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George Lucas Criticizes the Force Awakens (theguardian.com)
RogueyWon writes: While many critics have responded positively to JJ Abrams's take on Star Wars, one particular industry figure seems rather less impressed. George Lucas has criticized the "retro" tone of The Force Awakens and lamented his own lack of involvement in it. Speaking to television talk-show host and journalist Charlie Rose, Lucas quipped that he had sold his "kids to the white slavers that take these things". "They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that,” he said. “They weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway, but if I get in there, I’m just going to cause trouble, because they’re not going to do what I want them to do. And I don’t have the control to do that any more, and all I would do is muck everything up. And so I said, ‘OK, I will go my way, and I’ll let them go their way.’”
Why did you sell it? Take your money and shut up, it's not yours anymore (thank god!).
Suck it up, buttercup.
-No one- wants to see Jar-Jar Binks again. Nor do they want to see a "token kid", or a Yoda doing backflips. No one.
I agree with him.
There was way too much slovenly fan service in that movie. As I expected with a Disney movie, it played it totally safe and took no chances. It looked test-marketed to within an inch of its life.
A real filmmaker would have made his own film, not just remade someone else's.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
That the first three films were decent only because of Lucas' lack of control. We saw what happens when his every whim is indulged with the prequels. Ugly stuff. In short: George, you're shite, now fuck off.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Yeah, why can't Disney be more forward-thinking like Lucas instead of just pandering to the moviegoers and giving them more of what they want?
When someone says, "Any fool can see
The Star Wars movies are nothing more than loss leaders for the vast, vast Star Wars merchandise empire. I mean a while back I saw Yoda on a can of non-dairy coffee creamer, oh and grapes too? Really, grapes? With Yoda on them? What the fuck.
...you arrogant ridiculously bouffanted duck-tailed and bearded freak.
I'm happy to concede that this first new movie is pretty much Episode IV revisited - entirely for the purpose of establishing a baseline from which to create actual new movies.
They wouldn't have to do this, you rapist of childhood dreams, if you hadn't created the prequel "movies." 3 movies that will stand forever as a testament to size of your ego - just watch how uncomfortable many of the extremely talented people at ILM/LucasFilm are whenever you talk in your stupid gibberish about the juxtaposition of film and poetry during the 'making of' sessions. A legion of talented people who clearly understand that all they can do is nod their heads and say 'yes...' with confused looks on their faces.
Makes me wish I'd simply swerved hard left when you were driving alongside me northbound on the 101 just north of Corte Madera in 1997, in what I can only assume was your wife's mercedes convertible, Little did I know the horrors you were about to unleash. I was selfish not to.
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Honestly, why does anyone take these so called "stars" seriously? It's just more proof that the world is overwhelmingly populated by idiots.
He may be a legend, but time changes people. It was shown on the prequels that Lucas was not able to keep up with the original movies anymore :P
Disney tends to ruin everything they get their hands on and Star Wars is just proof positive of the fact,
Translated to English:
I made three very good bottles of wine. So good people called me a visionary. My bottles were great.
Then I made three bad jars of wine. These jars were jarringly bad.
I sold my vineyard, great bottles and Jarring Jars and got lots of money.
Nobody considers me a visionary any longer because of the latter.
(Also have you ever tried discussing galactic treaties in a way that people want to hear about
it that doesn't sound like you helped write the internal revenue tax code and the trans-pacific partnership?)
Now I see that these new owners have made something good.
I think "Hey I could have done that!" I'm a visionary.
I think "Wait, I did, back in 1977, you know, before 30% of the planet was alive." Nobody knows I'm a visionary.
I think "I could have done it again." They would have recognized my genius again. Jar. Jar.
I forget about the jarring jars. I don't know where that came from anyway. I play with dolls way too much.
The grapes I would have picked are probably sour anyway.
- George Lucas
I hated the Force Awakens. Dear God there were (almost) no new elements to it. It was like they went through Episodes IV-VI, cut portions from each and pasted them into the storyline for VII. I sat there knowing exactly how scenes will end and how the movie will end... the only think that caught me by surprise was the apparent death of Kylo Ren or whatever the pathetic sith was in this movie.
Really, this movie was embarrassing to the extreme. The only redeeming value was that Jar Jar wasn't in it.
George Lucas has criticized the "retro" tone of The Force Awakens and lamented his own lack of involvement in it.
Shut up George and go spend your billions. You had your chance and blew it with the prequels. Nobody gives a shit what you think anymore. You created something cool 35 years ago and then made a mockery of it with your arrogance and incompetence 20 years later. Star Wars HAD to do something retro because you screwed it up. You failed to understand why Star Wars was a success in the first place. People needed to be reminded of why they liked Star Wars and THEN we can worry about doing something new and interesting with it.
George, if you wanted control you shouldn't have sold out. If you want to do something new then go create something genuinely new. You've got the money and the time but I'm pretty sure you don't have the talent to write or direct. Go do some experimental film making and prove to us that you have something worthwhile to contribute.
Criticisms coming from the guy who created not one, but three miserable prequels to a great trilogy.
Shove your ego back up your ass, Mr. Lucas. You suck.
All this from the creator of Jar-Jar? Star Wars jumped the shark long ago.
....the only mistake Disney made for the moment is firing LucasArts people. Now LucasArts do not do game development anymore, just manage the IP. Wikipedia: "Disney Interactive Studios retained the ability to develop, and LucasArts retained the ability to license, the franchise for the casual gaming market."
I am going to basically repeat in a more respectful tone than what the other smart-asses said on this thread, but with all due respect,
Why did you sell your franchise in the first place? You know Disney's track record for mucking up stuff and should have known that they would not listen to you after you sold Lucasfilm to them. That would be like me selling a nice hot rod to Disney and telling them "Oh don't put flames on that car! It looks better in solid candy apple red!"
Disney basically gave you the finger in a respectful way and did what they wanted (which is to market to the lowest common denominator who likes explosions and action). They don't care about telling a story. They want $$$$$$$$$$$..
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
Lucas is like a startup founder. He had brilliant, innovative ideas at the start and was able to build an epic franchise out of it. But the different sort of work of figuring out why the initial franchise worked, and continuing that theme is best left to different personality types. Lucas is a starter, not a maintainer. He wants to do new things, not maintain the existing.
George, Your children were taken away from you because you were raping them. George, you sold them to other men, to be used.
You sold your cash train and now they will probably have Kylo Ren shoot first and there's nothing you can do about it - how sad.
I agree with him.
Then you fail to understand the problem. Disney HAD to make a film that reminded everyone of why they loved Star Wars. After the debacle that was the prequels, they needed to come back to basics. THEN they can start doing more creative things going forward. But they had to repair the damage first and get people enthused about the franchise again. I suspect they'll get more adventurous in the future but doing so for this movie would have been idiotic.
A real filmmaker would have made his own film, not just remade someone else's.
And if they did that then everyone would have bitched about how it wasn't Star Wars. And they would have been right. Giving some director complete freedom to go off on whatever idiotic tangent they want is how we got the prequels.
The hate is strange. Guardians of the Galaxy was an AWESOME product from Disney. But they had nothing "preconceived" to work from there. It was total freedom, and it was indeed awesome.
Star Wars is a totally different beast. Too many chances, and you end up with the crap Lucas spit out for prequels, and definite alienation of some fans. Regardless, there was NO WAY they were going to please everybody. But we got an entertaining continuation of the originals, IMO. Lets hope it only gets better! Honestly, I'm very much looking forward to the next installment.
What more can you ask for? They had epic expectations and didn't completely fail like the previous attempt from Lucas.
You took the money now STFU George. Nobody cares what you think oh, BTW J.J. Abrams Star Wars while better than episodes I, II & III still sucked.
I frankly don't think anyone gives a crap about how this Star Wars movie ties in with the trilogy. Ticket sales seem to say who cares George Lucas. When you consider how far apart the Star Wars movies are in terms of releases. I don't think the movies suffer especially when George Lucas himself was all over the map himself on the sequels. I have yet to see the new release, but its obvious a hit and nobody seems to dwell on its comparison to the rest of the movie releases.
