October 05, 2006

• I think if they spent less money on huge stars and special effects and more on the stories they might find turning a profit more easy.
• That sound you hear? A collective sigh of relief from people who like good movies.
• Lucas is a hack, a one-trick pony, a washed-up has been. My dead grandmother makes better movies than him.
• You got any YouTube links to back that up Mord? (~_^)
• 3 hours of overexposed film with no soundtrack STILL beats Star Wars Ep. 2.
• OK - I can't disagree with that.
• I think he means that with Moore's Law and all, he'll be able to do away with actors alltogether and do the whole thing on his laptop.
• You could, but I'd laugh at you for trying. In all seriousness, I do think Lucas is pretty much done and his leaving movies won't really affect me since I haven't gone to see anything he made after the aforemention Ep.2. The man has lost the gift.
• One of my wife's friends nicknamed him "Flucas", because he only directed the first Star Wars movie. And it was a fluke. Get it? HAHAHAHAHAHA jesus I hate that douchebag. And Lucas.
• Yeah, sure, 'no more films'. You can be sure he'll re-do the SW saga when IMAX-quality 3D projection is the standard. Them, again, when synthetic actors are undistinguishable from human ones (with famous dead ones in those roles, of course). Then, when holographic, surround video arrives... ad infinitum.
• "I think people are going to be drawn to a certain medium in their leisure time and they're going to do it because there is a desire to do it at that particular moment in time." Wow, that's er... pretty darn insightful there, George.
• Is that anything like impulse shopping? Ooh! I need tweezers. And playing cards. And these pipe cleaners look useful.
• Norma Desmond: I *am* big. It's the *pictures* that got small. Norma Desmond: They took the idols and smashed them, the Fairbankses, the Gilberts, the Valentinos! And who've we got now? Some nobodies! George Lucas: I think the secret to the future is quantity. Crapfilter!
• Jesus. Such harshness toward Lucas. Very odd. Anyone would think that he had personally killed members of your families or something. These are just movies, people. I personally enjoyed the prequels. I think if people were expecting them to be the greatest things evar, they were at fault for not getting that. It's not like ANH (Star Wars, 1977, folks) was a really amazing piece of writing. The dialogue was awful, the plot had huge holes.. Lucas has given us modern movies. Without him, we wouldn't have had most of the pictures we enjoyed over the last 30 years, because in the '70s when cinema in the US was dying, he revitalised it, pretty much single handed. Most of his innovations were technical, true. He is also, despite what anyone says, an extraordinary cinematographer, with a great eye for composition, perhaps better than I've seen in any contemporary. I particularly single out EP2 for this, some of the shots in the Clone battle sequence at the end were extraordinary. His dialogue sucks, but that is par for the course in a movie largely based on Flash Gordon & Golden Age sci fi. Whatever you say, the Prequels were still better than 90% of the other dreck we've been conned into seeing. Lucas has a track record of being well ahead of the curve & predicting the future of filmmaking, so if he says something, I tend to take it seriously, as do most pros in the movie biz. He also came up with the idea for Indiana Jones. Don't knock it.
• George Lucas killed my puppy.
• Lucas also let his ego - et.al - get in the way of actually allowing better movies to be made. It's gotta be quantity, 'cause quality doesn't seem to be an option for him.
• Like he couldn't make 50 small ones and put them into theaters anyway. I think he realizes that he's lost his cinematic touch. If you pretended that the original Star Wars trilogy didn't exist, and lowered the FX budget considerably, the prequel trilogy would have been a major TV "event" and probably would've been more highly reviewed. The bar's lower for TV, and George can't jump no more.
• I gotta agree with Gomichild on the need for better stories. It seems all we get these days are bad sequels and unnecessary do-overs.
• Such harshness? The man is a public figure with an enorous ego and no directorial skill. He can take it.
• Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard and Lester Dent came up with the idea for Indiana Jones. Lucas was just the latest to capitalize on it.
• I would like him to bring back the video game department to what it once was. Hello, Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle, X-Wing! All solid games.
