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An Animated, Open Letter To J.J. Abrams About Star Wars
juliangamble writes "Designer Prescott Harvey has written and animated an open letter to J.J. Abrams about the plans for the next Star Wars movie. He says, 'Like so many people, I've spent most of my recent years wondering why the original Star Wars trilogy was so awesome, and the new movies were so terrible. What are the factors that make Star Wars Star Wars? I took an empirical approach, determining what elements were in the original movies that differed from the prequels. My first major epiphany was that, in the originals, the characters are always outside somewhere very remote. The environment and the wildlife are as much a threat as the empire. All three movies had this bushwacky, exploratory feel. Contrast that with the prequels, where the characters are often in cities, or in the galactic senate. In order for Star Wars to feel like a true adventure, the setting has to be the frontier, and this became my first rule.'"
Please ruin it like you did Star Trek. Oh sorry, that's a given.
I couldn't find a transcript of the video. The video on YouTube didn't even have a (non-automatic) closed caption track. Where should I read what's going on?
But it's Star Wars, not Weed Wars.
Table-ized A.I.
If you wanna know why the original trilogy worked, read about Joseph Campbell's book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces "George Lucas' deliberate use of Campbell's theory of the monomyth in the making of the Star Wars movies is well documented. On the DVD release of the famous colloquy between Campbell and Bill Moyers, filmed at Lucas' Skywalker Ranch and broadcast in 1988 on PBS as The Power of Myth, Campbell and Moyers discussed Lucas's use of The Hero with a Thousand Faces in making his films.[11] Lucas himself discussed how Campbell's work affected his approach to storytelling and film-making." "I [Lucas] came to the conclusion after American Graffiti that what's valuable for me is to set standards, not to show people the world the way it is...around the period of this realization...it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology...The Western was possibly the last generically American fairy tale, telling us about our values. And once the Western disappeared, nothing has ever taken its place. In literature we were going off into science fiction...so that's when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, and I started reading Joe's books. Before that I hadn't read any of Joe's books...It was very eerie because in reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classic motifs...so I modified my next draft [of Star Wars] according to what I'd been learning about classical motifs and made it a little bit more consistent...I went on to read 'The Masks of God' and many other books." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
http://www.slashfilm.com/watch-this-70-minute-video-review-of-star-wars-the-phantom-menace/
Which brings me to rule #4. Have characters.
The prequels had horrible horrible horrible horrible scripts, if he can't see that then they should just fire him now and save themselves the wasted money.
...to character problems. Give me characters to care about and their surroundings are far less important.
...but the first movies WEREN'T so great. They were a mishmash of stories, some pretty stock characters, the worldbuilding ability of the time, a good dose of novelty, and in the thirty something years since they came out the extra tacked-on backstories and tales tacked on to the side by further cartoons, comics, books and fanfiction add to the world.
It's a little like following the main story on dresdencodak. If you were to read the entire collection of comics you'd get a really basic world with a few pretty pictures. Read Aaron Diaz's other media related to it and you get a fuller picture of what's happening. It's only in that context that anything in the story makes sense and comes together as anything more than a stream of geek and science in-jokes. That doesn't make it bad, but it needs experience of the time it was written and the complete work of the person to come together fully.
The original Star Wars trilogy wasn't great by any objective measure I can think of, it was just a good product of its time with people involved in its production willing to share the characters and stories and build on the world. Few of us come to the prequels from the same side; instead we saw them new, raw, and stand-alone - so they come up empty.
The key seems to be that nobody would say no to Lucas. Yesa sir Jar jar be a good character that peoples will loves. So has JJ Abrams reached that point where he is surrounded by Yes men? Or is there someone who will say, "That sucks." Not necessarily someone who can order him around but simply someone who isn't a simpering fool and has good taste.
I recently read about LucasArts and all the bizarre choices that were made there. Basically they jumped from whim to whim. Hopefully those people are left by the doorstep by Disney. I suspect that they will weasel their way into the "creative" process and ruin everything anyway.
... and he liked this. Enough said.
Dog is my co-pilot.
1. Write a good story first. Don't start with the setting and the creatures you want to bring in and design the story around it.
2. Get people who can actually act, and help them actually act.
3. Don't ever listen to George Lucas about anything.
4. Don't ever listen to obsessive Star Wars fans about anything.
You can take .
