ST The Development Of The Sequel Trilogy

Sure, George, your movies were all completely different and you never repeated anything. That quote is such nonsense self-aggrandizement.

 

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He was talking about world building and design. He's never claimed that he doesn't repeat stuff. In fact, he has discussed, numerous times, the mirroring nature of the Star Wars trilogies and the recurrence/reversal of themes throughout all the movies.
If he wants to revisit the concept of a forest world, though, he makes sure that it feels as different as possible from previous forest worlds. For example.


TFA doesn't exactly copy ANH, though. Far from it. It's clad in a narrative structure and an atmosphere that seems heavily influenced by it, but the actual plot is its own thing and draws inspiration from all over the Saga.

 

Quite a lot of (if not only) assumptions here. What Pablo says is: "There was no Jacen. No Jaina. No new Jedi Order. Chewie lived."

Context is important. This is all in relation to how things happened in the EU. No new Jedi Order doesn't necessarily mean no Jedi or no Jedi Order. Just simply no New Jedi Order as the EU had done it. Just like there's no Jacen in the sequel trilogy but we still got an Han Solo son who was trained as a Jedi and had fallen to the dark side.

Regarding what was actually developed form the treatments by Lucas, that's also mere assumption. We have literally nothing to go by. The Art of TFA merely showcases a design brainstorm, not adaptation of story content. Aside from an handful of designs, almost everyone was giving ideas. We literally can't say things like this: "This group (Lucas, Arndt, Kennedy, Hart, et al) developed the following key story ideas (among others) during this time:"

No proof.

 

Yes, "no new Jedi Order", not "no New Jedi Order". The meaning is plain: "There was no Jedi Order in George's version of the ST". That's not an assumption; it's a straightforward reading.

As for the other point, yes, it was a brainstorming session in which Lucas was a participant. This is very similar to how the OT and PT were developed--the art department brainstorms with the treatment as partial guidance, which feeds back to a group of writers and producers, who then further inspire the art department, and so on and so forth. It was a "guided" phase, not a "paint whatever" phase, after all.

 

This is very revealing and makes me very happy since I was someone who was let down by TFA when it came out, mostly because of its erasure of the EU and Lucas apparently being thrown out but over the past two years I've come to really like TFA and this news just solidifies it for me!

I still think the movie would have FELT a lot different had Lucas directed just because of the design. Jakku would not be a copy of Tatooine, Takodona and Dquar would not be repeats of Endor/Yavin IV etc and I think a lot of the complaints about TFA feeling like a rehash comes from that lack of creativity in the design. The Prequels mirror plot threads from the OT (for example a ship's hyperdrive being damaged and emergency stop on nearby outer rim post to repair etc) but they felt so fresh and new and exotic and different because the planets and characters all looked nearly 100% different and alien to us.

 

Few things...
-The Jedi Killer was supposed to be at some point, an alien.
That is to me is the most interesting thing. Because if so, the Jedi Killer was not Han and Leia son, but above all if so
the core theme (of one of the core theme) of all the ST was not the redemption arc (or the path to a full turn to dark side)
of a Skywalker/Solo character.
That to me is a game change that cannot be ignored.
I believe it's even more important than who Rey really is.
Especially in a story coming from GL. Because his story would have mirror/rhyme for sure
the first six movies. Therefore Rey's identity would have benn that one that could serve better that story.
It's still is, I guess, but in a context where the villain is a Solo.

And what really was that story? That's the point, to me.
-The heroes were supposed to be teenagers.
If so, how likely it would have been for them to be the children of the old heroes, given the 30 years time gap?

- Finally, do we know for sure that Sam was a Solo or is just an assumption? I know Pablo said that Skyler/Sam evolved into both Kylo and Finn.
But beside that, do we have other confirmations? I ask, because I don't know.

 

I'm sure many things were changed, and Lucas's TFA would have been noticeably different from Abrams's.

However, it should be noted that that quote, from his Charlie Rose interview, was made in October 2015. He hadn't seen "the final product" then. Pablo Hidalgo says Lucas "seemed happy with TFA once he saw it." I imagine this won't stop the various "Resist Disney" Twitter and YouTube channels from doing their thing to "defend" Lucas from Abrams and Kennedy, but it is interesting.

https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/907723332748849152

 

There's a narrative out there that Lucas delivered his treatment, but the treatment was ignored and Lucas split from Kennedy acrimoniously, with the resulting film being a complete departure from where Lucas was going with the story.

It just does not align with the facts. The treatment was an initial formulation of the story used as a starting point for further story development as all treatments are, and Lucas was part of the process that evolved the story to where most of the familiar elements of TFA were locked-in. The work after Lucas' departure was apparently in figuring out how to fit all those story elements into a coherent plot.

Lucas' version would have almost certainly looked different, and the plot may have been different, but many of the elements that people take issue with--where the blame is laid at the feet of Kennedy, Iger, Abrams and/or Kasdan--would have remained. And that's a hard truth to swallow, because it is completely at odds with the "corporate hacks destroy Star Wars" narrative that's been running for two years straight.

 

When did Lucas write his script/or ideas for the films.? Was it long running ideas he had over time, or did he come up with them when he thought of doing another trilogy before Disney?

 

A bit of both, it seems. I think ideas bounced around for decades, but apparently he seriously started penning a treatment in 2012.

 

The thread to end all threads. If we had this 2 years ago, oh my, how many posts this would have saved.

