ICONS UNEARTHED: STAR WARS featuring Marcia Lucas interview

[Usagi Pilgrim]

With the DISNEY+series on it's way, this seemed interesting to me. VICE isn't my favorite channel, but they usually don't do puff pieces for their channel, & the fact they're touting this as the 'first time' Marcia Lucas interview, it has my curiosity...

 

[Psab keel]

This I want to see. Just off the trailer alone it sounds like a brutally honest look at the making of the movies without the false veneer of positivity that plagues the Disney behind the scenes material. Even George's prequel behind the scenes material was far more honest. I'm very much looking forward to hearing Marcia's perspective too. She was closer to George than anyone and with all the conjecture surrounding her involvement it will be a real eye opener to hear from her directly. I hope they give her adequate screen time!

 

[kamandi]

I've heard more than once the entire countdown/Death Star in range aspect of the final battle was a creation of the edit room.

 

[Psab keel]

Marcia was the one who added that, among many crucial elements that made Star Wars the juggernaut it became.

 

[joberg]

Eager to see it

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

I've heard more than once the entire countdown/Death Star in range aspect of the final battle was a creation of the edit room.

Marcia was the one who added that, among many crucial elements that made Star Wars the juggernaut it became.

I'm not able to link to it ATM, but there's a great video on YouTube that I THINK is called "HOW STAR WARS WAS SAVED IN THE EDIT" that I highly recommend. Clears up a lot of who did what.

 

[HeartBlade]

Marcia was a huge help in making Star Wars what it was and is the unspoken hero imo.

She was recognized as an incredible talent in the editing room with Scorsese wanting her to edit his first studio film. She left the industry way too early (although she wanted to live her life so good for her).

Yeah, it would be cool to see how she would have reeditted the prequel trilogy.

 

[Psab keel]

How Star Wars was saved in the edit is a really great video insight into the film too!

Check this out! Vice TV And The Nacelle Company Launce Icons Unearthed Documentary Series With Spotlight On Star Wars, Including The First-Ever On Camera Interview With Marcia Lucas - The Illuminerdi

I'm glad they're doing a six hour in depth look and you know that it will be far more honest than most making of documentaries. I'm very much looking forward to this!

 

[Apollo]

Marcia certainly knows where all the bodies are buried!

 

[Funky]

I’ve always felt that GL was given WAY too much credit for Star Wars. Granted, it was his concept, but he made such a mess of things that he stressed himself out to the point of being hospitalized. If not for Marcia, the damn movie might have never been finished. GL just sits back and take all the credit for being a “genius” and collects the paychecks while the REAL genius gets nothing.

 

[Gregatron]

 

[HeartBlade]

I’ve always felt that GL was given WAY too much credit for Star Wars. Granted, it was his concept, but he made such a mess of things that he stressed himself out to the point of being hospitalized. If not for Marcia, the damn movie might have never been finished. GL just sits back and take all the credit for being a “genius” and collects the paychecks while the REAL genius gets nothing.

I agree although I dont think that is Lucas' fault. I also think Kurtz gets too much credit for doing "everything right" with Star Wars and Lucas too much fault for doing "everything wrong" (hence why the prequels didnt work out).

There seems to be a desire to always name one person for successfully creating a product. Elon Musk for Tesla, Bill Gates for Windows, Steve Jobs for Apple and the iphone; when the reality is these ventures require a team to be successful. It was the combination of Lucas' vision and Kurtz support as well as Marcia's editing that turned a homage to Flash Gordon into a brand new enjoyable IP.

Not being a Lucas fan but George also seems to know his limits and his faults. He is a good idea man but a pretty bad executor, hence why he was shopping for directors for the prequel trilogy and he accepts that he is bad at dialogue. Given the big issue with episode 1 (too many endings) and episode 2 being too unfocused with poor dialogue for a "romance" movie, would really like to see a Marcia edit.

 

[ZeroSum]

while the REAL genius gets nothing.

She got a gold statue

 

[Mottrex]

With the DISNEY+series on it's way, this seemed interesting to me. VICE isn't my favorite channel, but they usually don't do puff pieces for their channel, & the fact they're touting this as the 'first time' Marcia Lucas interview, it has my curiosity...

There was a time when I watch a lot of Vice and its gorilla style documentaries, they did some pretty good ones, the one that sticks in my mind was a rather interesting group of teenagers in Russia who were fixated on their leader enough to wear a range of clothing with his noggin plastered all over them..

Certainly be watching this one that's for sure and loving the chance to see new behind the curtains docu..

 

[Treadwell]

I bring this up in every Marcia discussion, but only because no one else does.
Two additional people also edited Star Wars, and also won Oscars for it: Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch. They deserve just as much credit as she.

And there was no "saving", at least not any more than in any other well-edited movie. If the editors DON'T find ways to improve the storytelling beyond what was originally planned, they're not doing their job.

 

[Psab keel]

I thought I'd be able to watch this on Hulu but apparently you need Hulu + which is $69.99 a month.

 

[Gregatron]

I bring this up in every Marcia discussion, but only because no one else does.
Two additional people also edited Star Wars, and won Oscars for it: Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch. They deserve just as much credit as she.

And there was no "saving", at least not any more than in any other well-edited movie. If the editors DON'T find ways to improve the storytelling beyond what was originally planned, they're not doing their job.

People are far too eager to give Lucas too much or too little credit (depending on their biases) without actually understanding how the process works. Reality is probably somewhere in the middle. At the end of the day, it was George’s baby, and his talented collaborators helped him birth and raise it. The people who try to say that the greatness of STAR WARS was due to everyone except Lucas are wrong, and the people who say he’s solely responsible for it are also wrong.

I’ve become deeply tired of people who were disappointed by the Special Editions and/or the prequels going off the deep end and trying to say that anyone and everyone other than Lucas made STAR WARS great. That stupid “How STAR WARS Was Saved in The Edit” video (which the video I linked to upthread brilliantly rebuts) just adds more uneducated and highly-biased fuel to the fire.


To hear people talk about it, you’d think that the film was an absolute disaster and George a hapless, talentless fraud until his wife came along and magically “saved” it in the editing room. Which is patently absurd and demonstrably untrue.

 

[joberg]

Reminds me of one of my friend (Colonel in the Canadian Arm Forces): "If the mission is a success; it's our success".
"If the mission is a failure; it's my failure". George was the director and the film was a success...hence the team work of many!

 

[Psab keel]

The fact that this franchise literally changed the world of pop culture and its no surprise that even its creation has become mythologized.

I agree with Gregatron . It was a team effort to which everyone involved played a part. Giving more or less credit to any particular person feels kind of absurd considering that without a single one of them, even down to the caterers, and the film may have never seen the light of day. If anything it highlights the absurdity of the Oscar's to only honor the faces of those on screen and barely give credit to the rest of the production who do the bulk of the work.

My curiosity about this look behind the curtain is that it seems to lack the veneer of perfection that often plagues similar retrospectives.

 

[Gregatron]

The fact that this franchise literally changed the world of pop culture and its no surprise that even its creation has become mythologized.

I agree with Gregatron . It was a team effort to which everyone involved played a part. Giving more or less credit to any particular person feels kind of absurd considering that without a single one of them, even down to the caterers, and the film may have never seen the light of day. If anything it highlights the absurdity of the Oscar's to only honor the faces of those on screen and barely give credit to the rest of the production who do the bulk of the work.

My curiosity about this look behind the curtain is that it seems to lack the veneer of perfection that often plagues similar retrospectives.

Precisely.