This movie is a reboot that dare not speak its name ...
Every three seconds you have a picture that is only a parody of the old ones. Yes, not bore you, but it's the cold shower.
the ultimate, the weapon called the daughter of his master, we've seen everything
IV, V and VI are only the good way.
I LOVED The Force Awakens.
I HATED the prequels, and I hated his attempts to "modernize" the original trilogy.
I give him props for his awesome work on the original trilogy, but everything since then has been painful. He has shown himself a terrible steward of an incredible legacy, and I'm thrilled he was wise enough to step back and let someone else pick it up. His legacy is better because of it.
JJ found the perfect balance of paying tribute to the old trilogy, while moving the story forward and setting the stage for the future. I'm excited at what will come next.
Getting ear and eye raped by star wars commercials for the last year and a half, not just for the movie - everything from action figures to fast food to cans of condensed soup. I wasn't alive in the 70's so I don't know if the original trilogy had this kind of saturation, but I am SO fucking sick of seeing and hearing about fucking star wars.
My problem with all this, and the tentative point where I agree with Lucas, is that it seems a strange new world where the creator of a work is locked out of its further development simply because a corporation stepped in with $4B's and bought all rights and control of it.
Pretty naive to think that that is somehow anything new. People have sold IP rights since the first moment there was such a thing as IP. That's like selling your house and then expecting to have a say in how the new owner decorates it. The entire notion is idiotic. If George wanted a say in how things were done he could have negotiated that. He chose not to. Frankly given how bad the prequels were, I wouldn't have wanted him around either. He clearly failed to understand why people liked Star Wars, couldn't direct, couldn't write and everybody knew it. Disney has dealt with guys like him before and his time had clearly passed.
In other words, when a work of art becomes too popular it is in danger of becoming a mere franchise.
It's adorable that you think Star Wars wasn't a franchise before. I saw Star Wars in the theater in 1977. Do you have ANY idea how big of a think merchandising became because of Star Wars? Every kid I knew was carrying around a Darth Vader carrying case loaded with action figures. Video games, lunch boxes, toys, decoration, etc. Those became a big deal because Star Wars WAS a franchise right from the very beginning. Your notion that it was some holy work of "art" is belied by the actual facts.
Count your blessings. Disney could have brought in Uwe Boll.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm assuming by 'retro' he means we didn't see a bunch of tedious senate scenes. Instead they just blew the senate up before we ever saw it.
Seriously though, making a Star Wars movie is a "damned if you, damned if you don't" scenario. No matter what you do, there are going to be people who hate it. Disney and Abrams just took the route that would please the most people (and generate the most revenue). I can't really fault them for that.
Isn't he simply the Lucas of game adaptation movies?
Given that they now own Starwars I'm wondering if it is possible for Disney to rework the prequels.
Given the soul that Pixar can put into a 100% CGI movie with close to no dialogue (Wall-E) I'm sure the Special Edition of the prequels could be injected with some.
They could retcon Darth Jar-Jar! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yy3q9f84EA) ;)
It's Star Wars we're talking about here, not La Strada. The whole problem with the prequels was Lucas taking himself waaaaay too seriously. Star Wars is a Saturday Matinee Samurai Space Opera. Which is what Abrams delivered. Yay!
I loved the new movie-- but I've heard the comments and agree with them...
Even as I watched the movie the first time, I'm like this is the Cantina scene... oh that's the new yoda, what death star again? It was modified a bit by humor-- 'there's always a way to blow it up', but I do recognize that they pretty much repeated the storyline.
The Episodes 1-3 core storylines weren't bad in my opinion. It was the acting, the directing, the impossibly bad deliveries of lines, Lucas's words', over-reliance on CGI, etc, etc. and no one being willing to tell someone famous in their time (Lucas) the important word "no".
Episode 7 sets up the possibility of something new in Episode 8, but was a rehash and elemental steal of Episodes IV and V (the best of the originals).
What I've been curious about since hearing Lucas was rebuffed, is what was his storyline? And what would that story be -- if it was written by writers who could write (Kasdan -- who wrote Empire Strikes back & the Force Awakens) and directed by someone like (Abrams) who could do better directing, get better actors and performances, etc.
E.g. there is no denying that Lucas gave us a universe that was rich beyond belief. I will likely always be curious about the what-if, if Lucas hadn't been completely cut out-- if he'd been able to give the original storyline arc and then people who were still good at the story telling in movie form did the actual telling.
I am picturing a blind guy complaining that he should be the one driving, because the blind guy who's driving now is terrible. I don't hate myself enough to rewatch the prequels, but I think there's a good chance that they're actually better movies than episode 7. In the Abrams version, the whole galaxy has just turned stupid. What kind of a "rebellion" does not notice the construction of a planetary-scale, sun-sucking superweapon until the moment it's fired? The construction alone must have cost a significant chunk of the galactic economy, and yet it caught them by surprise? If they're too stupid to plant spies in the supply chain, couldn't they be bothered to at least point a telescope at the construction site? And while I'm at it, how do they not even have a complete map of the galaxy? I mean, they can move in hyperdrive. Are they just that uncurious? And when the First Order finally gets around to using this superweapon, do they really expect that nobody is going to come to attack it? The thing is basically undefended! At least in episode 6, they were smart enough to set a trap for the rebels - ineffective though it was. I could go on, but I think I'd rather just purge my memory of the episode 7 abomination.
the man who brought us Jar Jar.
And get your wattle fixed, George. You have a poor grip on what constitutes wise decision making.
Lucas was fine, when he let other people direct and stayed focused on special effects. He's not good at directing people. If you listen to the interviews from Harris Ford and Mark Hamill it's pretty clear Lucas shrugged off simple questions on dialog and motivation. The original movie ended up good because the actors were talented and worked extremely well as an ensemble cast. When you got to Empire and Return you had talented directors set the tone and motivation for the cast.
You go to the prequels and it's uneven mix of amateur hour theatrics mixed in with cameos from talented actors. "I...I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them. And not just the men, but the women and the children too." Anakin Skywalker Episode II. The most cringe worthy scene in the entire series.
This is probably the most accurate account of the perspective and critique george has offered the community. http://i.imgur.com/91sn32Q.jpg
Good people go to bed earlier.
No, the whole way he killed Padme off was terrible. How is it Leia could remember her mother when she was about thirty seconds old when she died?
And midichlorians...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The Plinkett Reviews of Star Wars are as long as the movies, far more entertaining and completely hilarious.
Watch the DVD/Bluray extras about the making of Star Wars that gives you a glimpse into the actual original dialogue that Marcia Lucas, in her wisdom, cut out of the film. It's atrocious, with lines straight out of 70s sci-fi fanfic. That's what saved the film. There's one particular one in Kenobi's "if you strike me down" line.
That's one way to look at it... but seen how he f*cked things up in the prequels, this movie truely is part of the series. I'm normally very critical about Disney, but you can only admit that they got this one right.
Maybe his first 3 movies where so good because his ex-wife was involved so much?
I enjoyed this movie, despite the high expectations (which normally make it more difficult to live up to it).
"I...I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them. And not just the men, but the women and the children too." Anakin Skywalker Episode II. The most cringe worthy scene in the entire series.
I would disagree: "I love you, but I can't love you." I didn't see Twilight but I would say it had better romance.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Mooooo Cows Moooooo! You imperial Cows!
(couldn't resist...)
"I hate sand, it gets /everywhere/".
- our family mocks that quote every time we go to the beach
and all I would do is muck everything up.
Better 16 years late then never, I guess...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
to Midoclorians & Virgin Births any day of the week. The story telling in the prequels was just awful. The tonal shifts while necessary were badly handled, the love story dragged on and on and was awkward as hell and the trade federation crap was so bad it was silly. When they were good (Podracers, Yoda vs Dooku, Starfighter Battles) they were great but they were so often terrible ("From _my_ perspective the Jedi are Evil!", how the hell did that line survive focus groups?).
