@daddyfrom Naboo, I'm gonna shuffle your comments up a little to respond to two different things you bring up...
DaddyfromNaboo said:
Those movies were MADE to challenge the audience´s imagination and intellect! SW?! Sorry... It is not David Lynch directing a Star Wars movie. And a Star Wars movie is not "Eraserhead" or "Mulholland Drive".
There are some very basic rules and guidelines that you learn in the 101 of screen writing at any filmschool or can be found in the most basic literature about screen writing, be it in printed form or online. "Exposition" i.e. setting the scene and rules to the world the audience is invited to visit is really important and often distilled into three words: Show, don´t tell.
Movies are a visual experience and form of story telling. If the images themselves cannot convey the content, it does not really help to add dialogue. Yes, the silent movies are actually great examples. You can understand Metropolis without the text cards, I would dare say. And even if not, the text is a fraction of information that is needed to understand the movie. heck, that movie is nearing its ninetieth birthday.
There is always something that goes above the head of a part of the audience. Director and audience often do not "speak the same languages". A director may have a grand idea, but if he gets caught up in some highbrow selfcontained thought construct, he gives people a hard time to decipher the message. I dare say that IS okay for a David Lynch or Lars von Trier. Why not for a Rian Johnson? Look at the movies of those gentlemen, it IMO is self-explanatory.
And THEN look at the target audiences.
Star Wars: ANH and ESB are established corner stones in screen writing classes, and not only there but also in classes about editing, production design and music. Because they are PRIME examples of how things are done right, to create a cohesive movie experience.
Looking at TLJ, it falls apart.
A Star Wars movie is imo NOT a movie to THINK about. It is ESCAPISM, it offers an escape from reality. If I want a movie to THINK about I will go and watch a different movie.
A Star Wars movie is imo a movie that I want to FEEL. And if I take all the usual feelings that an escapist movie should contain for me to be successful, a Star Wars movie needs to evoke something that a stand alone movie NEVER can. The feeling of HOME and emotional RECOGNITION.
Now that I am writing this, this was even SAID in TFA! "Chewie, we´re HOME!" Fan-service? Yes. But DAMN did they get me with that one. It unfortunately was over-used and spoiled in the trailers, but JJA understood what it was about. The ESSENCE.
I am ALL for change, but a home can be left and does not need to be burnt down to explore new regions, to put some wind beneath the wings of the kids so that they can find their way in life.
IMO it was all started for making money. If I remember correctly, GL was looking for his next project to put some food on the table, just like every other prolific filmmaker. And according to all those biographies out there he always was someone who knew how to make his own money. So, the idea behind Star Wars is different to, say, the ideas behind a movie like the aforementioned ones. GL=business man and craftsman, e.G. Lynch= full blown artist.
Enhhh... George. George wanted to be a race car driver, but his eyesight was too bad for that, so be became the track photographer at his race track there in Modesto. He stood next to the guy do filmed the races, they worked in the same darkroom, and he became fascinated by the editing process -- how much control the editor has over what the viewer actually sees/experiences. So he went to USC to become a film editor.
While there, he got involved with the people trying to break out of the "Hollywood system" and do actual creative, daring endeavors. He went to work for American Zoetrope with Coppola, who told him he needed to write and direct at least one film so he could appreciate those aspects of the process and what writers and directors need to know, in order to get what he wants in the editing bay.
So he did a full version of his student film, THX-1138. Then he did a paean to his youth with American Graffiti. Then he dusted off his notes for a take on the serialized Saturday morning movie shorts he loved as a kid. He's definitely not an "artiste", but neither is he focused on the business of filmmaking (except as he had to become in order to hold onto the rights, in order to actually not go broke, in order to be able to make what he wanted to make). Look at the rest. Howard the Duck? WIllow? Redtails? Not to mention previously-discussed Star Wars ennui. His approach to filmmaking is a rather ADHD "Hmm... What do I want to make
now? I think I'll do that."
That discounts the entirety of literary analysis (and by extension film criticism). Many, many works benefit from deeper exploration. As an English teacher who teaches a film studies course, I can't tell you how often students grow to appreciate something they'd initially written off...once they dig a little deeper.
Absolutely true. But these is not an art house movie, like I wrote before, this ist Star Wars. Escapistic Space Opera. The story is clear cut, the plot should be somewhat plausible. It is an Action driven adventure, not a character driven coming of age movie.
