PT PT Discussion of future SW Content (Locked) - Discussion Moved to Saga Board

Yeah but that's just because its marketing. They know there is a market full of people who were turned off by the OT so they use buzzwords to get them involved in hyping the movie up believing that they are in fact returning to what made "Star Wars great". If everyone loved the prequels you could bet they would have kept emphasizing they got GL to write the script.

CGI has advanced considerably since when the PT was made. TFA in my opinion has probably the greatest effects in a SW film in that it looks less "digital" than the PT and less "toy-ish" from the OT. Really this discussion in my opinion shouldn't be taking place. If you can make the effects look great using practical effects you should use practical. The James Bond movies almost always are use practical effects. The reason they can though is that the movie is set within the real world so you can acquire the necessary things to make the movie feel real. SW is space fantasy though and it is reasonably to use CGI for certain scenes to immerse you in the world.

The goal of Special effects is to immerse you that should be the primary goal if you can do it through CGI great if through practical great but it should look good no matter how.

 

On that front, Star Wars couldn't be in better hands than at Disney. They, at least in their film divisions, make incredibly solid projects, so it's always weird to see people constantly be so anti-Disney, as if Lucasfilm wasn't already a big corporate presence before George Lucas sold it to Disney because he knew it was the best possible home for his creation. And the track record gives me a lot of faith in what's to come, Rogue One looks brilliant, and RJ is an inspired choice to direct VIII. (I'm a little more apathetic about Colin Trevorrow, however, because Jurassic World, ugh). Tron Legacy and John Carter were both fantastic sci-fi films. You've got Pixar whose overall performance is top tier even with a few misses in the mix. You have the Marvel juggernaut pumping out incredibly satisfying movies that continue to succeed because of top-notch character focus (even if the mileage varies). For a franchise like Star Wars that, as many have pointed out here, is all about family entertainment, one could not find a better home than Disney itself. Especially when George Lucas, when talking about why he made the original Star Wars, was he wanted to do something Disney-esque.

 

I'm in the opposite camp. I don't think Star Wars could be in worse hands on a macro level, given the track record (rehash of ANH and a barrage of almost exclusively-OT content for the new EU, also the EU canon purge, replacing TCW with Rebels).

I don't disagree on Marvel and Pixar though which is why I was initially very hopeful. For whatever reason though Disney is a lot more hands-on with LucasFilm than they are with Marvel/Pixar (Disney heads were the ones who decided not to use GL's 7-9).

Not saying Disney is Sidious or anything. I'm just displeased with their decisions. Just my take.

 

STAR WARS Rogue One SPOILER TOYS Pics! Part 59

 

I can't step away from something because of one film. Sure it was rough but it will pick up, I truly believe from Celebration they are learning from their mistakes. The GL mentions this time round for instance helps a lot.

Do I wish there was more of TCW and the PT sure, but the OT content we have got (With the exception of Rebels Season One- Season Two improved) I have enjoyed. As long as it's new ground and it's interesting then I'm game.

 

This is a tough thing for me to explain, because I've been a passionate fan of the EU since shortly after experiencing the films in middle school. I would even go so far as to say the EU is what made me more of a SW fan than even the OT. That being said, it was already filled with contradictions and revisions, many of them due to the PT and Clone Wars shaking things up and ignoring the novels. It was just too burdened, and I much preferred going to TFA not knowing anything about the future or what would/might happen. I think it was the right call... I only wish they'd given the EU a proper sendoff. I agree with you completely about Clone Wars. Shouldn't have been cancelled, and as it stands right now, it's still the superior show to Rebels.

Where we most disagree, I think, is on TFA, which I consider to be superb, even with some pretty glaring flaws that I attribute to "JJ being JJ again." (I am sick and done with his dumb "mystery box" obsession, all it did was leave all the hardest most creative questions to be figured out by those working on the next two...) So, while I'm dissatisfied with some of the choices made, I'm mostly enthusiastic about the shot of life they gave the franchise and seeing where it goes from here. I also eagerly await the arrival of a live action TV show, though the criminal underworld setting one that's been in development hell for a decade doesn't get me terribly excited and I hope they scrap it for something a bit more Force-oriented.

 

I will say, Rogue One looks amazing. Finally looks like they are getting on track for me.

 

Rogue One looks gorgeous! Based on the trailers and what I've seen so far, I say it stands a good potential of topping my list of favorite SW films. I have no idea how the story and characters will hold up to that, and will try my damnedest not to get my expectations up too high so I can just go and see it and enjoy it. I hope it has rathtars in it!

(Kidding.)

