They really, really weren’t. Lucas still doesn’t seem to know ‘what he was building up to’ with the original trilogy. But what we do know is Star Wars was only ever intended to be one movie (which is blatantly obvious when watching TFA,) before it’s sucess lead to Lucas spitballing everything from 4 to 11 additional movies before tiring out and hastily wrapping everything up in ROTJ. Hence why, an assload of plot threads from ESB getting dropped quickly, or forgotten entirely.
Even if didn't initially, her certainly made it work into a coherent narrative. You see a clear progression of events throughout the movies, which were slowly building up over the course of those movies. The new movies don't even seem to have an inkling as to where they're going in comparison. At the very least, there was more thought put into the OT to make it feel like a coherent trilogy, both in terms of characters and themes throughout.
Which wasn't Lucas but a group effort, from the studio's limits, to Al Lad Jr., to Irvin Kershner, Marcia Lucas,and the like. They also were not consumed with the immense sense of "purpose" that Star Wars has been imbued with. As Bob Ross would say, it was a lot of happy little mistakes. And, from the accounts, I don't for a second think that Lucas had any idea what they were building too. Neither did Tolkien, by the way. The magic came from the process. Now there are new people, influenced by Lucas' own work. So, that magic is now different. I think the new films have a better idea than the OT in terms of BTS ideas and where they want to go. How people accept what is presented on screen is a different story.
That's certainly true. A lot of little influences across the board from all involved contributing to the overall feel. I guess one way of putting it is that they were experimenting as they went along, the result being happy magic. But I still feel that maybe Lucas had some general idea in his head in what he wanted.
He might have, but he certainly wasn't the only mover. Few people regarded Star Wars as nothing more than a silly kid's film. The problem of recapturing that particular magic is that Star Wars now carries with it a burden of greatness that is impossible to recreate. I'm sure that Abrams had a general idea too. He has confirmed as much with stating that he and Rian Johnson reached similar conclusions regarding Rey. Regardless of the process there is a vision there.
They’re not finished. Youre not meant to know where they’re going. Also, people totally didn’t know where the OT was going. Example no.1: a rather large chunk of the audience was positive that the parent reveal in ESB would turn out to be a lie. Not in the least because the reveal hurt Obi-Wan’s characterisation a lot, and made some of his dialogue in ANH even more clunky than usual for Star Wars. Sounds like a familiar state of affairs, doesn’t it?
Yup, but I think this is more about the SW movies than Hollywood movies in general Now, as much I dislike the prequels, at least they weren't generic. I enjoyed the new movies, but it's really hard to forget there are people behind the scenes making sure as many people see them as possible. Writing was on the wall as soon as JJ was hired to direct; just like his Trek movies, this was going to be a repackage of SW into a fun script that people would enjoy but didn't take too many risks. And it worked. Most people loved it, and that was exactly what they needed going out of the gate. Even if you liked the prequels, they were clearly controversial and decisive. Disney needed a solid hit. I think a big part of the OT magic is that nobody thought ANH would be this big hit. Even ESB, which is now generally seen as the best movie, wasn't particularly praised when it first came out. Production was a nightmare, and few people thought these crazy movies would be magic, but they turned out great. Even watching now, ANH really feels like something crafted by someone with a vision rather by a director hired for the job. I'm not sure you can get the 'magic' back because now everyone expects SW to be good and they already know the universe. The prequels had a nice amount of buzz because it was assumed these would be the last ones. Now everyone knows we're going to get as many movies as the public will take. Disney need to keep making movies that they know (or think) will be hugely successful. Problem is, that kind of mindset makes it very hard to take a gamble on the sort of creativity needed for the old magic. Crazy thing is the current SW setup would never greenlight a movie as risky as ANH, the foundation of its success. I think there's a nice parallel with the LOTR movies. I know they were a bigger property that got a lot more buzz, but it took a long time to secure funding and nobody knew how these movies were going to go down until the first one hit cinemas. This huge risk of filming a trilogy in one actually worked, and the films really feel like the project of one man. Then the studios want more, so PJ is basically forced into making these rushed, generic movies with too many battles, too many returning characters, and a pointless love triangle. Even if those movies with good, they wouldn't have felt as 'magic'.
Do we know that Peter Jackson was forced to make The Hobbit movies? I don't remember the production that much, so maybe I'm forgetting something, but I don't remember ever having gotten that impression.
