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I think Star Wars needs to stick to the one film every 3 years route and then a 10 or 15 years hiatus until the next trilogy otherwise we won't have the time needed to discuss/debate/have inter-board civil wars about them to death.
Then 10 years later when we're just about done, someone posts "I think I'm just about done with Star Wars", they can announce another trilogy and we can all kiss another 10 years of our life goodbye.
How about a Samuel L Jackson one man show, where he plays every motherfucker on the motherfucking screen!
"What" ain't no planet I ever heard of. I said Huttese, motherfucker, do you speak it?
Ok, that was a shamefull display and I am finished with it.
For now. They really haven't been at it that long, and I would argue that this pace is unsustainable. People will get burnt out quickly. House of Marvel is a house of CARDS!
Ha, ha. Maybe not, don't know. But it doesn't seem like the experiment has run long enough for anyone to brand it the new proven paradigm. sure, the Avengers did resoundingly well. But it was a good movie which deserved to do well of it's own accord. I think Marvel is only a couple box office flops away from the whole thing shrinking back down to a 1 film/ 2-3 years situation. How many suits need to get nervous before the plug is pulled?
Part of Marvel's paradigm is that the individual movies (outside of Avengers) are done on fairly modest budgets, so profitability is not that much of a stretch to reach. With Avengers, they probably have guaranteed the next 2-3 be pretty successful. I think their big risk is the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Whereas the Iron Man, Cap, and Thor sequels can be sold on the back of the Avengers, GtoG has to stand on its own, and it certainly could come off looking silly.
(One thing I'd like to see done with one these franchises is for them to shoot two movies consecutively with the same characters, but have one be a huge specticle movie while the other one be essentially a relationship drama / stage play. I picture this for the X-men, where you have a bunch of characters having been captured and incarcerated by the villian in such a way to mute/dilute their powers, and have the movie be entirely about the dramatic relationships between the characters while at the same time them solving the dilemma of how to escape. The two movies shot as one would temper the budget of the larger movie, and the second movie while likely not to be as big a hit, would probably earn enough overall to justify itself. Something like this could be done in a Star Wars universe as well, where you could have two stories occuring consectutively. Either one would be written such that they could stand alone, but once taken as a whole would tell a richer story.)
But anyways, one tanked superhero movie will not stop anyone. Look at Green Lantern. No one looks at that and goes, oops we better stop making superhero movies. One stinker just means that they will focus on other characters. In addition, at some point they will also start to kill off some of their characters. It's only a matter of time until they decide that paying RDJ $50 million a movie is no longer worth it, and Iron Man will be the first to go.
Huh, wait, what were we talking about. Oh yeah, Star Wars. At this stage, they better give us one good one before they start counting on making them forever. To me, there really will be a LOT of pressure on this first one, not just to be profitable, but to be good enough to make a boatload of money.
Originally Posted by skierpete
GtoG has to stand on its own, and it certainly could come off looking silly.
But not as silly as a Black Panther movie according to Marvel!
Part of Marvel's paradigm is that the individual movies (outside of Avengers) are done on fairly modest budgets, so profitability is not that much of a stretch to reach.
It's kinda weird that we're now in a world where 140/150 million is considered a fairly modest budget for a movie...
I think you could do smaller-scale Star Wars films on a smaller budget, though. Remember, Lucasfilm put out three modestly (Lucas) funded prequels which were massive in scale and positively dripping in excessive CGI. Now of course they're under new management and as a result probably working under a more mainstream/wasteful Hollywood system, but surely Disney have retained at least a good chunk of the staff at Lucasfilm. These are people who know how to make reasonably-priced Star Wars and are sitting on a ton of resources from the other films. Sure, for one of the numbered main-saga episodes you need your Jedi running amok, huge space battles etc, but Lando Calrissian's Badasssss Song might only need to be set in one or two places with much smaller action. I'm throwing a lot of generalizations into play I know, but it's still plausible.
And speaking of effects, you know something I'm praying to see in these new movies? Actual stormtroopers, in actual stormtrooper armour. No more of this 'all CG clonetroopers' shit, they never looked right.
I just hope they ditch the greenscreen-for-everything approach to environments. I recently rewatched a snippet of Episode III, and with each passing year, the entire movie looks more and more like a video game cutscene (especially FMV games like the latter Wing Commanders that also used a lot of greenscreen to cut budgets). Everything has this weird etheral shine and feel to it, removing any sense of actual physical matter.
