The "treatment of Luke"

What does that have to do with Rian Johnson's time at Lucasfilm? He spent significant time with the team there including Filoni while developing TLJ.

. He's currently an executive creator on the leadership at Lucasfilm and it's been reported that he's working with the team developing the next set of films.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing this up. It's apples and oranges. A live action movie performance is completely different from a hologram concert. A hologram is never going to sing like Frank Sinatra. It's not a stretch to think there will be Indiana Jones films 20 years from now with an AI Ford.

 

The industry is. It's all around you. A fair bit of work at the company I work for is in deepfake and deaging.

I'm not interested in going beyond this with you. If you don't want to accept that digital doubles will happen as a lead role, go ahead and think that.

Cheers,
Jayson

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 31, 2022, Original Post Date: Dec 31, 2022 ---

It's hard for me to view it that way because Lucas just got out of the hospital, again, and had gone through a divorce and everyone (cast) was worn out. It completely makes sense not to then.

Lucas also seemed to want them much older for his sequel ideas.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

There's also an interesting topic no one's really brought up. Actor's wishes.
Everyone's positions have been dominantly thinking about fans and corporations, but corporations can't use the likeness of an actor without their consent or the consent of their estate (if they are dead or incapacitated).

The more interesting question for whether or not there will or won't be more digital double Mark Hamill is whether or not Mark Hamill wants his likeness used to make more Luke Skywalker stories, even after Hamill is dead.

So far, he appears to be perfectly fine with it.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Yes, as is James Earl Jones; he has given permission for his voice to be used as Vader long after he's gone.

Regarding actors and what they want....I have a feeling some of the things that happened in TROS were as a result of John and Daisy's influence on JJ Abrams. He changed Poe's fate in TFA because Oscar asked him to, and both DR and JB expressed their disappointment at not working together much in TLJ. Daisy actually said she 'cried' when Abrams was hired for TROS...(I also cried with disappointment after watching it; my wallet definitely did).
Daisy was quoted pre TROS as saying 'Rey doesn't need a boyfriend', and her character ended up alone at the end - I actually found that jarring even if I hadn't been a reylo - romance has featured very strongly in the SWU. John meanwhile, wanted Force sensitive Finn. And both Rey and Finn were practically together 90% of the film.
Abrams it seemed, listened to his friends while directing TROS. Whether it added anything to the story however....well, that's another thing.

 

It's not about the character. It's about the actor.
In the US the likeness of an actor cannot be used in a movie without their consent.

And also in the US (and some other countries), characters tend to be linked (in the public's mind) with one actor for at least a given decade (unlike stageplays where no link is typical).

So it often does come down to whether an actor wants to do a movie as to whether or not that known character will be in it.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Most (good) actors blend themselves into the character. That character becomes a personal friend of some kind.
Like Hamill said he couldn't get his head wrapped around Luke when he first started, and then one day in Tunisia, he was watching Lucas and he realized Luke was Lucas and he suddenly understood the character. From that point on he became more and more closely connected to the character. Cared about him. Because now this character wasn't a piece of clothing that he threw on for a moment but was a representation of a bond with someone he cared about.

At that level, it can get very hard to distance yourself. Great directors listen to actors about what the character is wanting through the vessel that is the actor. They let the actors take the reins a bit and steer the ship so that the character speaks more and the story becomes more rich and connected.

It can be very confusing and difficult for an actor bouncing around between different kinds of productions. Ones where they have so much control from a director like that, to one where they're a cog in the machine - a hand moving the puppet's mouth. As the term goes, "a dancing monkey".

Hamill eventually came around to realize that he just needed to let go during TLJ. That's what he meant by saying it wasn't his Luke. It wasn't exactly to say that he disowned him. It's that he has his personal idea of what and who Luke is, and he realized that he needed to back off and let Johnson show him Johnson's Luke and not be a closed and walled off door. Once he did that, and had some time to look at it, he appreciated this new Luke more and now thinks of it as his favorite rendition since Empire Strikes Back.

It's impressive he was able to make that journey and see that transition. Many actors can't do that. They, reasonably, get stuck understanding their character from only the one lens they know them from and can't consider them in any other way because that's their person in there and they know the rules and ways that person thinks, feels, and is. They've created an entire "head canon" (and sometimes backstories) all on their own so they can become that person.

It's not easy to truly act.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

out of curiosity, you wouldn’t happen to know where he said that last bit, would you? I had heard him say he came around, but that’s the first I think I’ve heard it in that degree.

 

I've never heard Hamill say that either.

 

No, those remarks by Hamill that doesn't fit into the hater narrative tnds not to get much coverage and is therefore forgotten and ignored.

He has offered such more positive comments and interviews a few times.

 

Well, let's face it you don't go to work to hang out with your friends!

