Sfdebris.net

Just responding to a few points as I watch this.

As far as the Special Edition trilogy, honestly I see as much or more hate for them as for the prequels because of many of the nonsense changes that were made. Stuff like Greedo shooting first (or at all), the overbusy street scenes in the Los Eisly, actually showing Vadar's shuttle trip in the second movie and adding dialog that spoils the mood that had been set, or one of the last thngs done, which was to make Vadar yell "Noooooo!" in Return of the Jedi as he throws the emperor over the failing.

This actually ties into another point, which is about Lucas back then and Lucas now, which is that back then, we have him speaking about how one shouldn't go back and change movies in this way, yet now, he refuses to re-release the original films as they were, even for the Library of Congress which asked for a newer copy to replace the original version they had. He tried to give them the "Special Edition" version, which naturally they refused, because that wasn't the version they'd added as being culturally significant. No matter how you slice it, Lucas is a hypocrite there, because either he went back on that view, or he made an exception because it was for his films, since before he'd been speaking about other people's films being altered.

I've also never understood the argument that the prequels turned out the way they did because they were supposed to be for children, because the space politics would probably have been incredibly boring for them. Then later on, you have some rather horrifying imagery with Anakin being burned alive by lava.

Admiral X wrote: No matter how you slice it, Lucas is a hypocrite there, because either he went back on that view, or he made an exception because it was for his films, since before he'd been speaking about other people's films being altered.

No it's not hypocritical, he was talking about executives and such who were completely unconnected to the creation of a film changing it. If Spielberg wants to alter Close Encounters that's fine, if Billy Joe Bob McRandom wants to alter Close Encounters, that's bad.

AND UNALTERED VERSIONS WERE RELEASED ON DVD IN 2006

Yeah, as special features on a release of the Special Edition. I own them. They are have not been remastered at all. I'm also trying to remember if they were even widescreen or not, or if they were pan and scan like the VHS releases, and it's been long enough since I watched them that I can't even remember. Seems to me they were pan and scan, as the "Harmy Un-Special Edition" that fans made more recently actually used the laserdisc release in an attempt to create a remastered HD version that would look good on modern TVs.

I made a mention on twitter once that I believed that George Lucas got exactly what he wanted out of the prequel trilogy. The thing a lot of people miss even though it's plain and simple: Star Wars is George Lucas trying to recapture those old sci-fi serials. Points:

1: The vast majority of those old serials have really, really terrible writing.
2: Lucas never really seems to care all that much about the writing, because if he did he would have realized he wasn't the man for the job no matter who says "it's your story so you should write it".

It is my belief that horribly-written cheesy action garbage is almost entirely all that Lucas wanted out of his "fun" films. In some ways, terrible dialogue isn't even an issue! It's part of the charm! But he has a hard time explaining that because that's one of the things people just plain don't agree with him on.

The more I learn about how Lucas "fixes" certain problems in his scripts, the more I have to wince; he often goes for the clumsiest solution first. Episode One in general was a way to "fix" the introductions by going way back farther than you need to so you can explain the things from the beginning (instead of from the point when they're actually relevant) which any writer of any experience will tell you that is a formula for creating so, so much padding. Which Episode 1 largely is.

But it's not a problem to Lucas so long as it feels like it's supposed to feel. (hence why the special editions kept getting worse and worse--the "feel" is far closer to cheesy and dumb than Lucas will admit)

The quote that really gets me is at the very end regarding time. Like "What was George supposed to do? Stop time itself?" No. What he was supposed to do was anticipate the passage of time (moving at the exact same rate it always moves) BEFORE he ran out of it. Maybe if he'd brought that other writer into the room and sat down together. Or maybe if he had just set himself an earlier deadline and actually stuck to it. The fact that he got it in by his ACTUAL deadline suggests that he could've done that. But he didn't. It's like waiting until the night before your mid-term to start studying... and then blaming your bad grade on the small number of hours in a single night.

zardox78 wrote:The quote that really gets me is at the very end regarding time. Like "What was George supposed to do? Stop time itself?" No. What he was supposed to do was anticipate the passage of time (moving at the exact same rate it always moves) BEFORE he ran out of it. Maybe if he'd brought that other writer into the room and sat down together. Or maybe if he had just set himself an earlier deadline and actually stuck to it. The fact that he got it in by his ACTUAL deadline suggests that he could've done that. But he didn't. It's like waiting until the night before your mid-term to start studying... and then blaming your bad grade on the small number of hours in a single night.

