They had a good relationship and Dave had a lot of leeway, but George was there a couple of times a week, and as needed.
Did Lucas get out while the gettin was good?
- Thread starter DarkHelmet
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They had a good relationship and Dave had a lot of leeway, but George was there a couple of times a week, and as needed.
modelcitizen
Sr Member
4 point whatever Billion was a damn shrewd sales decision, eh?
royke gahil
New Member
in my eyes he undone all his work with the ridiculous spinning light sabers that could help people fly. If that was his idea that is.
Lucas was a genius in 1977 with Star Wars. But it’s humor and humanity came from his ex-wife. ESB was a great chase movie that had the benefit of GL’s imagination but it was driven by the sensibility of a mainstream action director. RotG basically showed Lucas being completely sick of the franchise. That movie was tired and off the rails. Decades later came the prequels. They unveiled GL’s modern bloated and unfettered storytelling ability when surrounded by people too afraid to keep him in check.
Once upon a time there was a young George Lucas who built ANH with the passion and purity of an art house director - one who loved film and drew from Kurosawa, Ford and Campbell. In contrast the prequels turned Star Wars into a giant engine for showcasing ILM’s CGI.
Did GL get out while the gettin was good?
I don’t know but I think Star Wars is fortunate enough to have gotten away from Lucas before he ran it completely into the ground.
Once upon a time there was a young George Lucas who built ANH with the passion and purity of an art house director - one who loved film and drew from Kurosawa, Ford and Campbell. In contrast the prequels turned Star Wars into a giant engine for showcasing ILM’s CGI.
Did GL get out while the gettin was good?
I don’t know but I think Star Wars is fortunate enough to have gotten away from Lucas before he ran it completely into the ground.
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sztriki
Sr Member
This times 10.
I like ROTJ, but the seams are there clearly. In a way I think TFA is a better sequel than ROTJ, then again there are parts of ROTJ that I like more than the whole of TFA. But yes, ROTJ was not just the business mentality but there were a lots of "artistic" elements that went full-blown in the PT, like boring shot-reverse-shot conversations, walking and talking, then stopping and turning around and talking, etc. That scene between Vader and Luke is directed exactly as 70% of the dialogue scenes in the PT. Not to mention that Han and Leia has literally nothing to do for most of the movie and they pretty much just stand beside a bunker door for the third act.
And let's not forget that other than Marcia Lucas and Irvin Kershner there was Gary Kurtz who was very much responsible for ANH and ESB. He was gone by ROTJ for the exact difference in approach that this topic is about.
Totally with you on this as well. I'm more and more convinced that the prequels (other than obviously the guaranteed ticket sales and merch at the time) were more like a massive demo reel for ILM. Back in the day the main purpose of ILM seemed to create the visuals for Star Wars and then later to grow as a company for other filmmakers as well. With the PT it seems to me that the boundaries of digital effects were pushed in order to demonstrate for other filmmakers that this service is available and how it looks. There was even a line from George when they were in pre-production of TPM to ILM guys that "we not only need to think about how we're going to realize it for this movie but how we can keep it up because then everyone else will want to have it" or something along those lines.
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airair
Sr Member
Stars wars fortunate to have got away from lucas? Absolute rubbish.
Without lucas, what you get instead is a bunch of amateurs and hacks who only know how to copy and paste and repackage the old stuff as new.
The last jedi was a pile of horse dung, a corporate puke on the legacy of characters like luke skywalker, so much that mark hamill was embarrased by the way the hack rhian johnson destroyed the mythology.
Jar jar abrams is another hack also with his farce awakens.
Lucas was right to get rid. He doesnt have to deal with internet whingers who cried like babies and who lack respect for the man who created it all.
Without george lucas, the special effects industry probably would have been set back by at least a decade.
It was his idea for ILM to bring special effects to new standards. He deserves a lot more credit than people give him.
The fact he owned all his own work really pissed off many in hollywood.
If it wasnt for the whingers im sure he wouldnt have sold out to disney. He woukd have kept everything.
The only reason he sold to disney was because he always viewed disney highly as a child, and in a naive way believed they would treat his work with respect, but he failed to realise what disney has become today, a corporation that doesnt give a crap about anything other than the quick buck.
The white slaver comments pretty much sum up everything what he thinks.
Ironically Kathleen kennedy the palpatine hidden sith truly will run star wars into the ground quicker than george ever could.
sztriki
Sr Member
Which was quite the case with the prequels too.