I was reading the entertainment weekly article, which added no "new" information. But it made me realize something that I've maybe already said, but now really believe. It is in fact possible to make a GREAT Star Wars movie. It probably won't happen, but maybe, just maybe, it will. And in the end, that's the reason we should be happy its being made.
I think a lot of that will come down to the director. To get all esoteric for a second, we need someone who understands the power of myth, who has a bit of romanticism in them and can turn that into a story of high adventure. Lucas used to have it, but it was long gone by the prequels; sure, the thought he still got it, but it was a very much academic, tick off the Campbellian beats kind of feel. All theory, no heart. He'd lost the taste for telling adventure stories, and was more into the cynical political stuff.
That's why I would genuinely love to see Del Toro do one of these movies. Okay, so he has a very set stylistic identity that may have to be toned down a lot, but the guy gets the power of myth and he's full to bursting with the heart true mythical storytelling requires (Case in point: Pan's Labyrinth). You could even argue that the Hellboy films are an example of him putting his mind to sci-fi/fantasy worldbuilding. While those films were disappointments financially, creatively they more than show he has the right head for it.
Of course, as with all these prospective name directors we bandy about the next question is inevitably, "But would he do it?", which is debatable. But if you're looking for someone to reinstate what made the OT great while providing a fresh vision, you could certainly do worse. But that's just me playing armchair pundit.
Possibly. I've always maintained that the prequels are full of interesting ideas that were failed by the execution. But at the same time, I'd rather keep an open mind about these new ones. Either way, they serve as a valuable lesson in keeping expectations in check, good or bad.
Now of course they're under new management and as a result probably working under a more mainstream/wasteful Hollywood system, but surely Disney have retained at least a good chunk of the staff at Lucasfilm. These are people who know how to make reasonably-priced Star Wars and are sitting on a ton of resources from the other films.
The difference between Lucas at the helm and "some guy" is huge. Look how Apple lost their touch without Steve Jobs during the 90s. ILM's edge over other creative companies is from the passion people have for working with Lucas and Star Wars - only Peter Jackson and James Cameron get those types of results, Jackson because he brought home the bacon to an entire small country, and, unlike Lucas, Cameron's always willing to spend huge amounts of money to get things done.
But why was that something he wished to explore when the OT was all about Space Opera Adventure? He robbed the prequels of fun and made them trivial.
The difference between Lucas at the helm and "some guy" is huge. Look how Apple lost their touch without Steve Jobs during the 90s.
I agree with your point about Apple, which makes me think they are on the down-spin soon (but that's another discussion) but to say that Lucasfilm would lose its touch would assume he still had it. OR that Lucas was the only driving force behind Star Wars. Neither of which is true.
Look - there is no way a movie is going to hold up to Star Wars or Empire in many of our minds. Those that had those movies as their youth. There's a huge pinch of nostalgia that affects everyone's judgement. (Almost Universally a person's favorite music is the stuff he/she listened to in their teens/early twenties.) No new movie will be able to capture that feeling. But the failure of the prequels were more than that. As I've watched them with my daughter I've been able to set aside the dissapointment, and realized there are some good things about them, but they just move from Point A to Point B with no flair, no rythym.
A new movie with fresh blood - with filmmakeres that really want to honor what Star Wars is all about, good be really good. (And I have no problem with Del Toro as a director, and he is in bed with Disney, but I can't imagine him taking the time away from all his other stuff. Plus, he had an oppurtunity at a big epic and decided to step away from it.)
The hatred for the prequels has already begun to mellow with age, but they are never going to be regarded as good or interesting movies, for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they are not good or interesting movies.
Absolutely NO ONE wants to see a "small" Star Wars offshoot movie. NO ONE. Star Wars is supposed to be MASSIVE. That's why it's called STAR WARS.
I don't know, a Herzog documentary about Nerf Herders would be pretty cool.
A few posts back, Duke suggested ac character who is Han Solo's daughter. I know in the EU books Han and Leia had a daughter. I suggest Mary Elizabeth Winstead for the role.
Chaz, Mary Elizabeth Winstead would appeal to even the most...Die Hard fans, if she were the daughter of Solo and Leia!
Iron Man 2 took a lot of flack around these parts, and Captain America is a much better movie than any of the prequels. I don't think there's anything objective about the prequels relative merits in this case, though "interesting" is not the easiest judgment to refute.
I'm hoping they aim for "entertaining". That's the change I'm most looking for.
