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Episode II In Trouble?
abde writes: "A story on AICN reports about an Episode 2 rough cut recently screened at ILM. Quotes producer Rick McCallum as saying, 'At times, you have to face the truth of what you didn't get and what you hoped for.' Rumors from inside sources say that Lucas is 'stressing' about reworking the film ... personally, I think it indicates awareness at ILM that the fans are expecting Empire Strikes Back quality to this second prequel -- and that awareness will surely motivate."
Shit, I'd settle for Star Wars quality.
But if you're not gonna up the quality, just spice in a scene with AT-AT's foot turning Jar-Jar Binks into a fine pink film, and I'll pay $8 just to see that.
C'mon, George. Just splice it in. You know the animators at ILM have probably already rendered the scene in their spare time.
I knew that we were in trouble when I saw the additions to the re-released original movies. In the Cantina scene when Han shoots the bounty hunter. In the re-release they have the bounty hunter shoot first, since the hero shouldn't take the first shot? THAT was what made han Solo cool. The Phantom Menace was aweful, and I didn't even go in expecting much, I was still disappointed. Lucas needs to hand the reigns off to someone else and keep his hands off. On a better note, I heard the Salvadore (author of the Dark Eld Forgotten Realms books) might be re-doing the screenplay.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Sticks his head between the pods again, and it flash fries and explodes.
Returns to Tattoine, gets tasted by the Sarlac, and spit into a low, unstable orbit where he burns up on re-entry.
Gives Darth Sidius a 'wedgie' and is barbecued by the Force Lightning.
Explosive decompression. If it was good enough to make in on the 'Ways to kill Weasley Crusher List', it's good enough for Jar-Jar.
Stupidly uses a lightsaber to scratch himself, accidently activates it, and... You get the idea...
Does the tongue thing to another bowl of fruit, but 'accidently' gets a thermal detonator instead.
Eaten by a pack of Jawas. That's right, Jawas. None of us know what they eat, so it may as well be Jar-Jar.
Anything I've missed?
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
...is that the target age of the second prequel be about 5 to 10 years greater than the target age of the first prequel. That is, I want more science fiction / fantasy and less cute, cuddly, "wacky!" action characters that were conceived as an eight-year-old's action figure before they were inserted into the plot.
Has anyone else heard rumors to the effect that Jar Jar may have actually been someone else in disguise?
--
SecretAsianMan (54.5% Slashdot pure)
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
When Lucas made Star Wars, he was still an aspiring filmmaker looking to tell an engaging story in a way that had never been done before. Empire was the crowning achievement of that. Something went strangely awry in Jedi, whether it was studio meddling or whatnot, I'm not sure.
Lucas needs to get some of that fire back in his belly that he had with Star Wars. He needs to find that artistic compass again. I just don't know if that's possible, and that's why I don't have much hope for the next film.
BEEP! You're wrong! The right thing to do would have been to ignore the issue and leave it to the viewer's imagination. When you read Ender's Game, did you care how the ansible worked? No, because it's not relevant. Magic is much cooler that obviously-false pseudoscience.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
In the spirit of the brilliant mind that gave us the title of the Episode 1, we propose the following working titles for Episode 2:
Revenge of the Phantom Menace
Bride of the Phantom Menace
The Phantom Menace Returns
The Phantom Menace II
Son of the Phantom Menace
The Phantom Menace and the Great Space Caper
The Phantom Menace... Again!
The Phantom Menace Goes to Japan
The Trouble with Alderon
The Phantom Menace Returns
Phantom Menaced
The Phantom Menace Goes Bananas
Curse of the Phantom Menace
A New Hope
The Phantom Menace on Vacation
The Phantom Menace Takes Manhattan
Still Smokin'
What's Up, Phantom Menace?
The Phantom Menace and the Planet of Doom
The Phantom Menace Goes to Camp
Meet The Phantom Menace
The Best Little Phantom Menace in Texas
The Bingo Long Travelling Phantom Menace
Smokey and the Phantom Menace
Bang the Phantom Menace Slowly
Nurse Phantom Menace
A.I.: Phantom Menace
Midnight Phantom Menace
Crouching Phantom, Hidden Menace
Hush Hush, Sweet Phantom Menace
Phantom Menace Got the Hookup
New Jack Phantom Menace
Daddy's Dyin', Who's Got the Phantom Menace?
The Man Who Would Be Phantom Menace
Who Is Phantom Menace And Why Is He Saying All Those Things About Me?
O Phantom Menace, WHere Art Thou?
