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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

Episode II In Trouble? 177

Posted by CmdrTaco from the try-killing-jar-jar dept.
abde writes: "A story on AICN reports about an Episode 2 rough cut recently screened at ILM. Quotes producer Rick McCallum as saying, 'At times, you have to face the truth of what you didn't get and what you hoped for.' Rumors from inside sources say that Lucas is 'stressing' about reworking the film ... personally, I think it indicates awareness at ILM that the fans are expecting Empire Strikes Back quality to this second prequel -- and that awareness will surely motivate."
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Episode II in Trouble? More

Episode II in Trouble?

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  • > at least if he considers reworking parts of it, we will have a better movie for it. there have been far to many movies that sucked lately..

    Yeah, maybe we can get him to re-work E1, too.

    --
  • Lucas deserves to be shot.

    Wouldn't that violate rule #2?

  • I agree... he's too far removed from his audience to really put it together anymore. It happens people get old and they can't do what they could anymore. There are exceptions, but... I think Star Wars fans are the hardest to please sometimes because we've had the best... (read Empire Strikes Back'...) and we want that sort of feeling again. We want a good screen play and cutting edge effects too... can we have both please? A bad screenplay can make anyone look bad, for instance Samuel Jackson. Can't think of a movie off hand that hes been that bad in. Yet his part in Phantom Menace was ridiculous... and I blame it on George... I don't think the actors were in synch cuz the script sucked and the thing took so damn long to make. Episode 1 was bad, and with the exception of a few good special effects and Natalie Portman (drool)... Darth Maul was great too. Lucas made Yoda look like a moron. Liam Neeson couldn't even die good. (Stoopid shakespearian-theatrical crap). I can't name one sequel prequel that has ever gotten *better* by the fifth one... ok maybe those "sorority sex kitten" movies... but that's it. I read in Spin a while back the guy who did "the Professional" and "fifth element" some french dood Luc Beeson was gonna take the reigns. I'm all for it... pass the chalupa George.
  • >Two words: Bantha fodder.

    But he already looks like Bantha shit.

  • oh christ, RA Salvatore was more predictable than anything else i've read in a long long time...

    eudas
  • I understand that TPM wasn't as thrilling and fulfilling as you hoped it would be and thus you fear that the prequel trilogy only serves to water down the original, but don't fret. When all six (or nine) films are seen as a whole everything will pay off and we might not even despise Jar Jar as much. Lucas' only mistake (if you choose to see it that way)was that he set out to make a popular art film rather than an easily digestible summer blockbuster. You see, SW isn't really science fiction-- it's an old fashioned epic more in the tradition of Gilgamesh than Godzilla. (Don't get me wrong, I love SF--this just isn't it) For more on the nature of Epic mythology, read Joseph Cambell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces" which Lucas actually used as the inspiration and blueprint for The original trilogy. In a nutshell, TPM sucked because that's how epic cycles begin. The land is peacefull, but grows complacent. Civillization just sucks the life blood out of our animal selves. (Look at Amidala's cheeks for crying out loud.) Therefore, in order to restore vibrancy to our lives, evil must rear it's head and a hero must--this is obviously way oversimplified-- vanquish it. The turbulence of all this is the stuff of life. So that's why the jedi council seems like a bunch of dicks--they're bored. Yoda needs Vader. We all need Vader. (But you knew that.) The republic is stangnant and the characters that inhabit it are mostly cold and distant. So unfortunately, we might have already seen the "best stuff"--the heroics-- but I think that the prequels will serve to enhance our understanding of the originals.
  • wow. It's fake? I'm impressed. Where did they get the footage? and already doctored up with special effects and everything? This was not a cheap hoax.

    Yes, it was. Let's see, the scene with all the "jedis" running down the hill with lightsabers ablaze was out of braveheart, they just did a little retouching. Similarly, most of the other stuff was cut from other random movies, too. Some of it was chopped out of SWEP4-6 and composited in. Some of it was from SWEP1 and various SWEP1 trailers.

    I swear, you act like premiere and after effects are magic or something.

  • On the other hand, Lucas' hubris wrt Episode One probably contributed to its crappiness. I like the fact that Lucas is worried about this one. He will probably do a much better job. He realizes now that the Star Wars title is not good enough to make a multibillion trilogy. The next two movies must be as provoking as the first three (actually, the quality of Jedi won't cut it either).
  • And what was up with that retarded pseudoscientific explanation for the Force?

    Considering that there isn't a scientific explanation, I guess they didn't have much choice but to opt for pseudoscience, now did they?

  • Hey, George Lucas has always made the Star Wars flicks for 6 year olds. Even though EP1 was a large, undercooked piece of tripe, little kids _loved_ it. My 7 year old bro saw it 4 times, no joke (and with him, every time, another unhappy adult). Too bad he thinks racial stereotyping is a framing technique.
  • Jabba was always imagined as a giant worm thingy

    Acctually if you listen to the interviews Lucas gives on the special edition videos he says Jabba was originally a 'furry thing'.

  • DARK CITY was a far better movie with a more plausible--certainly a more interesting--story and a minimum of gratuitous violence. Why did everyone ignore it?

    Because, while it did feature the winsome charms of Jennifer Connelly, it did not have much in the way of skin-tight rubber-clad kung-fu chicks, big fucking guns and chop-socky action..

    Your Working Boy,
  • Not all of us were children when Episode IV, V or VI came out.

    D00d, U R 0ld!!

  • THANK YOU. We have been trying to figure out at work where that part was from. Too bad I slept through part of Elizabeth, or I may have remembered it!
  • Oh geez, let's bash Lucas for his success. It seems to be a common theme. The first three Star Wars movies were all about making money. To say Lucas is just churning out schlock for more bucks is annoying and untrue.
    Nobody puts this much time, effort, and heartache (remember we are talking DECADES of work here), just to add another couple million to the bank account.

