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Hakkesshu posted:Marcia Lucas was an editor, and thus probably helped the movie in the same way most editors do. That is their job. The only problem here is that we tend to attribute everything that works in a movie to a director. The cinematographer probably also helped make the film what it was! Ditto John Williams, etc. Ok I feel like it's just constant reduction or hyperbole. The conversation has clearly run its course. edit: Ugh terrible page snipe so I'll repost the awesome "The Humans" trailer from A24 I posted last page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp3Whb77eXc BonoMan fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 17, 2021 17:24
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One problem with the conversation around Marcia is that it starts with an assumption that "George Lucas was always a hack" based on the evidence of "Just look at how bad the prequels and SE changes were." Unfortunately for that argument, the prequels have gone through a critical reassessment in the years since their release. The Special Edition changes that the fans complain about are incredibly minor in the grand scheme of those films. THX is his first film and it's terrific—and is edited by Lucas himself. American Graffiti is never talked about as being "saved" by Marcia. The man already had 2 fantastic films under his belt before Star Wars shot a single frame, and after the original trilogy he went on to have a heavy guiding hand in hit after hit, as well as overseeing and showrunning Young Indiana Jones—the most ambitious TV show of all time upon release, and one that holds up incredibly well today. Yes, the early assembly cut of Star Wars was by all accounts not great. But that's also true for most films. There's just no weight to any of it. feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 17, 2021 17:30
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I still think the prequels are absolutely awful, but I blame that less on Lucas' lack of talent and more on his own admission that he doesn't really like directing, hence why he got other people to do episodes 5 and 6. He probably should've done the same with the prequels.
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Sep 17, 2021 17:40
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feedmyleg posted:One problem with the conversation around Marcia is that it starts with an assumption that "George Lucas was always a hack" based on the evidence of "Just look at how bad the prequels and SE changes were." I don't like Lucas' work personally, but won't begrudge if other people think he's a fine director. However again though... the discussion isn't that they are hacks. OF course they aren't. It was that two seminal films that really launched two famous directors careers had, from all accounts that I've seen, more trouble than normal - Jaws with the shark issues and Star Wars with narrative issues. And that editing really helped save those and possibly helped cement their career launches. The alternate reality is that two young directors making two very big very expensive films have flops on films that were already a gamble and the studios decided to move on other folks. So, again, not "this doesn't happen to other directors" but more "for those that don't know how important an editor really is... here's some examples of how some famous directors maybe almost didn't make their career launches... and some good editing helped save the day!"
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Sep 17, 2021 17:45
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BonoMan posted:Ok I feel like it's just constant reduction or hyperbole. The conversation has clearly run its course. Excited to see this, I missed the play when it was in Toronto and I've heard really good things. Curious to know if future trailers will hint more at the supernatural/horror elements, apparently it takes an almost Lynchian bent in the second half.
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Sep 17, 2021 17:59
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Excited to see this, I missed the play when it was in Toronto and I've heard really good things. Curious to know if future trailers will hint more at the supernatural/horror elements, apparently it takes an almost Lynchian bent in the second half. You know the A24 emails said "..and honorary new entry into the NYC apartment horror canon" in the description and I was wondering what that was about.
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Sep 17, 2021 18:04
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BonoMan posted:However again though... the discussion isn't that they are hacks. OF course they aren't. The Marcia Lucas conversation absolutely stems from discussions of George Lucas being a hack. Few people in this thread have said as much (though several have implied it), but this is the internet. Discussions like this are echos of past discussions, and there's decades of context behind this particular argument.
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Sep 17, 2021 18:10
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Lucas is a hack...er please help me he keeps installing ransomware on my computer
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Sep 17, 2021 18:13
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BonoMan posted:Ok I feel like it's just constant reduction or hyperbole. The conversation has clearly run its course. Saw this through TIFF the other day because my wife picked it. Knew nothing about it but I caught a glimpse of the cast list before it started and thought great, sounds like it could be hilarious! Yeahhh no. Didn't see it was A24 production until the credits.