There is another robot character and another dog like companion and of course a totally even more evil dark lord and emperor.
http://saveie6.com/
He already turned Star Trek into a battle-oriented space opera. If anything that shows he has a decent handle of what Star Wars is. More than he has on Star Trek at least.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Don't let Lucas get involved. I mean when he did Episodes 1-3, he completely ruined the entire back story. If you can, please redo the entire episodes 1-3. Thanks.
I always felt that the original trilogy was a better story (and better written), underdog heroes fighting a massively superior enemy and the story of the rebirth of the Jedi and their fight against the sith. I felt that the prequels on the other hand were poorly written and they didn't mesh properly with the original three movies, there were severe continuity issues. Some of the characters were utterly ridiculous, such as the much reviled (and deservedly so) Jar Jar Binks and we all knew that our heroes and the Republic were going to lose and the Empire was going to be born. Who wants to watch a series of movies where the hero is going to go over to the dark side and the bad guys win, everyone knew essentially what was going to happen and where the story would end.
Rule 1: On the frontier.
Rule 2: Old (well, at least broken) Not 'squeaky clean.'
Rule 3: The force is mysterious?
Rule 4: It's not cute.
All of those perfectly describe Firefly, (except the Force thing, and that's not really applicable.)
In fact, Malcolm Reynolds is a pretty accurate analogue for Han Solo, as Serenity is to the Millennium Falcon.
Who knew we liked Firefly for the same reasons we originally liked Star Wars?
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
My way is right !! And that way ?? They ALL SUCKED !! It is a kid thing !! As a kid you liked it so today you believe you still do !! You DO NOT !! If you are not a kid still !! I can never and HAVE NEVER sat through any of them from beginning to end !! Why ?? Because as movies they ALL SUCKED !!
There's something about actual models and props that makes the interaction with humans so much more lifelike and realistic than _any_ greenscreen "let's pretend we're talking/holding/prodding something imaginary" type of activity. And don't get me started with painting over scenes with computer generated, always so slightly wrong, enhancements.
The original Star Wars trilogy, before stuff was retconned in, had no CGI.
In the original you did not see Luke jump 4 stories in the air like the jedi episode 1. Infact the jump in episode 5 from just 6 feet in the air impressed Darth Vader when he tried to freeze him.
Now every Jedi can magically do 4 somersaults many stories in the air on command, survive re-entry and falling back to Earth at 200 mph and being totally unhurt in a 1 trillion ton ship, mysteriously jump in the air from flying taxis at 100 mph and catching a grip and using the force to land in another convertible totally unhurt some 900 feet below. When you see this shit your brain desensitizes the content so it is no big deal as it knows it is fake at this point.
You sensed real fear with the light-saber of losing a limb in the originals. They were slow and precise fencing with careful concentration aided by the force. The new ones they just wank them around everywhere fast like nothing and it ruins it and takes away any concept of a real fight.
The original script of Star Wars included Batman (Abrams style) like effects and Luke as a 50 year old general with lots of action all over. The studios felt it was too unrealistic and lacked a story line. Totally opposite of every annoying action movie today!
My advice would be to Instead focus on things like big ships without advanced graphics and cinematics that can't be done with every kid with Blender or a pirated copy of Maya. Make new aliens and concepts with a great story lines. I like how the Millennium Falcon had grinding noises when it opened and closed which gave the appearance of it being bandaided over with Hans Solo using parts from anywhere he could. No metallic SGI ships with no models that are flawless. I like the sounds that were not all computerized but make from TV sets and other improvised devices that made them look realistic in a non computer way.
The Matrix 1 was fucking awesome for its time but now it is annoying as we seen everything. I like J Abrams but he is too fucked on bass and things getting blown up. Star Wars Episode 5 was my favorite as Lucas was not involved in the writing or directing as much. It really showed when Darth Vader came out as his father to Luke!
I have a feeling this will be a disaster of epic proportions but I could be wrong hopefully.
I think this states the problem perfectly.
http://saveie6.com/
Star wars is no better or worse than any other story, except that it had the potential to be told over a number of movies.
Movies are also pressured to maximize the use of technology to tell a story. This can work, but with episodes i,ii,and iii I think the advanced technology worked against the story, and in any future movies will be a fx tour de force, rather than story telling.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
...does not speak for me. The only time I've spent with the star wars movies, all six of them, was thoroughly entertaining. More? Bring it on. Also judging by the rousing success of the movies and later DVDs and Blurays, Designer Prescott Harvey doesn't speak for much of anyone else, either. Perhaps he should go back to... designing.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Dear JJ Abrams,
We heard you're making the next Star Wars movie. Please don't fuck it up like George Lucas did with the first two prequels.
