Spielberg Denied Crack at Star Wars

loonix_gangsta writes "The BBC is running a blurb on the disclosure of Star Wars helmsman George Lucas not allowing Spielberg to direct one of the Star Wars movies. According to Ananova Steven had actually begged George for the job."

Comments

Bad idea

[Darth Paul]

Don't know about everybody else, but I would have hated to see this happen, especially with only one episode in the saga left.

Lucas hasn't great job with Ep 1 and 2, but Spielberg carries a completely different flavour of sci-fi to Lucas. Spielberg likes to intellectualize his movies somewhat too, which might be a good idea in itself, but wouldn't fit well into Star Wars.

Also, Spielberg would surely feel the need to inject his personal vision into the SW universe. Remember watching AI? Kubrick's parts and Spielberg's parts contrasted badly with each other, especially the ending. Everybody knows what the story in Episode III will be, we just want to see how the events play out and the final holes in the story get filled in. SW definitely doesn't need new influences at this stage.

Re:Bad idea

[mughi]

Also, Spielberg would surely feel the need to inject his personal vision into the SW universe. Remember watching AI? Kubrick's parts and Spielberg's parts contrasted badly with each other, especially the ending.

Perhaps not. My friends and I were discussing this not too long ago. In regards to doing Minority Report, Spielberg made some comments about how he realized that injecting his take of things into AI interferred with things (and especially the ending). And how he realized he made a mistake and was going to try not to do that with the new film. What made it a little amusing for me is that we were talking about how that pointed out the difference between Spielberg and Lucas as filmakers and directors, and especially the willingness to take good criticism and to grow, and the importance of putting the material before ego. And also specifically comparing his works to Lucas' Star Wars films (those he directed, not the others)

Control vs Society

[smoondog]

I have always been frustrated that creators often drive their franchises/ideas into the ground or kill them when they die. I know that creators should have absolute control, but it is a shame that Star Wars will likely die with Lucas, Calvin and Hobbes will die with BW and Peanuts will die with CS. I guess the alternative may be worse than the status quo, but still, when commercial entertainment interests become part of our shared emotions/heritage the only thing that will lose is our pocket books.

-Sean

Too cuddily

[charlie763]

This is the best decision that Lucus has made regarding Star Wars. The only person that could make the Star Wars series worse is Spielberg.

Episode III is supposed to one of the darkest films in the series; the fall of the Republic, the death of the Jedi, and the rise of the Empire. I do not think Spielberg is capable of making such a dark movie.

For Example: look at how he changed the ending of AI. The film would have had a much greater emotional impact if it ended with the boy sitting in the helicopter staring at the statue forever.

If Speilberg directs Episode III there will be some sort of cute and cuddily ending to it.


Let the flaming begin...

Re:Too cuddily

[tswinzig]

Episode III is supposed to one of the darkest films in the series; the fall of the Republic, the death of the Jedi, and the rise of the Empire. I do not think Spielberg is capable of making such a dark movie.

Ahhhh... yeah, his previous attempts, such as Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, were much too light of fare for me!

Now let's compare this to Lucas. Which of all the Star Wars movies is the "dark" movie? Now let's look and see who directed it.

Irvin Kershner!

Re:Too cuddily

[Peyna]

Yeah, a lot of people think they are aliens because they look at them and think of what we are led to believe are aliens. It's pretty obvious they are not sentient beings, as they are trying to get a grasp of what real life is like. Not necessarily human life, just real life. Thus, they are having a hard time finding any, and are very excited when they find the boy, who has memories of human life Of course, you would have to wonder why they would not have passed their knowledge onto each other as new robots were created. After all, if a robot created a new robot, shouldn't it start it with everything it already knows? Sort of like humans try to do. Anyway, I thought it was an appropriate ending. You could have ended it with him staring at the blue fairy for ever, or you could actually give the movie decent closure.

Re:Too cuddily

[jafac]

No, it seemed to me that they were aliens too - because by that time, the earth was all a big frozen wasteland - pretty much lifeless. The "obvious" message was that they were aliens.

When you sit down and think about it, it doesn't make one damn bit of difference whether they're aliens or descendants of the original robots. Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.

what about 7-9?

[nick357]

I say let Steve direct the three episodes that George says he isn't going to do -- numbers 7 through 9. Heck -- its better than not getting them at all... and letting someone put a new twist on them at that stage might be alright.

Not a terrible idea...

[gdyas]

Not that these movies are of any real importance as an issue whatsoever, but here goes:

Despite people's misconceptions about Spielberg being a warm/fuzzy director, Lucas is not, nor has he ever been, 1/10th the director Spielberg is. Spielberg with some good writing support probably wanted to help, to try to turn the epI characters back into human beings for epII after Lucas' major pooch screw. Nobody knows what Lucas thinks - is he cashing in? Is he a megalomaniac? Who knows? Who gives a shit? All I know is the past two movies are tripe I wouldn't allow in my home to poison my DVD collection. And I really liked IV & V too, and thought VI wasn't great, but OK.

Nevermind what the fanboys think, the prequels have been fucked over by one thing -- Lucas' total control over all aspects of the project. The SW prequels are a tragedy caused by a lack of hollywood industry control & standards, not an overbearance of them. Any major studio management/production team on any other project would've seen the dailies of epI & II and demanded a change in directors, but because Lucas has the $ and carte blanche to do what he wants he never has to answer to anyone, and with his inability to write or direct simple believable dialogue he's the biggest liability to his own legacy.

Think about it -- since the first three, outside of some TV production he hadn't directed a feature film since Jedi in '83. That's 16 fucking years out of practice. So now he's a hack, and somewhere deep I think he knows it. He should've been a deeply involved producer and brought in a big-time director that knows how to direct actors instead of mainframes, who hasn't been out of the game for a generation, someone like Spielberg, for all of these prequels.

Despite the verbosity above, none of it really matters for me - to me it's just movies, give or take. But to Lucas I have to assume it's something more, that it's art, and he's actively fucking it to shit. Too bad. I guess even the best painters eventually became bad imitators of themselves, but it doesn't make it any fun to watch.