Still Mulling The Star Wars Thing...
May. 23rd, 2005 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat
Perhaps it's because the work day was incredibly slow or maybe I'm just stressed about my up-coming plane trip down to my parents abode (first plane trip since that Xmas fiasco), but I've been mulling over Lucas' Star Wars films in my mind. Rolling them over in my head. Mulling over what worked in the prequels and what didn't. And thinking about the postings on my flist, in area newspapers, and the New Yorker regarding them.
This weekend I re-read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_red_shoes rant on the whole movie phenomena, as well as a lengthy thread in masqthephlsphr's journal. What's notable about both of these entries - is neither person has seen Revenge of the Sith. Red Shoes has no interest in it. Masquethephilosopher fully intends on seeing it, but wants to re-watch the prequels, and Clone Wars first. The two entries do however agree on two things:1)the prequels are no where near as good as the originals, and 2)Why did Lucas fiddle with the originals to begin with?
In case you haven't figured it out by now, Star Wars was my first media obsession. Well, after Kimba, but I barely remember Kimba, since I was only 3 at the time. Prior to Star Wars, science fiction to my child's mind seemed to be a place filled with scarey monsters that popped out of closets and from under my bed. I'm not sure anyone under the age of 35 can truly understand what a phenomena Star Wars was in the late 1970s - a period where there weren't many children's films that appealed to adults. Disney sort of owned the market. Star Wars was a child's movie that adult's could love, it spanned generations, no one was too young or too old for this film. But it was meant as a child's movie. One of the few that my parents could take me and my younger brother to - we were respectively 11 and 8.
If Star Wars was the child's film. Empire Strikes Back appealed to the adolescent. I was 14 going on 15 when this film emerged. It was darker than the first one, grittier, and different than anything I'd seen. I believe I saw it before my parents mistakenly took my brother and I to Excalibre (our first R rated film, which embarrassed the hell out of my parents). You have to understand - we did not have cable in those days, there weren't VCRs or DVDs. If you did not see a film in the movie theaters you waited two years for some broadcast network to show it, sliced to death with commercials. This was also before video games, which came out around the same time, maybe a year afterwards. And - being the first kid in your class to see a movie was a big deal, since people were horrible about spoiling you for it.
I'd never seen anything like Empire. I knew the ending of course - having purchased the novelization of the movie prior to seeing it. Heck, I even had a book by Richard Dean Forster(?) called Splinter in the Mind's Eye which dealt with the characters, Han, Leia, Luke and Vader. So I wasn't shocked by what happened in Empire. But what appeared on screen blew me away. We saw it in the big megaplex in Kansas City. A 100 foot screen with surround sound. And afterwards received action figures for Xmas. An ongoing joke around my house was what happened to the Princess Leia action figure? Oh our siamese cat, Simon, had kidnapped her and dumped her in his water dish. For some reason, we couldn't decipher, that cat had a thing against Princess Leia. I think my mother still has the figure. In the three years between Empire and Jedi, I played out scenes in my head of Luke and Leia rescuing Han. I ached for spoilers. Read everything I could find on it. Then finally Jedi came out...again, we purchased the novelization first. The novelization in this case was better - yet, I still enjoyed Jedi for what it was. After Jedi, rumblings began of what Lucas would do next. Rumor had it he was working on the prequels. And in my head, I played out those scenes.
For me, Star Wars was a nostaligic piece of my youth. When I first fell deeply and irrevocably in love with film or how a movie could come alive on screen. Entering that brand new world.
After Jedi, I did not expect much from the prequels to be honest. And as an adult, I see the cracks and flaws in the films I adored once upon a time in my movie-going innocence. That said - I still adore them. They still hold a place in my heart and they certainly influenced my storytelling.
