Slashdot Mirror
The Secret History of Star Wars
lennier writes "How exactly did George Lucas develop the script for the first Star Wars? Why were the prequels so uneven when the originals were so good? Did he really have a masterplan for six, nine, or even twelve episodes, and why did the official Lucasfilm position keep changing? And just how big an influence were the films of Akira Kurosawa on the whole saga? Michael Kaminski's The Secret History of Star Wars, Third Edition is a free, thoroughly unauthorized, e-book that brings together a huge amount of literary detective work to sort fact from legend and reveal how the story really evolved. Download it or have your nerd credentials revoked."
"Download it or have your nerd credentials revoked."
I like programming in my spare time, when I'm not programming at work. But I hate Star Wars. I guess I'm just not nerdy enough.
I will have to hand write some PostScript to print my own nerd credentials and post them on my cubical wall.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
A movie that has permeated practically every culture on the planet--Jedi is a religion in some countries; when people cup their hands over their mouth and slowly and loudly breath, people recognize it as a Vader impression; and its success made ILM, Skywalker Sound, Harrison Ford, Lucas Arts, Lucasfilm, THX, and the list goes on.
You may not like the movie, but to say it's "just a movie" is like saying "the Bible is just a book"--perhaps in some literal sense it's "a book," but it's one that has shaped the course of human history.
I saw the original Star Wars at the theater when I was six. I saw the next two, Empire and Return, on the big screen when they appeared as well. Seeing these majestic space operas as a child had a profound impact on me. These movies set the stage, along with other contemporary "childrens" novels and sci-fi of the late-70s/early 80's, of a life-long love of science fiction and fantasy fictions. More importantly, this gestalt provided a novel framework for a belief in a limitless future, a need to challenge authority and an implicit belief in the use of technology to create a better future. (Not to sound too grandiose.)
/Can't say the same for the prequels though...
Seeing Star Wars as a child has had a lifelong effect upon me and my worldview.
Indeed. It seems as if there is a narrow range of ages that found the original spellbinding, and I was just a few years too old. I recall seeing in in the theater when it came out and, naturally being blown away by the special effects. The audience first gasped and then cheered in the opening sequence where the ship flies overhead. But it was a fairly average movie otherwise, utterly predictable, and is still even watching it now. But guys a few years younger - sat, 10-14 years old - were absolutely transfixed and immediately started memorizing every detail. I was 17 and drove my own car to see it.
From what I consider an objective standpoint, btw, the prequels were every bit as good story and acting-wise as the originals. Everybody hates Jar-Jar but I don't see the various cutesy robots and critters in the originals to be a lot better, and the Ewoks beat the universe part was, is, and always will be embarrassing.
Brett
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress
and you have the two bumbling fools, the noble princess, and the hero trekking across hostile territory, doing various good deeds and engaging in various skirmishes. the scope of the movie and the plot are completely different, but you can immediately understand why this movie was the jumping off point for the picaresque characters of C3PO and R2D2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picaresque_novel
C3PO and R2D2, using their point of view, is really the most risky and rewarding aspect of star wars. now, i don't think lucas would ever admit it, but i think he was trying to conjure up the same sort of picaresque magic twice... with the character jar jar binks
except that character was a terrible failure, while C3PO and R2D2 are universally loved. i don't claim to understand why one worked and the other didn't, but clearly jar jar falls flat as a humours bumbling low life antidote to the otherwise deadly serious proceedings, while the two robots rocked in the same sort of role
which brings me to a final thought: movie magic isn't easy. i think a lot of fanboys need to cut lucas a break. he gave us star wars. did you forget that? ok, he fumbled with the final 3 movies. but holding him in scorn for that, while completely forgetting the first 3, is totally unfair of you. if, in your mind, you can't rise above your own frustrated expectations of the latter 3 movies to still cherish the guy for the first 3, you really are taking star wars way too seriously
oops
did i just suggest someone might take star wars too seriously? yikes, gotta run and hide now, i just awoke the rabid partisan fanboy beasts...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I enjoyed the original and Empire (though Empire felt like it had been cut short). I didn't think much of Ewok-ladden strikes back. The prequels got progressively worse. I was downright disappointed at how lousy the story was given that with the potential it had it should have been powerful and epic. I've even read a couple of novels.