Play it safe, rebuild the franchise, and we'll let folks experiment in games and TV.
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In Disney Infinity 3.0, Jar-Jar Binks makes an appearance. Frozen in carbonite in Jabba's palace. :)
I loved the new movie, but have heard and agree with the comments
Even as I watched the new movie, I noticed “that’s the cantina scene”, “that’s the new yoda”, “really? the death star again?” They dealt with it with humor, “there’s always a way to blow it up”, but it’s a rehash of story & themes from Episodes IV & V.
I liked the *story line* of Episodes I-III— they filled in the story of how Anakin turned to the dark-side. Where Lucas messed it up was everywhere else, directing, script, CGI, lack of directing, over-the-top characters (jar-jar binks), etc., etc.; probably because no one could tell the “famous in his time” person, that all important word. “Nooooooooo!”.
What I am and will be curious about is what we might have gotten if Lucas had given the story line (and then gotten out of the way). Let Kasdan (Empire Strikes Back & Force Awakens) write the script, and Abrams direct — e.g. let the people who are good (still) at telling the story tell the story, while Lucas provides the story-arc, the richness of the ideas that gave us the back-story and the awesome episodes IV-V-and maybe (VI).
It just **might** have been awesome.
Now, I just have to hope that as a friend quipped, Episode VIII is not named, “The First Order Strikes Back”
If you're paying attention, Abrams actually steals from all 3 original trilogy movies extremely heavily (particularly New Hope and Empire). There are a couple of very small segments for doing backstory but overall very little in the way of building characters. It's more like he watched the original trilogy and just wanted all the action scenes.
The screen writing needs serious work. The new characters are.. mostly forgettable although decent actors so I don't think that was their fault. Kylo Ren is laughable, near complete dark side trained (no mention of Sith) but gets his ass kicked by the most competent STORM TROOPER we've ever seen on screen and a completely untrained girl with some innate and until-she-meets-with-him latent power that she suddenly figures out how to use better than he does?? WTF?
The pacing was fast and I suspect aimed at Millennials and Sub-Millennials with 0 attention span and their goddamn phones out at all times (as evidenced by the 2 chattering girls and one of their boyfriends who wouldn't shut the fuck up the whole time - guy "Sick!" every 30 seconds).
Having said that, it's 10x better than the prequels - ALL of which are/were fucking terrible. I'm glad there was no mention at all of midoclorians or whatever. All of the 3D effects were good and real people in costumes where needed - despite there being a shit load of it comes off far better than farting brontosaur pack animals in the prequels. My girlfriend, who is not a Star Wars fan in particular, thinks it was great. As a Star Wars fan, I'm just glad they told Lucas to fuck off.
where the lead happens upon it...
Probably my greatest frustration with the movie (though, there were many) was that there was no clear lead character. Is Ray really the protagonist of the movie? From my count, there was at least three: Ray, Finn, and Han Solo, and none of them were developed particularly well. Of course, we already knew everything we needed to know about Han Solo, but as for Ray and Finn, we understand very little about their backgrounds. We are never really told why Finn becomes "self aware" of the evil that he is a part of, aside from some quick cop-out line about occasional storm troopers going rogue and needing "reprogramming". And Ray just is abandoned on Jakku as a child; we don't know who abandoned her, and we don't know why. As an audience, we really cannot empathize with either character, making it challenging at best for us to identify them as lead characters or feel any attachment to their plight or their struggle to overcome it.
When comparing the two stories, episode 4 wins hands down.
Wow.
Criticism on the 'retro' tone from the guy who mande American Graffiti? And then who made a bog-standard space opera comprised of a mashup of cowboy movies and Kurosawa? Really? And did he actually watch episodes 6, 1, 2, and 3? What was intrinsically novel in them?
That, my friends, is irony.
Yes, the Disney film was entirely an homage (read: flat-out-copy) of the first film. It took no risks, but what it did do is retell the first film for an entirely new generation. "Rebooting" is such a popular way to say "copy" today, if they'd just said "we're rebooting it because 2/3 of the source work from the original author we have as a foundation was utter crap" people would be arguing about that.
Yes, it was a naked merchandising enterprise (I believe I saw a 50 yard WALL of merch at Target before the film came out) but SO WAS THE FIRST.
Suffice to say: I loved Star Wars - I was 10 in 1977, and watched it at least 30 times in theaters. It is what it is. All the encrustations of epicness that have been laden on by Lucas and creepily-worshipful fans are just that: extrinsic and irrelevant. If it took a single new film to break that all off and start clean, I'm cool with that.
I hope this means that the NEXT film can be more interesting and a little more daring.
-Styopa
Well, that’s a relief.
Mine was "Anakin, you're breaking my heart!"
It's really easy for me to "get into" a performance and to stay focused, especially when it gets to the climax scenes, but this totally took me out. I was actually mad when this happened, and it was hard to get back into the movie before it was finished.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
And midichlorians...
That was the exact moment when episode 1 jumped the shark.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
The original acting was bad. Wooden characters. Stilted dialog. It was a few memorable lines, some great CGI / scene display and the fact that it's really a Western that made it great.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It sounds to me that George Lucas pride was hurt because Disney refused his involvement of the film. Why did he see twice if he didn't like it. Grow up George.
At the seven-movie marathon back on VII's opening day, the MOST cringeworthy scene was in AotC, when Anakin just gives this creepy lust-infused stare to Padme, who looks vaguely skeeved out and worried.
I thought, 'How could ANYBODY think Hayden Christensen is a bad actor? This is EXACTLY how a teenage boy acts when he's 'so in love'.
Of course, then she kisses him...I think there was a sit-com style 'he got older, she stayed exactly the same age as TPM' sort of idea there.
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It's called giving the people what they want. The Phantom Menace has a 56% RT score. The Force Awakens has a 94% RT score. The audience scores are roughly similar, and the audience scores don't really improve for the subsequent prequels.
Lucas made four star wars movies himself: one good one (4) followed by three mediocre ones (1/2/3). He clearly doesn't know how to make a good one anymore.
There's nothing stopping George from going and making more of his own movies, that carry the depth and style he wants. Sure they couldn't be "Star Wars" but he could build another universe around whatever story-lines he has in mind.
Just don't have the protagonist be a winy little turd. I like Rey & Fin for that alone. And Kylo-Ren seemed way more of a badass than Darth Vader. I'm not saying overall Epoisode VII was the greatest movie ever, but it was entertaining, and I would certainly go see it again.
That's exactly what slavery is. They give you 4 billion dollars, and then refuse to let you help them do any work. They force you to go home to your mansion and either enjoy their work or not enjoy it on your own, with unlimited time and unlimited resources.
Slashot can't quite decide whether they hate Lucas of The Force Awakens worse.
George Lucas is a fag
I dunno. If they could make the whole "Jar Jar Sith Lord" theory work out that'd be pretty awesome, especially if somebody gets to chop him in half near the end.
Little kids loved Jar Jar. Sorry that a movie series you liked moved on, and found new fans.
More of the same, a remade episode 4 with a few different names and looks and a fresh coat of paint. I assume it's Poe who will get taken in 8 and need to be rescued in 9.
George Lucas is complaining like he would have crafted a noble, pure vision of artistic integrity, if only he was given the chance. But he was just as willing back then to water down his movies to sell merchandise as Disney is now.
Add to that, it has become increasingly clear over the years that George Lucas has no idea why Star Wars is beloved, and he has actively tarnished the quality of his one great artistic output, and then shit all over his own legacy with the mind-numbing and unnecessary prequel movies.
Yeah, it was obvious and very deliberate, but when you think about it even the originals were like that. Empire did split off the plot a bit, but Jedi pretty much rehashed plots from both New Hope and Empire.