When I read Masq's posts on why she refused to watch Lucas' tinkering with the original works - I found myself nodding my head in agreement. Yet also understand the temptation to do so. Who amongst us hasn't gone back to a journal entry that we've re-read and tried to edit it? Or an essay we've written? Or a story? Unsatisified with a typographical error or unsatisfied with the content or the formatting or an icon? I know today I considered re-writing a portion of my Revenge of the Sith review, cutting a portion of it, correcting several typos, making certain sentences just a tad clearer, adding new things. But I stopped myself. What good is a journal entry, I asked myself, if you don't let it alone? Let it be that emotional outburst or analytical thought you had at that precise moment in time, flaws intact? Same with all those essays I wrote on TV, if I changed them - would they lose something in the process?
While I can understand, Lucas' desire to make his earlier films fit the gist of his later ones, his desire to correct technical flaws and enhance certain features - much like a writer may go back to a story and fix a typo or the re-format the words, I think he may be hurting his work by doing so. After mulling over it quite a bit today, I've come to the conclusion that we are not necessarily the best judges of our own work. As a child, my mother used to grab my paintings away from me - before I turned them into mud - I kept wanting to add new things, they never felt quite right to me, so I'd inadvertently ruine them by tinkering. Letting go of a work of art, letting it stand on its own, away from you and interact with others is akin to a parent letting go of their child. And in Lucas' case, we are talking about a work of art that was a collaborative effort, that took over 1000 people to create. It would be one thing if the films weren't released, had never been distributed, but they have been. They were done. Plus, did his tinkering really help the story? A case in point - Han Solo shooting Greedo first in the bar scene. This is an important plot point. It shows us that Solo is opportunistic, possibly dangerous, not necessarily trustworthy, and possibly a bit of a coward who will shoot first or run away from a fight. The charming rogue. A necessary view - if his actions through the movie are to be at all surprising. If Greedo shoots first, its really not all that surprising that Han comes back to save Luke at the end of Star Wars, is it? It's equally important that we do not know much about the Bounty on Han's head and have never seen JAbba - because it gives Han an air of mystery - the pov in the film remains always with Luke. It's why the film works. Stories seem to be fragile things, regardless of the medium, if you pull the wrong thread...you risk unraveling them. I say this from experience, I wrote a book - or rather kept rewriting the same book for ten years, resulting in possibly five different books with basically the same characters none very good. Instead of figuring out what didn't work, I kept tinkering and complicating the plot. Kept adding things. I see Lucas doing the same things with his prequels and with the originals - adding things, complicating them. Being a complicator by nature, myself, I see the danger in it and am working on avoiding it in my own future writing. I've finally let go of that book I kept rewriting. Started something new, untouched. Simpler.
My stories were like Lucas's - ambitious attempts to meld the tragic heros (or in my case heroine) journey with machiavellian political maneuvering. Very difficult thing to do. Whedon tries a little of it with the First Evil in S7 and ends up with so many characters and ideas that the final season of BTVS seems a tad muddled in comparison to the simpler plot arcs of the earlier seasons. The only author I've seen accomplish this may have been Dorothy Dunnett, except her hero wasn't a tragic one. Shakespeare also accomplishes it with MacBeth, Hamlet, and Corianlus. But they do it by not tinkering too much, not adding too many unnecessary elements, sticking with the lead.