In terms writing the original script before production began, sure. But once production began, he still has to pay all his employees regardless, they can't work on anything else if they're committed to Star Wars, and he's got to make sure all the actors are available for the shoots. Otherwise, he's probably losing a few million for each day of delay, and once he loses an actor due to commitments elsewhere, then there's a whole death spiral as they scramble to find replacements, or others drop out as the schedule lags. Once production began on E1, he was committed due to the scale of the operations.

zardox78 wrote:The quote that really gets me is at the very end regarding time. Like "What was George supposed to do? Stop time itself?" No. What he was supposed to do was anticipate the passage of time (moving at the exact same rate it always moves) BEFORE he ran out of it. Maybe if he'd brought that other writer into the room and sat down together. Or maybe if he had just set himself an earlier deadline and actually stuck to it. The fact that he got it in by his ACTUAL deadline suggests that he could've done that. But he didn't. It's like waiting until the night before your mid-term to start studying... and then blaming your bad grade on the small number of hours in a single night.

I feel the need to address this. The point of that was not to make excuses, as is implied by the words in quotation marks. This series has been about presenting, what I feel, is a fully-rounded image of these events in general and Lucas in particular. Pointing out the double-edged sword of being an independent film-making company means acknowledging all the truths that exist, not to justify, just to acknowledge them.

This part specifically was to look, from as many sides as possible, the issue of Lucas in the prequel age, because it is a huge and complex issue (hence why I can almost seem to directly contradict myself). None of it is meant to excuse, only to put all the cards on the table and see what can be gleaned from them, to divorce decades of arguments and biases from a more objective look, for good and for ill, and to challenge the conventional wisdom with examination in light of his life's work.

As I hope the Shadow's Journey already established, the goal of this series is not to praise him. But it's also not to damn him. It's to explain, not excuse.

SFDebris wrote:As I hope the Shadow's Journey already established, the goal of this series is not to praise him. But it's also not to damn him. It's to explain, not excuse.

And it does so magnificently, imo. It's hard to see all the interconnections you point out, if one only looks at the final result, as pretty much all of us do. It gives an insight on things and Lucas himself, that both praises and damns him.

Well, it's nice to have gotten your attention after hearing so many hours of reviews. (More Farscape and BSG, please!) Mostly what I gleaned from Shadow's Journey was that all of George's issues (between the Empire and Jedi period) stemmed from a stubborn attachment to the most innocuous piece of minutia imaginable. The absolute refusal to change even a single beat of the opening sequence to include an Irvin Kershner credit. Seriously, he could've put it up on the same screen as "A Lucasfilm Lmt. Production". Under those words could've been the words "of an Irvin Kershner film" and poof. Most of his problems over the next few years would've just gone away. If he had just been a little bit flexible on that one tiny little thing (that 95% of people wouldn't have noticed and the other 5% wouldn't have cared about), we could've had a Return of the Jedi directed by Steven Effing Spielberg(!)... and his wife might not have run off with the hired help. The underlying lesson seems to be: don't sweat the small stuff.

I thought the failure of the prequel trilogy had more to do with the loss of master editor Marcia Lucas than the personal changes in George himself.

Though I do think that George himself had at least one change of heart that ruined his potential vision: he spent far too much film time on special effects, and at least on the record, young George disagreed with that philosophy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykmZp5cgbkU

Edit: OK, I see that George's help on the original trilogy was addressed. I stand by my comment about George changing his philosophy about spending too much screen time on special effects, though. Unless that old interview was George bullshitting about a ideas he didn't really believe.