I found another one. When C-3PO and R2-D2 meet up again in the sand crawler, The CZ droid previously cast a shadow on the wall he is leaning against. Now the light area is turned into shadow (probably to get rid of the strange shape his head made). I updated the list in the OP.
Usually cameras and lenses are separate. The DP picks the cameras and the lenses and the film (based on what the director and producers want). So you could have Panavision lenses on Arriflex cameras and both might get credit in the film.
About the only thing I had guessed from what Lucas and Hammil had said was that Luke would have the Qui-gon/Obi-wan role in the sequel. So he’d be in the first film and die near the end of it, passing on the torch to the new generation. And like Obi-wan, he’d come back as a force ghost as needed in the following two films. I also expected that if Solo were in it that he’d die as well. From what little I can guess, there was supposed to be a young girl who is the new Jedi hero who comes to Luke for training. I think if you are going something closer to what Lucas drafted in his treatment that the first film would be Luke’s film. It would end with his death in something epic. You’d introduce whatever the ST epic evil would be in the first film (or his henchman like in both the OT and PT). Past the first film I have no ideas. I never could really imagine what the next step would be to further the story. Involving Anakin in an integral way would be ideal. Having Luke or Liea have a kid (who doesn’t turn to the dark side) would have been great. I think the EU was too fucused on them being Jedi. I like what Rian did with TLJ that anyone can be a Jedi, but that it can run in families. So the new girl would be a nobody. Seriously a nobody. Just someone talented. Maybe someone Leia runs across and sends Luke’s way because she senses she is powerful in the force. And Leia should have more force abilities from the get go. Probably not a Jedi, not in the sense of a warrior. But using those skills for negotiation. I’d have the Republic go through some growing pains, but come out the Trilogy intact. I’d have the Skywalker in the ST be a pilot. Not quite powerful enough in the force to be a Jedi, but powerful enough to be an ace pilot.
The key thing, the thing I worried about with the ST we got, is the ending. What is the ending of the trilogy that is going to be epic enough to top ROTS and ROTJ. It has to further the story and bring it to a close. So the big bad needs to be connected to Palpatine and the Sith, though resurrecting Palpatine might not have been the best way to go about it. Maybe the big bad is trying to resurrect Palpatine. Maybe mentored by Palpatine’s ghost. But no physical Palpatine. Maybe the big bad was one of the Emperor’s hand’s like Mara Jade. And that is a character I would have included.
You may be right that much was cut that was originally intended. We’d need the entire story board set to know for sure. I was just saying that much of what you suggest was definitely cut way before any FX where shot for it. The rough cut was done very early, before a single FX shot (the escape pod sequence was the first thing done) was completed. It is possible that the delay in FX caused him to cut things he might have included. I was just saying that following that rough cut and George getting a feel for that editing method, George really was set on the faster and more intense in the edit and with how the FX were going, he would have cut anything he could to get the movie out on time. I am certainly interested in seeing what you envision. I’m just doubting they got past the script/storyboard stage.
My extended edit is much the same idea, except I’m aiming for what might have been right after that first edit, had everything from the deleted scenes been completed and some things not cut yet. I intend to reorder the major scenes that don’t match the script, but I’m going to leave much of the rest alone. I’m very much inspired by the Deleted Magic project.
I think one of the issues I have with some of the shots you propose is Lucas’s well documented and repetitive direction for Star Wars of faster and more intense. That carried through to the way he wanted it edited. So I would think that anything that adds too much to the film is working against what Lucas was aiming for. I love the exploration of possibilities, but I don’t feel some of these are missing as much as never intended to be there.
Problem is that you have the Sand Crawler backwards at the Lars homestead. We can clearly see that it is the same side we saw earlier.
Also, your comment about the SE Sand Crawler shot is confusing. That was filmed for the 97 SE. You seem to be implying that it was filmed in 1977 and that photo clearly is not how Peterson looked in 1977. I may have just misunderstood what you were intending to say here.
Version 1.0 is a faithful rendering of the Technicolor print. The other version have tried to tone down the flaws in the original Technicolor.
The way I’m seeing some people talk about this online has me worried a little. Despite Lucasfilm trying to do something brand new, people are already comparing it to the Old Republic, and saying how they would’ve preferred that.