• If, like me, you were ten when Star Wars came out, you probably barely noticed its embarassing dialogue, instead falling in love with Funny Beeping Robot Sidekick, Funny Gay Robot Sidekick, and the big dog with the 'laser crossbow'. And if your mom, like mine, was in her 40s at the time, she probably thought the Original Trilogy was pretty dumb and couldn't see what all the fuss was about; but she figured it was a movie for kids, and she had the grace to keep quiet about it, because you were enjoying it so much.
• because in the '70s when cinema in the US was dying, he revitalised it, pretty much single handed Francis Ford Coppola. Steven Spielberg. Alan Pakula. John Milius. William Friedkin. Martin Scorsese. Woody Allen. Robert Altman. Paul Schrader. Brian De Palma. Booby prize — Michael Cimino.
• Lucas killed new Hollywood.
• By which I mean, studio backed yet worthwhile, movies.
• Wolof, you forgot Polandski!
• Brian De Palma? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.
• Wolof, none of those directors released a movie that made as much as Star Wars, nor boosted the industry to an extent that theatres were redesigned, new audio systems installed, or spawned the era of the multiplex. Neither did any of their movies create a whole new genre of super-special fx laden blockbusters that fed a whole new bunch of people in movies, not even Spielberg. Everything was in the wake of Lucas. None of them created ILM. None of them created THX sound.
• And arguably opened the door to an era of bloated effects-driven rubbish that plagues us yet. Also, Tom Holman created THX sound.
• But aside from the financial aspect, any advances spearheaded by Lucas have been technical, not artistic. A polished turd is still a turd, no? The advent of the blockbuster was the beginning of the end for creative american cinema. The bottom line has essentially ghettoized risky, interesting film and neutered the few genuinely talented directors, pigeonholing them into makers of 'Prestige' products. On preview, I guess Nickdanger's link covers most of what I said.
• Wow, the wiki entry even uses the same 'beginning of the end' cliche. Too much Behind The Music, I think. And curse you too, Wolof!
• "Also, Tom Holman created THX sound." Also, I want a pony. No doubt, my man, & you may well add that Lucas didn't do all the model work for the Star Wars movies either, but they guys who did were working for him; the Dykstraflex was developed on his dime, among other things. If Tomlinson Holman had created the system while working for any other company than Lucasfilm, it wouldn't have found its way into theatres, because there would have been no motivation for it. Lucas insisted it accompanied Return of the Jedi, as a theatre certification standard. Now, for sure, there are a lot of bloated monstrosities produced by Hollywood, but Lucas is not Hollywood & never was, in fact he told the Director's Guild to go fuck themselves. One can opine that there are a lot of bloated movies to come out after SW influenced by its business model, but on the other hand, there are a lot of beloved ones, too. As far as it being the end of creative American cinema, that's a pile of horseshit. If anything, Lucas influenced a whole bunch of new filmmakers to go out & be creative with movies. The technologies that he oversaw have increased creative opportunities for filmmakers. 'New Hollywood' was ego, pseudo-art garbage for the most part, & ultimately it failed on its own merits. It didn't need Lucas to bury it. Lucas has ensured that people get employed. New Hollywood ensured that people got canned.
• I'd trade all the THX in the world for some decent scripts.
• I'll trade your Lucas' technical innovation for another Kurosawa any day.
• Also, what Stan the Bat said.
• I will trade the prequels for a punch in the cock any day.
• Oh please, I will take 1965 era TV budgeted special effects over today's computer graphics any time. And I will take 1940s-60s animation over today's animation any time. Because all of the best movies had decent scripts.