What I don't get is the obsession with how ti was made. Clearly for the first couple of films the right people were in the right place at the right time. I don't think it was all Lucas by any stretch of the imagination and it's only those 2 films that I'd call good at all, so this idea of Lucas as genius with grand plans and grand vision just doesn't appeal to me. In fact unless you're in the movie business I fail to see how it can hold more than a passing interest. I'd rather watch paint dry than read this ebook cover to cover. I just don't care. I accept that Lucas is a hack who had a miracle year (or two).
Likewise with the actors. I don't mind Harrison Ford (even if he's getting worse not better as he gets older...Airforce One? What was he thinking!?) but Mark Hammil and Carrie Fisher weren't exactly any good.
As for continuity? Please! One minute Luke and Leia are about to get hot and heavy, and the next we're told they're brother and sister. Vader as Luke's father was unlikely though plausible, that is until the pathetic explanation that was Episode 3.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Why were the prequels so uneven when the originals were so good?
... shall I go on? you know them.
because those prequels are actually sequels. You know, they were actually made *after* the originals. Like all sequels, they are attempts to milk the cash cow created by the original franchise, i.e. ensure money will be made on the sequels just by vertue of the movie's name. And in many cases, the moviemaker thinks the name alone is enough, and forgets to make the sequel original or exciting because he has cold feets he didn't have when he made the first incarnation.
Examples of good movies with bad sequels:
Matrix
Rambo
Rocky
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
why on earth jar-jar was allowed more than 3 seconds of screen time?
Lucas should have taken advantage of the JJ hatred and turned him into an accident-prone character who gets his tongue caught in food processors, gets hit by meteorites or low-flying ships, etc.; sort of like the intergalactic Wiley Coyote. People would cheer everytime he got it.
Table-ized A.I.
This is a huge compilation of information here. There are many quality books that would run you $10-50 in the Star Wars world that don't even touch the depth of this content. Congrats to Michael Kaminski offering up his time, bandwidth, and his love of the series for other fans to enjoy with no cost. I will definitely take the time to read through this, even though being a SW nut myself, I probably know over half of it. If only I could print it out for toilet reading... I don't think I have that much paper laying around. :)
Insert something witty here...
Oh, and there's a military laser project named after it. Are people willing to give their life, or alter their concept of what life is about in the most sacred way, because of it? I'd say that's what "religion" means, and enough people call themselves Jedi to make it a religion. to say that it has "shaped the course of human history" is a bit over the top. Not going to debate that one, but I don't think that's what GP said: You may not like the movie, but to say it's "just a movie" is like saying "the Bible is just a book"--perhaps in some literal sense it's "a book," but it's one that has shaped the course of human history. So that "shaped the course of human history" is about the Bible, and why it shouldn't just be called "a book". There are other reasons that Star Wars should not just be called "a movie"...
And frankly, it's too early to tell. We've had the Bible for at least a millennium or two. We've only been able to make movies for a little over a century -- and only in color, with sound, for about half that time.
It's simply physically impossible for a movie to have had as much of a chance to become as world-changing (for better or worse) as the Bible is -- it's simply had more time.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I think the Jedi as religion was a bit of a joke (similar to a protest vote) done for censuses. I'm not sure if people really and truly consider it as a religion.
When I was 8, Star Wars came out. I went crazy for it just like most of my friends. We really wanted to see it and queued up for hours in the rain when it finally came to our cinemas. We bought the toys, played at Star Wars in the playground, and lived and breathed it.
But finally, after a few years, we just grew up a bit more and got into other things like other movies, girls, books, drinking, working, etc. My younger brother was mad keen on the return of the jedi a few years later; for him, it was his formative film, but since then, he also has grown up and sold off his toys.
We both have soft spots for our formative films and have happy memories of watching them and playing them, but to revere them as one of the biggest global cultural events is a little bit silly. It really is just entertainment with a bit of pseudo-religious babble mixed in there. People might recognise the Darth Vader sound, but it doesn't run their lives. They don't do things like quake in terror and get shocked like I a saw a elderly French woman do when she suddenly saw a dummy dressed in an SS uniform during an exhibition once.
In all of my travels, Star Wars has changed the world only for a small handful for people. For most, it really is just a movie and nothing else.
bang goes my karma... again...
