ST George Lucas and the Mystery of the Treatment

You probably love the pedorape stories George and Steve were pushing.

 

The frustrating thing about the notion of these "outlines" that have existed, in various forms, throughout the years is that the term is vague, and means different things to different people.

Do they mean a treatment, which would be either a brief, 1-2 page telling of the story, or a more detailed, 10-12 page version, but both written in prose? Or do they actually mean an outline, which would - in the terminology tossed around by screenwriters - imply that the structure itself is mapped out, and the document would be broken down by acts, sequences, and possibly even scenes. A beat sheet would also be considered an outline to some folks, as it would be a brief document containing just a list of the scenes and what happens.

So while journalists will toss around the term "outline" meaning some document that summarizes the story, the term actually conceals the very stuff we're interested in knowing.

If they said, "Lucas had prepared a 50-page treatment for the entire new trilogy" I would have a sense as to the level of freedom Abrams and Kasdan have in scripting. If they had said "Lucas handed over a 90-page outline for the trilogy" I would assume that he's got the thing locked into, at the very least, sequence-by-sequence beats, which would make me feel as though Abrams and Kasdan have less freedom.

However, I will mention that a friend who works in the Bad Robot offices would talk about how Abrams would ask various folks for name ideas while he was writing, so I guess he's inventing new characters/locations that weren't previously envisioned.

 

Let me guess: if it was announced that they closely followed Lucas's outlines, the same people who are gushing all over the teaser trailer for TFA will suddenly despise it and say it "looks fake."

They're already trashing Lucas to high heaven even though they claim he wasn't involved with TFA. I can only imagine how they'd trash him i f they found out he was involved with it.

Must be hard to be so full of hatred for a filmmaker. Or maybe it's not hard at all, since the Lucas-haters are the ones who get all the media coverage and are presented as being the voice for all of SW fandom.

 

I have a long list of complaints about the prequels, like many folks, but I would never express hatred for Lucas, and I find the things people have said about him to be offensive and shameful.

I'm glad Lucas is involved, and I feel like the process we're seeing at work with TFA - Lucas's story, brought to life through a collaboration with other writers and filmmakers is the right way to go.

 

Good for you. But you seem to be the exception.

I might point out that he did that with the prequels too, just maybe not to the extent that you might have liked -- i.e., other people directing. But he did collaborate, quite a bit, with other filmmakers/directors, and took their suggestions into account. He had a co-writer for the AOTC script (it even says so in the credits), and asked Tom Stoppard to help him with the dialogue-heavy scenes in ROTS. He had asked Lawrence Kasdan to help him write the script for TPM, but Kasdan turned him down. He looked over the script after it was done and told him it was fine.

 

Yeah, I just had a debate with someone else on a different thread. I feel like Lucas spread himself too thin on the prequels, and didn't give himself enough time to handle any one of his creative duties effectively. It took him 3 years to write A New Hope, he should have at least given himself a year to write TPM and plan out the sequels, and then handed it off to a different writer to turn in the final draft. And I don't mean that to take credit away from Lucas, but instead to acknowledge that film is a collaborative medium, period.

I've heard a lot about Stoppard polishing the dialogue, and there was some obscure writer who has a co-credit on episode 2, but I've also heard about the film Red Tails, and how Lucas was pushing John Ridley (from his point of view) in the wrong direction. (I haven't seen Red Tails) None of us were in those rooms and really have a clear picture of what those collaborations looked like, but there are some really clear dramatic problems in the PT that I can't excuse, and my issues with those scripts in general extend beyond the dialogue. As a matter of fact, criticizing the dialogue of those films would be like worrying about the ugly leaves on a tree with dying roots.

Lucas was famously protective of the prequels, and it seems like these collaborations had certain boundaries that prevented them from having any real impact.

With that being said, I still think Lucas could have pulled it off. If I were the king of all media and controlled those films, I would have insisted that Lucas take a role similar to a showrunner on a TV series, where he determines the tone, the story, and the broad stylistic elements, but other writers and directors come in and handle the execution.

