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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

George Lucas wusses out, cuts Jar Jar's lines

Discussion in 'Archive: Revenge of the Sith' started by BothofUs, May 4, 2005.

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  1. CJedi72

    CJedi72 Jedi Youngling star 4

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    Sep 29, 2005


    I agree with you that Lucas usually doesn't listen to negative fans, but come on, for Jar Jar he did big time. After TPM, and alot of people disdained him, he cut him back for that reason only.

    Can you name one main character in any of the 5 other SW movies, whose role was reduced to almost nothing in the next movie? Now the exception is someone dying in the next movie of course.

    Here is the OT main characters, and they were all featured in all 3 movies:

    Han, Leia, Luke, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C3PO, and Lando(2 movies) They all had good sized roles in every OT movie

    Yoda and Kenobi died

    For the PT:

    Kenobi, Anakin, Palpatine, Padme, Yoda, R2-D2, C-3PO

    Shmi, QuiGon died

    Jar Jar was the only main player in the saga to have a major role in TPM, to having 2 scenes in AOTC, and having zero lines, or I think he said one line when they arrived on Coruscant. Every other characters was featured in one way or another in every movie they could be in.

    Lucas did that because alot of older fans hated him, nothing more nothing less.

    Come on guys, this one is obvious.

     
  2. Synth

    Synth Jedi Youngling

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    Jan 10, 2006
    I would have cut him all together, or better yet have him slaughtered
     
  3. Go-Mer-Tonic

    Go-Mer-Tonic Jedi Youngling star 6

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    Aug 22, 1999
    Again, Lucas has said on multiple occasions that he liked how Jar-Jar turned out, expected some fans to have a negative reaction to him, but included Jar-Jar anyway.

    I personally thought he was a masterstoke, especially -because- of the way some people hated him with such a passion.
     
  4. CJedi72

    CJedi72 Jedi Youngling star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005



    He personaly made him and expected negative reaction? I think that was Lucas talking after TPM. If you watch TPM documentary on the DVD, Lucas says when they are starting to work on Jar Jar, "Jar Jar is the key." He though he would catch on like R2-D2 and C-3PO, and the opposite happened.

    Look at every commercial after TPM, it would feature many OT characters along with PT characters, but no mention of Jar Jar. If you watch the AFI Tribute to Lucas, many of the SW characters were there that night, but don't you think Lucas would roll out this groundbreaking technology first CG character called Jar Jar? Nowhere to be found, Lucas didn't realize that Jar Jar would be hated this much, and he knows now, and as I said, this is the one thing that Lucas listened to the fans during the Prequels.

    It is a shame because Jar Jar and Gollum are such groundbreaking technology, but Jar Jar is a laughing stock who Lucas will never trot out again when he does his merchandising. I am not arguing with anyone if they like Jar Jar, but there are ALOT of fans who HATE him, I mean absolutely detest him, I really don't think that was Lucas's intentions.
     
  5. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001

    -Threepio was only in TPM for maybe 10 minutes. In AOTC, he doesn't appear until early in the second hour. In ROTS, Threepio has maybe ten minutes again, with two scenes cut. One where he's serving drinks to the Alliance leaders in Padme's apartment and later when he and Artoo drag Padme back to the Skiff. In the OT, we see plenty of him.

    -Artoo is seen throughout all the films, except for ROTS. Once we get back to Courscant, he disappears until it's time to go to Mustafar. Lucas then cut out the scene with Threepio that I mentioned.

    -Padme has far fewer scenes in ROTS than she did in the last two films.

    -Palpatine's not in ANH. And only has a two minute cameo in TESB.

    -Yoda has less screen time in TPM and ROTJ, compared to the other films. And no appearence in ANH.


    Lucas said that Jar Jar was the key in TPM, for two reasons. One is that he is essential to the plot, which is the unity between the Gugnans and the Naboo. And two, because Jar Jar's CGI will prove if he can do Yoda and other characters. It's the same with Yoda in TESB, being the make or break factor for that film. For AOTC, Jar Jar is still there and in a reduced capacity. But his role is still important. For ROTS, like the droids, Jar Jar has to be sidelined. Not just to make the transistion to the OT, but because he will be out of place in the story. Look at the film. Humor is scarce once we get back to Courscant. Gone is the banter between Anakin and Obi-wan. Gone are the antics of the droids and Jar Jar. Not even Chewbacca has a moment of levity. We don't have any humor out of Nute Gunray and Rune Haako. There's no "She can't do that! Shoot her or something!" or "Are you brain dead?"
     