Also like Lucas, I wrote my story for myself. I saw a review online - or rather a rant, about how Lucas was making these films for himself and if you didn't like it, boo hoo. This got me to thinking - while it is wonderful to write or creat for oneself, and let's face it we all do to one or extent or another - we still obviously want/yearn to communicate our work to others? So to what extent, if any should we cater to our audience's wants and needs? Possibly none. No, wait, that's not it. It's not wants and needs of the audience we need to satisfy - no, this gets back to an excellent point masq makes in her posting thread - the audience should understand what you are conveying to them. They should not have to read an essay to figure it out. In other words - if you want someone who reads and speaks only in English to understand your book, it might help if you write it in English or find someone to translate it. Same goes with movies - if you want an audience to share what is in your head, to see it, it helps if you can find a way to communicate it to them clearly. Not overcomplicate or muddle it. I write this post for myself, sure, but I want you to read it - so I will do little things here and there to attempt to get your interest. What escapes me - is what it is that I'm doing that turns you on and what it is that I'm doing that turns you off? But I must, deep down inside, have an inkling or no one would read my posts. (Unlike Lucas - I haven't managed to get millions of people to read and enjoy and fight over my work. I envy him that. )
Not sure where I was going with this, if anywhere at all. Just mulling things over in my head I suppose. Pulling at them. Last night I watched a little of Clone Wars before Desperate Housewives and found myself thinking, now this wasn't such a bad movie, I sort of like Anakin's discussion with Padme after his slaughter of the sandpeople. Yet at the same time, it feels off somehow. I don't see the chemistry between Anakin and Padme. I don't feel the urgency of rescuing Obiwan, even though I appreciate the irony of Dooku's warning to Obiwan - a warning Dooku must know that Obiwan would ignore until it's too late and that by giving it, he manages to manipulate Obiwan to do what Palaptine wants him to. When watching Attack of the Clones, I find myself alternating between boredom and intrigue, quite similar to how I feel about my own life at the moment. Odd. That. A so-so movie as a metaphor for life. Perhaps that's why I can't quite let these films go, or more to the point my own anticipation for them - it's not the films themselves that I find myself obsessing over, but rather the potential of the story within them - the thread of that story hidden amongst all the glitter and roaring score, that I want to find and devour like one might a peice of chocolat in the middle of a glittery tasteless candy. The story I've been dreaming of since I was 15 years of age and first learned that Vader was Luke's father and that yes, our mentors no matter how kind, can tell white lies because they believe in doing so they can protect us and themselves from the truth. Not realizing that sometimes facing the truth is far better than living the lie. For me the prequels were supposed to be the truth that Obiwan wanted to sheild Luke and via Luke, himself from. They were also the adult companion to the fantasy stories of my childhood. And he came very close to pulling it off, I see it hidden within all the fancy sfx wrapping...I just want to tear off the wrapping is all.
This weekend I re-read
the_red_shoes rant on the whole movie phenomena, as well as a lengthy thread in masqthephlsphr's journal. What's notable about both of these entries - is neither person has seen Revenge of the Sith. Red Shoes has no interest in it. Masquethephilosopher fully intends on seeing it, but wants to re-watch the prequels, and Clone Wars first. The two entries do however agree on two things:1)the prequels are no where near as good as the originals, and 2)Why did Lucas fiddle with the originals to begin with? In case you haven't figured it out by now, Star Wars was my first media obsession. Well, after Kimba, but I barely remember Kimba, since I was only 3 at the time. Prior to Star Wars, science fiction to my child's mind seemed to be a place filled with scarey monsters that popped out of closets and from under my bed. I'm not sure anyone under the age of 35 can truly understand what a phenomena Star Wars was in the late 1970s - a period where there weren't many children's films that appealed to adults. Disney sort of owned the market. Star Wars was a child's movie that adult's could love, it spanned generations, no one was too young or too old for this film. But it was meant as a child's movie. One of the few that my parents could take me and my younger brother to - we were respectively 11 and 8.
If Star Wars was the child's film. Empire Strikes Back appealed to the adolescent. I was 14 going on 15 when this film emerged. It was darker than the first one, grittier, and different than anything I'd seen. I believe I saw it before my parents mistakenly took my brother and I to Excalibre (our first R rated film, which embarrassed the hell out of my parents). You have to understand - we did not have cable in those days, there weren't VCRs or DVDs. If you did not see a film in the movie theaters you waited two years for some broadcast network to show it, sliced to death with commercials. This was also before video games, which came out around the same time, maybe a year afterwards. And - being the first kid in your class to see a movie was a big deal, since people were horrible about spoiling you for it.