Thanks,
Star Wars fans everywhere
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
The original Star Wars trilogy wasn't great by any objective measure I can think of, it was just a good product of its time with people involved in its production willing to share the characters and stories and build on the world.
What objective measures of art, or even film specifically, can you think of? If you say, "Amalgamation of movie critic and audience reviews" then I'll say "No, by those measures, the first Star Wars trilogy, and "The Empire Strikes Back" in particular, were great. Check out Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, or whatever if you like. They compare favorably with Casablanca, what do you want, Citizen Kane*?"
But I don't think that's what you meant. I believe that you just hoped we'd accept what you'd said, "The original Star Wars trilogy wasn't great by any objective measure," without thinking WTF an "objective measure" might mean in this case.
*Despite the fact that Citizen Kane is often called something like "best movie ever" and similar, it's actually entertaining -- you should watch it sometime.
I am not a crackpot.
a clueless whore (sorry, I don't usually call people names but I simply have no better word for someone who does anything for money) not to be himself? To him and the studios is all about making money. JJ Abrams has no clue how to design a story line, have plausible characters, or stay true to the spirit of the series. He tramples over everything that was there before him, ignores the fans that are begging him to stop and comes up with the most idiotic ways to justify cramming in more special effects. But what he does appeals to the casual viewer and therefore translates to profits...
Peter.
Sci-fi is supposed to present ideas previously unimagined.
Prequels are unsatisfactory because one knows what happens.
There are plenty of objective measures by which a film can be judged, as can any story. Innovation is a key aspect in which films are judged, although in contrast to this we also have adherence to a form. Star Wars is almost a genre-defining space opera, doing for cinema what series like Flash Gordon failed to accomplish years earlier. The science fiction of the 80s and 90s owes a huge amount to its commercial success, and its release prompted the production and sequels of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, amongst other franchises. Star Wars showed that science fiction could have popular appeal without being a B-movie, a process that 2001: A Space Odyssey and Forbidden Planet were only partially successful in instigating due to their relatively cerebral tone.
...and as a fan of Dresden Codak, I somewhat have to disagree with the AC on the points about the plot; the vast majority of epic literary works have multiple threads in the same fashion, often with significant diversions from the main plot. This is a key element of pacing, and can be found in everything from Tolstoy to Tarantino. Diaz has a particular fondness for expressionism and symbolism that make such realist diversions incompatible with his storytelling style, but the recent prevalence of this in literature is a largely postmodern revival of a rather old idea. Such a creative choice can barely be called a subjective criterion, much less an objective one.
...and on that note, DC isn't very rigorous about world-building, either. In neither series is it all that important; Star Wars is a drama about emotions, and Dark Science and Hob (Dresden Codak's largest comics, for those following along at home) both focus on metaphysical and personal questions; the world's beauty is merely a backdrop for characters, played in a different regard.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Charles Foster Kane dies alone, dramatically, gasps 'Rosebud'. ... no one was there. How did anyone know it was his last word?
It is the guy in charge...Lucas had help directing AND producing the first round of movies. By the time the prequels came out Lucas had grown to believe his own hype, that he was the 2nd coming of Christ in the form of a director and producer, which we all quickly found out was not true...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I have a theory, backed by evidence about the next Star Wars movie. All my friends say it can't happen this way, but none can explain why not.
Its JJ Abrams, so I bet there is a significant chance it will be a "reboot" and he will do the orginal episode 4 plot.
Its Disney, so big budget + Disney = Johnny Depp as main character.
So who wants to see Johnny Depp as Han Solo in a remake of Episode 4?
Now tell me all your theories on how it could possibly be worse.
... many years ago and did something about it. The result was called Firefly and Serenity. Harvey described Firefly! There might be something wrong with the theory, though, because look how that turned out: one series that didn't even make it to Season Two and a single movie, no "franchise" in sight.
I'm not at all convinced that Prescott Harvey is a cinematic genius. If Joss Whedon can't make it work, the formula ain't ready to leave the drawing board.
Age. Everyone seems to forget the influence of age on how we perceive things. Most fans of the original films were kids when they first saw those movies. Kids don't analyse plot holes or care about clichés*. Kids don't get hung up on bad costumes or silly characters (if Ewoks had first appeared in the new trilogy, there would have been even more endless Lucas bashing). Those films are still viewed through the nostalgic eyes of children and that is a large part of why the new films received so much criticism from this vocal group.