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Sep 17, 2021 18:27
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feedmyleg posted:The Marcia Lucas conversation absolutely stems from discussions of George Lucas being a hack. Few people in this thread have said as much (though several have implied it), but this is the internet. Discussions like this are echos of past discussions, and there's decades of context behind this particular argument. Whatever jerk check your PMs!
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Sep 17, 2021 18:32
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BonoMan posted:I mean she didn't rework 100% of it. But every history of it I've heard (granted a lot of it is oral history) all jive with it was a mess and she fixed lots of the very important parts. What refutes that? (Not attacking, I'm just curious) Well, the problem with the video and article is with what it leaves out. Since Star Wars is what it is, we have a lot of information about the various cuts of the film and various drafts. The original original cut of the movie that wasn't working was by John Jympson (not mentioned in the video or article), who was fired halfway through filming. George Lucas himself then took over editing himself during the shoot, and after it wrapped he hired Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew. Paul Hirsch came on later after he finished Carrie. The first cut was shown to Alan Ladd, who was relieved to see it <i>wasn't</i> a disaster after having seen part of the initial editor's cut. After this cut in November of 1976, Marcia Lucas left the film. She went to go cut Scorsese's New York, New York while the other two editors stayed on. Per J. W. Rinzler's making of book (where a lot of what I'm saying comes from), the cut that was shown to Spielberg, Coppola, De Palma, et al was the second or third cut, after all the scenes with Luke's friends and the bit with Jabba had already been removed – both of which Marcia Lucas fought to preserve, as it removed so much of the character's backstories. Similarly, the Death Star stuff at the end didn't change much from the cut that was shown then and the theatrical release. Those sequences were the first to be put together, because ILM needed to know exactly how long the shots should be. Paul Hirsch claims in his book that he was the one who decided to alter the structure of the trench run. The same "disastrous" cut was then shown to Fox's studio executives who were all over the moon for it, and one of them broke down crying and told Lucas it was the greatest movie he'd ever seen. Then the theatrical was shown to other board members, some of whom fell asleep and others absolutely hated it. But none of this information helps that narrative about how bad the "first" cut was. A lot of the making of for Star Wars is really fascinating though, because it seemed to come together from pure happenstance. Lucas never intended to use Anthony Daniels's voice and I think Richard Chew mentions his distaste for it on the DVD's making of. But one of the actors who auditioned for it told them to just use Daniels. This is the kind of stuff that happens with every movie though. There was a recent De Palma interview where he was asked about Star Wars, and he said that Lucas suggested the scene at the beginning of Mission Impossible where they explain what the mission is and who the characters are because nobody would know or care what's going on otherwise. It's the kind of thing you'd think you'd catch if you're directing your 20th movie, but sometimes if everybody who's close to a project misses the obvious solution. Also, the dude who made that video gets incredibly basic facts about the movie wrong somehow. Like, he says Luke and Obi-Wan decide to go rescue Leia after seeing her message, instead of something they decide to do after getting captured by the Death Star. Or that there's no shots where characters say on-screen that the Death Star is trying to blow up the Rebel base. And Marcia released an autobiography? I'd be interested in what she says.
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Sep 17, 2021 19:19
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:who said it was without his knowledge? The common framing I've heard from fans is that George Lucas is a hack and Marcia Lucas reworked large portions of the movie against his wishes. This is not true, as he oversaw editing and Marcia Lucas had her own bad ideas that George Lucas rejected.
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Sep 17, 2021 19:41
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Roth posted:The common framing I've heard from fans is that George Lucas is a hack and Marcia Lucas reworked large portions of the movie against his wishes. This is not true, as he oversaw editing and Marcia Lucas had her own bad ideas that George Lucas rejected. I don't think I've ever heard she did it against his wishes? That doesn't even make sense!
