Does Lucas' vision make TPM the best Star Wars movie?

If I were back at school writing a story and the teacher polished up the spelling and gave me some ideas it would still be my vision. However, if that teacher took it home for a week and wrote pages and pages of story and invented characters, it would no longer be my vision. Infact, if a teacher did that for a major assignment at school or Uni, they would be in big trouble and the work would not be considered the students.

It is the same deal with SW. Lucas isn't getting anyone to simply polish his work. He has, in the past, got them to direct it, write it, invent ideas, compose etc. How is this any different from the example above?

 

In the past, he had polish. It wasn't like they were creating new characters or scenarios.

If somone had polished TPM, they might have changed the word "Yippie" to "Awesome".

 

Much of the dialogue in ESB does not resemble Lucas anyways

The hell it doesn't. It's wittier in places than Lucas's, but it's still the same Lucas-speak.

 

Can we quit with the personal attacks?

 

OK, I'll change my post.

Also, he did not "polish" ESB. Much of it came from his own brain.

PPOR.

 

So I suppose Williams was just polishing Lucas' musical score? Guiness was just polishing Lucas' Oscar Nominee performance?

 

Lucas told Williams what kind of music he wanted in the scenes. He even had temp tracks to give Williams the emotional feel he was looking for. According to Williams, he just took that and created original music that fit what Lucas was looking for.

And Guinness was reading Lucas' dialogue. He didn't like it either. He called it "banal".

So in a manor of speaking, they were just polishing Lucas' vision.

 

...not only that, but Lucas invented the motion picture camera and the concept of filmmaking when he was 16. luckily, someone built it even before Lucas was born, pre-emptivley polishing Lucas's idea.

 

Your sarcasm isn't very compelling.

Look, you guys should be thanking this guy for coming up with the SW concept and making it happen in the first place.

You guys take what you want from the saga, and then complain when the rest of it isn't up to your lofty standards for cinematic entertainment.

As if this wasn't disrespectful enough, you then try to minimalize Lucas' contribution to his own creation.

You guys make it out as though everything that is wrong with Star Wars is Lucas' fault, and everything that went right is the result of someone not allowing George to do what he originally wanted to do.

For better or for worse, Star Wars is from start to finish, George Lucas' vision. Of course it was a collaboration. There are a lot of things that the talented people he employed brought to the table. But in the end, everything that ended up in the finished films is there because Lucas agreed it should be there.

Why is it so hard for some of you to treat Lucas like a fellow human being? You don't like the choices he has made? Fine, tell us what you would have rather seen.

But quit hating him.

 

We are NOT discussing the poster here Go-Mer. Don't let yourself get another one month ban. Besides the argument can be used against you. You take what you want from those who help Lucas but then try and pretend Lucas is responible for all the creativity. Quit taking away from them by lumping all their achievments as "Lucas vision". How narrow minded. John Williams composed the music. He didn't "polish" any of Lucas' ideas. He created for him. The music is both their vision.

 

You are absolutely right Hawk.

This is a forum about the films not the fans.

I apologise.

 

****So I suppose Williams was just polishing Lucas' musical score? Guiness was just polishing Lucas' Oscar Nominee performance?****

I guess the same could be said for Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles... their films were not entirely their vision, because they didn't write the music. Kubrick didn't write any of his own stories either. The guy was more or less a photographer, because he had nothing to do with the books or characters or scripts or music. He wasn't the editor, the sound editor or the art director. Jeeze, why do we give these directors so much credit in the first place? They are all hacks who talk about their vision, when it's really other people who are the geniuses.

That said, I can't understand why anyone wouldn't like ROTJ. It was a great film. I'm sorry, but all of these arguments about there being a second death star or the Ewoks being too small to beat the Imperial Troopers takes nothing away from the plot and acting of the movie. ROTJ deserves more respect than it gets. And, again, I don't care who makes the movie or creates the new dialogue or ideas, so long as they are good movies. I think all five are... I like IV more than V, and V more than VI, and VI more than I, and I more than II, but none of them are bad movies, IMO, and no one film is so far superior to the rest that they don't all feel like the same series. Some might disagree... that's their opinion. I find it to be an unfortunate one.

