Slashdot Mirror
Can Star Wars Episode III Be Saved?
mcwop writes "MSNBC is running a commentary asking: 'Can "Star Wars: Episode III" be saved?' It proposes changes such as ripping off Akira Kurosawa, getting the otherwise good actors to emote, and even firing Lucas. It is one year away, but is it too late to save Episode III?"
no.
Save or save not. There is no try!
I.e. to cash in on the success of the original series. It doesn't have to be *good* to do that. It only has to have "Star Wars" in the title.
It'll serve it's purpose. Unless you are planning not to bother going to see it, which as geeks and nerds, I frankly don't believe.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Well, call me crazy, but how can surfing on lava not save a movie? Is there a better way short of two car chases in a single movie?
If you save episode 3, you lose the result of finally driving a nail into the star wars franchise.
Think of it: one good move after at least 3 crappy sequels. Statistically, if you encourage this jackass to keep on making movies 75% will be shit.
Please. Let it die.
When Lucas shows up, knock him out, encase him in a block of frozen carbonite and put him out of the way somewhere until the movie is out in theaters.
The only problem being, of course, that you shouldn't let him out after Ep. 3 lest he decide to somehow sully my other fond childhood memories, perhaps by stealing my box of photos and defecating in it.
Anyhow, the article addresses the basic irony of Star Wars: That the guy who created it has also done the most the drive it into the ground, and that success has allowed him to do so more completely than ever. We all knew going in that Lucas can't direct, he can't write dialog, and yet here we go again...
Personally, I just thank God that this decade has had the LOTR trilogy to call its own. It was what we were hoping the new Star Wars movies would be.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
everyone said that episode I and II were not as good as they had hoped.
AFTER they went to the theatre to see the movie and bought the DVD and the special DVD with 5 seconds of extra footage.
Yes, it is too late, because a boycott of episode II after episode I's horrible blunder would have possibly saved the third movie, because they listen to box office sales, not slashdot.
But if they make a movie that as many people as possible can go to, and sell a lot of tickets, they make a lot of money. And episode I and II made a lot of money.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Note to everyone not named "George Lucus": Star Wars isn't yours. Yes, I know you're a fan. Yes, I know you grew up with these films. But it's a few pieces of entertainment, and the brainchild of another person.
I'm sorry you viewed the first films through the rose-tinted glasses of youth, and are unable to view the latest three in the same way. Feel free to bitch and moan about how it's not up to some mythical "standard" you create, but it comes down to it being Lucus' movie, and he can do as he pleases.
i know i'm gonna get flamed for this but actually, jar-jar is absolutely necessary to the story as it exists: nobody else is stupid enough to be palpatine's tool by suggesting giving palpatine emergency powers. w/out jar-jar, there's no emergency powers and hence, no clone wars. i happen to resent it, but that's the way i think it shakes out.
otherwise though, that's an interesting idea. of course, there's a bit of me that wishes i could see a kevin smith treatment of ep 3, considering he's a big SW fanboy.
ed
reminds me of an old comment i read:
Episode III: The Passion of Jar-Jar
it's just 2 hours of jar-jar being beaten.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Ah, but who took the kids to the movie? Who bought them the plastic lightsabers? The Jar-Jar dolls? If, as consumers, we neglect the consequences of our actions, is that not the same as choosing their ill-effects?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Star Wars will be saved much like how Alderaan was spared by Tarkin in Ep 4.
No, it's definitely Lucas. If you look at movies that he's worked on--Indiana Jones, the original and special edition Star Wars--he really seems to have a thing for 'kids movies.' "The Temple of Doom," for example, was a terrible movie and the worst of the three Indiana Jones movies. It was also the one in which Lucas was most involved. He seems to have a penchant for making terrible kids movies, and I think it's just getting worse with age.
With the original Star Wars trilogy, he was limited by technology... but now, he can throw whatever he wants into a movie to fulfill his 'vision.' If the special edition 'improvements' he added to the original trilogy were really making Star Wars into what he wanted it to be thirty years ago, you can see that trend: adding useless scenes with robot antics, Han stepping on Jabba's tail, and loads of other childish slapstick crap like that. The best he could do thirty years ago with Ewoks.
In conclusion, any guy who dreams up Jar-Jar Binks is obviously nuts. You can't blame market pressure for a guy who seems to get off on terrible kids movies.
> -- "I'm no actor, but I'm crass enough to scam my way into a movie every now and then." - Henry Rollins
Your sig gives me a great idea! Why not take the article's suggestion of dropping Hayden Christiansen and replacing him... with Henry Rollins! Wouldn't that be awesome?! Lava-surfing saber battles? Hell no! Serious man-on-man pummeling! A pre-armor Vader the size of a Volkswagen stomping around in gym shorts like some heavily-tattooed punk-rock Hulk would absolutely beat the living *crap* out of what we had before! And the first time someone calls him "Annie" he could just head-butt them and start screaming into... erm... some sort of space microphone or something.
That would rule.
i know i'm gonna get flamed for this but actually, jar-jar is absolutely necessary to the story as it exists: nobody else is stupid enough to be palpatine's tool by suggesting giving palpatine emergency powers. w/out jar-jar, there's no emergency powers and hence, no clone wars. i happen to resent it, but that's the way i think it shakes out.
I saw that, and realized that there was a reason why Lucas made Jar Jar the Uncle Tom of the SW franchise for a reason after all. But it still boils down to poor writing and a lack of imagination (where "imagination" != "special effects"). If the plot was so transparent that only Jar Jar could fall for it, what of the other thousands of supposedly intelligent members of the Senate?
