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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:Lucas hates the first rough cut of Empire so much--he feels Kershner is making the movie "better" than is necessary--that he proceeds to re-edit the film himself, cutting out 40 minutes. This may be the root of the collective confusion
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# ? Jul 4, 2020 21:47 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 04:14 |
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Popete posted:George Lucas rules.
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# ? Jul 4, 2020 22:13 |
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Popete posted:George Lucas rules.
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# ? Jul 4, 2020 22:14 |
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One thing this book won't mention: Lucas and Pixar conspiring to not compete in salaries for CGI people. (This was mid-80s, IIRC)
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# ? Jul 5, 2020 02:50 |
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Okay that is definitely one instance where George Lucas does not rule. gently caress George Lucas.quote:Q: In your conversation with Ed Catmull, did you discuss with him how you would handle the situation when an employee did, in fact, want to leave one company for the other? quote:Q: Would you agree that your conversations with Ed Catmull served to head off any competition between the two companies to attract digital animation employees? https://pando.com/2016/01/05/white-slaver-awakens-how-george-lucas-suppressed-employees-wages-while-becoming-multibillionaire/
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# ? Jul 5, 2020 10:53 |
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Do they include the ‘Marion should be twelve in Raiders of the Lost Ark’ conversation in this book? Well, been twelve in her prior relationship with Indy, anyway.
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# ? Jul 5, 2020 11:22 |
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Torquemada posted:Do they include the ‘Marion should be twelve in Raiders of the Lost Ark’ conversation in this book? Well, been twelve in her prior relationship with Indy, anyway. I don't understand
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# ? Jul 5, 2020 23:38 |
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George wanted to make it very clear that Indy was a statutory rapist
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 00:45 |
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Nebakenezzer posted:I don't understand They’re talking about the Raiders story conference between Lucas, Spielberg & Kasdan. It’s a pretty cool insight into their brainstorming, and how really effective bits of the film came about. But that Marion bit... yeah. Whole thing here (pdf). Pixelate fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Jul 6, 2020 |
# ? Jul 6, 2020 00:55 |
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Lucas starts to think maybe fans are taking this Star Wars thing a little too seriously. >>> One day a knife-wielding fan walked into Lucas's Los Angeles office, claiming he cowrote Star Wars and demanding a share of the profits. If the secretaries didn't believe him, the man said, they should look in the parking lot, where he had left the Millennium Falcon.
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 10:18 |
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Pixelate posted:They’re talking about the Raiders story conference between Lucas, Spielberg & Kasdan. It’s a pretty cool insight into their brainstorming, and how really effective bits of the film came about. But that Marion bit... yeah. This story conference is covered in the book, at times quoting it directly (I ctrl+F'ed with the above link to confirm it's the same event). However, the book has no mention of the underage Marion bit.
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 10:27 |
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josh04 posted:Okay that is definitely one instance where George Lucas does not rule. gently caress George Lucas. Probably the most predominant theme in the book is how self-righteous Lucas is. "Morals" and "ethics" are things he brings up over and over again, and how he saw Hollywood as sleazy and corporate and how he wanted to be nothing like them. I really have no doubt he sincerely thought he was doing the right thing in the above. From a certain point of view... >>> Lucas wants the kind of ethical company that does not exist in Hollywood. His father's employees stayed with L. M. Morris for as long as twenty years and George wants to develop that same loyalty in Lucasfilm. He tries to set a moral example. When you have someone over a barrel, don't push your advantage. When you negotiate a deal, be tough and demanding, but never unreasonable or unfair. When you have a success, share the profits. "It's just a matter of doing what's right," Lucas says. >>> He is so honest that during the ICM arbitration over Empire, his staff was instructed to tell ICM's lawyers everything, even if it was harmful to his case.
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 10:41 |
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Lucas eventually fires Charles Weber, the executive of Lucasfilm he had earlier appointed, because he had let the company become 'too big' and focused on becoming a conglomerate. The last straw is when Weber suggests that Skywalker Ranch was too expensive to be feasible. >>> Lucas saw the corrupting influences of Hollywood at work: his executives joined civic organizations, went to cocktail parties, and became what George had always vowed never to become--part of the industry. "I always felt a little uncomfortable being in the Hollywood community as a representative of Lucasfilm," says Weber. "I was constantly being told by George that nobody should be in Hollywood." Lucasfilm was a Marin County operation as far as Lucas was concerned. He had to get his people out of L.A. >>> Lucas's sole comment on the firing of Weber is "The one thing I regret is I didn't do it earlier."
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 10:58 |
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>>> Lucas subscribes to an Old Testament code of justice. He is tolerant and peace-loving until wronged. Then in his fury he is righteous: "I do not forgive. And I do not forget. It's part of my makeup. I've always been that way."
