ICONS UNEARTHED: STAR WARS featuring Marcia Lucas interview

[Treadwell]

That stupid “How STAR WARS Was Saved in The Edit” video (which the video I liked to upthread brilliantly rebuts)

I'm glad you mentioned it again because I had blithely scrolled right by your link post, thinking it was the original one. I just watched the first couple minutes and loving it. Looking forward to finishing it later. (Not sure why a rebuttal would need to be 2 hours long, but I'll find out!)

 

[Mottrex]

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.

To be fair the American crew couldn't understand the British crews concept of Tea breaks Lunchbreaks and finishing at 5pm.. It drove George Bonkers!
You can edit all you like but first you need the raw material and that's why so many movies require reshoots..
What's that well known line?

"Don't worry, we can fix it in the edit"

 

[Mottrex]

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 liked 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.

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.

In relation to the Oscars.. I hate it when a winner/s tries to mention their colleagues and gets cut off midflow but hey that's Show business

 

[joberg]

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.

You mean like The Mouse Corp

 

[joberg]

To be fair the American crew couldn't understand the British crews concept of Tea breaks Lunchbreaks and finishing at 5pm.. It drove George Bonkers!
You can edit all you like but first you need the raw material and that's why so many movies require reshoots..
What's that well known line?

"Don't worry, we can fix it in the edit"

Not the first North American director to do so. James Cameron was going crazy with the U.K. crew and their tea break
It's a tradition and you'll have to accept it...period! But ask any U.K. crew to do overtime to finish a scene and they'll gladly say: "Yes Gov.!"

 

[Gregatron]

Not the first North American director to do so. James Cameron was going crazy with the U.K. crew and their tea break
It's a tradition and you'll have to accept it...period! But ask any U.K. crew to do overtime to finish a scene and they'll gladly say: "Yes Gov.!"

On the flipside, it was “Yes, Gov…my @$$!” when Ridley Scott came from the UK to the US to make BLADE RUNNER with an American crew.

 

[Mottrex]

Not the first North American director to do so. James Cameron was going crazy with the U.K. crew and their tea break
It's a tradition and you'll have to accept it...period! But ask any U.K. crew to do overtime to finish a scene and they'll gladly say: "Yes Gov.!"

Yeah it's all changed now, the only crew at the time doing OT was the Bond crew my mates father worked on loads and he said they certainly worked and played hard..

 

[Mottrex]

Not the first North American director to do so. James Cameron was going crazy with the U.K. crew and their tea break
It's a tradition and you'll have to accept it...period! But ask any U.K. crew to do overtime to finish a scene and they'll gladly say: "Yes Gov.!"

If you can prize the flat cap off their head... Or is that just me

 

[Treadwell]

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

If you download the app, it gives you four half-hour "passes" which will get you through the first two episodes. It also gives the opportunity to use your logins for other services, including Hulu. That should work.

 

[Psab keel]

Awesome Treadwell. Thank you!

 

[Treadwell]

Watched the first two. As I always do with docs produced by Nacelle, I love some things and REALLY hate others.

I have some nits, such as the use of BTS footage from later films, misidentifying the mouse creature shot at Elstree as a Rick Baker reshoot mask, using generic B-roll of film being handled or projected that is 16mm instead of 35, and making a "new hope" joke which of course the film was not so named at the time. I will give them credit for not doing that shameful thing they did in, for example, The Toys that Made Us, using out-of-context shots of the interviewees looking silly just for the sake of a joke at their expense.

It's great to hear the thoughts of people like Dykstra and Edlund, who almost never show up in these things. There is also some interest and value in the offerings from most of the other people interviewed, even if they weren't actually there, as most have at least some tangential connection, such as Reynolds.

I vehemently despise the voluminous use of sound bites from Victoria Bennett (Den of Geek). Who the hell is this, and why is her take relevant?

Well, it isn't.

The best documentarians interview first, then let the story reveal itself. Then there are those who decide on a story right from the beginning, and conduct interviews and pick sound bites with that in mind.

This is the latter. Apparently the genuine interviews didn't say all the things the producers wanted, and so rather than load it up with a ton of narration, they hired Bennett to say those things. I've edited thousands of real interviews, and quite a number of fake ones. Hers is as fake as they come. She is not responding off the cuff to questions. She is giving scripted statements. It's a performance.

It would've been one thing if they had made her a host/presenter. Telling the story straight to camera. But to try to pass off her reading a script as someone telling the story from their own personal knowledge or experience is not okay.

I intensely disrespect that approach.

 

[Gregatron]

I'm recording these these as they air on TV. Got the first two episodes standing by, and I'll give my thoughts when I get to' em.

In my experience, programs like this are only useful for first-hand interviews with actual participants. Unfortunately, more often than not, it's just talking heads and "experts" from geek websites and podcasts (who weren't involved with the productions) regurgitating easily-available information and/or perpetuating urban legends and myths.


And I haven't bothered to check if they're covering only the first three or all six Lucas films, or are also moving into the worthless Disney era, so they can fluff it up and pretend that it's been a massive success, being disliked only by a "vocal minority of toxic fans".

Of course, we've already seen numerous attempts by the shill media to rewrite recent history. But we're now moving into an era where most of the key participants from the original films will soon be gone, and where history will more easily be rewritten by those with ill intent. Gotta be vigilant, and call out bad journalism in all its forms.

