ST George Lucas and the Mystery of the Treatment

I wouldn't say ALL of his ideas were thrown away, there is still two movies to go and we still don't know what exactly happened behind the scenes, we'll know how they evolved the story when the treatments when they'll release them. Unfortunately, we'll probably have to wait until the release of episode IX for that to happen. Maybe we'll see some of his original ideas coming up at some point. Though, I agree with you that even if there were many changes, GL was ultimately the only decision-maker about the direction the story should go. The same would have happened if he truly wanted to direct VII. I wonder how different things would have been if he directed VII and then let other directors take it from there. I think it would have been an interesting experience, imo.

 

Maybe not, but enough of them were to make him distance himself from the whole thing. Future movies can't/won't revert that.

 

I think he distanced himself because he recognized that he couldn't have his cake and eat it too. He could not both sell the company and creative control and still maintain some kind of creative godfather role. It would not be fair to the film makers to shackle them like that, and George is way too much of a control freak to be involved and not be in charge. He was wise enough to recognize that it was time to step back and allow other creative minds to move forward with the story.

 

Exactly this. He's a self-described micromanager

I can't help feeling a bit of pessimism permeating the fanbase about his involvement that's simply a bit too worst-case-scenario

 

He distanced himself because they chose to do something different. That's it.

He could if they wanted him to. But they didn't want him, nor did they want to adapt his story. It was their choice, which they had every right to do and now can be criticized for.

 

But we know GL is a huge exaggerator. We know several elements of his story/characters were retained (just look at Pablo's tweets mentioned a couple pages back)
We know, at least partway into production, he was still in contact with JJ

We won't know the extent to which things were changed any time soon. Possibly ever. But the simple fact is his story treatment wasn't trashed as is being said. Even elements like Snoke are adapted from it

 

I'm responding to what he himself said. He said he couldn't be looking over their shoulder all the time. He'd never accept that as a film maker and neither should they. And why the heck would they want that kind of thing? That's EXACTLY the kind of creative shackling George Lucas always resisted and I think ultimately, he remembered that, despite his control tendencies. Good on him for that. Having decided to sell, he needed to enjoy his emeritus status.



I'm one who is glad he stepped back. Personally I did not like many of the creative decisions he made in the later part of his career. But he'll always be "The Maker." He started it. But I think others will take it forward better than he could. Just MHO, of course.

 

What we know is that GL said that they didn´t use his story and I have no reason to not believe him. I´ll rather trust the CREATOR of Star Wars than some Disney/Lucasfilm employee. Lucas wrote the original story treatment.

Surely he´ll know best what was in his treatment, which parts of it were kept and which were thrown out and until/unless proven othervise I´m gonna take GL´s word for it.

Few tiny, little insignificant bits and pieces from his story were retained and the rest was simply thrown away. There´s almost nothing from his story in those so called Episodes VII, VIII and IX and that is all there is to it.

It´s quite telling that the end titles of the Episode VII In Name Only include a "based on characters created by George Lucas" credit instead of "Story By George Lucas".

 

If I were to venture a guess, I imagine the things retained from Lucas treatment are things like Rey "being passed the Excalibur" (as Mark Hamill has been saying since '77) perhaps Snoke being a reworking of the Emperor ( who was to be the main villain in the original plans for 7, 8 & 9) etc. Apart from general things like that (which lets face it, any version of eps 7, 8 & 9 were going to have a Luke apprentice and another master Dark Side user) I doubt these films will have much in common with Lucas story treatments.

 

Agreed, what he achieved is legendary, but I'm glad he's moved on. For me, we're back in another SW golden age for the first time since the early 80s. Long may it continue.

 

Do we? I don't. And how do you know he's exaggerating here? Has any evidence been presented that proves the opposite?

No, we don't. The tweets have said nothing about the story and characters being retained. What they do confirm is that they developed something else from what was provided to them.

Yes.

Something being "adapted" says nothing. It's a completely subjective term.

So am I.

Because it's material coming directly from the creator of the franchise. We're not talking about studio control to make changes in order to make a film more commercial (ironic how the roles are reversed here and that's exactly what they ended up doing). We're talking about adapting a George Lucas' story about the universe he created in a new movie. Which, by the way, was what was promised at the time of the sale. They even made videos about it stating as much.

Okay, I'm not. I'm one who isn't glad that they were pretentious enough to think they could do better than the person who created it all while discarding the story he provided to them. Specially when that only led to a completely superficial and unimaginative product (erm, remake). It's more sad that they acknowledge that.

 

Could Lucas be exaggerating? Possible, but there's probably some bits of truth in what he's saying. I don't think he's lying when he talked about how he feels about it. Actually he's been quite consistent when asked about it multiple times. The thing is, the ST is not a GL story. Sure it's based on some of his ideas, like most of what the books/TV shows/comics are doing right now, but he didn't really participate in the development of the characters and he decided to do that willingly. One thing for sure, he seemed much more open about RO than for TFA for whatever reasons.

 

It's probably true that the core of the story was quite drastically altered, as that would likely turn George off. At the same time, I don't believe that they just threw it out and replaced it with something completely new. It seems more likely to me that they just shifted things around until he felt that it had transformed into something so different from his version that he couldn't possibly be of use to them anymore.
I still have hope that his version of the story will be fairly present in the trilogy as a whole, though.