• Monkeyfilter: there are a lot of bloated monstrosities
• Well, that's obviously a sweeping generalisation. All the best movies in what genre? What is the criteria for a decent script? Star Wars isn't (& never was) Shakespeare or Joyce in terms of story. I mean, god, the first one wasn't all that. It's kids' stuff. As a writer, (an amateur & probably not a good one, sure), I didn't think the prequels were all that bad, story wise. I thought they were badly cast. Jar Jar was badly animated. But the stories hold up. Internally consistent. There are weaknesses viz Anakin's character in the first one & the reasons for him having to be so young, but apart from that I thought the somewhat prosaic political business with the trade embargoes & whatnot was nicely different from the usual fare - obviously a lot of people thought it was shit, but there you are. Darth Maul was underused & could perhaps have been a character used to enforce how the Naboo were being killed off in camps & brutalised, but apart from that, really, the story itself isn't much different from the seeds that influenced it in Hidden Fortress - the princess being ferried across enemy territory by Samurai, disguised as a handmaiden. That part of the story was actually in the first treatments Lucas wrote in about 1973, so saying that he has 'lost it' whatever 'it' is, doesn't make much sense, in that he is sticking to the original concept. Arguments about the scripts are subjective. Certainly the dialogue is naff. No arguments there. But in terms of what we are actually seeing - a campy space opera - I don't think anything is too out of place. The *real* reason people are pissed off with Lucas over the Prequels is that they were all kids when they saw the first ones & expected to be blown away by the new ones, which they weren't because you're cynical & old now. That's not really Lucas' fault.
• They, I mean. Hehe.
• Lucas has given us modern movies. Without him, we wouldn't have had most of the pictures we enjoyed over the last 30 years, because in the '70s when cinema in the US was dying, he revitalised it, pretty much single handed. The industry history I've read has it that Spielberg's JAWS was the 9/11 of 1970s film (in that it changed everything). It was the first blockbuster, and everything/everyone following it -- from Simpson and Bruckheimer high-concept, high-budget pix to Tarantino and the other indies -- either tried to replicate it or was in some way a reaction to it.
• Also, Wolof, thanks for the shout-out to Pakula. The unsung genius of the era, IMHO. btw Did you hear about the fucked-up way he died?
• disguised as a handmaiden. Yeah, Keira Knightley was underused too. Stupid Lucas. What a hack.
• /slap
• the fucked-up way he died Yeah, which is exactly the way a guy in an early Paul Verhoeven film (can't remember, one of his Dutch one) gets it —— a pipe through the head.
• On the Long Island Expressway. Same place Harry Chapin died. They both have a "p" and an "a" in their last name. Coincidence?
• As much as I could easily jump in on the Lucas hatefest for... fuck, I have to now. I can't not say this. Look, the prequels were terrible. Slick, pretty to look at, lots of explody things, but the plot/dialog/editing sucked more dead corpse than the Sarlacc pit. Sure part of it is inflated expectations colliding violently with adult cynasism. Sure, the original sequel movies weren't exactly fine art, either. But at least they're watchable. The dialog and plot devices in the prequels is so bad I actually got up and left the theater in Episode One. I've never, ever walked out of a movie before or since. I didn't even walk out on Howard the fucking Duck. I left at the point where the entire protaganist segment of the cast flies up in the air on synchronized powered grappling hooks, with altered-speed film no less. Really, I should have left long before that scene, and I was really trying to hold out, but I just couldn't take it anymore. The pain was excruciating, and I love pain. For Episode 3 I tragically broke my life-and-death rule of keeping my smart-ass comments to myself when in a public theater. It was during the truly, painfully, lifelessly unconvincing Frankenstein scene where the "new" Darth Vader comes back to life. I couldn't help myself. "FIRE BAAAAAAAD! FIRE! BAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!" Thankfully a few people got it and laughed, I did not get lynched, and I left the theater just about as disappointed as I thought I was going to be. Hell, the recent War of the Worlds remake was vastly better than any of the prequels. And that has Tom Cruise in it. Anyway. Lucas did say something succinct and true: "For that same $200 million, I can make 50-60 two-hour movies. That's 120 hours as opposed to two hours. In the future market, that's where it's going to land, because it's going to be all pay-per-view and downloadable. The key point here isn't the money/hours produced ratios, and it doesn't have anything to do with money. It's about the astute (and relatively easy) assumption that video is going to soon be as pervasive and portable as the Walkman was in the early 80s. And he's right. As someone who loathes TV on principle, it pains me to say it, but he's right. I can easily imagine myself nestling up in a comfy chair or in bed with a decent little portable video player and watching, say, the new SciFi Channel Battlestar Galactica series much the same way I would cozy up with a good SF novel. There's something very satisfying and comforting about taking a nice escapist story (or even a deep-thinking one) and cocooning away from it all for a bit to enjoy it. Alone. Not in a theater, not in front of some huge home-theater TV and surround sound system with the SO or a party of friends, not down at the bar on the old Zenith hanging up on the wall. Somewhere nice and cozy, personable and personal. Now, if I find this attractive - me who loathes TV and has never, ever owned one - I'm going to hazard the guess that the TV loving population at large is absolutely ripe for such a thing. They're already stuffing TV screens in anything that'll hold still long enough. Cars, cellphones, computers, check out lines at grocery stores, fast food counters, gas pumps, libraries... Sheesh, I even heard about this insane "picture in picture" thing they have now. It's TV on your other TV!!! So, yeah, he's probably right, and probably making a smart business move.
