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George Lucas Consolidates his Empire
Shadowcat writes "George Lucas is consolidating his galaxy, merging LucasArts, Lucas Digital (ILM & Skywalker Sound), Lucas Licensing, and Lucasfilm into one mega-corporation to provide a single place to create all sorts of media. You can find the
article on SF Chronicle Site."
You'll note the following:
Lucas wrote ANH on his own, but Empire (usually regarded as the best of the series) was primarily written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan. Lucas only "wrote" a small story treatment (that was several dozen pages long), which was dramatically changed and fleshed out by the real writers. The only reason GL even got credit was because it was "his" film, so he wrote the credits. His contribution was similar to James Cameron's contribution to the recent Spider Man film (all that remained from JC's treatment was the organic webshooters, incidentally).
Jedi, which uncoincidentally is usually rated between Empire and ANH, was done similarly although with only Lawrence Kasdan. Lucas basically phoned in a concept, and Kasdan pulled it off. Most importantly, it was Lucas who insisted on the introduction of the god-awful Ewoks [as opposed to Kasdan who wanted to have Kashyyk, the homeworld of the wookies - Lucas dind't think they were "cute" enough, given our experience with Chewbacca].
Unsurprisingly, the "new" trilogy is written solely by Lucas. He no longer is tempered by good writing, and so we have the largely panned films "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones".
"Stumble before you crawl"
He did do this before. When I started at LFL in 1986, it was all one company.
The reasons I read in the paper today for consolidation were exactly the same reasons they gave in about 1989 to separate.
Oh, well...
From:
D =2 624
http://cgi.theforce.net/theforce/tfn.cgi?storyI
Gary Kurtz, the producer of ANH and ESB, spoke at the Sci-Fi Expo in Plano, TX this weekend along with his daughters Tiffany and Melissa (as children they played Jawas in ANH). He shared with the crowd about meeting Lucas, leaving the Star Wars films and the original plans for the entire saga.
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EPISODE 1: Was to focus on the origins of the Jedi Knights and how they are initiated and trained
EPISODE 2: Introduction and development of Obi-Wan Kenobi
EPISODE 3: Introduction and life of Vader
EPISODE 4: There were seven different drafts of the film. At one point, they pursued buying the rights to Hidden Fortress because of the strong similarities. At one point, Luke was a female, Han was Luke's brother, Luke's father was the one in prison (interesting point for some debates) and the film featured 40 wookies
EPISODE 5: Once written, the screenplay of Empire is almost exactly what is seen on screen. The only cut scenes were those involving wampas in the rebel base (cut because of time and unsolved technical glitches) and about two minutes of Luke/Yoda Jedi training with no real dialog.
EPISODE 6: Leia was to be elected "Queen of her people" leaving her isolated. Han was to die. Luke confronted Vader and went on with his life alone. Leia was not to be Luke's sister.
EPISODE 7: Third trilogy was to focus on Luke's life as a Jedi, with very few details planned out.
EPISODE 8: Luke's sister (not Leia) appears from another part of the galaxy.
EPISODE 9: First appearance of the Emperor.
Take a look at the "mythical" 7, 8, and 9. They don't take place after the fall of the Empire. They basically drag out everything that happened in Jedi over 4 movies instead of one, killing Han in the process. Can you imagine EPISODE 7, an entire Star Wars movie devoted solely to Mark Hamill!?!?
From what I've read the reason why Kasdan left Jedi was because he wanted the episode 6 listed here instead of ending it at Jedi.
Whatever Lucas's mistakes, ending it at Jedi was an excellent move (and one that cost Lucas a great deal of money). Ending it at Jedi helped save the original Star Wars movies from dragging out and getting stale. Whatever you say about the new movies, if you wish you can essentially ignore them and just enjoy the great story told in the original 3.
Brian Ellenberger
I saw Mr. Lucus several times at the Borders bookstore in San Rafael.
Once, in the pre-Episode 1 days I was looking for a new book by Greg Bear and this fellow came up behind me to look at the Star Wars books shelved at the top of the book case in the new release Sci-Fi section. It was him. I figured he'd know all he needed about Star Wars, but hey, who knows.
Another time I was behind him in the check out line and he had a pile of Abbott & Costello videos. They best part was the check out girl freaking out when she saw the name on his credit card.
Far be it from me to accuse you of lying, but...
I know one of the compositors who worked for Lucas Digital on Episode II. (This is no big thing. There were hundreds and hundreds of them.) There was no employee screener a week before the movie came out. The employee screener wasn't until after the official premiere of the picture. George was working on the movie right up until the end, even to the point where the film print that went to duplication was slightly different from the digital "print" that went to DLP distribution.
At best, it sounds like you were deceived.
I write in my journal
Actually, the office complex that LucasArts and THX are based in happens to be codenamed "Deathstar." Sorry for the AC post, but some secrets must be kept...
Actually, I really liked the Star Wars games before Episode I. Games like XWing and Tie Fighter are classics. Dark Forces and JKI were right up there too. I even liked the old console games (even though they were hard as heck). They were even willing to take a few risks. XWing vs. Tie Fighter was simply ahead of its time in being a primarily "Internet Only" game.
Around Episode I is when the games really started to suck. It was just too many games put together too quickly.
However, Lucasarts seems to be turning around with some help from companies like Raven and Bioware. Jedi Knight 2 deserves better than an honorable mention. It is in my opinion the best Star Wars game ever. It is the only game I have bothered playing through twice in many many years. It wasn't afraid to give you the full power of a Jedi in the name of presenting a "challenge". I am also looking forward to the upcoming Knights of the Old Republic RPG from Bioware.
Brian Ellenberger
...it was Lucas who insisted on the introduction of the god-awful Ewoks [as opposed to Kasdan who wanted to have Kashyyk, the homeworld of the wookies - Lucas dind't think they were "cute" enough, given our experience with Chewbacca].
I thought they introduced the Ewoks because it was more feasible to find a lot of kids to put in Ewok suits than to find 7 feet people suitable for Wookie outfits.
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