Some of that criticism is fair, but nothing can live up to the inner child's expectations when filtered through the eyes of the outer grown up.
Of all the things that J.J. Abrams may be able to do, taking this guy back to the early 80's for the new films is not one of them. Sorry, kid.
* It's the latter half of 2013 and you still don't have proper character encoding... can't someone take a break from writing sensationalist headlines that mischaracterize the story and do some coding for once? I know you miss SgtBurrito, but you are allowed to update the legacy code.
ST:2009 was the best film by Academy Awards, inflation-adjusted box office, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and IMDB. Abrams blew it with ST:ID. While ST:2009 had great special effects, Abrams was so overly focused on special effects with his Trek-unprecedented $190m ST:ID budget that he forgot about the plot.
Lucas suffered a similar problem. Oh, Lucas didn't forget about the plot in the prequel trilogy -- in fact it was richer in the prequels. Lucas was so focused on special effects in the prequels that he left all the character development on the cutting room floor. The prequels would have been much better with the cut scenes that are available on the DVDs. Couldn't let the special effects budget go to waste on the cutting room floor, you know.
Resource constraints increase creativity. Thus, I sadly have little hope for Abrams Wars.
First rule is get rid of the midichlorians and get an alternate explanation for the Force. That's something that could actually be explored in the first movie.
Han Solo finds a strange artifact that turns out to be a communication device which puts him in contact with an enigmatic race of time travellers. These time travellers lead Han Solo and a group of adventurers to a distant planet from far in the future. But during the time jump the Millennium Falcon is severely damaged and starts to plummet towards the planet below. But as they fall Luke Skywalker senses an extraordinary Force presence, and the Millennium Falcon is no longer falling but is being pulled, pulled by a mysterious large figure standing on the beach of an island...
I stole this Sig
Enough of Star [Trek|Wars|Gate]! Been there, done that. We need to move on.
"Harry Potter" did it right. They did the series of novels, in sequence, and then stopped. There's no "Hogwarts, the Next Generation".
Okay, bear with me.
While thinking about good and bad sci-fi inspired by the success of "Star Wars," I thought about "The Black Hole," an example of the latter. And since I was already using my internet-box-thing, I checked the wikipedia entry. And I came across this gem:
In November 2009, it was reported that Disney has plans to remake the movie. Director Joseph Kosinski (who directed Disney's 2010 blockbuster Tron: Legacy) and producer Sean Bailey are attached to the production,[5][13] and Jon Spaihts, who wrote the original script for the Alien prequel Prometheus, was confirmed as writer for the project on April 5, 2013
Light bulb.
Give this project to Abrams instead -- he can't make it much worse -- and we let Star Wars rest in peace without further damage to the series. Everyone's happy.
I am not a crackpot.
RE: Charles Foster Kane dies alone, dramatically, gasps 'Rosebud'. ... no one was there. How did anyone know it was his last word?
Um, the camera was rolling?
How do you think they got the shot?
Jeez, some people ...
There are indeed objective measures of art. I'm not an actor, I'm a musician, but I know standup comics, dancers, and some stage actors. All of our disciplines have objective standards by which we compare ourselves and are compared with others in our art. It typically comes down to technical achievements, but also there are objective measures for evaluating subjective things like emotional response and originality. Yes, it gets silly. As a musician, it's often a case of being told musician X plays more complex melodies than Y, or musician X is doing Y, which no one else is doing. There is art that sucks. There is bad technique. There is failed attempts at translating artistic vision to a final product. There is also a complete failure to sell the product.
I think there are several objective measures by which Star Wars would be an astounding success. Star wars isn't just art, it is an entertainment product. Star Wars is probably the most successful independent film ever made. New technologies were developed to push the creativity in the film, technologies which enhanced the industry as they were utilized by other filmmakers. Thus, Star Wars had technical achievements. Sure, Star Wars isn't Citizen Kane. It also isn't Le Violon Rouge or The Three Colours trilogy. And thank god. Not every movie needs to be that.
These were the top grossing American film releases in 1977.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_in_film
If you've never watched the 70 minute review of Phantom Menace, you should. Just Google it. It hits the nail on the head about why the originals are so much "better" than the prequels.
"What objective measures of art, or even film specifically, can you think of?"
Aesthetics, if we replaced realistic imagery with black and white stickmen and stick buildings/environment, would it still be the same movie?
Star Trek (tos) was canceled because it was too "cerebral" , Star Wars was cool in the first movie, wavered in the second movie, then flipped over and sank in order to sell toys for kids - mainly fuzzy little toy bears singing some weird disco chant.