Revenge of the Sith is alright. But I feel like you'd have to be stubborn not to feel that Phantom Menace is inert and uninteresting, and Attack of the Clones is, at times, borderline Ed Wood-ian. Let's not get revisionist here -- those movies were so borderline bad that I was genuinely stunned that I sat through Revenge of the Sith without once wanting to leave.
I just feel that a lot of people have already decided in themselves that these movies are going to be rote, corporate and soulless when we know next to nothing about them. And frankly, this upsurge of George Lucas authorship support is kind of hypocritical considering, I don't know, the last thirteen years. Just to remind people, up until a few weeks ago the overwhelming consensus was that Lucas was a burnout hack whoring out SW for every last penny he could squeeze out of it. This:
Was only a couple of months ago. And it's not like Star Wars Detours was being hailed as some creatively exciting new direction for the franchise either.
Look, Disney may fuck it up, and the new movies may turn out to be cynical and played safe. But writing it off at this stage is just as much fanwank as 'Popular actor A needs to be Character B' or speculating about directors.
In terms of expectations maybe but please... there are far, FAR worse movie series's of the last decade.
The difference between Lucas at the helm and "some guy" is huge. Look how Apple lost their touch without Steve Jobs during the 90s. ILM's edge over other creative companies is from the passion people have for working with Lucas and Star Wars - only Peter Jackson and James Cameron get those types of results, Jackson because he brought home the bacon to an entire small country, and, unlike Lucas, Cameron's always willing to spend huge amounts of money to get things done.
What? I'm sorry, did you just describe Lucas as a creative person with a passionate focus? Can I have some of what you're smoking? Or perhaps you were describing the George Lucas of 25 years ago, and completely ignoring the money obsessed Hutt with absolutely fuck all regard for quality he morphed into in the ensuing years?
A 'movie franchise' draft! THAT'S a novel idea!
And frankly, this upsurge of George Lucas authorship support is kind of hypocritical considering, I don't know, the last thirteen years.
You mean the same George Lucas who made THX 1138? And Raiders? And American Graffiti? And Jurassic Park? And invented Star Wars? And founded ILM and Lucas Arts? Yeah fuck that guy. I'm not convinced that anyone, and I mean ANYONE except Lucas could make a Star Wars movie that looks and sounds as good as the prequels for in the 100 / 120 mil ballpark (I guess that's about 150 adjusted for inflation). Since we're using IM2 and Cap as examples, both had similar budgets to the prequels and Iron Man 2 had practically no action and Captain America looked pretty stagy and chitzy except for the last ten minutes or so. Even if Disney throws a quarter billion on the screen to make Episode Seven, it still won't have the visual touch that a Lucas production has .... just like Nolan's Batman films lacked Burton's visual flair, and I seriously doubt that SW will get the type of story-telling upgrade that Batman got.
I'd also like to say that Lucas is a fantastic action director, I mean seriously. His tracking and pacing are amazing. Better than The Wachowskis, better than Renny Harlin, John McTiernan, Richard Donner, Sam Raimi, better than everybody except John Woo and maybe James Cameron. If Lucas' career was in the same spot as Copalla's or Oliver Stone's and he was directing Statham movies, we'd all be saying "Holy shit, these Lucas action films kick ass". Go back and watch Obi Wan fight Jango Fett on Camino - the fight involves a jet pack man, a spaceship, and a laser sword dude in the rain jumping around a landing platform hundreds of feet above ocean and Lucas makes it all look easy - it's that kind of SW we're not going to see anymore. It's the distinct action that makes SW, even the prequels, special. That's why kids like the prequels, you dummies - they like action. Kiss it goodbye though. What we can expect is to see is a JJ Abrahms' Star Trek movie set in a Galaxy Far Far Away.
Honestly, I hate to sound like I'm damning the rest of this thread to irrelevance, but Star Wars is SUCH a massive anomaly that I really can't understand how ANYONE can imagine a Disney-led Star Wars movie. Could be better than the prequels. Could be worse. We have no script, no director, no cast. All these films have been made in a very unusual bubble so far. Switching bubbles may have an effect on quality, but it's preposterous to know what kind.
I sure hope they don't suck shit, though.
George Lucas' achievements as a young artist are undeniable, and his pushing of filmmaking technology has permeated the entire industry--this is without question. But the prequels are proof positive that if you let a particular skillset sit in the shed for twenty years, it's gonna get rusty.
Ask any of the actors on the prequels if Lucas was a good director. I've seen enough of them interviewed over the years, sometimes you have to read between the lines, sometimes not, but I'm pretty sure you'd get a resounding "no".