    Well, you're half right. It's untrue to say he's just churning out schlock for more bucks. However, he IS churing out schlock.

    I would argue, however (and this should be a familiar argument to SW fans) that Episode 6 saw the beginning of this. It was an attempt to turn an epic saga into a cute kiddie movie. Mind you, they're all kiddie movies on some level, but they appeal to adults just as well. However, when I watch Jedi these days, I feel myself getting kind of ill. The ewoks are, well, unnecessarily cutesy. I liked the fact that they were prepared to eat sentients, though. That at least was decent. If only they'd handled that scene with less whimsy.

    Lucas has forgotten about the art and is making kiddie movies. They're epic kiddie movies, don't get me wrong. I just don't think they're very good. Sure, you have immense CG scenes (which sometimes looked excellent, and sometimes looked like what they were; filler) and all kinds of nonsense, but you also have a kid who can't act and a smarmy script which I could have done without. And I don't need to revisit the disgust I felt about the droid tie-ins, I don't think. The least they could have done was to introduce them in seperate movies.

    All in all, Lucas has lost it. He'd better start listening to someone else before SWEP2 ends up worse than SWEP1. It's not about the money, it's about the vision. And the vision is cloudy.

  • I'm sure I share many peoples sentiment that Empire Strikes Back is still the best Star Wars Film - not because of its special effects (which were onderous) but becasue of how the whole film flowed. It has a pace that was hard to describe, but very contemplative, yet plenty of action and seat-of-your-pants action. Not only that, it actually had a good plot with some memorable quotes.

    Looking back now after more than a year, Episode I reall sucks. Pace was haphazard, quoues were awful, way too cheesy. Effects are great, but not a good file they make.

  • Most fans hope Jar Jar will be savagely eviscerated in the first scene (during a thrilling Jedi battle!) and then forgotten about for the rest of the movie.

    This one act alone would raise movie's score by a point.

  • ESB? I'd settle for SW! (Score:5)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @08:55AM (#1416431)
    > I think it indicates awareness at ILM that the fans are expecting Empire Strikes Back quality to this second prequel -- and that awareness will surely motivate.

    Shit, I'd settle for Star Wars quality.

    But if you're not gonna up the quality, just spice in a scene with AT-AT's foot turning Jar-Jar Binks into a fine pink film, and I'll pay $8 just to see that.

    C'mon, George. Just splice it in. You know the animators at ILM have probably already rendered the scene in their spare time.

  • I knew that we were in trouble when I saw the additions to the re-released original movies. In the Cantina scene when Han shoots the bounty hunter. In the re-release they have the bounty hunter shoot first, since the hero shouldn't take the first shot? THAT was what made han Solo cool. The Phantom Menace was aweful, and I didn't even go in expecting much, I was still disappointed. Lucas needs to hand the reigns off to someone else and keep his hands off. On a better note, I heard the Salvadore (author of the Dark Eld Forgotten Realms books) might be re-doing the screenplay.

  • I can't believe this was even considered news worthy. Was ANYONE here sitting on pins and needles waiting for it? Star Wars has become a merchandise driven franchise with some pretty pictures. I would expect the /. crowd to see through Episode 1 instantly as being a 2 hour commercial to sell pod racers and jar-jar binks dolls.

    How then, can you be anticipating the sequal? I've heard of some folks watching the Super Bowl just for the commericals, but this is just bastardizing the memory of Science Fiction's greatest epic.

    disc-chord
  • "lucas is probably one of the few people who cares about the product he makes, and has the clout to satrt changeing it at this point." Dude...Lucas doesn't care, episode onewas evidence of that. He had all the action figures ready to ship on time, but the storyline got lost in the marketing. He is SO the sellout now. Go buy the matrix on DVD, hope the LotR is good, and forget about new Star Wars flix. Keep the old ones and fond memories. Lucas deserves to be shot.

  • Top X ways to to kill off Jar-Jar... (Score:3)

    by NecroPuppy ( 222648 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @08:56AM (#1416435) Homepage

    Sticks his head between the pods again, and it flash fries and explodes.

    Returns to Tattoine, gets tasted by the Sarlac, and spit into a low, unstable orbit where he burns up on re-entry.

    Gives Darth Sidius a 'wedgie' and is barbecued by the Force Lightning.

    Explosive decompression. If it was good enough to make in on the 'Ways to kill Weasley Crusher List', it's good enough for Jar-Jar.

    Stupidly uses a lightsaber to scratch himself, accidently activates it, and... You get the idea...

    Does the tongue thing to another bowl of fruit, but 'accidently' gets a thermal detonator instead.

    Eaten by a pack of Jawas. That's right, Jawas. None of us know what they eat, so it may as well be Jar-Jar.

    Anything I've missed?

  • My one hope... (Score:3)

    by SecretAsianMan ( 45389 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @08:57AM (#1416436) Homepage
    ...is that the target age of the second prequel be about 5 to 10 years greater than the target age of the first prequel. That is, I want more science fiction / fantasy and less cute, cuddly, "wacky!" action characters that were conceived as an eight-year-old's action figure before they were inserted into the plot.

    Has anyone else heard rumors to the effect that Jar Jar may have actually been someone else in disguise?

    --
    SecretAsianMan (54.5% Slashdot pure)
  • The only hope this film has is that Lucas and the crew are stressing that the film is not as good as WE hope it will be ... not them. Lucas seems to be so wrapped up in the commercialism and merchandising, that he's forgotten about the art of it all.

