I called it.
About five months ago, George Lucas and Rick McCallum were trying to talk up their planned Star Wars television series... all the plans they had for it, how it would run 100 episodes, and so forth. I pointed out that they were living in even more of a fantasy land than usual, that television doesn't work like they think it does, and just willing it to happen their way wasn't going to make it so.
Well last week, their TV plans made the news rounds again, and whadaya know, they're having some initial resistance getting a network to bite on their proposal. Said Lucas in this interview, "They are having a hard time. They're saying, 'This doesn't fit into our little square boxes,' and I say, 'Well, yeah, but it's "Star Wars." And "Star Wars" doesn't fit into that box.'"
Newsflash, asshole. That "little square box" is called a television. And you've pegged it: Star Wars doesn't fit into it. I'm not ready for another round of you violating my childhood.
Only Lucas could make me applaud the decisions of a television executive.
8 comments:
Maybe the fact that Lucas admits this series will be about "minor characters" has something to do with network reluctance. "Sure, you don't know or care about any of these guys, but it's still Star Wars, honest!"
I finally found the original, unrestored DVD's from ep 4-6 and I watched Ep 4 again. It was so nice to see it again without CGI ships, stupid ring explosions and with the original late 70's blocky ship-inserted space battles!
And I had a horrible time watching the Clone Wars cartoons, at least the few I saw. It was so over the top!
Jared
the whole thing just seems like an excuse for Lucas to fuel his Action Figure Machine. more "new" characters equals more new figures. if he got like 3000 figures out of 6 movies imagine how many he can squeeze out of 100 television episodes!
Lucas will have to pony-up some details before the networks (and a lot of fans) will show interest. lightsabers? Jedi? um, Han Solo? I agree that I'm not instantly caring about new characters...
oh and I noticed right away that the Family Guy Star Wars episode used the ring-less explosions, too. and Han Solo fired first. (that guy knows his stuff!)
the mole
I don't know... I've recently been thinking a lot about this and I'm developing a new (Disturbing) theory; I think we all watched Star Wars in a different era (Be it when we were kids, or when we were younger, or whatever). But the new Star Wars' seemed to "Ruin" that memory... when really, the acting is pretty much the same ("I wanted to go to Tashi station and pick up some power converters"), the SFX aren't that much different (Well, they all seem to match, anyway). The stupid characters are not really that much different (Gungans, Ewoks, Jawas, that little blue thing in Jabba's lair that laughed all the time, droids) And all of it has this surreal fantasy feel... I'm starting to wonder if they are really any different at all... I think we are the ones that are different. And therefore, if he had made any show -even a perfect one- we would have hated it.
Understand, I also really disliked Episode I... and I wasn't hot on Ep II... but I kinda liked Ep III. But I think I am also jaded.
Looking back on it as objectively as I can (Which is neigh impossible), it seems no worse than the first three movies... especially when George directs (RoTJ). The acting is wooden and the story is flimsy... But we still love it.
I'm just wondering if we were all jaded from the get-go simply because we can't be nieve enough anymore to like this kind of thing first time out ...
I mean, really, any 8 year old can understand Star Wars just fine, so it's not really very complex...
I'm worried that we are watching the equivalent of Sesame Street Part II and bitching because it's childish...
After Episode II, I said "Well, at least John Williams has put in a good effort! I love some of the new pieces!" to which a friend of mine replied, "No, even John Williams' work sucks... He's just rehashing old material." This was when I started to ponder this theory... because really John's stuff is kinda outside this realm... It's hummable and gets stuck in your head just like everything else the man writes... But my friend was willing to shoot down even Williams, simply because his childhood icon was slain.
I'm not positive about this theory, yet... but I'm starting to wonder about it...
---G
aabh, I have watched the original trilogy a handful of times in recent years, and I can say with as much objectivity as I can muster that Episodes IV and V are worth watching to this day. The biggest difference maker in those two is they lack the unsettling cynicism and laziness of the next four chapters.