Who Framed The Phantom Menace?
Phantom Menace in Love
The Phantom Menace Who Loved Me
The Man in the Phantom Menace
The Neverending Phantom Menace
When We Were Phantom Menaces
The Sorrow and the Phantom Menace
Whatever Happened to Phantom Menace?
Phantom Menace's Choice
The French Lieutenant's Phantom Menace
Ali: Fear Eats the Phantom Menace
Don't Tell Mom the Phantom Menace is Dead
Stop or My Phantom Menace Will Shoot
I Never Sang for My Phantom Menace
Phantom Menace: Male Gigolo
Anna and the Phantom Menace
Phantom Menace, Interrupted
For love of The Phantom Menace
The Talented Mr. Phantom Menace
Don't Drink the Phantom Menace
The Discreet Charm of the Phantom Menace
Butch Cassidy and the Phatnom Menace
The Sweet Smell of Phantom Menace
No need to worry, George's instincts are in full blast again -- just look at his last brilliant move: Jar Jar Binks. His instincts could not be more right on target! We are definately in safe hands.
Id have to disagree about "little or no REAL scifi". "2001" was in 1968, "Metropolis" in 1927, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" in 1951, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in 1956, "Planet of the Apes" also in 1968. All of these have to be considered classics.
Obi-Wan finally gets annoyed with him and kills him off. This will Obi-Wan's flirtaton with the dark side. But when he consoles with Yoda, he will tell him, "In a galaxy far far away, there is place called Texas - and in Texas they would say, 'Jar Jar be needin killin'."
www.enthea.org
I copy-pasted directly from their board:
OH COURSE THE FILM IS "IN SHAMBLES" AT THIS PHASE OF PRODUCTION....THE MOVIE COMES OUT 18 GODDAMN MONTHS FROM NOW...!!!!
Can we just leave it at that?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
That's not true. I'm 17 now, so I wasn't even born then. In my opinion, the first two were good, and Jedi sucked. Naturally, Episode 1 sucked, too. It has nothing to do with nostalgia. The first two, and especially the first one, were successful retellings of hero myths. The third one had those goddamn Ewoks, and the rest was stupid too. Phantom Menace did have cool effects at least, which my spoiled ass thinks the first three did not (although they made it much worse in the Special Editions), but that didn't make up for crappy acting and writing. (And what was up with that retarded pseudoscientific explanation for the Force?)
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Even though I'm really really flabbergasted I can't buy the trilogy on fucking DVD, I'll give GL some credit. TO go along with your comment, besides actual reshooting of scenes that we're all familiar with (and need to re-rent the camera rig for) Lucas gets to change the backgrounds and whatnot and composite them with the blue screen (green and orange depending on what you're shooting) footage. Didn't like the way that extra TIE fighter looked? Take it out of the comp and see how you like the scene then. I's be super interested to do a project like that actually. Shoot all my live action on half-height sets with blue screens and do the rest inside of a computer.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
the trailer looks OK..Looks kinda similiar to Episode 1, but hey it's tough being creative. Check it out http://www.adcritic.com/content/star-wars-episode- 2.html
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
Huh?
I saw the same explanation, and to be honest, I didn't buy it one bit. The tail-stepping was added in for the same reason that that camel-thing farts on Jar Jar in Episode 1 - some dumbfuck thought it was funny. "We couldn't think of any other way to do it." they say. You'd think Lucas would have enough money to hire someone bright enough to, say, have Jabba move out of Han's way? Turn around in place? No way, that might "make sense" and it wouldn't be cute and the 5 year olds wouldn't laugh! When I first saw that scene (and the horrible musical number in Jedi), I was worried about what Episode 1 would be, but I think you can infer my opinion on it from the tone of this post. Lucas won't see any more money from me until the original trilogy is released on DVD, without the new scenes.
Here is what McCallum actually said in context. It is no cause for alarm:
The film is currently in its rough cut stage, and is scheduled to undergo at least four more cuts before final. "There's a lot of work to do," says McCallum. "You go through various emotional stages when reviewing this footage. At times, you have to face the truth of what you didn't get and what you hoped for. The second stage is that you're amazed by all the things you did get that you didn't even think you got. And then the third stage is that you see certain things are infinitely better than you could have even imagined."
Kook9 out.
And this is why fanboys suck.
The guy makes MOVIES. Because you didn't like the latest one (I didn't, either), you think he should be shot? Perspective, anyone?
-jon
Remember Amalek.