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Sep 17, 2021 19:43
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feedmyleg posted:The Special Edition changes that the fans complain about are incredibly minor in the grand scheme of those films. What in the maclunkey is this take? It’s not just that those changes are mostly entirely bad on their own merits, but more the fact that the originals have now been memory-holed and can’t be watched, bought, or streamed legally. That includes the version with Oscar winning editing (whoever gets due credit for it).
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Sep 17, 2021 19:49
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The funny part of this conversation is that it started out as a conversation about Spielberg, then Lucas was brought up as a non sequitur to, I guess, tie him to Spielberg as both being “saved” by their editors? And now we’re not even discussing Spielberg. I’m calling the idea that every conversation about movies eventually becomes about Star Wars the Lucas Law. Please mail all royalty checks for using this term to me.
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Sep 17, 2021 19:51
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Parkingtigers posted:What in the maclunkey is this take? That's not what I'm talking about, though—I'm talking about them in the context of narrative changes. There are only three changes in the OT that have significant narrative consequences off the top of my head, which are Han shooting first, Luke's yell as he falls down the Cloud City shaft (already corrected in a subsequent release) and Hayden at the end of RotJ. Otherwise it's all just superficial nitpicks (most of which are valid, but not important in the grand scheme of things).
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Sep 17, 2021 20:00
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Almost Blue posted:Well, the problem with the video and article is with what it leaves out. Since Star Wars is what it is, we have a lot of information about the various cuts of the film and various drafts. Apparently it's just a biography so nevermind. Womp womp. I'm going to read that book you mention to get a sense of the other stuff you said. As for that video - he's right. In it he mentions "where they consider helping Leia" which is exactly what's in the theatrical. It's annoyingly specific but he says "considering to help her." As for nobody on-screen saying they're trying to destroy the rebel base - I'd have to rewatch again to double check that. From the footage he provided etc, I'm guessing he's just talking about in the finale since it seemed low stakes until they did all the dubbing? The video still gives a great sense of how much things change from initial idea to what you see on screen. Which really is what the initial discussion was all about. Just how much an editor's impact is with Spielberg/Lucas/Etc just being high profile examples. For that truth nothing has changed. It also ends with giving Lucas credit for his editing too and ends with a quote from him about how editing is his ace in the hole to fix things lol. BonoMan fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 17, 2021 20:05
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BonoMan posted:I don't think I've ever heard she did it against his wishes? That doesn't even make sense! I'm just explaining why I read your post that way
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Sep 17, 2021 20:05
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Roth posted:I'm just explaining why I read your post that way It wasn't my post that said that... and my reaction was really just waving my hands at the universe - not you specifically! Like, that's a dumb way for that myth to evolve especially since there's a lot of oral accounts of that time and non of them mention her doing it behind his back or whatever. It was always a collaboration.
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Sep 17, 2021 20:07
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i wasn't joking anymore lucas wants all my bitcoin and if i don't give it to him he will change my mouse cursor to jar jar binks
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Sep 17, 2021 20:08
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Who poked the SW thread hornets nest?
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Sep 17, 2021 20:16
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Collateral posted:Who poked the SW thread hornets nest? Do you guys want SMG to come in here? Because this is how SMG comes in here.
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Sep 17, 2021 21:43
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lol
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Sep 17, 2021 22:02
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feedmyleg posted:Unfortunately for that argument, the prequels have gone through a critical reassessment in the years since their release. Yeah, I must have missed that memo.
