one for himself. On either side of the Golden Gate Bridge he has constructed himself two temples where “Star Wars” is made and worshiped: at his Skywalker Ranch in Marin County and his newer office complex, the Letterman Digital Arts Center at the Presidio, he has gathered all manner of relics honoring his six-film saga, from the imposing (life-size replicas of the villains Darth Vader and Boba Fett) to the self-congratulatory (a Yoda fountain) to the self-deprecating (a carbonite block encasing the much loathed Jar Jar Binks).

Like religious shrines, these buildings both consecrate and confine the man for whom they were built.

Using the freedom and the fortune he has amassed largely on the astronomical success of “Star Wars,” Mr. Lucas has accumulated unparalleled creative resources; his next film could be anything from a sweeping epic to one of the intimate personal narratives he has often said he would like to make. Instead his next two ventures will be “Star Wars” projects, no less ambitious than his previous films yet potentially less commercial. And they come at a time when even the “Star Wars” faithful wonder if Mr. Lucas’s continued mining of this fantasy world has anything more to yield.

A few weeks ago Mr. Lucas, who is 64 with a full white beard, was visiting his Presidio offices somewhat reluctantly, on a layover between the European and Japanese premieres of his latest “Indiana Jones” movie. “I love making movies; I’m not the biggest fan of selling them,” he said, seated in the librarylike Lucasfilm boardroom, stocked with books about real-world military history and novels like “Quo Vadis.” “But since I’m in the selling mood, that’s what you’re here for. I’m doing all my selling for two more weeks. Then I’m sold out.”

He was pitching a computer-generated animated movie called “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” which Warner Brothers will release on Aug. 15 and which will introduce an animated television series with the same title that will have its debut on the Cartoon Network this fall.

Despite his vows to the contrary Mr. Lucas did not conclude his “Star Wars” epic with his 2005 film “Revenge of the Sith,” the third in a trilogy of prequel movies that grossed more than $1 billion in the United States alone. As far back as 2002 he was contemplating an animated series that would take place between Episodes II and III of his prequels, fleshing out the adventures of the Jedi knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker (who is doomed to become the evil Darth Vader), and explore heroes, villains and planets glossed over in the prequel films.

For Mr. Lucas this was an opportunity to revisit imaginary turf that gives him great personal satisfaction. “Star Wars,” he said, is “a sandbox I love to play in.”

“It’s not a matter of trying to prove anything to anybody,” he added. “I don’t have to.”

But his enduring interest in “Star Wars” hints at a lesson that his filmmaking peers have already learned: that it is sometimes easier for them to make big movies than small ones. As his longtime friend and collaborator Steven Spielberg wrote in an e-mail message: “All of us would like to make these little personal films that sneak into theaters under the radar. Sadly, for George and myself, and others who have enjoyed and endured great success — ‘under the radar’ has become a no-fly zone.”

Mr. Lucas began pursuing his “Clone Wars” projects about three years ago when he summoned the technological might of his company’s research and development division to start building Lucasfilm Animation, now a pair of studios at Big Rock Ranch — part of Skywalker — and in Singapore. (Lucasfilm declined to discuss budgets, but Mr. Lucas said that building a similar operation in the 1980s — the era when he sold a start-up computer-animation business called Pixar to Steven P. Jobs — would have cost him $60 million to $100 million.)

Next he hired a team of young “Star Wars”-obsessed artists who revere Mr. Lucas as if he were Yoda himself.

“He’s the guy,” said Dave Filoni, director of the “Clone Wars” show and movie. “Chewbacca exists because he named him, thought him up, put him in the cockpit.”

The two men worked closely together (Mr. Filoni is a former director of the Nickelodeon action cartoon “Avatar: The Last Airbender”) to hone the anime-inspired look of “The Clone Wars” and develop scripts, often drawing upon unused ideas Mr. Lucas had been stockpiling since the original “Star Wars” was released in 1977.

Then Mr. Lucas took the unusual step of waiting until the first 22-episode season of “The Clone Wars” was nearly finished before pitching it to television networks in late 2007. There were no immediate takers. Fox Broadcasting, the sister company of 20th Century Fox, which released the live-action “Star Wars” movies, passed. And the Cartoon Network, which had broadcast a series of traditional 2-D animated shorts called “Star Wars: Clone Wars” from 2003 to 2005, was lukewarm about the project.