Guys, give it a chance. People want new things, and you give it to them and then they complain that it’s not the old thing. I’m sure they will do Old Republic content eventually, but maybe they’re saving it for movies or tv. Maybe they’re just working their way back through the timeline.
I’m also seeing people complain that it is only 200 years before the prequel trilogy rather than 400 as it was reported. The entirety of the Skywalker Saga was what, 70 years? I don’t see how the 200 year difference is a detriment.
In a 200 year span all the humans would change. So no one alive in the new stories would still be around for TPM and no one in TPM would have been born yet. Even Chewbacca wouldn’t have been born yet. Yoda yes, but we don’t know of any other species that lives that long. Maybe the Hutts. So 200 years is enough time to completely change the characters maybe a handful of exceptions. And even 400 years before TMP, Yoda would be around. So that 200 year difference doesn’t matter. I don’t think the Sith line would be to Darth Plagueis yet and the Jedi had thought the Sith long gone so it shouldn’t be a Jedi vs. Sith tale whether it is 200 or 400.
I’m going to want to hear that the HD BR discs in this set (and hopefully the 18 disc BR set) actually have new content on them before I buy any of them. I have them on BR twice already and I don’t need them a third time unless they are the new transfers of the OT. That is all I want.
That looks really great!
Is there any merit in this color for this shot?
It’s something I just can’t help feel there is something to it. From techni-disc I think…
It is a re-comp with extra clouds but color wise I personally think it might be more accurate to what the shot should look like perhaps…
It matches the sky and trees in later shots and the cyan sort of color on the horizon.
This is the May 1977 version of the shot. It is only found in the pre Definitive Collection US and UK releases. It was redone for the late 1977 wider release and the international releases. All the 35 mm prints that have turned up are later prints and don’t have this or the three other differences the early prints have (two other FX shots and end credits). Is is rather odd that the Technidisc had this. That version appears to be an odd hybrid with the opening crawl and end credits swapped out, but not the three FX shots in the film. The Moth3r widescreen bootleg and Puggo Grand feature the original May 1977 cut of the film (with a mono version of the original stereo soundtrack, different from the later mono soundtrack that Ben Burt edited for the wider release).
So it just occurred to me that CW season 7 could technically qualify as both Legends and Canon at the same time. Granted the canonicity of CW pre-Disney was kind of weird and inconsistent, but it is the only non-live-action material to be canonized after Disney bought SW, and season 7 is based on unfinished episodes from the pre-Disney days, so shouldn’t the new season technically be part of both continuities? Not that this really matters overall, but I find these kinds of things fascinating.
I really don’t see any indication that TCW was ever linked to the EU/Legends. It has always been canon. The earlier 2003 mini series even fits (Anakin becoming a Jedi and getting his face scar and growing his hair out). When they announced that the EU was being cut and would be Legends and not Canon, I never for a moment thought that included anything animated. It’s canon status was never in dispute as far as I’m concerned. And what I heard officially backs that up. The 2003 series might be iffy, but the 2008 movie and series is not.
I’m not really sure what you’re saying here; everything SW related made pre-2014 qualifies as Legends. When TCW was made was simply “canon” just like everything else, except Disney decided to keep it as part of the new canon so it now exists in this weird double continuity. Even though Lucas specifically never really cared that much for canonicity and anything he made could prioritize and even overwrite other ideas, everything made was still “canon”, including the Tartakovsky CW series. There are even TCW related spin-off material that is now officially Legends, and the show even had plans to include Darth Revan and have an episode featuring the Yuuzhan Vong.
I’m not saying that TCW’s canonicity is in dispute, just that it has become an official part of two separate continuities, just like ep. 1-6 has. Though I suppose there’s no real “official” canon for Legends as all pre-2014 EU material is officially just non-canon. SW continuity isn’t as well maintained as f.ex. the various DC comics continuities, so Legends is kind of hard to define nowadays.
I’m saying that when they moved the EU to Legends that Clone Wars was not ever part of the EU and was always canon and was not included in that. Everything Dave Filoni has done has remained Canon under Disney. The EU is the Expanded Universe of books and Comics and is now Legends. The Clone Wars material that was in books and comics moved to Legends, but the series was never moved to Legends. The only reason they cancelled season 6 is that it was airing on Cartoon Network. It had nothing to do with it being kept in canon status. George was always pretty clear about that and the fact that they proceeded with Rebels which continued Filoni’s ideas made it clear that Clone Wars was canon.
