Why New Star Wars Sucks

Chamber005 said:
The REASON the scripts are bad is because George Lucas left it to himself to write them, whereas he wrote the first Star Wars films based solely on Roman and Greek mythology myths.
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They weren't based solely on that. Much of the structure is from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. The rest is from Campbell's book Hero with a Thousand Faces. George only wrote the first one, Episode 4, and was assisted with an uncredited rewrite by Willard and Gloria Hyuck, who wrote American Grafitti. Whatever wit is in that movie was mostly written by them. And is has a better story because George spent years culling it down from a massive treatment to something he could shoot for 7 million dollars. The raw outlines, which have been published, are just as bad and confusing and full of meaningless plot as the prequels. The realities of 1970 era film technology was the pressure that made George focus his story. A real writer, Lawrence Kasdan, wrote the scripts for 5 and 6.
 
Chamber,

I get what you're saying, but if you really think that every other story out there is 100% original, then sadly you're mistaken. I forgot who said it, but someone said there are only so many stories out there. If you really break down every film, there are so many similarities in every single one of them. It's the 'formula' that we shutter to think of.

Now yes he did take a lot of stock characters and ideas from other films, and stories, but he gave us something entertaining nonetheless. Honestly, I don't care where it comes from, and I don't care if it's not 100% original. I mean we live in a world where Star Wars is VERY original in an industry of re-makes and adaptations.

Is he a great writer? No. He knew how to entertain and has lost that ability. But you have to ask why? Was it the script... obviously. It's not only the script though. I mean yes the script is the blueprint, the backbone to the whole production, but the new star wars fell apart on several levels of the production, not just the script.

This is why we say it's about collaboration, and I agree with the videos. When he started off he was being looked at under a microscope, and every step he took, every breath he took was meticulously questioned by the producers. In fact Star Wars (A new hope) was threatened to be shut down.

Now he runs the show independently, and he's his own boss. He doesn't like restrictions (look at why he dropped out of the directors guild), and he likes freedom in doing what he wants. So no one challenges him; No one gives him any restrictions whatsoever. Like McKee says, when faced with boundaries, creativity thrives. If you're given all the freedom in the world, then stories fall apart. (Loosely quoted)

Back on topic, I loved the videos. A friend showed me and I checked it out late at night to see if the next day it would be worth watching all 70 minutes, and I ended up staying up all night watching it. Hilarious take on it, but very intelligent as well. Something like the lack of a real protagonist was very true, and it's funny that I never noticed it.

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Batutta said:
They weren't based solely on that. Much of the structure is from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. The rest is from Campbell's book Hero with a Thousand Faces. George only wrote the first one, Episode 4, and was assisted with an uncredited rewrite by Willard and Gloria Hyuck, who wrote American Grafitti. Whatever wit is in that movie was mostly written by them. And is has a better story because George spent years culling it down from a massive treatment to something he could shoot for 7 million dollars. The raw outlines, which have been published, are just as bad and confusing and full of meaningless plot as the prequels. The realities of 1970 era film technology was the pressure that made George focus his story. A real writer, Lawrence Kasdan, wrote the scripts for 5 and 6.
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Huh, didn't know that. Thanks for that info.
 
Jon Starr said:
Huh, didn't know that. Thanks for that info.
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Hero with a Thousand faces is a non fiction book that distills all the myths ever told down to their basic story beats. He didn't directly take the story from it, just used it to help structure. It's a book that's almost standard reading these days for screenwriters, especially ones telling hero stories. Jeff Katzenberg reportedly gives a copy of it to every writer he hires.
 
The saddest thing to me, is that nearly all the mistakes made are very basic ones. They are the kinds of errors that people make when they are just starting out.

But the caveat for all of this to me is that Lucas (like the rest of us) is perfectly entitled to make whatever he wants, whether it's genius or a stain on the sofa. We could argue forever about his technical contributions to our industry vs. his apparent inability to recognize what makes a good story. But really, he is a guy with deep pockets, lots of business acumen and the desire to make the movie he wants to (and can afford to) make.
 