  6. CJedi72

    CJedi72 Jedi Youngling star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005


    I agree with what you're saying that Jar Jar was essential to TPM plot, no argument here, but as I stated Lucas likes to use main characters in his sequels because people like them. He didn't need to put C-3PO or R2-D2 in ESB after ANH, but they were a hit with the fans, this whole Jar Jar story arc is baloney, if Jar Jar was well loved, Lucas would have found more screen time for him in AOTC & ROTS. Lucas knew that more Jar Jar, may have meant less box office. If Jar Jar had just as much screentime in AOTC & ROTS as he did in TPM, I guarantee you their box office grosses would be less. Jar Jar is the one character that many fans complained that he actually ruins every scene he is in, no other SW character has ever done that.
     
  7. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    That still doesn't mean that he listened to fan complaints. If he did, we'd have the O-OT and Lucas wouldn't even direct or write the films. Any way, Threepio doesn't really do much in TPM or ROTS. He's just mostly a background character.

    One to two minutes.

    You said less of a role in a film.

    I've seen it OT to PT. But, I'm speaking of PT to OT.

    See above.


    Threepio and Artoo were always going to be in every Star Wars film, because the story is told through their point of view. It had nothing to do with popularity. It had to do with storyline. And to say box office had an impact, Lucas was the one who said that he felt that ROTS would make less money. Not because of Jar Jar, but because of the darkness of the story. And he was going off of TESB, which was the darkest film up to that point. It made less money that ROTJ and ANH. And anti Ewok sentimentality didn't stop Lucas from producing two Ewok films and an animated series.
     
  8. CJedi72

    CJedi72 Jedi Youngling star 4

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    Sep 29, 2005


    Adjust for Inflation Box Office:

    ESB 628 million

    ROTJ 601 million

    The only reason it made a bit less than ROTJ did was because tickets prices were lower in 1980 than they were in 1983, but when you adjust them for inflation, it did make more.

    And Lucas saying that ROTS wouldn't make big money is what he does to lower expectation before each movie. Lucas said right before Spiderman came out in 2002, "I am not in this for the horserace." Cause there were grumblings that Spiderman may beat AOTC, and it did by 100 million. But when TPM came out, I never heard a word from Lucas about 'the horserace' because it was the #1 movie, and the most anticipated movie of all-time. Lucas always lowers expectations just in case, and in 2002 was the one year that SW got beat at the box office.
     
  9. Yodaminch

    Yodaminch Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 6, 2002
    Doesn't Jar Jar say excuse me to Orn Free Taa?
     
  10. Get_in_Gear

    Get_in_Gear Jedi Youngling star 5

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    Nov 29, 2004
    Or like Lando going from zero lines to rebel hero... or Jabba the Hutt being a key factor in several of Han's decisions, but not even appearing in TESB, or - originally - ANH.

    Sorry, but I don't really get your argument.
    Narratively, Jar Jar had a bigger role in TPM because he was instrumental in aiding the Jedi and was symbolic of the symbiotic nature of the Force, which was a key plot point of the movie.
    Read: even idiots have their place in the grand scheme of things.

    In AOTC, he came into play because the plot demanded Padmé be taken away from her senatorial duties to spend quality time with Ani. Someone had to deputise for her, and Jar Jar was a logical choice.

    In ROTS, there is just nothing for him to do... because there is nothing for him to do - just like there was nothing for him to do in ANH, or for Bib Fortuna to do in TESB, or Admiral Piett in ROTJ - his line-count diminished but no-one thinks Lucas wussed out over that do they?
     
  11. BothofUs

    BothofUs Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Nov 5, 2003
    1-2 minutes is stretching it big time.

