"I'm making this up as I go" is NOT sustainable - Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) Discussion

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

I'm not standing up for the new movies but c'mon; Luke and Leia kiss in two of the original movies.

Was Lucas promoting incest or did he bolt her on as a twin as he made it up?

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Maybe Lucas had to make small changes that he couldn't avoid. My point is, Johnson could've avoided everything he did. Lucas had no choice.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Oh I agree completely.

I think Rian took a dare on with his approach to Star Wars.

reply

[–] crc32 (2584) 7 years ago

Lucas originally wanted leia and luke to get married at the end of the original star wars. He's full of crap when he later says "I planned all 3 movies at once" and you can tell by the way he keept changing the dialog during the rerelease to fix his brain damage. "Darth vador killed your father" literally was the original intent before empire strikes back.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

I don't think he literally meant he planned every single line of the scripts at once ...

reply

[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

Waddaya mean didn't you like Lost? What about the ending of BSG?

Making shit up as you go has a proven track record in Hollywood.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Never watched Lost.

LOVED the ending to BSG. To think aliens are out distant ancient ancestors...!

reply

[–] crc32 (2584) 7 years ago

Ok so what is BSG?

reply

[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

Battlestar Gallactica.

For a while it was the best Sci Fi series in history (not that it had much competition) before it unfortunately disappeared up the writers collective rectum.

reply

[–] crc32 (2584) 7 years ago

I was theory;y creeped out by the opening seen when I saw it as a child.

reply

[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

Well thanks for making me feel old.

reply

[–] crc32 (2584) 7 years ago

I was born in 78 not tha far from you I think. And it was battle beyond the stars that creeped me out. That and star wars original death choke at te begining of the first film.

reply

[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

Noooooo.

I love your hatred of Nu Star Wars Foebane72 but BSG was a disaster in the end. "They have a plan"? Oh really? What a load of bollocks.

reply

[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

Lucas did the same, a little. Vader was specifically not Luke's father in the original, that's why Ben said that Vader killed Luke's father.

Lucas ended up having to "explain" that "lie" later on. Leia was also specifically unrelated to Luke.

reply

[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

Not defending Last Jedi, though. It sucked. Also, Abrams had already outlined an entire trilogy. He should have just stuck with that, but he decided against it (and he is the Executive Producer of all three sequels).

One last thing: Lucas didn't plan out the six episodes that were made. He planned out nine episodes that were basically a trilogy each for IV, V, and VI. They very vague outlines and were ultimately changed a LOT from the original concepts.

He didn't even consider the prequels and the clone wars until the 1990's.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Abrams had already outlined an entire trilogy.

I don't care about Abrams' stupid trilogy. I wanted to see Lucas' (thanks for the reminder, he did do 9 parts).

reply

[–] CoachGainz (453) 7 years ago

Actually... Lucas did plan the prequels and sequels. He has extensive talks with Hamil about another set of movies that he wouldn't take part in because it takes place before him and he said that he would make sequels to the original trilogy and even knew they would be made around 2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8czqAf5qek
There is a link to a 1980 interview

reply

[–] crc32 (2584) 7 years ago

Actually... Lucas did plan the prequels and sequels. He has extensive talks with Hamil about another set of movies that he wouldn't take part in because it takes place before him and he said that he would make sequels to the original trilogy and even knew they would be made around 2011.

Yea but that was much later. The original star wars was just Star Wars when released in the theatres but was titled episode 4 a new hope by the time it was released in the 80s on VHS and T.V. by this time empire strikes back and return of the jedi were already out.

What every one is crying foul is that disney already deeclared they were making 3 movies but didn't really seem to enforce a cohesive triple episodic story. Instead they seem to just be winging it on every film.

reply

[–] CoachGainz (453) 7 years ago

Not entirely true... Lucas had an idea of this universe and what all it consisted of before even getting the green light for Star Wars. That's why he purposefully wrote into his contract all the rights to merchandising and sequels. If he didn't have plans then he would have never thought to do that.