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 4, 2023, Original Post Date: Jan 4, 2023 ---

Yes, but sadly the trolls who hated TLJ chose not to see it.
Frankly TROS broke my heart but the last thing I would stoop to is sending hate mail and death threats to Abrams and Terrio.

 

Mark even admitted that Harrison once told him, regarding his disappointment of how things were turning out on the OT, "We didn't create these characters. George did."

 

I wonder how Lucas really feels about the ST, behind closed doors?
Because let's face it, DLF killed off his characters, made their sole descendant a 'bad guy', then killed him off....and gave the Skywalker name to the granddaughter of Sidious/Palpatine, who George created as 'galactic Satan' and very firmly stated he never had any progeny.

They didn't so much as damage his original creation, as burn it to ashes and pee on them!

 

"Well obviously, Luke is in a much darker place now. He wants the Jedi to end. Believe me I was as shocked to have read that as you will be to see it. This film is, I think, more challenging and has more depth. It's, uh, more cerebral. It's also very funny in parts. But, uh, it's probably my favorite one, uh, since Empire Strikes Back."

Which, for Hamill's timeline goes something like this: He voices his problems to Johnson during production. Struggled with it. Came to a position that allowed him to accept it, while still needing more time to digest. He then saw the movie and came around to "getting it" and made his comment above in November of 2017, and then in an interview in December tried to explain his actor's journey (even said, "I was wrong" in the same interview) and the internet and media took their favorite bits of him referring to his past self's thinking and plastered it everywhere, which then caused Hamill to make comments about regretting having shared his insecurities a few days later.

So, the public's timeline looks like Hamill said some fluff in November and then went off the rails and spoke his mind trashing the movie in December, and then later apologized for trashing the movie a few days later (which a bunch of folks took to mean his wrist was slapped by his owners).

However, that's not Hamill's timeline. Hamill's timeline is that he struggled with it during production. Saw the end result, changed his mind and loved it. And then, as he usually does, shared very openly his experience and tried to share how it was a hard pill to swallow for even him, but was doing so to try to make a point that once he did swallow it he could see the movie for what it was rather than his, as he calls it, 'selfish' wants rather than the 'betterment of the story' (comments expressed in the SWSX interview).

So, by the time he says this bit in the November Fan event, Hamill had already had all of his ups and downs with the experience and now looked at the movie as, as he put it, his favorite since Empire Strikes Back.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Thank you! I really appreciate the link. Somehow, I missed that one. And yeah I feel similarly, TLJ’s Luke is still up there as my favorite. Mark’s thought process through it all was fascinating to track for me, and a lot of it also gives me the vibe that the “Look at Mark, he looks so broken about his role” could….just be Mark’s resting face.

 

Lucas had planned to kill Luke off.

Harrison was enticed to return only by being giving a meaningful death. (We don't know if Lucas even envisioned Solo in his sequel trilogy at all. It's likely that Ford would have said no thanks and Lucas would have had to kill him off screen. So there's likely more Solo than you would ever have gotten otherwise.)

Carrie fisher died. I will repeat it every time you accuse people of killing off all the characters. Carrie Fisher died. It will be my mantra until you stop dishonestly ignoring these facts for the sake of enhancing the stature of your disappointment at not getting your way regarding Adam Driver. Carrie Fisher died.

 

Give the guy some credit to be multidimensional like a real person. He's off making tone poem films which I would kill to see much more than even 1977 Star Wars.
Lucas is so much more than "The Star Wars Guy". I agree with Coppola. It's a shame Star Wars happened, actually, because it robbed us of seeing a great artist's further diversity and work. All I can do is look at his work before Star Wars, especially his college material, and imagine what it could be.

Lucas' reasons for liking things and hating things are also nowhere close to anything you are likely thinking about. If you pour over his scores of interviews, listen to him talk in all of his lectures...not just crap dealing with Star Wars, like even the ones about education... like this one....

The guy you start to see unfold isn't anything like what you see plastered around in Star Wars fan groups. His ideas on movie making is HIGHLY esoteric and from a very deep place of being a cultural artist who uses art to communicate with society and sees cinema as a language in a way few, even at his level, ever do.

If you truly listen to this man, it's a master class in filmmaking. A proper masterclass.
There's a handful of them. Sergei Eisenstein, Akira Kurosawa, George Lucas.

Yes, there are several to learn from, but what I mean by this slim list is that these folks look at cinema and then bother to articulate it back at considerable length in regards to the idea of societal communication and the obligation of social debt one has inherently in making a movie - that is, one owes the society concern and careful selection with their output. To not fling images and stories around provocatively for easy tricks. As Lucas loves to phrase it (and I have adopted), "Killing kittens". One owes society full comprehension of the blade they wield and to use it fully, effectively, and intentionally to reveal something to people about life.