So it just occurred to me that CW season 7 could technically qualify as both Legends and Canon at the same time. Granted the canonicity of CW pre-Disney was kind of weird and inconsistent, but it is the only non-live-action material to be canonized after Disney bought SW, and season 7 is based on unfinished episodes from the pre-Disney days, so shouldn’t the new season technically be part of both continuities? Not that this really matters overall, but I find these kinds of things fascinating.
I really don’t see any indication that TCW was ever linked to the EU/Legends. It has always been canon. The earlier 2003 mini series even fits (Anakin becoming a Jedi and getting his face scar and growing his hair out). When they announced that the EU was being cut and would be Legends and not Canon, I never for a moment thought that included anything animated. It’s canon status was never in dispute as far as I’m concerned. And what I heard officially backs that up. The 2003 series might be iffy, but the 2008 movie and series is not.
Anger leads to the dark side. If Luke falls to the dark side, then the battle outside the Death Star is pointless. We see Luke abandon the mission on Endor because he knows Vader is going to find him. He gives himself up and is taken to the Emperor and there tries to avoid giving in to the dark side. He has a moment when his anger takes over and I believe he taps into the dark side, but then he lets it go and is not consumed. He refuses to kill. The scene on the Death Star is a chess match between Palpatine and Luke. The fate of the galaxy rests in the result. If Palpatine successfully turns Luke, all is lost. And somehow Luke hopes to turn Vader, but his primary focus is to keep them occupied while the ground teams destroys the shield and then Lando and Wedge destroy the Death Star. At the point when Palpatine should be focused on the battle, he is instead distracted by Luke and isn’t paying attention to his impending demise. Had Luke fallen to the dark side, the Rebels would have been wiped out.
So Luke’s part in the final battle is not as a bystander, but a distraction. He picks up his lightsaber and distracts with the duel until Vader makes it serious by involving Leia. Palpatine is completely focused on Luke and trying to turn him. So Luke really is a hero for his actions because he prevents Palpatine and Vader from staying involved in the battle raging outside. Palpatine doesn’t even noticed when the shield generator is destroyed. He’d rather kill Luke and ends up being killed by Vader.
If I was Luke I would explain it by saying that Palpatine had been controlling Anakin/Vader all those years and that he was the catalist that Anakin needed to free himself. That puts all the blame for Vader’s actions on Palpatine. And I think that the way Lucas wrote the PT that is what was actually going on. I think Palpatine used the force to tip Anakin to the dark side and then used the force voice on him to make him destroy the Jedi temple. Then after the duel, Palpatine used the force to keep him alive all those years. So when Vader killed Palpatine he killed himself… not just because of the damage from the force lightning.
We know that Anakin wasn’t quite so innocent and that he was teetering and about to fall, but Palpatine did not leave things to chance. Watch that scene in ROTS after Mace is dead and listen to sound effects added to Palpatine’s voice. He is not leaving it to chance but is using the dark side to manipulate Anakin and hasten his fall to the dark side. I think Anakin’s anger at Obi-wan is genuine and that he really did try to kill Padme. And in the end he thinks he did. So when the chance comes to save Luke - Padme’s son - he doesn’t hesitate or think of the cost. What caused him to fall is what ultimately causes his redemption. Luke was the cause of the fall and redemption both. With Leia, of course, but Luke was the child he knew about leading up to that final confrontation. Still, Luke could follow Obi-wan’s example and tell the story from a certain point of view. Not like there are any other witnesses to the events.
But without Luke being where he was, Palpatine’s attention would have been on the battle and he would have sensed what was going on on Endor and could have given orders to prevent the success of the Rebel’s mission. But because he was distracted by his Sith business, he ignored the battle and was destroyed. Luke didn’t destroy the shield or the Death Star, but he facilitated both by being where he was and doing what he was doing.