That tepidness may have stemmed from some viewers’ dissatisfaction with the “Star Wars” prequels, with their stilted dialogue and baffling politics. Or it may have indicated that “Clone Wars” wasn’t compatible with a prime-time network schedule. “It didn’t fit any of the molds that everybody had,” Mr. Lucas said. “It’s not ‘SpongeBob SquarePants,’ but at the same time it’s also not ‘Family Guy.’ ”

Mr. Lucas said that Warner Brothers became interested only after he decided to produce a theatrical “Clone Wars” film (having been encouraged by the animation results he saw), and the film studio convinced its corporate siblings at the Cartoon Network to give the television series another look. (Executives at Warner Brothers and the Cartoon Network, both divisions of Time Warner, gave slightly different chronologies but did not dispute this element of Mr. Lucas’s account.)

For Time Warner the “Clone Wars” collaboration is more than a one-time opportunity to share in the money-minting “Star Wars” franchise. “It’s the relationship with Lucasfilm that we’re very excited about,” said Dan Fellman, president for domestic distribution of Warner Brothers Pictures. “Not just on the Cartoon Network but possibly for live-action television down the road.”

Sure enough, Mr. Lucas is already developing a live-action “Star Wars” television series, and Time Warner would love to demonstrate that one of its cable channels (like TBS, TNT or HBO) could give it a good home.

But the question remains: Just because new “Star Wars” can be made, should new “Star Wars” be made?

Some “Star Wars” aficionados — even those who have worked with Mr. Lucas on “Star Wars” projects — are ambivalent about his continued plundering of a science-fiction property that has already spawned numerous comic books, video games and novels, not to mention six movies.

“I think it’s the easiest thing to do, because he doesn’t need to come up with a whole new thing; everything’s established,” said Genndy Tartakovsky, the animator who directed Mr. Lucas’s previous “Clone Wars” shorts for the Cartoon Network. Speaking as a fan, Mr. Tartakovsky said, “I appreciate that, but there’s so much more that he could explore.”

Mr. Lucas said he had no urgent or compelling reasons for returning to his most popular characters and mythologies, except that he can and enjoys doing so. As an illustration he pointed to his work with Mr. Spielberg on “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

“I mean, why do we have to make another ‘Indiana Jones’?” Mr. Lucas said. “There was no point to it, other than, gee, this might be fun.”

But to the extent that “Star Wars” had kept him from fulfilling his promise to return to making more personal, smaller-scale films, Mr. Lucas lamented this distraction. “You get sidetracked easily,” he said with a chuckle. “I do, anyway.”

And he was deeply pessimistic about the marketplace he will face when he someday releases a movie that is not set in a galaxy far, far away. “Maybe it ends up in a festival somewhere,” he said. “Maybe it ends up in half a dozen theaters around the country for a couple weeks.”

As he so often does, Mr. Lucas took a lesson from the experience of his friend and mentor Francis Ford Coppola, whose most recent film, “Youth Without Youth,” received a small independent release that was hardly on the scale of his “Godfather” movies. (In the United States the film played in just 18 theaters and grossed less than $250,000.)

“Did you see it?” Mr. Lucas asked rhetorically. “Uh, no. Did you even know it came out?”

Responding to questions sent via e-mail Mr. Coppola agreed that the films he now makes, and that Mr. Lucas says he intends to make, had little chance at achieving blockbuster status. “We make films for ourselves,” he wrote. “If no one wants to see them, what can we do?” (With a parenthetical shrug, Mr. Coppola added: “Emotion does much better at the box office than philosophy.”)

Other former colleagues of Mr. Lucas argued that new “Star Wars” projects have provided technological boons for the entire film business, yielding Industrial Light and Magic, Mr. Lucas’s pioneering special-effects company, and EditDroid, the digital film-editing hardware that was a forerunner to the Avid editing system.

“He does it in a way that might begin as self-serving and then of course is a bonanza for the whole industry,” said Sid Ganis, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who was a Lucasfilm executive during the 1980s.

Mr. Ganis added that Mr. Lucas possessed “an intuition that he stubbornly sticks by.”

“There’s something in him, when you’re told, ‘No, it’ll never work,’ it’s motivation to keep it going,” he added.

And as Mr. Lucas would be the first to remind you, he has proved his detractors wrong many times in his career, from the film executives who thought “American Graffiti” would work better as a television movie to the industry colleagues who warned him not to finance “The Empire Strikes Back” with his profits from “Star Wars.”

When he works on the “Star Wars” properties he owns outright, Mr. Lucas has the freedom to ignore the input of others. In the case of “The Clone Wars” he is financing the series himself and charging Time Warner licensing fees to distribute the film and broadcast the show. (A person with knowledge of the company’s animation operations, speaking anonymously to avoid offending Mr. Lucas, said that the earliest episodes of “The Clone Wars” probably cost $750,000 to $1.5 million each.)

