Star Wars TV Show Tainted By Memories of Jar Jar 474
bowman9991 writes "Can George Lucas' new Star Wars TV series, the first Star Wars spin off with real actors, atone for the flawed follow-ups to his original classics? Producer Rick McCallum calls the new series 'much darker,' a 'much more character-based series' and 'more adult,' while George Lucas himself calls it more like the first Star Wars film. The new TV show takes place in the 'dark times' between the last prequel Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, when most of the Jedi and anti-emperor politicians were hunted down and killed. The characters of Boba Fett, C-3PO, and the Emperor Palpatine will return, and casting has now begun. Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker from the original movies, believes George Lucas lost his way, 'making it bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until you're just exploding with special effects all over the screen like some fireworks display,' but thinks the new show is a 'positive' step forward. Hopefully George Lucas can wipe the memory of Jar Jar Binks, Anakin and Padme's romance, his shameless merchandising, and some lame attempts at humor from everyone's minds once and for all."
Never mind prequels (Score:5, Interesting)
We want sequels to Return of the Jedi. Wasn't he originally going to do 3 sets of trilogies: with the 3rd set later on, and the only common characters would be the 2 droids?
Must be said (Score:4, Interesting)
Your computer runs on smoke. Once you let the smoke out, you can't put it back in thus your computer has stopped working.
Or in the old days: "Once you let the cat out of the bag..."
The fact was Lucas proved you can in fact destroy a successful cannon of work. Most of the hard core Star Wars fans I knew growing up washed their hands of the whole thing (some even went to the dark side... Trek...)
The whole "Joss Whedon is my master now" was a slap in the face to Lucas I'm sure but I think it is too late for damage control. The MMO crew I play with were chomping at the bit to beta test damn near everything out there with one exception.... the new Star Wars MMO coming out. With the first 3 films plus that train wreck of an MMO and it's subsequent "fixes" the franchise is dead. The inital 3 month subscription figures will be telling on how bad the damage has been.
Warhammer and most AAA MMOs should clear around 500,000 copies in the first 90 days and should clear at least 200,000 in pre-orders. Watching this new MMO release may gauge how much damage the franchise has taken over the years.
Comic runs, novels, etc are all factored into the success. Prior to the first 3 films in the series at the local book store there was an entire section (4 shelves high, arm span length) of Star Wars books. Now it is a single shelf post-prequels. That strikes me as significant damage. That puts the book count equal to Terry Brooks Shannara series and they haven't even gotten a film yet (which is suprising, the first three books strike me as very film\mini-series friendly. In fact now that I think of it the first book The Sword of Shannara would make a pretty good 3 season series or 4 part mini-series. The special effect requirement for his works is actually rather low until Scions...)
Re:OMG, Luke Skywalker is right! (Score:3, Interesting)
if by depth you mean CG animation in the background, yes, it will.
if by depth you mean actual storytelling, i'm afraid this won't. if episodes 1-3 proved anything, it's that lucas just doesn't know how to tell a good story unless he's ripping off kurasawa.
Why is "darker" seen as "better"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do so many screenwriters equate "something that adults will enjoy" with "darker"?
Most of Raiders of the Lost Ark was not "dark", but I loved it when it came out, and I still really like it. There was action, adventure, wonder, and surprise. There was no soul searching over life's moral ambiguities, or "deep" plot elements where Indy tortured bad guys with car batteries. Similar with the first Star Wars movie (episode 4).
If this is Lucas' attempt to atone for past mistakes, it seems like he's still off the mark.
Re:Frist Post (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not saying that's what it needs, but just seems to be the theme of late in Hollywood...
More Sith (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of rehashing the train wreck you made of the Skywalker Saga, why don't you tell the story of the splitting of the Jedi and the Sith. In The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul says "At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge." Tell THAT story: why they are in hiding; what are they getting revenge for.
Re:Frist Post (Score:4, Interesting)
You'd have plenty of framework to make a political commentary on the war on terror. Mix in a little bit of fundamental differences in culture - the Empire plugs one ideology to people who just don't think that way - and maybe mix in a bit of crooked shenanigans, spaceships and just a shade of jedi mythos/persecution. (Not convinced it needs it though - way better to have a couple of 'dark jedi' bad guys, and have the good guys running scared).
Could be pretty good. Fairly sure it'll never happen mind - George Lucas will want creative control, and he'll go all fluffy and cute.
Re:Hey, Polyanna (Score:5, Interesting)
More info about it at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_the_Ewok [wikipedia.org]
It's not available commercially anywhere, so I guess sharing the download link is historical/digital preservation and not piracy.
Boba Fett? (Score:1, Interesting)
It's far too late... (Score:5, Interesting)
As for my kids, their only interest in Star Wars is a video game with little characters made out of Legos. They couldn't care less about the movies. If they run any of the movies on cable, their attention span is about 15 minutes.