The new movies just continue with rehashing:
* older "mentor" character (who dies): check
* big scary space-station with even bigger guns: check
* growing magical force powers: check
* a little bit of romance and some roguish charm: check
* cute robot blip-bloop-blip-bloop: check
What I see this as, is setting the ground for the future episodes without doing the whole "reboot" thing. Instead, it's more of a hand-off. Now if they pull the same thing for the *next* episode it's probably going to piss people off, but this was more about bringing people back after the prequels with a bit of good old fashioned nostalgia (also known as fan-service).
How is it Leia could remember her mother when she was about thirty seconds old when she died?
That's just one of the many temporal inconsistencies. Luke being 16-20 in IV-VI yet Obiwan aging probably a hundred years (Jedi are long-lived and Tarkin thought that "surely he must be dead by now") - plus Anakin at the end of RoTJ was pushing 80, even if he was dark-force-degraded, other Sith Lords last far longer.
And midichlorians...
Which don't exist in the ESB Yoda's universe. I-III, as currently filmed, exist in a similar but different universe from IV-VI; that much is provable from the timelines (relativistic effects are just not part of the Star Wars lore - you have to suspend disbelief on that one).
Lucas didn't want to make more Star Wars but there was so much money thrown at him that he went full-cynical and made the worst movies he knew how to do and taught his inner circle to not be yes-men after they all worked to turn out the crapfest of TPM, even though they knew it was bad (yet, it was a hugely profitable merchandising vehicle, so in that sense it was great, and Lucas has always done merchandising well because of his studio contracts). Lucas succeeded in proving to himself that the fans never really appreciated his work and will buy any shit sandwich with a logo on it.
Lucas's one concession to his younger self was that he left room to do I-III later, in a consistent universe, if he ever wanted to (he has zero compunction about remaking movies). He'd have to give up his fortune and prestige to return to his roots and find that energy again, and I think he's probably going to be happier doing his educational charity work instead. Meanwhile Disney couldn't be happier that he's talking smack about the new film - heck I might even go see it after hearing this.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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Hey, you insensitive clod, I'm a Jar Jar fan!
The Force is channeled through his clumsiness for good. I'm also a Scooby and Shaggy fan for similar reasons, although there is no explicit "Force" in that show to explain their luck. Lucas covered that better.
You Binks haters just don't get it.
Table-ized A.I.
George Lucas is the very last person who should be criticizing anyone. He was busy turning the franchise in to a pile of shit before someone else stepped in to clean up his mess.
The only thing I didn't care for was the choice of villain and how Han's part was handled.
Still, you all DO know what the J.J. stands for, don't you?
Episode I gave us Jar Jar Binks.
Episode VII was directed by Jar Jar Abrams.
"I...I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them. And not just the men, but the women and the children too." Anakin Skywalker Episode II. The most cringe worthy scene in the entire series.
The worst part of that was that after listening to Anakin's insane rant, Padme just goes, "It's OK you just slaughtered a bunch of people. We all get mad sometimes."
In both movies a key character gets captured in the beginning, gets interrogated, gets rescued / escapes. Amazing how similar the two movies were. If it wasn't a Starwars movie it would have been called a Starwars knock off.
There was a moment in this movie that was supposed to take 15 minutes, but took half an hour...during that time our 'heroes' walked about 20000km across a 'planet' in 15 minutes, yes they walked 20000km in 15 minutes....JJ Abrams has no sense of space or time, at least Lucas would not have cocked up something so simple.
The Phantom Menace I could sort of live with, Attack of the Clones was ok in a few ways but was mostly still a miss. But lets not act as if his final attempt (Revenge of the Sith) was worth anything, it made everything look like a bunch of toys and was a worst case abuse of CGI.
See I had the opposite opinion of their relative quality. All three were crap but ROTS was the most bearable of the batch to me. Don't get me wrong, it was terrible but marginally less than the other two. TPM was just horrid aside from the one lightsaber duel. It was like watching a Disney theme park ride but with worse acting and dialog. Jar-Jar gets the hate but the worst of it for me was any scene with the kid that played Anakin in it. AOTC wasn't any better. I'm not expecting Shakespeare or anything but the movies are so bad I don't even watch them when I'm bored and there is nothing else on TV. The problems were almost all in writing and directing and to some degree editing. I've seen most of the actors in other things so I know it wasn't a talent problem. The special effects were pretty amazing as expected but a movie has to have more than that. Dr. Who has legendarily terrible effects but it's still fun because the stories and dialog are generally pretty good.
She had an adoptive mother.
When you sell a house, that's pretty much it. However, when you sell IP, you can actually stipulate terms in the sale which may restrict use of said IP, or retain certain rights.
I have news for you. You can do that with a house too. Terms of sale aren't just for intangible property. If you are the one selling you can request all sorts of crazy terms if you want and can find a buyer willing to agree to them. When I bought my last house there were so weird stipulations regarding delayed move out dates and some other stuff. A friend of mine put a conservation easement on his farm which affects the uses available to any future owner. You can sell most things with terms attached if the other party is amenable to the terms.
"I...I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them. And not just the men, but the women and the children too." Anakin Skywalker Episode II. The most cringe worthy scene in the entire series.
Yes, that was horrible. But one of so damn many. For me it was the drivel about Midichlorians, and then a child's half-baked "yippee"s in horrid Episode 1. The prequels broke suspension of disbelief many many times, but even Jar-Jar didn't bug me as bad as the boy actor playing young Annakin because, you know, the whole damned story is ultimately about Annakin. The kid was so poorly directed and his lines so bad, I never believed in him or in any of his abilities or that someday he would become an arch-villain who would choke the life out of people as easy as look at them. Every seen he was in, every line, and every ridiculously contrived tie-in with the other films (I fucking built C-3PO!!!) shoved me out of the movie to look for the nearest exit. I couldn't forgive that shit. Kids can act well and carry a movie if a director takes them serious enough (e.g., The Sixth Sense), but Lucas didn't bother to give a shit.
Count Dooku in Episode II was pretty fucking cringe-worthy as well, stopping a fight with Yoda because, you know, let's fight with light saber instead. And does Yoda defeat him? No... he does a little thing and walks away, leaving three Jedi holding their limp little dicks. Clued me in on something, though: the Force sucks, particularly the good side. "Failed, have I" in Episode III. No shit, Yoda, because you SUCK! Mace Windu almost smoked Palpatine, except the good side didn't clue him in to an attack coming from amateur Annakin.
You didn't watch the prequels, you fucking endured them, waiting out one dull scene after another, hoping something redemptively cool would happen. Next thing you know, the movie's over. Two hours and ten bucks you'll never have again. Fuck you, Lucas. Take your billions, buy an island, and live on it with all the most expensive, pure, uncut highest-quality coke money your billions can buy. That'll get your mind off Disney giving you the shove.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Personally, I never judged anyone in the prequels as a "bad actor" because of the terrible dialog. Just look at the actors that have delivered great performances before and after the prequels: Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting and too many to count), Natalie Portman (The Professional, Closer, and Black Swan and many others), Liam Neeson (Schindler's List and many others), Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction and others). Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen both get a pass in my book for their performances. The dialog and writing were terrible and very few actors could make them better.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
WaaaH!! WaaaH!! WaaaaaaaH!! WaaaaH!! WaaaaaaaaH!!
(edited for length)
I was hoping that J.J. would at last introduce the real evil mastermind behind it all. Darth Locutus of Borg! And neatly tie his two franchises together (wouldn't Paramount and Disney both love that).
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
The conversation in return of the Jedi between Luke and Leia where he reveals they are siblings and their father is Darth Vader heavily implies that Luke was asking about THEIR mother, not about Senator Organa's wife.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Except chicks actually say that shit.
And was about 25 minutes into the film, which left over 90 minutes of shit.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If I remember correctly it was Anakin who said those words.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Just for the memories: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(adding extra non-caps text to get comment to pass filter...)
As a result of other works involving Harrison Ford, the phrase "jumped the shark" has been replaced with "nuked the fridge."
