Lucas: "I sold Star Wars to White Slavers"

[DWF]

I think it was funny how Lawrence Kasdan in the "Empire of Dreams" documentary mentioned how happy he was that ESB wasn't going to be a rehash of ANH.

I guess rehashing ANH for TFA was what Kasdan needed to do before Lucasfilm would agree to give him the Han Solo prequel film?

The new actors in TFA were good, shame they had nothing interesting to do.

I guess it was more that JJ is too much of a Star Wars Fan and partially blinded to reality.

I said this in my review here after i saw the movie.. it was like he had a checklist of favorite scenes/moments/character traits he wanted to have in his movie and didn't much care if it made sense or was needed in the movie (such as the alien bar scene at Maz Kanata's vs the Mos Eisley Cantina or the Superweapon concept in general).

I hope he cuts the ties a bit better now that he's got it out of his system and gives us an original story for Star Wars 8.

As far as I knw Rian Johnson is the writer and director of Ep. VIII, Kasdan is writing the young Han Solo movie.

 

[Ithekro]

Lawrence Kasdan, maybe, but not J.J. Abrams, since he's not involved in another Star Wars film as of yet.

 

[FPAlpha]

I think the opposite would be far preferrable, i.e. that it doesn't matter if the leads are a woman and a black dude because it's not what defines these characters.

Rey, being so wonderfully played by Daisy Ridley, is an awesome role model for young girls and women in general and, if you let it, also for boy and men because it strays far from the Princess in Distress trope (even though Leia even kicked ass during the Death Star breakout and later on strangled a crimelord to death while wearing the most sexist clothing ever).

I found it also telling when John Boyega was revealed in TFA how the casual racists emerged decrying a "black" Storm Trooper (as if the Empire cared in a galaxy that was filled with Aliens).

Once we enter a time where nobody bats an eye about gender or sexual preference in a movie character and just accepts it as part of the character then we will be on a good path.

 

[RoJoHen]

I saw the movie over the holidays with my family. Afterwards, my mom was all giddy; she had a lot of fun, and she started expressing a lot of fanwanky "small universe" theories about how everybody was related to everybody else.

She says, "Ooh, I bet Finn is Lando's son!"
To which I replied, "Why? Because he's black?"
And she says, "Yeah! I mean...no. No. Oh god, what's wrong with me?"

 

[BigJake]

As far as I knw Rian Johnson is the writer and director of Ep. VIII, Kasdan is writing the young Han Solo movie.

Both of which prospects are quite exciting, by the way.

 

[{ Emilia }]

Also, I profoundly wish (pace the LA Times reviewer linked earlier) that we lived in a world where a major commercial franchise casting a woman and a black guy in its lead hero roles was not a major thing because the rest of the movie industry had already figured that shit out long ago. But we don't live in that world, and Rey and Finn are non-trivial as selling points for TFA for apparently a hell of a lot of people. On more than just those grounds, because they're engaging and tremendously fun just as characters... but yeah, on those grounds too, at least for me.

This, exactly this. It's one of the reasons watching TFA is more fun for me than watching ANH. It's not the only one, mind you. But it's definitely one of the reasons.

The others being better acting in general, more engaging storytelling, more personal conflict, better dialogue, better lighting and better cinematography. I always thought that Lucas' style as a director was pretty pedestrian. ESB is way better in that regard.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

TFA is "trash" to pretty much the same degree ANH was "trash." None of it is deep, high-cultural philosophical musing; all of it is damned entertaining, low-culture cinema.

That's about as false an imperative as they come. There is a whole spectrum of quality in films that are not 'deep high-cultural philosophical musing'. Some are very well characterized, some aren't. Some have beautiful visuals, some have well choreographed fight scenes, some have compelling drama, and others don't. Some are original and take risks, and The Force Awakens did not.

You don't have to shut down your expectations for interesting, original storylines just because you don't expect the film to be Citizen Kane. The Force Awakens is some decent quality fun entertainment but being too much a rehash of the original Star Wars is a pretty major flaw.

 

[BigJake]

The Force Awakens is some decent quality fun entertainment but being too much a rehash of the original Star Wars is a pretty major flaw.

Given the context I account it rather more of a virtue. It turned out to be a worthy reminder of just what the central appeal of Star Wars really was. Granted, if we didn't have the prequels to account for I might feel differently.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The Force Awakens is some decent quality fun entertainment but being too much a rehash of the original Star Wars is a pretty major flaw.