• He speaks with the wisdom of the Jedi. Except for the part where he uses words that don't sound stupid.
• Who's Jim Lucas?
• Lucas IS done, but this isn't news. He said this when I saw him at Star Wars Celebration III, in Indianapolis, in 2005. Surprised it's just now hitting the press.
• Although perhaps I shouldn't be, I'm pretty shocked at how the haters came out swinging on this thread. Yeah he pissed me off too - it's not just that I loved it as a kid and my cynical adult self didn't let him succeed - the prequel movies genuinely were boring and stupid for all the reasons we've already mentioned & such. (Casting that "Cousin Oliver" kid as a supposedly 14-year-old Annakin was the biggest fuckup since . . well, since Jar-Jar. Dammit.) But his visionary statement Re: downloadable movies seems too premature. I think he's talking more like 20 years down the road. Abandoning the big budget film is his right and frankly we're all a bit relieved but that's what a "movie" is. Television and downloadable iPod movies are small. They're not events. Nor will they be, ever, no matter how compelling the story. Lucas' genius was technical and visual but it was (or is, whatever) genius. His announcement that he's exiting the Big Picutre genre for small tells me (a) No more chance of a big exciting movie and (b) Visionary gets it wrong about technology and media again. It's not like ANH (Star Wars, 1977, folks) was a really amazing piece of writing. The dialogue was awful, the plot had huge holes.. Shut up! You shut up! *snif* . . It wasn't awful! It was cool! *snif* /bends_Wookie
• Cartoon network had these anime shorts that fell between ep 2 and 3. They were awesome, and I would gladly trade most feature films for another series of those.
• MonkeyFilter, ">The Clone Wars were indeed glorious, and far outshone anything in Episodes I, II, or III. Not that it's much of a contest.
• What the..? I linked to Clone Wars off the main SW site, and nothing showed up! Eeeeeviiiiiiil..!
• “The *real* reason people are pissed off with Lucas over the Prequels is that they were all kids when they saw the first ones & expected to be blown away by the new ones, which they weren't because you're cynical & old now.” Gotta disagree with you there. I think Lucas tossed the Campbell playbook for the prequels. Or rather, drained it of color and took it literally. Yes, the original series wasn’t technically well done in terms of writing, plot, etc. Yes, it was kinda shakey in parts, yes, it was flawed. But it felt like something deep and profound was going on. That wonderment and connection to deep mythos transcends childhood. I’ve watched the originals more than a few times - they hold up. There was this deep backstory and a sense of “something is going on” as opposed to “these events are occuring.” Fostering that sense is similar to doing horror or comedy. One can be techically flawless and still fail. The Exorcist is one of the scariest damn movies I’ve seen. (The Shining as well). They had no where near the special effects level or kind of money to draw on that many modern horror films have. I guess where the prequels fail is in that kind of mood. Now certainly he set himself up to fail. We have this magnificent backstory that we’re expecting to see and we don’t get it. But - I could have forgiven Lucas if he’d even attempted to establish the mood. Reminds me of the Blues Brothers where they were going to attempt to explain how the car can do all these incredible flips and such by showing that it had been absorbing power under an El station for years. Well one - that’s stupid. And two - who really cares? There was a mood of wackyness that fit well with the sense of disbelief that had been established already - that sort of deadpan reaction to amazing and extreme things going on. To their credit they decided not to do that. To some extent - yes midichlorians and mysticism (didn’t Yoda say the force between me and you and the rock? Rocks have midichlorians?). But it could have worked. In the same way - the Bluesmobile/El station explaination could have worked if it had remained in synch with the whole feel of the movie. And that’s a great example - Blues Bros 2000 - wtf was that? Same thing. There’s a feel and a mood that can be recaptured but very often isn’t. That magic is tough to do. But I do agree that Lucas is very talented and is quite capable of pulling that off. I just think - in terms of the prequels - he didn’t. It’d be like watching the ‘85 bears lose the superbowl or watching Joe Montana blow passes and get intercepted all year. You know all the tools are there, so you have to ask: what happened?