I'd never seen anything like Empire. I knew the ending of course - having purchased the novelization of the movie prior to seeing it. Heck, I even had a book by Richard Dean Forster(?) called Splinter in the Mind's Eye which dealt with the characters, Han, Leia, Luke and Vader. So I wasn't shocked by what happened in Empire. But what appeared on screen blew me away. We saw it in the big megaplex in Kansas City. A 100 foot screen with surround sound. And afterwards received action figures for Xmas. An ongoing joke around my house was what happened to the Princess Leia action figure? Oh our siamese cat, Simon, had kidnapped her and dumped her in his water dish. For some reason, we couldn't decipher, that cat had a thing against Princess Leia. I think my mother still has the figure. In the three years between Empire and Jedi, I played out scenes in my head of Luke and Leia rescuing Han. I ached for spoilers. Read everything I could find on it. Then finally Jedi came out...again, we purchased the novelization first. The novelization in this case was better - yet, I still enjoyed Jedi for what it was. After Jedi, rumblings began of what Lucas would do next. Rumor had it he was working on the prequels. And in my head, I played out those scenes.
For me, Star Wars was a nostaligic piece of my youth. When I first fell deeply and irrevocably in love with film or how a movie could come alive on screen. Entering that brand new world.
After Jedi, I did not expect much from the prequels to be honest. And as an adult, I see the cracks and flaws in the films I adored once upon a time in my movie-going innocence. That said - I still adore them. They still hold a place in my heart and they certainly influenced my storytelling.
When I read Masq's posts on why she refused to watch Lucas' tinkering with the original works - I found myself nodding my head in agreement. Yet also understand the temptation to do so. Who amongst us hasn't gone back to a journal entry that we've re-read and tried to edit it? Or an essay we've written? Or a story? Unsatisified with a typographical error or unsatisfied with the content or the formatting or an icon? I know today I considered re-writing a portion of my Revenge of the Sith review, cutting a portion of it, correcting several typos, making certain sentences just a tad clearer, adding new things. But I stopped myself. What good is a journal entry, I asked myself, if you don't let it alone? Let it be that emotional outburst or analytical thought you had at that precise moment in time, flaws intact? Same with all those essays I wrote on TV, if I changed them - would they lose something in the process?
While I can understand, Lucas' desire to make his earlier films fit the gist of his later ones, his desire to correct technical flaws and enhance certain features - much like a writer may go back to a story and fix a typo or the re-format the words, I think he may be hurting his work by doing so. After mulling over it quite a bit today, I've come to the conclusion that we are not necessarily the best judges of our own work. As a child, my mother used to grab my paintings away from me - before I turned them into mud - I kept wanting to add new things, they never felt quite right to me, so I'd inadvertently ruine them by tinkering. Letting go of a work of art, letting it stand on its own, away from you and interact with others is akin to a parent letting go of their child. And in Lucas' case, we are talking about a work of art that was a collaborative effort, that took over 1000 people to create. It would be one thing if the films weren't released, had never been distributed, but they have been. They were done. Plus, did his tinkering really help the story? A case in point - Han Solo shooting Greedo first in the bar scene. This is an important plot point. It shows us that Solo is opportunistic, possibly dangerous, not necessarily trustworthy, and possibly a bit of a coward who will shoot first or run away from a fight. The charming rogue. A necessary view - if his actions through the movie are to be at all surprising. If Greedo shoots first, its really not all that surprising that Han comes back to save Luke at the end of Star Wars, is it? It's equally important that we do not know much about the Bounty on Han's head and have never seen JAbba - because it gives Han an air of mystery - the pov in the film remains always with Luke. It's why the film works. Stories seem to be fragile things, regardless of the medium, if you pull the wrong thread...you risk unraveling them. I say this from experience, I wrote a book - or rather kept rewriting the same book for ten years, resulting in possibly five different books with basically the same characters none very good. Instead of figuring out what didn't work, I kept tinkering and complicating the plot. Kept adding things. I see Lucas doing the same things with his prequels and with the originals - adding things, complicating them. Being a complicator by nature, myself, I see the danger in it and am working on avoiding it in my own future writing. I've finally let go of that book I kept rewriting. Started something new, untouched. Simpler.
