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WHAT ONE ELEMENT WOULD YOU CHANGE OF THE ORIGINALS?

Discussion in 'Original Trilogy' started by CTrent29, Dec 17, 2016.

  1. SWEWF

    SWEWF Clone

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    Convince George Lucas to make up his mind about Leia being Luke's sister in movie one so that the multiple kisses they share never happen.
     
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  2. Jayson

    Jayson Resident Lucasian

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    He had made up his mind about that in movie one: they weren't siblings.

    They weren't even siblings in the second film.
    She only became Luke's sister in the third film because Lucas threw the line "There is another" into the second film as a threat to Luke's survival so when he faced Vader the audience didn't automatically assume he would live when he faced Vader in Bespin since there was another possible hero.

    He was equally toying with killing Luke in the third film so people didn't think Star Wars was about one person, but instead free to go on to other serial adventures.

    Then when the third came around, he decided not to kill Luke, which meant he needed to answer the "other" with someone already accounted for because things were already a mess narratively and scripts were constantly late, some arriving the day before shooting the scene.

    It was a film that reshaped itself radically multiple times, just like the first film, but it was a production moving with more force.

    So he dumped the "other" on Leia and moved on, full well knowing it wasn't graceful or entirely sensible, and a cheap trick.
    He's pretty open about it in the production books.

    So there was no lack of making his mind up early on. Yes he played with a few sibling concept ideas, but none that made anywhere by final scripts of the first two films.

    Just as Vader wasn't figured out by Lucas to be Luke's father until the second movie.

    Heck, he decided very late, after already starting to shoot, that Obi should die and become a voice.

    If I were to take a point with it, I'd sneak in on ROTJ and tell Lucas "the other" doesn't have to be answered in this film.

    It can be anyone later when other cartoons or films get made.

    But the problem was at this moment, Lucas wanted to throw Star Wars in the garbage can and walk away to never return.

    He forced every loose thread to wrap up because he wanted them to be closed forever.

    So even if I had said that to him, he already knew that. That was the original idea with the "other"...kill Luke, rise new hero who goes on further adventures.

    He didn't care. He completely reversed course in thinking because he just wanted nothing left open to make more movies from.

    ...and then he had several years break and made more movies.

    Cheers,
    Jayson
     
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  3. Embo and His Pet Anooba

    Embo and His Pet Anooba Jedi Commander

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    more hutts
     
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  4. Martoto

    Martoto Force Sensitive

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    I would go back and tell George to have the whole trilogy planned out. It's just not possible and criminally negligent to make a trilogy of films where the story and character arcs aren't all planned out beforehand. ;)
     
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  5. Jayson

    Jayson Resident Lucasian

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    Two things, from my perspective here, and while I'm saying these things - keep in mind I'm not saying you're wrong here. These are my artistic opinions.

    1) If I were to be of this view, I would give Lucas a big sweeping pass considering he was pretty much inventing the serial trilogy while making the original trilogy. You had other a few trilogies already, but they weren't like this. The closest to it was his cohort Coppola's Godfather II. Star Wars was the first refined three-act trilogy. It was the first of many things on top of that. It was the first space fantasy adventure with a serious budget and story put into it. It was the first cinematic allegorical narrative in a "science fiction" genre blockbuster. It was the first modern film to build a world entirely from the ground up and virtually require every shot to be a full created set or at least require an optical effect - there's almost not one shot that didn't require one of the two. The shear logistics of these films was off the scale. A lot of the narrative unknowns revolved around the very serious problems of logistics. Scores of previously planned narrative directions and arcs were scrapped because of logistical complications. Ending Empire Strikes Back on that cliffhanger was absolute insanity for so many reasons at that time. Doing a trilogy that's a set of self-contained films is one thing, but having them be a three-part narrative and then leaving the second film wide open and unfinished at its ending was radical and dangerous.

