Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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 :)
"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)
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
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.