“It’s much easier for me to just do the show I want, say, ‘Here it is, do you wish to license it or not?’ ” Mr. Lucas said. “That’s it. There’s no notes, no comments. I don’t care what your opinion is. You either put it on the air or you don’t.”

But Mr. Lucas’s creative independence cannot shield him from the larger realities of the film business. He is not planning, at least right away, to go head to head with more established animation studios like DreamWorks, Disney and Pixar. The mid-August release of the “Clone Wars” movie — an unusually late date for a new “Star Wars” film — was scheduled in part to avoid competition with recent offerings from these studios.

It is also exceedingly likely that “The Clone Wars” will be the lowest-grossing “Star Wars” movie ever; Mr. Lucas said he would be satisfied if the film made $100 million domestically. (“Revenge of the Sith,” by comparison, grossed $380 million.)

When he is not, say, testifying before a House subcommittee about classroom technology or appearing at Cannes with his frequent companion, Mellody Hobson, the president of the investment firm Ariel Capital Management, on his arm, Mr. Lucas has plenty of new projects to keep him busy.

He is already working on the second and third seasons of “The Clone Wars” and forging ahead on his live-action “Star Wars” television show. Then, he said, he would seek other films and television series for his animation studio and continue to develop “Red Tails,” a long-in-the-works feature film about the Tuskegee Airmen that he is producing.

And after that, who knows?

Mr. Lucas pointed back to his very first feature film, “THX 1138,” a dystopian work of science fiction released in 1971, one that at the time he believed would be his one and only shot at directing a movie exactly as he envisioned it. (The movie’s critical and commercial reception very nearly proved him right.)

All that his wealth has bought him, Mr. Lucas said, is the opportunity to make more films the way he wants to. “I’ve got more shots,” he said. “I can go and make half a dozen ‘THXes.’ I’ll lose everything I put into them, guaranteed. But I can have a lot of fun doing it.”

It's interesting to note that according to the article WB only became interested in the TV series when the idea of doing a Clone Wars Movie first came up. Also Lucas isn't expecting Clone Wars to gross as much as the other movies but will be happy with 100 million dollars domestically. It's not even going to get close.

Sorry, no.

TotalFilm: Are you happy for new Star Wars tales to be told after your gone?

Lucas: I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII - IX ......

I don't see it happening now, and legally speaking I don't see it after Lucas is 'gone'. I think he's taken care of it.

btw Quantum of Solace is Bond No. 22.

Wow I feel like I've woken up in Eristormtrooper's alternate universe today.

I believe this to be real. It looks to be in the same shitty style and weak cardboard box that only Lucasfilm could come up with.

Although I don't think my opinion is documented I knew this would be the case.

Everyone had their hopes that Indy would get a blu-ray release this year and Star Wars next year. I had a feeling Star Wars would be released at least one more time with no substantial difference from the previous release. Though I'm suprised by the seperate trilogies, for lack of a better word I thought the 2 box sets would be released as a 6 movie saga box set.

If the OT box set contains the GOUT I have little doubt it will be exactly like the '06 discs. Not remastered and non anamorphic. Can you imagine the Lucasfilm hype that would accompany the announcement of a remastered OOT? That would be the biggest selling point, not swept under the rug like with this release.

Maybe the biggest questions we should be asking is will this release contain a CG Yoda in TPM and further updates to the SE's. Not that a give a crap about anything other than the OOT but they're valid questions that could possibly warrant a new release in some people's opinion. I think yes to Yoda and no to SE updates.

The biggest kick to my nuts with this release would be if Lucasfilm includes the '06 GOUT the only difference being an anamorphic transfer. Because then technically that would be a step up from the current set I own yet if I chose to buy it I'd be giving them more cash and having to buy the same SE's again that I don't want. But I don't think I'll be faced with that dilemma anyway.

I shouldn't be bothered even typing this but.....

I don't have anything to do with Star Wars these days unless it's the OOT films so I.....

...You know what I was right the first time I'm not going to be bothered, the rest of your post is ludicrous. You need a reality check if you are suggesting people break store merchandise and influence kids to hate George Lucas and Star Wars.