    I think it should never be forgotten that Star Wars put Lucas in the hospital.
    So even if we hold that trilogies should be all planned out beforehand, there really wasn't a vehicle for Lucas to deliver that at the time he was inventing the medium which would become common because of Star Wars. Though, it would take a very long time to become that way. Even today few films truly make a three-act trilogy, and extremely few pre-plan to such a degree as to outline all of the arcs ahead of time. Most that do come from pre-existing IPs that already had narrative constructions to draw from and stitch the cinematic story together with. Almost no films with new IPs are being created with pre-planned three-act trilogy narratives - nearly no films ever have met this definition. It's more a sort of cinephile mythical holy grail.

    2) Philosophically, I actually disagree with such pre-planning.
    Primarily I disagree with it for new IPs because it kills the creative force behind the artistic creation.
    Some of the most brilliant moments in the original trilogy, for example, only came about because of Lucas leaning on others to get creative with ideas that weren't fully flushed out, or because of failures which caused radical changes to the story which caused it to need to change in considerable direction.
    We only got the throne room, for example, like we did because of a mixture of creative minds that weren't around at the beginning when Lucas was writing from 74 to 76 and, and logistical complications that reduced options on the table. Both of those things occurred, and both generated a radically different version of what we ended up with.
    Furthermore, Lucas would almost never do that approach at that point because he didn't even know what would or wouldn't work yet. Everything he was doing was untested. He used multicamera set ups to capture as much as possible with the least takes as possible and refined what the story was in the editing room usually more than the script. Lucas never gave high value to the screenplay. He saw them as a necessary evil, but not something that is a constitution that can never be distanced from. He was constantly rewriting the films without the screenplay because things changed once you saw them. An arc or scene might seem great in the mind, but once you start to see it unfold on the screen it changes into another version of itself, and if you strangle it to hold it into place and force it to exist you can end up with a worse theatric than if you had let the film lead you to where it wants to go rather than where you want it to go.
    Almost every good filmmaker will tell you that once you get on set and into production, a big key is to listen to the film and let it direct you where to go - not the other way around.
    A film is a living, breathing, and intangible thing. You have to give it the breath of life and then listen to its vitals, look into its eyes, listen to what it's saying, and then respond with the proper alteration to its curation.
    Just ramming it through because it was on the page that way rarely gives a good film. It usually gives a stale, cold, film-by-the-numbers result.

    And that's because human artists need to feel their creation and work inside of a living creation. Not work on a machine that's making a product that is restricted by predestined courses.

    That doesn't mean that you shouldn't sketch anything out ahead of time. Lucas definitely did that. Most everyone does something like that for trilogies.
    But those are sketches; not fully developed plans for character arcs. You have to leave room for adaptation and flexibility - to be able to respond to the film.

    Kubrick wasn't one for sequels, and definitely not for trilogies, but it's worth noting that he is considered one of cinema's giants of creative force and he is also notorious for going so far off script that scripts were being written on set in the middle of the shoot.
    That's extreme, and not something to strive for, but it's a testament to the art of cinema that this is a repeatedly found event in film production and that pre-planned multi-film character arc filming is a rare find, and the measurement of such making a better film is questionable.
    At the very least, there is monetary argument for both approaches working, but more practically there is far more evidence for the former working than there is the latter.

    But mostly, philosophically, I simply wouldn't ever want to work on any art that was so extensively planned ahead of time.

    Cheers,
    Jayson
     
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  6. eeprom

    eeprom Prince of Bebers

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    Dude . . . . 'winky face'
     
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  7. Jayson

    Jayson Resident Lucasian

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    *exploded laughter on my side*

    *sigh* Oh well...Asperger's.

    Oh look, an audiobook on recent updates in the field of Sumerian archaeology.
    22e4c2525cc4122dd7a8197ee9313fb6.png

    Cheers,
    Jayson
     
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  8. Martoto

    Martoto Force Sensitive

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    You're both right.
     