    When Lucas made Star Wars, he was still an aspiring filmmaker looking to tell an engaging story in a way that had never been done before. Empire was the crowning achievement of that. Something went strangely awry in Jedi, whether it was studio meddling or whatnot, I'm not sure.

    Lucas needs to get some of that fire back in his belly that he had with Star Wars. He needs to find that artistic compass again. I just don't know if that's possible, and that's why I don't have much hope for the next film.

  • Is Star Wars REALLY that great? Is it worth worshiping over? Episode I sucked yet the Star Wars groupies still raved over it to hide the embarassment.
  • BEEP! You're wrong! The right thing to do would have been to ignore the issue and leave it to the viewer's imagination. When you read Ender's Game, did you care how the ansible worked? No, because it's not relevant. Magic is much cooler that obviously-false pseudoscience.

  • I think George has something respectable for Jar Jar in the next movie. Remember at the end of Episode 1 he was a general and its like 12 years later in the next film. I think we will see a more mature confident Jar Jar in Episode 2. George is probably doing the same thing he did with the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. Anyway I hope this is the case.
  • You forgot "Don't Be A Phantom Menace While Drinking Your Juice In the Hood"
  • yes i'll give you that.. both movies have essentially the same plot... but many movies have essentially the same plot it's more like a generic hollywood schema in a common pool we don't discredit staw wars because it has the same plot as a kurosawa film
    i for one liked the matrix's zen refferences... since the bulk of my colledge work was on classical japanese culture and one of my old profs was big on gibson and zen
    i guess since i never saw the other two movies i don't have anything to compare what is a good gibsonesque movie and what is not... you've got me there too (i was warned away from jonny mneumonic... the keanu reeves thing again)
    but i do think Lawrence Fishburne did an excelent job in the matrix
  • Holy cow, my spelling sucks! Slashdot needs a built-in spell checker!
  • It's GOOD that they'd be stressing that the film isn't as good as they'd hoped--this means, I'm sure, that they're going back to the drawing board somewhat. I wouldn't be surprised to see them calling actors & actresses back down to Sydney soon to shoot new scenes.

    This just means that we'll have to wait that much longer. :-(

  • Some working titles... (Score:3)

    by bckspc ( 172870 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @11:22AM (#1416445) Homepage

    In the spirit of the brilliant mind that gave us the title of the Episode 1, we propose the following working titles for Episode 2:

    Revenge of the Phantom Menace
    Bride of the Phantom Menace
    The Phantom Menace Returns
    The Phantom Menace II
    Son of the Phantom Menace
    The Phantom Menace and the Great Space Caper
    The Phantom Menace... Again!
    The Phantom Menace Goes to Japan
    The Trouble with Alderon
    The Phantom Menace Returns
    Phantom Menaced
    The Phantom Menace Goes Bananas
    Curse of the Phantom Menace
    A New Hope
    The Phantom Menace on Vacation
    The Phantom Menace Takes Manhattan
    Still Smokin'
    What's Up, Phantom Menace?
    The Phantom Menace and the Planet of Doom
    The Phantom Menace Goes to Camp
    Meet The Phantom Menace
    The Best Little Phantom Menace in Texas
    The Bingo Long Travelling Phantom Menace
    Smokey and the Phantom Menace
    Bang the Phantom Menace Slowly
    Nurse Phantom Menace
    A.I.: Phantom Menace
    Midnight Phantom Menace
    Crouching Phantom, Hidden Menace
    Hush Hush, Sweet Phantom Menace
    Phantom Menace Got the Hookup
    New Jack Phantom Menace
    Daddy's Dyin', Who's Got the Phantom Menace?
    The Man Who Would Be Phantom Menace
    Who Is Phantom Menace And Why Is He Saying All Those Things About Me?
    O Phantom Menace, WHere Art Thou?
    Who Framed The Phantom Menace?
    Phantom Menace in Love
    The Phantom Menace Who Loved Me
    The Man in the Phantom Menace
    The Neverending Phantom Menace
    When We Were Phantom Menaces
    The Sorrow and the Phantom Menace
    Whatever Happened to Phantom Menace?
    Phantom Menace's Choice
    The French Lieutenant's Phantom Menace
    Ali: Fear Eats the Phantom Menace
    Don't Tell Mom the Phantom Menace is Dead
    Stop or My Phantom Menace Will Shoot
    I Never Sang for My Phantom Menace
    Phantom Menace: Male Gigolo
    Anna and the Phantom Menace
    Phantom Menace, Interrupted
    For love of The Phantom Menace
    The Talented Mr. Phantom Menace
    Don't Drink the Phantom Menace
    The Discreet Charm of the Phantom Menace
    Butch Cassidy and the Phatnom Menace
    The Sweet Smell of Phantom Menace


  • Yup (Score:3)

    by edibleplastic ( 98111 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @11:22AM (#1416446)
    I'm betting that it'll turn out fine; Lucas has great instincts.

    No need to worry, George's instincts are in full blast again -- just look at his last brilliant move: Jar Jar Binks. His instincts could not be more right on target! We are definately in safe hands.

  • Don't forget that totally lame scene where Han Solo talks to Jabba. Jabba's supposed to be this big-time underworld figure, but Solo verbally pushes him around like he's just some young street punk.

    If ever there was a scene that didn't need to be added in, that one was it.
  • ...is a new movie. I don't want to see Empire reworked with different characters and a slightly different plot.

    Oh, yeah, and kill off Jar-Jar. He's just got to go. :)
  • Id have to disagree about "little or no REAL scifi". "2001" was in 1968, "Metropolis" in 1927, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" in 1951, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in 1956, "Planet of the Apes" also in 1968. All of these have to be considered classics.
  • at least if he considers reworking parts of it, we will have a better movie for it. there have been far to many movies that sucked lately..

    lucas is probably one of the few people who cares about the product he makes, and has the clout to satrt changeing it at this point.