My issue is that the ‘Luke as distraction’ thing is something a fan would come up with to fill a plothole. It’s not something the movie ever expresses or even hints at (although it was in the novelisation). As I keep saying, I wish it had been a component of Luke’s farewell speech to Leia. All that Luke is concerned with at that point - apart from getting out of the way - is saving Vader. So I do like the theory, but I wish it was in the film.
I also have issues with the Dark Side and matters of aggression. I don’t think it would have been unethical for Luke to kill Vader and Palpatine outright from the get-go. These guys were slaughtering thousands of innocent beings. Self-defence right? At very least Luke should have had Palpatine in a headlock and forced him to order the shutdown of the DS cannon. If Han Solo had been in that throne room - or Chewie or Leia or Wedge or any Tom/Dick/Harry - they would’ve pulled a gun on those clowns immediately. They would have failed of course, but no-one would question their right to act in that way. The notion that a Jedi is automatically hamstrung by this suddenly unwavering notion of pacifism is ridiculous. When Luke destroyed the first DS - and all its inhabitants - you didn’t hear Obi Wan’s ghost-voice say “don’t shoot Luke - try to reason with them”. It was war.
I’m not with you on Anakin’s being controlled by Palpatine. My impression was that Anakin sold his soul and knew exactly what he was doing. In ROTS he clearly uses some pretty lame self-justification to make himself feel better when explaining things to Padme. In fact if I’d written ROTJ (and I’m sure everyone here is glad that I didn’t!) I would’ve had Luke come to the conclusion that there is no ‘dark side’ - just the choices we make.
But yes, the ‘Luke as distraction’ thing kind of works - I just wish it was firmly expressed in the film. It would have been awesome (IMO) if Luke had just spared Vader after the hand-chopping thing, and Palpatine had said something like “young fool, do you seek to bargain for your father’s life?”. Luke would smile and say “no, I am a Jedi - like my father before me. What I have bargained for is time.” Palpatine would suddenly realise that the DS is coming apart around him and then angrily roast Luke with lightning - prompting Vader’s reaction etc etc. Or something like that anyway…
Lucas loves to do the subtle. The PT is full of it. So I think the subtle hints in the film are sufficient for us to determine that Luke is distracting them. He doesn’t take the quick and easy route but the long and complex one. Until Vader threatens Leia. Everything says he is playing for time. He saw Ben fight Vader and he fought Vader already, so why is he suddenly being a pacifist? He is keeping those two occupied. He is keeping Palpatine interested until it is too late. And he is trying to find a way to reach his father. Reasoning with him didn’t work. And his attempt to evade the fight didn’t work… it just left him open to Vader discovering Leia. So he finally egages in the fight and the realizes he has edged to the dark side. The entire scene is full of stuff that is subtle and open to interpretation. The only part that isn’t is Vader throwing Palpatine down the shaft. But Luke turned himself in in the first place so he wouldn’t endanger the mission. He turned himself in to be a distraction and basically told Leia as much before he left. So in light of why he turned himself in we can guess with some reasonable accuracy the motive for his actions on the Death Star.
And I like your idea for making it more clear, but that isn’t Lucas’s style. I think the Saga would have been better as a whole if there were a few things that went against his style to liven things up and make them not so subtle.
Yeah to me it looked like JJ was trying to adress the “Marysue” elements of Rey right off the bat in the intro training montage, failing the circuit and admitting that she is unworthy of the saber and needs more training, but the way it was executed was terribly rushed and felt quite contrived.
It was contrived. He has a couple of shots with Carrie handing the saber back and forth and he wanted to use them and the way he did it was clumsy. That is the one edit I’d make. Rey wouldn’t give Leia the saber or take it back. The dialog part of the scenes wouldn’t need to change. Other than those two, I thought the Leia scenes worked well. But those two make the story stumble a bit.
Anger leads to the dark side. If Luke falls to the dark side, then the battle outside the Death Star is pointless. We see Luke abandon the mission on Endor because he knows Vader is going to find him. He gives himself up and is taken to the Emperor and there tries to avoid giving in to the dark side. He has a moment when his anger takes over and I believe he taps into the dark side, but then he lets it go and is not consumed. He refuses to kill. The scene on the Death Star is a chess match between Palpatine and Luke. The fate of the galaxy rests in the result. If Palpatine successfully turns Luke, all is lost. And somehow Luke hopes to turn Vader, but his primary focus is to keep them occupied while the ground teams destroys the shield and then Lando and Wedge destroy the Death Star. At the point when Palpatine should be focused on the battle, he is instead distracted by Luke and isn’t paying attention to his impending demise. Had Luke fallen to the dark side, the Rebels would have been wiped out.
