George Lucas Saga Is Going to Be A Hard Act To Follow

I agree, but we also have to be practical (I guess). Piracy, streaming, YTbers burning everything to the ground, fans not wanting changes. It ain't easy getting all those $$$ needed from the investors in our times, and Star Wars content costs.

So, my take is simple, pragmatical, and perhaps silly and naive. I wish for any type of content, and will support any effort in any direction producing Star Wars related material. #MakeSolo2Happen. Yeah fine, I just go with it.

To put it in a strange way, the optimal solution, whether we like it or not, is always chosen among the feasible ones. I don't think Disney will sell Star Wars, and I can't see them steering away (on average) from a safe and middle-of-the-road solution, for fiscal reasons.

So, it is what it is. A set of feasible and non-optimal solutions. So I support everything, because while some things are too big too fail, failure is quite a lot of things. If we end up having one movie per 3 years and nothing else, then we are way worse than now.

Not arguing your opinion, just offering another perspective that drives me.

 

I really loved Solo, actually.
It showed a way forward of how to do the thematic painting, that Star Wars is famous for, without involving the Saga.

That is important.

It's easy to throw out something new.
What's hard is putting out something new that feels like Star Wars, and that cardinally rests upon getting the form right. That's hard when all of the original themes of the Skywalker saga are taken away from you.

Solo shows one thing interesting in that regard. While it doesn't bring new stuff to the table in terms of objects, good guys, and bad guys, it does bring new themes to the table which it managed to play and move around through the story in a classic Star Wars poetic style.

If that isn't done in the next saga, that's going to be a huge shift that will feel alien for Star Wars and risks feeling like Star Trek Wars; that is...just sci-fi with Star Wars ships and maybe some sabers.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I just assumed he wanted to see what cool new toys Favreau was playing with - that so called ‘volume’. Right up his tech loving alley.

 

I wouldn’t disagree with that, but I didn’t mean it in a literal sense (Vader is his dad and he is Luke). I meant it more in a thematic sense of a father/son dynamic as he’s explored it in Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 4, 2020, Original Post Date: Feb 4, 2020 ---

I think there is room for both and that is where the franchise gets backed in a corner trying to please everyone. I think when they try to please everyone, THAT is when it ends up alienating everyone.

I think there is room for fun movies like Solo and gritty TV series like The Mandallorian. I wish fans would pick the stuff they like and enjoy and stop complaining about the stuff they hate.

I loved Solo but I totally get the movie isn’t for everyone. But if Disney caters to the fans that hated it (or dismissed it) by discontinuing Standalone movies, than they just alienated fans like me who liked R1 and Solo.

 

Agreed. They shouldn't be getting made for $250 million though. Small scope, small budget. Lower risk, higher reward.

 

This.

Give me a feature length episode of something like The Mandalorian (est. 15 mil per episode) and you can make a film just as stunning (if not more) for less than a fourth of the price Solo was.

 

What I'd like to see is one last Lucas-helmed Star Wars film in which he embraces the one element that his early films had that his latter-day films lacked - collaboration.

I get it... he felt like he lost control of his films during the making of the OT and felt that he needed to regain that control the first chance he had. But IMHO he overcorrected during the making of the PT and ended up with a CEO/employee dynamic that I never felt served the story all that well. George was always at his best when he had others working alongside him to bounce ideas back and forth with, or to tell him when he was backing himself into a corner.

George is a great concept guy, and we wouldn't be here talking about Star Wars without him. But when he works with peers who can help him refine his great ideas and move away from his less than stellar ones, that's when he's always been at his very best.

THAT'S the George Lucas I would dearly love to see make another Star Wars movie - especially the first of a new Old Republic era saga. Start that new story off with that heart that only Lucas can bring to the table, and I think we'd see another classic in the making.

Just my two cents, of course...

 

I’d love it if this could really work, but my unrelenting cynicism just won’t allow it

Even in the old days when George was amenable to being challenged by peers, he was still the final word on any subject. However open to dissenting positions, his authority was still absolute. There’s just no realistic way that a DIS backed LFL would ever be that accommodating as to relinquish full control. He’d be forced to play inside the box they gave him - one based on the box HE built. I don’t see why he’d want any active part in that beyond simply offering his opinions as a consultant . . . opinions that would likely as not be discarded. I know I wouldn’t be all that keen on the idea if I were in his shoes.

He compared the situation once to “a divorce” (source). For him, I think it would be kind of like going on a double date with his ex and her new lover - awkward, uncomfortable, and interminable. I don’t know how much fun that would really be for him. Then you factor in all the fairweather fans that'll surely give the old guy even more grief than he deserves. Sounds like an awful lot of potential heartache to me.