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Sep 17, 2021 22:14
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ozmunkeh posted:Yeah, I must have missed that memo. its true. people hate them even more now
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Sep 17, 2021 22:15
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feedmyleg posted:One problem with the conversation around Marcia is that it starts with an assumption that "George Lucas was always a hack" based on the evidence of "Just look at how bad the prequels and SE changes were." People have really rewritten their own completely false history of George Lucas’s career and it’s kind of amazing. What happened was George hired an editor in Britain while shooting the set-bound scenes of Star Wars, John Jympson, who had cut movies like Zulu(!), A Hard Day’s Night(!!), and Frenzy(!!!). You can see why George would hire a guy like this, his filmography was incredible. Jympson’s choices, however, clashed with the tone of Star Wars and George ended up firing him when he brought the negatives back to the US to start post (this was also when he discovered that ILM, uh, had sort of not really started doing the FX work quite yet and were painfully behind schedule). In the US, Marcia had spent the time George was overseas being busy working on Taxi Driver for Scorsese, who had used her previously on Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore*. Marcia had made some imprint on Star Wars already, being the one who suggested Obi-Wan should die instead of escaping, as George originally had written it, back when George had finally gotten someone - Alan Ladd at FOX - to bite on his pitch of a Kurosawa Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon type of movie and suddenly his weird amalgamation of those things + poo poo lifted liberally from Dune and other novels and Westerns and poo poo wasn’t a hypothetical thing he’d toy with between projects but an actual going concern for his career. When the edit of Taxi Driver was locked, George asked Marcia if she could help out on Star Wars. By this time, Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew had long since been brought on and had begun their “paring down” process of just doing the loosest possible assembly cut by stringing untouched dailies of every shot together, and cutting down every scene in tiny chunks until they achieved an “arrive late, leave early” pattern that forced momentum through some absolutely dire dialogue sequences and gave pep to what were at the time very unfinished effects shots. All that was left was one of the most heavily FX reels; the last one, the Death Star attack. Marcia and George assembled an edit of the reel as ILM brought shots in for that sequence, using The Dam Busters as a guide for how they wanted to pace the action out. Then Irving Lerner, in the midsts of editing New York, New York for Scorsese, died in the middle of the movie’s editing process and Marty needed someone he could trust and depend on to jump in and finish it. Marcia and George locked the edit on the Death Star reel, and as she left to pull Marty’s rear end out of the fire (unsuccessfully; NY, NY was not a hit, and would drive Scorsese into such a depression that he would end up in the hospital after ODing - which is when his friend Bobby DeNiro would show up and toss the autobiography of Jake LaMotta onto his little buddy’s stomach and tell him to get better because they were gonna make a movie out of it - said movie would relaunch Marty’s career to a degree no one expected), she told her husband one thing: “if people don’t cheer when Han shows up in this reel, the beginning of the movie doesn’t work” (which is just a version of the canard “a third act failure is a first act problem”), which seems like a good note to leave on except for the fact that there was nearly zero time left before prints needed to be struck and basically Paul and Richard - and George’s plot structure - were what the whole movie’s success or failure was dependent on. She had done her best to help be a clean-up batter, but the other two and George had to put guys on bases for them to actually win. And it all really might have been for naught if De Palma hadn’t lost his loving mind during a private screening George had done for his fellow movie brats in the middle of all this and been like “I don’t get what the gently caress is going on, George” and proceeded to pitch the idea of and help George write out an opening crawl to establish the backstory of the movie and set the stakes. But Marcia Lucas didn’t really “save” Star Wars. She has a lot of unofficial influence, and a good dollop of official and important influence on the picture, given she has a little gold bald dude for working on it (but didn’t even get nominated for loving Taxi Driver, can you believe that poo poo?), but she was far from alone. She did more actual editing work, overall, on American Graffiti - sitting right next to George as they worked together cutting on an old flatbed cutter - than she did on Star Wars. One must remember, also, George’s best classes in his college years were the editing ones. (THX 1138, the original short, is very much a short entirely dependent on the strength of the edit, as all student films inevitably are.) Which is why his professor, Verna Fields**, picked him to help her with a project, while also asking a local production company to send over their best available assistant editor, who turned out to be a young woman named Marcia Griffin. Verna realized she had accidentally played matchmaker when she found out the two of them were spending a lot more hours in the editing bay than required, always together. She certainly wasn’t shocked when she got an invitation to their wedding a year or two later. *which also blows up whoever claimed Thelma Schoonmaker has edited all of Scorsese’s pictures; she’s done every one since Raging Bull, and did Scorsese’s debut picture, Who’s That Knocking On My Door in 1967, but missed his 70s years - arguably his most important years - entirely. **who would also be an editor on Graffiti and helped George and Marcia put together a rough 2h40m cut entirely backed by late 50s, early 60s hits - George and Marcia would then have to slice out fifty minutes on their own to produce a theatrical cut Universal was willing to release, the studio not especially keen on doing a teen movie as a roadshow, as Verna moved on to cut Jaws for that nice Steven boy from CSU after having enjoyed working with him on Sugarland Express so much.