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 11:03 |
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Mooey Cow posted:Wookieepedia cites a different story of how the book was conceived I know "get my wife to recount all the good times in our marriage so she falls in love all over again and cancels the divorce" sounds like some kind of naive Parent Trap-esque type of plan, but you can almost buy it when reading this. Marcia is quoted extensively and is obviously a heavy contributor, and she definitely seems to be recalling everything with genuine fondness, and it describes their relationship in current, ongoing terms rather than something that was in the past. There's one mention of her feeling a bit insecure when Lucas is doing casting calls surrounded by beautiful actresses, and that they struggled to conceive a child and learned that George is infertile, eventually adopting a daughter. But you definitely don't get the impression there was trouble in paradise from this. There's also plenty of anecdotes about how much she contributed to Lucas's movies; at one point the book even describes her as "George's secret weapon."
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 11:25 |
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The production of Return of the Jedi was still in progress during the book's writing so there's not a whole lot on it, but Pollock does note that Lucas sometimes has to keep himself in check as far as not getting in director Richard Marquand's way. >>> Director Marquand once asked Carrie Fisher to stand up straight in a scene, like a guard at the Tower of London. When Lucas came on the set and spotted Fisher, he said, "You're standing like a guard at Buckingham Palace! Who told you to do that?' When informed that it was Marquand, Lucas immediately backed off. (I think I know the scene they're talking about, haha).
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 12:16 |
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:(I think I know the scene they're talking about, haha). lol, which one?
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 12:40 |
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Surely
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 12:45 |
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Some Goon posted:Aight that's a loving wild crash. I'd probably decide to stop being a lazy piece of poo poo if I walked away from that too. Apparently there's a scene in THX 1138 that's inspired by it. Lucas woke up in the hospital and could hear two doctors talking nearby. As he listened, he couldn't figure out if they were trying to debug a machine he was connected to, or debug him.
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 12:47 |
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Nebakenezzer posted:lol, which one? When Jabba's planned punishment for Luke, Han & Chewie is being announced by C-3PO, Leia has this really stiff and rigid posture. It sort of makes sense in the scene, but it always jumped out at me. She's also not standing in the scene, so I could be wrong, but it immediately came to mind when reading this.
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 13:05 |
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Still loling that Lucas tried to sabotage Empire after getting thoroughly shown up as a writer and director.
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 13:12 |
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Some Goon posted:Still loling that Lucas tried to sabotage Empire after getting thoroughly shown up as a writer and director. Even though he was not really a major figure in the list of most popular directors, the more I have learned about Irving Kershner the more I really, really appreciate him.
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 14:11 |
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Yeah, Kershner strikes me as a reminder that you really don't know what folks are capable of until they get the right opportunity. The two other movies I've seen of his - The Eyes of Laura Mars and Robocop 2 - aren't really anything to write home about, but honestly he probably did about as well with the material in those that anyone else would have. He rises to the occasion, I think. I've heard people recommend The Return of a Man Called Horse as another example of a transcendent Kershner sequel, and going by the trailer I can say it looks like it was done by the guy who did The Empire Strikes Back, though I can't quite put into words how.
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# ? Jul 6, 2020 19:21 |
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>>> When Lawrence Kasdan toyed with killing one of the major characters in Jedi, Lucas lectured him, "You are a product of the nineteen eighties. You don't go around killing people - it's not nice."
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 00:02 |
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This is a Good Thread. Please do continue.
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 00:11 |
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:>>> When Lawrence Kasdan toyed with killing one of the major characters in Jedi, Lucas lectured him, "You are a product of the nineteen eighties. You don't go around killing people - it's not nice." Agreed
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 00:16 |
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The book makes note that on the set of Jedi Lucas and the British film crew are largely cool (as in cold) to each other. If it's mostly the same team that was there for Star Wars they're probably remembering how Lucas butted heads with cinematographer Gil Taylor, who the crew was more loyal to. This whole scenario sounded awfully familiar to me, and that's because it was almost exactly the same kind of drama that went down on the set of Aliens! Hotshot North American directors and veteran British cinematographers just do not mix, it would seem. >>> "The crew got upset with both [Kurtz and I]," Lucas now admits. "I ended up having to be nice to everybody, which is hard when you don't like a lot of the people."
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 03:19 |
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George Lucas to biographer Dale Pollock: "You took out the Marion thing, right?"
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 03:28 |
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Lucas talks about his hopes for his post-Star Wars life, the film industry, and society in general. He's intrigued by videogames and he wants to help develop the technology to the point where interactive narratives can be used not only for entertainment, but to revolutionize education as well (there's been a few times throughout the book he's mentioned that education really sucks and that it didn't do much for him as a kid). He sounds really serious about it. At this point his company is already developing a digital film editing system and he's giddy about it ("a director will be able to take his movie home with him in a briefcase."). And he wistfully looks forward to the day "movies will be beamed to theaters (and home TV sets) by satellites, eliminating the studios' cumbersome distribution system." I'd be really interested in someone following up with him about all this and see what he thinks about it all now, especially since the latter two have been realized. Oh, and: >>>...he'll probably make small esoteric movies, on film or high-resolution videotape.