"The Phantom Menace is the greatest example of cinematic blue balls in the history of motion pictures." Awesome. :cheesy:

And "I heart Frank Oz" ain't bad either. :Drogar-Happy(DBG):
 
Chamber005 said:
I mean, Obiwon dies in the first one and somehow that matters more to Luke than when the people who raised him die? Really?
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Yikes. Uh, Luke didn't like his uncle... who was a dick to him (even IN the movie)... and his mom bowed to his uncle as a victim of circumstance... AND... Luke reacted pretty strongly (hurt) at their murders anyway (again, on screen).

To address some other points... I don't think you can blame any filmmaker for using common story lines for a plot foundation. Most people have similar experiences throughout their lives... which creates universal themes (ideas) and therefore create concepts to which we can all relate.

If the original Star Wars was "stealing" ideas by sharing something with greek mythology then you'd have to hang a million other movies and tv shows with the same noose.

Film reviews are about execution, not conception.

This guy's critical examination of the execution of this movie is well done... accurate... and appropriately compares/contrasts quality work from the same director. (creating a solution to be intellectually grasped by those listening to him as he points out problems.)
 
MattinSTL said:
Yikes. Uh, Luke didn't like his uncle... who was a dick to him (even IN the movie)... and his mom bowed to his uncle as a victim of circumstance... AND... Luke reacted pretty strongly (hurt) at their murders anyway (again, on screen).

To address some other points... I don't think you can blame any filmmaker for using common story lines for a plot foundation. Most people have similar experiences throughout their lives... which creates universal themes (ideas) and therefore create concepts to which we can all relate.

If the original Star Wars was "stealing" ideas by sharing something with greek mythology then you'd have to hang a million other movies and tv shows with the same noose.

Film reviews are about execution, not conception.

This guy's critical examination of the execution of this movie is well done... accurate... and appropriately compares/contrasts quality work from the same director. (creating a solution to be intellectually grasped by those listening to him as he points out problems.)
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I loved the review. Want to be clear on that.

But in regards to stealing ideas, there is a huge difference between CREATING a story and MIMICKING a story. With episode IV George Lucas mimicked an established plot formula, in episode one he didn't. In episode one he actually tried to CREATE something which is why it's so awful.
 
Jim Brennan said:
I'm not all the way through it, but I think the guy is pretty funny in a Steven Wright kind of way. And his analysis is pretty accurate in my opinion.

But these are the dangers of being in a position where nobody can really tell you "no". With very few exceptions, the most well-crafted movies come from collaborative conflict, not from one person who can (and does) pretty much anything and everything they want.
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That was hilarious and he also reminded me of Steven Wright. I agree with his points. I think George Lucas overindulged himself with SFX at the expense of an interesting story. I seem to remember dosing off in the cinema watching Phantom Menace.
 
I think Lucas' creativity lies more in dreaming up weird creatures then writing/directing movies... and that's the real problem. His early success gave him the power to make decisions that he probably shouldn't be making. He's the guy that should be running up to a superior... all excited about a new clay visualization... eager to show it off... and then when the real writer/director asks for an explanation of what this "thing" does for the story... that director/writer would have the veto power to break that little toy on the floor.

I think I just had an epiphany... I think Lucas saw the amazing cash in merchandising and embraced the idea of designing an extensive line of toys vs. telling compelling stories. How many times did Princess Leah's appearance change in the first movie? Twice? Now how about Queen Amidala? A DOZEN??? It just means more toys to "collect".
 
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MattinSTL said:
I think Lucas saw the amazing cash in merchandising and embraced the idea of designing an extensive line of toys vs. telling compelling stories.
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This reminds me of ROTJ, Harrison wanted to kill off Solo, but Lucas wouldn't let him, when asked why, Harrison said, "because George Lucas didn't think he could make any money off a dead Han Solo doll." :Drogar-Happy(DBG)::Drogar-Happy(DBG)::Drogar-Happy(DBG):
 
Anyone ever read "driodMAKER"? Great book on the evolvment of CGI as a direct result of Lucas vision. Yup, the movies are sad, but he has done some pretty amazing things. Part of it is getting together some really talented people to make stuff he wants...
 
dsto said:
Anyone ever read "driodMAKER"? Great book on the evolvment of CGI as a direct result of Lucas vision. Yup, the movies are sad, but he has done some pretty amazing things. Part of it is getting together some really talented people to make stuff he wants...
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No doubt George is responsible for raising the technical quality bar tremendously. If it was left to the studios we'd still be watching mono films in dimly lit shoebox theaters.
 
dsto said:
Anyone ever read "driodMAKER"? Great book on the evolvment of CGI as a direct result of Lucas vision. Yup, the movies are sad, but he has done some pretty amazing things. Part of it is getting together some really talented people to make stuff he wants...
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Yeah, it's a great read. It portrays George as sort of a godfather figure, but without the horse's head.