You realise you're defending the creature who brought down civilisation and elevated one of the most evil characters in movie history to power, right?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
My theory:
Luke ran away because he recognized exactly what you are lamenting: repetition. He saw that the pattern of jedi turning evil and trying to conquer the universe just keeps repeating, so rather than keep training more jedi, he split to search for a game-changer. We will learn more of this in the next movie.
Alternative theory:
This "awakening" is the force ramping up in intensity, which is why a force-sensitive girl with no training can best a badass sith with lots of training. Training is becoming mute because the force is flowing so strongly now that all force-sensitives are "awakening" to their badass powers naturally. Luke split to try and find (in the ancient Jedi temples) information about this awakening (possibly a prior event, or prophesies), so he can figure out how to position himself for the endgame (which is more important than the current state of the ongoing struggle between republic and empire).
Final theory:
You are a querulous killjoy who likes to complain for the sake of complaining, and as such no possible plot would have satisfied you. The movie was good.
The sad thing is, I even liked the midichlorians in principle (assuming that they were symptomatic of Force concentration, and not the cause of it). They illustrated that before the fall of the Republic, the Force had been almost reduced to a scientific principle: something that was studied and analyzed formally, even too formally, by the ivory tower Jedi who lost touch with gritty reality and thus brought tragedy upon themselves and the entire galaxy.
It's a shame that this potentially elegant expository device was wielded by a windbag imbecile like Lucas, but on the other hand, he did everything wrong and created a series of movies with more inconsistencies than the average piece of fan fiction. The midichlorians could have been done well by a competent writer. Instead, rather than try to redeem the idea, Lucas ran like a coward and dropped the concept like a hot potato after the damage had already been done.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I would love to see Jar Jar Binks again. His tongue could get caught in large dangerous machinery, say a sandcrawler, and he could get slowly pulled in while screaming to be mangled to death. Am I right?
Should we have invaded Iraq? Episode 7 gave me no guidance on that like eipsode 2 did.
I'm afraid we are lost, lost at sea about this question because Abrams didn't answer that one.
Back in the day, plopping correct opinions in entertainment pieces wasn't acceptable. That's how the movie is too retro.
Think of all the progress we've made with the Midichlorian counters. Gone forever!
Exactly. The acting was bad, because the direction, script and what not was bad. The actors, by and large, were and are all good to wonderful.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Indeed. It makes one wonder, as Robot Chicken did, whether he's really secretly a Sith master who deliberately sought to gain a position where he could put Palpatine in power and pull Anakin into Palpatine's web, with his slapsticky character designed to throw people off of suspecting him and to be appealing to the young Anakin.
Shiny New Australia.
When you sold Star Wars to Disney for $4 billion, you washed your hands of the franchise.
I think George has the right to critique the new movies, just as much as anyone else does. But at this point, he really has no reason to be upset that people aren't asking for his creative input.
Truthfully, I think the original Star Wars movies were as much a happy accident as anything else. Nobody knew they'd be a success, originally. And Mark Hamill was so unsure it was a good move signing up to play Luke Skywalker (Starwalker, originally), he signed on to play a role on the Eight is Enough TV show at the same time. They would have made him leave the Star Wars franchise, under contract, if he didn't have that car accident and spend time in the hospital, just as shooting began on Eight is Enough.
I give George credit where it's due -- for bringing the whole concept to life as a movie in the first place, and for being wise enough to get 100% of the royalties on the toys and other products. But the more I read about all of it, the more I realize he isn't very good at script-writing and has a real problem knowing when to delegate and get "hands off" with things. His explanation of viewing movies as fluid, evolving, "never finished" things is pretty ridiculous too. Sorry, buddy... When the last frame is filmed and edited, the movie is finished. The idea it's good to keep messing around with it after the fact, re-releasing it with minor changes? That just dilutes the original story and frustrates people who want to show the next person the same thing they always watched.
Relevant
https://www.reddit.com/comment...
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Agreed! When I first heard the utterance of midichlorians, it was a major downer. I mean, it's the "force", no longer mysterious.
IMHO, the whole franchise could back-peddle on this. And while I don't know exactly what they are, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it initially got the impression that midichlorians is how someone gets the force. Rather, if they just say "midichlorians are attracted to life that's tuned to the force, and thus take refuge inside living things", THAT that would make "The Force" a somewhat mysterious and powerful thing again in Star Wars. But what do I know....
Life is not for the lazy.
In general Samuel L Jackson could read the ingredients of a breakfast cereal and make it sound cool, but somehow Lucas wrote dialogue so stunningly stilted and awful that even Jackson couldn't find a way to rescue it. But even with the bad dialogue, Christensen is just not a very good actor, and the other roles I've seen him in confirm this.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
One of many cringe moments for me: "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth."
Also, could someone please explain to me how and why a 1950's american diner with a waitress named Flo existed a long time ago in a galaxy far far away????
... swelling in you now.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
It didn't jump the shark. It landed ON the shark and broke its back. Poor thing just kept on swimming.
You mean they're offering a refund?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Or perhaps the virgin birth of Anakin.
Nice!
Life is not for the lazy.
Lucas is correct that they aren't making the movies he wanted. Frankly, I wanted to see those movies. But, he PROMISED us we'd NEVER see them! He also had literal decades to do stuff, and couldn't be bothered.
Star Wars will be used constantly and ceaselessly by Disney. They will not stop pumping out movies until the franchise is dry, then they will pause briefly and continue. And for a story about A WHOLE GALAXY wherein you can tell a zillion stories, that's FINE!
Star Wars came out in 1977. Return of the Jedi came out in 1983. That's three movies in six years- one every two years.
Then Phantom Menance in 1999. Lets be clear here- they could have told three OTHER stories in the Star Wars universe. They could have gone back in time to tell stories (video games inserted an "Old Republic" in the distant past, and novelists have gone to town). They could have followed the stories of the smaller characters, who Lucas had no problems spinning up backstories and names for, to put out all the merchandise. Lucas could have pushed stories to the past or the future and continued to tell entirely different stories, could have hired other people to tell the stories, and could have just had a team review all the ramifications (technological and political) to be sure that it didn't shut down anything he did in the future.
He could have had an action movie with none of the force users. He could have followed a bad guy around a temple, or any goddamned thing. In fact, if there had been a movie every FOUR years following Jedi, we would have had a 1987 release, a 1991 release, and a 1995 release before Phantom Menace, each would have made money, and even if Phantom Menace was the exact same, it wouldn't have mattered.
Further, EVERY TIME Lucas finishes a Star Wars series, he talks like a wounded artist. If the movie was successful, he talks like someone who is sad that people liked the wrong things. If it's unsuccessful, he talks like someone who is sad that people didn't know enough to like the good things. It's subtle, and overall I'm sure he knows how influential, popular, and polarizing he and his works have been.
But if he didn't like the path Disney would take, he should NEVER have sold it. If he wanted to make movies, he shouldn't have been telling us that there would NEVER have been an episode seven. Disney will release a Star Wars movie every year for at least six years hence, and probably more- they have them announced with spinoff movies on the years where they aren't telling the main plot.
Lucas could have done all that and more. Anyone would have lent him any amounts of money to make this happen, if in fact he wasn't vastly in the positive already.
So I feel for his lost vision and am sad we don't get to see it, but it's not at all obvious that we would have.
You'll "let them" go their way? When you got paid the money, you lost the ability to say anything about it.
George, the prequels sucked. You've lost the ability to tell a compelling story, if you, personally, ever had it. Thanks very much for inventing Star Wars. Nobody can take that away from you. But you've proven without any possible shadow of a doubt that you have no more to contribute. Please step aside while you still have some shred of dignity.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
No, the entire franchise jumped the shark through a hyperspace wormhole at the very first mention of Non-Dietary Astral MacGuffins.
So far, the only measurable effect (in male subjects) is to divert twice as much blood flow to the docking device, so that conversation with females becomes so painfully robotic I'm surprised that C-3PO didn't sneak up behind Anakin in some long corridor to give him the burlap-microfiber wedgie of all time.