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 04:09 |
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:Lucas talks about his hopes for his post-Star Wars life, the film industry, and society in general. He's intrigued by videogames and he wants to help develop the technology to the point where interactive narratives can be used not only for entertainment, but to revolutionize education as well (there's been a few times throughout the book he's mentioned that education really sucks and that it didn't do much for him as a kid). He sounds really serious about it. There was the adventure game period of the late 80s / early 90s where Lucasarts shat gold, so he can’t be faulted there.
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 04:17 |
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On today's episode of "Star Wars Stars Behaving Badly"!
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 04:46 |
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Although it was Lucas's idea at first, he gave Coppola his blessing to do Apocalypse Now without him--by then Lucas was tied up with Star Wars. But Lucas has no regrets because he got to make Return of the Jedi! >>> Jedi is a movie he first wanted to make as Apocalypse Now: the story of the little guys fighting the technological superpowers and winning because they believe in themselves. By finally expressing this theme in Jedi, George is also summarizing his own career.
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 06:42 |
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I might have just start dumping quotes for the next few 'cause I can't paraphrase 'em any better: >>> [Jedi]'s his favorite script, although he worries that the more he likes a script, the less popular the film is. >>> Lucas worried that audiences would expect something more spectacular than the obvious resolution. >>> Lucas thought it would cost too much money to top Empire, and Jedi is really less expensive, given inflation. >>> The movie Marquand was making was not the movie Lucas would have made, however. There are times when he stifled a thought like, "poo poo, if I could just get in there and clean it up...." There were scenes he watched in the editing room that made his teeth grind.
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 07:08 |
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>>> Jedi may be the last film George Lucas really cares about. He has little emotional investment in future Indiana Jones movies, or even in the next Star Wars trilogy, should it ever be made. >>> There are times when Lucas is ready to chuck the whole thing... he fantasizes selling Star Wars - the concept, the characters, and the plots for all six films. >>> What if the inheritor of the Star Wars legacy screwed up and made a lousy movie? Wouldn't that be painful? Not at all, Lucas says. "I've always thought I did a bad job. This might make me feel better."
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 07:25 |
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It's great to see that George Lucas kept his passion for filmmaking and the arts alive and never fell to the dark side and became some kind of soulless sellout or anything! >>> Lucas sees [the Star Wars trilogy] as "dumb" entertainments. He has no use for the Star Wars devotees who treat them as scripture. "Come on," Lucas says, "they're only movies." >>> [Lucas's] battles with 20th Century-Fox taught him that films are products to be exploited to their fullest value. "They're not sacred, as far as I'm concerned," Lucas says. "They're ultimately tools." Lucas the businessman intends to wring every possible dollar out of his prize property. >>> Lucas says he can separate this mercenary instinct from the artistic side of making movies, in which the filmmaker tries never to compromise his values for money. >>> The films are only a means to an end, says Lucas "This company isn't designed to go on for the next thousand years. It's designed to service me while I'm alive and to give me the things that I want to do. All I have to do is cash in my chips and say, 'I'm through.'"
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 07:34 |
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This is such a good thread.
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 07:53 |
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:It's great to see that George Lucas kept his passion for filmmaking and the arts alive and never fell to the dark side and became some kind of soulless sellout or anything! I would very much enjoy someone showing these quotes to Dave Filoni and filming his reaction.
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 09:30 |
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:Lucas talks about his hopes for his post-Star Wars life, the film industry, and society in general. He's intrigued by videogames and he wants to help develop the technology to the point where interactive narratives can be used not only for entertainment, but to revolutionize education as well (there's been a few times throughout the book he's mentioned that education really sucks and that it didn't do much for him as a kid). He sounds really serious about it. I recommended it in the prequeldome, the Keanu Reeves documentary Side by Side has lots of interviews with Lucas being very pleased about how things turned out while Christopher Nolan becomes increasingly upset.
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 09:49 |
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SidneyIsTheKiller posted:It's great to see that George Lucas kept his passion for filmmaking and the arts alive and never fell to the dark side and became some kind of soulless sellout or anything! Hey, be fair: he's not soulless at all, he just knows Star Wars is. SidneyIsTheKiller posted:>>> What if the inheritor of the Star Wars legacy screwed up and made a lousy movie? Wouldn't that be painful? Not at all, Lucas says. "I've always thought I did a bad job. This might make me feel better." this rocks
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 16:44 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 04:14 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PomYmzA5o08
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# ? Jul 7, 2020 19:11 |