    He gets a 3 second shot after the landing on Coruscant and another 3-second close up at Padme's funeral. That adds up to 6 seconds. Add in the huge wide shot on the landing platform after the Coruscant landing and you get 10 seconds total.
     
  12. Go-Mer-Tonic

    Go-Mer-Tonic Jedi Youngling star 6

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    Aug 22, 1999
    Lucas expected a negative reaction from the portion of the fanbase he wasn't worried about pleasing. It's largely the same group who didn't care much for the Ewoks, and he wasn't phased by that either. According to exit polls conducted by 20th century fox around the release of TPM, Jar-Jar was a huge hit with children (his target audience) and a lot of women. Lucas says it was mostly 30 year olds on the Internet that lashed out at Jar-Jar, and he's convinced the media makes them out to be a much larger portion of the fanbase than they really were.

    As a SW nut who loves Jar-Jar, I think he probably has a point.
     
  13. CJedi72

    CJedi72 Jedi Youngling star 4

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    Sep 29, 2005



    Lucas did not expect the negative reaction. You go find me a quote before May 19, 1999 where Lucas says he is expecting the older fanbase to hate or dislike Jar Jar. Lucas started all this Jar Jar revisionism AFTER many fans, and more than you think, hated Jar Jar. Watch TPM documentary again and they have a good part of it on how they created Jar Jar, and never is it spoken or hinted at that people are going to not like him. That would be absolutely stupid if Lucas knew there would be a huge backlash going into the movie.

    Whether you like Jar Jar or not, that is everyones opinion, but he is the butt of every prequel joke. On MTV the other day, a comic was talking about great movies of the year, and mentioned how much he liked ROTS, but also said, "It was so good, I almost forgave Lucas for Jar Jar!"

    Lucas says alot of things after the fact. As I said, he thought when creating Jar Jar that he would be as popular as C-3PO & R2-D2 were in the OT, and he would carry the comic relief of the PT. No character has gone from such a huge role in one movie, to such a small role for the next two movies in the OT:

    Han, Leia, Luke, Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewbacca, were all major characters in ANH that didn't die, and they all had ample screentime in ESB & ROTJ, and do you know why? People loved them!

     
  14. BobaFrank

    BobaFrank Jedi Youngling star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 17, 2001
    Actually, not to veer off course but didn't JJ say "excuse me," after Anakin, Obi, and Palps made the emergency landing? As the consolate was walking away and just before Anakin runs to Padme who's waiting in the shadows?

    As an OLDBIE I still and have always liked Jar Jar. I understand the negative reaction fans gave him and still do because he can be annoying. Jar Jar was and will always be an experiment in CGI character performance. GL knew he was going to make Yoda a CGI character and he needed a testing ground. Now, whether you liked him as a character or not is irrelevant, from a technical standpoint he was a great achievement.
     
  15. Droid

    Droid Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Feb 28, 2000
    Ewan McGregor was in Eyes Wide Shut? I'll have to add that to my Netflix Quere :)
     
  16. Go-Mer-Tonic

    Go-Mer-Tonic Jedi Youngling star 6

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    Aug 22, 1999
    Unless someone can prove Lucas is lying about how he feels about the Jar-Jar backlash, I don't see why I need to come up with a pre 1999 quote.

    The only thing you have to counter what he said is that you didn't like Jar-Jar, and you assume the only reason the saga doesn't focus on Jar-Jar during Episode's II and III have to do with Lucas' reaction to the negatvie Jar-Jar backlash.

    Lucas says that Episodes II and III narrow down to deal with the key players: Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padme, Palpatine, Yoda and Mace. You might also notice a lot less 3-PO in Episode III than II. Was that because of the negativity some fans expressed about his antics on Goenosis?

    Of course not.

    Feel free to assume he is a liar. Just wake me up when you have something more to go on aside from assumptions. At least I am bringing up what Lucas actually says about it.

    Lucas has a track record of being very stubborn about what he wants in these movies. Even if TPM didn't make an obscene amount of money at the box office, I still don't think Lucas would second guess his approach. The box office being what it was, I don't see any motivation to cave to the negativity of a few fans.
     
