CT How Star Wars was saved in the edit

Very interesting.

 

Very misleading. It implies that every positive aspect of the editing process was the result of Marcia and the editing team saving George from himself, while failing to mention that George was a full participant of the editing process and was in fact personally responsible for cutting the scenes of Luke on Tatooine, which Marcia wanted to keep.

 

I wish Lucas had kept these scenes in the movie. Or at least brought them back when he made the Special Editions.

 

He took them out for a good reason. They're almost completely unnecessary for the plot and do nothing but disrupt the integrity of the narrative structure.

 

But i guess that most people would have liked it, contrary to some of the changes in the SE George actually made.

 

How Star Wars was saved in the edit ... by Paul Hirsch, Richard Chew, Marcia Lucas and George Lucas himself.

 

Given the history of fan reception to literally any of the changes Lucas has ever made, that's a very bad guess on your part.

 

The excised Luke/Tatooine scenes are awkward and don’t belong. Their proper place is as a supplemental curiosity.

I don’t agree with the SE releases, but I would’ve preferred to see extended versions of the films incorporating original unused material only, rather than new CGI scenes and enhancements.

 

Not entirely. Look how he screwed up on the prequels. If he decided on the editing all by himself, it would still be great, but not the one that made history. Not to mention he had less involvement in episode V and VII. Don't get me wrong, he has a great vision, but not by himself. It's when teamwork goes into making a unified vision.

 

He didn't screw up on the prequels. I can see you you're not new to this board, so you're probably aware that it's not necessarily taken as a given here that the prequels sucked.

 

OK, but there is a clear consensus in the fan base that the prequels were overall bad, even if it's not a given as you put it. He received plenty of criticism for them. That is something that cannot be denied. He even mentioned something like that when retiring.

 

According to IMDb, not only did Lucas not edit the prequels himself, Attack of the Clones is the only one he is noted as an "uncredited" editor on. I'm not saying he was never in the editing room on The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith, we have video evidence that he was, but his contribution editing on those films was small enough to not warrant even unofficial mention. So even if your premise (that he "screwed up" those movies) were correct, your "evidence" is backwards.

 

Lucas's editing role was essentially the same on all the movies he worked on. He was an uncredited overall editor who oversaw the work of the editors working under him and took a hands-on role in the process to varying degrees.

There is not a clear consensus. That's a myth. There is a loud minority on the Internet that has dominated the conversation for years through sheer force of vitriol, despite in no way representing the fanbase as a whole.

 

That's because the prequels generated their own fanbase who have a different perception of Star Wars. But a fanbase existed before the prequels did and if I'm not mistaken they did not receive the same academy awards or ratings as the originals.

Lucas even stated in retirement asking why he would make more if all he gets is criticism for them. Jar jar Binks received a huge hate base, even though without him, the prequels would still be overall disliked.

The classic trilogy has not received the same attacks as the prequels have. So there is overall consensus that the originals are better.

 

His work with TCW still shows how great Groege Lucas can still be when he has the right guys around him.

 

My two cents on the Luke on Tatooine edits: The conversation with Biggs would have added just a bit more context to the loss of Biggs at the end of the film. I'm not sure that the brief conversation that Luke and Biggs have on Yavin IV suffices. Actually, the conversation on Tatooine would have added some emotional weight to their reunion on Yavin IV.

 

I agree with you there. However, the admitted benefits of strengthening the impact of the Biggs reunion don't outweigh the harm done to the narrative flow by keeping them in. Such choices are hardly ever black-and-white. Editing is a give-and-take process. You often have to kill your darlings for the greater good of the film. Lucas, for any other faults, is a director who has always been exceptionally good about understanding this. He isn't shy about leaving great swathes of material on the cutting room floor, even material into which he personally invested a lot of time, money, and energy. It takes great discipline as an artist to be able to do that--the kind of discipline a lot of filmmakers today could stand to learn.

 

One of the originals. The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi received no Academy Awards, and all of the movies had comparable ratings at the time of their release. People who were adults when the originals came out largely said the same things that fans of the originals said when the prequels came out: the acting is bad, it's just about the special effects, they don't make movies like they did when I was a kid.

You're going to find that many of the truths you cling to depend greatly upon your point of view.

 

Hm, this seems like a good post to me, but how am I supposed to know for sure if it hasn't been endorsed by the voters of the Academy of Message Board Posting Arts and Sciences?

 

Is this heaven?

I cannot tell you how tiresome it is to read posts, or blogs where the assumption always is that the prequels were a failure and nobody liked them. Ever.

 

Luke n' Biggs is a fun scene but it's way disconnected and intercutting it with Wozie Yowieze Space Battle Robots and Dark Lords would have really put a drag on the opening.

Although I did hear an interesting hypothetical: Rogue One should have had the 1st Star Wars post-credits scene. A cleaned up version of Luke cleaning the droid and seeing the space battle on his binos, that would have been neat.

 

I won't comment on the value of Academy Awards, but the latter two did receive them. While Star Wars won the most, Empire won for Best Sound Mixing and got a Special Achievement Award for Best Visual Effects, while Jedi also got a Special Achievement Award for Best Visual Effects.

 

Oh snap, you're right, my bad. Should have double checked before saying anything, thanks.