I respectfully disagree. I was referring to the action pacing, which I feel extremely tight and easy to follow. And as for the weakness of JJ's ST, I'm referring to scope. The end of Clones has a giant fight with three huge monsters, then a fight with dozens of Jedi, then a land war between thousands of robots and troopers including tanks and air vehicles, followed by a four person fight in which we see Yoda use a light saber for the first time after three movies and 20 years. JJ's Star Trek ends with, as Joe Bob Briggs often like to point out, "shoot-out in a warehouse", and there's not much action in the movie ... for example, one "money shot" scene has Kirk outrun a monster for 30 seconds before falling off a cliff. The monster never comes back later. Wow.
Look, there's only about three guys who can handle the scope of Star Wars action - Lucas, James Cameron, Sam Raimi, John Woo - and for all we know Joss Weedon's work on "Avengers" was a fluke. Peter Jackson's work uses a lot of cheats, usually helicopter shots then close ups, and the camera is way more static than it was in any of the prequels - there's a reason you never feel you get a "good look" at most of the monsters and locations, because the creature design and sets don't stand up to the same scrutiny as Lucas / ILM work. "Avengers" is guilty of this as well - who were the hero's fighting in the end? Oh yeah, "aliens" that looked like they were crapped out of my ass. The snake monster was pretty tight though, too bad we had already seen the exact same monster the year before in TF3.
I'm sure Disney will breathe new life into SW and the product will stay relevant. But SW without Lucas will be like Bond without Sean Connery or the Andy Grifith Show without Don Knotts. It's never as good as the first time.
I think both...Attack of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith, are far superior to...The Phantom Menace. I think that Ewan McGregor was excellent as Obi-Wan. I was as interested in Obi-Wan's story as much as the downfall of Anakin Skywalker. I do enjoy...parts of TPM. I think George Lucas is a good director, that ended the first...2 trilogies of Star Wars in Spectacular fashion. Maybe the Sequels will have more action, and people won't hate them as much without George Lucas as a lightening rod. I do hope that there will be more than...One Jedi, in this new Sequel Series.
I let this reply to my own post slide...
You might not really "get" what makes SW special.
...but then to follow up with this...
I respectfully disagree. I was referring to the action pacing, which I feel extremely tight and easy to follow. And as for the weakness of JJ's ST, I'm referring to scope. The end of Clones has a giant fight with three huge monsters, then a fight with dozens of Jedi, then a land war between thousands of robots and troopers including tanks and air vehicles, followed by a four person fight in which (and esspecially this ) we see Yoda use a light saber for the first time after three movies and 20 years. JJ's Star Trek ends with, as Joe Bob Briggs often like to point out, "shoot-out in a warehouse", and there's not much action in the movie ... for example, one "money shot" scene has Kirk outrun a monster for 30 seconds before falling off a cliff. The monster never comes back later. Wow.
Look, there's only about three guys who can handle the scope of Star Wars action - Lucas, James Cameron, Sam Raimi, John Woo - and for all we know Joss Weedon's work on "Avengers" was a fluke. Peter Jackson's work uses a lot of cheats, usually helicopter shots then close ups, and the camera is way more static than it was in any of the prequels - there's a reason you never feel you get a "good look" at most of the monsters and locations, because the creature design and sets don't stand up to the same scrutiny as Lucas / ILM work. "Avengers" is guilty of this as well - who were the hero's fighting in the end? Oh yeah, "aliens" that looked like they were crapped out of my ass. The snake monster was pretty tight though, too bad we had already seen the exact same monster the year before in TF3.
I'm sure Disney will breathe new life into SW and the product will stay relevant. But SW without Lucas will be like Bond without Sean Connery or the Andy Grifith Show without Don Knotts. It's never as good as the first time.
...what fucking drugs are you on???
There's a reason Lucas was able to get such kinetic action in the prequels - because none of the elements were there. There were litterally no physical restrictions to him or his camera - thats fucking cheating. Jackson grounded his movies in real locations and the best fucking job of directing real compelling action scenes.
You mean the same George Lucas who made THX 1138? And Raiders? And American Graffiti? And Jurassic Park? And invented Star Wars? And founded ILM and Lucas Arts? Yeah fuck that guy.
No, I didn't mean that George Lucas. I meant the public perception of Lucas today. I never said anything against Lucas's achievements in the 70s and 80s.