George Lucas killed Star Wars.
Re:The first is still the best (Score:4, Interesting)
Not sure if you were generalizing to everyone, but... I watched the original trilogy when I was 18. I loved it. I watched them because I went to see Episode 2 (at my friends' insistence) and I decided to watch the originals to understand the story better. I later watched Episode 3 (which I loved) and then Episode 1 (which I hated). I can say, having watched all six around the same time, that the original trilogy is way better than the prequel trilogy - the only saving grace being Episode 3.
Just a few examples:
The chemistry between Leia and Han is much better than Anakin and Padme.
The humor is worlds apart - not only were the droids a lot funnier than Jar Jar (I realize the droids were in the prequel movies as well, but they weren't as prominent), but Han was funny, the whole Han/Leia/Luke "love" triangle was funny, etc...
I did not like Hayden Christensen's acting, but I also believe that a good director would've fixed that. If it's a bad take, you do it again. He was awkward and it made me cringe a few times.
So it's not that the original trilogy was cooler because I was younger when I saw it. It really was better, imo. I think if any of the kids enjoy the prequels more than the original, it's because it has prettier CG and more action.
Re:The first is still the best (Score:3, Interesting)
The first film was not that good tbh. It's just a classic adventure IN SPACE! The opening is a work of art however. Easily the best bit of the movie.
Empire strikes back is my favorite. The entire movie builds up the Darth Vader character as a cold and heartless tyrant who will kill even those closest to him merely because they disappoint him, before finally revealing at the end that he's the protagonist's father. You just didn't see it coming. The introduction of yoda is genious and completely ruined by the decision to include him in the prequels. They should have just referred to him without ever showing him on screen so you could watch the movies and still be surprised when the little green fella reveals who he is in empire strikes back. The constant failures on the millennium falcon and the tricks they need to turn to in order to hide from imperial star-destroyers is orders of magnitudes better than the mindless car chases you see in most action films. Basically Empire Strikes back is actually a pretty good film, while the other ones are a bit "meh".
I'd say revenge of the Sith is actually fairly good as well, but it Anakin comes off as too much of a kid, which kinda ruins the buildup to turn him into vader. He comes of more as a whining brat that a jedi corrupted by fear and anger.
Re:Frist Post (Score:3, Interesting)
Star Wars veered away from 'dark and nasty' when they shied from the Midiclorian stuff. If Jedi were 'superior' because of an innate biological feature, the struggle became one where both sides were feeding the common people a mass of propaganda, and moral issues would be a mix of gray tones at best. It would still be possible to show one side as having better reasons to justify the propaganda than the other, and even to create audience empathy for the Jedi - after all, even if both sides were manipulating the general populace, only one side ended up blowing up whole planets. Still, the idea of Jedi who don't like to admit it's all about the Midiclorians even to themselves, and who take the 'controlling your emotions' philosophy to dangerous extremes as a result, would be a great basis for dense, nuanced scripts that would give good actors a chance to shine and, it's hoped, be remembered come Emmy time.
Not gonna happen, of course.
Re:The first is still the best (Score:4, Interesting)
The "first" film was the best because you were 12 years old at the time.
I was in my twenties, and loved it. It was simply the best science fiction film made (at the time; there have been better sci-fi films since).
IMO the worst one was episode Six. I hated that one, thought even Jar Jar was better than Ewoks. Most slashdotters were terribly disappointed in episodes 1-3, but I thought they were all well made, entertaining movies. Face it, even episode 4 wasn't exactly deep.
Re:The first is still the best (Score:3, Interesting)
That "because you were a kid" explanation is used by Lucas too, and "the good-old days weren't all that good" is certainly a rant of mine.
But, as someone who at 12-ish didn't like RotJ because the Ewoks were silly: EpIV and EpI simply are not the same. The relatively sophisticated abbot-and-costello of the driods, or the interactions of Han, Chewie, and Leia are replaced with Jarjar stepping in 'camel' poop, getting farted on, and shocking his tounge numb. That's not metaphorical, all three happen and are used a jokes.
Where is the comparative piece in New Hope or ESB? They are not there. Character-based situational comedy, often with a dark edge (notice that Lucas re-edited SW to remove, for example, Han shooting first) is replaced with farting.
And for the record: I think Empire was the best. I thought it when I saw it and I think it now.
Re:OMG, Luke Skywalker is right! (Score:4, Interesting)
But Kurosawa himself admittedly ripped off John Ford. Nothing's really made in a vacuum. Ok, apparently, Star Wars: Episode 1 was... so I'll restate: nothing good is made in a vacuum.