My stories were like Lucas's - ambitious attempts to meld the tragic heros (or in my case heroine) journey with machiavellian political maneuvering. Very difficult thing to do. Whedon tries a little of it with the First Evil in S7 and ends up with so many characters and ideas that the final season of BTVS seems a tad muddled in comparison to the simpler plot arcs of the earlier seasons. The only author I've seen accomplish this may have been Dorothy Dunnett, except her hero wasn't a tragic one. Shakespeare also accomplishes it with MacBeth, Hamlet, and Corianlus. But they do it by not tinkering too much, not adding too many unnecessary elements, sticking with the lead.
Also like Lucas, I wrote my story for myself. I saw a review online - or rather a rant, about how Lucas was making these films for himself and if you didn't like it, boo hoo. This got me to thinking - while it is wonderful to write or creat for oneself, and let's face it we all do to one or extent or another - we still obviously want/yearn to communicate our work to others? So to what extent, if any should we cater to our audience's wants and needs? Possibly none. No, wait, that's not it. It's not wants and needs of the audience we need to satisfy - no, this gets back to an excellent point masq makes in her posting thread - the audience should understand what you are conveying to them. They should not have to read an essay to figure it out. In other words - if you want someone who reads and speaks only in English to understand your book, it might help if you write it in English or find someone to translate it. Same goes with movies - if you want an audience to share what is in your head, to see it, it helps if you can find a way to communicate it to them clearly. Not overcomplicate or muddle it. I write this post for myself, sure, but I want you to read it - so I will do little things here and there to attempt to get your interest. What escapes me - is what it is that I'm doing that turns you on and what it is that I'm doing that turns you off? But I must, deep down inside, have an inkling or no one would read my posts. (Unlike Lucas - I haven't managed to get millions of people to read and enjoy and fight over my work. I envy him that. )
Not sure where I was going with this, if anywhere at all. Just mulling things over in my head I suppose. Pulling at them. Last night I watched a little of Clone Wars before Desperate Housewives and found myself thinking, now this wasn't such a bad movie, I sort of like Anakin's discussion with Padme after his slaughter of the sandpeople. Yet at the same time, it feels off somehow. I don't see the chemistry between Anakin and Padme. I don't feel the urgency of rescuing Obiwan, even though I appreciate the irony of Dooku's warning to Obiwan - a warning Dooku must know that Obiwan would ignore until it's too late and that by giving it, he manages to manipulate Obiwan to do what Palaptine wants him to. When watching Attack of the Clones, I find myself alternating between boredom and intrigue, quite similar to how I feel about my own life at the moment. Odd. That. A so-so movie as a metaphor for life. Perhaps that's why I can't quite let these films go, or more to the point my own anticipation for them - it's not the films themselves that I find myself obsessing over, but rather the potential of the story within them - the thread of that story hidden amongst all the glitter and roaring score, that I want to find and devour like one might a peice of chocolat in the middle of a glittery tasteless candy. The story I've been dreaming of since I was 15 years of age and first learned that Vader was Luke's father and that yes, our mentors no matter how kind, can tell white lies because they believe in doing so they can protect us and themselves from the truth. Not realizing that sometimes facing the truth is far better than living the lie. For me the prequels were supposed to be the truth that Obiwan wanted to sheild Luke and via Luke, himself from. They were also the adult companion to the fantasy stories of my childhood. And he came very close to pulling it off, I see it hidden within all the fancy sfx wrapping...I just want to tear off the wrapping is all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 06:02 pm (UTC)And I feel also that once you've written a story, it's time to move on. Robin McKinley's books are all basically the same--Beauty and the Beast--but each one is its own story, and has something new to say. That's much better than going back and tinkering with the earlier stories.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 07:50 pm (UTC)Agreed. Although I can't quite decide how much of that is poor acting and how much is direction. Course Harrison Ford did fine under Lucas, as did Guinness, Ewan McGregor, and Ian MacDimrid. So maybe it is poor acting. I keep wondering what the films would have been like if he'd cast someone like Vincent Korhesier (who played Connor) in the role? Or a Christian Bale?
