Speculation What Changed to Prompt Lucas to Outline an ST?

RT rating for TPM: 57% (rotten), IMDB rating: 6.5/10, Metacritic: 51/100
RT rating for AOTC: 67% (fresh), IMDB rating: 6.7/10, Metacritic: 53/100
RT rating for ROTS: 80% (fresh), IMDB rating: 7.7/10, Metacritic: 68/100
RT rating for ANH: 93% (fresh), IMDB rating: 8.8/10, Metacritic: 91/100
RT rating for ESB: 97% (fresh), IMDB rating: 8.8/10, Metacritic: 78/100
RT rating for ROTJ: 79% (fresh), IMDB rating: 8.4/10,Metacritic: 52/100

In bold are the top three for RT, IMDB, Metacritic, respectively. Seems to me the best critically reviewed films were Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, and Empire Strikes Back.

We're off topic though.

 

Did Lucas say that this was what the new trilogy was going to be about?

 

It was from a TIME magazine interview where he described the main themes of each trilogy.

Clarke, Gerald; Worrell, Denise (May 23, 1983). "I've Got to Get My Life Back Again". TIME. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953916-3,00.html.

Denise Worrell. (1989). Icons: Intimate Portraits. Atlantic Monthly. ISBN 0-87113-306-7.

 

This is what implied means. And the idea that they are arguable, which is what I said, is proven by the fact that I can give examples things as matching these elements, or implying they happen as a result, where you don't agree.

Im sure if you had a number of people read the text that you have provided with the info on each element, some would see what I'm saying, and some would side with your interpretation of them.

Arguable.

And for the record, I have not stated MY interpretaion of these things, just that its not unreasonable to see them another way.

 

Yup.......writing is a drug.

 

Strictly speaking, anything is arguable because people can argue about anything. I can argue that Luke's lightsaber was orange in RotJ, when clearly it was green, but that doesn't mean I can't argue that it was orange.

Nobody can argue that the examples you gave fit the descriptions given.

Magic Flight: Luke drags his redeemed father onto the shuttle and flees the about to be destroyed Death Star, flying back to his friends with his personal part of the boon.
does not fit:

Having found bliss and enlightenment in the other world, the hero may not want to return to the ordinary world to bestow the boon onto his fellow man.
Campbell: "When the hero-quest has been accomplished, through penetration to the source, or through the grace of some male or female, human or animal, personification, the adventurer still must return with his life-transmuting trophy. The full round, the norm of the monomyth, requires that the hero shall now begin the labor of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess, back into the kingdom of humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, the planet or the ten thousand worlds. But the responsibility has been frequently refused. Even Gautama Buddha, after his triumph, doubted whether the message of realization could be communicated, and saints are reported to have died while in the supernal ecstasy. Numerous indeed are the heroes fabled to have taken up residence forever in the blessed isle of the unaging Goddess of Immortal Being."

Rescue from Without: Luke returns to his friends who helps him achieve his success, and they rejoice in victory, which implies they will be with him as he assimilates to the new life that will come from his accomplishments.
does not fit

Sometimes the hero must escape with the boon, if it is something that the gods have been jealously guarding. It can be just as adventurous and dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it.
Campbell: "If the hero in his triumph wins the blessing of the goddess or the god and is then explicitly commissioned to return to the world with some elixir for the restoration of society, the final stage of his adventure is supported by all the powers of his supernatural patron. On the other hand, if the trophy has been attained against the opposition of its guardian, or if the hero's wish to return to the world has been resented by the gods or demons, then the last stage of the mythological round becomes a lively, often comical, pursuit. This flight may be complicated by marvels of magical obstruction and evasion." [14]
Classic examples: In many fairy tales and folktales, it is literally a magic flight, such as in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with the hero or heroine transforming objects to stop the pursuit (The Master Maid, The Water Nixie) or transforming himself and any companions to hide themselves (Farmer Weathersky or Foundling-Bird).

and so on for each example. I suggest you read the examples you gave vs. the summary of each step, not just its title.

 

I'm loving all the Campbell; I would totally support more Campbell-based threads on the forum, particularly now; but does it really belong in this particular thread? This one's more about what changed to prompt Lucas to go forward with the Sequel Trilogy, and not so much about the thematic basis in the Campbell-derived Monomyth structural model for said trilogy. But please make sure the Campbell material gets its own thread; it's clearly starting a most fascinating discussion.

 

I apologize if this discussion took it off topic. What I wanted to use the Campbell material for is to show that Lucas has this in his head and telling this story/completing the Saga is what prompted him to proceed with the ST.

 

So you feel that he chose to go forward with the ST specifically out of a desire to either complete the saga, or to tell the story he had devised, and that there were no other considerations? I'm afraid you left that a little unclear.