Unlike those plastic action figures that emerged to commercialize the world forever, 'Star Wars' was an organically fallible piece much more in common with 'American Graffiti' than the blockbuster c--- that has dominated the last 30 years. I was a kid in the seats in 1977 and what captured my heart at the time was the gritty broken chaotic mess of the first film. Droids break, spaceships fragment, bizzare languages permeate every scene, plans go spectacularly awry. Even a kid could see that this was life. Spielberg used to capture this spirit in those wonderful scenes where everybody is talking at once; dialog that doesn't translate to the international export market. We all know, the true sequel of Star Wars is 'Firefly.' ---537
But was anyone able to get past the introduction without the whole thing starting to narrate in ones head with the Simpson's Comic Book guy voice?
Ice Cream has no bones.
I think Star Wars is only dorky if you dress up for it. But perhaps that is my unfair prejudice against cosplay. To the "don't knock it until you've tried it crowd" -- no thanks!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
And don't even mention the bible. It's a bigger piece of cruft than all versions of windows multiplied together.
If you like it or not, the bible (or any other religious book) is still a piece if human history. Just because someone (ok, I think too it's bad, but:) thinks that something is bad does not revoke it's status as history.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
I grew up on the OT (ANH came out when I was 4), so those films will always have a "magical" place for me. But honestly, I think the story from the prequels was far more in-depth and complex than the original trilogy. The OT was pretty simplistic: good guys vs. bad guys. It wasn't until the last 10 minutes of ESB that an element of moral ambiguity was introduced. The Luke/Vader narrative was brought to a fantastic climax, but that was a mere 20 minutes surrounded 1.5 hours of Jabba and Ewoks.
The prequels didn't shoot for instant gratification. The Good guys vs. Bad guys formula was thrown out. The "Villains" in TPM were weak and cowardly. They weren't bent on conquering the galaxy, but securing trade rights. Trade rights?! It was a bold move that alienated many fans. But the real story was what was happening behind the scenes: Palpatine manipulating the Neimoidians, the Naboo, and the Senate to prepare for his War. The blockade of Naboo was just the first pawns being moved. Many themes of moral ambiguity were pervasive in the prequels. The Jedi were the "good guys", but they were flawed and arrogant. The CIS were the "Bad guys", but their grievances with the Senate were quite valid. The Republic was a bastion of freedom and democracy, but it was mired in corruption. Anakin was the personification of this dichotomy. He wasn't the superhero that Luke (and the OT audience) imagined him to be, but a very flawed, very "human" character. In the noble effort to save his wife and child he, like Lady Jocasta, inadvertently *cause* the very events that they dedicated themselves to prevent.
It's easy to drill no deeper than the awkward dialog or Jar-Jar fart jokes in the prequels. But by doing so, you're missing the point entirely. The best storytelling in the prequels is what lies between the lines.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
We'll probably never know that. It's influence wasn't just in its moral precepts (which may or may not have actually have had any influence on the people that mattered), or stuff like the Crusades.
But without the Franks converting to Christianity, for example, we wouldn't have had the Holy Roman Empire. (Which wasn't holy, roman, nor had more than a forgery as a claim to call itself an empire, but there we go.) Nor stuff like the investiture controversy later, which did decentralize that big of a chunk of Europe. We wouldn't have had the Byzantine conflicts with Armenia or with the Syriac churches, which conflict ultimately put it border to border with the Seljuk Turks and thus the disastrous war at Manzikert against Alp Arslan. (The resulting internal conflict is widely recognized as the beginning of the end for the Byzantines.) The Armenians knew how to deal with the turkish troops, Byzantium had no clue. Etc, etc, etc.
It might have also had more subtle implications for the Roman empire, and its eventual demise, as it was an anti-Empire religion of the oppressed. The crucifix as a symbol wasn't just about Christ. It was a symbol of roman oppression, recognizable by everyone. It was an execution reserved only for non-citizens in occupied territories. Eventually the Empire _had_ to adopt this new religion, or be weakened from within by it. There also was at least an internal war in the Roman Empire, east against west, based on it.
The changes and influences are too many and too far reaching, to make that kind of pronouncement.
Would history have been better without the HRE and everything? We don't really know. That one religion pretty much sent the whole history of a continent, down an entirely different trouser leg of history. So different, that we can't even guess what was ahead down the other trouser leg.
