The Problem with Star Wars

[Desdichado]

Have you seen the purported early drafts of the script? One of them is practically a transcript of The Hidden Fortress with the droids being Imperial Bureaucrats along for the ride much like the peasants in Kurosawa's film. And c'mon, it's not hard to see that droid-peasant comparison even in the final film, right down to the bickering in the desert. Later drafts sound more like ANH and RotJ smashed into each other, with Wookies in place of Ewoks. Ben's death was actually a relatively late addition to the whole thing, though I don't remember if it was before or after he and Luke switched names.

God, I'm a geek..

I have, but they're irrelevent really. They didn't get made into the film, after all.

 

[Desdichado]

When I did my Star Wars fanfilm for Grade 12 Communications Tech, the friend that was teaching them swordfighting used this box of sabers a former student had donated to my teacher. He tried different ones (including Qui-Gon's, Maul's, Luke's, and Dooku's). When he did things with Dooku's, he felt weird at first with the bent saber, but as you start doing some more moves (especially complex twirling ones), it really is better.

As an old fencing nerd, the "bent saber" is driving me up the wall. It's called a pistol grip.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I STILL think it was rude not to give Chewbacca a medal!

THAT is the problem with Star Wars. No Wookie love.

...err...actually, maybe that's a good thing.

 

[Villano]

I disagree with you on this one, Joshua. Success from a monetary perspective is important within the industry. I suppose one could say it's a kind of success. However, I don't believe that monetary success means that one has a successful movie. There are quite a few movies that did not do well financially in the box office that many who have seen them find quite enjoyable and arguably more effective than many blockbusters.

I don't think anyone will argue with this. There are many films which are great but don't do well at the box office. More to the point of this discussion is the fact that there are even more bad movies which make a lot of money.

Case in point, I rented a movie called Scarecrow Slayer, a horror film with a killer scarecrow. It sounded pretty interesting, so I gave it a try.

Wow, it was terrible. Incompetent on every level. There was also an overuse of really, realy bad CGI (some scenes look like they were shot in front of a blue screen, and they even used CGI for character deaths). Terrible stuff.

The point is, I rented this from a chain store. Other national chains, like Blockbuster, also probably carry it. And I just saw copies in the $5 DVD bin at my local Walmart. Add them together and you have many, many copies of this DVD sold. Considering the movie (if I can use that term loosely) looks like it only cost $37 to make, it probably was successful from a monetary point. It doesn't make it any less incompetent.

Or we could talk about comics. Rob Liefeld, anyone? You can't deny that he's sold a lot of comics. However, you'll find very few people who will say he's a good writer or artist, let alone a great one.

 

[Umbran]

Actually, I think I was pretty clear as to what I meant when I said he was incompetent and inept.

Again, the proof is in the pudding. Did you intend to say that he was something other than completely without skill within the stated areas? If you wanted to say he was totally useless on thse counts, then you were clear. If not, then the word choice clouded the issue, at least for me. Mr. Dyal seems to have wanted to say he was at some "level", implying that he might be someplace other than rock-bottom, and that didn't get across to me on his first statement.

Neither here nor there, though. This is digressing into a discussion of word-choice and effective inflection in a text-only medium, which is probably an unwanted hijack.

This does not necessarily translate into all three being successful films from a writing/directorial perspective.

Whether and how following Campbell's outline leads to good things is an entirely separate discussion, I agree. I was still trying to get across the idea that Lucas had not made up the association from whole cloth after the fact.

 

[barsoomcore]

Now, his influence by Kurosawa is perhaps more like what you describe, though -- it's mostly been other folks making comparisons other than him. In fact, some people go so far as to say that the first Star Wars is little more than a ripoff of The Hidden Fortress. Which is, if you've seen The Hidden Fortress, completely preposterous. There are a few superficial similarities, but there are some huge differences in terms of plot, character, theme, even and more.

Mm. I think it's

A. Perfectly obvious that Lucas watched Kurosawa very carefully before directing Star Wars. The wipes, the use of music, the setting-the-scene shots -- all very Kurosawa.

B. Arguable that The Hidden Fortress serves as a pretty significant inspiration for Star Wars. The princess, the bickering menials, the swashbuckling hero, the final award-granting scene -- all very Star Wars-y. Of course Kurosawa's film doesn't have a Luke-type of character, and obviously that means you can't directly map one film to the other, but he'd obviously SEEN the picture and been strongly affected by it.

C. Perfectly obvious that Kurosawa exceeds Lucas on every single level. Things that in Kurosawa's hands are beautifully timed and structured moments are heavy-handed and facile in Lucas'.

*shrug*

Lucas is a hack. He got spectacularly lucky with Star Wars (the original film) and I don't believe for a second he ever planned anything other than that one film at first. It was only with the incredible success of the original picture that he even THOUGHT of doing more films. And I wish he'd never done a single sequel.

I agree that the climactic fight scene in Episode I is spectacular. But Lucas didn't direct that -- that was directed by the stunt team, I'm sure. And powered by Ewan, Liam and Ray's tremendous desire to create a fantastic fight scene and do whatever it took to accomplish.

Compare with the Gungan battle -- devoid of tension, insipid and full of empty, meaningless shots that do nothing to either advance the story or produce emotion.

I think I know which one Lucas had more input on...

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Have you seen the purported early drafts of the script? One of them is practically a transcript of The Hidden Fortress with the droids being Imperial Bureaucrats along for the ride much like the peasants in Kurosawa's film. And c'mon, it's not hard to see that droid-peasant comparison even in the final film, right down to the bickering in the desert. Later drafts sound more like ANH and RotJ smashed into each other, with Wookies in place of Ewoks. Ben's death was actually a relatively late addition to the whole thing, though I don't remember if it was before or after he and Luke switched names.

God, I'm a geek..

I have, but they're irrelevent really. They didn't get made into the film, after all.

???

The early drafts are irrelevant? That's sort of like saying that Shakespeare's play is irrelevant to Kenneth Branaugh's Hamlet.

Not buying it.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

As an old fencing nerd, the "bent saber" is driving me up the wall. It's called a pistol grip.

Thanks. That was bugging me. I knew it had a name I should be remembering.

Can you expand at all on the functional significance of such a grip? I've only ever used straight grips (escrima sticks, staves, and such).

 

[Flyspeck23]

THAT is the problem with Star Wars. No Wookie love.

...err...actually, maybe that's a good thing.

That, sir, was very rude

 

[Desdichado]

Hey! Are you suggesting I'm verbose?!

Who, me?

I disagree with you on this one, Joshua. Success from a monetary perspective is important within the industry. I suppose one could say it's a kind of success. However, I don't believe that monetary success means that one has a successful movie. There are quite a few movies that did not do well financially in the box office that many who have seen them find quite enjoyable and arguably more effective than many blockbusters.

Equating financial success to a film's overall success can be very misleading. Frankly, the two are often mutually exclusive.

Although I totally agree with you, the problem with using successful in terms of a movie in any way other than "financially successful" is that it converts the evaluation from an objective one into a subjective one. Successful at what? Entertaining me? Entertaining you? Making an impact on the industry? Or turning a profit?

Sure, financially successful may be the most boring interpretation of it, but its the only one that can be discussed objectively.

Not that all our discussions have to be objective, but if Ankh was trying to establish a baseline for discussion, I guess I took it for granted that he was using successful to mean financially successful.