No argument there really, but this was quite the case with the prequels and the OT Special Editions. too.
No argument again on his effect and importance on Hollywood. But the so-called internet whingers were doing exactly with the PT what you're doing about TFA and TLJ.
I'm pretty sure he had no illusions about Disney's corporate approach being a businessman himself and having worked closely with Disney over the years. I mean I'm pretty sure it wasn't an artistic vision from George to go with a Darth Vader and the Troopers Dance Show at Disneylands and that was way before he sold. I also agree he probably thought he would be a bit of an éminence grise after the Disney deal then were pretty much sent away with a thank-you-card.
But all in all people tend to forget that before the Disney-era in the late 90s and early 2000s the book of "What Could Have Been Great" was being written by Lucas. I do think it would have been right for SW to get away from Lucas, but that doesn't mean it's in good hands with Disney from an artistic point of view.
You all are asking the wrong question. It’s not did George get out while the getting was good, it’s was George ever going to go and make new films. Some people point the sequel trilogy treatements he made with Aerndt and some vague plans about firing up a new studio but I would suggest all that noise was window dressing to help entice Disney to buy Lucasfilm. He was done with Star Wars and Disney was his first choice for a buyer.
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Thank you. The framing and camera work just might be the most excruciatingly awful aspect of RotJ. Let us not forget the tennis match shots of Vader between the Emperor and Luke at the climax. In the first part of the sequence Vader is standing around looking like a complete dolt. Then he thinks he's in Wimbledon before he decides to act. And who would have guessed that all you had to do to defeat a Master Sith was to pick him up, walk him 20 feet and drop him from a ledge?
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sztriki
Sr Member
I admit I like that the Emperor's demise is rather prosaic. Had it been the prequels Vader and Palps would have had an "epic" flipout lightsaber duel with exploding lasers and whatnot...:lol Back in the 80s the Jedi were not do-it-all supermen, so I'm kinda okay with that. But yea, Vader in the third act for most of the time is like Tim in the end of Jurassic Park, the screenwriter simply forgot to write him out of the scene or do something with him.
To be fair if the stories are to be believed ROTJ was practically directed and edited by Lucas. I read that Kershner refused to do shoot master shots, meaning the movie could really be edited pretty much the way Kershner wanted it to be and Lucas was not happy with working like that. Obviously that changed by ROTJ so he could basically edit the scenes whatever way he wanted. If you go to 1:16:51 of the Plinkett's Revenge of the Sith review that sums up pretty well the visual approach that started in ROTJ. All that's said there applies to Luke talking to Ben, Vader and Jerrjerrod, Vader and Luke on Endor, Luke and Leia on Endor...oh and did I mention some of the worst looking matte paintings?
What ROTJ has for it is that the previous two movies built up all the emotional attachment to the characters and their storylines, and ROTJ is the one where lots of things pay off. Luke's confrontation with the Emperor, final battle with the Empire, Jabba, these were all being built up in the previous two, so even if the payoff is a bit lackluster it does not feel as hollow as the prequels. And of course lots of good stuff in on its own merit. The shuttle Tydirium scene is still one of my favourites in all SW, the music is fantastic, set design and visuals were mostly really impressive and I enjoy the Jabba part a lot even if it feels like a different film and the overall plan of our heroes is nonsensical.
The real thing about "when the getting was good" is that I'm not sure there's much getting anymore or if there really was. The main storyline is at the very least divisive now and the future really looks like a barrage of these anthology movies where the tone will be all over the map from film to film, occasionally there will be a good one. Which is probably the case with them Marvel movies too (I've only seen 2 or 3, I just have no interest in them), but from what I've picked up through osmosis there's loads of different characters and general tones that they can play with from film to film. With Star Wars, I just really don't think there's that much to pick from to actually form a consistent and consistently good saga, so the future is probably the anthology movies which every once in a while will drop a decent one.
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sztriki
Sr Member
It was, I did not make it clear, I meant when Kershner was making Empire he did not do master shots so the direction was pretty locked to what Kersh had in mind.Then it was changed when Marquand came onboard with Jedi so the movie could be edited multiple ways and styles and sometimes not for the better. And word says that Marquand was basically a surrogate director to Lucas.
There's plenty of master shots in Empire, what Kersh didn't do much of were static singles for cutting conversations. If anything Kersh held the master longer, and made the backgrounds busy. Think of Han and Leia in the south passage. If that were a PT scene, it would start with some digital background massive shot-- like say the transports in the hanger, then it would've punched into in a tracking shot of them walking, stopped for a wide master, then gone to over the shoulder singles for the conversation.