  • Mercy Killing. (Score:3)

    by cosmosis ( 221542 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @11:29AM (#1416451) Homepage
    Obi-Wan finally gets annoyed with him and kills him off. This will Obi-Wan's flirtaton with the dark side. But when he consoles with Yoda, he will tell him, "In a galaxy far far away, there is place called Texas - and in Texas they would say, 'Jar Jar be needin killin'."
  • I copy-pasted directly from their board:

    OH COURSE THE FILM IS "IN SHAMBLES" AT THIS PHASE OF PRODUCTION....THE MOVIE COMES OUT 18 GODDAMN MONTHS FROM NOW...!!!!

    Can we just leave it at that?
  • There is no chance that Episode II will be any better than Episode I. And none of them will live up to the original 3 films. All he's doing is turning the Star Wars movies into Disney influenced marketing machines....
  • Has anyone else heard rumors to the effect that Jar Jar may have actually been someone else in disguise?


    Yeah, the best speculation i've heard was that he is really boba fett, it'd be pretty darn funny/scary if it were true.

  • That's not true. I'm 17 now, so I wasn't even born then. In my opinion, the first two were good, and Jedi sucked. Naturally, Episode 1 sucked, too. It has nothing to do with nostalgia. The first two, and especially the first one, were successful retellings of hero myths. The third one had those goddamn Ewoks, and the rest was stupid too. Phantom Menace did have cool effects at least, which my spoiled ass thinks the first three did not (although they made it much worse in the Special Editions), but that didn't make up for crappy acting and writing. (And what was up with that retarded pseudoscientific explanation for the Force?)
  • I think it goes without saying that having Chewbacca rip his way out of a rubber Jar Jar suit would make Episode II worthwhile.
  • Lucas had to do the Han shot like that because they couldn't figure out any other way from him to go around Jabba. Or something like that. It's was in the "making of" special.
  • Who is the crack head???

    What I am refering to is George's use of the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. He showed them as timid stupid little creatures and then as the movie progressed showed they were powerful enough to help defeat the Empire. I think this is what George has in mind with Jar Jar. While it will span more than a single movie its still in the same context.
  • My fav was the dark priest walking down the hall from Elizabeth. The SLJ clip at the end looks like it was from Die Hard with a Vengance.
  • from their board: (lowercased to get past the crybaby filter) of course the film is "in shambles" at this phase of production....the movie comes out 18 goddamn months from now...!!!!
  • Most of it wasn't written by Lucas either, Leigh Brackettdid most of it.
  • the first half of dark city was good, but the last half really killed it. It turned into a B movie with lots of who-can-furrow-their-brow-the-most-intense-way battle. The ending of the story felt like 'glad that's over, let's get back to our happy life on our big space platform'.
  • Read the entire article before rendering judgement.

    --

  • All you got was a 1 for that? I laughed my ass off.
  • Just go see it once. No repeat business will kill them.

    --- This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine. ---

  • Even though I'm really really flabbergasted I can't buy the trilogy on fucking DVD, I'll give GL some credit. TO go along with your comment, besides actual reshooting of scenes that we're all familiar with (and need to re-rent the camera rig for) Lucas gets to change the backgrounds and whatnot and composite them with the blue screen (green and orange depending on what you're shooting) footage. Didn't like the way that extra TIE fighter looked? Take it out of the comp and see how you like the scene then. I's be super interested to do a project like that actually. Shoot all my live action on half-height sets with blue screens and do the rest inside of a computer.
  • Thanks for pointing that out... people are far too quick to jump on the Bash Lucas bandwagon.

    "God is holy and I am a sinner. Perhaps my worst sin is that I don't perceive this as a problem."

    Got that right.

    --


  • Or has the whole sci-fi/futuristic genre gone downhill in the 90's. I am hard pressed to remember the last "great" sci-fi movie. With the sad fact being the fact that to me "Waterworld" and "The Postman" does not look to bad after all....They may be badly acted or directed but least their is a little passion in those movies. Hell I even loved Battlestar Galactica.
  • Eaten by Jawas... hell, I can see that. Kinda like that scene in Galaxy Quest with the cute lil grey dudes! I'd like to see that. a lot.
  • Jar Jar is essential to the plot so we can't kill him. However, he could be frozen in carbonite at the beginning of Episode II and thawed out at the end of Episode III. That's my suggestion anyways.
  • The litmus test is this: when all is said and done, if we feel sorry for Anakin, just plain sorry for him, Lucas has failed. But if we feel shaken and sick at heart, because we see that it could be us making those choices and _choosing_ the dark side- Lucas will have succeeded.

    ObHumor: we feel shaken and sick at heart, or we see that it could be us making those choices and choosing the dark side? Or maybe, we feel sorry for Anakin not because he chose the dark side, but because the way he chose it cut him off from the best possible benefits of the dark side? ;)
  • I'm not bashing Lucas for his success. I'm bashing him for his failure. Phantom Menance was not as good as film as the previous three. It was disapointing to many people who saw the previous three. At that, it must be considered Lucas's failure.
  • Phantom Menace did have cool effects at least, which my spoiled ass thinks the first three did not (although they made it much worse in the Special Editions)

    You know, it's really funny. I remember watching _Empire_ on video when it was about 10 years old (about the time that Jurassic Park came out) and thinking, "These asteroid effects are AMAZING, who needs computers anyway?" Then I discovered that it was Not to Be ReReleased until the Special Ed. was out. You're right: the SE made the movies much worse -- but you're also wrong: the effects in the original _Empire_ were incredible.
  • Isn't it telling that what most people consider to be the best of the SW franchise, "The Empire Strikes Back", wasn't directed by Lucas [salonmag.com]?