The following three flicks were made in order to sell jar jar and farts.
While people can point and laugh at William Shatner's acting, I'd like the same Star Wars loving nerd defend the flatulence, or even the loose lipped jar jar as being movie excellence,
In the sixties, Star Trek was aimed to be "Wagon Train" to the stars, While Star wars was aimed at selling little plastic toys to children.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
These were the top grossing American film releases in 1977.
So your message to JJ Abrams would be... make a ton of cash?
Good one, I'm sure he never thought of doing that.
None of Prescott Harvey's rules matter to me.
My rules are more basic:
Rule 1: The audience prefers characters who are competent. Good examples are Spock, Data, Seven of Nine, Khan, Paul Atreides, Jason Bourne, etc. Bad examples are JarJar binks, Rest of Voyager crew, Prometheus crew, etc.
The Jedi Knights can free Anakin from slavery but not his mother? Wtf.
Rule 2: The "good guys" should be just as ruthless as the bad guys. In so many movies, the bad guys kill quickly and the good guys yell 'stop or I'll shoot'. That is BS. The "good guys" should be like Jack Reacher and Malcolm Reynolds.
Jedi Knights can't figure out what Count Dooku has been plotting but Count Dooku knows all about Anakin's dark secrets?
More like rule #1, and it is illustrated ingeniously in Mr Plinkett's epic 70-minute Episode I review.
The aforementioned review is also widely accepted as the best thing to come out of the wreck that is SW: Episode I.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
The first one was just some fun comic space opera. Then someone started taking himself too seriously.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
How hard does it have to be to see this?
They were all likable and they argued and sniped and competed with each other bitterly while also being friends.
Meanwhile, the next set of movies had essentially no character conflict at all except Jar Jar.
Darth Maul vs Qui-Gon
They fight.. then they sit.
And they sit.
And they sit.
And then they fight and Darth Maul wins.
We don't learn a thing about either of them.
meanwhile Jar Jar.. spearfishing Fruit irritates the hell out of the otherwise completely stoic Qui-Gon. "STOP!"
In fact, some of the only character building banter (such as the whether the welded door will hold or not between Anakin and Kenobi) are CUT from the film-- giving us more scenes of people not saying anything and being pulled up the sides of buildings on magic ropes.
Give us characters.
Have those characters say things.
Give them points of view.
Have them show ordinary emotions like...
Romantic Interest
Foolishness
Excitement
Overconfidence
Lust
Depression
Happiness
Enjoyment of food and drink.
Snarkiness
Rude statements they regret.
Make them believe they are the best and then throw them in with each other and see which ones are best and how they react to finding out they are not quite so good- or that they are good (confident? humble?)
One of the great things about Admiral Thrawn was that he was brilliant-- he kept figuring out every move the rebels made-- and then he made an error-- a reasonable error but he was so smart he couldn't believe he could make an error. Fantastic! The plot flowed FROM the character's traits. A very strong villain makes the hero's seem even stronger.
Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters Characters
It's not about the scenary. Good writing with good characters can take place in a one room set and be fully engaging-- because we care.
The original 3 insulted each other. Almost constantly. And they also liked each other.
And the actors found ways to make the characters likable-- that's what actors do.
But actors need good writing to start with. Then they put little twists on the words or in the way those words or delivered-- the subtext.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This is silly over-analysis. The original trilogy religiously followed Campbell's monomyth. The prequel trilogy did not. That's all.
It's not about making a good movie, it's marking territory. What he'll do is lift his leg and piss all over the original to make something that is uniquely his, just like was done with Trek.
Advice on making a good movie is pointless since it's about breaking the old story and making it irrelevant.
Sorry to break the groupthink but the real reason the original movies were "great" and the later movies were great is really simple - you saw the first batch when you were 12, and the second batch where you were 35. Nothing could have matched your original 12-year-old's assessment of the movies.
The original movies were amazingly unsophisticated and simplistic *special effects movies*. There had be absolutely nothing like them before, ever. The opening sequence of "A New Hope" sold you on the entire series, it was an absolutely stunning special effects masterpiece and there wasn't a person who saw it who wasn't amazed. At the same time, the acting was dismal, the story was simplistic, formulaic, and utterly predictable, aside from the effects. That doesn't matter to a 12-year old. The other movies, prequels included, were better in a plot/script/acting sense. The prequels followed the same formula with a better plot and acting, aimed at the same kids who were 12 in 1977 and 34 in 1999. Of course, by then, the special effects were not stunning any more, the expectations build up over decades couldn't possibly be met even if it was Citizen Kane in Space.
