George Lucas May Be Completely Evil 1036
gabec writes "Sci-fi Wire is reporting a couple rumors about the changes being made to the original Star Wars trilogy for its next release. That being that Natalie Portman may be being inserted into Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and that universally reviled Jar Jar Binks may be being inserted into Episode IV: A New Hope. May The Force forbid." Mind you this is reported as rumor, but it's so unsurprisingly possible...
Maybe interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought she was dead. (Score:2, Insightful)
Now we know who the sith apprentice is :-) (Score:2, Insightful)
So here's the quandary: do we take the bastard out now, or do we try to figure out who the sith lord is?
But why??? (Score:4, Insightful)
It might work for continuity purposes (in George Lucas' mind), but frankly, most Star Wars fans prefer Episodes IV-VI to be as unchanged as possible even after Episode III is released. Lucas will be accused to overtinkering with the first Star Wars trilogy, and that won't win him friends among old-time Star Wars fandom, that's to be sure.
Re:I thought she was dead. (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, Lucas is incredibly naive if he thinks anyone is going to accept Jar-Jar being added to Ep IV. Personally, I think AICN has been fooled yet again.
Re:I thought she was dead. (Score:3, Insightful)
and luke thought his father died when he was very young, too. what's you're bloody point?
SPOILER
luke's father isn't dead. he wnet to the dark side and became darth vader.
Isn't this the exact same crowd... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, count my vote on that one.
It's funny cause it's true (Score:2, Insightful)
The parent will probably end up at -1 flamebait pretty soon, but it's actually an appropriate sentiment.
If you don't like what Lucas has done or is going to do (Episode 7 anyone?), just give your money to someone else. Break the cycle. His ego is such that he doesn't care if people hate Jar Jar or any of his other silly CGI insertions. AotC will make him millions and episode 3 will make him millions more, regardless. Just let it be and go focus in on other movies and moviemakers. They'll appreciate your 10$ more than Lucas ever will, I'm sure.
May not be that bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
First I want to say that any lengthy insert would be a disaster. I think their is no argument at all on that subject.
I can , however, see where a small insert would be helpfull to the story line. Something like a shot of jar jar watching luke meet obiwan and saying "the circle starts again" or something similar IANASW( I am not a script writer). A small item to help tie the first three with the next three. With the way that these movies were filmed, in reverse order, Something like this may be necesary to make them feel as a whole series again.
The other possibility is that he needs to add elements to tie the last three to the middle three. For an example having queen amadala show in return to say that she was never gone but hiding out and once the emporer is defeated we need to go do this. He may have excluded these parts in the original filming becuase it would have created a cliff hanger in the movie that would not be resolved for 30 to 40 years. Now he can add it and start the work, striving for a completed nine movies over three sets of three.
The point is a little dash of extra may not be so bad, have to see it to judge. Let's just hope this is not done as some marketting stunt to get us all buy the movies AGAIN.
Re:But why??? (Score:5, Insightful)
He is *not* the genius visionary that all his buddies and hollywood ass kissers like to tell him he is - he just had one really good idea - but now he is just a greedy flipping bastard without imagination and vision. The star wars universe has been built up and expanded upon by the great fans that have loved the original seed that lucas planted and nurtured it into a mature and full concept - the only thing lucas does for the sar wars universe these days is capitalize on it.
he is not a good director, he is just someone who stumbled onto something that became great - regardless of him. but he keeps his imperial grip on the concept and makes himself more and more into the palpatine we despise....
/rant
What about the originals? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad that the original films have become lost to consumers, and presumably will stay lost. How about if he releases the original, restored (but unaltered) movies on DVD first. Then he's free to add Jar Jar, Natalie Portman, Samuel Jackson, Matt LeBlanc or whoever the hell else he wants to Episodes IV-VI.
Natalie again (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I thought she was dead. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No need for hysteria (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still trying to figure out.... (Score:2, Insightful)
She's not, IMHO, as gorgeous as everyone makes her out to be. She has "Girl next door" appeal. That's about it. They ruined that by making her wear gratuitously and pointlessly slutty outfits in the film, instead of adding something to the feel of the movie by dressing her as the dignitary she supposedly is.