  • I thought that I read they fired Kenny Baker, yet his name appears in the list of characters [imdb.com] for R2D2. Anyone have any ideas here?

  • The trailer looks good... (Score:4)

    by Jose ( 15075 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @09:13AM (#1416476) Homepage
    the trailer looks OK..Looks kinda similiar to Episode 1, but hey it's tough being creative. Check it out http://www.adcritic.com/content/star-wars-episode- 2.html [adcritic.com]

  • I think this was an obvious attempt by someone at /. to rile up the fans and get them to post. Shameless.

    This is not a .sig
  • Yoda's teachings were all based on Eastern Philosophy. I would say that someone was doing thier homework.
  • The problem with the first prequil holds true with any of the following movies. The technology is not sufficiently advanced enough to replace real with CGI. I don't buy a battle sequence in the middle of a live action film that looks like it's straight out of Japanamation. Lucas is ignoring what made his original films popular in the first place, a good story borrowed from mythology and a few other things. Without a good story you can have all the special effects you want and not have a good film. The real problem is the fact that we will all go see the film because it is part of our culture, if the first one would have bombed Lucas would have re thought the rest of the plans. But since it didn't it's business as usual.
  • Now, I'm not a fan at all of the marketing machine that was Episode I, but let's be fair.

    Immediately following the
    "At times, you have to face the truth of what you didn't get and what you hoped for" line is a second quote:

    "The second stage is that you're amazed by all the things you did get that you didn't even think you got. And then the third stage is that you see certain things are infinitely better than you could have even imagined."

    Let's all hope that GL and crew can get it together and make episode II not stink.
  • why am I flamebait? Because slashdot moderators have never seen this. [aintitcool.com]
  • I recently saw Episode I for the first time. What a steaming pile of bantha fodder! It turned all the depth in the backstory of the first three movies into a lame comic book for children. Jar-jar, mystic technobabble, ethnic stereotypes, and "oh, isn't little Hitler^10 so cute!"... The only reason I kept watching it was to critique the special effects, and to see how whathisface eats it while fighting Darth Maul. Even that was lame.

    The only way Lucus could earn my respect now is if Episode II goes straight-to-video.
    --
    Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
  • Not to take away from insightful discussion about a movie due out in 18 months, but...

    I've used smaller fonts to "beef up" book reports when I was in Middle School.

    hehe.

  • Bad analogy - as anyone who finished the Ender's series knows, the ansible was magic! : )

    (A brief explanation: about the forth book, somehow the ansible's workings get tied into peoples' "souls" and the explanation becomes this strange pseudo-science type deal that can best be explained as magic - although pseudo-science works too...)

  • >I remember many many scenes, but I have no idea which movie they go to. maybee you should 'watch' the movies again before spouting off. I like remember this movie Citizen Cone or something, It had a guy and a sled in it, don't remember the details but It sucked, I didn't understand it.
  • Huh?
    I saw the same explanation, and to be honest, I didn't buy it one bit. The tail-stepping was added in for the same reason that that camel-thing farts on Jar Jar in Episode 1 - some dumbfuck thought it was funny. "We couldn't think of any other way to do it." they say. You'd think Lucas would have enough money to hire someone bright enough to, say, have Jabba move out of Han's way? Turn around in place? No way, that might "make sense" and it wouldn't be cute and the 5 year olds wouldn't laugh! When I first saw that scene (and the horrible musical number in Jedi), I was worried about what Episode 1 would be, but I think you can infer my opinion on it from the tone of this post. Lucas won't see any more money from me until the original trilogy is released on DVD, without the new scenes.

  • Here is what McCallum actually said in context. It is no cause for alarm:

    The film is currently in its rough cut stage, and is scheduled to undergo at least four more cuts before final. "There's a lot of work to do," says McCallum. "You go through various emotional stages when reviewing this footage. At times, you have to face the truth of what you didn't get and what you hoped for. The second stage is that you're amazed by all the things you did get that you didn't even think you got. And then the third stage is that you see certain things are infinitely better than you could have even imagined."

    Kook9 out.

  • Oh geez, let's bash Lucas for his success. It seems to be a common theme. The first three Star Wars movies were all about making money. To say Lucas is just churning out schlock for more bucks is annoying and untrue.

    Nobody puts this much time, effort, and heartache (remember we are talking DECADES of work here), just to add another couple million to the bank account.

  • Lucas deserves to be shot.

    And this is why fanboys suck.

    The guy makes MOVIES. Because you didn't like the latest one (I didn't, either), you think he should be shot? Perspective, anyone?

    -jon

  • Speaking of Lucas' career;

    Just saw THX1138 the other day, first time in oh, about 15 years, and that scene towards the end, when THX1138 is escaping in the jet car, and it's screaming down the highway/tunnel, and two robo-cops on motorbikes are chasing him - it was VERY x-wing-tie-fighter-death-star-trench-scene-ish. Right down to the sound effects, cuts between the speeding vehicles, cockpit closeups, beeping radar screens showing the bogies getting closer. . .
    Otherwise, a rather thoughtful, but boring movie, I strongly recommend any Star Wars fan go rent this movie and check out that scene. It's a riot how similar it is to the death-star scene (that's been ripped off ten thousand times in ten thousand other sci fi movies since then).
  • Neither was Jedi, which was by far the crappiest of the original movies.

    -jon

  • If Lucas were serious.... (Score:5)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @09:53AM (#1416510) Homepage Journal

    From AICN:

    "There are whispers that Spielberg is coming on board to help with the editing and story. It's a total shambles! Everyone wants another Empire Strikes Back......the team is aware of this, but we're a long way off."