He has a few moments here and there, but mostly it just looks like he's in a bad mood, not struggling with inner turmoil. Say what you will about Mark Hamill's acting ability, but he did actually get across more turmoil than Christianson does.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 09:44 pm (UTC)This is after probably a dozen readers had read the original version, mind you, for all I know.
That particular episode was rushed to "publication" without beta-reading of any sort, and if I'd realized that flaw before I posted it, I would have changed it, too, but I was too close to the material to see the problem.
Still, *did* I have a right to change it after calling George Lucas on a similar action that same day? Why does my fix to my story "improve" it while George's fix "detracts" from his? Both fixes are an attempt by the writer to alter the motives and portrayal of a character from the way it was "originally" written. Reading your analysis of Han Solo, you are *so* right. That particular alteration bugged the hell out of me; I can live with them substituting an ectoplasmic Hayden What'shisname at the end of "RotJedi". But Han shooting first in "Star Wars"? (sorry can't call it "A New Hope"). Han learns and grows in that movie through his relationship with Luke and Obi-wan. He becomes more than he was. He finds his inner hero. But to *become* that, he has to start out as the jaded, backwater, blast-first morally ambiguous guy we first meet.
Anyway.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 10:42 am (UTC)or pre-production work and will often leave a script unfinished when he starts filming, figuring that most of the work is in the polishing and post-production anyway. This caused a few problems - such as the bulk of his story ended up being saved for the third movie, leaving the first two somewhat hollow, also causing the third movie to be way too long, causing him to do some massive editing. His FX people actually helped him figure out what to edit and what to focus on - by stating, much as your reader states to you - "wait your central character's motivation makes no sense here". Why did he do that? And Lucas went back, deleted a few of his subplots and refocused on why Anakin does what he does.
You could say he did the same thing - when he went back to his original films and did a little tinkering. But it's not the same. One - fixes a serious plot-point that if left unfixed, affects the motivations of several characters. (ie. if we don't know why Anakin decides to join the Dark Side of the Force...than the movies simply don't work, do they?) The other - screws up a motivational plot point that affects the themes of the works. Luke's perceptions of Han Solo in the first three films are critical to his own development as a character. To his ability to understand his father, and eventually come to the conclusion that there is still good in his father. If the writer/creator/producer goes back and removes Luke's initial perceptions of Han, turns Han into a less ambiguous character at the start - how would Luke be able to learn through his experiences with Han, through seeing Han's growth as a person, that the world is not divided in absolutes and that his father has good in his heart as well as evil, just as he does? It's highly ironic Lucas does it - considering his theme is the world isn't divided in absolutes, by doing so, he undercuts his own story and theme.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 10:54 am (UTC)I'm imaging that as soon as the new DVDs of the original trilogy were released, the price of old VHS copies of the movie skyrocketed as fans scrambled to find unsullied copies.
; )
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 11:12 am (UTC)Well, if I make it to Hilton Head tomorrow, I plan on watching the copies my parents have on tape of the originals. What I can't remember for certain is whether we got unsullied ones on tape or the ones with commericials? (It aired on HBO and other cable channels at a certain point in time and I vaguely remember clamouring to tape them.)
If anyone figures out how to burn the originals on DVD, I bet they go for far higher than the tinkered versions.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 11:42 am (UTC)*salivates*
Original Star Wars on DVD
Date: 2005-05-27 05:45 am (UTC)Alas, I never got a copy with the extra stuff (even back then there was massive marketing and there was a laserdisc set Special Edition with bonus material), but that's not as important as the movies themselves. ;)
Re: Original Star Wars on DVD
Date: 2005-05-27 10:00 am (UTC)Email me at masqthephlsphr@yahoo.com
; )
no subject
Date: 2005-05-25 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 10:55 pm (UTC)Yes, exactly. I mean, I wasn't expecting Oedipus Zhivago, but yes, adult.