So Luke’s part in the final battle is not as a bystander, but a distraction. He picks up his lightsaber and distracts with the duel until Vader makes it serious by involving Leia. Palpatine is completely focused on Luke and trying to turn him. So Luke really is a hero for his actions because he prevents Palpatine and Vader from staying involved in the battle raging outside. Palpatine doesn’t even noticed when the shield generator is destroyed. He’d rather kill Luke and ends up being killed by Vader.
If I was Luke I would explain it by saying that Palpatine had been controlling Anakin/Vader all those years and that he was the catalist that Anakin needed to free himself. That puts all the blame for Vader’s actions on Palpatine. And I think that the way Lucas wrote the PT that is what was actually going on. I think Palpatine used the force to tip Anakin to the dark side and then used the force voice on him to make him destroy the Jedi temple. Then after the duel, Palpatine used the force to keep him alive all those years. So when Vader killed Palpatine he killed himself… not just because of the damage from the force lightning.
We know that Anakin wasn’t quite so innocent and that he was teetering and about to fall, but Palpatine did not leave things to chance. Watch that scene in ROTS after Mace is dead and listen to sound effects added to Palpatine’s voice. He is not leaving it to chance but is using the dark side to manipulate Anakin and hasten his fall to the dark side. I think Anakin’s anger at Obi-wan is genuine and that he really did try to kill Padme. And in the end he thinks he did. So when the chance comes to save Luke - Padme’s son - he doesn’t hesitate or think of the cost. What caused him to fall is what ultimately causes his redemption. Luke was the cause of the fall and redemption both. With Leia, of course, but Luke was the child he knew about leading up to that final confrontation. Still, Luke could follow Obi-wan’s example and tell the story from a certain point of view. Not like there are any other witnesses to the events.
But without Luke being where he was, Palpatine’s attention would have been on the battle and he would have sensed what was going on on Endor and could have given orders to prevent the success of the Rebel’s mission. But because he was distracted by his Sith business, he ignored the battle and was destroyed. Luke didn’t destroy the shield or the Death Star, but he facilitated both by being where he was and doing what he was doing.
I recommend waiting a short time for the 9 movie collection (either 4k & BR or just BR).
Movie is at $1.066 billion now, it seems. When can we expect the total to plateau? Are we there yet, or does it make sense to wait a few more weeks just in case there’s one last spike?
It’s going to keep nudging up for several more months. Nothing can be final until then.
Several more months? The Blu-ray comes out in late March. I know the box office will keep changing for the next month, but I doubt many people are going to go see a movie that was released two months ago. I’m 90% sure the current box office numbers are very close to the final results.
If you look at other movies, they have box office numbers for months after the home video release. Some movies are still playing in second run theaters and people do go to them. Plus there are foreign markets. So until it is out of all theaters, you can’t really finalize the numbers.
Second run theaters typically don’t make hundreds of millions of dollars though. So I’d say that the numbers are basically final once the movie gets released on Blu-ray. No one wants to watch a movie in an empty movie theater, when they could just buy it on Blu-ray.
Actually, lots of people do. But it probably is down to the range of 1-10 million at this point. When you look it up in the future that will be included and whatever you post now will not be accurate. I favor accuracy over rushing.
Also, in ROTJ, Luke has been communing with the force for a year. While it was cut from ROTJ, that includes being in touch with Vader himself. Being in contact like that, even just the short bit we see in TESB, would let Luke past Vader’s guard and let him see the depths. He would sense any conflict. Luke’s entire plan to defeat Vader (and maybe Palpatine in the process) was to pull Vader back to the light side. He utterly failed until he sacrificed himself to Palpatine. We as the audience do not get to see Vader’s conflict, but we do get to see his change of attitude in TESB. He is willing to destroy the Emperor. That isn’t the attitude of a loyal henchman as he was portrayed in ANH. And with the revised Palpatine scene with Ian, Vader outright lies to Palpatine, pretending he doesn’t know Luke is his son already. So there is plenty layered in there to hint that redemption might be possible. Add in the PT and it becomes very clear that Vader is excited to be a father in TESB, but is still trapped in his evil and wants his son to join him. Instead he joins his son. And the only way to believably do that is for Vader to give his life for his son. Leaving Vader alive would result in a trial and execution anyway. Better he has a hero’s death.