He fostered so much of the growth in technology we now take for granted (fer crying out loud, the Alpha channel was discovered when he was signing the paychecks.), and he deserves credit for that. But the scary part is that, like his movies, so much of it was dependent on upon his whims and priorities.

But the good news is that the technology could continue to grow with the people who were still working on it, even if it fell out of favor, or was actually abandoned by him. Pixar anyone?
 
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I just finished watching the whole thing and had a great laugh. I am not one who bashes Lucas, or anybody for that matter, but I did see some good points about the plot holes. I love the part about asking random people to define a character. That makes a lot of sense and everybody should do this for their films. Great post and thread.
 
Thanks for this. I, like some of the others, went in for a few minutes and was totally sucked in.
Compelling, funny and so many spot-on points.

I totally agree that Lucas is a maverick in many ways and the state of CGI and VFX today
has been influenced heavily by his standards of quality. He has the ability to weave a great story
but, on the last three, I think he got caught up with being George Lucas.

All the old serials were easy to understand, "cereal-bowl style" adventure stories, not pretentious,
political strategies and convoluted, arc-less characters.

I like Lucas's new idea to make a bunch of visually pleasing, compelling, fun, lower budget films utilizing digital.
Who knows, with room to breathe and the absence of an planet full of fan-boys criticizing his every move,
we may still see something great come from him.

To complete the destruction of Star Wars, we just need a remake of Empire, Kutcher as Luke,
Xzibit as Lando...

Pass the Beefeater!
 
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Blade Borge said:
Yeah we're done here.
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More on the series of videos dissecting TPM. Wow, in retrospect (after wasting almost the entire Friday morning at work) they were pretty depressing.

I must admit in 1999, I really tried hard to justify that film as being good. "Oh, it's a setup movie, you'll see." Looking back, man it really sucked. The characters had no depth whatsoever. It's just flat, flat flat.

One great point was his rip of that quote: "A disruption in communication can mean one thing: Invasion". WTF, that quote set off a red flag with me as well. It could also mean they had a crappy communications system, or a giant space bird flew into their radar dish, right?

LOL at , "we're don't want to attract any attention, so we're just gonna bring Jar Jar Binks and this teenage girl into town."

I wish he had gotten more into the stupidity of the pod race, like the two headed announcers. But the whole thing with the "wager", my head still hurts just thinking about that.

I did like the Darth Maul lightsaber fight, but after his review, not so much. What the hell was that energy field thing that Obi Wan got stuck in? It was like right out of a 1980's Nintendo game like Contra where the character has to wait for the field to open.

I've also got a few of those Phantom Menace toys like you saw in the guy's basement. I think I'm throwing them in the trash. I don't want my kid playing with a Captain Panaka or Boss Nass action figure when he gets older.

Just rambling here, I'm waiting for it to start snowing.........
 
r.e. the power station inside of the palace, "what does that thing power? the universe?"

*laughing out loud, really*


This guy is funny. I watched all of his reviews and I wish there were a lot more... all the Star Trek one's are great too. He's done his homework... These reviews must take a while to put together.


On an off-note... so, can I use CLIPS from movies, CLIPS from songs, etc. as long as I don't present them in unaltered, stand-alone clips?
 
MattinSTL said:
On an off-note... so, can I use CLIPS from movies, CLIPS from songs, etc. as long as I don't present them in unaltered, stand-alone clips?
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Supposedly copyright laws state that you can use them for educational use which I think (in my opinion) this kind of reviews are ( I'm sure that many of us learn something from this kind of reviews...).

But don't quote me on this.
 
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