I don't know how much faith to put into Lucas's creative touch.
I had a friend who worked on the lighting rigs for Phantom, Sith & Clones when they were being filmed here in Sydney.
Suffice to say, he's worked on many films & travelled the world with many touring bands.
He said working with Lucas was probably the most boring experience he's ever had. Lucas chose the green screen approach because he was literally writing the movies as they were being filmed.
Lucas couldn't have elaborate props made because he didn't know where the story was going. Both actors & film crew were both bored & frustrated waiting on Lucas to write the next scene each day.
I never bought those stories that Lucas was making it up as he went along.
Regardless, if that really was the case, it's pretty bad that Lucas could make a far better story while making it up as he went along than Disney could with years of prep and a massive panel of "writers and creative input." That's just sad as hell.
I'd take winging Lucas any day of the week over Disney's bullshit. We bitched about the Prequels (not me) and drove him to the point of wanting to sell. Now look what happened.
It seems Disney is also making it up as they go along, one of the greatest flaws of the sequel trilogy (and this is coming from someone who likes them quite a bit) is that there was no overarching plan in place for where the trilogy was going, wanting to leave it mostly up to each individual director of each movie to decide and just kinda wing it as they went. They should have found a director/writer to helm the entire series so that the visions of each movie would at least be consistent, instead of the visions of the consecutive movies conflicting with each other as Ryan Johnson and JJ Abrams obviously had very different ideas of what they wanted to do.
Also, the sequel trilogy could have used a lot more world-building, a lot more. As bad and poorly paced/acted/scripted/planned/conceived as the PT is, they have some very solid world-building in place that makes the eventual payoff in Revenge of the Sith work well and makes it the saving grace of the PT, imo.
Instead of George Lucas, they have a story group - four people at Lucasfilm that includes Pablo Hildago and Kiri Hart - that is charting out all continuity past, present and future. So yes, I do think they have a plan about where they are going. Some people are just complaining because they can't see the plan right now. The Marvel movies, we've known for several years they were building to an adaption of The Infinity War storyline, so everyone knew what they were getting.
I was 11 years old in 1980, and The Empire Strikes Back was the beginning of lifelong fandom for me, even more than the first Star Wars was as I was just 8 at the time. The film is such a sacred cow now, it's hard to believe that there was controversy & mixed reactions that would mirror The Last Jedi 37 years later. There was no internet, so I wasn't aware of any fan outrage among the teens and 20 year old's over it's content; did they complain about spending their money on such a downer of a film that ends on a cliffhanger that wouldn't get resolved for years? Did they complain that George Lucas seemed to change his mind about where the story was going with the Darth Vader revelations? History tells us they did.
So maybe history will show us that The Last Jedi was the necessary medicine for all Star Wars fans to take, for the stories to proceed beyond the Skywalker family. And the complainers will be shown to be short sighted in their 'outrage'. Again.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
Not to mention it makes no sense. "Short sighted"? Bullshit. Maybe they are moving to some big plan and maybe they are moving past they Skywalker saga but in doing so they absolutely sabotaged Luke. That's unforgivable.
I liked The Last Jedi, but if I could put my finger on just one complaint, it's that it felt like it was just the other half of The Force Awakens, rather than a separate film. We shouldn't have to wait 2-3 years for a sequel that just picks up right where the last one just left us. There's a tradition in the Star Wars movies that they are separated by lots of time, from 6 months in one case to as much as 30 years in another. Seeing films made back to back and getting released in consecutive years (LOTR, The Hobbit, Marvel's Infinity War) we have an expectation it will pick up where the last film just left us. I want to see time changing things as we get set in for a new film. If Rian Johnson wanted to change the formula that much, that's what the anthology films are for, as they get to divert a bit from the formula. But he wanted to have that scene of Luke taking the lightsaber only to toss it over his shoulder and stalk off, subverting our expectations. He's from the Joss Whedon school of setting up tropes only to turn them on their heads. The movie was a little too dedicated to that, so when it happened again when Rey's parentage some fans felt cheated.
But then, I thought Darth Vader was lying to Luke back in 1980, so it can all get reversed again by the next movie.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
The DCEU at Warner Bros. and the Prometheus series at Fox, those are examples of studios heads and filmmakers who don't know what they are doing, with all the abrupt course corrections and conflicting agendas making the films haphazard and inconsistent.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
Iyo not mine. I’ve never loved Star Wars more. You cry about anything Disney releases to save yourself the trouble and just don’t see them. I doubt you pay anyways.
No, it isn’t. Luke Skywalker was handled fine imo it’s the fanboys who can’t deal with it. You ex-etched some else entirely but you do not write pen own Star Wars so be grateful it’s continuing at all. The entitlement of these crybaby fans is turning the actors, directors, and producers off. Warring against your own brand is just stupid. Be a man and accept that it doesn’t fit your own personal ideas of where it was going and let it go, manbabies.
Saying they lost half the audience is absurd. I’d ask for you to back this up with a source but we both know you just talk out of your ass and your feelings. You don’t like Star Wars don’t watch episode 9. Simple.
How dumb can you be asking me to back it up. The figures are there to see.
Stop being like Golgo putting all your hopes in the next film now. The next one might turn things around. Thats completely separate.
Solo did a change for the better by acknowledging the Prequels and Extended Canon in a big way. Hopefully they carry on with that. Will have to wait for the first trailer.
As of right now though, theyve been rapidly losing the audience, because the quality of the main Episodic films has been poor.
Solo failed which is an anthology film. Last Jedi made easily over a billion. Sure, a small loud and nerdy portion raged over it but the numbers don’t lie. Grossed the most out of the entire year you tied.
Solo crashed and burned. It was decent and the cameo was awesome but as a film extremely boring and not even close to the Last Jedi by any stretch of the imagination. Film was a bad idea as no one cares about Solo in his own adventures.
No, the episodic films have destroyed the anthology films. The numbers don’t lie, kid. Your little silly agenda of hating what others tell you to hate is sad on your end. Numbers support me not you, kiddo.
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Jun 24th, 2018 06:46 AM