There's this odd trend to praise the prequels by disparaging the originals that I find intriguing, even in myself.
Because no, they weren't perfect, but yes, they are the stories of my childhood. As I stand now an adult, I wanted the mature work. Which isn't to say that there isn't all sorts of meaty juicyness within the work. I just feel like it's unpolished. An unfaceted jemstone that still retains the dross with the quality. And I feel as if I keep picking at it, I'll get the essential thing. Instead of a rock in a Victorianly gaudy setting.
Hmmm...perhaps its time to go off and reread, "To say nothing of the dog."
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 11:00 am (UTC)That's it exactly. I sort of snubbed off the Prequels after watching them, even though I made sure that there were copies of them in my video collection. I never watched them though.
Lately, though, as you can see in my LJ, I've revisited them with a mind to the symbolic/metaphoric depths and trying *real hard* to follow the (admittedly much more complex than the orginal) plots, and yes, there is hidden richness in the Prequels. It's there--no doubt. But it gets lost behind non-stop cheesy sight-gags and wooden acting and CGI-effect visual orgies. Which is a shame.
There was a maturity in the *presentation* of the original trilogy, that appealed to one's child-like sense of wonder, but did not attempt to appeal to peurile silliness and melodramatics.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 01:30 pm (UTC)Yes, this in a nutshell was what drove me nuts about the prequels. I see the metaphorical symbolism, the meat, but its hidden behind all these juvenile sight gags. Clones has some amazing little bits and pieces: ObiWan's discovery of the Clones and the fact that a Jedi had
ordered their making. The fact that the Jedi's take possession of the Clones and have them be part of their army. What's ironic in Clone Wars - is the army with the Clones is the Union forces not the Separatists. Very important to remember. Also all the Clones are clones of Jenga Fett, Boba Fett in fact is a clone/son of Jenga. Then there's
three fascinating bits with Anakin, that get overshadowed by the banality of the romance and setting - 1) his conversation with Padme, where he indicate, somewhat naively/impatiently, that people shouldn't sit around and discuss all the time - that they should make quick decisions. Be decisive. One ruler. She asks what if they don't agree, and he says they should be made to agree - something she reacts with horror to. Then we have a sequence where Anakin tells her that he wants to control life and death and become the most powerful Jedi ever, better than Obiwan whom he accuses of holding him back. Both scenes are ironic in a way - because this is a former slave, you would think, he'd be against any order, any rule. Want democracy. Want freedom. But he doesn't - what he wants is to be the ruler, to be in control, to control others. Prevent pain in himself. But these small bits are hidden in the films, overshadowed by all those unnecessary fight sequences.
When I watch the prequels, I feel somewhat the same way I do when re-watching Buffy S7, I want to delete certain scenes, or skip over them,
and concentrate on the meaty bits. I want to grab the creator by the balls thrust him back into his editing room and re-edit the movie, refilm some scenes - get rid of the self-indulgent bits and pieces that take away from the story, make it weak, defused. It's a weird feeling.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 01:38 pm (UTC)(although now with an image of you dragging Lucas around by the balls)
; )
no subject
Date: 2005-05-25 09:50 pm (UTC)How weird that he could apparently tell a story so much better 30 years ago. What happened?
Beats me.
Date: 2005-05-25 10:02 pm (UTC)The prequels were certainly a bigger plotting challenge, because of the complex politics that were part of the story, but that was just another ball for George to drop--not making what was going on clear to the viewer. Like I say in my LJ, you need a manual with you when you watch all three prequels.
Re: Beats me.
Date: 2005-05-29 08:23 am (UTC)Empire Strikes Back - script was by Lawrence Kasdan and another guy (who I can't remember name of at the moment) but NOT Lucas.
The director of Empire? Also another well-established director.