I have an advantage over most of the rest of you - I was 17-18 when the first movie came out, and possibly more objective. It was a great movie because it had 2001-quality special effects used for a action-packed story. It wasn't great cinema, Lucas was no more skilled in 77 than he way in 99, and the later movies aren't significantly worse.
Green screens were everywhere in the 1977 Star Wars, it was quite famous for using it more than anything else up to that point. I've got no idea how many "making of" things I saw on it and the other two. The differences lie in attention to detail instead of the techniques themselves. Crap SFX is like crap props and our current problem with CGI is special effects going too far into uncanny valley and just not fitting in. The stop motion chess game stuff in Star Wars was very much crap SFX but worked perfectly because of the context, just as CGI in Toy Story etc works because the things portrayed are not expected to be photorealistic. The problem IMHO is pushing things beyond the limit where the flaws show up - like the full sunlight scenes in Labyrinth where the puppets that looked very real in shadow were as obvious as muppets in the sun.
It was a money spinner, delivering exactly what his bosses wanted, so the problems lie a bit higher up the tree than those two. Firefly was axed while more expensive options that rated less continued. We can't blame them for being better at entertaining than playing office politics.
The first Knights of the Old Republic was a masterpiece, and plenty of it took place in cities. There is nothing about Star Wars that needs to be in the boondocks to work. It just needs to be directed well, which many parts of the prequel series didn't have the benefit of because nobody was willing to tell George Lucas anything. It's my understanding that in the original trilogy, Spielberg walked him back from alot of his usual idiocy.
It's not going to be directed well now either, because JJ Abrams is simply a hack.
Seriously, that video was actually better than all three of the prequels combined.
Especially the Yoda bit.
I wish I was kidding.
Read Pynchon.
Pretty much. http://asciimation.co.nz/
In 1977, as a 19 year-old, the first Star Wars film was utterly superb.
When it was back in the cinema about a decade ago and I saw it as a 40-something, I found it rather tame and plodding.
Perhaps the problem is that people who remember the excitement of the original films when they were young just aren't as easily excited as they've got older, so the newer films don't seem as good.
(though this is pure speculation, as I haven't bothered going to see anything other than the original trilogy, having been bored by re-seeing the first film).
Just like Star Trek is now shit. The last Star Trek movie was a standard movie with all the standard elements, and a Star Trek sauce. It was not Star Trek. They hired the guy to do this. And they hired the guy to do the same with Star Wars. The next one is supposed to be shit.
I can't take it anymore, and definitively is so 80s; is was already out of place in 2000 IMO, we already are tired of seeing star wars, move on and invent something good for a change.
Holy shit fuck tard. How about real actors in gay fucking retro future costume doing what actors should be doing without the influence of digital manipulation....
Fucking right.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. ~~ Hunter S. Thompson
Because you write what you know. When Lucas was the head of a multimillion dollar entertainment empire, he spent all fucking day at meetings. So when he wrote his epic, he wrote about what he was doing which is BORING DEATH TO EVERYONE BUT HIM.
So as long as the author of the scripts has the skill level above that of apprentice screenwriter, he can remember not to stage every goddamn important scene around a god-damn CONFERENCE TABLE WHICH IS BORING AS FUCK GEORGE!!! /rant off
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
I think it would be XKCD
I was watching that animation and all I could think was:
THIS MAN IS DESCRIBING FIREFLY!!!!!!!!!!
Space Western Set in a Frontier: CHECK
Future is Old And Dirty And Broken: CHECK
Sense of the Unknown of the Powers at the Edge (Reavers? Hands of Blue??): CHECK!
The World Is Dangerous, no Deus Ex Machina here!: CHECK!
Han^H^H^HMal Shoots First?: OMFGCHECK!
Damnit if only we could kidnap JJ Abrams and clone Joss Whedon in his place!
in my opinion, the first two star wars (not even the third), i.e. episode VI and V were great because they were set in a space opera universe that was easy to understand, where actual people could make a difference. In other words the technology and stuff was there for the "O, shiny" effect but really you cared about heroes, their skills and their troubles. It was highly imaginative and fun. Plus we had Harrison Ford to save the day, everyday.
In the latter trilogy, in spite of all of its flaws (trade dispute ! Jar jar Binks !) it could have been all the same had GL spent the time to actually develop Anakin into a believable villain. Dooku and Sidious were actually pretty good but not enough to save the franchise because expended too soon. The heroes were actually OK, from episode II onwards. Mc Gregor and Portman were actually showing some pretty good acting. Anakin was OK in places only and never great.