EDIT: Let me just clear something up here: Between 1999-2005, I was one of those staunch prequel defenders who would stick up for Lucas even if I didn't completely like everything about the films. Even today, I can still watch them and enjoy them for what they occasionally pull off, and for what they tried to do (Even if that entails a lot of cringing). I've always considered them as films packed with interesting ideas ill-served by their delivery, and one of the few cases where my geekness overtakes my critical faculties to enough of an extent where, with the miracle of chapter skip, I can roll with the shit stuff and re-immerse myself in the universe. But even in recent years, finally realizing that the prequels were a lot more poorly handled than I was originally prepared to admit, I never reached the point of actively hating them.
In short, I've gotten in a lot of arguments on this subject over these last 13 years. Hearing all this positive Lucas/prequel stuff the last few weeks, I honestly wonder where the fuck some of these people were back then.
I think both...Attack of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith, are far superior to...The Phantom Menace. I think that Ewan McGregor was excellent as Obi-Wan. I was as interested in Obi-Wan's story as much as the downfall of Anakin Skywalker. I do enjoy...parts of TPM. I think George Lucas is a good director, that ended the first...2 trilogies of Star Wars in Spectacular fashion. Maybe the Sequels will have more action, and people won't hate them as much without George Lucas as a lightening rod. I do hope that there will be more than...One Jedi, in this new Sequel Series.
I do agree with McGregor being great as Obi-Wan. He's the only one that seems to get his character right and does a real good job, but you can make a case that him and Palpatine were the easiest characters to get right since we saw them in earlier films, so there was a base to understand what there motivations were, characters like Padme and Anakin took more effort to get right and in the end they didn't even bother and everyone else is either miscast or just a plain out terrible actor. But really in the end the thing that made the prequels so bad was the writing and the pacing, which through most of the movies, even the third one, made no sense. So while I felt alot of the direction was flat out bad and terrible the thing that sunk it in my opinion was the screenplays and how Lucas felt he needed to recon and shoehorn everything to make sense, which did not work.
Empire has a breakdown of potential directors.
http://www.empireonline.com/features/star-wars-director-rumour-control
One name they don't mention is Darabont. I wonder if he's in the mix at all.
Out of everyone listed I like Brad Bird, Andrew Stanton, Del Toro, David Yates, and possibly Joseph Kosinski. Really the director just needs to be able to pull off great visuals because I have alot of faith in Arndt to deliver a great screenplay after Toy Story 3 and Little Miss Sunshine. I think as long as this happens I don't see anyway it could be worse than the prequels.
No, I didn't mean that George Lucas. I meant the public perception of Lucas today. I never said anything against Lucas's achievements in the 70s and 80s.
EDIT: Let me just clear something up here: Between 1999-2005, I was one of those staunch prequel defenders who would stick up for Lucas even if I didn't completely like everything about the films. Even today, I can still watch them and enjoy them for what they occasionally pull off, and for what they tried to do (Even if that entails a lot of cringing). I've always considered them as films packed with interesting ideas ill-served by their delivery, and one of the few cases where my geekness overtakes my critical faculties to enough of an extent where, with the miracle of chapter skip, I can roll with the shit stuff and re-immerse myself in the universe. But even in recent years, finally realizing that the prequels were a lot more poorly handled than I was originally prepared to admit, I never reached the point of actively hating them.
In short, I've gotten in a lot of arguments on this subject over these last 13 years. Hearing all this positive Lucas/prequel stuff the last few weeks, I honestly wonder where the fuck some of these people were back then.
Well, I've been a registered user since January. It's pretty easy to see where any Lucas defenders are - they make a couple post saying something positive about Lucas, then they're told that they're on drugs or that they're assholes or have no taste, and they can either politely disappear or FLAME ON for page after page. So yeah .... Lucas is the worst, Tron Legacy, John Carter, Captain America, Thor, and Pirates 4 are Fannnnnntastic and I can't wait to see these awesome Harry Potter type Disney SW movies about some obnoxious kids learning to use the force.
Seacrest Out.
Whedon's success with the Avengers was a fluke?! Actually its what he has been doing since Buffy, just on a huge scale. Buffy, Angel, Firefly and even Dollhouse are about groups of people who manage to work together, despite their flaws and break downs within the group. Then there is all the endlessly quotable dialog.
I find the climax of AOTC boring. Its spectacle just for the sake of it. I do like Yoda laying down the law with a lightsaber. The flaw of the prequels is that Lucas seems to be more interested with the effects than the story and the characters.