People think Lucas just made shit up one movie at a time and that's entirely false. He had ideas outlines and visions of what was going to happen but it grew, evolved changed over time.

reply

[–] crc32 (2584) 7 years ago

Your missing every ones point though. Lucas intended for luke and liah to get married. His plans for a story wern't though out enough for him to claim he had a story thought out all along. Lucas has a vision for the star wars universe but his concepts for narritives wern't that thought out. I don't mind that he changed his plans for the narritives I'm just disapointed that he acts like he had a solid plan for the star wars story when he clearly had differen't writers helping him during the first 3 stories. To his defense the first star wars was modular and self contained the next 2 films at least were consistent with each other. The goal this time around was clearly make 3 films and decide the story later. A story should have been agreed on first before movie #1 was filmed. Now you have writers hijacking the series.

reply

[–] CoachGainz (453) 7 years ago

Agree to disagree. I think and have shown enough evidence that Lucas had a general outline of what was going to take place including the prequels and sequels back in the late 70's. Lucas's issues were screenplays he had a story but didn't have a lot of talent filling in the dialogue or the details.

You right about the sequels. They rushed it. They bought the rights and Disney wanted to start popping out films like the Marvel system.

So they hired JJ and said make a movie so JJ had to come up with everything on the spot. Apparently Arnet or whatever the TS3 writers' name is was talking too long for them. JJ had Kasden come in to help with the screenplay and they were writing changes as they were filming (That I will concede is very common in this business).

Then before they even had it finished and release they were starting work on a set of 3 non-episode films. Along with Hiring Johnson to both write and direct the 2nd film with nobody checking his scripts apparently. They ran into all kinds of trouble with Rogue 1 and had to do massive reshoots with Gilroy. The whole Solo firing fiasco, then canceling the 3rd stand alone.

It's a mess nobody has a solid vision for what suppose to be happing much less whats next. They just want to keep pumping out movies and they have what 3 new trilogies announced my god... slow down get a plan together and get some writers meeting up. At least Lucas had his team organized under 1 leader who had a general direction they were taking.

reply

[–] crc32 (2584) 7 years ago

At least Lucas had his team organized under 1 leader who had a general direction they were taking

My sentiments exactly. George lucas utilized his writers despite claiming he had it all planned out which was my point earlier. But at least he used his writers during the 70s and 80s. The prequels seemed like wondering scripts with out a plot and the new trilogy feels like the writers are just fighting with each others concepts.

I really think Lucas was more focused on the star wars universe rather which he's best at. He allowed the writers to control the characters. IE Lucas set the stage while the writers handled the characters which is why the first 3 movies did so well.

The prequels seemed to have wasted a lot of development of the characters early on then ran out of time later in the films. IE the phantom menace wasted half the film on a stupid pod race then barely had enough screen time to show Anakins/Pademes love story and his turn to the dark side. In the original trilogy laih and han depised each other at first but slowly fell in love through the course of the trilogy at a really good pacing. Also a lot of bizare universe rules. For Example: Whats up with this 2 dark side siths vs every one else. Like the rules claim theirs a balance in the force but now that implies that the 2 sith are so bad ass it takes every one else to keep them in check. I mean these concepts are unbelieveble and there are better ways to narrate that there is a mystery person running the sith (Wasted plot point since we all knew it was palpatine based on existing star wars lore. ).

The disney trilogy feels random. The ploy of the most recent film is basically a movie long road chase between the empire(err I mean the New order) and the Rebels(I think thats what there still called).Why was the princes ejected from the ship only to mary poppins her way back into the ship. The scene was a total Deus Ex Machina that undermines the danger that any Jedi stronger in the force faced before this point. There was no reason for that scene it didn't advance the plot and only destroyed existing scenes where Jedi were in danger. What were they thinking who are these idiot writers?

reply

[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

You're right Froggy and I happen to have a copy of JJs outline right here:

Part VII - $$$$$$$
Part VIII - $$$$$$$$
Part IX - $$$$$$$$$!

reply

[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

There's another big issue with 'making it up as you go' that I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mention yet.

It just makes the whole world seem that much more... well, made up I suppose. Think of it like this: Say RJ had actually come up with a part VIII that wasn't a disaster and he explained away all the terrible writing in part VII, I think it's still harder to enjoy the story knowing it's been made up on the go (like a soap opera) rather than some epic story that's being revealed one chapter at a time. Say if you found out in VIII that Rey is Palpatine's daughter and it was a brilliantly shot scene that makes total sense, well thanks to JJs honesty that it's all coming out on the fly can you now enjoy VII *more* because Rey's character now more sense or are you thinking to yourself 'It's all just a retcon. At this moment in time that had no explanation for Rey's power, it's just a blank space to be filled in later'?

