Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Star Wars fans are what happens when entitlement and ignorance merge. Sometimes I'm ashamed to call myself one, based on the actions of a great many fans, at least online.

youtube made it so much worse, especially RLM, it went from still sort of OK, to impossible to talk about SW in all but a few super strictly regulated forums (it's not even that it was a huge % of people, just that SW was watched by everyone and even a small % of everyone was able to easily flood out every forum and online post, sadly though, over the years and with the toxic way youtube ends up promoting clickbait and such it eventually flipped more and more, same with the takeover of mainstream culture with nerd culture, only not the nice, reasonable nerd culture but eventually more the nasty, vicious subsection of geek culture.

but even still there are still a majority who are not like that at all, they just get hidden online

[motorheadache95]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

1. The Prequels were set in another time and place though. And Lucas wanted dialogue and style of that to be like very, very early American cinema.

2. Anakin was on a backwater as a slave and then basically a monk. He was never gonna talk and romance in the style of Han Solo. And Padme became a queen at 14 and had to have a very wooden, regal style to pull that off and that position also isolated her a bit and then she was right into major politics.

3. If you took a tape recorder and secretly recorded things people said to each on park benches at bar counters etc. believe me it's often nothing like the typical Hollywood romance dialogue.

I understand all of that-- I don't want to imply that I wanted the exact same characters and character-dynamic necessarily. I don't need a character that is "the prequel era's Han Solo" for example. I also get that we're talking characters that are a bit more formal-- politicians, Jedi Knights, etc as opposed to a farm-boy and a rogue smuggler. But I just don't think Lucas achieved what he was going for, or if he did, then I have strong disagreements with how he decided to have the characters talk and act.

There's other things I don't like about his writing-- for example I think Lucas tends to write too much exposition. He doesn't know how to convey things visually and relies too much on characters saying what they are thinking or feeling instead of showing it. Honestly there's a lot I could get into, but I realize a lot of people are totally over discussing the prequels, a trilogy that was concluded 15 years ago now (!). At this point as Star Wars fans I think they've been around long enough and we've seen them enough times now that we all know how we feel about them, whether they work for us or not.

[Narcissus]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

He wrote most of ESB screenplay.

Didn't direct it.

[Bobbyjoe766]

I haven’t seen the prequels in years. I can’t bring myself to watch them, they’re so irredeemably bad. No amount of cajoling will convince me to revisit them.

Wish the STAR WARS slate could be wiped clean, and the clock reset to 1993. When there was only the OT, the two (sh*t) Ewok films ... and the Holiday Special.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Bobbyjoe766

I haven’t seen the prequels in years. I can’t bring myself to watch them, they’re so irredeemably bad. No amount of cajoling will convince me to revisit them.

Wish the STAR WARS slate could be wiped clean, and the clock reset to 1993. When there was only the OT, the two (sh*t) Ewok films ... and the Holiday Special.

Watch them with a kid and you might feel differently. Almost all the stuff I hated in the prequels, especially the Jar Jar stuff, my young grandson loved. When I watched the films with him and saw his joy and his laughter, it made me like the films better.

Still plenty of other weak aspects, which I won't rehash again. 70,000 posts here rehashing the same complaints over and over and over again. But there was also much good about the films and I think they'll be appreciated more over time, especially by those who aren't so attached to the OUT.

Personally, I think people like complaining more than they ever liked the films, original unaltered or not. There are so many variances in the quality of projection that people who think they know what the films are supposed to exactly look like are really making unwarranted assumptions IMO.

(Up until 2005 or so, I consulted for a company that evaluated the quality of presentation in movie theaters. We would go see a film on opening day and make sure everything was okay. If a film was playing in a multiplex on multiple screens, we had to watch it in full at least twice and then watch 30 minutes each on all the other screens. It was a totally different experience on each screen and IMO, the audience reacted differently on each screen. And in the film days, no two prints were the same. Before platters, no two projectors on the same screen were exactly the same. So for someone to be able to say, "oh, the color is different" for a film they saw 43 years ago, that really strains credulity IMO. Same for all the people who claim they saw it in the early weeks in 70mm when the first film initially had only 22 70mm prints and in the initial run, only another 15 were added.)

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by Bobbyjoe766

I haven’t seen the prequels in years. I can’t bring myself to watch them, they’re so irredeemably bad. No amount of cajoling will convince me to revisit them.

Wish the STAR WARS slate could be wiped clean, and the clock reset to 1993. When there was only the OT, the two (sh*t) Ewok films ... and the Holiday Special.

kinda funny that you then accept the Ewok movies and Holiday special, but PT and ST are just the end of everything hmmm

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

So for someone to be able to say, "oh, the color is different" for a film they saw 43 years ago, that really strains credulity IMO.

that said, there are certain things you can remember on average, like they definitely didn't have the grading look of the old blu-rays or for years all the TV and home versions made the Jawa canyon scene way to bright and that inside of the Death Star it was not pure neutral gray (as some of those doing gradings to 'fix' the official release mistakes seemed to claim in at times in the past).

Same for all the people who claim they saw it in the early weeks in 70mm when the first film initially had only 22 70mm prints and in the initial run, only another 15 were added.)

not sure why you would doubt this, seeing Star Wars for the first time, it wasn't some minor thing, it just got burned into your memory forever

I actually did see in 70mm in the early weeks, not just that, but on day 1, at the Stanley Warner Paramus. I remember we had to stand on line for ages. I remember something someone said on the line to my mom. I remember the approximate general part of the theater we sat in. The fancy lobby, the giant screen, hearing surround sound for the first time, the upper balcony seating area above and behind. I remember the giant Star Destroyer just coming down the screen forever and the march of the Stormtroopers rushing in. It's just not something you forget. Heck, I remember where I first ever saw anything Star Wars at all, in the Time magazine that came out earlier tha spring. I remember the special souvenir booklet the theater handed out that opening day. Still have it in fact and know exactly where and on what shelf it is on (along with the Time magazine). I can remember thinking man this looks crisper than anything I've seen in a theater before (not that I had seen all that much in a theater at time) and whoa did it sound better than anything I had ever heard and the surround sound was crazy! Not sure if I had even been a theater that even had stereo before that much less surround. I remember how huge the screen was! How huge the auditorium (I have since found documents that say it sat 2,000 people!).

[Gold Ranger]

Not for nothing, but Disney keeps ruining the mystique of Star Wars (A New Hope)
And yes, Lucas get some blame too...
Jedi were supposed to be long "extinct" with only Obi-Wan and Yoda around.
Now we've got hundreds that survived the purge.
Lucas's fault lies in making Luke and Darth Vader related.
By default, there could only be 18 years at max for the Jedi to be gone. Lucas messed up with The Empire Strikes Back.
It went from random people, to everyone is related.
It shrunk the "universe" so much.
Yes, there can be millions of stories that can be told, but Disney seems to be only digging into the past.
It's the same issue any prequel runs into, Star Wars Saga or not:
We know where everyone and everything ends up. There is no suspense, no threat.

That's one reason why I like Rogue One so much. No one is related to anyone!

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by Gold Ranger

Lucas's fault lies in making Luke and Darth Vader related.

that was such a key part of it
that is such a key part of mythology and these sort of tales
it's a story about family
that makes it so much more powerful, it's mythological fantasy
and even in Star Wars look at how Ob-wan reacts when he tells Luke about his father, he totally hitches and gives it away that he is not exactly telling the clear, direct truth (in fact Alec Guinness insisted that Lucas fill him in on secret backstory info so he could properly act in the style that he liked to act in)

[Bobbyjoe766]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

kinda funny that you then accept the Ewok movies and Holiday special, but PT and ST are just the end of everything hmmm

Not really. I chose 1993 as it was the year before Lucas began writing the prequels.

I’m not a fan of the Ewok films, and did enjoy seeing the cantina aliens again (in greater detail) - even if the HS was mostly awful.

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Similarly, Lucas can write dialogue. American Graffiti's naturalistic dialogue is perfect for that film. Would that dialogue be perfect for Star Wars, a throwback to 30's serials where stilted acting and dialogue was the name of the game? No. Anyone who can't see the purposefully stiff acting in Episodes 4-6 need to remove the nostalgia goggles.

The original Star Wars has some examples of stilted dialog and stiff acting, but it's nowhere near as bad as the prequels. ESB is a lot more naturalistic in the dialog and acting. ROTJ maybe backtracks a bit.

However, nobody says "you know what I most enjoyed about those 30s serial? The stilted dialog and stiff acting." Purposely recreating that particular element would only make sense for a parody, not homage. They're also not something even fans of Star Wars point to as something they like about the films, where it pops up. It's something they forgive, liking the films despite those moments, not because of them. But while the originals have some such moments, but the prequels are like wall-to-wall bad dialogue.

That's said, it's not just the bad dialogue that sinks the prequels. There's so much else going on that make them bad as well, from the stiff acting to the poor plotting to just bad directing and editing in general.

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

that's not really true, after they couldn't use the original ESB screenplay (if you read it it just doesn't sound like SW at all and the dialogue just doesn't fit the characters or genre or anything) Lucas rushed in and wrote the entire ESB screenplay but being in a rush he did bring in Kasdan to then help as well.

Not true. Lucas wrote a few drafts, but they read like treatments, and Kasdan was brought in to write the final screenplay.

From Secret History of Star Wars:

Says Lucas:
“Writing has never been something I have enjoyed, and so, ultimately, on the second film I hired Leigh Brackett. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out; she turned in the first draft, and then passed away. I didn’t like the first draft script, but I gave Leigh credit because I liked her a lot. She was sick at the time she wrote the script, and she really tried her best.”

“I hired Leigh Brackett to write the screenplay, but tragically she died right after completing the first draft. Faced with the situation that somebody had to step in and do a rewrite, I was forced to write the second draft of this screenplay. But I found it much easier than I'd expected, almost enjoyable.”

Lucas’ drafts were hastily written, and resembled something of a cross between a rough draft and a treatment, having the barest of dialog, the thinnest of characters and advancing the story as quickly as possible—but now that story, those characters and their dialog needed to be developed. “I don't know what of Leigh's draft survived into the draft George wrote,” Lawrence Kasdan says. “[His] was a very rough first draft, really somewhere between an outline and a first draft. The structure of the story was all there—it was the skeleton for a movie. What was needed was the flesh and the muscle.”

"With Raiders... I was on my own for six months and really had just an outline from George and Steven, and had to go off and write this whole thing by myself.

But with Empire, George had the whole story in his head. It was really a question of getting the script done, and getting Kersh in agreement. So they were very intense, highly adrenalized, fun sessions with George and Kersh, and then I would go away and write, and in two weeks we’d come back and look at the new draft. I wrote it really fast.”

Pollock reports that Lucas’ script was also plagued by poor dialog and thin characterisation.* Kasdan says of Lucas’ drafts, “There were sections of the script, which, when I read them, made me say to myself, ‘I can’t believe George wrote this scene. It’s terrible.’ ”

* On page 210 Pollock gives an example of some not-so-snappy dialog between Han Solo and Princess Leia: “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kiss you here. You see, I’m quite selfish about my pleasure, and it wouldn’t be much fun for me now.” Shades of Attack of the Clones, indeed.

So Lucas steered the script through the story sessions, but he didn't write the final script.

[CreasyBear]

Originally Posted by Jay G.

Not true. Lucas wrote a few drafts, but they read like treatments, and Kasdan was brought in to write the final screenplay.

From Secret History of Star Wars:


So Lucas steered the script through the story sessions, but he didn't write the final script.

Ummm...no. Read your own quoted text.

"Faced with the situation that somebody had to step in and do a rewrite, I was forced to write the second draft of this screenplay. But I found it much easier than I'd expected, almost enjoyable.”

[CreasyBear]

Originally Posted by Jay G.

The original Star Wars has some examples of stilted dialog and stiff acting, but it's nowhere near as bad as the prequels. ESB is a lot more naturalistic in the dialog and acting. ROTJ maybe backtracks a bit.

However, nobody says "you know what I most enjoyed about those 30s serial? The stilted dialog and stiff acting." Purposely recreating that particular element would only make sense for a parody, not homage. They're also not something even fans of Star Wars point to as something they like about the films, where it pops up. It's something they forgive, liking the films despite those moments, not because of them. But while the originals have some such moments, but the prequels are like wall-to-wall bad dialogue.

That's said, it's not just the bad dialogue that sinks the prequels. There's so much else going on that make them bad as well, from the stiff acting to the poor plotting to just bad directing and editing in general.

Describe to me "bad" dialogue. How is it bad? Why is it bad? Please, Mr. Linguist, enlighten me.

Because to me, "bad" dialogue is dialogue that doesn't inform the character or setting or move the story forward and does not stylistically mesh with the story being told. In that instance, I see no issues with the dialogue as written for each character in Episodes I-III.

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Ummm...no. Read your own quoted text.

OK, I reread it. Now, maybe you should reread my posts. I've said twice now that Kasdan wrote the final script. That Lucas wrote the second and third drafts doesn't mean he wrote or co-wrote the final script. Maybe Lucas wrote some zingers that got into the final script, i don't know, nobody's provided any. Either way, my main point was that on the OT, Lucas always had someone other than him polishing the dialogue.

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Describe to me "bad" dialogue. How is it bad? Why is it bad? Please, Mr. Linguist, enlighten me.

If you're challenging that the dialogue is actually bad, then you also disagree with with your own assertion that the dialogue in all the films were bad, deliberately so.

Anyway, here's an example:

I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.

It does work if you play it for comedic effect for just how bad it is though:

The Nice Jedi - Trailer - YouTube

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

...in Star Wars look at how Ob-wan reacts when he tells Luke about his father, he totally hitches and gives it away that he is not exactly telling the clear, direct truth (in fact Alec Guinness insisted that Lucas fill him in on secret backstory info so he could properly act in the style that he liked to act in)

This isn't true. At the time Star Wars was shot, Luke's Father and Vader were separate characters. It's why Leigh Brackett's ESB script includes a scene with Father Skywalker, separate from Vader. Conflating Vader and Luke's Father into the same character didn't happen until later drafts for ESB. So there was no "secret backstory" to tell Alec Guinness during the filming of Star Wars, because it didn't exist yet.

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by Gold Ranger

That's one reason why I like Rogue One so much. No one is related to anyone!

I understand your point in general, but as an absolute, it's not true. One of the core plot points of Rogue One is that Jyn joins the mission to try and rescue her father.

[Gold Ranger]

Originally Posted by Jay G.

I understand your point in general, but as an absolute, it's not true. One of the core plot points of Rogue One is that Jyn joins the mission to try and rescue her father.

That different. That's built into the plot and naturally.
I meant not being related to the core cast of characters.

[CreasyBear]

Well clearly someone watched some YouTube videos and knows everything. Good day.

[hanshotfirst1138]

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Well clearly someone watched some YouTube videos and knows everything. Good day.

He cited his sources...