 

With all due respect -- although, admittedly, I probably came off like a blockhead the other night -- I don't need to be told "bcz marketing". I fully realize what Disney were up to. You make a concession to that same basic reality: that they did construct a marketing scheme based around pulling in disgruntled (and, one might add, easily-impressed) OT fans, which meant strongly implying that TFA was more like the OT and a lot less like the PT. To make that association particularly strong, a crucial aspect of the scheme was to imply that the OT is the "authentic" Star Wars experience, and that, vis-à-vis, the PT is, in some sense, inauthentic, lesser, and "Other"; an unfortunate thing that's "there" but should ultimately be ignored.

Well, that's a subjective view, of course: the idea that TFA looks both less "digital" than the PT and less "toy-ish" than the OT. My own subjective view is that it's stuck in some kind of weird, retro-fetish No Man's Land, coming nowhere near the aesthetic heights of either one, and looking a bit bland and uncertain -- safe, conservative -- in comparison. My opinion is that, overall, for better and worse, it looks like a movie made and completed in 2014/2015, but oddly stuck in second gear. It's a classic car with a new lick of paint, decked out with plasma screens; and it has a tacky interior smell.

Now, given your analogy with the James Bond series, let me also assert (or reassert) that practical effects have their appeal and their value, but that isn't the message Disney were putting out. They weren't simply trying to say that the movie had been crafted with a wide range of techniques. They were taking the opportunity to indicate, with an obvious degree of emphasis, that they were avoiding the mistakes (their ideological stance) that Lucas made with the prequels, and returning Star Wars to a "pre-digital world" (to capture Mark Hamill's wording from the Comic Con production reel). The clear implication was that the prequels were something of a miscalculation, and Disney were bringing balance to the Force and giving the fans a film and an experience they had been crying out for.

And, again -- since this has been talked of and backed up with evidence a lot on here, over the past year or two -- the prequels utilized a ton of practical effects. Even ROTS, which was the only prequel not shot on location, employed plate photography from several continents, and had seventy-two practical sets built, including complex miniatures like the Mustafar lava rig. So, in boasting that TFA was some "return" to an authentic/idyllic state, Disney were actively distorting the historical record and telling lies.

Rian Johnson, in a chimerical fashion, seems to have integrated the hard work of prequel fans in those tweets, given the clause, "you know they had a huge amount of practical fx and sets" (a clear allusion to all the work fans had been doing online to set the record straight in the last year or so), while going with the "company line" that distancing TFA from the prequels wasn't actually what Disney were doing last year. Yeah, right. But, like I also came back in and said, I can see how he's (arguably) trying to not get in trouble with his employer, while subtly floating out the idea that he never really bought their stance, and he doesn't really approve of it. But only subtly. After all, as you've been suggesting, what else can he do, given his current position?

Oh, they do make some very solid projects. The issue, I think, is more to do with the spirit of their approach; and the general tone and temperament and look and feel of the finished product. Star Wars was one thing under George Lucas. It's something else under Disney. There's no crime in enjoying anything Disney puts out; nor is there any crime in enjoying the fruits of George Lucas' broad imagination and hard-won creative freedom.

 

While I recognize your points, I don't really see how the approach Disney has taken differs very much from the way GL treated the OOT during and after the developments of the PT. Just like PT fans love these films, and would like to see them treated with respect, OOT fans wanted the same for the OOT. Yet GL took every opportunity to tell fans, that they fell in love with a set of unfinished films, and they should grow up and accept his updated vision. For 15 years OOT fans have had to endure GL's disdain for his original creations. So, while I symphatise with PT fans complaints about Disney pandering to OT fans, I think PT fans might also recognize, that OOT have been recieving the **** end of the stick for a much longer period of time.

 

I can understand discarding SOME of the EU. I can probably even understand canning most of it. But why did stuff like KOTOR have to be dropped? It does not contradict the movies and in many cases it made people Star Wars fans.

And ya when I walked out of the theater and realized none of the mysteries were solved I kind of started thinking "why did I pay to see this?"

 

I would say that once again they probably wanted more control over it but there is also the possibility they thought it would just be simpler to can all of it rather than have to go into detail on what they wanted to keep and what they didn't.

Still when I heard Disney had bought SW and were planning to make more movies my assumptions were the same as your's I thought the old republic era was safe since TOR was still going and also wouldn't conflict with the progress into the future of the timeline.

 

Because its part 1 of a 3 part story.
Take the Yuuzhan Vong not being able to be sensed in the Force mystery from the New Jedi Order series. Nothing was solved in the first story. Clues and such were given during the series but the final answer wasn't know until the final book, 19 books or so later.
One character took a major step several books in but was killed before he could take it further.

I was disappointed to not see more about Rey's family but whatever. I can wait. Then again, it doesn't really matter to me that much. Poe, Finn, Leia, Chewie are her family now.

They'll probably make the Old Republic Sith threat just be 2000 to 1000 years ago, completely negating TOTJ, LTOTS, KOTOR, TOR etc.
Keep their options open for their own story. That's why they got rid of the post ROTJ EU. They could have kept it to the Hand of Thrawn duology easily.