 

Lucas hasn't on record said anything about the movie, so you can't go in with that last quote. I'm not sure what he says on either of the newer movies except that he stated that it's what the fans always wanted. That's all we have.

TFA still wouldn't have been attempted to be a "for the fans" movie with Lucas at the helm, thus, the movie's design would have been substantially different from JJ's. And Lucas's ideas, from what he's said, didn't seem to align with the story group once it started to evolve more. And again, it's the Story group that's the issue. We don't have much in the what, how and why. Just tidbits of proof.

 

It was almost certainly a matter of aesthetic divergence. It's clear that TFA was an attempt to course-correct (or perhaps over-correct) towards a more tangible, grounded aesthetic after the PT. So, like I said, it may have had a different look had Lucas been at the helm--Felucia, for example, may have been one of the planets.

But Pablo explicitly says, "By the time J.J. came aboard, the [story] had evolved by Michael, George and others to not resemble the treatment". If Lucas was so at odds with the direction the story was taking, why was he an active participant in that process? Was he just silently stewing, sullenly sitting in the room while others (Arndt included) bastardised his vision? No, it's clear he was helping to develop the story, and it was not an issue or any reason for conflict.

 

That's also a dangerous assumption to make. The truth is that we don't know why GL stayed on board for as long as he did or how he felt about the direction the story was taking. All we know is that he participated.

If he was unhappy with where things were headed, I think he was hoping against hope that he could endure staying on as consultant despite his disappointment, simply because he was attached to his creation.
That's pure speculation, though. As possible as that scenario is, it's equally possible that he was perfectly fine with it - until he felt that LFL and Disney had the (for him) wrong idea of what the movie should be like.

 

I don't at all see it as a dangerous assumption. It strikes me as common sense. If someone is an active participant during the development process (which is exactly what Pablo's tweet is meant to suggest), then we can fairly attribute, in part, the concepts developed during that period to him or her. This seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

All reasonable. As for the second para: Well, this is one interpretation of one source. But if you consider Lucas' statements too, the big picture IMO looks a bit different, namely that his story ideas were considerably "bastardized" (great term) and he was not happy about it and he finally left (that would also be in line with the OP article):
(from Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/george-lucas-not-a-fan-of-retro-star-wars-approach-201512300)

Sound like the epitome of a disgruntled employee, creative differences case does it not...? The unfortunate "white slaver" comment only adds to that. In the end we would have probably got a lot of similar concept like a "superweapon", but instead of a death star (as the OP article suggests) it would have been a giant spaceship (a la Ep 8 now, or the control ship concept in EpI) ramming shields down. Or a "Jedi Killer" who maybe was a samurai-like avenger of a new faction (and not a masked, black clad emo-Skywalker seduced by a dark lord destroying the Jedi Order AGAIN...).

And we, beyond a reasonable doubt, would not have gotten plot beat-by-plot-beat repetition of ANH/OT story points (Stormtroopers fight and defeat civilians to retrieve mcguffin item - Pompously enter masked main villain - He interrogates civilian leader and kills him - Young hero puts mcguffin item into cute droid who is fleeing into desert, Young hero is arrested and tortured for information etc..,) and character clones (Hux is Tarkin, Snoke is Palpatine, Kylo is Vader etc). Not to talk about designs and world building, a point you already addressed.

We will probably never know for sure, it's tears in heavy rain long lost in history and final facts (and confidentiality agreements).

 

I came across this on the JJ directing IX thread. How much of this has been substantiated?

 

When I get a chance, I'll take my time to go through the Art Of book myself and corroborate the information. But it's all based on official information in any case.

 

If Snoke is Palpatine and TFA is a copy of ANH, where was the Palpatine scene in ANH?

 

Agree I do.

Thanks.

Exactly. Wait, wasn't Snoke Plagueis, Windu, or Vader?

EDIT:

Forgot to paste this in my previous post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starwarssp...ring_up_some_misconceptions_about_the_art_of/

All of this info is from TAOTFA?

Btw, I found this. According to Jett Lucas, GL was almost constantly talking with his handpicked successor. JJ. Look at the date. 10.09.13--nearly a year after the sale on Halloween 2012, and 2 weeks before JJ and KK replaced MA.

 

Sorry for the DP. Again I forgot to paste as I had done two posts earlier. Ran out of time for editing.

https://www.google.co.jp/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/09/star-wars-george-lucas-jj-abrams

 

The controversy, for some, can now be summed up as "Whatever is in TFA that I don't like is what George Lucas would not have done if everything had been done his way, whatever that would have been. Even though it was never going to be done all his way."

 

Lets all be honest, this thread is eventually going to regress into a "George Lucas was betrayed by Di$ney" and a "No he was not" pie throwing contest. You can already see the beginnings of it. Its quite clear that people on either side will not allow their own beliefs to be altered, no matter what evidence is thrown their way.

Also, and I have to say this, but I have a hard time accepting people's argument that Lucas was betrayed, left out in the cold or whatever term you want to use, when the man came away from this over 4 billion dollars better off. He's a big boy. He knows how Hollywood works. I'm sure he knew what he was getting himself into. To continuously refer to him as though he's some sort of wounded animal is a bit stupid, TBH.

 

GL is already pn record as saying that he knew that selling up meant not getting everything his way. It wasn't until he experienced what not getting it all his own way felt like that he decided it's better to step aside.

 

I think Lucas is happy with the way things are, he's just conservative about showing it.