From AICN:
"There are whispers that Spielberg is coming on board to help with the editing and story. It's a total shambles! Everyone wants another Empire Strikes Back......the team is aware of this, but we're a long way off."
I think it's unlikely, but if such a far fetched thing were true - that Lucas would swallow his pride and hand EP2 to Spielberg - I have a better suggestion. Get Gary Kurtz (Co-producer of SW and Empire) and Brian Daily (ghost writer for SW and Empire) back on for this movie and salvage what is available.
Anyone who has read, or tried to read, drafts 1,2, or 3 of The Star Wars knows Lucas can't write. Brian Daley adapted what he saw and wrote the forth draft of The Star Wars (or A New Hope as it's called nowadays). Lucas has such low confidence in his writing skills he had Carrie Fisher read EP1 and offer suggestions on how to punch up the dialogue.
For EP1, Lucas surrounded himself with 'yes-men'. Gary Kurtz was the only person who would challenge Lucas during the making of SW and Empire. On Empire, Lucas didn't go to Norway and didn't spend much time at Pinewood Studios. When Irvin Kershner needed a solution to a problem, he didn't turn to Lucas, he went to Kurtz. As a result, much of Empire was made without Lucas' direct involvement. Lucas supposedly went ballistic at the slower pace of some scenes and the more adult direction Empire took when he saw rushes.
A wedge was thrust between Lucas and Kurtz when Empire went over budget. Lucas needed three million to finish production, and he was forced to go to 20th Century Fox to get the money. Empire had been an independent film until that point. Lucas blamed Kurtz for taking the film over budget, and never forgave him. Kurtz wasn't asked to participate in the making of Jedi.
There's a great book "The Making of The Empire Strikes Back" that casts light on the personal conflicts involved in making that film. A good read in you're a Star Wars nut. It really drives home the fact that Empire turned out to be a great movie in spite of Lucas, not because of him.
In Kurtz's final interview for the book, the author asks his what he thought of Jedi, and Kurtz lets go with both barrels. Jedi is nothing like the sequel that was planed when they were making Empire. Anybody who thinks Lucas has a master plan for a "Saga" will quickly realize how that claim is so untrue.
When going back to do the Special Edition, Lucas realized that CGI had come far enough along to make possible his original intent ... which was, after all, the point of the Special Edition.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The first part of "Star Wars" was OK, given the date it was created and the fact that little or no REAL scifi had been made into movies at that time. However, everything AFTER, say, the point where Luke discovers his aunt and uncle dead is a blur for me. I remember many many scenes, but I have no idea which movie they go to. This points to a lack of plot cohesion indicative of a bad movie.
So, everything up to that point PLUS a few memorable scenes in the rest of Star Wars, plus a couple of bits of the other two "originals" together make 1/2 of a good movie.
--
MailOne
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Because A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back were so limited (especially ANH!), Lucas had to constantly fake- have you ever read an analysis of the shower scene in Psycho? The knife never actually touches Janet Leigh- it's a brutal onslaught of quick violent cuts that convey the _feel_ of a horrific attack more than a fully 'realistic' and straight filming of such an attack, no matter how harrowingly acted. Well, the first Star Wars films were like that- here's a shot of Imperial Walkers slowly arriving and BAM here's a reaction shot of a guy in a snowspeeder that does NOT also include the Walkers seen through the window, in fact the background is a snowy blur- and BAM we're attacking a Walker and all the other Walkers are NOT shown in wide-angle. The 'lens' of directorial field of view is always portrait- hell, in ANH it's like a telephoto or something, you _never_ get anything resembling a Phantom Menace cast of thousands battle scene. Speed of motion through the frame is high but most importantly FOV is radically confined to just the elements that make the shot. That's ANH and Empire in a nutshell- I _just_ watched Empire (original version!) coincidentally and am very confident in saying that.
For Phantom Menace, Lucas is on record for what he was trying to get- he wanted the scope, those cast of thousands shots, massively wide-angle stuff, and he got it- pulled it off really well. However, that's not what the franchise was built on- Star Wars is about space opera, hokey/thrilling operatic emotional stories that are in your face and don't let up, with cinematography that is just as aggressive. Phantom Menace backs way off- and that's why it fails to continue the tradition. (It still kicks ass over most kid movies though).
