Lucas took our critisms of TPM to heart

can you guys stop bitching about our whining, please?

As soon as you stop whining and bitching, chief.

 

This thread is beginning to take a turn for the negative, and the last thing I would want to see is to have it locked. So lets stop the flaming and get back on topic guys for the sake of the thread.

 

As soon as you stop whining and bitching, chief.

No, you'll stop now. All of you. If not, I will lock this thread and extend invitations for 24 hour vacations.

 

Everyone needs to cool their jets - I'm locking this topic for the weekend. You can all come back on Monday, *if* you can behave yourselves.

 

I'm cool as ice, man!

 

Speaking as a newcomer, I have a hard time understanding how people can get into such a heated argument over a movie trilogy. I mean, c'mon--it's just a movie! If you're going to argue about something, why not argue about something meaningful, like the war on Iraq?

 

People do that too.

I think people argue about Star Wars because it doesn't matter at the end of the day. (I mean, it matters on a personal level to some, but it doesn't MATTER. I mean, I'm not going to top myself if I don't think Episode III is up to scratch...)

Hundreds of lives were lost and international relationships were irrevocably changed because somebody thought that Saddam had something.

Nobody's life is going to be destroyed because somebody got Lucas' intentions behind Jar Jar wrong.

 

Tracer_Bullet

Yes how original of you.

By your logic nobody should ever argue because there are always more important issues to argue about.

 

Arguing about things that don't matter is a nice way to temporarily forget about the stress of things that do matter.

And, hey, just because we have heated (though friendly...mostly) discussions about STAR WARS doesn't mean we're ignorant or uncaring about things in the real world.

 

There is a difference between discussing and actually arguing (getting into a verbal fight). I have no problem with discussion--in fact, that is why I joined this forum--to discuss and talk about Star Wars.

However, the above was turning into an argument. At least, that is what I consider conversations that start to consist of complaints about "bitching" and "whining" to be. And like I said, I think it is ridiculous to get into a heated argument like this over something so as trivial Star Wars. I was just trying to suggest that people lighten up a little.

 

Anyway, should we get back on topic?

About AOTC: GL may have put a couple of things in there to please the fans, but I don´t think he changed anything just because some fans disliked certain aspects of TPM.

 

How big a role did JJ initially have? Even a few more scenes wouldn't make a difference and how do you get past the fact that Lucas could have changed his mind after he filmed them?

And how do you get past the fact that the Jar Jar scenes were storyboarded, scripted, directed, acted, animated, edited, scored, etc. long after the Jar Jar hatred had begun? How do you get past the fact that it would make no sense for Lucas to spend time and money (his own as well as everyone else's) to create Jar Jar scenes that he just planned to cut anyway because of fan backlash? Wouldn't it make more sense to simply cut down Jar Jar's role from the first?

Either way, if he needed to cut the film for time, he chose the JJ scenes to go.

And it wasn't just the Jar Jar scenes. He chose to cut the family scenes, the Lost 20 scene, the extended Mace/Jango duel, and Padme and Anakin's trial, and some Clone War scenes, among others. If he had only cut the Jar Jar scenes, then yeah, I could see your point. But he didn't. In fact, he cut several scenes that many criticized him for cutting before the movie even came out, and afterwards complained that they added so much to the movie: "He cut them so he could leave in that stupid droid foundry scene!" was a typical lament.

Hmmm. And let's not forget hpow toned down JJ was. I don't think JJ shaking ObiWans hand in that fashion compares to the outright clutz who landed on his crotch in TPM.

When did he land on his crotch? And he's toned down, as befitted his position as a Representative, but he still acts goofy when he's excited. He still says "mesa" and "yousa," which triggered the "racial slur" accusations with TPM.

EDIT: ANd Ultimate, my main point was it doesn't sound like JJ had this huge role you mentioned. Remember the actual speech he gave? A few more of those kinds of speeches doesn't exactly broaden his character too much.

I think the point Ultimate was trying to make is that Jar Jar had a much bigger role, and that if Lucas was really caving in to fan demands by cutting down Jar Jar, why would he waste everyone's time and money to film scenes he never planned to use? Lucas isn't poor but he doesn't have limitless cash either, and he's been a penny pincher for most of his filmmaking career.