Given the context I account it rather more of a virtue. It turned out to be a worthy reminder of just what the central appeal of Star Wars really was. Granted, if we didn't have the prequels to account for I might feel differently.

The film did succeed in being closer to the central appeal of Star Wars than the prequels, but that was because of the characterization and dialog style and not because it recreated so many plot points so specifically. They didn't need Rey's home to be another desert planet full of scavengers and mercenaries, or just make their big threat by one-upping the death star.

 

[BigJake]

Mileage varies. Gotta say I loved the heck out of Jakku, for instance, and did not find it to be a carbon-copy Tattooine (which was a "moisture farming[?!]" planet, not a scavengers' planet) as some appear to see it. That it made explicit the shadow cast by the original trilogy in the shells and ruins of crashed spaceships (and made effective use of them to amp up action scenes) was pretty grand.

Mostly I'm with "Rammy's" arch-parodic comment about "rehashing" over at RLM's comments section:

It was essentially a rehash and the same exact story with different characters, different motivations, a different ending, characters from a previous story that the audience is familiar with who have evolved, a plot that isn't as self-contained, and mystery surrounding a great number of plot elements that weren't in the originals.

 

[{ Emilia }]

It was very different from Tattooine and just as memorable. Tattooine was farms and cantinas. Jakku felt very real because the history was so tangible. The crashed Star Destroyer, Rey living in an AT-AT, the whole concept of scavenging old stuff.

As a sidenote: My browser just auto-corrected Jakku into Jake. If this continues you're going to end up haunting my dreams, Jake.

 

[BigJake]

I don't already?

 

[{ Emilia }]

I'm tempted to change my location field...

 

[BigJake]

 

[Gepard]

Mileage varies. Gotta say I loved the heck out of Jakku, for instance, and did not find it to be a carbon-copy Tattooine (which was a "moisture farming[?!]" planet, not a scavengers' planet) as some appear to see it. That it made explicit the shadow cast by the original trilogy in the shells and ruins of crashed spaceships (and made effective use of them to amp up action scenes) was pretty grand.

Mostly I'm with "Rammy's" arch-parodic comment about "rehashing" over at RLM's comments section:

Really, I think all of the "rehash" complaints come down to frustration over "another fucking Death Star," along with the attendant trench run and single vulnerable spot that has to be hit twice before causing the whole thing to blow. Yes, it takes up a relatively small part of the whole movie but it dominates the action of the third act and comes out of nowhere in the middle of the second act, making it feel perfunctory and unmotivated yet somehow important enough to sideline Finn and Rey at the end of their own damn movie.

I disliked getting a second Death Star in ROTJ, as did plenty of other folks, so you can imagine how we feel about a third installment. Especially when it's so shoddily integrated into the main storyline.

 

[BigJake]

^ Add to which, just think of how many contractors got offed in this outing.

I do get the complaint, even if I don't particularly share it. (Except in that I certainly didn't feel like it "sidelined" Rey and Finn.)

 

[Ithekro]

The thing is that things were similar, but not the same. It took a lot of hits to take out Starkiller Base, not one or two lucky shots. It took a planned pounding that cost them time and fighters. I also took some ground assistance to even get to finish the thing off in time. And it still needed a pounding to finish off. Poe didn't just take a lucky pot shot to kill. It took an skilled effort to fly in and blast stuff until it started to fall apart. The trench run was only there for I think fifteen to thirty seconds to get him there. The rest was bombing runs and dogfights. It wasn't the main thing, nor was it like the run into the Second Death Star. It was different, while being similar in concept.

That and it was mostly an aside of the plot. Something to get them motivation to do something, but not involving the main characters for the most part.

 

[BigJake]

^ Yes, well said and I agree. Still, I can understand how the overall Death Ray concept might be annoying to some.

 

[MANT!]

I do wonder if George Lucas will become hard and bitter like Harlan Ellison?

 

[Ithekro]

The Death Ray across the galaxy concept seemed like a nice innovation, if the effects used didn't scream "the director has no concept of the scale of time and space". Otherwise I had not real problem with it, since even the Resistance people commented that it was just a big Death Star in theory. It wasn't like they were trying to say, "oh no, a new big nasty weapon. How ever do we stop it". They were going, "Okay, this again. Where is the weak spot and how big is the betting pool for torpedoes needed to take it out". They knew what it was, and they accepted it, and got on with their jobs. Just like anyone would do with someone on Earth decided to build a massive battleship to take on the coasts of the Free World. The military commanders wouldn't be in dread, they'd be looked for a way to sink it like any battleship from 70 years ago.