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  9. risastór

    risastór Clone Trooper

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    love the OT, a lot, I would only make minor changes to NH, give chewie a medal, ,
    ESB,almost nothing
    RTJ- wow, pay Ford more so he looked like he gave a damn , the eye roll he gave on endor felt like his opinion on whole movie, why would the empire make so many glaring mistakes, rebellion could have been crushed with very simple changes, easy changes , target practice for storm troopers, not tell rebels the plan leap to mind,
    --- Double Post Merged, Apr 19, 2021, Original Post Date: Apr 19, 2021 ---
    --
    1000%
     
  10. risastór

    risastór Clone Trooper

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    -
    some acknowledgement of why Vader could be standing 3 feet from Leia and not force feel some connection, where he can feel luke from space,
     
  11. Whipswar

    Whipswar Rebelscum

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    I probably would like to see more "force" discussion. Like, they mention it briefly in ANH (it binds us....), have a wonderful little spiel about it with Yoda in ESP, but not much to discuss of it in ROTJ. I think that philosophical side of the force is really special, and I wish had some more of it throughout the trilogy (and saga as a whole).


    Yo hit me with that book title though...
     
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  12. Lukestarbucker

    Lukestarbucker Force Sensitive

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    Thank you for the informative post. I think, in the end, everything played out so perfectly
    --- Double Post Merged, Apr 19, 2021, Original Post Date: Apr 19, 2021 ---
    Personally, i liked obi-wans ambiguous description. It makes the force sound so magical and mysterious. But yeah I see your point.
     
  13. Martoto

    Martoto Force Sensitive

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    That's interesting. As far as I remember it, Vader is the one talking up the force in the OT. But I can't remember Anakin ever eulogising the force even once in the prequels.
     
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  14. Lukestarbucker

    Lukestarbucker Force Sensitive

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    Vader and Ben both discussed it briefly. And yoda a little bit.
     
  15. Dryden Valiance

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    I completely agree with you on point one.
    It's crazy to blame George Lucas for not planning the OT in advance, he struggled to make the first film and he was very unsure if he would be able to make a second one.
    He was a pioneer and created something that no one has ever done before (and to be honest even after).

    For the second point .. not much. Yes, planning everything in advance could kill the creative force behind artistic creation, but it depends on how your creative process works: not everyone uses the same system to create a story (or make a film). It works for Lucas and Kubrick but it doesn't work for everyone, it's a method.

    There are some directors who have everything planned and follow their script without changing almost anything during filming (like Tarantino or the Coen brothers) and their results are not film-by-the-numbers.

    Anyway... I understand why you get so upset.
    This is not a fair complain for what George Lucas tryed to do...
    However... We are here to discuss and fly ideas, suggestions and opinions, and I think we all appreciated what George Lucas did (we'll be not here otherwise) So don't take it personally. I don't think Lucas needs to be defended.

    If I had to change anything about the OT movies it would be to make them more cohesive with the rest of the saga (including the prequels) and I would have started with episode I, telling the whole Skywalker Saga in a chronological and coherent order.
    1. Han was not going to save Luke during the Death Star trench run.This is because Han's story ends with this scene (he was a scoundrel interested only in money and now he's a hero) I would spend all of the TESB to change Han's interest through romance with Leia (while I'm on the run from a group of bounty hunters). During the run Luke is chased by 3 Tie fighters headed by Biggs Darklighter (his childhood friend of him, not his father) that Luke is forced to kill before firing the final shot.
    2. After the Death Star destruction Luke will suffer a moral dilemma (for killing so many people in a single shot and his friend) while everyone else praise his prowess di lui and they start to call him Star-killer so Obi Wan (appearing to him as a ghost) suggests that he go find Yoda on Dagobah to learn the responsibilities of a Jedi (in my version Obi Wan would have already trained Luke in the ways of the Force throughout his life).
    3. The third film would have been set almost entirely on Kashyyk and have talked about Chewbacca's backstory. The final battle would also take place on the planet as Han, Leia and Luke discover a secret laboratory on the planet that is about to receive a visit from the Emperor (It's a trap!).
     