Moreover, why wouldn't he just come out and say that Jar Jar had a smaller role because of what fans said? The way you tell it, Lucas decided, after wasting who knows how many tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars and many hours of his own time, not to mention his cast and crew's time, to create and film Jar Jar scenes, then said, "Well, the fanboys really hated him, as we've known for two years, so I'll cut them out. Sorry, folks", and then decided to annoy the very fans he was hoping to win back by pooh-poohing the very notion that he made changes because of their complaints.

If that's what Lucas did, and his aim in so doing was to win back disgruntled fans, he was using some kind of reverse psychology I can't begin to comprehend.

And they obviously weren't even important enough to include in the deleted scenes.

How do you know they "weren't important enough"? Most of the deleted scenes in the TPM DVD were inconsequential fluff, and some of the deleted scenes on the AOTC DVD were redundant and added nothing to the story. The Lost 20 scene, on the other hand, was not included in the deleted scenes and that was important.

But I would like to know the extent of how much effort went into the filming of these scenes.

Probably the same effort that went into filming Jar Jar's scenes in TPM.

 

How many minutes of JJ scenes were cut? You seem to know Shelley from your comment "that Jar Jar had a much bigger role". I'm just interested so we can actually see.

 

"How do you know they "weren't important enough"? Most of the deleted scenes in the TPM DVD were inconsequential fluff, and some of the deleted scenes on the AOTC DVD were redundant and added nothing to the story. The Lost 20 scene, on the other hand, was not included in the deleted scenes and that was important."

why on earth were they scripted, storyboarded, and shot then?

 

why on earth were they scripted, storyboarded, and shot then?

It's not unusual for films to cut scenes. Sometimes, something looks great on paper but just doesn't come off well on the set, or sometimes a scene that works in the script just doesn't work when edited into the film. It's not like Lucas is the only director in the world to do something like this.

For instance, in the film SHANGHAI NOON, there was an elaborate, 5 minute action sequence involving an exploding steam locomotive that was shot and edited with effects added in post only for the director to realize that having such a lengthy action set-piece so early in the film simply didn't work and actually slowed down the pace of the story, and thus a scene that cost a lot of time and money wound on the cutting room floor.

 

"Lucas is a businessman, and a damn good one. He thought his fans would dig TPM, and when a lot of them didn't he went back to the drawing board."


Correct agent cop.

 

^^^
But $400 million+ at the box office, good VHS and DVD sales, and high ratings on network on television tells me that a lot of fans--actually a hell of a lot of fans!--did like TPM. And Lucas, being the smart business man he is, would actually be compelled to not cave in to the negative fanboy pressure of the minority. In fact, good business sense dictates otherwise.

 

Star Wars fans that is. All the STar Wars fans I know saw TPM regardless of what they heard and added it to their collection too. It's stupid but so are obsessed fans like myself. I got Alien 3 and I disliked it but I wanted a complete collection. Lucas has a built in audience. There was no way the film wasn't going to make hundreds of millions.

 

I saw TPM without reading reviews (they're crap, anyway). I added it to my collection because I liked it. It seems like lots of other fans did too. Plus, Star Wars fans alone can't generate $400+ million. I wasn't (and still am not, really) a huge SW fan, neither are my friends, but we saw it a couple times. Regular folks were allowed, and certainly did, see TPM more than once.

Anyway, I don't think Lucas really listened much to the fanbase. He may have lowered Jar Jar's screentime a little, but that's it. For all those fanboys who think everyone hates Jar Jar: trying going out on the street. JarJar toys and products were big sellers, and a lot of common folk did indeed like Jar Jar. You've gotta admit that he can be funny. My mom kept saying she hated him, but still laughed during the Gungan battle.

Cometgreen

 

"I got Alien 3 and I disliked it but I wanted a complete collection."

So you like wasting your money? By your logic you should own the Episode I and II dvd to complete the collection, even when you dislike them?

 

Yeah, that whole "complete the collection" argument is pretty hollow. Try again.

 

I don't know- I can guarantee that I'll be buying Episode III on DVD, no matter what.

Obviously, the fact that I like I&II helps...

 

It's not an argument Durwood. I'm telling you what I did. Sheesh, any excuse to disagree!

 

The prequels sell fantastic their first week, and then drop-off very large and very quickly. TPM sold 2 million copies on DVD in its first week. Through the end of 2001, it sold 2 million more, and then dropped off the charts. AOTC sold 7 million in its first week, then sold, on average, 200,000 per week through the end of 2002.

 

This was once an interesting and lively discussion about TPM. I am willing to give it another shot and see if we can continue this topic. If not... well, then it gets locked...