That's actually what I feel has been the biggest weakness of
all the Star Wars films -- you
can't think about them too hard or the cracks start appearing. My approach to storytelling was inspired by Animaniacs -- a straightforward story that can be enjoyed by anyone, with layers of depth and meaning that become more apparent upon delving. I don't believe that making the understructure complex and realistic and consistent means that the surface story needs to
force the viewer to think. I love a character-driven adventure. I think the best movies are neither action alone, nor character alone, but, to quote Ferdinand Porsche, "the aesthetic synthesis of the two."
There's very little discussion.
So everyone should stop writing. Got it.
Unhelpful, And kinda demonstrating his point. Back to the discussion...
Very fair point, but considering Lucas was the main conceptualist of the OT, & he changed several things from the initial plan, including Luke's dad, Luke's sibling, & changing Wookies to Ewoks, changes going from one creative team to another is to be expected.
Absolutely, but none of those things were obvious when the films were released. Thats the benefit of having someone in charge of the final product.
I wonder how Irving Kirshner felt, after directing Carrie Fisher to passionately kiss Luke in his recovery bed on Hoth in order to really build up the love triangle, to then see ROTJ & find out those two were now siblings. It was a total burial of that layer of the SW Saga.
George Lucas was standing next to Kirshner through the entire process and I`m sure that Lucas would have had the whole Leia / Luke thing down at the time and it played out just as he had envisioned and Kirshner knew exactly that. Now that is just reasonable assumption but Im sure those with a greater SWIQ than myself will be able to clarify that. Either way the impact of Leia and Luke being brother and sister is a genius move that did nothing to undermine the series and was something that was never questioned by the masses or confused them. I cant imagine a time when Lucas didnt want Han to be the love interest. Again, the benefit of having one person in charge.
I don't have a specific source to cite but as far as I know the Leia-Luke twins part came in when ROTJ was being written as a plot device. They had to have something that Vader would say that makes Luke angry enough to be nearly pushed over the edge and that's what they came up with. In fact the original Leigh Brackett script for ESB had Luke's love and jealousy over Han as a major weapon in Vader's hands in the end duel (at that point Vader was not Luke's father).
And it all panned out superbly. Of course Lucas had to make changes during such an epic journey as the OT. the key thing was that they all made each movie stronger, not weaker. In my opinion of course.
I highly recommend picking up Rinzler's "making of" books for each of the OT films. Not only are the insights into how the movies got made wonderful context for any fan of the OT, but it helps clarify a lot of these points. It wasn't
quite writing scenes that were to be filmed the next day, but a lot of story points weren't settled until filming was underway. The story for Empire was largely set, but they were still struggling to come up with the perfect thing to shake Luke's world to the foundations. They finally came up with The Line™ a couple days before that scene was to be shot.
For Jedi, there were even more problems. George was tired of doing Star Wars, so he was mushing the last four films' worth of material into one. He had to come up with a new maguffin for Our Heroes to destroy, as he'd lifted the
Death Star from the end of his notes to plunk into the one film he thought he was going to get to do (and, in the end, the answer was... another
Death Star -- only BIGGER). He felt the need to revise the aliens who help Our Heroes on the jungle planet, since he'd lifted the Wookiees (in the form of Chewbacca) from that part of the story, too, and had established him as an intelligent, tool-using, spaceship-flying being, and didn't want to show his people as primitives.
And, of course, the matter of Luke's sister. That was to be a new character Luke would be looking for through the latter part of his arc. When they didn't have time for that development, during one of the story sessions, they pretty much agreed it had to be Leia, since there weren't a whole lot of women in the previous two films to choose from.
As for whether the resulting films are better or worse for the make-it-up-as-you-go method...? Highly subjective. I've seen enough of George's early notes, and un-pursued plot points to stand by my assertion that the Star Wars Saga we
could have gotten might have been so much better.
Which is funny because most people, in fact I don't know anyone who disagrees, say that ESB is the best episode. ESB was the most story driven movie of all of Star Wars. It really shaped the characters and moved the story further on. Not even Lucas seemed to understand that if we take a look back at the PT. Nowadays there are plot holes and poor narrative. It's just about an investment in moments not in an arc for a trilogy.
Well, Lucas' judgment is even more questionable, considering he feels Empire is the "weakest" of the first six.
--Jonah