Kersh started with Han, who was dominating the scene, and had Leia run to catch up. When they stop it moves to a wide two shot. It feels intimate because the passage is compact. They stay in frame, and yet extras move past them. Han even backs up so one can cut between them. There's very rarely the standard conversational over the shoulder alternating singles, even when it's just two characters, Kersh frames it in a way that kept the scene alive.
Lucas loves the editing room. He prefers it. He's said multiple times he doesn't find what he wants until he can assemble the elements. In the all digital
PT he could cut and past anything, hence the cg establishing shots that punch to close ups. When he shoots he's thinking of coverage.
For ESB and ROTJ Lucas took over in post, doing the part he liked. ANH was shot pretty standard, for coverage. But Kersh was building the picture in his head. When Lucas oversaw the edit, there wasnt a ton of coverage or alternate angles. It was the footage needed for Kersh's picture. For ROTJ Lucas made Marquand shoot it as straight as possible, with multiple angles, and a ton of coverage so when it got to edit, there would be options.
Kersh started with Han, who was dominating the scene, and had Leia run to catch up. When they stop it moves to a wide two shot. It feels intimate because the passage is compact. They stay in frame, and yet extras move past them. Han even backs up so one can cut between them. There's very rarely the standard conversational over the shoulder alternating singles, even when it's just two characters, Kersh frames it in a way that kept the scene alive.
Lucas loves the editing room. He prefers it. He's said multiple times he doesn't find what he wants until he can assemble the elements. In the all digital
PT he could cut and past anything, hence the cg establishing shots that punch to close ups. When he shoots he's thinking of coverage.
For ESB and ROTJ Lucas took over in post, doing the part he liked. ANH was shot pretty standard, for coverage. But Kersh was building the picture in his head. When Lucas oversaw the edit, there wasnt a ton of coverage or alternate angles. It was the footage needed for Kersh's picture. For ROTJ Lucas made Marquand shoot it as straight as possible, with multiple angles, and a ton of coverage so when it got to edit, there would be options.
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George's last day was the final day before holiday break 2012, just 3 months before Disney pulled the plug. He was there for the entire production run on CW and the beginning of a CW spin-off that faded. He had nothing to do with Rebels.
I believe Star Wars became bigger than him.
People saw it for a lot more than George saw it for.
I think George knew there was no way he could please all the fans during production of the PT as well as all that criticism after it.
George absolutely knew the potential of what the Star Wars universe had in the way of more films, but didn't want anything further to do with making them, so he sold it to Disney, who had done an excellent job representing Star Wars over the years and entrusted the future to them in doing more with it than he would ever have the time to devote to it.
I'm very thankful he handed it off to continue on. Sure we don't all love everything that has come out of it since, but we have also gotten to see some amazing things we never thought we'd ever get to see.
I still think the getting is good, but they need to keep working hard on developing great stories that touch our lives and getting back to that heart that resonates so well in the originals in our culture today. I will always be there for the first showing of any Star Wars theatrical release no matter what I thought of a previous film. It's an exciting time to be a Star Wars fan, young and old. It's not all about the toys anymore either. Times have changed and kids have A LOT more options available to them in forms of entertainment than action figures. And I don't have much of an interest in the toys myself anymore since replica props and statues have made their way into my home. It's just a different time.
People saw it for a lot more than George saw it for.
I think George knew there was no way he could please all the fans during production of the PT as well as all that criticism after it.
George absolutely knew the potential of what the Star Wars universe had in the way of more films, but didn't want anything further to do with making them, so he sold it to Disney, who had done an excellent job representing Star Wars over the years and entrusted the future to them in doing more with it than he would ever have the time to devote to it.
I'm very thankful he handed it off to continue on. Sure we don't all love everything that has come out of it since, but we have also gotten to see some amazing things we never thought we'd ever get to see.
I still think the getting is good, but they need to keep working hard on developing great stories that touch our lives and getting back to that heart that resonates so well in the originals in our culture today. I will always be there for the first showing of any Star Wars theatrical release no matter what I thought of a previous film. It's an exciting time to be a Star Wars fan, young and old. It's not all about the toys anymore either. Times have changed and kids have A LOT more options available to them in forms of entertainment than action figures. And I don't have much of an interest in the toys myself anymore since replica props and statues have made their way into my home. It's just a different time.
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