 

Please show any video where they promised to adapt his stories. No way Bob Iger would agree to handcuff himself like that. They bought the RIGHTS to his treatments, nothing else. And who cares if he is the creator of the franchise. That doesn't mean he'll always come up with the best stories. I mean, I can tell you I like the Avengers movies a LOT more than I like Stan Lee's original stuff. Sometimes people some killer initial ideas, but that doesn't mean everything they think of is gold.

Well, it's fair enough that you're not glad. But I'm a Star Wars fan much more than I am a George Lucas fan. I want good Star Wars movies, and so long as I am personally satisfied with them, I honestly could not care less if Lucas had anything to do with it or not. That does not lessen my esteem for what he has accomplished, but for me this is about Star Wars, not Lucas. It was never a cult of personality for me.

Well Lucas has a pretty huge ego. He's pretty convinced all his ideas are pure gold. And IMO, he has a much higher opinion of the depth of his works that I think is merited. But he's still a pretty awesome guy, and he is one of the greatest film makers of his generation. No doubt, given all that, it hurts to have these folks come in and say, "yeah, George, thanks, but we're going another way." When you're used to having folks hang on your every word, and when you're used to you decision being absolutely final, it's hard to accept the suddenly cold reality that other folks might not be as enamored with your ideas as you might have thought.

I think he is able to embrace R1 more fully because he never had a stake in it. In a Lucas run LFL, we probably would have never gotten that movie. He probably hadn't put any real thought into that story or characters, so he's able to just enjoy it. For the ST, he DID have an idea of what he wanted. Pablo says his treatments were "brief," but still, he did have some ideas, and no doubt expected LFL and the ST film makers to follow his lead. I'm glad LFL has the confidence to strike their own path. They have to.

 

I think that's right. TFA stings in a way that R1 was never going to, regardless of quality.

 

*filmmaker

I agree with you except for the first two sentences.

Prove he has a huge ego, that he thinks his ideas are gold, and that he thinks his work has more depth than it merits.

He edited ANH according to DePalma's and other friends' opinions and contra the praise of Spielberg and TCF execs. He wasn't happy with the first cut of TPM and voiced this to his team. He listened to the criticism of Spielberg of the the first cut of ROTS and rewrote, reshot, and reedited accordingly. Perhaps he thinks others' ideas are platinum or diamonds?

 

Was a female protagonist George's idea?

 

I can't prove it, as it's an opinin... a subjective opinion. I base it on the many interviews I've seen with him. For example, the Rolling Stone interview about the sale to Disney where he talks about how his treatments are part of deal, becuase he's been doing this for 40 years, and knows what he's doing. People will read that differently, of course, but I see Lucas in there having a really hard time just letting it go. He was basically asserting (in my view) that his ideas would be superior to any they could come up with. That's not necessarily a sligt. I think it takes a very string ego with confidence in his ideas to make Star Wars in th first place. Lucas does see himself as an auteur, I think. He buys into this notion of the film maker as the single visionary creative force. I think most folks today acknowledge that the team matters. For example, can you imagine Star Wars being what it is without Williams' astonishing music?

From everything I've seen... yes.

 

Yes. It was confirmed by Pablo. The Art of book also makes this clear.

 

Yep, Pablo mentioned a girl's journey to become a Jedi was the story he left behind.

 

I would have loved to see what George had in mind for Episode 7, as it was likely fresh and new and not the weak rehash of Episode 4 we instead received.

I think it's obvious that while their intentions of recreating Original Trilogy nostalgia are clear, it is not received well at all by a large portion of fandom. It also feels like a wasted opportunity from a narrative standpoint. There was so much cool and interesting new ground they could have broken.

 

They were his ideas and rhejecwaa selling his ideas to corporate types. Corporate types who pull the plug on American Zoetrope.

He went to USC, which didn't promote the auteur theory like UCLA. Coppola went to UCLA, and even he knows that while as the writer-director he may be they"auteur, he relies a lot on others.

You're right. What would SW age without Williams? Lucas doesn't know this? Or ILM, Burtt, Filoni. As my previous comments show, you're wrong about his seeing himself in your "auteur" interpretation.

 

Methinks we are going to be waiting for quite a while until that happens.

Lucas as an artist was always moving forward.

TFA was stuck in neutral and R1 does far more but still in a limited way. I enjoy them both but when is someone going to do what Lucas did with TPM and the PT overall and really move forward?

I just don't think that is the goal certainly not in the way Lucas did it for the PT and whatever he had in mind for the ST.

Obviously as is the case Lucas' ideas be it the OT in the first place or the PT are too much for corporate types to handle or appreciate.

The people in charge now are creative but in the normal way of these things not in the genius way of Lucas.

I don't blame them as such because I accept that they aren't capable of such thinking. Few people in human history are and I don't expect another one to come along in SW anytime soon.

Someone like that are going to do their own thing not something that already exists.

It would have been awesome if he had done VII then got out but that wouldn't really work as they wouldn't know how to follow it up.

It's like I've said look at the prequels and then try to imagine how corporate types would have made them.

Truly a terrifying thought!

Sure see Ashoka and it's simply the most natural progression. He had two grand-children as he said "like the books" meaning a girl and boy.

 

None of this is true. Stop slandering the man please.

 

Well said.