Gaffer Tape said:

I didn't really attempt to carry this as far as I wanted to in my previous post, but I think it is worth discussing.  While Clone Wars has gotten nearly universally bad reviews, most of them can't seem to agree on why it's bad.  I tend to agree with a lot of the general views that have already been expressed here about movie reviews:  that you can't rely on them to match your opinion or even be more than that one person's opinion, but if a lot of them all say the same thing, then it's probably something to take with a little more value.  So does the fact that, while all the reviews are bad, but hardly any can agree on exactly why, lend credence to the opinion that it's "bad" or do the wildly different specifics serve to slightly invalidate that?  Of course, I'll need some help from those who have actually seen it, since I can't really contribute much beyond this observation.

EDIT:  Oh, and to Johnboy's typo, I just thought you were doing a new twist on an old favorite when I first read it.  ^_~

I think the one thing all the negative reviews of the Clone Wars (or at least the ones I've read) have is that they share the opinion that Star Wars today is a far cry from what it once was. And I'd agree with that 100%.

sunday256 said:

Here's some interesting info from BoxofficeMojo.com

 Clone Wars initial grading...

I'd say the Lucas bashers are giving the F's and the Lucas worshippers are giving the A's. Some people are just way too invested in things. TDK on imdb is a great example.

If I had to quote ratings it would be from http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/clone_wars/ and I normally only pay attention to the top critics score which is at a shocking 14% (as opposed to the 25% general score)

or http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/clonewars?q=clone%20wars metacritic's calculation of the averages is said to be more reliable and the score is currently at 40%

Gaffer Tape said:

I was just re-reading zombie's Secret History of Star Wars, specifically the appendix about the sequel trilogy, and it made me wonder.  If Lucas had gone this exact same route only made it a CG feature based around the original trilogy, would any of us be more interested to see it?  I honestly think I probably would go out there opening night and check it out if that was the case, especially if he managed to get Mark Hamill to voice Luke (doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility at all).  Under normal circumstances, I would still roll my eyes that he was milking the cash cow, but lately it seems that all Star Wars is is about the Clone Wars era, so much so that it would be refreshing to see anything on the big screen with Luke and co, just to prove they still exist, and that we didn't just imagine those three other movies that happened a long time ago.

Any thoughts?

If George Lucas 25 years ago was heading up the project I'd be interested but George Lucas now... Yuck. Kick me while I'm down. It's really all in one man's hands but I'd like to see Lucas never touch those characters again, in fear of him fucking them up.

I'll give Lucas one thing, he might be keeping the OOT down, but least all this bullshit he keeps churning out is Prequel era and has to do with characters I don't care about at all.

Yes it is true. Did he in the Gendy cartoon?

Thanks for the link to the review. The Australian media hasn't been kind either. I don't have links though, I'm talking about print press.

Also your sarcasm detector is a bit off ;) When it comes to critical review Lucas always seems to fall back on the fans expectations are too high. Whether it be the prequels or that 4th Indiana Jones movie that does not exist.

edit: it seems Oz did not. I would have surprised me if he had.

^^ Like the fans expectations being too high?

Lol, I look forward to seeing that fuzzy creatures uvula in hi-def on my 50 inch plasma.

I did also think about that too for a few seconds, the whole WB being the distributor of both CW and TDK.

Considering Clone Wars was not initially supposed to be a feature film any money WB and Lucasfilm make off it is a bonus. If Lucasfilm wants to complain that CW didn't get a big marketing push in favor of The Dark Knight (which we've seen no evidence of yet, the complaining that is) well all things considered from what has been written in the past I think they were lucky any major studio picked up their tv show at all.

Ah my mistake. Tropic Thunder doesn't open here in Australia until next week.

I wasn't aware CW and TT were opening in the same week in the U.S. Thanks for the clarification.

...And yes I agree with you Tropic Thunder will probably beat Clone Wars.

sunday256 said:

see you auntie said:

If people could post some of the reviews here as they are published I'd appreciate it.

Unfortunately for Lucas I think the most media attention Clone Wars will receive will be from inevitably knocking The Dark Knight from number 1 at the box office.

If Clone Wars turns out to be good well than I'm glad for those that are interested/ invested in the project.

If Clone Wars turns out to be bad then I hope it tanks at the box office like a lead balloon so Lucasfilm receives the message loud and clear that most people are sick of the Star Wars machine (if that is indeed true) and won't accept 3 tv episodes strung together passed off as a feature film. Unfortunately money speaks louder than words and that's the only message that will get through to them.

I enjoyed the movie, but it's not going to come close to beating the Dark Knight. This is an animated movie. It's more in line with the Shrek franchise. I'd say if I had to compare to one of the Shrek films I'd say it's likely to be closer to the first Shrek in terms of money. Probably less though because like I said, some people are just tired of SW right now.

 

ROFL. Oh that's hilarious. I meant in its first weekend at the box office. Not overall. I didn't realise I didn't specify that.