Hayden Christensen
He can't act. He's terrible in any role he plays.
These reviews take about an hour for each film describing in detail just how dreadful the prequels are. Very insightful and well worth watching.
In the original movies, the actors managed to portray some human and non-human warmth and grittiness in the characters. In the church of Lucas of later day episodes the characters were detached, difficult to relate, distant, too clean and too ripped off from the essentials of personality.
I think other than Jar Jar, the thing that killed the newest 3 Star Wars movies was the horrible acting. It is like every actor everywhere wanted to be in the movies, but they cast extras who stood around in swimsuits from the background of Bay Watch. (Not really. But it kind of seemed that way.) Then, there was the writing. I mean, take young Anikin Skywalker. The one thing they needed to demonstrate about him is a strong emotional connection with his mother. It should have been a little bit like Heavy Rain. There should have been a strong bond there and he should have been sad to leave her but done it anyway. Instead, it seemed they wanted to make him like Wesley Crusher from Star Trek. Then, the love scenes were like watching Natalie Portman try and do a love sceen with a wall. They were just so flat and unbelievable. Seriously, did the casting director from Star Wars go on to cast people from Twilight? Then, there was Jar Jar. I actually could have forgiven them for Jar Jar if they would have done the third one right. I would have had Jar Jar say something inane to Anikin like "Don't worry about your mother. Meesa think a slave is not worth worrying about." Then Anikin would have went all darkside on him and obliterated him. That would have been epic.
They are not terrible. They are run of the mill action flicks made after the same safe recipe that Hollywood uses for any movie these days, no worse and no better.
The original movies are in a league of their own.
First of all, everything this JJ Drunk as touched, destroyed the franchise. This same mentally disabled criminal has decided has the gall of directly lying to the world several times when he was destroying Star Trek. This kid has no right to direct anything ... But oh well, greedy employers hire greedy mental nut cases.
The true crime of the prequels wasn't that they were childish, mediocre and kind of stupid
It was that they made us realize that the original movies had always been childish, mediocre and kind of stupid.
Abrams wasn't hired to make a film you like. He was hired to destroy Star Wars, just as he did with Star Trek. Deviate the idea of human potential and moral responsibility into psychopathic thinking patterns. This is the same guy who pushed torture as a solution through his CIA promo shite, "Alias".
The original Star Wars encouraged people to become better people, and it made the Empire out to be something worth fighting.
Such thinking couldn't be allowed to stand in the public mind. And so Abrams was hired to pollute the wells, cut down the olive groves and make it seem like its our fault for not liking it.
To hell with Disney and to hell with Abrams.
The only reason they'd pay attention to this animated appeal to reason is so that they can know how to ensure SW is even more messed up than it has already been made through Lucas' ongoing mental decay.
You suck at making movies... please stop.
--The movie-going public.
Prequels had no depth. Star Wars had a mysterious history and backstory, a mystery element that was uncovered as you went along. When they made the prequels they were fleshing out the backstory that was present in 4/5/6 - but forgot to add depth to make them good movies on their own. There is little to no allusion to events taking place before the prequels, they feel like they exist in a vacuum, save for cheeky tie ins to 4/5/6. If the new films ALSO rely on 4/5/6 for their depth, they will be just as empty.
The original series was just a tiny bit gritty. Not too much, just a little.
Han Shot first, Luke swore ("Dammit R2!"), Leah got pissed off and shot people. The original ending for Return of the Jedi was supposed to be a bittersweet moment with Han dead and the rebel forces taking stock of their losses until Lucas decided he'd sell more toys if he made it more kid friendly. The fight scenes were even a bit more believable - these were humans fighting with whatever equipment and abilities they have.
The new movies are nothing but special effects and acrobatics designed to entice kids and sell toys. That's why the originals are loved and the new ones hated. The originals actually told a story and made it believable, the new ones are just acrobatics and CGI.
Not sure if this has been posted already, but you must see:
Phantom Menace deadly review
My karma ran over your dogma
it should start out with a crash on a remote island, with a smoke monster, and maybe a few polar bears
Really well done, and really good points. I would like to be the first to say, except for the ewoks. I don't ever want to see those again. I mean, ever.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Another rule: The prequels did not exist. It's not necessary to include any information from the prequels that wasn't already alluded to in the original three films. They were never made. Forget them. Destroy the artwork. .......Forget...... Oh, sorry, wrong franchise.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
After the first two story telling gave way to greater marketing interests.