And since I didn't see it here, if you didn't like "Phantom Menace", you need to see this truly epic review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI&feature=player_embedded [youtube.com].
If you did like it, you still need to watch, do that you can fully realize, to quote the review, "what an idiot you are".
Re:OMG, Luke Skywalker is right! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, for starters, it is set in the best possible time frame...
Are you kidding me? The prequels had so much potential, a great subtext for plots and whatnot. Think about it. The reason Lucas made the films in the first place is because everyone was curious about how Darth Vader became Darth Vader. If that's not a good setup to a story, I don't know what is. The corruption of Anakin Skywalker is an amazing setup for a good story. Instead, it was Lucas that bogged down the prequels with useless CG, pointless Senate meetings and a Jedi Council that really wasn't anything more than a showcase for Yoda. Lucas was the one that felt the need to recycle every character from the first films.
Put a talented writer like Joss Whedon on a project with such clear boundaries and he would have made an amazing film. We could have seen the slow moral corruption of an innocent Jedi. The seduction to the dark side by the emperor. A realistic romance between Anakin and Padme. Several brand new characters that would have depth to them and interesting plot twists could have been made all around. Instead we got a train wreck full of discombobulated stories about characters that no one finds interesting. In short, the story was set up well by episodes 4-6. Lucas just blew every advantage he had in Episode 1. He had three fat pitches down the middle and he swung and missed every one.
Compare that to the setup for this series. You have an already evil Darth Vader hunting down Jedi. Somehow, the emperor is going to show his evilness to the world such that rebels will start rising up. You think senate hearings are boring? How else are you going to show any protest by rebelling planets? Remember that the emperor doesn't dissolve the senate until ep. 4. What about action? The Jedi are mostly already dead. Yoda and Obiwan are supposed to be hiding. What can you anchor the story around? Some Jedi that's running away? A planet that keeps getting oppressed (how exactly? through trade embargos)? It's not obvious and not easy to tell a good story in such a setting. This is like a slider away that you have to hit. A single is possible. A strike is more likely.
Jar Jar one of the better things about SW1-3 (Score:2, Interesting)
Good things
Jar jar creating character conflict as occurred in the first three films (eg. irritated the other wise cipher like Gui kan (sp) "NO!".
Palpatine (well written and well acted)
bad things
mitochlorians
jedi fighting for hours without any talking at all against pretty backdrops.
running out of time to do a decent corruption of Anakin and having him improbably able to kill helpless small children way too soon to make sense.
assuming a child killer *could* be the ultimate hero of the series (sorry, but it changes the darth vader of the original 3 considerably).
Utter lack of character conflict (except Jar Jar).
Too many "just so" scenes to list.
Some of the worst acting I've ever seen from a lot of really fine actors (which tells you the problem was Lucas, not the actors).
Re:OMG, Luke Skywalker is right! (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps 15 years ago I would have followed this story more closely. Lucas didn't have any quality control for the animated series (of which I only watched 3 before losing interest) and you'd have to pay me to get me to waste 30 minutes watching this. This is probably the last Star Wars tv series headline I ever click on.
However, I'd love to see a Star Wars "reboot" [b]without any Lucas input[/b]. Get the writing crews from BSG and the Batman reboots plus the BSG production crew together and now we're cooking with gas.
Re:The first is still the best (Score:5, Interesting)
I went to see the first set of Star Wars when it was re-issued to movie theaters. When Leila kissed Luke, someone in front of me said "Ewwww! They're siblings!" I said "WHAT?! They are?? Thanks for ruining it!"
At that moment, my friends came to the realization that I had never seen the movies before. At subsequent movies, they announced to the surrounding moviegovers that I had NEVER SEEN IT and to make SURE to not reveal any upcoming secrets (including the "big one").
It was great, actually - my friends, who were born around the time of Star Wars, were super excited to see someone's first reaction to the movies.
Anyway, as a perfectly controlled experiment, I agree that the first set of movies was far superior to the second set. The prequel seemed hacked together in order to resolve things from the first set, and over-reliant on special effects and lame jokes to the exclusion of the storyline.
Re:The first is still the best (Score:3, Interesting)
I almost totally disagree with you.
Yes, there are nods to previous symphonic works. Not just Holst and _The Planets_ (I just listened to Gardiner conduct it with the London Philharmonic on my iPod at work yesterday), but also Stravinksy, Strauss, and other Romantic composers and earlier film scores. Even more important than those, however, are Prokofiev's _Romeo and Juliet_ and Wagner's Ring-cycle. The use of character- and place-based motifs throughout the Star Wars score give it much of its power. But ultimately, Star Wars is it's own work even if John Williams stood on the shoulders of giants in creating it.
To say the score to Star Wars isn't a classic is simply wrong. If there is a more familiar work of symphonic music from the past 30-years I can't think of it.