Granted, that's a particularly brutal way to mock TPM: the good bits in it are often stage-setting for more serious drama ahead, such as the marvellous Palpatine. But it's all just too damn light- rotten opera. If Anakin _knew_ what was to happen to him (compare to Luke, abandoning his studies despite the _dire_ warnings of both Obi-Wan and Yoda, and going off to save his friends _knowing_ his mentors swear it will be a disaster) then there would be some drama. Having Jedi fussing and expressing great forebodings about the kid is _not_ the same: they are spearcarriers, they are not the protagonist no matter how well they act. If Obi-Wan was meant to be the big hero of the series, there would be some chance of drama as he suffers genuine conflict in TPM- but he's not! Anakin is to be the hero! So it's a total mess, as most people have instinctively recognised.
I hope he does better in Ep 2, I really do. The thing is, Lucas has a chance to top anything he's done in the series so far, in showing the fall of Anakin, giving him real, brutal conflicts and pain and trapping him into a corner where Anakin's basically good instincts turn him to evil by leading him to do bad things out of fear and grief. It really could be fantastic drama in the space opera style.
Lucas could also do buttloads of special effects, cute characters, and fumble things so that Anakin's fall becomes simply a matter of him being victimised by mean nasty evil folk, and I am afraid Lucas may do just that.
The litmus test is this: when all is said and done, if we feel sorry for Anakin, just plain sorry for him, Lucas has failed. But if we feel shaken and sick at heart, because we see that it could be us making those choices and _choosing_ the dark side- Lucas will have succeeded.
Good luck, George :)
Phantom Menace did have cool effects at least, which my spoiled ass thinks the first three did not...
What?!? The first 3 didn't have cool effects? Why, when I was your age "special effects" mean somebody threw a pie-plate at the camera and the actors would point and yell "Flying saucer!"
You kids don't know just how good you've got it... buncha pansy actors "dodging" bullets & stuff... in the Old Days you just had to pretend the bullets bounced off!
(mumble mumble 'Whippersnappers!' mumble mumble)
If a director like Spielberg can feel that way about a movie like Raiders, it's not a surprise that Lucas might have some second thoughts here and there. I'm betting that it'll turn out fine; Lucas has great instincts.
What worries me (and I'm sure I'm not alone) is that however Speilberg felt about Radiers, Nobody got any indication that Lucas felt Episode One was anything but gold. After such a thud, I think it's legitimate to worry about a sequel the producers themselves are worried about.
On the other hand, I hyave no idea of tghe validity of these rumors. It's exactly the sort of thing you want to hear out of ILM, right? I'd feel better hearing they're worried about a rough cut than hearing that they think everything's hunky-dorey. At least this way they might be on to what joe-moviegoer is thinking and make a bid to improve it.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
OK, you're right about the BEEP. I'm sorry. But I don't think that peope would care. Star Wars never pretended to be hard science fiction. They didn't try to explain anything else; they ust magicked it away by saying it happened in a galaxy far, far away.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Wow....thats right.
I completely forgot about Dark City...never made the connection. That was a great film. It wasn't until you mentioned it now and I started thinking about it that I realised what a ripoff the matrix was.
The Matrix was still a good story...and had lots of neat eyecandy and even some passable dialog. However...it was lacking something... the real character development...the real story of it.
Episode I had the same problem. It was all flashy CGI and cool effect...with little to no real character development and real plot.
After some conversations I have had...I wonder. The real question... Aniken Skywalker must become Darth Vader. Can Lucas pull THAT off? Can he turn Cute little "Ani" into "Lord Vader" who ruthlessly hunts down and kills ALL of the Jedi Knights (well ok, all but Obi-Wan and Yoda, who manage to escape).
I can excuse the watered down Drivel that was Episode I, if they can do that. Ok... We are introduced. We have Aniken brought into the story. Can they do the followthrough that they need to?
This has the potential to be one of the best movies in QUITE a long time, or it has the potiential to be no better than the usual hollywood crap. I don't see it landing inbetween.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"At times, you have to face the truth of what you didn't get and what you hoped for," McCallum said. "The second stage is that you're amazed by all the things you did get that you didn't even think you got. And then the third stage is that you see certain things are infinitely better than you could have even imagined."
"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." (W. Edwards Deming)
Sorry, it had to be said :)
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
> Lucas had to do the Han shot like that because they couldn't figure out any other way from him to go around Jabba.
Jabba was conceived as a human(oid) when E1 was shot, but then evolved (degenerated?) into a wormy-lookin-thing later. No problem, 'cause the scene had been cut from E1.
But when they remastered E1, they decided to put the scene back in, and for consistency's sake they had to use the wormy Jabba. But Han had walked around close behind the human Jabba, much closer than he could have walked behind the evolved/wormy Jabba. So the step-on-his-tail routine was a kludge to make everything consistent.