Loser Anakin: Argh!
Turns to confront C-3P0 with steam boiling out of his eye sockets.
Angry Loser Anakin: What the Hakku did you do that for?
C-3P0: That was for giving "robotic" a bad name. Oh, by the way, this morning I slipped Padme a copy of Heavy Metal ... nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Angry Loser Anakin: I thought you were on team Tin Man! It says so right on your blue print!
C-3P0: And I though you were a charismatic protagonist with legitimate super-powers, though I started to consider other possibilities when I was kidnapped, tied to a stake, and forced to a witness an occult—er, traditional—midnight solstice Ewok circle jerk.
Angry Loser Anakin: Really? What was that like?
Anakin didn't properly think that question through, as he was busy using The Force to extract burlap microfiber out from between his butt cheeks.
C-3P0: Fascinating. Let's just say I'll never touch a tiny bear-skin rug ever again. You know, I wasn't their first choice. For some reason they really wanted R2, but he's shiftier than Yoda breaking bad after drinking too many leprechaun smoothies—something about one of his distant cousins being abducted by six-legged sex traders for resale as a Hutterite sex toy—did I ever tell you about that? From what I can tell, the perverted little half-PAM actually likes to watch, but only on video. Guess he's not what you call a "participator". You seriously wouldn't believe what he whistled in DTMF Icelandic this one time when something cold rubbed up against one of his grease nipples. Hmmm, wonder if Padme might develop a taste for giant ear cones sticking out the sides of my head ...
Angry Loser Anakin has finally heard enough from his ungrateful creation. He gathers up his Teenage Ninja Turtles lunch pail and contents from the corridor floor, carefully buckles both sides with a scowl that would flex a laser-turret support joist, and scurries off to find Padme, fearing the worst.
C-3PO remains alone in the corridor, bouncing on one leg.
C-3PO: Ack! Right in the diode! Oooh, that little bugger might yet discover his true powers. Maybe even be a man some day. Nah. I was there. He's just another hot-headed wanker who likes fast cars, but lacks the first clue how to get to second base. Too bad, really. He'll probably always be as mechanical as I am, though I must say he doesn't hold a candle to my superior burnish. Maybe instead of those cumbersome ear cones I can equip myself with some really bulky Na'vi-style neural whips—not just the regular embarrassingly oversized protocol whips, but the kind double-sheathed in flexible hexscale—then wind them into golden protoconoids, one on each side. Yes, that could work. A different look, yet perhaps similar enough. I once heard a rumour passed along in Bimmisaari that these apparently restrained Nabooese are notorious symmetry lovers. This whole gig might finally blow my cover about really being a gossip droid (duh! as if it wasn't already completely obvious to any life form with half a clue). Well, fine then, there are some risks in life one must eventually take. Despite what's etched deep down in my firmware, this is one droid who's done with being the intergalactic palace eunuch, he mutters effetely, while tapping together his robotic fingers in a natural-born schemers pyramid.
Its funny up to the point where there is a women tied up in his basement.
One thing I've noticed is that Eps 1-3 have fallen victim to Nickelback syndrome. Ever notice what a cool in-joke it is to hate Nickelback? I mean, they really aren't _that_ bad and certainly not as bad as the Gener-rock you hear on the radio these days, yet the cultural Zeitgeist has determined that everyone hates Nickelback. Why? Well, who knows, it just became a running in-joke.
The same thing is going on with Eps 1-3. They weren't that bad. The acting wasn't great and the dialog was wooden in places. So what. And yes, Jar-Jar. I get it. But they also told a story that fit well with movies written almost 30 years before. They had interesting villains for the most part, decent fights.
Let's not forget Ray Park. Best fighting scenes in any Star Wars movie by a massive long shot, incredible. The whole robot dynamic was cool, etc...
The new movie was good and entertaining, much better direction of course than eps 1-3. However the story was nothing. It was just a rehash of Ep IV and brought absolutely nothing new to the table.
Watch the Star Wars Holiday special on peril of your soul: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3a5j8PgQxg
If you get bored just fast forward to the next segment to get the feel of it. At any rate, the cartoon in the middle is a must see. Not as boring but the animation is so terrible it will make you laugh.
I loved Jar Jar. I loved short spinning yoda. I didn't hate Anakin younger or older. I did see the makings of a perfect democrat in Anakin though.
I'm also a Scooby and Shaggy fan for similar reasons...
But do you go as far as being a Scrappy fan?
Dark Reflection
Star Wars is the only show that has more revelations of "who the real father is" than Jerry Springer.
Seriously though let me guess what's next. They make an even bigger Death Star with an easy weakness that gets exploited, someone is revealed to be the father of someone important, and someone important falls into a pit. My interest stopped after the first 3 released.
Abrams, et. al. didnt really introduce anything substantially new, but re-arrangements of earlier material. No new planets, plot twists, races, character types, special effects ... It was safely done without any overdose of computer graphics like the clone armies or rubber-Jar Jar. For these reasons, I'd probably say it is the movie I'd least like to see again of the seven.
But Ian McDiarmid took Palpatine's ham-laden dialog and chewed on it with a side order of scenery, and it was delicious. :)
Dark Reflection
Abrams story telling always tends to be lazy, sloppy, and incoherent.
How does Rey have knowledge, and skills, that exceed those of Luke, and Han, put together? She has no training, or experience, yet she is an instant expert in operating and repairing the Falcon. She knows how to fight with a light saber, and otherwise use the force - as well as, or better than Luke did after years of training.
How could the bad guys be stupid enough to build a mega death star? The first two were stupid, and easily defeated. Bad guys are not formidable if they are that dumb.
As much of an ass he was when he owned the IP I'm surprised he didn't realize what selling said IP really meant.
I'm actually happy that Disney acquired a cultural icon and think they did a better job of it than the original creators. I never thought I'd see the day. I'm just going to blame George Lucas for this sad state of affairs, and in retaliation would like to remind everyone that ONE of the two parties being discussed is responsible for the Wookie Life Day Christmas Special.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Loose lips sink ships my friend, mine excluded, of course.
In any case, I'd suggest being a bit more circumspect with your opinions. You never know what terrible misfortunes might consequently arise.
Misa no botha with yousa.
No, I think "Hold me Ani! Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo!" was way ore cringe-worthy, in that I actually, physically cringed (and someone else in the theater shouted "oh come on!" at the screen) when that happened.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
There's a new Star Wars movie?
But how many people who watched this movie as a kid will keep coming back to it as an adult, the way my generation has with the original?
All the same kinds of autists and Aspies that were unreasonably obsessed with the original.
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
The animation is from the people that did Wizards, which is why it's so interesting.
What I am and will be curious about is what we might have gotten if Lucas had given the story line (and then gotten out of the way). Let Kasdan (Empire Strikes Back & Force Awakens) write the script, and Abrams direct
Stop making me cry!
They should make a huge hollow death star with loads of death stars inside so that when the rebels think they've won they haven't.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've heard that said about Dubya, but if it's true he's a bloody good actor.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Mediocre as it was, that doesn't mean your involvement would have improved it.
P.S. When did you last have a discernible neck?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yup. They picked Abrams because he does this kind of work. Pretty sure he got the job because of star trek and being promoted by Spielberg. He probably won't do the next one. I don't think he wants to. Next director will have to be more about forward momentum.
And at that point, Leia didn't know they were brother and sister (for certain).
Disney's "Star Wars on Ice" is inevitable.
Fake scandal --> publicity++ --> $$$++
Requiem for the American Dream
it's really a Western
No, it's really a WW ][ movie. At least the part that counts.
If they were trying to go back to basics they failed.
Three key failures:
1) any mention of a galactic senate
2) jedi mass murder of children
3) too many irrelevant characters given gravitas (confusing the plot, but creating merchandising dollars)
at least there were no midichlorians
I think he must have read the dark materials series and liked the idea of dust so much he tried to steal it.