Del Toro was intitially on the project and had actually started pre-production, before leaving due to unknown ‘creative’ reasons. So Jackson stepped up despite intitially being reluctant, only to find Del Toro’s preproduction time was being counted as his preproduction. Preproduction that had already been near-completely scrapped. So Jackson was in a rush, hence what should really have been preproduction still being completed during filming and even post. For what it’s worth, Jackson did seem excited about the project once. Nearly all the creative people involved did. And a lot of what people saw as bad studio interference (for eg. Legolas) was his idea, whereas the good examples of the suits butting in (making LOTR a trilogy) get forgotten.
It's weird to think about but we live in a post SW/post LOTR world when it comes to films. There was a time when speculative fiction (SF: fantasy, science fiction and comic books) were considered box office poison and not serious films. Star Wars was a "dumb kids' film" to the production staff, with few people considering it as any serious contender in the open Hollywood field. LOTR was an insane undertaking that honestly had no rhyme or reason to work, and yet did, largely due to the untapped Australian and Kiwi movie production crews. A lot of credit needs to go towards those crews. You are absolutely right that such risks are no longer acceptable in Hollywood, largely because Hollywood wants to play it very, very, safe. And why wouldn't they? Fewer films are being produced which means their profit margins hinge on less films making back their money. The Hobbit is another story, and it, like Star Wars, was burdened by its own success. The Hobbit is a much smaller tale, operating within the larger world that is expounded upon in LOTR. The story simply wasn't cut out to carry that huge weight like LOTR could. Now, all the BTS troubles did them no favors, but the film trilogy simply wasn't meant to be a trilogy. I think this is best showcased by "An Unexpected Journey" which is far and away the best of the three to me. I firmly believe there is a good film in those three films that could be edited together, but what we got was too long for the material. Production companies are not in to risks any more, period. They will play it safe and make their money as long as the market supports it. Regardless, I don't think Abrams' as a generic as people accuse him of being. Despite the story beats of TFA having similarity to ANH Abrams demonstrates his own touch through characters. To my mind, Rey and Kelvin Kirk are among my favorite characters in the last decade of SF films, with Netflix's Daredevil rounding out the top 3. Ultimately, it will take a large portion of the audience to demonstrate to Hollywood that such risks are worthwhile. Until then, well, we made Star Wars and Marvel successful. We might as well live with it.
I remember reading about how shocked the publisher was when Tolkien dropped off his follow-up to The Hobbit. The 'sequel' to a 300 page childrens book was a 1000 page monster covering an epic quest with a huge array of characters, vast appendices, and plenty of sections written in fictional languages. Pretty amusing, but perhaps not for Peter Jackson. He kinda had the opposite dropped on him.
I think Abrams can turn out great films, but these weren't really his films. He was chosen to direct Star Trek and Star Wars, and he's the perfect choice. Generic isn't all he does well, but Star Trek was a generic masterclass. Boil down all the characters to their simplest personalities, up the action, make it fun and engaging. And it worked. If you're an executive at Disney looking for someone to do your first Star Wars film, JJ is the perfect choice. I don't think he only turns out generic films; I think he was hired to turn out a generic film.
You can boil anything down to simplest elements and find similarities. The proof is in the execution, and in the characters.
Well Star Wars films used to feel "Special" A time for people who barely go see a movie at the theatre to go see one, because they know its going to be good and special. Now, its oh, I get one once a year now.. ho hum.. But as said above, the suits don't want to push any types of limits, so were not going to get some new "revolutionary" star wars film, ( tis why i like the cartoons, they push the boundries)
To be fair, I think this is only part of the issue. Everyone knows Star Wars now. Lightsabers, Jedi, and the Force are all familiar concepts, and the idea of doing a kinda swashbuckling adventure in space isn't novel like it was in the 70s.
Don't know about you but for me and my family yeah it's the one film in the year we all go together to see. Might be the only film we see in the theater.
I was thinking a bit about what "the magic" is for me, and it's when something is new, unique and different. So at this point, there's no way to recapture that since we've had 12 theatrical movies, 3 TV movies if you want to count the Holiday Special and Ewok movies, 6 animated TV series with a 7th premiering in a week or two, and more novels, comics, and video games than I can count.
It's a very intangible thing and individuals continue to dissect these films as if some how they might find it.
Whether it was by design or by happenstance, the OT movies did have a cohesive narrative, as you mentioned. If, indeed, it was by chance, I suppose Lucas lucked out.