A good writer would have found a way to make Palpatine's plot more devious, more plausible... so inescapable that even Padme would have to agree to it. There are plenty of examples to draw on from recent American history, from McCarthyism to the present.
It didn't take a Jar Jar character in the US Senate when it voted to give Bush the power to wage war -- just incontrovertable "facts" that weren't what they seemed. The Imperial Senate didn't require a fool to lead them astray -- all it would take would have been a well-meaning but fundamentally flawed desire to do right.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Was I the only one who instantly thought of the scene where Leia kisses him when they read that?
Maybe a bit overstated. Even as a 10-year-old I felt embarassed by the flat, corny dialogue in some parts of #4, especially when Han says to Luke "May the Force be with you." You can tell that Harrison feels like a goon saying that line.
Now that's not to say the Star Wars universe isn't great. I rarely had so much fun as playing SW-KotOR, and much of it was because it was just so cool walking around on Tatooine.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Talking Pie.
They'll forget all the mistakes of the past if you add such a character.
Jar Jar makes the Ewoks look like fucken Shaft!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Lucas will never allow anyone to do anything with Star Wars. In fact, his best buddy Steven Spielberg has already spoken about this. Lucas feels that the Star Wars saga will be his legacy and he doesn't want anyone messing with it. Spielberg practially begged Lucas for a chance to direct a Star Wars film and Lucas said no. So I can't see Lucas willingly giving up control to anyone. And with the new copyright laws, his family will be able to control Star Wars indefinitely. So you can forget about a Star Wars film ever being made by anyone with talent.
GMD
watch this
Ep. 2 WASN'T better, it was object oriented programming. He used the drag and drop approach to build a mediocrity.
Once again no one on Slashdot is talking about the truth of the situation. Lukas is getting you to pay for a paradigm shift to digital movie making. All he needs is for the movie to be good enough to cover costs. He could probably write off the cost as R&D anyway because that's what he's doing. He is doing a proof of concept for all digital filmmaking. He is not telling a story, He is not making a movie, and he is definitely not making art of any kind.
Of course, that doesn't mean that the average moviegoing American would find such a vote in the Galactic Senate plausible, which says much about our instinctive understanding of human nature and history. Also, we wouldn't want the "good guys" to do anything that would help the "bad guys" now would we? That would just confuse everyone.
Oh, Lucas knows that people don't like what he's done. The problem is that he thinks they are all wrong and doesn't want to hear it. In fact, CNN was refused access to Attack of the Clones based on a Connie Chung interview where she told Lucas that most people thought TPM was a disappointment. If you're going to kick the media off your property and deny them access to a major news story just because they suggested that the film didn't live up to expectations, I don't think you can honestly claim that you're open to criticism.
As far as his "reputation as a filmmaker", I think Lucas must realize now that he really isn't a filmmaker. He knows that Star Wars will be his legacy. So he really doesn't care about looking like some kind of great director because he knows he'll never direct again. That's probably one reason he's so possessive of the films -- he knows this is the last movie he'll ever direct.
GMD
watch this
I have ben a huge fan of the SW movies since I was a kid and saw them i a theater. I followed the universe and looked forward to the new movies.
The general story form the original 3 movies is rediculously thin. The original Matrix put more plot in that single film than was in ep4, ep5, and ep6 combined. That didnt make them suck... it made them simple and fun.
In the prequels, he added a story line, political complexities, and actual character development - all of which was completely abscent in the originals. While they may not be "better" in the sense that the style changes made them mode fun to watch, but they are certainly not garbage. They are simply different types of movies. They only get condemned because of peoples memories of how much they loved SW back in the late 70s and early 80s.
SW has always been made for 12 year olds to love. The new movies accomplish exactly the same thing the originals did... only this time you arent 12.
You can tell that Harrison feels like a goon saying that line.
Maybe he's just acting. I mean, Han Solo would feel like a goon saying that.
"It didn't take a Jar Jar character in the US Senate when it voted to give Bush the power to wage war.."
agreed...it took 77 Jar Jar characters in the Senate and 296 Jar Jar characters in the House. Of course, why the rest of the Jar Jar characters in the Legislature voted otherwise will always be a mystery...
-- "Do you even know your daughter? There's no way she likes that song. Oop, is she in a coma?"
you would remember it was all the rage *before* it was released
Actually, the original Star Wars was a sleeper. Meaning that it didn't get released with a lot of fanfair in May of 1977. It came out of no where. They didn't have a lot of cash left over for advertising the movie. You have to remember, they didn't thik this was really going to work and it only cost 9 million to make. Even in 1977, 9 million wasn't a lot of money to make a movie.
Only after it became a hit that summer did all the hype build about it through the only means of the day, word of mouth.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
(cough cough) patriot act (cough cough)
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
The character of Luke was originally supposed to be a woman. I had a portfolio of production paintings from Star Wars ("A New Hope" for you youngin's) and there are several pictures where Luke's character was painted as a woman.
And it certainly would have changed the whole love-triangle dynamic. Instead of Lucas copping out by making Luke and Leia (sp?) brother and sister, it could have been lucky Han Solo and the Skywalker Twins!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
To whomever moderated my original post as flamebait, I think you may have misunderstood my comparison of Bush to Jar Jar binks. I was not insinuating that they are both bumbling idiots, I merely meant that they both have floppy ears and funny accents.