Did George Lucas Ruin Star Wars?
PincherMartin -- Tuesday, October 01, 2002 -- 03:02:25 PMOf movies released within the last year, The Clone Wars doesn't even make the top three at the box office. Once upon a time, a Star Wars movie would be tops for not only the year it was released, but for the entire five year period around it.
Does anyone even care now how Annikan Skywalker became Darth Vader?
Do you rue the day Lucas ever discovered computerized special effects?
Did the legendary director lose his touch or was he never that great to begin with?
Or are you one of the dwindling few who think the recent two installments are good movies and can't wait for episode three?
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There was nothing to ruin. To each their own, but the only good one was "The Empire Strikes Back". Much prefer the 2001, Close Encounters, Contact school of SF.
I think Lucas is a good storyteller--that is, he carries a multi-plotted story through and tells it well. He is not particularly good at story devices. He sucks at characterizations.
He should have stuck with the original formula -- broad, sweeping storylines that have mass appeal. Didn't somebody elsewhere on this forum say something like "we're supposed to get excited about *trade disputes*?" This latest movie came closer to that idea, except that the storyline was about the maturation of a precocious young man and how he was twisted towards the Dark Side -- something that requires more subtlety than Lucas apparently has.
And his dialogue sucks. Those love scenes were beyond excruciating -- they were like something an 11-year-old girl who'd read too many novels from the Romantic period would write. Even when the characters weren't talking, the action on the screen was still excruciating. And they were unnecessary. Every action movie of the past two decades has managed to convey that the hero and the woman fall in love without having them yearn at each other for minutes at a time, with nothing else going on.
Lucas badly badly needs to hire a dialogue editor, and take his/her advice. That would fix a lot.
And his dialogue sucks. Those love scenes were beyond excruciating -- they were like something an 11-year-old girl who'd read too many novels from the Romantic period would write.
Some people who didn't see the movie might think Alice is exaggerating with this description of Lucas's dialogue.
She's not. The lines literally could have been written by a bright -- but not too bright -- eleven-year old girl who'd read some Harlequin romance stories.
Yep, I think we just need a do-over for episode 2.
Dialogue has never been his strong suit. Remember dialogue like this? "Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board." At least this had the value of providing campy, 30s scifi amusement.
The most fascinating aspect of the recent two installments of Star Wars is how awful computerized special effects can be if they are not reined in and made to serve the story.
I'm not talking about the obvious example of Jar Jar Binks. I mean the computerized landscapes and large-scale battles that too many critics have mentioned as one of the few things that are praiseworthy in the recent films.
I personally prefer the battles from the previous films with their models and lack of computerized effects. Compare the opening battle in The Empire Strikes Back with the final battle in The Phantom Menace. In ESB, the lumbering tanks that resemble long-legged dinosaurs cross the ice towards the rebel base as rebel fighters scramble to counterattack. Now compare this to General Jar Jar Binks army against the droids in the TPM.
Even though the first was made twenty year prior to the second, the battle scenes in ESB have a solidity to them completely lacking in TPM. Even without compensating for the differences in time, the first are also still more enjoyable to watch.
I'm still not sure why everyone makes such a fuss about the computerized effects. I recently watched Aliens again, and I remember thinking 'Thank God, computers hadn't taken over when Cameron was making the film.' Can you imagine CGI Aliens rather than the superb model suits they used? It wouldn't have had the same effect.
Computers obviously have their place and can be made to enhance special effects. In some films, such as The Matrix, they work well because the general story supports the liberal use of computers. But I wish there was more models and suits used for special effects. I think if there were, some of the more cartoonish effects that have invaded films over the last few years because of computers could be significantly reduced.
I believe Lucas said he wanted to make the recent installments to show how far computers could go in making films. Instead, all he proved was their limitations.
Stephanie --
Dialogue has never been his strong suit. Remember dialogue like this? "Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board." At least this had the value of providing campy, 30s scifi amusement.
A line like the one you quote here would have been the high point of the dialogue in the last movie.