• Lucas tossed the Campbell playbook for the prequels. Good point. Trade embargo? Bleah.
• Frak Party!
• The three new ones were just badly written - the overall story arc, or whatever you would like to call it, was fine in theory, but killed in execution. It is basically The Godfather story, with Anakin as Michael, all about his descent from a good, moral and idealistic young man into an empty and basically evil monster. The difference is in the quality of the script and the acting. And it is quite some difference. Hayden Christianssen is certainly no Al Pacino, thats for sure
• Al Pacino is no Al Pacino. Am I the only one who thinks Pacino isn't all that great? Whenever he comes to a difficult passage to act ALL HE DOES IS GET LOUDER. VOLUME doesn't pass for QUALITY ACTING. LESS IS MORE, PALLIE.
• Say hello to my little frien'!
• He may be right about the industry. Micropayments, entertainment on demand, bite size movies in peoples homes. And because of his scads and scads of money, he'll be a part of it. I still don't think him moving from one media to another is going to make him a good director/producer/writer, or that hes going to produce anything I want to see. If he pays someone else to make something good, thats great, and he'll stick his name on it and get more money, if his name isn't yet a liability. But if things are moving that way, Lucas is just there at the right time, with the resources to get in on the ground floor. If Starwars wasn't the first technical pulp-action-sci-fi movie, then maybe Aliens or the Terminator would have been, and everyone would be talking about Cameron shaking up the industry now.
• Mr. Lucas?
• He just said what we all know already - he is not into movies. He killed the mythos that was created in the original flaky SW1. As Smedleyman says, he, unable to cope with an universe that had gone beyond his control, took all the magic, the unexplainable, and made into a nice prepackaged mcdonalds, easy to sell but utter crap. And it will pickle your liver.
• >>The three new ones were just badly written - the overall story arc, or whatever you would like to call it, was fine in theory, but killed in execution. Respectfully disagree. The whole idea of the prequels was 'let's show how Darth Vader was really just a poor orphan who didn't get enough hugs'. No screenplay of any quality could have saved that idea. Nobody wanted to see a maskless, sympathetic Darth Vader. A good villain is the heart and soul of heroic adventure; the Original Trilogy had one of the great movie villains of all time, and they pointlessly dismantled him.
• Nobody wanted to see a maskless, sympathetic Darth Vader. Much less an annoying, whiney one.
• Star Wars has turned to shit, but Battlestar Galactica just keeps getting better and better. Now that's good writing.
• Anyway it all died for me as soon as the Ewoks appeared....
• But they're so tasty...
• What Chy said. Nostalgia has made a ton of people expect good movies from sequels of kid's movies. I can't understand what people expected from those movies. (and despite what everyone says, "Attack of the Clones" is a great title for a movie.)
• Star Wars has turned to shit, but Battlestar Galactica just keeps getting better and better. Now that's good writing. TV is where the action is these days. There've been plenty of single episodes of drama on say, HBO, that have whupped 99% of the movies coming out of Hollywood in the past three or four years.
• Don't get your hopes up too high about Battlestar Galactica. Plenty of people were saying the same things about Farscape and Firefly.
• I'm not overall thrilled with the new Galactica. Stunning lack of creativity there. I watch it mainly for the awesome performances of a few of the cast.
• I wasn't thrilled with BG at first. I liked some of the reimaginings, like the new cylons, but all the talk of the legends of Earth and old Greek gods just seemed silly, so I stopped watching it. Then I kept hearing how great it was and checked out the reruns, and I've been pleasantly surprised ever since. We'll see if they can keep it up.