Not sure I'm making much sense but I hope you understand what I mean.

reply

[–] TexasJack (12516) 7 years ago

Hemingway had a theory of writing:

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

It applies to screenwriting, direction and acting as well. If the principal creative people know the whole story, it informs everything that they put on the screen and gives a true sense of depth to the films, even if parts of that story are never explicitly told, i.e. the unseen 7/8ths of the iceberg under the surface.

These movies are the opposite of that. They're all surface. They're only surface. It's especially galling because the saga Lucas wrote already created more than enough backstory to provide a competent filmmaker with that "dignity of movement", but it's been discarded in favor of advancing social agendas and gratifying egos.

reply

[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

Good quote, thanks for sharing.

And yes, if they knew where they were going they could have weaved in lots of nice subtle touches that make the final destination all the more satisfying but it's a bit late for that now.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

The first six episodes were NOT all planned out in detail years in advance.

That's sheer myth.

reply

[–] Keelai (36155) 7 years ago

Not in detail, but Lucas had a general idea of what he wanted to do. The 1977 novelization of Star Wars describes the prequels in a few paragraphs which I did see on screen. It was part of the backstory. Lucas later described what he wanted for a sequel trilogy. Too bad Disney and Kennedy wrecked those plans by ruining Luke.

It's obvious that Lucas likes to slowly create his movies which is why he would do them in 3 year intervals. He seems to like feedback and make changes based on them which is why we ended up with very little Jarjar in Episodes 2 and 3.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Interestingly, Lucas's ideas for Episode VII were incorporated into Johnson's Episode VIII.

reply

[–] Keelai (36155) 7 years ago

Pardon my cynicism, but I believe the only reason they're bringing up Lucas' name is to quell all the criticism. Lucas was unhappy with the sequel trilogy and referred to Disney as white slavers.

According to Lucas' interviews, his idea for the trilogy was to continue the Skywalker family saga with either Luke or Leia's child(ren) and have the still heroic Luke Skywalker do the training like Obi-wan did. Visually, the vehicles, clothes, environment would've looked very different from the original trilogy and would've reflected the passage of time. Maybe we would've had remnants of the Old Empire trying to regroup and Luke, children, etc. trying to stop it since Lucas would've moved forward - not carelessly copy whole scenes from the original trilogy like Abrams and Johnson. Lucas also didn't want the movies to be just a mindless sci-fi which they're becoming.

The only Lucas idea used was to kill off Luke which would've happened at the end of Episode 9 since his story would've been complete - not the random nonsense that hack Johnson did. BTW, Lucas was against killing off Han.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

Ever since Lucas introduced Jar-jar and whiny, teen-angsty Anakin to the saga, I have been very skeptical of his opinions about Star Wars.

reply

[–] Keelai (36155) 7 years ago

Lucas isn't perfect and he made a few mistakes. But, most of the Star Wars franchise was run very well under his guidance: books, video games, merchandise and cartoons.

He also supported fans in a big way. When he found out about fan films, he hosted a contest with prizes. When volunteers wanted to update an old computer game and asked for a few items from a present game, Lucas gave them the entire game engine, music, art, etc. He also hired a SW podcast fan/host to write comics. Other companies aren't so generous - CBS/Paramount sued Trekkies.

As for Jarjar, Lucas may have created him to appeal to 7 years olds to become new fans. They would grow-up with the subsequent prequels: 10 y.o.; 13y.o. I agree that Jarjar should have been toned down a bit.

Disney has made 4 movies and not one of them is original, repeatedly lifting from the original trilogy. I'll take a creative person like Lucas who risks to be original and experimental over Disney any day.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

The Star Trek thing is a different situation altogether. The particular "Trekkies" who ended up getting sued were actually trying to make a boatload of profit off of their "fan film" project -- which never got off of the ground -- with unlicensed merchandise sales as well as using the crowdfunding money to pay themselves personal salaries (red flag!) for something that is rightly supposed to be a pure hobby project.

But that's a story for another day.

reply