  17. CJedi72

    CJedi72 Jedi Youngling star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005


    No Tom Cruise was in Eyes Wide Shut with Nicole Kidman
    and Ewan McGregor was in Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman

     
  18. CJedi72

    CJedi72 Jedi Youngling star 4

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    Sep 29, 2005
     
  19. Go-Mer-Tonic

    Go-Mer-Tonic Jedi Youngling star 6

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    Aug 22, 1999
    Lucas may seem contradictory to you, but as far as I know he's usually a pretty honest guy. At the time he was asked about the classic trilogy on DVD, his plan was to wait until he was finished messing around with them, then release the "Archival Edition". After numerous fan pettitions telling Lucas that we wanted to buy the SE's on DVD now and the Archival Version later, and his own advisors telling him there might not be a DVD market to release in by the time he is finished with the prequels, he changed his mind, and it was well within his rights to do so. He didn't lie about it.

    I would love to see a transcript of the Vanity Fair article you quote from for context of what he said, but it's clear from his early drafts of the origial Star Wars that the story was always about a father and his children.

    Lucas was toying around with having 9 maybe even 12 episodes, but it never went beyond, "I could do 9 or even 12 episodes". The media ran with that and a lot of people assumed he had 9 or 12 movies planned out in his head. When he came up with the story, he might have been thinking he would do a third trilogy, but he never came up with anything beyond Episode 6. It's possible he could have stretched things out into 9 films, but somewhere between ESB and ROTJ it dawned on him that he wouldn't live long enough to make 12 movies, and that he didn't want to be doing Star Wars for the rest of his life, so he tied his story up in episode 6. So the story has come full circle, and there isn't more story to tell in an "episode 7". They would have to start up an entirely new storyline.

    He is just trying to explain that the show is technically over in ROTJ, and that all the speculation about what the third or even fourth chapters might have been is stuff he never came up with.

    Lucas may say whatever he wants, but I think a lot of us only hear whatever we want to hear. A lot of the "contradictions" people bring up about the things Lucas says turn out to be pure misunderstandings.
     
  20. CJedi72

    CJedi72 Jedi Youngling star 4

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    Sep 29, 2005
     
  21. Go-Mer-Tonic

    Go-Mer-Tonic Jedi Youngling star 6

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    Aug 22, 1999
    I'll have to see what he says first.
     
  22. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    No, I go by the logic of watching it in numerical order. In which case, Yoda disappears for twenty three years.

    Tiny little secret. TESB was released at least three times. 1980. 1982. 1997. Might be off on the second year. ROTS only had the one theatrical release. Same with ANH and ROTJ, which had several releases. TPM had one major release and a charity screening. AOTC had it's intially release and then the IMAX one.

    Lucas said that ROTS would make the least amount as far back as 1996, possibly even further. So it had nothing to do with the box office of TPM or the threat of Spider-Man, which in 1996, was still in a legal mess.

    In 1974, there was a father who had two children and a Jedi turned Sith, who is redeemed by one of the children. By the time the story evolved into ANH itself, there were two siblings and Lucas was strongly toying with the idea of Vader being Luke's father. In the third draft, Vader says that he when he feels the Force in Luke, he comments that he should know him. That he's very familiar to him. Lucas rarely talks about the Starkiller story unless it's germane (sp) to the discussion. Such as it was for the bonus disc on the OT DVD set.
     
  23. CJedi72

    CJedi72 Jedi Youngling star 4

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    Sep 29, 2005



    This is the exact paragraph I found on the internet taken from Vanity Fair May 2005 when Lucas was promoting ROTS.

    Taken as a whole, the six Star Wars movies form the biography of Darth Vader?something Lucas claims he wasn't consciously aware of "until 1988." It's strange to think that this filmmaker with a popcorn reputation has spent 33 years telling the story of a failed, pathetic monster who isn't redeemed until his last few breaths. Revenge of the Sith, dark as it may be, is likely to end on a note of hope, however: little Luke and Leia being spirited away from their dark father to the safety of their separate adoptive parents. Their work against the Empire will eventually bring Darth Vader back to humanity, back to his Anakin state, something Lucas underscored by digitally dropping in Christensen's mug on the Anakin spirit that nods approvingly to Luke in the finale of his most recently revised version of Return of the Jedi, released last year on DVD


    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
  24. jasperjones

    jasperjones Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Oct 24, 2001
    Lucas is as human as the rest of us and accordingly changes his mind as much as the next man, hence is tendancy to not even be sure of what he wants until the re-shoots.