    I think it's unlikely, but if such a far fetched thing were true - that Lucas would swallow his pride and hand EP2 to Spielberg - I have a better suggestion. Get Gary Kurtz (Co-producer of SW and Empire) and Brian Daily (ghost writer for SW and Empire) back on for this movie and salvage what is available.

    Anyone who has read, or tried to read, drafts 1,2, or 3 of The Star Wars knows Lucas can't write. Brian Daley adapted what he saw and wrote the forth draft of The Star Wars (or A New Hope as it's called nowadays). Lucas has such low confidence in his writing skills he had Carrie Fisher read EP1 and offer suggestions on how to punch up the dialogue.

    For EP1, Lucas surrounded himself with 'yes-men'. Gary Kurtz was the only person who would challenge Lucas during the making of SW and Empire. On Empire, Lucas didn't go to Norway and didn't spend much time at Pinewood Studios. When Irvin Kershner needed a solution to a problem, he didn't turn to Lucas, he went to Kurtz. As a result, much of Empire was made without Lucas' direct involvement. Lucas supposedly went ballistic at the slower pace of some scenes and the more adult direction Empire took when he saw rushes.

    A wedge was thrust between Lucas and Kurtz when Empire went over budget. Lucas needed three million to finish production, and he was forced to go to 20th Century Fox to get the money. Empire had been an independent film until that point. Lucas blamed Kurtz for taking the film over budget, and never forgave him. Kurtz wasn't asked to participate in the making of Jedi.

    There's a great book "The Making of The Empire Strikes Back" that casts light on the personal conflicts involved in making that film. A good read in you're a Star Wars nut. It really drives home the fact that Empire turned out to be a great movie in spite of Lucas, not because of him.

    In Kurtz's final interview for the book, the author asks his what he thought of Jedi, and Kurtz lets go with both barrels. Jedi is nothing like the sequel that was planed when they were making Empire. Anybody who thinks Lucas has a master plan for a "Saga" will quickly realize how that claim is so untrue.

  • Blockquoth the poster:
    Jabba was conceived as a human(oid) when E1 was shot, but then evolved (degenerated?) into a wormy-lookin-thing later. No problem, 'cause the scene had been cut from E1.
    Minor factoid error: IIRC, Jabba was always imagined as a giant worm thingy. But the FX in 1977 weren't up to it, at least, not to Lucas' satisfaction. So the scene was dropped. The human actor (over whom the CGI Jabba was pasted) was there for precisely the reason alleged as a fake: To give Harrison Ford something to react to, and to preserve distances, etc. But in 1977 they couldn't matte over a convincing enough monster (esp. if it was going to be made of rubber and filmed, then overlaid).

    When going back to do the Special Edition, Lucas realized that CGI had come far enough along to make possible his original intent ... which was, after all, the point of the Special Edition.

  • Blockquoth the poster:
    Give the guy a break, are slashdotters and all just that desperate for astounding visuals that just can't be topped?
    After a quick perusal of the list, I think you've missed the point. Most slashdotters are saying that it isn't the visuals that maketh the movie, and that Lucas' sin is forgetting that: Loucas wants each one to top the previous one for FX. A laudable goal... if it can be done without sacrificing the plot. IMHO, in Ep I, he missed the mark.
  • Two words: Bantha fodder.
  • The first part of "Star Wars" was OK, given the date it was created and the fact that little or no REAL scifi had been made into movies at that time. However, everything AFTER, say, the point where Luke discovers his aunt and uncle dead is a blur for me. I remember many many scenes, but I have no idea which movie they go to. This points to a lack of plot cohesion indicative of a bad movie.

    So, everything up to that point PLUS a few memorable scenes in the rest of Star Wars, plus a couple of bits of the other two "originals" together make 1/2 of a good movie.
    --
    MailOne [openone.com]
  • Nah. I am happy to say I have VHS copies of the _original_ cuts of Eps 4 and 5 and the very technical limitations that hobbled Lucas are what makes them great. There was never the budget or the technical capacity for a cast of a thousand Gungans- though the vast scenes of Ep 1 are great in their own way, too much of the focus went to them, and Lucas lost the space opera feel of the series by moving to EFX that resemble _hard_ science fiction (attempts to really make stuff realistic, successful or not) and a story arc that belongs more to some weird historical fiction rather than space opera.

    Because A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back were so limited (especially ANH!), Lucas had to constantly fake- have you ever read an analysis of the shower scene in Psycho? The knife never actually touches Janet Leigh- it's a brutal onslaught of quick violent cuts that convey the _feel_ of a horrific attack more than a fully 'realistic' and straight filming of such an attack, no matter how harrowingly acted. Well, the first Star Wars films were like that- here's a shot of Imperial Walkers slowly arriving and BAM here's a reaction shot of a guy in a snowspeeder that does NOT also include the Walkers seen through the window, in fact the background is a snowy blur- and BAM we're attacking a Walker and all the other Walkers are NOT shown in wide-angle. The 'lens' of directorial field of view is always portrait- hell, in ANH it's like a telephoto or something, you _never_ get anything resembling a Phantom Menace cast of thousands battle scene. Speed of motion through the frame is high but most importantly FOV is radically confined to just the elements that make the shot. That's ANH and Empire in a nutshell- I _just_ watched Empire (original version!) coincidentally and am very confident in saying that.

