ST George Lucas and the Mystery of the Treatment

Me too, and I would love to be able to read that brief synopsis one day.

 

"WAR!

fin.
"

 

I would add that the first drafts, written by Lucas of course, of both ANH and TPM differed massively from what we ended up seeing on screen.

 

Fixed

 

Not just the first drafts, but the outlines and treatments. And not just AOTC, ROTJ, and ROTS. His second draft for TESB might as well have been a first draft.

 

Did AOTC differ that much? I can remember massive differences between early versions of the other five but my my memory fades over Ep II.

 

It seemed like Hale rewrote a bit. But even in post GL changed some stuff in post, like C3PO in the droid factory.

 

Unfortunately it's not that simple. Even Yoda acknowledged that the prophecy (that itself wasn't around during the OT) may have been misinterpreted. The Baneite Sith may have died with Palpatine, but that doesn't mean more Force sensitives won't be born. Or that those people won't have a capacity for darkness.
And the beliefs of the Sith remain. Unless of course Luke destroyed all holocrons scrolls and tablets.

 

Didn`t really know where to post this: TFA revised for honesty.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/if-the-force-awakens-was-way-shorter-more-honest/

What really amuses me about this is people`s opinions on Lucas. Since TPM people have complained that he ruined their childhood, sold out and only thinks about money and now they complain about him being put aside and replaced by a commitee that only thinks about money.

 

Really? If anything I've seen people saying that Disney saved the franchise.

 

*raped their childhood

Yeah, he sold out. That's why he rushed to make 6 more movies and a live action TV series.

 

People just like to flip-flop in order to complain.

 

Some of this stuff was funny.

They shot up that X-wing very quick.

I guess....its not really missing water?

I guess he only had one friend.​

 

I'll say this... I really love what they came up with for TFA, AND at the same time, I'm very surprised at how much TFA made me appreciate GL's PT.

For years we all had nothing to compare the PT to except the amazing, fantastic, history-making OT... of course it didn't live up.

Now that we see what a very good non-George SW movie can be.. we have valid comparisons.. and I almost feel bad about how harshly I judged the PT before!! lol

Yes, George was unchecked with a "yes-man" staff, and yes--he isn't a great acting director, and yes-to much CGI.. but even with all that, I see now that his SW movies transported the viewer to a different reality in a truly unique way. I didn't quite get that from TFA. I actually commend George for how awesome the PT was, despite the fact that he was an unchecked genius!!

After 4 viewings of TFA, I think its killer. (I can't wait for April!) .. but it's so true...You never know what you had until its gone....

 

I agree with all you say except the yes-men.

He asked Kasdan and then Darabont to rewrite TPM. They refused because they felt their input was unnecessary and the script was great. GL got Carrie Fisher to script doctor the dialogue. He also asked Spielberg, Zemeckis, and Howard to direct the film. They refused, saying he was perfect for it. Kasdan and Darabont loved TPM, which Spielberg called an instant classic. Hale rewrote AOTC, which Spielberg considered a great film and comparable to TESB. Spielberg was the only friend of GL to like the rough cut of ANH and did the previsualization of the duel in ROTS. And it was he who led the chorus of criticism of not buying into Anakin's turn in the rough cut of ROTS, leading to Lucas rewriting, maybe with Stoppard's help.

 

You might want to think a little more about why all those people refused to work on the PT.

 

I'm about to see TFA for the fourth time. First was December 18 in 2D. On the 19th my first 3D motion picture experience, and 3D again on the 20th. Now, an hour from now and nearly a month later, my first narrative IMAX experience, also in 3D.

In a bookstore in Osaka. Came across the THE ART OF STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS in Japanese. There's a Snoke01 picture that's a little different than the Snoke02 and Snoke05 posted earlier. And it reads what we already know, he was originally a she, though this picture's design is hardly effeminate.

There seem to be not only Jedi Killers, but Sith as well, including a Darth Talon with a hot female Twilek who has 2 red lightsabers.
There seem to be other Sith as well.

Baddies aside, there are a lot of beautiful images of worlds, ships, and characters.

1. Too bad this film version wasn't made as JJ and LK were on board with it until time was running out.
2. I love TFA as it is. This book won't change that.
3. I wonder how much Arndt was indebted to the treatment he originally wrote based on Lucas's outline.

Too expensive at ¥4800.

 

That's your opinion, not Spielberg's or the others.

 

Some good points made. As TFA settles into the saga, it does make me reappraise the saga as a whole, and I do think that whatever the flaws, that in context it absolutely does paint a picture of a setting, and the grandness and beauty of TPM in particular is a good representation (even s it depicts the last corrupt days) of what was lost, and what is being fought for. I do find it slightly dull as a film, but in hindsight, it is brave to depict a low stakes conflict within what is broadly peacetime

 

So it appears the timeline was:

Sounds like Lucas had a barely a treatment - more of a pre-treatment really (which I guess would be about 10 pages or less). Could have been nothing more than a working title and character list for all we know with little to no actual story. This isn't a knock on GL, BTW. It's pretty standard practice that far out form a full production.

All we know for sure is that it would focus on some teenagers, which Disney didn't want. So they politely set his treatment aside.

Six months prior to shooting Arndt still hadn't delivered a single draft. There is debate over why this occurred (including suggestions of studio interference)

Then JJ and Kasdan took over and wrote the final film we saw. Kasdan's exact quote on what was there for them to start with was:

"We didn't have anything. There were a thousand people waiting for answers on things, and you couldn't tell them anything except 'yeah, that guy's in it.' That was about it. That was really all we knew."

Either way, I suspect there was really little to nothing worth talking about (300 pages of this thread notwithstanding )?

Is this still basically all we know? I'd love to know what GL contributed.

(apologies, I've only skimmed the thread so perhaps someone around the 4000th post might have answered this already?)

 

jj also said instead of re-writing from scratch there were things he wanted to keep from before like the female lead and ex stormtrooper. which leads us to believe they were already there.

 

The only thing we can safely say was Lucas' idea was the main character being female and a Jedi. Apart from that, I really don't think Lucas' "outline" contained any more solid stuff.

 

Of course as we've been seeing in the cartoons and in TFA, as well as Abrams own admission, there's more than the Sith out there and there won't be disregarding Lucas's plots from the six films. Ergo, we have Snoke and not Darth Snoke. Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren, instead of Darth insert name and the Dark Lords of the Sith.

 

a lot of what we do know about ardnt is that luke took over the film and ruining any chance of us giving a crap about rey(or kira) and the new charaters. this common trap was a bullet dodged by abrams and CO, since jurassic world did feel like fodder for us to wait till t-rex shows up