Would we have still had slavery, for example, if the Roman empire continued as it was? The transition to feudalism was largely caused by the collapse of trade, order, and the centralized state, as Rome was no longer able to control its provinces. Even in Italy itself, Justinian's disastrous war of reconquest and the plague it brought, ensured the almost total collapse and made it easy prey for a tribe as primitive as the Lombards.
Was Christianity the worst religion possible, in the long run?
Well, Confucianism in China, for example, may not have had an Inquisition, but ensured almost total stagnation past a point. The imperial examination ensured that everyone who even hoped to have any official or teaching job at any level, had to learn by heart the same norms and precepts. There wasn't much room for trying anything new, and even conquerors like the Yuan dynasty (Mongolians) or Qing dynasty (Manchu), found it easier to just continue the system than try to change it. Sometimes with disastrous results, like the actual technology and military regression during the Qing dynasty.
I'll stick to China as an example for now, just because I can't be arsed to write a tome about every single zone and religion on Earth. Some would maybe make even better examples, but, eh, bear with me.
By contrast, Christianity never had that tight a grip on everything, and had to find some way to accomodate different scientific approaches. E.g., before it could pick on Galileo in the name of the Aristotelian system, it had to accept the Aristotelian system and let universities teach it in the first place, mostly because it couldn't do much about it.
Or we look at the Crusades and other internal wars, and think "OMG, look at all the carnage that Christianity caused." Well, China had for example the Three Kingdoms period, where internal warfare, where they lost something like 70% of the population in war. Not estimate, but actual difference between census numbers. And again, 70% of the total population, _not_ of the army. Mind you, some as a result of famines and other effec
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
One of George Bush's favorite movies is supposed to be High Noon, a 1952 Western starring Gary Cooper. It's about a town marshal awaiting the arrival of a gang of criminals, coming to take revenge, who are arriving on the noon train. The townspeople are cowardly and don't want to stand up, but Cooper's character stands resolute even when everyone else tries to talk him out of it, and everyone else turns their back on him and abandons him. It's a morality tale about standing your ground and sticking to your principles when you're right, regardless of what other people think. And there's a lot to be said for that... but you could also imagine that someone watching that movie might find inspiration to stick to their ground and stand by their principles, even when they're *dead wrong*. For instance, if you were the President of the United States of America. It's not hard to picture Bush in his office, as the entire nation is telling him to change course in Iraq, imagining that he's the lead character in High Noon, steadfast, doing the right and moral thing even as the cowards around him try to tell him to alter course... who says movies can't alter the course of history?
Oscar Wilde once quipped, "Life imitates art, far more than art imitates life". After "Top Gun" was released, enlistment in the Navy soared. Shows like "CSI" have resulted in huge enrollment in criminology and forensics courses. Goethe's novel "Sorrows of Young Werther" ends with the suicide of its lovelorn protagonist, and was followed by a rash of suicides across Europe. Interrogators in Iraq try methods they've seen on "24" because they haven't received adequate instruction from the army. The novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" helped fuel the tensions that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the American Civil War. Our behavior is to a very large degree shaped by our role models, and we can either imitate real people like our parents, teachers, or celebrities, or fictional characters in novels, TV, and film.
The next President of the United States is likely to be Barack Obama, born 1961. Star Wars was released in 1977- when he was 16. Odds are good he saw it then. Who can know what kind of effect the movie had on him as an impressionable teen? When that 3:00 A.M. phone call comes to tell him that the terrorists/Iranians/aliens have attacked America, how do you know he won't be imagining himself in an Incom X-wing, spoilers locked in attack position, with a trusty R-2 unit as copilot, barreling down a trench as laser bolts fly past?
Actually, the White House official who comes closest to Palpatine is Dick Cheney. He's scheming, he's manipulative, he's secretive and rules from the shadows... and you can totally imagine him sneering with maniacal glee as blue lightning shoots from his fingertips to torture puppies, baby seals, Cub Scouts, whatever. Bush is more like Anakin Skywalker: well meaning, but naive and easily manipulated such that his good intentions end up doing great harm.
Hrm. Scratch that. Bush is more like Jar Jar: easily manipulated, dumb, problems with the English language, huge ears nobody can stand him for long.