Of course, a real director would have just left the scene out of the remastered version, too.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If THE PHANTOM MENACE sucked (and it did), it wasn't Jar-Jar's fault. To all the Jar-Jar haters, I say this: at least he was a relatively unique creation, a real character. There weren't any others of note in THE PHANTOM MENACE. Qui-Gon Jinn was there merely to deliver the occasional gnomic utterance; young Obi-Wan was there merely to look good waving a lightsaber. As for young Anakin, well! he was a dumping-ground for whatever Lucas thought would make him look precocious and extraordinary.
I don't place much credence in anything that's "reported" on Ain't It Cool, but I'm a little heartened at the possibility, even, that Lucas may bring in outside help for this second STAR WARS movie. As I wrote elsewhere, I'm convinced that THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was good chiefly because Lucas didn't write or direct it.
I'm reminded of the situation with another series which began with great promise and turned into a disappointing mess, "Babylon 5". I remember, when the show premiered, how its creator, J. Michael Straczynski, made a big deal over how it was a collective effort, with big-name writers working on some episodes (Peter David wrote one, David Gerrold wrote one; Neil Gaiman eventually got around to writing one; Harlan Ellison promised to write one, but then, what are promises from Harlan Ellison worth?) But eventually JMS jealously shut everyone out, insisted on writing everything himself; the result was...well, "Into the Fire", the disposable fifth season, and the lame attempt to continue the franchise with "Crusade" were the eventual results. It also occurs to me that both George Lucas and JMS make a big deal of their independence from the "establishment" (Lucas from Hollywood; JMS from Paramount).
hyacinthus.
I just recently saw the snazzied-up version of Episode IV for the first time. With great additions to the film like that lame looking how-could-you-possibly-miss-so-far-from-so-close blaster shot from Greedo, and the equally lame shot of Han carelessly stomping on the gigantic tail of the gangster he owes thousands of credits to, I have say: it's about time Lucas started stressing.
-- dR.fuZZo
The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data.
Based on interviews I've read with filmmakers, it's a normal part of the process to stress out about what you're producing. Steven Spielberg once said that during the filming of portions of Raiders of the Lost Ark, he thought he was creating the worst movie ever made. If a director like Spielberg can feel that way about a movie like Raiders, it's not a surprise that Lucas might have some second thoughts here and there. I'm betting that it'll turn out fine; Lucas has great instincts.
I don't often post to slashdot, but lurk constantly...
I was very disappointed with Episode 1. The quality just wasn't there. Visually the movie was stunning. Story line acceptable. But...
The script lost touch with the wonders of the Star Wars Universe. Here is the most annoying momment (IMHO): The Trade Federation using late 80's catch phase "Are you Brain Dead?". (leaving the all Jar Jar Binks lines asside) Where were all those alien languages with subtitles?
Direction was poor: Anakin devliering the line about not reaching the outskirts in time(sandstorm), was more than a half second late. Surely somebody could have caught that one, the little twerp was bad throughout the whole movie, but that momment breaks the whole flow of the movie and suddenly you're conscious of that fact that the producers of the film don't care as much about it as the fans.
Casting breaks even: Anakin was just bad, Jar Jar is unthinkable, but Ewan Macgreggor (sp) Was a shinning star and I look forward to his character development and his role in Skywalker's fall to Darth Vader.
What it comes down to is the thought that the fans did not get the product they wanted. It did not live up to our expectations and it is unlikely that Lucas will be able to repair the damage he's done. Is he fit to be the "Father" of our most precious child? I think he's grown too old and been away from the Star Wars we love for too long. He's a Grand father whos more interested in making a movie that explains to all 3 year olds why they need to buy the video games and little plastic Jar Jars than to produce (in the traditional style) a worthy pre-quel to the legacy which has served us all so well.
I am not surprised that the Second Episode is not hitting the mark either.
Mike Agar
www.jmagar.com
-
...unless Lucas has a good spirit medium on retainer. Being that Daley's dead, and all.
IMHO, I'm also glad to hear that Lucas is going back to the drawing board. After hearing that all character shots were done a month ago got me worried that SWE2 would just be a CGI filled movie. Special effects is one thing, but it can't carry a movie all the way through especially in the Star Wars Universe. I doubt fans would have been happy with 2 hours of CGI and only 30 minutes of actual character dialog. Of course that's just my opinion.
Project: To Take Over The World
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