Episode IV is exactly what the younger, purer, more ambitious Lucas wanted... a modern-day space opera serial and a pepped-up bildingsroman. It's a popcorn flick with a plucky heart, and it deserves to remain in the Top Ten Films Of All Time.
Episode V thrived with Lucas providing only the "Story By" credit, giving the script and direction plenty of room to grow beyond what Lucas might have imagined at the time. While it's handling of the passage of time is somewhat clunky, the story still works very well from beginning to end. This is the first and only time Darth Vader is realized as both an icon of fear and terror and as a fully-realized character.
Episode VI was fueled by fumes and by Lucas's growing cynicism. I can even remember as a 9-year-old kid really wanting to enjoy this chapter, but I felt let down. In retrospect, all Lucas did was hurl action figure fodder at me for two hours and wrapped things up too neatly. The exotic, mystical Lucas universe turned into a marketing machine.
Episodes I, II, and III are a grotesque mutation of VI, laying bare Lucas's completely realized cynicism. Even the flow of the story gives it all away -- boy discovers he has great power, then is twisted, albeit suddenly and unconvincingly, to use it for selfish gain instead of the greater good. His crusade to turn Obi-Wan into a jerk and Yoda into a fool, which began in VI, is completely realized.
I don't mind the latest manipulations of IV and V by Lucas. I don't know if he can ever fix the "what did Vader know and when did he know it" problem of V, but I think he made it worse with his attempt to "align" Palpatine in that chapter. I prefer the earlier Projector Room scene, just because it makes Vader less the idiot Lucas seems to want him to be. If he had to adjust any dialogue, he should have consulted a good writer to fix all of the droning circular dialogue among Vader, Luke, and Palpatine in VI.
I'm sure it seems odd that my distrust of the Star Wars franchise began when I was old enough to have some taste in cinema, but as I said, I'll watched them again to try and figure out what it is that I don't like. And, be sure there are many who were older than myself who saw those films the first time and have a similar set of opinions. We didn't get too old for Star Wars; Star Wars got too old, too crusty, too cynical for us.
aabh, you make a reasonable supposition, but I have to agree with giromide. He made his point in lengthy detail, and I agree with the bottom line. I think Star Wars and Empire are good to this day. (Both are on my top 100 list.) It's reasonable to say that SOME portion of the regard I hold for them is residual from how I felt about them years ago. But I think I've got at least enough objectivity to partially temper that. Something bad happened to Star Wars after 1980.
I've agreed with Aabh many times, because I didn't "grow up" with Eps IV-VI. I was old enough to see VI in theaters and was at least aware of the movies and their basic points (There's a Death Star, Vader is Luke's father, etc.), but I didn't really watch them and know their intracacies until 1995, when I was 21 years old. In reality, I checked them all out because I was trying to get a job with Decipher, for Star Trek, but figured it would be a good idea to be at least moderately familiar with Wars.
As a result, I disliked I (pretty much entirely due to Jar Jar) and moderately enjoyed II and III. They're not as good as IV-VI, as a whole, but I don't have the venom and sense of "betrayal" that a lot of people do, maybe because I don't have the fond childhood memories of IV-VI. Anecdotally, I've heard of several people showing I-III to their young (ages 6-10) kids and the kids absolutely loving them. If Lucas ever follows through with his occasionally-stated intentions of filming episodes VII-IX in 20 years or so, I'd bet today's kids would say they don't match up to I-III.
I think the simplest way to look at the difference between the two series is that they're just different movies. IV-VI is "space opera," high adventure, swashbuckling action, etc., featuring a bunch of ragtag rogues fighting an evil empire -- a classic tale that's been told countless times in countless forms.
I-III is more of a political drama, with intertwined plot lines and more character development. (The quality of such development may be questionable, granted.) It's about a bunch of nobles brought down by their own hubris. It's not "Star Wars," as most people see it, and that was the prequels' most damning trait.
Hmmm... I'll have to ponder these statements and see if they change my theory any... thanks for the input! :D
---G
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