Besides, being attractive doesn't make up for being terrible at acting. Her performance in Episode 2 was wooden, at best.
Re:Who gives a damn? (Score:4, Insightful)
The "true fans." This is the problem with the movie industry. Everyone is so busy catering to the "true fans" that people forget about making good films. "Oooo, the Tolkien fans won't like it if we take something out of the book." "Oooo, the Star Wars fans won't like it if we put Jar Jar in the next movie."
The fans' opinion does not matter. If you are truly concerned with artists making good films, then quit expecting them to cater to your every whim. It is not your film. Even if you have every single Star Wars figure, book, bedspread, drinking glass, etc., you still have no say in what an artist puts into his art. You don't hear art collectors saying "I like Starry Night, but I wish Van Gogh had put some more red in it. He owed it to us to paint a picture that we'd like."
If you don't like what the artist has to say, how his story is told, or what accent his characters speak with then don't buy his work. No one is forcing you.
You are truly the epitomy of a consumer.
Re:May not be that bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding was that the trilogies were supposed to be separate. Yes, there is a background story which flows between the nine, but each trilogy is (I guess) about a different generation. But hasn't Lucas said he wasn't going to make the third trilogy.
Which brings me to my argument. I have yet to see any convincing evidence that there ever was a trilogy of trilogies. It seems to me that Lucas is just winging it, knowing Star Wars fanatics will blindly follow where their messiah takes them (call it fundamentalism if you want). He may have had the original trilogy in mind when he made the Ep IV (debatable) but I find it extremely hard to believe he had the entire series of nine in mind. Now, however, he's in a position to claim he had the whole thing in mind the whole time, and who is really going to question him? SW zealots take his word as Truth, and nobody else really cares.
I'm actually planning on seeing AOTC tonight, so we'll see if Lucas manages to impress. I have the advantage of having no hopes that it will... so perhaps this movie will be rated on its own merit and not the merit of the supposed "universe" which "Lucas created." Newsflash: Lucas didn't do a hell of a lot... writers like Timothy Zahn did the great work extending the SW universe. Lucas just gets the credit.
I'm a former SW fan (fanatic, perhaps, but only a bit beyond the "fan" level). Maybe that makes me a bit disgruntled and angry of how Lucas has fleshed out the plot to "his" movies -- that's fine if they're his movies, but you'd think he'd have the self-interest to make sure the new ones didn't suck. Episode I was just another example of Lucas's complete lack of talent.
As Han says, "I call it luck."
To which Obi-Wan answers, "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck."
Well... who do you like more? I always liked Han.
That does not follow (Score:3, Insightful)
We also want to have the choice of retaining the film in its original presentation.
Lucas seems bent on changing the "Star Wars" movies a bit more with every major release so that the only way to get the original films may one day be to buy the VHS copies on eBay somewhere.
Pfah to that. Not *everyone* wants to see the films "enhanced" with new footage, and I'd like to have the choice of not seeing it when I watch the film.
Re:Maybe interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)
To me, it feels like an attempt to eliminate the moral ambiguity of Han Solo. In making Greedo shoot first, Solo was no longer the agressor; he was merely defending himself. To me, this takes away a lot from the original movie, where Solo was more or less portrayed as a sketchy character in the tradition of film noir flicks. The very things that make most characters interesting is their unpredictability that is derived from an unclear vision of their moral convictions.
To put it bluntly, characters who are purely good or purely evil are very boring.
You're just who Lucas is looking for (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, and calling Star Wars one of the most epic stories ever written is pathetic. Read some books for God's sake. Ever heard of The Illiad? The Odyssey? The Maha-Barata? Fucking BEOWULF, for God's sake! Get out more!
Re:But why??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh, I always love to hear this kind of uninformed sillyness. It's what keeps me going.
First off, as for directing, Lucas is good. He directs well, and his visual sense is utterly amazing. He's terrible at some things, and I would never rank him with someone like Kubrik or Hitchcock. There are, however, only a handful of people who can make a movie as physically engaging as episodes IV, V and II. Technically he does a good job.