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Sep 18, 2021 09:28
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Well I’m going to try and get back on topic by starting a different argument for us to yell at each other about. Namely both The Humans and C’mon C’mon look like boring pretentious slogs in the genre I call “My family argues and is sad sometimes. Isn’t that DEEP”. God The Humans even has the “look at us dancing stupid, aren’t we a quirky family?!” stock scene these movies seem to be contractually required to include.
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Sep 18, 2021 13:18
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galagazombie posted:Well I’m going to try and get back on topic by starting a different argument for us to yell at each other about. Namely both The Humans and C’mon C’mon look like boring pretentious slogs in the genre I call “My family argues and is sad sometimes. Isn’t that DEEP”. God The Humans even has the “look at us dancing stupid, aren’t we a quirky family?!” stock scene these movies seem to be contractually required to include. I disagree about The Humans given what we discussed earlier. And the fact it's a known well received play already. And given that A24 doesn't really play in that schlock realm. And I doubt that stellar of a cast is going to go for something so stock. However that does remind me of an SNL skit from the late 90s or early aughts with Lisa Kudrow. She played the on-set choreographer for "group of girlfriends dancing around the coffee table" scenes. It was hilarious and on point for just how many of those scenes existed in that era.
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Sep 18, 2021 13:49
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I beg everyone who's bought in to that awful rocket jump editor self-fellation to watch this actual investigation of what sources on the making of star wars say about the editing: https://youtu.be/olqVGz6mOVE
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Sep 18, 2021 14:05
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The Cameo posted:
De Palma had a recent interview where he called this framing more or less apocryphal.
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Sep 18, 2021 14:08
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galagazombie posted:Well I’m going to try and get back on topic by starting a different argument for us to yell at each other about. Namely both The Humans and C’mon C’mon look like boring pretentious slogs in the genre I call “My family argues and is sad sometimes. Isn’t that DEEP”. God The Humans even has the “look at us dancing stupid, aren’t we a quirky family?!” stock scene these movies seem to be contractually required to include. I’m guessing the Humans drops into some kind of genre change that the trailer is downplaying if not concealing, given the warping of the walls in some scenes and multiple characters talking about horror fiction.
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Sep 18, 2021 15:09
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feedmyleg posted:De Palma had a recent interview where he called this framing more or less apocryphal. At this point who the duck knows. I think there's a lot of self revisionism going on as well. Not even the people that were there can agree on it and it's been so long we'll never get an accurate depiction.
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Sep 18, 2021 15:55
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BiggestBatman posted:I beg everyone who's bought in to that awful rocket jump editor self-fellation to watch this actual investigation of what sources on the making of star wars say about the editing: Definitely going to watch that video later... But the RJ one didn't seem self fellating at all. Regardless of the mythos he just seems to be analyzing the edits made and it seems pretty decent? And he even ends it with talking about how Lucas was involved in the editing process as well and loves editing. Other than the intro it really just seemed to be an exercise in how editing can really help a film with due credit given to Lucas.
