George Lucas's new trilogy ideas axed by Disney

[Saber]

Article is here:

http://www.cnet.com/news/george-lucas-says-disney-ditched-his-ideas-for-star-wars-the-force-awakens/#ftag=YHF65cbda0

Wholeheartedly agree with the author's opinion on how the more influential and hands on George Lucas was with each successive Star Wars film, the worse the installments became generally, though Revenge of the Sith was pretty good at times. 

This comment really sums it up:

Spoiler

Deek Windsome

 


 Here's the deal with the prequels. By 1998, there wasn't a person alive who would have the gall to tell George Lucas how to make a Star Wars film. For two decades, we'd been sold this story of Lucas as a visionary who single-handedly guided a Buck Rogers ripoff to being one of the most beloved film franchises of all time. 

Some of that is true, but a lot of that was false. The original Star Wars was constrained by budget and time, forcing Lucas to rely on others to edit his mess of reels into a film. The result was an uplifting and wonderful space adventure. By The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas turned over director duties to an old mentor and we were given one of the greatest movies of all time as Kirshner relied on others to worry about effects, and he focused on story and the actors' performances. 

When Jedi came along, Lucas was on set every day offering guidance, and things started to falter. While Jedi has a nostalgic love attached to it, one has to admit it looks and feels more like a toy commercial than the other films. It lacked a few things, and forced ewoks and an entire palace of not great looking muppets on us. 

My point is the first two were collaborations, while Jedi was more of a Lucas only baby.

As the prequels came along, Lucas was fully in control. Every idea he threw out, everyone around him gobbled up and said, "a funny talking frog man who is shoehorned in so he can step in poop? That's brilliant!" "Wait, you're going to take something mystical and quasi-religious and give it nonsensical scientific explanation? VISIONARY!" "You're going to tell the story of a 9-year-old Darth Vader, before he does or says anything interesting at all? INCREDIBLE!"

Lucas didn't have a budget to constrain him, or a studio breathing down his neck with the prequels. He's said it himself many times, that he was finally able to make the films he wanted to make .

The problem is there was no one to say, "Hey George, maybe this isn't going to work very well." Or even, "George, this will sully the good name of Star Wars." The prequels weren't garbage, they just needed another draft or two of the script with a decent editor guiding the process.

If Disney ditched Lucas's ideas, it's not at all bad. His story for Episode 7 may have been as ridiculous as “I want to have a huge war in these, but I don’t want it to be violent for children, so I’m going to have the war be completely between an army of clones hidden in armor and an army of robots.” 

Once again there was no one to say, “Uh, George, won’t that make it so there is no emotional investment in anything going on in the battle, because no actual characters are in danger?”

Maybe Disney and Abrams ditched Lucas’s ideas because they simply were not good.

 

[comradekingu]

Old disney was much better than new disney too.

His old fans were really vocal about the newest films, george must have noticed someone was upset. And then indiana jones. I cant imagine he didnt at least once doubt his decisions there.

Hopefully he has learnt his lesson and makes something in a galaxy far far away.

 

[Jumpman]

Sadly, I can't "unwatch" those prequels, as they weren't good, not even close. Very soulless films with a very hightech look to them. The best thing Disney could ever do for the new films, is to keep Lucas as far away as possible.

Chris

 

[Klumpen]

Sadly, I can't "unwatch" those prequels, as they weren't good, not even close. Very soulless films with a very hightech look to them. The best thing Disney could ever do for the new films, is to keep Lucas as far away as possible.

Chris

And the best thing Disney could do for the old trilogy would be releasing it on DVD and BD in the original version without the silly effects and scenes Lucas vomitted all over it decades later.

It blows my mind how someone with such a lack of taste and talent can be one of the richest men on earth, well maybe not so much looking at others on such lists.

 

[fusion_power]

I never had that big problem with the prequels. Not as good as the original trilogy but at least we've got Star Wars again after more than 20 years of waiting. Episode 1 was the weakest of the new trilogy for sure but it still had it's moments. The Pod-Race was great, Natalie Portman was cute, Darth Maul was an acceptable Villian and I personaly found JarJar not THAT horrible (just plain annoying, like many movies have such characters actualy)

Of course I have higher expectations for the new trilogy. And it may be a good choice to let Lucas out of it.  Disney has proved with all the Marvel Movies that they can make good stuff and care about an Franchise. It could be much worse.

 

[Klumpen]

it may be a good choice to let Lucas out of it

Disney has proved with all the Marvel Movies that they can make good stuff and care about an Franchise.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

On the other hand Star trek into shite was a major fail by JJ Abrams. Let's hope he's wised up. His movies often have a certain clinical and constructed quality to them, mainly the story structure and such.

 

[fusion_power]

On the other hand Star trek into shite was a major fail by JJ Abrams. Let's hope he's wised up. His movies often have a certain clinical and constructed quality to them, mainly the story structure and such.

"Into Darkness" was good, I found it much better than Abrams first Trek Movie. Still far away from the old Franchise in any way but I guess we have to live with that (for now). i'm still a big TNG fan and I also would prefer every old Trek Movie over the Abrams ones. At least these new movies already looked somehow like Star Wars so we can hope that the new Trilogy is not worse than the "old new" one.