Cripes, I'm bumming myself out here. Sorry

 

Oh, I'm under no illusion that this might actually happen. Even setting aside the whole Disney issue (and I think you're spot-on with that) I think that Fox, the Directors Guild, and circumstances in general beat the collaborator right out of George nearly four decades ago.

But as a bit of theoretical dreaming, it's fun to think about what might have been.

 

Lucas never lost control on the OT, actually its the other way around, after Star Wars he gained control since he owned the movies on paper this time and paid for them. And he got his first movie back in the process, because of the deal he made with Fox to distribute Empire Strikes Back. He owned the whole IP by the time Empire was in the making.

And he never intended to direct the PT himself, besides maybe the first one. He was looking for other people to help him. Ron Howard, Spielberg ad Zemeckis were approached as directors for Episode 1, and Frank Darabont was supposed to co-write the Phantom Menace with him. He dropped out because the movie would be a non-union job and thats gainst the WGA rules.
Larry Kasdan his co-writer on ESB and Jedi was also appraoched to polish the script of Episode 1, but since the movie was 3 weeks aways from principal photography Larry refused.
When he decided to shot Episode 2 on digital cameras he had to direct since the tech was new and he probably enjoyed it so much that he directed Episode 3 again.

And please lets not act like Kershner and Marqaund, after principal photography was wrapped had any say over what would be in the final movie.
Lucas lead these movies though pre and post production and pretty much ghost-directed Return of the Jedi over Marqaunds shoulders.

 

Is that how they're telling the story these days? Interesting.

 

Yes @Rayjefury I concur!!

A New Hope was not just another popular movie.....it was an event like no other. It was not just groundbreaking, it was earth-shattering.

Do we really think that "Episode X" or whatever the next "non standalone" Star Wars movie is called will explode across the world like A New Hope?

Will ANY movie?

 

More than likely because of the fact that he was too close to it. If you are too close to something, you run the risk of losing any kind of perspective. Arguably what has happened with Ridley Scott when he made Prometheus and Alien Covenant and Patrick Steward when he coauthored the Picard Series. Below is a favourite song of mine on relearning the lessons of the past.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 25, 2020, Original Post Date: Feb 25, 2020 ---

Interesting analogy and another I will add to my lexicon.

 

I am not denying the impact that SW has had on some people. But SW for the most part just came across as a watered down version of Frank Herberts Dune. I look at SW and you can see that Lucas just begged, borrowed and stole from various sources. I can see how his stuff might have been revolutionary when it first came out. But not so much now. We live in a much more different world than the late 70's. I also find it amusing that people praise Lucas, yet pillory him for this work on the PT.

Of the 9 or 11 films. There have only been 3 of them that I loved TLJ & TROS mostly for the character work. And TPM for the political intrigue. The other films have been merely entertaining. I walked out on Rogue One, stopped watching Solo and could never see the appeal of ANH. That's why I l have been a fan of Star Trek. Bigger ideas and it's ability to address the messiness of life and the complexities of the human heart.
The best and most original (if you want to call it that) parts of the SW universe have been KOTOR. That in my love of palace intrigue and the complexity of people.

 

I believe he is referring to the Dune books by Frank Herbert which have since been added to over the years.

Here are the five in the Original series, in order, that Frank wrote:
1. Dune (1965)
2. Dune Messiah (1969)
3. Children of Dune (1976)
4. God Emperor of Dune (1981)
5. Heretics of Dune (1984)
6. Chapterhouse: Dune (1969)

The series was extended by his son, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.The first books were prequels to just-before Dune, and told of the formation of the world the Guilds and the families, the fall of the machines and so on: all just before Dune.

In order, they work in the following sequences:

Prelude to Dune (with Kevin J Anderson)
1. House Atreides (1999)
2. House Harkonnen (2000)
3. House Corrino (2001)
(These are what I think you've read.) The next series also goes further back, about 10 000 years, telling of the rise and overthrow of the machines.

Legends of Dune (with Brian Herbert)
1. The Butlerian Jihad (2002)
2. The Machine Crusade (2002)
3. The Battle of Corrin (2004)

The Road to Dune (2005) (with Brian Herbert and Frank Herbert) is a collection of short stories from throughout the series.
Tales of Dune (2011) (with Brian Herbert) is the same.

They then went and added to the end of Frank's original series by adding the following:

7. Hunters of Dune (2006)
8. Sandworms of Dune (2007)

and filled in gaps with:
Heroes of Dune (Between Dune & Dune Messiah)
1. Paul of Dune (2008)
2. The Winds of Dune (2009)

The latest series goes back to the early days, just after The Battle of Corrin, and deals with the formation of the Bene Generit and the Spacing Guilds.

Great Schools of Dune
1. The Sisterhood of Dune (2012)
2. Mentats of Dune (2014)
3. Navigators of Dune (2016)