 

Thanks, DrDre. You make some excellent points yourself. Where I would slightly depart from what you're saying, however, is that, as dickish or regrettable as Lucas' actions might have been, the OT -- much like the PT -- was his personal creation, and if he didn't want to keep supporting and releasing an "earlier draft" (to use his wording), then I don't think he really had to. Disney, by contrast, took hold of a venerable property, then set about insinuating this huge piece of it was below par; even if the PT was just a casualty, perhaps, of their profit-driven desire to pacify and appease a wider demographic. Also, of course, two wrongs don't make a right.

And then, I guess, I felt a bit talked down to, even excluded, by the campaign they ran last year. In my personal estimation, at least, it was so hollow, so thrown in our faces (well, mine, as a PT fan, anyway), that it had to be poked fun at. I feel a better balance could have been struck. But what's done is done. I will say that it's intellectually interesting that they finally went that particular route. Life is all about making choices, after all. And now, those choices can be dissected; but we've already done a fair bit of that and there isn't much use in obsessing over it. To quote Kierkegaard: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

 

What **** end of the stick? That Lucas said that his own work, his own art, called it unfinished? That's just something of what an artist does commonly. Go to my old art school, and you'll have people saying the same exact thing he says.




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And besides, other than colour timings, 95% of the OT is identical to their theatrical versions.

 

It's also one of the most loved movies of all time, so I see the complaint, don't get me wrong. It kinda sucks hearing the creator of what you love calling something you thought that was amazing unfinished...But how can you blame him? When you are so restricted, and can't get the vision that you wanted made, of course it's unfinished. It wasn't done. You had so much more in store than what it was. Sure they were well done movies, but they weren't fully done in Lucas's mind.


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"Short end of the stick" refers to not getting a restored HD version of many people's preferred movies & having to resort to old Laserdisc transfers whilst watching fans of other movie series get pristine Blurays of their favorite movies.

And I think the "95% of the OT is identical" argument is flawed because you can't measure the subjective experience of watching a movie with that kind of number. Like even though most of ROTJ is the same as its theatrical version, I can't bring myself to ever watch the Bluray because of that "Noooo" at the end which just ruins it (for me). I'll make an analogy: if someone throws a blotch of mud at the Mona Lisa, would it be acceptable to not clean it just because "95% of the Mona Lisa is still visible post-mud"? I don't think so because that mud ruins the experience, especially if it's right on the face region.

That being said, I do understand Lucas' dilemma: should he spend his efforts making his art the way he wants it (making the special editions) or should he forgo that in favor of serving history/culture and giving many people the movies they love (restoring the OOT)? It truly is a pickle and I don't really blame him for not wanting to be a slave to societal expectations. But at the same time, I don't think it's unfair to say that OOT fans have gotten the short end of the stick. And even in this current Disney era, those movies still haven't gotten released, so we're continuing to make due with the short ends of our sticks. Thankfully, fan efforts have picked up the slack and are continuing to improve.

To bring it back to the topic though, I do think some prequel references in future movies would be cool. Personally, I'm hoping for a return of Duel of the Fates as I feel that it is a piece that transcends any specific scene and can work for a variety of situations. On the subject of marketing, they did seem to talk a lot about the practical effects, even though it was really a mix of practical+CGI. CG is so essential to movies today as we can see in a lot of the VFX breakdown videos.

 

Many fans love the OOT, and just because GL has the right to, doesn't make denying these legions of fans access to a high quality version of these films any more symphathetic. The reality is that after two decades of OOT GL took these original versions away from those fans. The problem with GL's attitude is not that he himself has a desire the update these films, but that he refuses to acknowledge that legions of fans prefer it's original incarnation.

 

Saying you feel your art is unfinished, and denying access two the original versions after they existed for two decades, are two different things. Disney might have been less than complementary about the PT, but at least they didn't say to PT fans, you will no longer have access to these films, unless it's a heavily altered version.

 

STAR WARS Rogue One SPOILER TOYS and Merch Pics! Part 60!

 

STAR WARS Rogue One SPOILER Merch Pics! Part 61

 

I agree, The post ROTJ EU obviously had to go but most of the stuff pre-ROTJ has yet to be gravely contradicted by the new canon so I feel they really threw the baby out with the bathwater in regards to the EU.

 

Oh dear.

"Practical creature fx & sets are an element of what make all SW films feel like SW, & if we talk about that you shouldn't take it as prequel bashing".

Does this mean they are going to throw the Prequels under the proverbial bus again when they market Episode VIII?

 

Well, indeed.

RJ does seem to be hinting at a "Round Two" of practical effects propaganda.

If that's the case: Get a new tune, already, Disney.