 

[Saber]

I'm glad J.J. is doing the first film only. He's good when it comes to shows and films out of the gate, but later in the race he starts to slow down creatively. Lost was great in the beginning but it lost me after a few seasons. I never figured out what the smoke monster was. A mechanical chain who eats pilots, or a malicious ghost with cabin fever from another time period. WTH?  :huh:

I will say I hope after all the struggles in the original trilogy that our heroes went through, that the rumors of them separating are completely untrue. There's plenty of material to come up with storywise without dividing the family from long ago and far, far away. Leia and Han separated and Luke a super powerful hermit(with a rock collection to keep him company), and a vengeful evil cyborg and his brigade rising to power in the shadows from Mongo don't sound like overly captivating tales. B)   

 

[Jumpman]

Sadly, I can't "unwatch" those prequels, as they weren't good, not even close. Very soulless films with a very hightech look to them. The best thing Disney could ever do for the new films, is to keep Lucas as far away as possible.

Chris

And the best thing Disney could do for the old trilogy would be releasing it on DVD and BD in the original version without the silly effects and scenes Lucas vomitted all over it decades later.

It blows my mind how someone with such a lack of taste and talent can be one of the richest men on earth, well maybe not so much looking at others on such lists.

OMG, vomitted is the correct word to use. WTF!? was lucas thinking? That article sums up this throughout. Did no one tell him adding new age SFX to 30+ year old movies was a bad idea? Every time I see that crap, I wanted to find him and punch him in the face. WTF was the point of adding young Anikin at the end of Jedi? What was wrong with the original older version? That shit looks so stupid.

Lucas took his merchandise rights for those first movies, and held on tight, so that is really where he got rich. Then he rolled that in to ILM, and the rest is history. It's like John Travolta taking a portion of the music rights to his most popular movies. Nobody made money in music or merchandise rights back then, as there wasn't really a market for that stuff, so these guys where smart in that regard, but what lucas did to the original movies shows just how clueless he is. Sadly, people equate riches to being smart, or having common sense, and sadly nothing could be further from the truth. Lucas is living proof of that.

When Disney bought the rights to SW, releasing the original movies untouched was the first thing that cam to mind. If that's all they do, I'll be happy, and buying the rights for whatever the cost was worth it.

After those prequels, I have no interest in seeing anything else at this point, but I did enjoy that Star Trek reboot, so I may see this new film at some point. I didn't watch "in to darkness" yet, so I can't comment on that one. I can't imagine anyone doing a more piss poor job than lucas did recently, but who knows?

Chris

 

[levi]

Very soulless films with a very hightech look to them. The best thing Disney could ever do for the new films, is to keep Lucas as far away as possible.

That's a good description of THX 1138 too - except that's got a budget 70s version of high-tech. It seems to me that, while he can write a script to kick things off, the man should be kept as far away from the director's chair as possible.

Mind you, I've not seen American Graffiti. But certainly the only reason Star Wars 1 was any good was because it was a big-budget movie and he was a new director, so was overruled on anything important, I've been led to believe.

 

[ekianjo]

I never had that big problem with the prequels. Not as good as the original trilogy but at least we've got Star Wars again after more than 20 years of waiting. Episode 1 was the weakest of the new trilogy for sure but it still had it's moments. The Pod-Race was great, Natalie Portman was cute, Darth Maul was an acceptable Villian and I personaly found JarJar not THAT horrible (just plain annoying, like many movies have such characters actualy)

I guess you never watched Mr Plinkett's excellent reviews of the prequels, or your simply left your brain at door of the theater before watching the prequels. These are among the worst movies ever made (especially following an excellent first trilogy). 

And the best thing Disney could do for the old trilogy would be releasing it on DVD and BD in the original version without the silly effects and scenes Lucas vomitted all over it decades later.

Amen to that. 

 

[ekianjo]

Lost was great in the beginning but it lost me after a few seasons.

Yeah, Lost was great during the first season ONLY, basically. The whole thing after the hatch sucked bad, and while there were a few memorable episodes afterwards, it was really going down the train until the lackluster, nonsensical finale that did a good job of NOT answering ANY question at all. What a f**************ing waste of time Watching Lost was.

t seems to me that, while he can write a script to kick things off,

Not even. The script for the prequels was just plain horrible in itself, even on paper. It's fair to say the creative George Lucas died many years ago. And one of the key issue on the prequels is that he was treated by a God by all of the staff and nobody confronted him to tell him he was doing crap. He was the only captain on the boat and we know how that ended. This was totally different from the first Star Wars where Lucas had to compromise with everyone else instead of listening only to himself. 

 

[thatgui]

I never had that big problem with the prequels.

What I came to realise is that Lucas made this Films for a totally different audience: Kids. If your a Kid, you don't mind the horrible dialog, script, cinematographie..basically everything in this movie. Kids just emerge in it, and toss aside everything they are not interested in. And if you look at it with that angle, these movies fare pretty damn well.