Did Lucas write *all* the dialogue for the first movie? (I mean "Star Wars," not Phantom Menace.) Harrison Ford's smartaleck lines were very good, though that may have been just his comic timing. "No reward is worth this!" "Don't get cocky!"
I would have infinitely preferred a smartaleck Anakin in place of that surly teenager spouting hackneyed seduction lines in between rebelling against his teacher.
Harrison Ford adlibbed a lot.
I will say that the most recent installment had the only scene that ever approached acting in a Star Wars film. In fact, were it not for the hideous romance, it was...okay. Not great, but not terrible. Phantom Menace had a number of enjoyable parts. The only problem was watching that little fuck ruin the film.
The only truly good Star Wars films are the first two that came out. The first stole the story from Kurosawa, and the second from Joseph Campbell.
Guys,
You should pick up a copy of the annotated Star Wars script.
George Lucas really didn't write star Wars. He hired a pair of seasoned hands (one named Leigh Brackett, I think) to rewrite a GODAWFUL space-fantasy script he'd written. This origial script-- or rather, these original half-scripts, since Lucas had a whole atticfull of partially completed bad scripts -- bears little relationship to the gem we now know as Star Wars.
The script Lucas wrote is awful, awful, awful. It's not just awful; it's stupid. And it's not just stupid; it's stucturally and dramatically unsound (i.e., there's no ooooomph or narrative throughline, but just a series of character-introductions and long bits of exposition... sorta like The Phantom Menace).
And the names! The Star Wars universe, like Tolkein's, was blessed with interesting and plausible-sounding names. The names made the universe seem more real. Tattoine, Wookie, Mos Eisley, etc. -- better than the standard Sci-fi bad naming syndrome wherein every other name begins with Z or X (Zebu, Xorax, etc.)
But Lucas' names -- the ones from the earlier drafts -- are awful. Luke Starkiller? Hello? Again, it looks like the Brackett writing team made up all of those wonderfully evocative names and thus made the SW universe seem real.
Further, 90% of the shit that makes star wars so cool (such as the Jedi, Darth Vader, the Wookie) seems to come from the Brackett rewrites.
Example:
The original opening roll-up was to say:
"And in the time of greateset despair there shall come a savior and he shall be known as: THE SON OF THE SUN (Journal of the Whills 3:12)"
It goes without saying that he left the writing of the next two films largely to others.
That's interesting, Ace. Was the original Lucas script based as fiercely upon standard quest myths (Joseph Campbell, as Cal says)? You know, young man panting to prove himself leaves home under protection of wise man/mentor; meets helpful monsters/supernatural creatures along the way; saves princess from dungeon; fights evil sorceror/giant; is also meanwhile in search for true identity and discovers royal/evil parentage; saves kingdom and is rewarded. Without that powerful mythic framework, the names and the cool shit like the Jedi Knights wouldn't be worth much.
Was the original Lucas script based as fiercely upon standard quest myths (Joseph Campbell, as Cal says)?
Well, I don't know. He says so, and all the big mythological tropes are there, but...
...see, similar bits are also present in Lord of the Rings and Dune.
I wonder if Lucas really based his story on Campbell or if he stole it from Tolkein and Dune.
If I remember right, Frank Herbert, author of Dune, sued Lucas.
That would give Lucas a colossal reason to claim, "Oh no, I didn't get my desert world and my psychic martial arts from Dune, I was inspired by Joseph Campbell!"
Big worms? Medieval weapons being used in a far-future setting? Desert worlds? A mysterious order of psychics with incredible powers? A young boy from the desert world being indoctrinated in the use of those powers?
"Not from Dune! Not from Dune! I got it all from Joseph Campbell! Joseph Campbell!"
The answer to this thread's question is, by the way:
Yes, he ruined it. The Phantom Menace has diminished the admiration I once had for the first three films; that horrible film retroactively made the previous three suck.
I still haven't seen The Clone Killers or whatever it's called, and I won't until it's out on video.
Haven't read Dune. And I don't think it's any hot shit to lift your story from traditional myths and fairy tales (you don't have to have read Campbell -- it's all there in the Holy Grail and Jack the Giant Killer) rather than from Frank Herbert. Though I suppose it would get you past the lawsuits.