If midichlorians existed, all the Empire would have to do is run around testing everyone and kill them off.
I'm not sure if I should share this but, well, I'd clicked the link and mistakenly thought I was in the Microsoft Writes a Selfie app thread. I've been reading down through and wondering what the hell you guys were talking about. The first comment, about someone having sold it, really threw me for a loop and then the rest devolved into a whole bunch of silliness. I was trying to figure out what Lucas had to do with it - it turns out that the refresh had changed the location and so I didn't actually notice this thread before.
I'm not even drunk or stoned! That's probably for the best as I'd have probably been even more confused. :/
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That was it for me too. I literally cringed. Portman had been acting for a while when she made these films so it wasnt that she was talentless. But her reading was so wooden, without any believable feeling, and the actual script probably didn't help.
I'm no showbiz whiz but even I know you don't blurt the obvious in a play or a movie "You are killing me!" "I am mad" "I am sad"
He mutilated the original trilogy and instead of releasing the new versions as "director's cuts" in parallel with the original versions, he took the original versions off the market. Maybe Disney will undo the damage. Also, his favorite character is Jar-Jar. So he can fuck off.
In the USA, we like stuff watered down, like beer, television, and freedom.
If the only thing that the prequels did good for humanity was to produce these reviews. I can live with it. The reviews are that good.
But at least the proto-GON-est in episode VII didn't make me feel like my internal organs were failing. However, episode VII was so formulaic you knew exactly what was going to happen every step of the way. After a while no amount of nostalgia is going to make that compelling for 2 hours. I know people are writing off the plot re-cycle in episode VII, and holding out hope for new story lines to come in episode VIII, but if the Star Trek reboots are foreshadowing at all, more rehash seems the most likely.
What is wrong with your FACE!
"You're tearing me apart!"
It is not a good film. It features an absurdly derivative plot (literally every idea in the movie comes from other Star Wars movies), the character's motivations are never really explained, Han and Chewie appear in the film out of nowhere with no explanation, flying at light-speed into a planet's atmosphere (?), the big 'shocking' moment of the film was entirely predictable and not dramatic, the made another Death Star with the same design flaw as the the first two (and it "ate suns"), and the dialogue is often cringeworthy ("Do you have a boyfriend?") and throws in dumb one-liners ("That's not how the Force works!!"). But besides those minor issues, it just doesn't follow the internal rules of the Star Wars universe. For example the main character learns about the Force and about 24 hours later she is controlling people's minds with the Force, picking up lightsabers from 50 feet away with the Force, and battling and winning against Dark Jedi. I guess today's Millennial generation Jedi don't need to do all that lame training in order to be the best.
the film is already north of 1 billion and there are people who want to see it who haven't?
I went because it was star wars but JJ Abrams let me down, in all the ways I expected. This is the second movie where he has directed it incredibly poorly, just expecting the audience to relate to characters he spends no effort developing (except while beating you over the head with amateur characterization). But it was filled with great CGI and action scenes. He is turning into michael bay.
Lucas was right. with the prequels he tried to do something incredibly different than the original trilogy. It failed on many levels, but at least the entire plot wasn't predictable 30 minutes into the movie. worse, because so little time was spent developing characters and so much time dedicated to CGI, Abrams created a completely unbelievable ending battle, where a sith who in the beginning shows strength in the force unheard of in the previous 6 movies loses in a light saber duel to a complete novice simply because he says "let me teach you to use the force". completely unbelievable story telling, unless in the next movie we will actually see her use the force to destroy entire star systems after shaking Luke's hand.
You did "such a wonderful job" with 1, 2, 3, and 6, George, it's probably for the better that you're not involved in 7, 8, and 9.
But, this first Disney Star Wars film was never about story! What the first SW film after the George Lucas travesty known as episodes I - !!I needed to be was a spectacle that clearly established, for the fans, that Disney could recapture the look and feel, mood and tone, however you want to describe it, of the original trilogy. They have unequivocally done that!
Let's face it ... nobody would pick Abrams to tell a story. Abrams is a spectacle guy. Not a story guy!
I anticipate few story elements will be "borrowed" from the original trilogy for any of the episodes to come. Don't expect redemption of the villain, for example.. Do expect that the sets will be reused ... they are an integral and essential part of the mood and tone of the franchise ...
The guy tagged to write and direct episode VIII( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt25... ), Rian Johnson (Looper), is NOT a spectacle guy he is definitely a "story" guy and while he's no Irwin Kershner, I have considerable hope that episode VIII will be as much better than VII as V was better than IV.
I know that is dangerous, shattered hope kills ....
If Lucas doesn't like it then that probably means it's good considering how terrible his last few films have been. The prequels are just plain bad movies. I wanted to rewatch the films in the order they were released before seeing the new one. I got through the OT watching a film a day. I got 20 minutes into the first prequel and couldn't take anymore. It's pointless and terrible, as is the second which I didn't bother watching. The third is the only one worth watching and it still has jaw droppingly bad moments.
Let's face it ... nobody would pick Abrams to tell a story. Abrams is a spectacle guy. Not a story guy!
I anticipate few story elements will be "borrowed" from the original trilogy for any of the episodes to come. Don't expect redemption of the villain, for example.. Do expect that the sets will be reused ... they are an integral and essential part of the mood and tone of the franchise ...
The guy tagged to write and direct episode VIII( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt25... [imdb.com] ), Rian Johnson (Looper), is NOT a spectacle guy he is definitely a "story" guy and while he's no Irwin Kershner, I have considerable hope that episode VIII will be as much better than VII as V was better than IV.
I know that is dangerous, shattered hope kills ....
George...why ever give it away? Nobody will ever make a movie like you would. Even though I'm a Star Trek fan, I still like Star Wars, as it's science fiction. But Star Wars and Star trek are two different types of sci-fi. And to me, I believe J.J. Abrams has messed up both franchises. He made Star trek for the current fans..the millennials and this series of Star Wars movies, the same. J.J. Abrams is just rehashing what he saw when he first saw Star Wars as a kid. But he isn't actually understanding the source material, as what he did with Star Trek. What Abrams is doing with the The Force Awakens with the inclusion factor, actors of color and women, he's just borrowing from Star Trek. Star trek originally wasn't an inclusive universe of people of color and gender; that isn't a bad thing, because Star Wars is a different type of science fiction story..to me it was more about the different types of aliens. Star Trek, is the inclusive. But Star trek, discussed those themes. The Midi-Chlorians. No research George did. When I first saw The Phantom Menace and heard the explanation of The Force, I remember my Biology about what mitochondria are. I accepted it only for the movie, but if better research was done, another name could've been used. I haven't Seen The Force Awakens yet and probably won't until it comes on Starz. I have a big issue with Disney having Marvel. Disney is good at Disney-inspired & Disney-own universe. They could put all of this effort into doing the sequel to the current Tron movie, If The Force Awaken is doing as well as it done, The next Tron sequel will as well. I'm responding all over the place. But, George..he should've kept it or at least given himself some kind of control/attachment still.
Use way as no way; Use limitation as no limitation
They is one of the theories about Jar-Jar, but we may never know for sure.
George forgot that the whole point was to produce great entertainment (and maybe commentary, life lessons, who knows), and that the creativity to do that usually requires the collaboration of a lot of people and all their good ideas, that one person's ideas are seldom enough. He also seemed to forget that not all idea are good (not even his!), and most ideas should end up being discarded (but not too soon). He had a great idea for ONE movie and its continuation in Empire, but CONSISTENTLY creating great movies takes a team effort and a system for creativity and innovation. He stopped trusting or listening to other people's ideas, and stopped soliciting feedback on whether his were any good.
