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More Lucas... Quotes from an interview about the DVD's

#31 User is offline   Commoner Icon

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Posted 20 September 2004 - 06:44 PM

You know what's true irony. If Lucas had made the prequels more in line with how we see it, the gushers would right along saying how perfect and great and wonderful it is. It doesn't matter what Lucas puts on the screen, they'll take it in any shape or form.

I have NO doubt about it.

This post has been edited by Commoner: 20 September 2004 - 06:46 PM

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#32 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 20 September 2004 - 07:39 PM

that's why i like his quote about being persecuted either way...

what the fuck is that...?

if had released the originals on DVD, who would have stood up said:
what are you doing? this movie is soo old and dated... what kind of moron would realease something without using technology to fuck it up first

no! there is nly one way he's going to end up having rocks thrown at him, and that's the path he actually chose... IDIOT...
oh, and BTW, thanks George for the idea, maybe next time i see you i will throw rocks.
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#33 User is offline   jariten Icon

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Posted 21 September 2004 - 02:56 AM

QUOTE
You know what's true irony. If Lucas had made the prequels more in line with how we see it, the gushers would right along saying how perfect and great and wonderful it is. It doesn't matter what Lucas puts on the screen, they'll take it in any shape or form.


zzzzz.

QUOTE
It s fundamentally insulting and offensive to the set designers and the carpenters and the storyboard artists and the conceptual artists and puppeteers and hell, even the publicists and film distributors, to pretend this is akin to a painting or a novel and that it is the work of the guy who happens to have the legal ownership of the thing.


come on now, dont get carried away. the largest changes to these DVD editions has come in the form of a general clean up/sound improvment job- which means that yes, the original effects, the original shots (which were shot on cameras operated by the original cameramen and grips), the original actors (with one slight exception) still remain. and their names are still on the credits. no one is denying, or trying to lessen their roles in the production. all i`m (and Lucas) is saying is, that he hasnt the ultimate right, the ultimate artist control over what these films will become. and with that, he also bears the responsibilty for his actions. but like he said, he (and I) wants to see the saga operate as a whole, which is largely the motivation behind these new changes. if, somehow, it proves to be a huge mistake, it`ll be on Lucas` head. which is what the rocks comment was about.

QUOTE
But he's talking about his rights as an artist, and essentially flipping the bird to all the other artists who worked on the film on the day. He's not worried about their rights.


see above. no body is saying fuck you to anybody.

actors, like set designers, camera men, best boys or whoever, are just tools that the director/creator uses to help bring his/her vision to the screen. and as such, they must accept that their appearance in the film is entirely subject to their descision.
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#34 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 21 September 2004 - 04:26 AM

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actors, like set designers, camera men, best boys or whoever, are just tools that the director/creator uses to help bring his/her vision to the screen.


Tools? They're called people, Jariten.

I agree with everyone who says that as these films are a collaborative effort, they don't morally belong to George Lucas only.

QUOTE
but like he said, he (and I) wants to see the saga operate as a whole, which is largely the motivation behind these new changes.


We know this. But as the prequels were the ones that were out of line, really they're the only movies that he should be changing. That makes me wonder how you would feel if they changed the prequels to make them fit in with the original movies.

There is something else that needs to be said. Lucas said that he wouldn't put the original films on DVD because of the millions of dollars that would require...

but he's already spending millions of dollars restoring them anyway before putting in the changes. He could have cleanly transferred the whole trilogy to a digital format, saved it and then start putting in the extra stuff afterwards... and it'd be no more expensive than what he's doing now.

In addition to this, he could release the DVD set with both versions of the trilogy, making a far superior product, and make all parties happy.

What Lucas is doing is just acting like a dog in the manger.

He won't release the original Star Wars movies on DVD?

Why not? Millions of people love them. And it requires no extra effort on his part... and what's more, he'd net a larger profit.

Lucas is just being a jerk.
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#35 User is offline   jariten Icon

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Posted 21 September 2004 - 04:35 AM

yeah im with you on the why not release both versions thing. seems like hes trying to edit the past doesnt it? hopefully in 30/40 years no one will remember that he changed then at all. only, I really cant see that happening.