 

Fine. I give up. Lucas refused to collaborate on the prequels and arrogantly thought he could do it all himself. He refused to listen to anyone who gave him advice. The co-writer he chose for AOTC was too "obscure" to matter. He should have turned it all over to "other filmmakers" -- I'm guessing St. Peter "The Great" Jackson or Christopher Nolan, neither of whom can do any wrong.

 

I hope (and I may be in the minority) that Lucas has influenced these films greatly. He is the man who gave us all this wonder in the first place and I think a completely sans-Lucas SW wouldn't seem .....right. I'm more than a bit glad he isn't directing and I hope JJ makes this in the same vein as the OT and not an alternate Star Trek....

 

Christopher Nolan is a crappy writer and the Hobbit films are terrible.

Don't take my comments personally. You seem to live in a world of extremes and polar opposites, one where either Lucas must be praised unquestionably or slammed into the ground. Please return to the world where talented people produce sub-par work. Do you like every single song from your favorite band? Do you like every issue of your favorite comic book?

I am happy to give Lucas all the credit he deserves for the things he has done well, and when you look at the volume of responsibility he assumed on the prequels, the greatest filmmaker alive couldn't have executed each of those roles effectively on a production that size.

 

Were the prequel ideas "friggin' great"?

 

I can't find Bad Robot's site working... and their # doesn't work.. and i want to apply for a job there. Ask your friend how?

 

"The sequel trilogy was to feature Luke Skywalker as a Jedi Master in his sixties, passing on the torch to the next generation of Jedi, the dismantlement of the last remnants of the Galactic Empire and the rebuilding of the Galactic Republic."

This where some of George's ideas from back in the day. We do have some Imperial Remnants as is shown clearly in the trailer, however, I'm still a bit concerned that there is no clear mention of the Republic nor about the restored Jedi.

 

Because I don't think there will be a Republic and in particular a restored Jedi. I think they really want to break away from audience expectations are going to be especially they were enhanced by the EU. Plus it makes sense. The Old Republic brought the galaxy the Empire and Palpatine therefore there will be huge support to not reform it. I see a Free Alliance of Planets that will feel like the European Union but not a new Republic. As for a new Jedi order, I think it would be much more interesting if Luke feels like the Jedi are ultimately too tempted by the dark side (including his run in with it) and therefore the universe is better without it. What changes his mind is the events of TFA.

 

No offense, but I would absolutely hate it if the Jedi are not restored by Luke.

It would be a way to justify the extreme views some folks have about the Jedi, which George Lucas doesn't agree with.

And no, the Old Republic did not bring on the Empire, it was Palpatine.

 

It's sounding pretty close to me...

This sounds like the rumors about Boyega. Wouldn't be surprised if idea of the defecting Stormtrooper had been around a long time, might be the whole reason the Empire is still in this movie could have been from the earlier ST incarnation.

Sounds like the rumors about Luke.

Sounds like literally what they are planning to do by including Anakin's saber from Ep IV.

 

I think so, yes. The Palpatine character and how he came to power, how Anakin was to be lured to the dark side, the character of Qui Gon Jinn, being the first one to reach immortality through the force, the whole Republic clone army -> Galactic Empire. As ideas and premises, I think they are right on the money.

 

"You must pass on what you have learned" could mean either that Luke brings back the Jedi Order was it was, bring it back with a new ideal, or doesn't bring it back at all because he believes its existence is too dangerous. Who knows at this point

 

I love it when I win so easy.

Let me get this straight. These people are actually claiming Lucas isn't involved with TFA even though he is?

I've said it before and I'll be saying it over and over again. When these rather sad and pathethic people turn on VII or VIII or IX or all of them and the stand alones in some combination what are they going to do then? Some of them despise ROTJ for goodness sakes!

Now for myself I will be sitting back and laughing hilariously at them while I have a great time watching the masterpieces of I-VI and more than likely have a real good time with the new age of movies. I doubt they will be at the same level as the Lucas made saga but will probably be enjoyable the way I enjoy JJ's Trek movies and many other films. Good entertainment I don't think about that hard. Now the fact that GL has given them a basic plan for a bunch of films does give me a good feeling about the general direction for the forseeable future and hey they can always surprise me and make movies the level that Lucas did. I doubt that simply because if they were that good then they would be making their own movies not doing Star Wars. It's like Peter Jackson. He's great at interpreting things but hasn't made his own all time great fantasy series.