But no one sings Lucas' praises solely for his directorial work. The reason that he's refered to as a giant in the industry is the sheer number of times he's changed the way Hollywood works! You may have heard of the names Skywalker Sound, Lucasfilm, Lucas Arts, Pixar, ILM? These are all Lucas companies that have contributed hugely to the modernization of the movie-making industry. Having created any *one* of them would have been an achivement worthy of comment in Hollywood. Having created all of them is frankly stunning.
There are also less... wholesome things that I credit the man with genius and visionary status for. He forsook pay on episode IV in return for merchandizing rights. He was frankly laughed at for asking for this, but the studio happily gave away the "worthless" merchandizing rights. No studio will ever be able to take that decision lightly again because it was George Lucas who showed Hollywood what those rights were really worth. That money paid to turn ILM and Lucasfilm into forces to be reckoned with in Hollywood and in turn founded Skywalker Sound, Pixar, and lots of other little companies as spinnoffs (can anyone remember the name of the medical imaging company that Pixar spun off?)
You may or may not like or respect Lucas, and that call is all yours, but I think genius visionary is a title that can be safely awarded to anyone who slaps Hollywood to its senses and ushers in the age of digital effects and later digital film making.
Re:Different versions on DVD? (Score:1, Insightful)
Not gonna happen.
This is from theforce.net [theforce.net]:
Not sure if you have seen this yet, but in the new issue of Star Wars Insider, George Lucas doubts he will include the original theatrical versions of the 1977-1983 trilogy on DVD. He says that, for him, the special editions are the finished versions. And Bryan Wahrer of Alderaan Online follows up with this exact quote:
'Asked if there's a possibility of including the original versions as alternate tracks, to show the evolution of the films, showcase the state-of-the-art of the era, and preserve film history, Lucas said simply, "I don't think so. I think of the film as The Special Edition. I don't think of it as the early version, any more than I would put early rough cuts on.... I consider The Special Edition as being the final version at this point. I don't even worry about the other ones, because it went through a lot of incarnations to get to the final stage."'
Re:Who gives a damn? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, I agree, George Lucas owns those movies. But the ideas he put down on film in episodes 4-6 are our common experience. They are part of our culture. We know what happened in the first star wars trilogy and we know what didn't happen.
I'm from Boston, and I know that in 1986, the Red Sox lost the world series on a grounder through the legs of Bill Buckner. I also know that the Red Sox DID NOT win the world series, have not since 1918. As much as I wish it could be otherwise, this is the way the world is.
Fiction is otherwise, but it's still a shared common experience. We all know Luke lost his hand in episode 5. We all know Han was encased in carbonite. We all know Yoda dies in episode 6. These are as much facts for us as the 1986 world series or the Apollo moon landing or 9/11/2001 or Tiennanmen Square.
Now, suppose George Lucas could rewrite history. Would we approve? No, of course not. This is, in many ways, no different. Jar Jar Binks was not in "A New Hope". But now Lucas is saying "No, no, I can change history. I own this Intellectual Property and can do as I wish with it.". In short, yes, he CAN make a mockery of our common heritage. I, for one, certainly hope he doesn't.
Episodes 4-6 stand on their own as a saga of epic proportions. They live on in my mind as memories of happy days in the past, before the dark times, before Jar Jar. I only hope my children will have the opportunity to feel the same way.
Yah, and Donald Trump is a great man, too (Score:2, Insightful)
There were indeed some mighty fine FX sequences done for this movie. It was a BAD film, however. It was bad because it was written and directed poorly - I know MacGregor, Lee and Jackson can act(although the lead was another issue!), so there's only two people you can blame - the writer or the director. Hmmm...who was that?
And give me a break on the "visionary" stuff. If he hadn't made all the money he had in his early years(off American Grafitti and SW), then he would have gone bust after a year and no-one would have heard of him again. It was throwing more and more money at ILM that kept it going. If he hadn't of done it, then someone else would have. Period. Why do so many people worship money? There are hundreds, nay thousands of people over history that just kept pouring more and more money after something they thought was "neat". Some ended up being successful, and are "visionaries". Others died penniless and are "losers".
You'd think the average Slashdotter would have a little less respect for corporate sucess as a measure of quality.
DT
Cheap way to extend copyright forever (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure of the legal standing of this wrt to the original version, but for practical purposes it's probably effective as a method to extend copyright forever.