• The *real* reason people are pissed off with Lucas over the Prequels is that they were all kids when they saw the first ones & expected to be blown away by the new ones, which they weren't because you're cynical & old now. Keep in mind, though, that many of the people who were blown away by SW and ESB when they were kids were also very dissapointed in ROTJ when they were still kids. They learned their lesson back then, but no one was prepared for Jar Jar & Company. OTOH, many people who hated TPM and AOTC did enjoy ROTS, which was a big improvement over the previous two.
• EVeryone was annoyed by the way Jar Jar talked, but I thought the way Obiwon talked was way more annoying.
• My two favourite Star Wars episodes were OTOH and ROFL.
• No doubt, my man, & you may well add that Lucas didn't do all the model work for the Star Wars movies either I think we both know this is a reach. You may as well go with "Bill Gates created DOS". It's the same argument.
• Bandit uses The Force - on till
• Imagine the disappointment on my face when I realized it wasn't glacial till.
• I think Penny Arcade had it nailed in '04.
• BTW, the things Lucas pulled from Dune are still asploding my head. mostly cause I just finished reading Dune for the first time. As I mentioned in the SW v. Dune thread. But if we're talking about good writing and SW . . .
• I can’t watch Battlestar Galactica. I always think “Stop the humanoid - Stop the intruder!”
• Hm. Which came first?
• BerserkstarGalaga
• Chad Vader: Episode 4 (official version)
• Now that's some good movie makin'.
• This wasn't bad.
• Lucas, by the way, says he is readying "Clone Wars," an animated series for TV that's derived from "Star Wars." Many "Star Wars" characters appear in "Clone Wars," but voiced by other actors. And here's a little news: Lucas tells me he will make two more live-action films based in the "Star Wars" era. "But they won't have members of the Skywalker family as characters," he said. "They will be other people of that milieu." The two extra films will also be made for TV and probably be an hour long each. But, like "Clone Wars," Lucas doesn't know where on TV they will land. Hello, HBO and Showtime. It may be time to pony up.
• Check out the first new pictures of Mr. Indiana Jones at this site. Damn but that man is aging well!
• I think it's the hat.
• Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Does George even care anymore?
• Yeah. Too many, like, words and stuff. 'and the Crystal Skull' would have done it. I'm still going to see it though. Da da da daaaaa, da da daaaaaaaaaa! *cracks imaginary whip*
• I'M SO CONFLICTED
• Yeah, the title's a bit Harryish-Potterish. But, what kit said.
• Prediction: McDonalds Happy Meals will be served in a crystal skull.
• That would actually get me to walk through the Golden Arches for the first time in years. Hopefully Burger King will get the deal. nom nom nom nommmmmmm, nom nom nommmmmmm!
• I once saw a movie starring King Dom and Crystal Skull. It too featured whips.
• Carpet City World of Leather Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Hall of the Mountain Grill
• Pantry of the Malicious Squirrel Ooh, this is fun.
• Filter of the Banal
• I once saw a movie starring King Dom and Crystal Skull. It too featured whips. Yeah, I remember that one.
• Holy jeez oh shit!
• Well, if you like that one, I heard there's a prequel. And another.
• Neither Biblical archaeology nor Nazis? Wow, Indy's getting soft. Let me guess, as far as political intrigue goes he'll be fighting anachronistic Zapatista "terrorists" in the highlands of Chiapas. That seems on par with the latest Lucas offerings. Mel Gibson is directing, right? It wouldn't shock me, I'm a scientist. Anyway: Indiana Jones and the Sears of the Lost Kid
• Some spoilers. Maybe.
• Methinks the Dancing Russian is gonna get his ass sued.
• I CAN HAS KRISTEL SKUL TRAILR?
• From the original FPP: "We don't want to make movies. We're about to get into television. As far as Lucasfilm is concerned, we've moved away from the feature film thing because it's too expensive and it's too risky." From today's article: "The movie came about as an afterthought while Lucas was developing an animated TV show . . . 'You've got the whole assembly line built, and then you say, "Hey, we can make up something"'" Teh Bl00 Pontificates on Lucas' Latest
• "A poorly rendered 3D model has more acting range than Hayden Christensen." Hehe, it's funny 'cause it's true.