Has Lucas changed his Direction for Episode 2? (1 Viewer)

[Morgan Jolley]

I heard Lucas imagined the entire storyline from scratch and then decided that Episode 4 (of 9) would be the best to make into a movie. He made up through 6, then stopped in order to leave it as a trilogy, especially since 7-9 deal with Han and Leia's son as a pilot, named Anakin (more than just a few similarities, eh?). Then, Lucas decided to make the first 3 films after he finished working on the theatrical rerelease of The Empire Strikes Back (in the mid/late 90s). You all know the rest (or most of it).
So Leia and Luke are supposed to be brother and sister from the very beginning. Jar-Jar is a BIG character in Ep I (everything involving the Gungans would never have happened without him) and is supposed to play a big role in Ep II and III (I heard he dies in III and its very dramatic).
I know some of the upcoming storyline elements. I can't say that I heard these from any source, since I mainly heard them through word of mouth.
Spoiler:In Episode II, Anakin is brought to the dark side through senator Palpatine, aka, the Emperor from Ep4-6. When he leaves Amidala, his wife, she is either pregnant or already has two kids (Luke and Leia) and splits them up by the end of Ep 3 by sending them to different people. I think Leia stays on Naboo and that is how she becomes royalty, whereas Luke is sent to Tattooine for some reason. In the end of Ep3, Anakin and Obi-Wan have a fight over a volcano and Obi-Wan wins. Anakin is rescued from the volcano but is damaged so bad that he needs to become half robot, half human in order to live (explaining his condition in Ep 4-6).
That is what I have heard about Ep2 and 3. I'm not totally sure about events or anything, but those are some of the big things that go on.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Of course the Kurtz article is not the "final word" on the subject. It's not intended to be. It's simply another viewpoint for people to digest, and make up their own minds. Some will see Kurtz as a sour-grapes dissenter. Fine. Some will see him as a man who brought some good things to the Star Wars universe. Fine. But don't seek to put down the man just because the interviewer was obviously unimpressed with TPM.

I never intended to put Mr. Kurtz down, and I didn't read it as Tom was either. I found Gary's anwsers to be very interesting, and would very much like to read more stuff from him. Thanks for the link, Carlos. I was simply pointing out that the article was from his point of view, and so is bound to be a bit different from the truth. The same as if you and I got in an argument. If someone asked us each for our accounting of things, we'd retell the events in different ways.
As for my personal opinions on things, I'm surprised so many people say that Lucas has lost his ability to collaborate with others. All the stuff you see online shows how reliant he was on all the other people working on TPM. What's neat about the prequel trilogy, I think, is that there's really one vision shaping it, piecing together the puzzle. Because of budget constraints and other issues, Lucas was forced to develop Star Wars as a film which could stand on it's own. The problem with TPM is that Lucas had the luxury of making it part of a bigger whole. Unlike ESB, which had the luxury of an audience who'd seen what had come before it (face it, ESB, as good as it is, is only really a middle. Without ANH, it wouldn't have been nearly as good of a film), and so we have nothing to piece it together with. That's why I'd reserve judgement until after Episode III is released. You may still hate TPM. Fair enough. But it made have greater respect when the rest of the puzzle in place. TPM had a ton of great foreshadowing which we could piece together from just the OT. How much will be revealed once we have AOTC and EpIII?
What I'm getting at is that the PT will have one vision, which will hopefully hold together atleast the three movies it's composed of. You may think the end result is a POS, fair enough. But I personally am as excited as all hell. Enjoy the happy-go-lucky spirit of TPM while it lasts, because from the sound of things, this series is taking a dark turn in it's next chapter. Perhaps the happy spirit of TPM will serve as a sub-concious deepening of the contrast from little boy Anakin to dark lord Vader.
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[Tom-G]

Hasn't this exact same conversation been written on like 800 other threads?

Maybe even more, Coressel. That is why taking this topic any further is an exercise in futility. Some may frown upon the fact that I'm a Lucas fan, but so be it. I really don't care what they think.
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[Jeffrey Forner]

The spoilers I have read, mostly from TheForce.Net indicate that, yes, Attack of the Clones will be a much darker movie than The Phantom Menace.
However, I wouldn't say that this is because Lucas heard all the criticisms of Episode I and went, "Whoa, I better make some changes!" Personally, I think that if Episodes II and III are darker, it will be because that's what the story necessitates. If that's the case, then Lucas is simply following the formula he followed in the Original Trilogy: Introduce the characters in the first film, put them in the worst possible situation in which they could ever find themselves in the second, and resolve the problems in the third. Naturally, A New Hope has a lighter tone than Empire, since that movie was mostly an adventure film that established the characters and the Star Wars universe. Return of the Jedi also had a lighter tone than Empire because the heroes won at the very end, giving the film an upbeat tone.
With that in mind, I very much believe that Episode III will be the darkest Star Wars film of them all. It will be darker that Attack of the Clones and it will even be darker than Empire. Why? Because in that film, the bad guys win. The galaxy descends into darkness. Lucas himself has indicated that this will be the case in interviews. Some of you a skeptical, but I, for one, am willing to believe him.
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-J.Fo
"And you can tell Rolling Stone magazine that my last words were... 'I'm on drugs!'"