Movie is at $1.066 billion now, it seems. When can we expect the total to plateau? Are we there yet, or does it make sense to wait a few more weeks just in case there’s one last spike?
It’s going to keep nudging up for several more months. Nothing can be final until then.
Several more months? The Blu-ray comes out in late March. I know the box office will keep changing for the next month, but I doubt many people are going to go see a movie that was released two months ago. I’m 90% sure the current box office numbers are very close to the final results.
If you look at other movies, they have box office numbers for months after the home video release. Some movies are still playing in second run theaters and people do go to them. Plus there are foreign markets. So until it is out of all theaters, you can’t really finalize the numbers.
So I’m in the process of putting together my own video regarding the editing of Star Wars. My belief is that none of the deleted scenes that have been released come from the Jympson cut. Most of the analysis on what the Jympson cut is tends to focus on how scenes are ordered, what scenes were deleted, and little trims that were made to existing scenes.
If you look at the raw footage of Yoda’s death scene in Return of the Jedi it’s 31 minutes of alternate angles of the same 5 minute scene. For example there are 6 alternate angles of Mark Hamill saying, “Master Yoda, is Darth Vader my father,” a wide shot, a side profile close up, a front facing profile, an over the shoulder onto Yoda, a reverse over the shoulder onto Mark Hamill, a close up of Yoda.
What this means is if you really wanted to you could cut a version of that line that used all 6 angles or just 5 or just 4 or just 2 or just 1. You could also reorder which of those angles you used where and for how long. Given that just that line lasts 5 seconds and the shortest amount of time you can hold a shot is 1/24th of a second, it means that there are over 42,000 ways you can cut just that line. Only a very small handful will be creatively effective from an audience standpoint.
What this means is that given that the second team started from scratch, building their version from the raw takes, the Jympson edit doesn’t so much contain different content. The content is more or less what was in the screenplay which dictated what the actors said and did. The difference is in the specific coverage used and the duration of each shot.
In other words it’s not possible to recreate the Jympson cut with anything close to reasonable precision, not without the raw footage itself and the Jympson cut to use as a guide which if you had it would negate needing the raw footage to begin with. But then having the raw footage would satisfy the nagging mystery that is at the heart of the interest in the lost cut.
The mystery evaporates once you understand the process of filmmaking. Jympson’s edit isn’t a different movie. It’s the same movie just cut differently. The issue is confused by the little trims that have come to light over the years (Han’s girlfriend, post TIE attack celebration, Tagge’s line about the Sith Lord). They cause fans to think that there’s an entirely different movie made up of entirely different conversations and stuff happening.
But it’s probably more in line with what this guy did with the raw takes of the Yoda death scene.
You yourself could also take that same Yoda footage and come up with your own variations. And that’s ultimately what The Lost Cut is. Some guy’s decisions that are different from the decisions made by a different person whose decisions then became the official version.
Except in some cases there isn’t the coverage. So the Jympson cut will be identical to the final cut, except longer (and as has been pointed out, in the final cut, quite a number of shots use every usable frame).
Movie is at $1.066 billion now, it seems. When can we expect the total to plateau? Are we there yet, or does it make sense to wait a few more weeks just in case there’s one last spike?
It’s going to keep nudging up for several more months. Nothing can be final until then.
videoFred’s film restoration avisynth script is what you want. I ran it in the Bigg’s scene and it did a great job of removing the scratches. It actually came out looking too waxy and clean compared to the rest of the film, but still way better than the original version.
Where do we find that script?
I hate to keep harping on this point, but I have studied a bit of Hollywood history and nearly every movie goes through rewrites.
