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Disney Turned Down George Lucas's Star Wars Scripts
ageoffri writes: When Star Wars fans learned that George Lucas was making the prequels, most were filled with excitement and anticipation. When Episodes 1-3 were actually released, many found them unsatisfying, and became disillusioned with Lucas's writing. Now, it appears Disney felt the same way. Though they bought Lucasfilm and began production on Episode 7, they weren't interested in using the scripts Lucas had already worked on. In an interview, he said, "The ones that I sold to Disney, they came up to the decision that they didn't really want to do those. So they made up their own. So it's not the ones that I originally wrote [on screen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens]." After what happened with the prequels, that may be for the best — but others may worry about Episode 7's plot being entirely in the hands of Disney and JJ Abrams.
I recently watched THX 1138. It is a good reminder of how brilliant he was. Years ahead, great vision, but as the years passed he started losing his edge, more and more. From the Director's Cut of THX that is evident from several unneded CGI scenes that distract from the otherwise great film. The prequels and special editions show the same thing even more prominently. And let's not even talk about Indiana Jones 4 (what, there are only 3 Indiana Jones movies? Ok, I feel you). So we should be grateful when he is not writing scripts nowadays... Now, J.J. on the other hand is being made fun of for his "flares" etc, but he actually made us Trekkers be the cool kids for once! Yes, it was not "Star Trek" in the traditional sense, however it was highly enjoyable action sci-fi. Given that Star Wars was in any case not "cerebral" to start with, he should be even more at home working on it.
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Yeah, at first the idea of Lucas's script not being used sounds great. But then you have to just remember how awful JJ's Star Trek movies were.
Honestly, I don't see this working out well at all. The movies would have sucked in Lucas's hands, and they're going to suck in JJ's hands. They should have hired Joss Whedon to do them instead. Or maybe James Cameron (though he probably wouldn't have been interested).
His plots aren't all that bad. His screenplay (especially dialog) is weak, and his directing is of a very specific style that only works with certain kinds of actors. It is both those things that hurt the prequels.
As far as directing, Lucas is a hands-off director. He doesn't give the actors feedback or direction - he expects them to bring the characters to life and flush out the nuances on his own. So what he'd do is shoot a scene over and over, even though the actors thought they got it perfectly right, until some nuance or personality came out that seemed more natural and unique. He always said he did his directing in the editing room - but to do that he needed a big pool of material to work with to pull the good stuff out of. With Hamill, Fisher and Ford, they had the talent, energy and personality to simply bring the characters to life. Do you think we liked Han Solo so well because Lucas directed Ford to be that exact character? Or Princess Leia being such a strong female lead and showing playful disdain in the harsh tone of her voice towards Solo? Lucus just stepped back and let them create.
That directorial style worked well in American Graffiti too. Like the liquor store scene. The robber leaves the store and throws the bottle of liquor to Terry. They shot it over and over, and every time he caught it perfectly. Until finally, he turned around too late and just barely caught it with the tips of his fingers. That was what Lucas was waiting for, and that's what made it in the movie. At the very beginning, where Terry runs his Vespa over the curb and hit the wall - total accident, but Lucas kept the cameras rolling and that made it into the movie.
So when it comes to most kids, like Jake Lloyd, they NEED coaching and prompting and directed. I strongly believe that Jake Lloyd was awful in Phantom Menace because of Lucas' directing style. When I watch him in other movies, like Jingle All the Way, I'm reminded that he was pretty talented for his age - Lucas just didn't bring that out because he just sits back and watches with no obvious emotion or constructive feedback.
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I think that Lucas's plots aren't bad. I think the problem became one of what many extremely successful writers and directors suffer from - lack of effective editorial control.
Robert Jordan's books declined when he switched to having his wife be his primary editor - she just wasn't mean enough, if that makes sense. During the prequels Lucas ended up with a bunch of yes-men that agreed with every inane idea he had. Without that he'd have a better product.
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I rewatched the original trilogy as an adult too and found it to mop the floor with the prequels. The difference is I watched the ACTUAL originals and not whatever even-more-slapstick-and-bad-editing version they're selling now.
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I have no idea whether Guinness was an asshole or not, but he was a very good actor, certainly the best one on the set of Episode IV. I recently rewatched his brilliant take as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and was reminded of just how good he was. That's not even mentioning his extraordinary work with David Lean in Bridge Over The River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. A personal favorite is the original The Ladykillers.
So far as I understand it, while Guinness disliked the dialogue (who can blame him, a lot of it was pretty bad), he was grateful for the money it gave him.
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You just don't "get" Jar Jar. The Force channels power through his clumsiness. His "accidents" are guided and/or re-shaped by The Force. It's not like Scooby Doo's F-ups where shear luck catches the bad guy; Jar Jar is divinely-guided chaos.
It's mutation-based evolution cross-bred with Intelligent Design (Catholic model?) It's a contrast to The Force channeled through skill, planning, and discipline of the other characters. He's a rare character pattern in film.
Maybe he gives hope to those of us sorely lacking Jedi qualities? :-)
Table-ized A.I.
It was the result of his divorce. Lucas's ex-wife was the editor on all his earlier movies, and his work went to crap as soon as they divorced.
I'm convinced that Lucas was always terrible and she was just able to edit around his terrible directing.
Yeah uh, the Jedi lived on ceremony, so didn't do shit like any rational human being. Obi-Wan let Anakin burn because it would be "of the dark side" for him to kill Anakin and put him out of his misery. This is the same reason Ben Carson talks about the world being 6000 years old and Homosexuality being a form of bestiality.
People aren't rational when given emotional conflicts. In your perception, the moment you backhand a woman, she realizes you are abusive and leaves; in reality, if you beat your woman regularly, she will be convinced you are a great guy and just things sometimes get a little out of hand, and maybe it's her fault, and she should defend you when people talk bad about you because they just don't understand. That's how people work.
Normal human beings are very broken.
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In large part, I think Harrison Ford really carried the first trilogy. After I'd learned that Ford improvised a number of his lines, I watched the trilogy again and noticed just how wooden and dead nearly all of the other characters in the movies were.
I do think that this trilogy stands a much better chance as long as Lucas isn't writing the dialog. He's okay, I think, as far as overall plot is concerned. But dialog and characters really aren't his strong suit.
As for Abrams, his main problem, it seems to me, is that he seems to focus a bit over-much on action sequences. But Star Wars works pretty well with that, so I'm not too concerned. I think it might work fairly well.
If you ever look at interviews or post-war writings by historical figures when their diaries are also available, you'll find a huge disconnect in perception. During the war, you get "nobody saw this happening" and "it's all winding down now, and will be blown over in a few days"; after the war, you get "everyone was on-edge with the thickening tensions in the air" and "the end was nowhere in sight, and we were desperately afraid it would go on forever." People remember a completely different narrative.
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