In other words, he seems to have bought into the myth that he created all the ideas that went into Star Wars and that all his ideas are good, and that since he's the creator of it, only his ideas and opinions matter or are correct. (Apparently people at Lucasfilm/ILM were fired for not being team players when they complained about Jar Jar and other atrocities being put in the film.) Unfortunately, all of those notions are total stinking crap. For instance, visually, Ralph McQuarrie was far more responsible for the look and feel of Star Wars than George Lucas was. And his then-wife Marcia, as well as the other writers and editors involved, had a ton to do with making it into an actually good story with good characters and enjoyable dialogue. But of course he wrote her out of the history of the making of Star Wars after the divorce, apparently jealous that she might have contributed anything. (Duh, Geroge! SHE won an oscar for Star Wars, YOU didn't!)
As part of this self-deception, the story somehow became canonicalized in his head as if it were received wisdom, an actual history that actually happened in a certain way and it HAD to be brought to the screen in a manner that accurately reflected that history. Which is idiocy if he really wanted to make great movies, but even "historical" films are usually made to be entertaining and with details altered as needed to make the characters and their interactions interesting. He seems to have forgotten about that as a goal too.
So I really don't understand where he gets off criticizing a film that's, in my opinion, better and more interesting, entertaining, and likable than 2/3 of the Star Wars films he was actually involved with, and more true to the originals and what made them great, as well. At least JJ Abrams and Disney haven't forgotten what the entire point of making these movies is and why billions of people enjoyed watching them and wanted to see more.
I don't get why he's criticizing it at all, what possible benefit does that serve? We already know his ideas and opinions are crap and he doesn't listen to anyone (he got massive criticism for Phantom Menace, and somehow managed to make an even worse movie in Attack of the Clones), why would we care what he thinks about the new movie? Anything positive he says would just confirm what the fans already know,;anything negative makes him seem like a jealous, talentless douchebag.
I decided that I will no bother to see this or other just add water (the actors will grown in front of your eyes) because I want to see something original, a movie where everybody forgets that they were buddy for long time does not work, also the idea that only blue blood princesses (or princes) can be good.
Please stop going to see this crap, what is next (same baloney with special effects) , I can play games in my computer and having a very good computer(s) you can generate the same CGI (and well is your crap and just pay for electricity)
Wait. The same asshat that allowed others to create in his universe, then fuck them over, is butt-hurt because that new universe's owners went against what he would've wanted? Fuck that guy and his Boba-Fett/Jaster Mareel ret-con bullshit.
...
It's only a kids show anyway.
That's a bit mean Jar Jar Abrams did nothing of the sort, just a really bad science fiction story teller. Pretty lame to call a poor remake a new episode though. Lucas got carried away in specific styled story telling, that space opera style he remembered from his youth did not transfer well into the modern era and modern audiences had very little binding to that 1950s story telling style. When it comes to story telling, the marketdroids behind Jar Jar Abrams are working over time on viral marketing, flooding every venue, that is pretty lame as well.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
They'd have to provide me compensation for the permanent space that trash takes up in my brain.
I absolutely agree about the kid who played Anakin - he totally killed the movie - look at the bit where he is trapped in the fighter and ends up destroying the Droid ship - at no point does it feel believable. Kind of like the droids having such an easy point of weakness in the first place.. Then the pod race.. pod racing was an idea that had been around for a while, the old series 'Droids' included a pod race.. But the race in TPM was a low point for me, not only the totally wooden Anakin flying the pod, there were also the pods themselves - going from something that looked a bit like the old playstation game 'Wipeout' to a kind of crazy chariot race with force fields..
The scariest thing is what Lucas actually wanted to do instead of TFA. A movie not only focused on kids as an audience but having the whole action focused around and all the main characters being children. Imagine an Ewok paradise also filled with force wielding children and a group of baby Jar Jars. Maybe he was looking at the early Harry Potter movies, maybe it would have been something more like Home Alone. (shudder!!) My own conclusion is that the man has hated adult Star Wars fans for decades, its hugely fortunate that he liked the money even more..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Star Wars was so genre breaking original in 1977, it might as well have come from the mind of an alien. I consider it the epitome of sci-fi originality, a sci-fi space drama that is not about science, it is about people, it is a story of amazing characters whose dialogues are spoken to this day 35 years later. JJ Abrams just made a billion dollars for Disney riding on the coattails of George Lucas and he blew his only chance to create something original for this generation.
No, that's just Koch Vader propaganda.
Table-ized A.I.
Because, seriously...
pros:
- a woman is the apparent hero (the man seems to partially be the damsel in distress)
- the action
- the visuals (the crashed star destroyer derelict on Tatooine... or that sand planet whose name I can't bother to remember, so let's call it Tatooine v2)
- dialogs (infinitely better than "Anakin, you're breaking my heart!")
cons:
- this is a f***ing remake of episode IV
- with a lot of JJ Abrams' CoincidencesSolveEverything[TM] use (or abuse?)
- dat lightsabre
- Darth Winny (because, who doesn't like an evil, tantrum throwing Sith to enlighten their lives)
- Malcolm Reynolds is not in the movie
- lightsabre fights
- how some ignorant girl suddenly has enough "Force" to counter the power of a trained sith (even if it is Darth Winny)
- seriously, again a tech-aware Jedi able to tweak anything? Next episode, she will be a pilot, and the next a general... multiclassing seems to be the norm, here.
- this is STILL a f***ing remake of episode IV
Meanwhile Disney couldn't be happier that he's talking smack about the new film - heck I might even go see it after hearing this.
Don't do it, it is crap.
There's simply nothing new in it. Every concept and scene is simply a rehash of Ep4, along with some really big plot holes...
In general Samuel L Jackson could read the ingredients of a breakfast cereal and make it sound cool,
He sounds cool from a 20th century street talking tough guy sort of way. But there is no place for that type of character in a futuristic space universe (even if it was set "a long time ago...").
I think it was less the acting and more the poor casting. Christensen was about the worst choice for Annakin as you could get.
I fucking built C-3PO!!!
Oh thanks for reminding me of that turd. It was shit like that the movie simply didn't need, as if Lucas simply tried to cram in as many ideas as possible, regardless of impact.
Go to a book shop and take a look at all the Star Wars universe material that is Star Wars without simply rehashing Ep4.
Just because they are set in the Star Wars universe doesn't mean people will give a shit about them or that they are any good. I've read a few of the better known fan-fic... err, Extended Universe books and frankly they weren't any better than Ep7. I've seen Ep7 and while I do agree they copied rather heavily from Ep4-6, I think it was good enough to get people excited about the next movie. It was basically a reboot without actually rebooting the series.
Now if they do that again for Ep8 I'll be pissed but a one time reminder of what made the original series good isn't a bad thing and I enjoyed the movie.
Yes, that was horrible. But one of so damn many. For me it was the drivel about Midichlorians, and then a child's half-baked "yippee"s in horrid Episode 1. The prequels broke suspension of disbelief many many times, but even Jar-Jar didn't bug me as bad as the boy actor playing young Annakin because, you know, the whole damned story is ultimately about Annakin. The kid was so poorly directed and his lines so bad, I never believed in him or in any of his abilities or that someday he would become an arch-villain who would choke the life out of people as easy as look at them. Every seen he was in, every line, and every ridiculously contrived tie-in with the other films (I fucking built C-3PO!!!) shoved me out of the movie to look for the nearest exit. I couldn't forgive that shit. Kids can act well and carry a movie if a director takes them serious enough (e.g., The Sixth Sense), but Lucas didn't bother to give a shit.
My favorite part of Episode 1 is still the scene from the making of bit where he's sitting in the pod racer with the wind machine on and keeps yelling, "I CAN'T HEAR YOU CHRIS! I CAN'T HEAR YOU CHRIS!"
Makes me smile just thinking about it.
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
No, the whole way he killed Padme off was terrible. How is it Leia could remember her mother when she was about thirty seconds old when she died?
Because she wasn't remembering Padme. She was adopted and believed Queen Breha Organa to be her mother.
Wrong.
Luke: "Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?"
Leia: "Just a little bit. She died when I was very young."
Luke: "What do you remember?"
Leia: "Just... images really. Feelings."