But I never said “movies don’t go through rewrites.” I said “comparing the process on The Rise of Skywalker to the process on the original Star Wars is a bad comparison.” And then I tried to support that claim by pointing out just how differently not only the process was, but the end results of those processes were. That claim doesn’t rely on the idea that movies don’t get rewritten, or that things don’t change between drafts. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’m saying HOW it happened with THOSE TWO MOVIES is a bad comparison to make.
If you think anything any Star Wars movie has done script wise is unusual, you haven’t studied enough of the process.
This is also not true, sorry.
While you can say no two movies are exactly alike, you can also say that every movie goes through pretty much the same process. The variations are slight and it doesn’t matter if it takes months or years to go through the process. Some movies go through many different scripts by different writers and some movies go through many different scripts by one writer. And you can’t say which has had more changes because time and number of writers are not much of a factor.
But the process is the same whether you take years or months.
This isn’t true at all. The process isn’t the same from movie to movie often, much less across multiple decades in an industry that has changed a lot.
The process now is not the same as it was in the '70s. If Star Wars was made then the way ALL blockbusters are made now, we wouldn’t have gotten to draft 4, because when Ladd greenlit it, he’d have greenlit it with a release date locked and everything would have been set to that clock. Star Wars didn’t have a clock put on it until much, much later in the development process. The clock still almost drove Lucas insane, but he got a lot of time to develop that script that is damn near impossible to get now.
It’s a different machine creators are working in. Or rather, the engine and the gears move differently than they did when Lucas was around. Lucas is partially the reason that machine now operates the way it does, thanks to his efforts in the early 00s. Comparing the script development of Star Wars in 74 to Trevorrow’s efforts in 2017 is a comparison that isn’t worth much because not only are the creatives in question pretty wildly different, but the process is also pretty wildly different now, too.
I hate to keep harping on this point, but I have studied a bit of Hollywood history and nearly every movie goes through rewrites. The bigger they are the more often it happens. Gone With the Wind had many rewrites. The Lord of the Rings trilogy had many rewrites. 80 years pass and not much has changed. About the only thing that has is there are more edits during production now with reshoots going from a rare thing to commonplace, even normal. So that is just one more time that a movie can get edits. And I’m sure they edit the script to plan out their changes. It is the guide for how the movie is filmed and put together in the edit. So whether Lucas had 3 years from first draft to final edit and on TFA Abrams had 2 years and started with Lucas’s, the end result is the same. That applies to IX as well. It is clear from this early draft that Abrams did not just throw it out, but edited it to get to the story we have. The story beats are all pretty much the same, like Lucas’s early drafts and the final movie. Some things changed a lot and some carried through. If you study enough script development you’d know this is absolutely normal when creating a script. And even adaptions go through this to find the right way to turn novel to screen. LOTR went through a few shorter drafts before being expanded back out. If you think anything any Star Wars movie has done script wise is unusual, you haven’t studied enough of the process. Each one is absolutely normal, whether you look at the 1930’s, 1970’s, or today. It is just part of the creative process of writing and making a movie.
I think it is a fair comparison. Yes, Lucas had years. But the process is the same whether you take years or months. I mean, does it really take George R.R. Martin 10 years to write a novel? No. He does other things. Other writers have put out about a book a year. Books that are outstanding. So Lucas took 2 years to go from treatment to the revised draft 4 used to shoot the film. And when he was doing the movies, he always allowed a full year to develop the story. Does it really take that long? No. That was his method. But when you get in to the actual process of rewriting a movie, yes, such drastic changes are not unusual. They have even extended it into post production with reshoots and even late rewrites of the story. Rogue One had some major changes late in production and some major reshoots. The final movie is not the same as the shooting script. It is a gradual process of dialing in the story that is used on a lot of hollywood movies. And novel writers also do it. Sure you find a few writers who know what they want and their final draft is very close to their first, but other writers will shuffle scenes around, make major changes, and the journey from rough draft to final draft produces huge changes to the story. For one writer a 100,000 word novel might have included 120,000 written words (deletes and revisions), for another it might have included over 1,000,000 words written. And scripts more often than not tend to follow the later path and little from the first draft actually ends up in the final movie unchanged. And time is relative. It isn’t how fast they write it, it is how many drafts and how many changes are made. A good writer can churn out a 120 page script in a week and might do a couple of drafts in a month. Other writers might take a year to go through the same process.
