The Star Wars Rants:

[Veela Magnet]

Originally Posted by glunark

There was a lot of unessisary lightsaber twirling in all the PT films.

[William Chalker]

Originally Posted by SqueakyGibson

Technically he is the same man who made - and owns - the films. His social security number is the same, his name is the same.

But I would argue that the artist who is now adding things to Star Wars is a different man than the artist who made them. Everyone changes their artistic, philosophical and political outlook in life after several decades. A person in their 30s is very different to the same person in their 60s. Should an elderly artist make changes to the art they made as a young man, especially if they destroy the original version in the process?

The George Lucas who made Star Wars was a thin man with black hair and a black beard, in his 30s, married to a woman called Marcia, childless, financially secure but not excessively rich, with a young man's creative energy and passionate ideas about independent filmmaking. In 1988 a similar version of this man told Congress that original negatives should always be preserved, and that all generations of people should have access to the original versions of films.

Less than 10 years later, a man called George Lucas literally cut computer-generated footage into the original negative (thus destroying it) and denied access to the original versions of the films. This man was grey-haired, overweight, divorced, reclusive, devoted to raising his adopted children, worth over a billion dollars, and the head of a corporation.

I argue that they are different people, and thus he is vandalising the work of a different filmmaker.

In your Joss Whedon example, it would be more like if Joss Whedon grew older by 30 years, decided that he currently hates vampire romance, and so digitally replaces Angel with Riley throughout seasons 1 - 3.

I think The Beard would be the first to admit that he has become the very thing he sought to bring down. In the 70's he was a maveric with creative energy and concepts and most importantly of all - A story (as oppossed to a moment in PTs).
He very much wanted the freedom to retain control of his film, and not work with some producer that would have little idea about his vision (or in some cases, films - "This deal's getting worse all the time").

It worked, he did. However, now he is that producer with the money. A classic Animal Farm situation. He turned to the Dark Side so that we could have at least some enjoyment - even now - in the original trilogy.

I don't understand him now, but I admire the 1970's George - a man that knew how to tell a story with little resources and a few skilled collaborators.

[The Red Avenger]

There's also a small factor that he never directed Empire or Jedi. And thats important. You can tinker all you like but knowing where to put the actors, the camera, the lighting, getting the actors to deliver the lines in a certain wY, k owing when to say cut and approving each cut and then picking out which cuts you want - Well George wasn't involved in that. That was up to the Director and the Crew.

The reason that Star Wars is lightning in a bottle and that he got lucky with it is only offset by the magnificence of Empire and very good Jedi - then as he went back to directing duties for the prequels - he just doesn't come up to scratch.

[TALON]

^^

Totally agree with what he's just said.

[glunark]

Originally Posted by Veela Magnet

Exactly!

Remember the fight in ESB where Vader and Luke where just trying to hit each other?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The opposite philosophy to Lucas.

[Tiny]

Well, if George wants to do this then Star Wars on Blu Ray becomes a bargain bin buy, and instead, I'll take a look at some fan edits... thanks a bunch George.

[DaveC]

Though I do have to say that this morning I put in Episode 3 and that opening shot has never looked or sounded better on my Home Cinema system

[William Chalker]

Originally Posted by The Red Avenger

There's also a small factor that he never directed Empire or Jedi. And thats important. You can tinker all you like but knowing where to put the actors, the camera, the lighting, getting the actors to deliver the lines in a certain wY, k owing when to say cut and approving each cut and then picking out which cuts you want - Well George wasn't involved in that. That was up to the Director and the Crew.

The reason that Star Wars is lightning in a bottle and that he got lucky with it is only offset by the magnificence of Empire and very good Jedi - then as he went back to directing duties for the prequels - he just doesn't come up to scratch.

I agree, though there is a line of thinking that he barely directed the prequels. In my view: CGI used for everything and dull talky sitting down or standing up scenes, hardly counts as directing in the same way as ESB, ROTJ or ANH. Did Beard set out to ruin every SW fan's childhood with the prequels? No, (amongst other things) he was just lazy in his ambition to make it real by exchanging flesh (and rubber) for pixels (and pixels).

[Perdide]

Originally Posted by William Chalker

I agree, though there is a line of thinking that he barely directed the prequels. In my view: CGI used for everything and dull talky sitting down or standing up scenes, hardly counts as directing in the same way as ESB, ROTJ or ANH. Did Beard set out to ruin every SW fan's childhood with the prequels? No, (amongst other things) he was just lazy in his ambition to make it real by exchanging flesh (and rubber) for pixels (and pixels).

I sort of agree with the "hardly directed" bit for the prequels. The impression I've had from watching the extras on the DVDs is that half the staff seemed sh*t scared of him and just decended into 'yes men' and the rest of the time he just turned up, passed judgement on a creature design/edit and mooched off again.

Theres a chap on YouTube under the name of Redlettermedia who does reviews (well, half critique half odd drama) that pretty much points out the flaws in the prequels. Sorry if he's been mentioned before I've come pretty late to this thread.

[Basileus]

Seeing the TV adverts for the Blu-rays I realised something about the Prequal, and possibly even about a lot of the new footage added to the existing trilogy

Star Wars is now designed for trailers.

You can take out a series of shots of average trailer splice length, splice them together in any order and they will make a very very good trailer when added to that music.


The problem comes when you get all those trailer spices together and try to make a coherent logical movie(s).