 

[Dwayne]

Just a few things to keep in mind:
A basher could be described as someone who wants the rest of the prequels to fail.
Most of the people in this forum who are upset with Lucas, are because they know the man is capable of doing better than he did with TPM and the SEs. Not because they simply get off on it.
Like Robert said, make good movies and you'll get praised. Make anything less and, well you know the rest...
Believe or not, most of us who lament over Lucas's latest works are also fans. We grew up with Star Wars just like everyone else. The times that we spent watching those films on the big screen are the stuff that good memories are made from.
The bottom line:
I want Lucas to do better. I want the next two films to do well. I want to be awed by them like I was with his earlier works. I wish for them to convey a story, not a showcase for what ILM can do. I think AOTC is shaping up to be a great film, but that is only from speculation. Hopefully, my instincts are right.
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-Dwayne
"And vidi films I would."

 

[Norm]

Tom G,
quote: the article is fodder for the bashers of George Lucas who despise him unconditionally. [/quote]
Your implying that anyone who agrees with this article is a basher!
I wish we could get back on topic.
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[Edited last by Norm on September 08, 2001 at 09:30 AM]

 

[Tom-G]

quote: Your implying that anyone who agrees with this article is a basher![/quote]
No, not quite. I did imply that the interviewer was biased and those who happen to share the same bias would enjoy it to a higher degree. That's all. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing. I read this article last year and I can assure you it wasn't about agreeing or disagreeing.
quote: I wish we could get back on topic.[/quote]
It's been discussed already, but no harm in continuing.
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[Edited last by Tom_G on September 08, 2001 at 12:02 PM]

 

[RobertR]

Glad to see you tone down the "unconditional despisers" rhetoric, Tom.
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[Anthony_D]

Maybe Lucas does need to colaborate more...I've been saying that about Kevin Smith. Kevin Smith can write good, but he sucks at everything else. Makes him a prime candidate.
LUcas sucks at writing but can direct...how about if they get together to make star wars?

 

[Dan Hitchman]

God I hope so.
And, yes I'm a big Star Wars fan (started when I was five and went to see A New Hope in 1977). Just about any first year film student would probably tell you that Phantom Menace was a poor attempt at filmmaking. Sloppy, incoherent script and plot; horrible acting (the little brat who played Anakin and Jar Jar-- shudder!), bad editing (except the one lightsaber duel at the end), terrible pacing, cartoony CGI work, etc. etc. etc.
It did have great sound, though.
The article with Kurtz is quite interesting and I feel a part of the saga Rick "Yes Man" McCallum is unwilling to talk about.
Dan
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[Coressel]

"I feel a part of the saga Rick "Yes Man" McCallum is unwilling to talk about."
However, McCallum recently said that the extras on the TPM DVD are meant to show the positive and negative side of film making, so as NOT to appear as a "yes man" type of infomercial. So is McCallum a lying sack of shit as well as a yes-man? I agree that something was missing from Star Wars after Kurtz left, but it is obvious that the interviewer linked to earlier is very biased.
I was going to go into how lots of people who think all the CGI work in TPM is too cartoon-like don't know what's CGI and what's "real" in the movie, but I won't since again this exact same conversation appears on countless other threads on this forum.
[Edited last by Coressel on September 09, 2001 at 11:24 AM]

 

[RobertR]

McCallum recently said that the extras on the TPM DVD are meant to show the positive and negative side of film making, so as NOT to appear as a "yes man" type of infomercial. So is McCallum a lying sack of shit as well as a yes-man?

Showing “the positive and negative side of film making” in general (ANY complex undertaking has its positive and negative aspects) is NOT the same as specific, targeted critiques of Lucas. So McCallum can STILL be a yes-man with respect to Lucas while not lying about what will be on the DVD.
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[Andy Sheets]

Jar-Jar is a BIG character in Ep I (everything involving the Gungans would never have happened without him) and is supposed to play a big role in Ep II and III (I heard he dies in III and its very dramatic).

I think the prequels are being made with a general, overarching plot in mind, at least more of one than the original trilogy had, which I think Lucas wanted to be evocative of a larger saga but didn't really know at the time what that saga would become.

 

[Dale Dobson]

Okay, I've refrained from adding my half-baked ideas to ANY Star Wars thread to date, but I have to jump in on this one.
I've been a Star Wars fan since 1977, when I saw the first movie at the age of ten. I haven't been a big fan of the ancillary novels and such (mostly because many of them have NO substantive impact on the storyline) but I will always be ten years old again where Star Wars is concerned.
Perhaps this explains my remarkable lack of dislike for the Ewoks in ROTJ - I really like their tribal nature, they're obviously competent little carnivorous critters with a well-developed culture and language. They appear to dominate Endor, and the bone artifacts many of them wear allow me to buy into them as a credible alien species. Yes, they resemble teddy bears in design, but I claim the perception of them as "cute" comes more from the TV movies and animated series than from their portrayal in ROTJ.
Jar-Jar Binks in TPM is a different story, given his propensity for slapstick and limitations as a CG personage. But I can't help but think how exciting it might be to see him mature over episodes II and III. After all, how many of us knew annoying, goofy, unfunny f***ups in high school who straightened out, grew up and became responsible human beings? (How many of us on the HTF *were* said f***ups?) We don't know how old Jar-Jar is supposed to be in Ep I; his personality could change for the better. Lucas does have an eye for character DEVELOPMENT, which is part of what makes the Star Wars saga so irresistible compared to most movie series.