Disney has proved with all the Marvel Movies that they can make good stuff and care about an Franchise

You mean these horrible movies that are basically soulless CGI monsters, with nothing to really care about the whole time ? No thank you, the only good Marvel movies are the Iron Man ones (and I'm not sure Iron Man 2 should be counted in that regard).But not because they are Iron Man movies, but because they are basically "Robert Downey Junior" Shows - and as soon as the three movies stray too far away from that concept, you immediatly realize how uninteresting and boring the rest of the movie/universe is.

"Into Darkness" was good, I found it much better than Abrams first Trek Movie. Still far away from the old Franchise in any way but I guess we have to live with that (for now). i'm still a big TNG fan and I also would prefer every old Trek Movie over the Abrams ones. At least these new movies already looked somehow like Star Wars so we can hope that the new Trilogy is not worse than the "old new" one.

Why, the second one was basically the first one, but everything was hyped up a notch (except the ending, which is extremely stupid with Spock punching someone almost to death)?
The new "Trek" movies are fine, the only thing I don't understand is why they are supposed to be Star Trek movies, they have absolutely nothing in common with Star Trek. You could replace every character with a generic Sci-Fi Character, and the movie would work the same way.

I'm glad J.J. is doing the first film only. He's good when it comes to shows and films out of the gate, but later in the race he starts to slow down creatively. Lost was great in the beginning but it lost me after a few seasons. I never figured out what the smoke monster was. A mechanical chain who eats pilots, or a malicious ghost with cabin fever from another time period. WTH?  :huh:

I think J.J.A. is a great director and could even replace Spielberg at some point, he has just one basic flaw: he isn't able to pick a good script.

 

[Exophase]

The Star Wars prequels were such disappointing movies. For me, the third was the worst because the plot and character development made the least sense.

I think George Lucas is just a bad story teller. I don't know how much total control he had over the plot in the original trilogy, but those stories used very simple archetypes and standard progressions and twists. So it didn't take much storytelling finesse to do a good enough job with it, and let the characters reasonably naturally evolve through it. A lot was just there as a recognizable trope that didn't need much explanation.

With the prequels a ton of focus was on giving a background explanation to how the setting of the original movies came to be, and fleshing out the universe in general. And it did a botched job in pretty much every way. It's not an easy task to make a good story fit into a bunch of setting constraints and it needed much more care than the originals to work. That's not to say that only a great writer could have done better than Lucas.. even a mediocre sci-fi writer could have easily done better.

At the very least, the new movies won't be bound to these same requirements, so maybe there'll be less risk of the story and character development being terrible.

 

[ekianjo]

>>>>What I came to realise is that Lucas made this Films for a totally different audience: Kids.


Lol


Because its totally ok to show decapitation and child murder to kids


What drug are you on?

 

[Saber]

What I don't get is how some scenes in the prequels were so very well done while others were palm meet forehead slapping bad. In Phantom Menace, the early scene where the princess is watching the invading separatist force march unopposed into her city from her palace window. The powerlessness exuded from the character as she looks out at her home overtaken from her people while she, a child appointed to command, can do nothing to stop them. It ends with her gradually looking down to the floor in helplessness.  Beautifully captured cinema.  

In Attack of the Clones, when Anakin confesses that he murdered the Sand People, women and children, to Padmé. Powerful and well-written. 

 

[Klumpen]

In Attack of the Clones, when Anakin confesses that he murdered the Sand People, women and children, to Padmé. Powerful and well-written. 

This scene actually made me lol, because it was so bad and unneccessarily over the top.

He went from selfish to 60s comic book kind of plain evil in record time without any real transition and to be sure that every last person gets reminded that he is becoming Darth Vader you get the imperial march played in the background immediately, just to make it idiot proof.

This whole scene and everything around it was insulting imho and it's what I remember most when thinking back to the money I wasted in the cinema for this. Episode two made me skip Episode 3 completely, I just watched it a few years ago for the first time and though it was better than the second, it's still crapped that gets outclassed by most amateur filmmakers if you are not impressed by completely artificially looking CGI surroundings and effects besides the ridiculous dialogues and silly characters.

Actually, this movie made me quit American movies for years, because it made me appreciate the character development and depth of books and especcially Asian movies more than ever before.

What was mentioned here before about complete emotional detachment with a war between clones that somehow got their individuality genetically removed (Boba Fett excluded of course) and robots made me sleep for real (yes, I dozed off at some point only to notice, that I missed exactly nothing when I woke up, only senseless and not even cool looking action scenes in between).

Don't even get me started on choreography, ohhhh dear. /rant

 

[TrashyMG]

Yeah I had a hard time with Episoded I-III, although III was almost a good movie.. 

It's sad that the Clone Wars, a kids Cartoon did a much better job of fleshing out the characters and developing a good story than the movies. (If you haven't seen the clone wars, get past the first several episodes and it gets good.)

 

[ekianjo]

although III was almost a good movie..

really ? which part ? It was just as bad as the others, and the finale was the most ridiculous stuff ever (the CG fight over the lava was boring and never ending, and Vador crying "Noooo" like a baby and walking like a handicapped robot was just the cherry on the cake... and let me spare you the horrible dialogs).

Plinkett says it all...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ABcXyZn9xjg?feature=oembed