Last month George Lucas, emboldened by his impending retirement from the business of blockbusters, opened up about his weariness with the complaints of Star Wars fans who have long griped about his many changes to the saga over the years—for instance, making it so that Han shoots first, to correct what was once a glaring “violation of his own naïve style.” And while that’s more explanation than George Lucas believes you deserve—and it’s already out there for public consumption, and everyone is now familiar with it—there is, of course, no reason why that explanation cannot be tweaked and improved upon after the fact. And so that's exactly what Lucas does in this new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, unveiling the newer, enhanced answer that he always intended you to see.posted by muddgirl at 9:35 AM on February 10 [25 favorites]
If you look at Blade Runner, it’s been cut sixteen ways from Sunday and there are all kinds of different versions of it. Star Wars, there’s basically one version — it just keeps getting improved a little bit as we move forward. … All art is technology and it improves every year.Apart from this being hilarious, it's a pretty interesting psychological problem: How does this even make sense to him? Other people's revisions are just random tinkering, but his are all according to the one true version that's resided in his head all along?
Then there’s the fact that it simply makes no sense at all that Greedo could have shot first. Greedo is supposed to be a professional bounty hunter. How long do you think the career, and life, of a bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe would be if he could actually miss a stationary target three feet in front of him that he’s been aiming at for several minutes? In the original version, he misses with his dying shot because — here’s the thing — he’s dying at the time, and that can really throw off your aim. There is simply no reasonable explanation for Greedo missing before Han shoots him — heck, Jar Jar could make that shot!posted by Rock Steady at 9:47 AM on February 10 [24 favorites]
Well, the ever increasing steps to remove any ambiguity about Deckard being a replicant weaken it considerably, IMHO.I should have been clear - I have not seen the latest version yet. I was talking about the difference between the theatrical release and the director's cut from maybe the mid-nineties or so.
everything between Padme and Anakin is Lucas rubbing two planks of wood together.I've wondered if that was a deliberate choice by Lucas: to have his doomed love between immature and emotionally stunted characters actually sound in dialogue like it was coming from awkward and emotionally stunted people. He could have been taking the exact opposite of the realism-vs-story tradeoff that leads to names like "Greedo" and "Solo".
GREEDOI have one that I wear sometimes.
SHOT
FIRST
Or all Lucas had to say was Greedo was an out of work Stormtrooper or had been trained by Stormtroopers.
What’s shocking about The Phantom Menace is just how stately it looks compared to something like, say, Transformers. Lucas, a student of silent movies and cliffhangers, still believes in the action happening within the frame. He doesn’t go for fast cutting and arbitrary jump-cuts. This allows him to do a slow build that, seen today, is kind of refreshing. Believe it or not, The Phantom Menace dares to take its time. You’re allowed to take in the visuals. You aren’t being forced to scan the frame in the hopes of not missing anything before the next edit. The detail of the city-planet Curoscant [sic] or the desert vistas of Naboo have a tactile quality that is rare in today’s all-CGI-all-the-time filmmaking.posted by muckster at 1:33 PM on February 21
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posted by orme at 9:33 AM on February 10 [29 favorites]