ST George Lucas and the Mystery of the Treatment

I don't think Disney will Disneyfy Star Wars, but I do fear that they'll Sithify it.

"GL made me act wooden."
- Sir Alec Guinness

 

With all due respect... how exactly does a block of wood "act"?

I guess you'd have to ask an Ent Oops, wrong movie series. Move along, move along

 

Well if you are stating that applies to all the Star Wars movies... then I'd say yes, to a certain degree the acting is so stylised it can come across as being a bit wooden/hammy. If you are implying this is specific to the prequels, I'd say you're very mistaken.

I'd say that it's highly unlikely that Lucas has thrown together a treatment. The handover of a treatment/treatments, I'm sure, was part of the deal... but Lucas is a detail man. I'd bet my house on the fact that his treatments are fairly detailed and elaborate.

The second thing worth mentioning is that Disney (and Kennedy) aren't stupid. Lucas is, if nothing else, brilliant at the creation of characters, situations and wrapping it in modern mythology. Disney/Kennedy would be competey mad if they didn't utilise most, if not all, his ideas.

 

Lucas is so much of a detail man, he only came up with Anakin's turn during the reshoots for ROTS.

If they were so detailed, why would Arndt have to come with a 45 page doc for the whole trilogy?

The initial info I heard said that GL's ideas ran to about a page or two of simple ideas, and that's what Arndt ran with.

George will have come up with the basic story I've no doubt and it will be his broad vision, but with others executing and thrashing out the detail.

 

hey all, starting to get psyched. hope we get some new info soon.
personally i hope some of gl's treatments are followed. give us some empire like films with gl behind the scenes giving the main plot points but others putting it together.

 

That's just it. A treatment is a fairly complete story document - length can vary, but mine tend to run between 10 pages to 35 (which is pretty long). Anything less would be normally be considered an outline or synopsis. I don't think GL wrote treatments. He had ideas that Arndt turned into treatments (and I think multiple writers had a crack at GL's ideas - Arndt came out on top. Apparently KK loved his trilogy treatment). Of course, what I've heard may be bunk, but equally I wouldn't put 100% store by any official statements from Disney or statements GL has made over the years, which tend to be constantly revised and often contradictory.

I think GL's vision executed by others is exactly what we'll get, but my guess is this will be the film with the least involvement from the plaided one by quite a margin. Less than Empire certainly.

 

I don't think being anal about detail and being fluid with the way one composes/edits/sequences a story during production are mutually exclusive. That said, it's equally possible that Lucas no longer gives a **** and or is out of ideas and just wrote it on the back of a fag packet. Without any insider information I'm just trying to use Occam's razor to speculate.

 

Fair point, if something isn't working and a better solution presents itself then if possible, it should be changed. With that particular beat though I feel it's something that should have been nailed down much earlier. I think he did care, just perhaps not as much as everyone else (and maybe that's only natural anyway).

 

The last time George Lucas walked away from control of a project we ended up with The Star Wars Holiday Special. I hope that this does not happen again.

 

I think the circumstances are slightly better this time.

 

Yep, lens flares and shooting it on film. As if that is a giant leep forward.

 

"Sigh"

 

In terms of the treatments themselves, we basically no nothing.

We don't know when they were written.
We don't know how long they were worked on.

We know what we were told.
And we know better than to believe it.

 

It seems that Lucas had some sort of hand in the creation of (at least some of) the “spin-offs”, as well. His quote from that original video was “We have treatments for 7, 8 and 9 and a bunch of other movies”. He did say “we”, though, as appose to “I”.

 

Good point. I can't imagine that it would not have crossed Lucas' mind about spinoffs while developing the overall story for the ST. And from Disney's POV, it sweetens the deal for buying Lucasfilm in the first place. Many movies would results in a bigger bottom line than simply 3.

 

HAHAHA YAY LENS FLARE JOKES SO ORIGINAL

 

he didnt just walk away he retired. huge difference. also jj is a pretty damn good director so i have faith in him. and heck it couldve been someone like michael bay who just ruined tmnt by making them aliens instead of mutants and megan fox as april :smh:

 

Just ban him Chorus lol

 

id rather have lens flares over god awful cartoony cgi that isnt needed

 

I'd rather have a forum that doesn't have lens flare jokes rather than one that does.

 

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

 

I'd rather be a manly Muppet than a Muppet of a man.

 

I was just thinking about something...

I wonder if we'll ever get a chance to know exactly what story elements from the ST are ones that came directly from GL, as part of his treatment or whatever. Once the movie has come out and we're all well aware of the plot and what happens I would be very interested to see which parts actually came from "the SW creator..."

 

I think it will probably be obvious to SW fans.