    For Phantom Menace, Lucas is on record for what he was trying to get- he wanted the scope, those cast of thousands shots, massively wide-angle stuff, and he got it- pulled it off really well. However, that's not what the franchise was built on- Star Wars is about space opera, hokey/thrilling operatic emotional stories that are in your face and don't let up, with cinematography that is just as aggressive. Phantom Menace backs way off- and that's why it fails to continue the tradition. (It still kicks ass over most kid movies though).

    • A New Hope: young man gets mentor, becomes warrior, has mentor torn from him and then avenges the loss and saves the world
    • Empire: young man gets pressed and tormented by increasingly horrible trials- exposure, exile (from Hoth anyway), tormented by conflict between his destiny and the immediate rescue of his friends, and makes the Wrong Move, punished by the brutal knowledge that his enemy is himself and his most hated rival is in fact his farther- yet he manages to survive all this and is not destroyed by it, just made much older and somewhat wiser.
    • Phantom Menace: little kid wins the big race, and a lot of guys fight a lot of robots and win. Yay!

    Granted, that's a particularly brutal way to mock TPM: the good bits in it are often stage-setting for more serious drama ahead, such as the marvellous Palpatine. But it's all just too damn light- rotten opera. If Anakin _knew_ what was to happen to him (compare to Luke, abandoning his studies despite the _dire_ warnings of both Obi-Wan and Yoda, and going off to save his friends _knowing_ his mentors swear it will be a disaster) then there would be some drama. Having Jedi fussing and expressing great forebodings about the kid is _not_ the same: they are spearcarriers, they are not the protagonist no matter how well they act. If Obi-Wan was meant to be the big hero of the series, there would be some chance of drama as he suffers genuine conflict in TPM- but he's not! Anakin is to be the hero! So it's a total mess, as most people have instinctively recognised.

    I hope he does better in Ep 2, I really do. The thing is, Lucas has a chance to top anything he's done in the series so far, in showing the fall of Anakin, giving him real, brutal conflicts and pain and trapping him into a corner where Anakin's basically good instincts turn him to evil by leading him to do bad things out of fear and grief. It really could be fantastic drama in the space opera style.

    Lucas could also do buttloads of special effects, cute characters, and fumble things so that Anakin's fall becomes simply a matter of him being victimised by mean nasty evil folk, and I am afraid Lucas may do just that.

    The litmus test is this: when all is said and done, if we feel sorry for Anakin, just plain sorry for him, Lucas has failed. But if we feel shaken and sick at heart, because we see that it could be us making those choices and _choosing_ the dark side- Lucas will have succeeded.

    Good luck, George :)

  • did you notice how I took the "fake-movie" bit out of the URL when I linked it...yeah, I noticed.

  • SFX (Score:2)

    by Monte ( 48723 )
    Phantom Menace did have cool effects at least, which my spoiled ass thinks the first three did not...

    What?!? The first 3 didn't have cool effects? Why, when I was your age "special effects" mean somebody threw a pie-plate at the camera and the actors would point and yell "Flying saucer!"

    You kids don't know just how good you've got it... buncha pansy actors "dodging" bullets & stuff... in the Old Days you just had to pretend the bullets bounced off!

    (mumble mumble 'Whippersnappers!' mumble mumble)
  • If a director like Spielberg can feel that way about a movie like Raiders, it's not a surprise that Lucas might have some second thoughts here and there. I'm betting that it'll turn out fine; Lucas has great instincts.

    What worries me (and I'm sure I'm not alone) is that however Speilberg felt about Radiers, Nobody got any indication that Lucas felt Episode One was anything but gold. After such a thud, I think it's legitimate to worry about a sequel the producers themselves are worried about.

    On the other hand, I hyave no idea of tghe validity of these rumors. It's exactly the sort of thing you want to hear out of ILM, right? I'd feel better hearing they're worried about a rough cut than hearing that they think everything's hunky-dorey. At least this way they might be on to what joe-moviegoer is thinking and make a bid to improve it.

    Kevin Fox

  • Uhmm... Just an aside, but Carrie Fisher made a living for a while as a script editor like this. She's written a best selling novel (Postcards from the Edge) which was made into a movie. Its quite possible she's a better writer than many of the minds behind Star Wars.

  • OK, you're right about the BEEP. I'm sorry. But I don't think that peope would care. Star Wars never pretended to be hard science fiction. They didn't try to explain anything else; they ust magicked it away by saying it happened in a galaxy far, far away.
  • Wow....thats right.

    I completely forgot about Dark City...never made the connection. That was a great film. It wasn't until you mentioned it now and I started thinking about it that I realised what a ripoff the matrix was.

    The Matrix was still a good story...and had lots of neat eyecandy and even some passable dialog. However...it was lacking something... the real character development...the real story of it.

    Episode I had the same problem. It was all flashy CGI and cool effect...with little to no real character development and real plot.

    After some conversations I have had...I wonder. The real question... Aniken Skywalker must become Darth Vader. Can Lucas pull THAT off? Can he turn Cute little "Ani" into "Lord Vader" who ruthlessly hunts down and kills ALL of the Jedi Knights (well ok, all but Obi-Wan and Yoda, who manage to escape).

    I can excuse the watered down Drivel that was Episode I, if they can do that. Ok... We are introduced. We have Aniken brought into the story. Can they do the followthrough that they need to?

    This has the potential to be one of the best movies in QUITE a long time, or it has the potiential to be no better than the usual hollywood crap. I don't see it landing inbetween.

  • Quoted out of context (Score:5)

    by Lister of Smeg ( 94604 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @08:44AM (#1416541)

    "At times, you have to face the truth of what you didn't get and what you hoped for," McCallum said. "The second stage is that you're amazed by all the things you did get that you didn't even think you got. And then the third stage is that you see certain things are infinitely better than you could have even imagined."

  • Meeso Die .. NO ... mite!