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Tools? They're called people, Jariten.


yes, but their only purpose is to help bring the directors vision to the screen. if they have a problem with that, they are in the wrong line of work. i know that a lot of directors dont have all the power that their job titles would suggest, but Lucas is an exception to this rule. self funding his films, he has all the power, makes all the descisions, and ultimatly takes all the risks. this is the rare position he finds himself in. one of the reasons why these changes are generating so much attention is because few directors have the control or power that Lucas has, hence few directors get the chance to exercise the option of changing parts of their film that they dont like. i`m sure there are 100`s of directors who would like to have the chance to exercise the power that Lucas is.

of course, i cant help but feel that a lot of these disputes could have been avoided if Lucas had only released the original versions too. honestly, how many people would have protested that news??
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#36 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 21 September 2004 - 04:41 AM

That's the pity of the whole thing, isn't it? If he'd released both versions, everyone would be happy. It's a shame.
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#37 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 21 September 2004 - 02:58 PM

QUOTE (jariten @ Sep 21 2004, 02:56 AM)
actors, like set designers, camera men, best boys or whoever, are just tools that the director/creator uses to help bring his/her vision to the screen. and as such, they must accept that their appearance in the film is entirely subject to their descision.

Oh, I see you took that class on auteur theory as well.

Ok, some background: When a director puts on a play, he challenges the actors, he works with the stage director to work out the blocking, and sure, he's there to supervise the construction of the set. But do you know what he does while the thing is running? Nothing. Having set the thing in motion, the director can do no more than offer notes at the end of the night. By that time, the play belongs to the actors. The idea that a director is the only person responsible for the realization of a movie came about not in the early days of cinema but sometime in the era of Truffaut, and it's stuck ever since. But honestly: how many films are made by the screenwriters, and don't most cinemagoers select their preferences based on the actors?

George Lucas did not invent all those races and spaceships and the look of STAR WARS. He selected ideas brought to him by his creative team. And what if that team liked that Han shot Greedo in pre-emptive self-defence, instead of the way it plays out now? Who cares: Lucas is the single only designer of the piece, and they were just a bunch of servants doing the work he asked of them. If Lucas wanted to remove all of their spaceships and add cgi ones: well, fuck them.

George Lucas wrote the lines, but did not bring the personality to the characters he put on screen. Who's more responsible for the success of STAR WARS, George Lucas or Harrison Ford? I was alive at the time, and I'll tell you: that question would not have seemed ridiculous to anyone in 1977; it doesn't seem ridiculous to a lot of people now. Ford carred a lot of the worst scenes in STAR WARS, and made them work; Ford and Kirshner between them came up with everyone's favorite line in EMPIRE. But if Lucas wanted to overdub his voice now, after the fact, and found that he had the legal right, then who cares, right? Ford offered nothing to the film; he's just a hired hand, after all.

Etc. What is Lucas got it into his head that the sky over Tatooine should be red? Well, he's the only creative mind on set, to hell with the set designers and the screenwriters! Change it!

Jariten, I know what you're saying about overreacting and the changes being minor. I disagree, mostly, but I know what you're saying. However: Lucas is not defending hs specific changes, he's defending the right of the directoir as artist to make any and every change he wants, for the rest of time. This "Director's cut" is special, in the sense that other director's cuts in the past have added or removed footage that existed on the day, footage that the actors knew about, that the cinematographer approved, that the gaffer created lighting for, that the cameraman shot. Mostly, it's stuff that was in the script at the time, and quite often actors agree to do films based on the actual scripted material. This is special because Lucas is tinkering with the frames themselves, adding things that did not exist at the time. Lucas asked Harrisson Ford to act out a scene where he shot Greedo. Years later, the motivation for the character is changed. On the day, the actor might have made a different decision in his close-up, knowing that he was firing in self-defence instead of shooting first. But fuck him; we have the image in the frame, and now we own it.

The actors in SKY CAPTAIN had to work in front of blue screens all day, and never saw what they were reacting to. They had to trust the filmmakers to deliver the story they hoped they were in. They could have been screwed, no question about that, and they acted out of faith. I think they were not let down; but what if the director, in thirteen years, decides to change the look of the picture, to fill the sky with Teddy Bears carrying signs that read John 3:16? What is he doing with that trust?

I guarantee Lucas's actions here will have the effect of changing the way film contracts are written. Right now, many actors demand "creative control," defending the film from changes during production. Here and forward, expect clauses to defend the film as an entity after release, to protect against post-production changes as well.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#38 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 21 September 2004 - 09:39 PM

love the SC remark, civ...

--------------------

Jariten, let me ask you something...
do you have any creative abilities... anything your proud of....
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#39 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 22 September 2004 - 12:40 AM

You know, I hate to be snobbish but I have to point out that nothing like this has EVER happened in the literary world. People write books, have them published and that's the end of it. I can't imagine anyone ever going back and rewriting a book they've written and changing random things.