Yeah I had thought he was a carpenter before Star Wars as well. Just like Jesus!
which is totally what she said
Lucas was like Roddenberry, great ideas, but they need to let other more talented writers and such do the polishing of the raw stones into gems. When Gene was heavily involved in the early years of TNG, it was /terrible/, and I say this as a die hard trekkie. When his role was reduced, the show began to shine. all the facets of what Trek could be were able to be explored. And when untalented people got ahold of the franchise (most of Voyager, the first three seasons of Enterprise) it went into the toilet (Season 4 of ENT was genius, Manny Coto is one smart cookie). Same with Star Wars. I'm not a huge SW guy, but I liked the first three, and saw huge problems with the prequel set that a good editor and writer could have fixed very quickly.
Story wise, Episode 1 needed cut down to about 15 minutes of intro for Episode 2, which is now Episode 1. This is a common problem with movies and TV shows, in that too many writers think we need to be introed to our characters at the dawn of time. It's much better when we join the story already at a decent pace and get the background filled in along the way. This lets the viewer/reader get interested in what's happening without having to spend time in school learning about the history of our characters first. If we wanted school, we'd read a textbook. Also, kill the midichlorian crap, excise JarJar Binks. Midichlorians stole the wonder from The force and JarJar wasn't taht great a merchandising tool anyway, as I STILL see Ep1 crap at the local Big Lots.
Episode 3 is now Episode 2, except for the last 15 minutes or so. This should end when Kenobi leaves Whinykin, er, Anakin, truncated on the volcano. Ep3 picks up there and we spend the next 2 hours seeing the creation of Darth Vader and how he builds the Empire and WHY. Only knowing that can we truly appreciate him turning on the emperor in Ep6, and what it means for him to look on his son with is own eyes.
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
I have a theory I call the Marx Brothers Syndrome and it works like this:
The Marx Brothers are old and boring today. A person having never seen them before will sit down in front of one of their classics and know all the jokes and nuances and just walk away.
If they were so great, why is this so?
It is because the were great, one of the greatest! Everyone in the business learned their tricks, copied their jokes, and expanded and improved on their dialog and themes. Now the Marx Brothers look diminished in comparison to what has developed after.
The same is true for Star Wars. It was great when it came out. It covered new ground. It did things that people had never seen before. In a lot of ways Star Wars was "dreadful." Today, I watch it and think Luke is such a whiner and C3PO shouldn't be an uptight english comic book character.
I think the episodes 1,2, and 3 suffered from the Marx Brothers Syndrome because the story, dialog, and "film making" of "Star Wars" has always been fairly flawed and needs to show us something new to allow us to overlook the weaknesses. Unfortunately, the cutting edge for special effects is irrelevant. Once you crossed over the "miniatures and props methodology" to CGI, improvements are now only incremental.
Star Wars fails because we already know it. We've seen it before in a thousand different ways since 1977. We already know the special effects. We have seen enough space opera, complete with bad dialog and acting, that there is almost nothing that would surprise us.
IMHO, Star Wars was ground breaking, but the space opera is as depleted a genre as the american western.
1. George Lucas is a terrible writer.
2. He wrote tons of different drafts for Star Wars, all universally awful, even the better parts he stole from better stories.
3. George Lucas had enough success to get $10 million to make a movie but he was nowhere close to being the Beard. He says "Fuck you, I'm George Lucas," they say "George who?" So he couldn't do everything his way, he had to listen to the input of others.
4. The genius of the whole Star Wars project is that Lucas served as a catalyst to bring hundreds of talented people together to make good movies. As Harrison Ford told him, "George, you can write lines like this but you sure as hell can't say them!" He hated, absolutely hated the way Empire turned out. But because he didn't have enough money to reshoot the material, he had to accept what he was given. And it was arguably the strongest of the original trilogy.
5. Because he had to listen to others, his best ideas were polished up to be brilliant, his worst ideas discarded, and good ideas from others were welded into the structure that is Star Wars. And it was good.
6. After all that success, the Beard is seen as having made it happen. And for the new trilogy, he felt he could do it on his own. And like the egotistical singer from a rock band who thinks the rest of the act is holding him back, he finds out in his solo career that he really doesn't have the chops to stand on his own. But in this case, the fanbase is so uncritical, so slavish, that he still has massive success even as he's shoveling steaming feces down their throats; they just smack their lips and beg for more.
That's Star Wars in a nutshell.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne