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Post by Applelight Limited on Jan 1, 2016 15:41:30 GMT
Warning, spoilers ahead, just in case. I wanted to talk about Episode VII, but before I do, I regret to stay that George Lucas has made a fool out of himself. He first of all said that selling the franchise to Disney was like selling his kids to the white slavers. Classy, George. Real classy. He also said that he's no longer going to be a creative consultant and that he's fully parting ways with it because to him it became clear that Disney wasn't interested in hearing any of his ideas. Some of his other complaints were that the new one focused too much on the spaceships and not enough on the family drama which is really what it's all about, being a space opera after all. He also said that the special effects were too 'retro' and 'old fashioned', and that the movies has done nothing new. Well, tell us this George...if it really was all about the family drama, and the space ships are supposed to come second...why did you devote so much time, effort and money on the special effects? To the extent that you started fucking around with the originals, and probably spent more time working on the special effects of the prequels than you did on their scripts? And how can you say that there was no family drama in that movie? We have Rey, who was abandoned by her family and doesn't know who she is. We have Finn, kidnapped at birth and raised to be a killer. Then there is the small matter of Han and Leia's breakup, and their problem child who likes to dabble in patricide? And the puppets have far more heart and soul than CGI can ever have. I think what it is is a case of sour grapes. He can't handle that they, Disney, did it better than he, the creator, did. I think he's finally realizing that he's a hack. Disney saw what his ideas did to the prequels and they don't want to know. And he can't handle it, which is why he comes out with that crap. I've tried to take it easy on George in the past but crap like this makes that very hard to do.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 1, 2016 17:25:36 GMT
To be fair, Lucas did apologize for the "white slavers" remark afterwards.
I can sympathize with how George must feel. He's put years of his life, big parts of his heart and soul, into this movie series, only for nearly the entire world to respond with, "Your new stuff isn't as good as your old stuff." So he tries to wash his hands and walk away from the franchise, and everyone gushes over how much better the movie is without him. It's gotta hurt, and I don't begrudge him for feeling hurt.
But it's still absolutely true. Maybe Lucas was an auteur when he made THX 1138 and American Graffiti, but he certainly wasn't when he made the original trilogy. Then, Lucas was an important part of a very talented team. He was an idea guy who did his best work when he had collaborators who were willing to tell him when he was wrong. But when he got total creative control of the franchise, we wound up with a prequel trilogy full of interesting ideas but mind-bogglingly dodgy execution.
The "too much spaceships, not enough family drama" criticism makes no damn sense. "Retro", "old-fashioned", "not doing anything new"—well, whether there's anything wrong with that is very much a subjective judgement. Is it better to tell a familiar story very competently, or to try something new and completely bungle it? Besides, I get the impression that JJ Abrams and Disney are playing it safe with this movie just to win the crowd back—the crowd George alienated with his prequels, no less—before doing something new with Ep VIII. And as long as I'm telling the future, I also predict that the "old fashioned" special effects in this movie will age better than anything from the prequels.
EDIT: You know what? This makes me really appreciate how much of a class act Lauren Faust is. There have been some hints that she's unhappy with the direction MLPFIM has gone since she left. But she hasn't gone public with those criticisms because she doesn't want to undermine the work of those who are still on the show.
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Post by Mio on Jan 2, 2016 0:48:33 GMT
It's kind of funny that George Lucas was really worried when he made the first Star Wars that all he did was make a silly kids movie, and then he went on to make a movie like The Phantom Menace. Honestly, as many misgivings as I have with The Force Awakens I still think it's a better movie then any of the prequels, which all proved that while he can make interesting looking sets and worlds, he can barely get good performances out of anyone, and he can't write. Mezzaphor: Where does the speculation that she did not like the direction the show went comes from? I've heard it myself and it honestly wouldn't surprise me, but it always seemed like baseless rumor.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Jan 2, 2016 1:06:42 GMT
Mezzaphor : I pretty much agree with everything you said. I can see where he's coming from, in that while the previous movies had issues, he really invested himself in their creation and he care about the franchise and seeing somebody else take it off in another direction must be a really weird feeling. But yeah, pretty much everything he criticized about the movie are corrections to the problems that everyone had with the prequels. The "drama" bits of the prequels are by far the most criticized parts of the trilogy (seriously, he can't write dialogue, especially romantic dialogue), and what really confuses me about it is that I found the new movie had way less emphasis on the starships than the prequels did. Yeah, there aren't as many family issues, but the prequels were freaking full of "let's introduce some new ship or vehicle solely to be the setpiece of an action sequence". TFA largely downplayed that kind of novelty in favor of doing new stuff with the classics. Souping up the TIE fighters, streamlining the X-Wings, etc. Same goes for the effects. The prequels were too preoccupied with "make this look AWESOME" whereas TFA is more "make this look real". And I think TFA did an awesome job. It got back to that Used Future aesthetic and created a world that feels like people actually live in it. As for the "not doing anything new" bit, I can actually sympathize with that, as that's by far the most common criticism in general. That said, like Meta said it's a very subjective criticism and honestly to me it feels more like they're just trying to find their feet again after the prequels before they start going off in their own direction. Mio: I don't think there have been any explicit comments, but I know she's said something along the lines of finding the show hard to watch because it's so different from how she envisioned it. Not that she thinks it's bad per se, just that if she had made the call it wouldn't have played out the same way.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 2, 2016 3:58:22 GMT
I do recall Faust posted a drawing on Twitter (someone else's drawing, IIRC) of herself going into a Hulk rage in response to Equestria Girls.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Jan 2, 2016 4:23:53 GMT
Yeah, that's understandable. I don't think she's posted anything regarding the show itself though.
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Post by Applelight Limited on Jan 2, 2016 10:02:00 GMT
To be fair, Lucas did apologize for the "white slavers" remark afterwards. I can sympathize with how George must feel. He's put years of his life, big parts of his heart and soul, into this movie series, only for nearly the entire world to respond with, "Your new stuff isn't as good as your old stuff." So he tries to wash his hands and walk away from the franchise, and everyone gushes over how much better the movie is without him. It's gotta hurt, and I don't begrudge him for feeling hurt. That is true. He did apologize, and you're right. This has got to hurt. I'm really conflicted about Lucas. On the one hand I want to call him a hack, but on the other hand I know he gets such bad grief. And he does donate huge sums to charity, which can't be faulted. And yes, Lauren is a class act. What's she doing these days?
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 2, 2016 18:21:33 GMT
People are complicated.
Has anyone here watched THX 1138? It's a weird, dark dystopia film—our glimpse into an alternate universe where George Lucas became another Stanley Kubrick instead of co-inventing the Hollywood blockbuster. What's even stranger is that for the DVD release, Lucas went back and used CG to fix some special effects. But unlike the Star Wars Special Editions, the changes to THX 1138 serve the story and fit in with the original film quite well.
Not sure what Lauren's doing right now. She was working on an animated movie about Medusa for Sony, but then Sony dropped her from the project.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Jan 3, 2016 1:01:02 GMT
I haven't seen it, but I've heard stuff about it.
In other news, I ended up seeing TFA again (my mom wanted to see it and she wasn't with us the first time) and it held up on second viewing really well.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Apr 11, 2016 13:29:53 GMT
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Post by Applelight Limited on Apr 11, 2016 18:16:17 GMT
He has to say that is why you fail at one stage. Also, not strictly Episode VII but...behold, the trailer for Rogue One: They made the Imperial March sound even more sinister.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Apr 11, 2016 21:21:18 GMT
Yeah, that's pretty freaky. And I"m pretty sure this is the first Star Wars movie not to have Jedi as main characters. At least not that we know of. I like how they're incorporating so many original trilogy designs into it.
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Post by Applelight Limited on Apr 11, 2016 23:17:33 GMT
Yeah they're exactly like the originals. Not one change. And that's awesome.
One source I read said that this movie is more like saving private Ryan, and that we'll get to see what life is really like under the empire. I'm really interested in that.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 23, 2017 17:24:36 GMT
(Applelight: is it okay if I change the thread title to make this just a general Star Wars thread? Because I already did it.) We have a title for Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. I'm not sure how I feel about this.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Jan 23, 2017 21:24:08 GMT
Well.
Whether this is good or bad really depends on context. It could be referring to Luke being the last extant Jedi to train a new generation, or it could be implying the end of the order altogether. I'm honestly more worried about the logo being red.
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