All in all, Lucas is no more of an egotist than any other celebrated director. It goes with the territory, and in Lucas's case, he has done a lot that has changed the industry. Knock him all you want... I don't think his praises are unwarranted.

 

Good points, Son_Of_Kurtzman. It amazes me that Lucas is held to such lofty standards, while the praise given to other directors who have as much involvement (going with the Lucas-critics' definition of involvement) in their movies as Lucas does in his -- often less, in fact -- is not questioned.

So Lucas did not write the music for the movies. So he didn't sit down and personally write two of the scripts, although he did heavily supervise them. Does that make the movies themselves any less his? Spielberg didn't think up the story for "E.T.", nor did he write the script. He didn't compose the music either, or build the sets. But it's still considered his movie; it's not spoken of as "Spielberg's realization of Melissa Mathison's story and script." So how come people point to Lucas not composing the music, not sewing the costumes, not building the sets, etc. as "proof" that the SW movies aren't his, and bleat about how egotistical he is to claim any credit for them because they, like all movies, are a joint effort?

I pointed out in this thread, or maybe it was another thread, that the people who worked on the movies do in fact get credit, which is why they call that lengthy list of names at the end of a movie "the credits." It seems like Lucas's critics won't be satisfied until he prefaces every single interview he gives with a personal shout-out to every single crew member, from key grip to Personal Assistant to Miss Portman.

 

you both seem to be responding to Gomer, since he is the one who implied that Lucas is doing all the work and the other's are just "polishing".

 

No, I am flat out saying that SW is from start to finish, Lucas' vision. He had lots of help with the work, but he directed all of it in the end.

 

Does Lucas' vision make TPM the best Star Wars movie?

No. TPM was awful, thus GL vision made TPM the worst Star Wars movie.





...wow, that was easy!

 

Almost too easy...

 

He had lots of help with the work, but he directed all of it in the end.

Odd that he directed under different names in ESB and ROJ, isn't it?

 

I'm guessing Go-Mer meant "directed" in the sense that GL organised and co-ordinated the making of TESB and ROTJ.

 

****you both seem to be responding to Gomer, since he is the one who implied that Lucas is doing all the work and the other's are just "polishing".****

Actually, my Welles/Kubrick response was directed (in jest) at these two posts, by you Evazan and Hawk:

"So I suppose Williams was just polishing Lucas' musical score? Guiness was just polishing Lucas' Oscar Nominee performance?"

and

"...not only that, but Lucas invented the motion picture camera and the concept of filmmaking when he was 16. luckily, someone built it even before Lucas was born, pre-emptivley polishing Lucas's idea."

And to make this whole thing easy:

Does Lucas's vision make TPM the best Star Wars movie?

It was a great movie, with great characters that he created. No matter how little or much involvement he had in any of the films, they are great, and if Lucas's vision was unfiltered/unaltered for TPM, then I'd say he made it a success, because it was GREAT. Not my favorite, but great. Everything about it was great.

 

It's called sarcasm, Evazan... get it?

 

If you were to ask Kershner, he would tell you that while he was credited as "director" on ESB there was no mistaking the fact that it was Lucas' film.

 

Yes. Kershner was credited as director because he directed it. And there is no mistaking the fact that it is a Lucas' film; the fact that it's got Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in it is a bit of a giveaway...

 

Lucas wrote the intial story and screenplay, but the film was true in the style of Kershner, therefore his own. Lucas had very little input on the actual directing of the film, with him only being on the set once or twice with an occasional phone call between the two.

 

If Kershner worked for Lucas as "Director" on TPM, we would have still gotten Jar-Jar and Midichlorians.