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  16. eeprom

    eeprom Prince of Bebers

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    Yeah, it’s a puzzling and nonsensical line to draw in the sand.

    A ‘plan for a movie’ is called a ‘screenplay’. That’s your ‘plan’ for how you intend to make your movie. It’s never set in stone and will inevitably change and evolve along the way.

    A trilogy is three movies. Three movies requires three screenplays - three ‘plans’. You could either write them all up front or spread them out over time. Those are the options. One strategy isn’t more creatively superior than the other. Neither locks you in to some rigid, immutable paint-by-numbers structure. It’s the same process of construction and revision, working its way to materiality. It’s just a different order of operations.

    LFL decided they wanted their trilogy to be built by three different writer/director teams. I don’t think that’s an inherently bad idea. What bakes my noodle though is wondering why those three different teams weren’t developing it . . . together. Why parse the episodes out and scribe them in a relay? Why not be collaborative right from the jump? It’s just . . . well, an odd choice.
     
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  17. Use the Falchion

    Use the Falchion Jedi Contrarian

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    Trevorrow wasn't (officially) hired on until after Jurassic World came out, IIRC, so he wasn't as involved from the beginning. Still, he was hired in August of 2015, so he had plenty of time to watch a rough cut of TFA, get a head's up on what RJ was going to do with Episode VIII, and get some ideas formulating, and collaborate with RJ more closely as the dailies came in.

    Overall, this was an expensive but valuable lesson to learn. Lucasfilm seems to have tempered this urge - the round robin aspect is still present in some stuff like Star Wars Visions, but The High Republic, LF's major project post-ST, seems to have some idea of a beginning, middle, and end from what (admittedly little) I know of it.
     
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  18. Jayson

    Jayson Resident Lucasian

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    I think it's worth noting that this round-robin idea was initiated back when Lucas was still considered to be on board as a collaborative guide.
    He was, more or less, basically having to get ready to get back into the seat of arguing like he did all the way back with Production Boards, Kasdan, et. al. all over again, but this time without something he cherishes very much - creative authority.

    He decided that's just not where he's at in life, and so he folded up and walked.

    The original round-robin design was basically a variation of the OT's same set up, with one principle difference - this time around he was at greater mercy to the Production Board than he was during the OT.

    He thought, for some still to me baffling reason, that if he handed the ownership over to a major studio they would foot the bill on everything and still let him make the major decisions.
    I have no idea whatever possessed him to believe that, considering his original position for so many years as the lone ranger of Hollywood, defiant against the entire industry at every step wherever possible - to the extent of even physically moving facilities to harder to reach locations just so execs couldn't just walk over and pester him, was completely centered around him footing the bill directly (through his companies) as much as possible to avoid exactly these kinds of problems which he already experienced and learned he was terrible at tolerating back when he made THX and American Graffiti.

    But, ultimately, it wasn't a bad idea. It just lost the principle designer right out of the gate, and then it lost one of the principle actors in the 11th hour.

    I don't see this as a good representation of the approach.
    How it went in Mando is much more representative of it going well without giant holes punching into the workflow process unexpectedly.

    Cheers,
    Jayson
     
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  19. Martoto

    Martoto Force Sensitive

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    To be fair, I don't think he was that naive about what the deal was. I think he just didn't anticipate how he would feel about actually being in that position. He'd been dictator for so long that he didn't appreciate how different that had made him feel to just about every other filmmaker on the planet. He was miserable being a filmmaker before Empire Strikes Back secured his autonomy, He should have realised that he was going to be just as miserable once he relinquished that authority.
     
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  20. ManaraiJedi

    ManaraiJedi Rebel Trooper

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    I think I'm good with how everything is in the OT, but I will say the last second Leia sister revelation still feels pretty off and obviously rushed. Despite that, I still really like ROTJ!
     
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