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#40 User is offline   jariten Icon

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Posted 22 September 2004 - 01:42 AM

Barend-

yes of course.


cant wait to see where you go with this one... tongue.gif
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#41 User is offline   jariten Icon

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Posted 22 September 2004 - 01:55 AM

while im not arguing or doubting that Lucas` craetive team were essential in bringing SW to life (otherwise why hire them), they are still only working under the tutorlige and direction of Lucas, without the germs of his ideas, and without his overall guidance, SW would have come to nothing. yes, many people have workied on SW, and in terms of the minor changes that have been made, I dont see how this distracts or takes away from the original work all those people put in all those years ago. the only obvious exception being Shaw. now, if people complain about that scene, I can sympathise- but shaw was only ever one small part of Lucas` mosiac, was always under Lucas` control, and hence subject to change/removal or whatever. like i said though, Lucas got a rare deal- full artistic control. how many other directors would go back and change whatever bugged them about their films, if only they were able to/had the backing/money to or whatever? probably quite a lot.
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#42 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 22 September 2004 - 01:55 AM

and what might that be...
elaborate...
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#43 User is offline   Xombie Icon

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Posted 22 September 2004 - 02:46 AM

Jariten,

We see this all the time actually. Its called a Director's Cut and its what happens usually when a director doesn't initially get first cut of a film for various reasons. Terry Gilliam went back and recut his version of Brazil, Cameron his version of The Abyss, Ridley Scott his version of Blade Runner and Sergio Leone his version of Once Upon a Time In America. Then, when they got done what they originally intended in the first place, they moved on and never returned to the project again.
There are two separate and distinct cuts of George Romero's 1979 Dawn of the Dead, one cut by him and one cut by his producer partner Dario Argento for European distribution but which ended up getting a lot of American distribution. Romero has never attempted to suppress the Argento version or get into the whole "which is the true version?" bullshit.
Usually studios like to stick as many things onto the DVD as possible and if alternate cuts or deleted scenes can be crammed on, so much the better. They don't suppress some version even if they come up with a new one with more bells and whistles.

And no director but Lucas keeps coming back to the same movie over and over, essentially adding more paint to the canvas, for the rest of his life. Why? Because they're too busy making new movies.

Peter Jackson may have multiple cuts of each Rings movie, but you can bet that when he moves on to King Kong, that'll be it. The Lord of the Rings will be done.
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#44 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 22 September 2004 - 05:22 AM

QUOTE (J m HofMarN @ Sep 22 2004, 12:40 AM)
You know, I hate to be snobbish but I have to point out that nothing like this has EVER happened in the literary world. People write books, have them published and that's the end of it. I can't imagine anyone ever going back and rewriting a book they've written and changing random things.

Tolkien rewrote the finding of the ring chapter in THE HOBBIT after he started work on THE LORD OF THE RINGS. He'd never meant for the ring t be what it was, and in the roiginal book, Gollum gave it to Bilbo as a prize for winning the riddle contest. The version we all know is much different.

In 1987 There was an alternate version of ULYSSES released that incorporated all manner of changes based on Joyce's notes. The effort was to determine the book Joyce had really wanted, had he not been forced to meet a publishing deadline. Most of the changes are seriously important, but not long after publishing them the owners of the material decided they'd done a dead man a disservice and the revision was widely rebuked as a no more than a curiousity by most of the serious critics.

Dickens released several verisons of a lot of his works: first published in serial form, they were later revised to meet the different criteria of a single work. But add to this, the ending of GREAT EXPECTATIONS changed in a later publication, and then if I remember correctly it later changed back.

So yeah, it doesn't happen much, but there have been times.


PS: jariten, Lucas self-funded the prequel trilogy, but the OT was the work of 20th Century Fox. I think Lucas may have subsequently bought the trilogy from them, but he certainly never funded it with his AMERICAN GRAFFITI money.

And yeah, if you're looking to someone else for credit above and beyond what Lucas may claim, and I am not about to say Ralph McQuarrie or any of a number of puppetmakers and stop-motion photographers, then you may want to thank these folks:

http://imdb.com/name/nm0368074/
http://imdb.com/name/nm0452878/
http://imdb.com/name/nm0644823/
http://imdb.com/name/nm0000041/

as well as these:

http://imdb.com/name/nm0102824/
http://imdb.com/name/nm0001410/
http://imdb.com/name/nm0672459/

"germs of idaes" and "overall guidance" my ass: he had little to do with EMPIRE, and it is the best film in the series.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#45 User is offline   jariten Icon

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Posted 22 September 2004 - 11:32 PM

i thought he co-wrote it with Leigh Brackett.
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