    Sorry, it had to be said :)

  • > Lucas had to do the Han shot like that because they couldn't figure out any other way from him to go around Jabba.

    Jabba was conceived as a human(oid) when E1 was shot, but then evolved (degenerated?) into a wormy-lookin-thing later. No problem, 'cause the scene had been cut from E1.

    But when they remastered E1, they decided to put the scene back in, and for consistency's sake they had to use the wormy Jabba. But Han had walked around close behind the human Jabba, much closer than he could have walked behind the evolved/wormy Jabba. So the step-on-his-tail routine was a kludge to make everything consistent.

    Of course, a real director would have just left the scene out of the remastered version, too.

    --
  • If THE PHANTOM MENACE sucked (and it did), it wasn't Jar-Jar's fault. To all the Jar-Jar haters, I say this: at least he was a relatively unique creation, a real character. There weren't any others of note in THE PHANTOM MENACE. Qui-Gon Jinn was there merely to deliver the occasional gnomic utterance; young Obi-Wan was there merely to look good waving a lightsaber. As for young Anakin, well! he was a dumping-ground for whatever Lucas thought would make him look precocious and extraordinary.

    I don't place much credence in anything that's "reported" on Ain't It Cool, but I'm a little heartened at the possibility, even, that Lucas may bring in outside help for this second STAR WARS movie. As I wrote elsewhere, I'm convinced that THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was good chiefly because Lucas didn't write or direct it.

    I'm reminded of the situation with another series which began with great promise and turned into a disappointing mess, "Babylon 5". I remember, when the show premiered, how its creator, J. Michael Straczynski, made a big deal over how it was a collective effort, with big-name writers working on some episodes (Peter David wrote one, David Gerrold wrote one; Neil Gaiman eventually got around to writing one; Harlan Ellison promised to write one, but then, what are promises from Harlan Ellison worth?) But eventually JMS jealously shut everyone out, insisted on writing everything himself; the result was...well, "Into the Fire", the disposable fifth season, and the lame attempt to continue the franchise with "Crusade" were the eventual results. It also occurs to me that both George Lucas and JMS make a big deal of their independence from the "establishment" (Lucas from Hollywood; JMS from Paramount).

    hyacinthus.

  • Lucas still cares? (Score:3)

    by dR.fuZZo ( 187666 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @08:47AM (#1416570)
    I just recently saw the snazzied-up version of Episode IV for the first time. With great additions to the film like that lame looking how-could-you-possibly-miss-so-far-from-so-close blaster shot from Greedo, and the equally lame shot of Han carelessly stomping on the gigantic tail of the gangster he owes thousands of credits to, I have say: it's about time Lucas started stressing.
  • The entire quote:
    Rick McCallum as saying that he has gone through several "emotional stages" while reviewing the preliminary film. "At times, you have to face the truth of what you didn't get and what you hoped for," McCallum said. "The second stage is that you're amazed by all the things you did get that you didn't even think you got. And then the third stage is that you see certain things are infinitely better than you could have even imagined."
    Its still a rough cut everybody - don't expect everything to be perfect. From what is said, it sounds like they still have a lot of work to do but it is far from a disaster. Lucas is anal retentive anyway, so he is likely stressing no matter how good or bad the film is.

  • This is normal (Score:4)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Thursday December 28, 2000 @08:49AM (#1416573)
    Based on interviews I've read with filmmakers, it's a normal part of the process to stress out about what you're producing. Steven Spielberg once said that during the filming of portions of Raiders of the Lost Ark, he thought he was creating the worst movie ever made. If a director like Spielberg can feel that way about a movie like Raiders, it's not a surprise that Lucas might have some second thoughts here and there. I'm betting that it'll turn out fine; Lucas has great instincts.
  • I don't often post to slashdot, but lurk constantly...

    I was very disappointed with Episode 1. The quality just wasn't there. Visually the movie was stunning. Story line acceptable. But...

    The script lost touch with the wonders of the Star Wars Universe. Here is the most annoying momment (IMHO): The Trade Federation using late 80's catch phase "Are you Brain Dead?". (leaving the all Jar Jar Binks lines asside) Where were all those alien languages with subtitles?

    Direction was poor: Anakin devliering the line about not reaching the outskirts in time(sandstorm), was more than a half second late. Surely somebody could have caught that one, the little twerp was bad throughout the whole movie, but that momment breaks the whole flow of the movie and suddenly you're conscious of that fact that the producers of the film don't care as much about it as the fans.

    Casting breaks even: Anakin was just bad, Jar Jar is unthinkable, but Ewan Macgreggor (sp) Was a shinning star and I look forward to his character development and his role in Skywalker's fall to Darth Vader.

    What it comes down to is the thought that the fans did not get the product they wanted. It did not live up to our expectations and it is unlikely that Lucas will be able to repair the damage he's done. Is he fit to be the "Father" of our most precious child? I think he's grown too old and been away from the Star Wars we love for too long. He's a Grand father whos more interested in making a movie that explains to all 3 year olds why they need to buy the video games and little plastic Jar Jars than to produce (in the traditional style) a worthy pre-quel to the legacy which has served us all so well.

    I am not surprised that the Second Episode is not hitting the mark either.

    Mike Agar
  • ...unless Lucas has a good spirit medium on retainer. Being that Daley's dead, and all.
  • IMHO, I'm also glad to hear that Lucas is going back to the drawing board. After hearing that all character shots were done a month ago got me worried that SWE2 would just be a CGI filled movie. Special effects is one thing, but it can't carry a movie all the way through especially in the Star Wars Universe. I doubt fans would have been happy with 2 hours of CGI and only 30 minutes of actual character dialog. Of course that's just my opinion.


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