Cinema is the art of restricted comparison. You choose what the audience is comparing by what you put in and how you do it.
It's always a false dichotomy of, "this or that", which is intentionally positioned to frame an argument in your mind... if it's done well.
And through such false dichotomies placed into the frame we are to be pushed to question our assumptions. If we have a reaction, we are to question why that is our reaction on a deep level (not a superficial layer of wanting some character to behave differently or wanting more lightsaber battles).

As Kurosawa put it, ever a master at concise elegance, "The backbone of a good film is the filmmaker’s humane character." (link)

These are the kinds of concepts, among scores more, you get from truly reading and listening to George Lucas (as well as the others in that list).

So, while I can't speak for him. I can say what I know of him in this regard.

When Lucas sees the new trilogies there's a few things that are likely happening there, based on how he's discussed related topics.
On one level he's delighted to see Star Wars as an audience member along for the ride for once instead of as a creator, which removes the experience of the audience from you. On another level he's going to see all of the things he philosophically disagrees with in terms of craft. And on another level he's going to have some level of personal regret, regardless, of letting go of Star Wars because it was a very personal artistic expression within which he poured nearly every ounce of his societal, personal, and artistic philosophies into.

I seriously doubt the man is one-dimensional with this, while being highly complex and multi-dimensional with everything else in his life. We're talking about a guy who has multiple seemingly competing perspectives about his own movies that he's made (as several artists do).

Personally, I find that if an artist bothers to put meaning into a movie, then it's probably worth paying attention to that meaning and digesting the conversation they were presenting rather than simply being oppositional to its aesthetical choices. If all a movie was made up of by its artist was its surface values of spectacle and melodrama, then easily I can dismiss it if I so choose without any concern. It says nothing.

But if Lucas, among others, think that the artist owes society an inherent debt of intentional meaning and discourse, then I feel that any cognizant and aware audience equally owes an inherent debt of at least listening to what's being said by the artist and considering what we are caused to think about from doing so - even if it is a small thing.

Such great thinkers who speak through the humanities of art, I believe, are worth considering with a bit more nuance than simply as weapons for cultural skirmishes one can quote and wield for their side's position.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Sorry. I'm not going to apologise for:
Liking Ben
Not liking that they killed him off.

I'm well aware Carrie died.

Please allow those who liked Kylo to 'like' him. Please don't let your dislike of him make you hate his fans. I went through this on another forum, the nasty personal accusations. I really don't want to encounter it here where we have nice fair mods. Have a nice day, M,

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 4, 2023, Original Post Date: Jan 4, 2023 ---

Yup, Mark was sensational as TLJ Luke.

 

Paul Walker died. They didn't kill off his character in the F&F movies.

THE DEATH OF AN ACTOR IS A TRAGIC THING FOR EVERYONE, BUT THEY ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN OR EVEN WILL PLAY THE CHARACTER.

When an actor dies, you have choices. You can:

A) Carry on as usual. Hire a new actor, let said actor continue playing the character. (Harrison Ford replacing William Hurt in the MCU. Or for a titular character, Liam McIntyre replacing Andy Whitfield after Whitfield passed away in Spartacus: Blood and Sand.)

B) Continue the plan with the tools you have, but also provide an exit for the character. (Paul Walker's character in the F&F movies. Walker's character lives on and is mentioned in nearly every movie after his character's passing.)

C) Kill the character on-screen. (Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia.)

D) Kill the character off-screen. (Chadwick Boseman's King T'Challa.)

E) Use CGI and similar looking actors to recreate the character (Tarkin (and Paul Walker's character))

G) Omit the character entirely

H) Do something else that I can't think of at the moment.



It's not a "the actor died, so we MUST do XYZ thing." It's a "the actor died, what do I perceive as the best way to honor both the actor and the character," thing. Everyone comes out on different sides, these choices ripple into the movie, into future movies, and even into how fans feel about previous outings and movies.

To have a problem with the movie because of a choice that was made due to how the director and higher-ups chose to handle an actor's death is perfectly fine IMO; it's not the death of the actor that's upsetting, it's the death of the character. And the death of a character isn't the only way to honor the death of an actor. Sometimes the life of the character* is the best way to honor them, so that people know that their legacy - the character they helped bring to life and affected so many others through said life - lives on.

Or maybe it's just the superhero fan in me, who's so used to seeing so many different people play the same character, each with their own interpretation and spin on said character, that the idea of replacing an actor after one dies is just second-nature to me. (And my personal dislike of how they handled the deaths when they did kill the character with the actor has only strengthened this philosophy.)

TL;DR - If you think that killing the character after an actor's death is the only way to honor them, and that said (character) death exists in a vacuum immune from critique, I actively and heavily disagree.

...wait, what does any of this have to do with Luke?

Same! Honestly, despite some fundamental disagreements I have over RJ's portrayal and interpretation of some characters (not Luke), I believe that TLJ gave us the strongest acting from Hamil and Fisher in any Star Wars medium. (That said, I also respect RJ so freaking much. His love for Star Wars is so clear in the movie and in his commentary, it just bleeds through.)