The thing is the more I look into it a lot of the media really aren't that good at their jobs in the sense of being fair and balance and actually doing research into things. Those people are few and far between. Most entertainment media is just about taking the easy, simple target hits and repeating that over and over. Most of the coverage on the prequels is laughable, highly inaccurate to say the least and horribly biased to promote outrights untruths which they present as factual when they either know it isn't and they can't be bothered to check or is deliberately and with malice a tissue of lies.

In the end though I always find myself smiling at their misery because no matter what nonsense they do the films are there and exist and there is nothing they can do about it. Imagine the horror they will feel when the ST links into the overall story of the previous 6 episodes. They will try to deny it, they will try to say it's not really there. They will say it was already in the OT and not a connection to the PT.

It's like the Sith. They will say that the Sith were always part of the story but the fact is that Sith did not exist in the OT. The Sith being a true part of the story and the way they work and the Jedi are all created by the PT.

The intricate ties that Lucas created between the PT and OT are in extricably linked and part of the whole. This has been evident for a long, long time and so it will continue in the ST in all likelihood.

 

I honestly think that Lucas is more involved than anyone is letting on. I believe that he is, indeed, only a "creative consultant," but I have a sneaking suspicion that he is doing a lot of consulting on this trilogy.

 

I think George tried to correct that mistake with the ST. Remember, he started working on the PT in what -- 1995? When he made the deal in 2012, he was a little bit older, and maybe with that older age came a little wisdom. If that's the case (which would not surprise me), kudos to George.

 

I'm sure there is pretty much an open door to him having as much involvement as he wants. Obviously they don't HAVE to listen to him at this point, but I'm sure they'd welcome and will have actively sought as much information and help as they can get out of him. Like it or not, he IS Star Wars and I imagine you'd find yourself respecting and appreciating that fact even more if you were involved in the production of this thing.

 

I would possibly love that more than the movie itself. Haha. It should be a multiple hour documentary and oh my gosh I would freak. Haha.

 

Possibly. He's silently produced a number of non-SW movies over the years, because he didn't want the SW association to lead people to dismiss said movies. For instance, "Body Heat," which he produced for his friend/collaborator Lawrence Kasdan. He was also the one who chose Kathleen Turner to play Mattie. (This information comes from Ms. Turner herself, by the way. I know it will shock the haters, but Lucas is quite well-respected in the filmmaking community.) He felt people might not take the movie seriously because of the "kiddie" association of SW -- yes, Virginia, SW was dismissed as "kiddie" back then, even after the exalted, perfect, wholly adult (cue heavenly choirs of angels) ESB had been released.

Similarly, he's well aware of how much hatred is directed at him, online and in the press, so he might downplay his involvement with TFA to avoid the backlash. Not that that would stop the haters, of course. After months of gloating that SW "is finally away from Lucas," the haters are responding to the teaser trailer with an upsurge in hatred toward Lucas.

But of course we'll probably never know. Whatever his officially declared involvement, I can guarantee that the haters, who control the microphone and are presented as representing all of SW fandom, will blame whatever they hate about the movie on Lucas, and credit whatever they like about it to someone, anyone other than Lucas. That's what they do now with regards to what they like (ESB, and....ESB) and hate (everything else) about SW as it currently stands.

 

I agree though I think likely that it all took place at the early stages when he worked on the basic outlines from sometime in mid 2011 all the way through Arndt's scripts and into 2013 with the hiring of JJ and Kasdan. As Jett Lucas said GL and JJ were talking many, many times so the thematic and character motifs as George sees it are all there for JJ to use if he wants to.

That said I don't think Lucas is constantly on videolinks overlooking footage or anything like that. He's a resource that is available if they need it and you'd be a complete moron if you didn't ask Lucas to look over your first cut and offer some suggestions. Doesn't mean you have to implement them but as least take it in.