 

[Psab keel]

From what I heard this will only cover the Lucas era, so Ep. 1-6 only. Frankly there's nothing else worth bothering with after that. Not that I like the prequels, but they are worth examining as a contrast to the brilliance of the OT.

 

[Gregatron]

From what I heard this will only cover the Lucas era, so Ep. 1-6 only. Frankly there's nothing else worth bothering with after that. Not that I like the prequels, but they are worth examining as a contrast to the brilliance of the OT.

Good.

Setting aside one’s feelings on the prequels, I personally feel that the six STAR WARS films overall and the history behind them are a very specific storytelling and filmmaking journey, primarily spearheaded by Lucas, ranging from 1973-2005. All of their ups and downs, evolutions, and story retcons/tangents provide a profound look at the creative process, and how art, artists, filmmaking, and audiences change over time.

Beyond that, thanks to the Disney buyout, we’ve learned— hard—how franchises die when they become corporatized and lose their souls and creative impetus. But that’s an epilogue, not the real story. And I’ll take Lucas’ interesting failures any day over the nihilism, willful destruction, incompetence, and pure greed of the Disney era.

But the Disney films will get their due. Oh, yes—books will be written, and film classes (“How To Destroy a Franchise 101”) will be taught.

 

[Psab keel]

Some college courses are already being taught on how NOT to write a film. Using the ST as examples.

Time will be the ultimate judge and it will not be kind. Rightfully so I might add.

 

[Gregatron]

Some college courses are already being taught on how NOT to write a film. Using the ST as examples.

Time will be the ultimate judge and it will not be kind. Rightfully so I might add.

On October 30, 2012, the day that the Disney buyout and the counterfeit sequel trilogy were announced, I just had a sinking feeling. Somehow, I just knew that the whole thing would be ruined completely.

I hate being right all the time.


Meanwhile, everyone else was popping champagne and high-fiving each other at the prospect of movies being made by someone other than Lucas. It seems that a high percentage of fans don’t actually understand the movies, what they’re about, how they’re constructed, and how integral Lucas was to all of it. There’s a great irony in that RedLetterMedia’s famous prequel reviews (which did far more harm than good, in the long run) mockingly stated that people like JJ Abrams should be making STAR WARS films. This, of course, fails to realize that STAR WARS is George Lucas—his ideas, his eccentricities, his morality, his personal obsessions, his drive to push the limits of filmmaking and technology. The man and the work are inseparable, for good and for ill. But, in the aftermath of being understandably (and inevitably) disappointed by the prequels, far too many people were far too eager to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I believe the phrase is, “Be careful what you wish for”.


Also, I’ll just leave these here.

 

[Psab keel]

I agree. While I love Red Letter Media, their suggestion to have JJ get involved ended up being a theory that they themselves would later regret. Though I seriously doubt it played any factor in Disney's choice of directors for the Sequel Trilogy.

As for this ICONS special I too hope it's more interviews of the people involved with making the films as opposed to talking head "experts" whose credibility and bias are almost always suspect.

 

[Gregatron]

I agree. While I love Red Letter Media, I don't always agree with their assessments. Their suggestion to have JJ get involved ended up being a theory that they themselves would later regret. Though I seriously doubt it played much of a factor in Disney's choice of directors for the Sequel Trilogy.

As for this ICONS special I too hope it's more interviews of the people involved with making the films as opposed to talking head "experts" whose credibility and bias are almost always suspect.

Yeah, I would even prefer archival interviews being cut in alongside new ones, rather than the talking heads pushing a pre-existing narrative, as Treadwell noted.

 

[Mottrex]

I agree. While I love Red Letter Media, their suggestion to have JJ get involved ended up being a theory that they themselves would later regret. Though I seriously doubt it played any factor in Disney's choice of directors for the Sequel Trilogy.

As for this ICONS special I too hope it's more interviews of the people involved with making the films as opposed to talking head "experts" whose credibility and bias are almost always suspect.

The worst possible thing I've seen in the last twenty plus years is The Talking Heads sound bites... You see these Bright Young things not even born or aware of the state of the world or what public perception was of the time these Events, Movies or Music were made in..
But get they presumably get paid to put their Trashy Sugar-coated wit on in these shows like they are some expert on the subject only to be little or chastice the content.
Oh it so Grinds my Gears!!..
Same when someone sits in a brightly lit room watching a Horror and goes That's not Scary!

I hope I get to see these Eps, at some point they will surface on some channel or system.

 

[Gregatron]

The worst possible thing I've seen in the last twenty plus years is The Talking Heads sound bites... You see these Bright Young things not even born or aware of the state of the world or what public perception was of the time these Events, Movies or Music were made in..
But get they presumably get paid to put their Trashy Sugar-coated wit on in these shows like they are some expert on the subject only to be little or chastice the content.
Oh it so Grinds my Gears!!..
Same when someone sits in a brightly lit room watching a Horror and goes That's not Scary!

I hope I get to see these Eps, at some point they will surface on some channel or system.

To build an analogy using another dead franchise, it’s like all of those civilians who have watched the Marvel movies, naively thinking they know everything about the characters, and get into arguments with longtime comic book fans who actually know decades’ worth of history and lore.

They don’t have a leg to stand on, regurgitate tidbits they’ve seen and read on the Internet, and somehow think they know it all, and know it better than actual experts.