But hey, no need to apologize. I'd far sooner have Campbell-themed threads in this forum than some of the bunk we've been seeing. Please go forward with exploring the way Campbell's ideas will be, or even could be, utilized in the Sequel Trilogy, because I think it would make one hell of a thread. I have a heap of Campbell's books myself (including his biography, which goes into some detail in the latter chapters about how the personal relationship between Campbell and Lucas was formed and how it progressed) and I look forward to seeing where the discussion will go. Count on my contributing to it with great enthusiasm.

 

While we are all huggin' it out here ..... I did understand your meaning of the Campbell material in the context of this topic. In the same context, my point was to say that some may think these things were already covered. But yes, a "Campbell and the ST" thread could get interesting quick!

 

I'm not saying that there were no other considerations, because I think that there was, but I really do think that the main reason that he decided to make the ST was to complete his 9 episode story that he's had since the late 70's. I think the themes he outlined in the TIME magazine interview (which coincide with Campbell), are important to him and he wanted to make sure that they were told.

 

Here's what I think happened: Lucas had, like, a page or two of handwritten notes about the ST from 1979/1980, stuck it in a drawer somewhere, and a lot of it changed with the plot of ROTJ meant to tie up the trilogy. Handwritten notes continue to sit in drawer for decades. Says there will be no ST. Post ROTS, Star Wars brand continues to be strong but does sort of decline. Lucas gets a kick outta working on "Clone Wars" in an advisory capacity creatively, it's not as much of a strain as it was on him making movies. Maybe he would like to do that with more Star Wars. With franchises arguably becoming even more prominent at the box office post "Sith", and the potential for the brand to live on, Lucas kicks it over to Disney, seeing how they've handled Marvel and Pixar. Pages are dusted off, realizes that a whole lot will have to be changed considering the ending of ROTJ, begins to revise treatment. And actually type it up on a word processor this time.

 

According to Filoni, TCW happened. Lucas became so heavily involved with the show that made him start writing the story treatments for the ST.

 

I believe that TCW got Lucas to do the ST. If one looks at his involvement in the show, one can see it grow throughout the seasons. He was clearly enjoying working on TCW, and that got him thinking about future plans. He got used to others doing the grunt work thanks to TCW, and thus the idea of someone else doing the ST was born.

 

Let me try to clearify what I meant to get at with my original question of "What Changed" because this and what TR is saying above has a lot to do with it.

I was partially asking what may have inspired Lucas to start working on the ST again, but was really looking at the way the story wound up changing along the way and in production, which by all accounts seems to have thrown a wrench in whatever his ST consisted of when he made those old hand written notes. Let me clearify that a little further becasue I'm not sure if I am making my point clearly here.

For however many different ideas have been considered while writting Star Wars, ultimately everything boils down to having either been an idea that made it into the production, or an idea that was scrapped for whatever reason. Some of the things that made the production may not have done so in thier original form, but they made it in none the less. I am mostly referring to Leia as the sister, and Palpatine meeting his fate in Ep VI.

Leia turning out to be the sister I am only using as an example of an idea that made it in, but not in its original form. In this case, Leia was made the sister because Lucas very much wanted the Twins thing to be present in the story. The reason I'm using this example is because moving forward with an ST is not held up by the sister being Leia and not somebody else. It's when a change that does make it difficult to move forward comes into play that requires a change to be made in order for Lucas to outline the ST.

Moving The Emperors defeat to Ep VI is the example that causes the issue. In earlier drafts/thoughts/ideas, Vader was to die in Ep VI, but the final showdown with The Emperor was to be later. With this and some other things consolidated into ROTJ, whatever he had in mind for the ST would need some pretty drastic overhauling in order to happen.

So my question wasn't so much what changed in the sense of inspiration to work on it, but rather what changed in the story to allow it? That is where my thought/theory that things were placed in the PT and such in order to create a situation where an ST could happen as a true continuation.

 

Well I'm gonna assume the sister / "there is another" role mentioned by Yoda which was apparently a big deal of the ST will instead be transferred to one of Leia and/or Luke's descendants instead.

 

He could be using his ideas that he had for 10-12 for these new movies

 

There was no "10-12" in that sense.

 

Lucas had the Sequels in mind many years ago... already back in the 80ies. Mark Hamill told in an old interview Lucas asked him to play Luke again in 30 years or so. The interview is even somewhere on YouTube.

 

Maybe Luke and Leia discover they have a half Torgruta sister out their

 

Lol, so wrong

 

I understand that, but you are missing my point. Many of the ideas he had for an ST many years ago were consolidated into Ep VI, which is why he said he was no longer going to do an ST. So something must have changed in the story for him to move forward with it now.
But what?

 

A mix of all the things we've been discussing for 5 pages now

 

Not true, this is based on Kurtz's comments. Comments that have been contradicted by the Making of Books and Lucas himself. They do not reflect the interviews George gave post RotJ dealing with the ST or his intro to the re-release of Splinter of the Mind's Eye.