The Dark Knight can't do 5 weeks in a row at number 1 not up against "Star Wars". But obviously overall Clone Wars won't come close to TDK.

I don't really care about Box Office, I was just noting that Clone Wars will be the first movie to take a notch out of the Batman juggernaut.

If people could post some of the reviews here as they are published I'd appreciate it.

Unfortunately for Lucas I think the most media attention Clone Wars will receive will be from inevitably knocking The Dark Knight from number 1 at the box office.

If Clone Wars turns out to be good well than I'm glad for those that are interested/ invested in the project.

If Clone Wars turns out to be bad then I hope it tanks at the box office like a lead balloon so Lucasfilm receives the message loud and clear that most people are sick of the Star Wars machine (if that is indeed true) and won't accept 3 tv episodes strung together passed off as a feature film. Unfortunately money speaks louder than words and that's the only message that will get through to them.

Lol, that's pretty badass.

Though I don't like the line "Unfortunately, the film did not resonate with the majority of audiences...." I can't imagine any company putting that on a product they intend to sell. Cult classic, glowing critical reviews and moderate box-office success would be more than enough. (even if the last part is untrue - hey it's called marketing)

"Academey" award winner Mark Hamill gave me a big chuckle (and not for the spelling error). As did the Willow Lego video game.

A reference to George Lucas director of Apocalypse Now would add to the "what if" aspect of it, possibly even winning a best director Academy Award for it. And something about Star Wars being the follow-up to American Graffiti. Name dropping American Graffiti as a bigger hit than Star Wars is pretty interesting.

Sorry you didn't exactly ask for suggestions but your work has got my minding ticking. The best laugh I've had all day.

I'm enjoying imagining a world where Harrison Ford is only some what known for his small films "Witness" and "The Mosquito Coast" and nothing else, Spielberg directed a James Bond film and Mark Hamill is an academy award winner.

Fang Zei said:

So far, we have a comment from McCallum about "100 hours of documentaries."........

Don't be disappointed when it turns out to be 2-3 hours of documentaries per film for a future release/box set.

"100 hours" would be great but I think it's wishful thinking. McCallum is always full of it and will hype the most mundane shit like it's the second coming. It's also unprecedented and Lucasfilm have been behind the curve on things for so long I can't remember the last time they were ahead of it.

Quoting "100" sounds like a kid in the playground bragging to his friends.

And at the same time clogging up the boards with pointless rants.

Janskeet said:

Has Lucas gone completely crazy??!!! You just don't get it George, nobody wants to see your wet dreams. After 3 strikes of the PT and then Indy 4, nobody is going to be fooled this time. Face it, it's over. The only way anyone will pay attention to this is if Jar Jar Binks dies a violent death! George, why don't you use all those computers for something useful for a change, have that thing killed a gruesome death so the world can gasp a sigh of relief. Of course, that will contradict your super-duper special edition since you arguably put him in ROTJ, but who cares!!!

Umm just to clarify things George Lucas doesn't post on these boards nor does he read them ...(I think)

I suggest if you want to have correspondance with him you should write to him at Marin County.

Besides there's already a topic on the Clone Wars movie http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/New-Clone-Wars-movie-trailer/topic/9299/

Thanks Neo

Hi Darth Neo

I registered for your forums a few months ago and verified my registration but never got the ok to post/ get access to the members pages (I'm aware that you're busy and have a life outside the site)

After seeing your post here it reminded me about all this and I re-registered there today (my old one no longer worked) I hope I can get access soon I'd like to post some star wars promo pics I haven't seen on your site.

In regards with people having problems with the site I have best results with Firefox. It's a bit sluggish but everything works. Which I can't say about IE, it has frozen up on me before.

Oh thank you!

I've been meaning to look these interviews up for ages ever since the dvd was released. You reminded me and save me the hassle all in one go. Kudos.

Good interview on Seth’s behalf. I don’t think I’ve actually heard his real voice before, initially it made me laugh because I thought he was taking the piss.

I think it’s always been obvious George doesn’t watch the movies that often, which is fine after living them for so many years. But you think he’d consult them before making new ones or changing old ones, unless it was just a passing remark and we are reading too much into it.

When Lucas is talking about having a tivo full of FG and having never bought the dvds and Seth remarks (beautifully I might add) well I bought all the Star Wars dvds, does George then say “Well you can go out and buy them all again”?.

That’s what I heard, and I then burst out in laughter. Not the good laughter. A more sick, desperate laughter. Its purpose to prevent my head from exploding.