Star Wars? had help from Kasdan. Lucas didn't do the movie completely solo. Also, Harrison Ford was allowed to change his dialogue in both movies. Kasdan wrote such films as Silverado, Big Chill, and others in the period. Return - also had Kasdan's touch.
The prequels? Were written by Lucas, with just a little ghost-writing on the very last one by Tom Stoppard. Same with direction. Lucas directed all three of the prequels, while he only directed the original Star Wars. Additionally - Star Wars and Empire were both shot on location - in the desert and in the frozen expanse of Norway. The prequels were shot with green/blue screens. Yoda in the originals was a puppet - moved by Frank Oz, created by Frank Oz and voiced by Oz in the originals. In the prequels - he's completely CGJ. He looks more real in the originals.
Re: Beats me.
Date: 2005-05-29 08:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 07:55 pm (UTC)Hee. A book about people going back in time trying to set something right, but just causing more and more disruption by the slight tinkering. A comedy of errors. Haven't made it all the way through it yet - definitely a mood book. But a great metaphor for our frustrations with Lucas.
There's this odd trend to praise the prequels by disparaging the originals that I find intriguing, even in myself.
Because no, they weren't perfect, but yes, they are the stories of my childhood. As I stand now an adult, I wanted the mature work. Which isn't to say that there isn't all sorts of meaty juicyness within the work. I just feel like it's unpolished. An unfaceted jemstone that still retains the dross with the quality. And I feel as if I keep picking at it, I'll get the essential thing. Instead of a rock in a Victorianly gaudy setting.
I feel much the same. There's something oddly wonderful about the originals, as Masq mentions below. They weren't perfect, but they felt polished, tight, light on distractions. You see potential in them for something more.
My mind keeps picking at the series, keeps trying to find the meat I intiutively feel in it. The mind trying to find what appeals to the heart, a difficult thing.
Tune in next time for another exciting adventure of....
Date: 2005-05-25 08:33 am (UTC)Most of this material is Lucas' reconfiguration of the old science fiction serials of the 1930s and 1940s, like Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon. All of these SF serials had the old-fashioned good v. evil/heroes and villains plotting, paper-thin characterization, and the cliffhanger escapades. One review of Revenge of the Sith said the Obi-Wan's giant iguana and the planet of psychedelic flowers where the Storm Troopers mow down the female Jedi were like covers of a 1930s pulp scifi magazine come to life. That's absolutely dead on, and it shows how much of the old pulp fiction fuels Lucas' imagination.
The problem is, you can't put out the old-timey serials these days and expect people to buy it. Audiences expect more sophistication in their storytelling, more complexity in their characters. Faithful reproductions like "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" were entertaining but hollow. But if you can somehow recapture the magic, the energy of that "genre trash" and populate it more three-dimensional characters, you have something powerful. Lucas did it with the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies. Joss did it with Buffy and horror. JJ Abrams did it with Alias and spies.
The differnce between Whedon and Lucas is that while Joss loves the tropes of a particular genre (superhero, western, horror), his focus is always, ALWAYS on character. He knows that if the audience loses sight of the characters, the genre frills don't mean shit. And that's why I prefer Whedon over Lucas.
Joss will occasionally lose track of the details of his narrative, and he'll resort to plot shortcuts and dei ex machina; but to me, it's better than having absolute control over the details and losing the characters. Sometimes I wonder if Lucas has become so enthralled with digitally sculpting every aspect of his universe that he forgets why he created it in the first place.
Re: Tune in next time for another exciting adventure of....
Date: 2005-05-29 08:12 am (UTC)1. Lucas neither directed nor wrote the script of Empire Strikes Back, he was executive producer and story creator. (This is in everyone's opinion the best film of the bunch and apparently it was Lucas's film school prof who directed it.)
2. Carrie Fisher who was hosting the version I taped (taped it years ago in KC from Sci-Fi Channel) stated that the director of Empire was interested in making a film that stood on its own and was true to characters.
Lucas isn't a wordsmith or really a filmmaker, so much as a computer geek/techy.