    I think it's totally natural that he would listen to public opinion and be affected by that. I think the trouble iwth TPM is that he'd had a 20 year break and his films had become incredibly lauded. Originally the OT had recieved good and bad reviews. The SE's recvieved rave reviews across the board. The people that griped were the "hard-core fan-base". The man doesn't seem to be the most in touch guy in the world and I think he started to believe the hype. Everybody wanted him to nail the prequels and really believed hw would succeed. Listen to any of the early interviews with the actors, or read the early script reviews. The web heads all loved the script. Hell, Frank Darabont was given the script to have a look at and told GL he wouldn't change a thing ( i wish he had).

    My point is, with the OT, GL had bottled lightning for some people. The characters were great for some. Someone made a point earlier about not everybody loving SW first time aroun and they were exactly right. There will have been people that hated Yoda, 3PO, probably even R2 but back then they just got on with their lives. With the prequels, everyone with an internet connection feels the need to vent their spleens daily about how JarJar sucked and the web-sites are a higher volume extention of that. The media picks that up and runs with it.

    With JarJar, I remember during the very early days reading about him and thinking, sounds odd, but when has GL been wrong before ( I was young enough to fall in love with all the characters before critical faculties set in)? I really think people just didn't see Lucas dropping the ball. A lot of the movie was to be found in post, especially re JarJar, and people, just had faith in the master story-teller that it would work, himself included. I think so much of his concentration was focussed on whether or not the character would be convincing enough that he failed to realize that probably the last thing SW needed was a loony tunes character.

    Watch the TPM doc. You can see GL's realiztion after watching an early cut that he probably went too far. Up to this point he's been surrounded by people telling him how great it will be and generally agreeing with him, because the last thing you're gonna do is argue with GL about the first SW film in 20 years, and then suddenly the movie comes out and JarJar is widley reviled and the obvious target for critics of the movie. You're damn right he toned him down for the sequels. Only a fool wouldn't.

    Unfortunately the film did so well at the box office that he could hide behind his, it's just the critics and fan-boys that don't get me, excuse. Had the film tanked he may have realized that perhaps hiring a decent script-writer would have been a good idea.
     
  25. Go-Mer-Tonic

    Go-Mer-Tonic Jedi Youngling star 6

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    Aug 22, 1999
    Maybe you should watch the beginning doccumentary again and pay close attention to the part where he says he might have gone "too far". He was talking about how quickly he had cut some scenes together. He felt it ended up moving too fast for a first time viewer to be able to understand what was going on, but to a certain extent, he had to keep it the way it was because thats how he made it.

    Lucas was absolutely -not- surrounded by "yes men". Rob Colman (lead animator on Jar-Jar) pleaded with George to let him tone Jar-Jar's antics down, but Lucas wouldn't budge.

    And again I could see the assumption that Lucas changed his course with Jar-Jar based on the negative reaction if only the movie hadn't chimed in at 2nd highest grossing film world wide (at the time). When your movie makes that kind of bank, it's a lot easier to assume the detractors didn't know as much as you did. Since Lucas is known for his "I wan't to do it my way" determination, why would he suddenly listen to a group of people he doesn't agree with artistically (as evidence by the fact that -he- thinks Jar-Jar was a great character)?

    The answer is he wouldn't. And Lucas has said this time and time again to several different interviewers who have asked him what he thinks of the anti Jar-Jar sentiment. He says he knew they wouldn't like Jar-Jar but that he wasn't trying to please those people. He was trying to please the people who ended up enjoying what he did, and there were enough of them in the end, that the people who didn't simply weren't his concern.

    He's hiding behind the people who like Jar-Jar and The Phantom Menace at large, just as he hid behind the people who loved the Ewoks and Return of the Jedi.

    Why would he ever try to change what he's trying to do for people who obviously don't appreciate the same things he does? The only reason I can come up with is if his films didn't do so well at the box office.
     
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