Dear JarJar Abrams,
do what the fuck you want with it, people will watch it anyway.
Also, after these last (first) 3 episodes you couldn't fuck it up more even if you tried.
Yours trully,
there is an apparently little-known television program called Clone Wars which manages to take the great big steaming pile of mess Lucas left behind and turn it into something which is actually very good
I didn't "hate" the prequels so much as they made me lose interest, but I am grateful my kid basically forced me to watch the TV show, because they proved you could actually realise the awesome potential in the SW universe -once you got Lucas out of the way...
New Spock is excellent, even better than Nimoy (there I said it).
New Kirk is meh, but who was ever going to fill Shatner's shoes? Cumberbatch and other supporting actors are great.
Plotholes aside, the stories are decent enough and build on the old movies. Dialogue is pretty good too for a scifi.
FX are brilliant of course, if you like lens flare.
So what's wrong with them?
In a word, pacing. Something twist happens and boom you're in another action scene. There's no time to digest the implications or even WTF just happened.
Pacing was so bad that I could barely even remember the plots and had forgotten about the films the next day. Why is this? The plots weren't bad as I've already said. The reason is the same reason we don't remember dreams easily. The transition from one state of mind to the another is so extreme that memories don't carry over and don't get recorded properly.
[BTW, this is what hypnotists use to create amnesia and/or confusion. Talking from 16 years experience here.]
JJ Abrams -- you screwed up the editing. Please let someone else edit Star Wars.
It could even be trying to fit too much in. What happens in Star Trek tOMP? A monster ship approaches Earth, takes over weird chick & makes her weirder and eventually they find out the ship is actually you-know-what [no spoilers here]. But that's all that happens. You don't actually need more of a story than that. If you do, it's because your screenplay or your dialogue sucks.
My first major epiphany was that, in the originals, the characters are always outside somewhere very remote.
That was seriously your first epiphany? You didn't notice that the dialogue was terrible, the actors were wooden and the screen was plastered over with CGI?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Star Wars 4, 5, 6 were good because I was 8 when they started being released. 1, 2, 3 are poor because I'm now an adult..... Simples......
is why the first three Star Wars films were awesome. There was a lot of other stuff that was cool, and some that wasn't, but Vader makes it all irrelevant. He is such an iconic badass that every line of his dialogue carries the weight of several thousand action movie one-liners. His absence is why the newer movies sucked, and why the yet-to-be-made movies will probably suck. Darth Vader is the crack rock of bad guys.
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
The JJ Abrams Star Wars will have a scene with Jedi using iPads (not actual branded iPads but shiny tablets in general).
Along with:
-Len Flares, LOTS OF LENS FLARES
-Shaky cam
-Zoomed in camera work so you can see right up the nostrils of the cast, set design doesn't matter after all since...
-Sets will all be extremely bright and flooded with bright white light, can't have anything dark, must all be bright, with LENS FLARES!!!!
-Young people playing everything from generals to world leaders, with 1 token old guy that can be killed off for emotional response
The original Star Wars is still the #3 highest grossing movie of all time, with only Avatar and Gone With the Wind above it. The movie reched across generational and gender boundaries to achieve that level of success.
Abrams' Star Trek (2009) is less than 1/11th of the success of Star Wars (1977).
I snorted coke through my nose after reading that...
Thanks I needed a good laugh.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I can take the lens flares etc...
However:
1) Your entire planet and race gets blown up by a supernova (including your wife and kids).
2) You travel back in time through a black hole decades prior to the explosion.
3) Do you A) Warn your world (or at least send a msg to the wife and kids) about their impending destruction, to you know, prevent it or something? or B) Murder all the Vulcan's in a genocidal rage?
Seriously. It was the one thing I couldn't get past.
The only reasonable explanation is Nero was driven batshit crazy (and I guess his entire crew as well) and because his was mad, could not think at all and thus acts stupidly. The only other is that the script is just stupid.
But hey it did have a really cool intro! :)
When I watched the prequels, I remember hoping, through the entire movie, that all of the characters that had showed in the movie up to that point would be killed off somehow, and the *interesting* characters would finally take over the plot. It never happened. The ONLY character that I thought was interesting and original (as opposed to many of them that seemed to be fashioned on offensive stereotypes!) was General Grievous, that even though he appeared to be mostly a droid, had a hacking cough, which I found to be in interesting dichotomy...