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Sep 18, 2021 15:58
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The Humans is not outright horror but it does get very unsettling. It's like when there's a shot of people in a car that goes on a little long and you expect them to get in a crash.
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Sep 18, 2021 15:59
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BonoMan posted:Definitely going to watch that video later... But the RJ one didn't seem self fellating at all. Regardless of the mythos he just seems to be analyzing the edits made and it seems pretty decent? And he even ends it with talking about how Lucas was involved in the editing process as well and loves editing. Other than the intro it really just seemed to be an exercise in how editing can really help a film with due credit given to Lucas. I exaggerate for fun but the whole narrative tone of "the movie was a disaster that this team of editors was able to turn into a classic" is quite a lot of putting the cart before the house. Even beyond ignoring primary sources that contradict that narrative (Lucas never intending to keep the early Luke scenes in the film for instance and marcia fighting to keep them in) it never really explains what's bad about the pre-edit version. "These scenes just feel thrown in at random dont you think" is not textual analysis.
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Sep 18, 2021 17:58
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The very first draft of star wars includes a backstory crawl, guys. You can find those scripts easily. The only thing de palma did was a minor rewrite of the existing one, mostly changing word choice for more urgent tone.
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Sep 18, 2021 18:02
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I don't know why people reach for such a basic dramatic story about how star wars came to be (film was bad until some not-lucas person stepped in and saved it) beyond some attempt to intellectuals post-prequel antilucasism but the truth is there's a great story there it's just as complicated as any film production can be (Jedi cost Lucas his marriage ffs). Really recommend reading the secret history of star wars instead of going off of pat YouTubes for the interested
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Sep 18, 2021 18:06
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BiggestBatman posted:I exaggerate for fun but the whole narrative tone of "the movie was a disaster that this team of editors was able to turn into a classic" is quite a lot of putting the cart before the house. Oh that's a bit reductive I think. He goes through the initial placement and why it doesn't work and why the new placement causes things to flow better. You're just taking the last thing he says and acting like it's *all* he said. BiggestBatman posted:The very first draft of star wars includes a backstory crawl, guys. You can find those scripts easily. The only thing de palma did was a minor rewrite of the existing one, mostly changing word choice for more urgent tone. Who is refuting this? It's always been known that there was a crawl and De Palma edited it down. BonoMan fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Sep 18, 2021 |
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Sep 18, 2021 18:08
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BonoMan posted:Oh that's a bit reductive I think. He goes through the initial placement and why it doesn't work and why the new placement causes things to flow better. You're just taking the last thing he says and acting like it's *all* he said. Still less reductive than he is in his critique. quote:Who is refuting this? It's always been known that there was a crawl and De Palma edited it down. The dude with the really long post further up the page. Not you, babe. You're beautiful
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Sep 18, 2021 18:15
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BiggestBatman posted:I don't know why people reach for such a basic dramatic story about how star wars came to be (film was bad until some not-lucas person stepped in and saved it) beyond some attempt to intellectuals post-prequel antilucasism but the truth is there's a great story there it's just as complicated as any film production can be (Jedi cost Lucas his marriage ffs). Really recommend reading the secret history of star wars instead of going off of pat YouTubes for the interested The Secret History of Star Wars is on my list. That's the Marcia biography I mention up-thread. But again the conversation was just born out of an example of how editing can dramatically change a film. The details of how it all happened are clearly still debated by the key players themselves (looking at De Palma refuting Spielberg), but that was never really the point. It was just "hey editing can work wonders... here's a key example from a famous film!" and that part is agreed on by everyone. The discussion in this thread wasn't originally about the veracity of the details in this story - I think I probably accidentally exacerbated that by mentioning the Paul Hirsch book and my inability to just let something go (primarily I think because this is something I'm still actively looking into myself so each day brings something new!). The funny thing is I don't even like the original Star Wars that much (I mean I can clearly see it's importance though)  BonoMan fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Sep 18, 2021 |
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Sep 18, 2021 18:17
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