All he is trying to say is "nerds calm down, it's just a movie."
Star Wars: Episode VII: The Nerd Rage Awakens
- Thread starter cooleddie74
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All he is trying to say is "nerds calm down, it's just a movie."
Abrams didn't direct Cloverfield but he did direct Mission:Impossible 3. He also left Lost not long after the pilot. And he'll only be directing The Force Awakens.
Yeah, of those only Alias and Super 8 are really his, he did work on the rest of that stuff, but the majority of the work was done by other people. Lost was Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, Cloverfield was Drew Goddard and Matt Reeves, Fringe was Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman. My definition of a production being a certain person's is if they wrote/directed or if they were the show runner.
Yeah, that's the message I'm reading in his comments. He knows how some fans went apoplectic and bat-guano insane when the Prequels (especially Episode I) didn't live up to enormous expectations and wants audiences to realize it's just a movie and no matter how good it may or may not be it's not the most important thing in the world. And he'd be correct.
I think all of us should be thankful that Ben Burtt is back on board for this one.
And Lawrence Kasdan. Any man who helped craft both Empire and Jedi can only be an asset to the new films even if his participation doesn't last through the entirety of the Sequel Trilogy.
I love Kasden, but I think Jedi lacked the momentum and world building that makes Star wars so great. The plot points had become so big that the characters had little time to talk about anything else.. they didn't have regular conversations that made me feel like it was a lived in world. I still loved the film but there was something off about the writing.
Eh, maybe so and it was an inferior script and film compared to Empire but it's still a much better and more well-paced and constructed movie than, say, Attack of the Clones. By 1982-83 George Lucas seemed to be taking some convenient shortcuts to wrap up his original trilogy of films so ROTJ was probably going to suffer both storywise and in execution due to being the final chapter in such a groundbreaking and ambitious series of films. Many of the veterans working on them were probably feeling pretty exhausted by that point.
Don't get me wrong. I love the film. I love how Luke had to ":cross over" for a short time in order to beat Vader. The space battle is the finest ever committed to film. I even like the Ewoks in this film (Now if Jedi was a bit different they might not have fit, but in the movie as it is they are a highlight not a detriment) and the SFX integrating Walkers and Speeders into a forest environment was very well done it work on a visceral level.
Speaking of visceral, Jedi has the single-most visceral moment in all of film, starting with Lando's line "Here goes nothing."
Speaking of visceral, Jedi has the single-most visceral moment in all of film, starting with Lando's line "Here goes nothing."
Those shortcuts as you call them only made for a better more streamlined storytelling. The retcon of Vader being Luke and Leia's father made the conflict with Vader even more personal. And making Leia Luke's sister meant not introducing the sister out of the blue at the end of the story. But where ATOC was about exposition and the middle of the prequels, ROTJ was the conclusion of the OT so they could go all out in the last half of the movie.
Actually those weren't "shortcuts" that I was thinking of. I actually appreciated how they introduced and used those elements and they were successful and with the exception of Carrie Fisher's poor acting when she learns that she's Luke brother and Darth Vader's daughter the entire revelation of the Skywalker Twins was fun to watch and added needed emotional weight and depth to the film. Not giving Han additional character development (in addition to dumbing him down and making him less interesting with weaker dialogue) and rehashing so many elements from the first movie were examples of what I was talking about in George's rush to get the final chapter completed.
Must've been fairly startling for Han to find out Leia was Luke's brother, as well.
"But....you kissed him back on Hoth. What the....
forget it."
forget it."
The dark side runs in the family.
There was a really easy solution to Clones. Anakin and Padme should have fallen in love while being constantly on the run, rather than going back to Naboo. This would have mirrored the pacing of Empire with the action story and the slower paced story (Obi-Wan's investigation). I never really had a problem with the story itself.
Had the entire Anakin-Padmé subplot of Episode II been written and executed a lot better than it was I think the second Prequel might have felt like a much stronger film. The Jango Fett assassination plot mystery with Obi-Wan in the role of police detective tracking down whodunnit and why has always been one of my favorite parts of Episode II and the concluding Battle of Geonosis that launches the Clone Wars is a tremendous set piece and fun to watch unfold even if parts of it feel too much like an overblown video game.
The mediocre dialogue and acting between Hayden and Natalie (thanks heavily to George's wooden direction in those scenes) and the omission of character-building scenes like meeting Padmé's family and seeing her childhood home on Naboo were major contributors to AOTC feeling like such a mess when it didn't need to be given the whole assassination mystery, the beginning in earnest of Anakin's slide to the Dark Side and the start of the Clone Wars. Episode II could have been so much more than it was given the events taking place during the story.
The mediocre dialogue and acting between Hayden and Natalie (thanks heavily to George's wooden direction in those scenes) and the omission of character-building scenes like meeting Padmé's family and seeing her childhood home on Naboo were major contributors to AOTC feeling like such a mess when it didn't need to be given the whole assassination mystery, the beginning in earnest of Anakin's slide to the Dark Side and the start of the Clone Wars. Episode II could have been so much more than it was given the events taking place during the story.
True. He served more of a constructive purpose in the stories where he appeared.
Off topic, just read this. I never realized how much Alec Guinness hated his Wars role:
Alec hated his role as Obi One
Alec hated his role as Obi One
