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I'm not sure that George knows anymore what was in his head when he came up that stuff. It's all just one "that was always planned" and "I meant to do that" after another.

 Chillreaper wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure an interest in diversity and being the best write for the job are mutually exclusive?

but deciding that you need a person of a particular gender/sexual orientation/colour of skin before weighing up their ability to do the job is discrimination.

Sort of like how deciding that you DON'T need a person of a particular gender/sexual orientation/colour of skin before weighing up their ability to do the job would be discrimination.

Right?

 gorgon wrote:
I'm not sure that George knows anymore what was in his head when he came up that stuff. It's all just one "that was always planned" and "I meant to do that" after another.

So much this. Any time anyone in these arguments starts talking about something Lucas said or intended, it's exceedingly difficult not to tune that person out. Anything Lucas says has to be taken with massive, earth shattering mountains of salt.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I'm not sure that George knows anymore what was in his head when he came up that stuff. It's all just one "that was always planned" and "I meant to do that" after another.

So much this. Any time anyone in these arguments starts talking about something Lucas said or intended, it's exceedingly difficult not to tune that person out. Anything Lucas says has to be taken with massive, earth shattering mountains of salt.

Almost as bad as J K Rowling for it...

 gorgon wrote:
I'm not sure that George knows anymore what was in his head when he came up that stuff. It's all just one "that was always planned" and "I meant to do that" after another.

Just like Indiana Jones he was making it up as he went along!!

If one expects a Star Wars film to be a work of Tolkien or Herbert, then they honestly have the wrong end of the stick. Seriously, its not even Star Trek! The original trilogy was made as a visual reference to other works - the bits he thought were pretty cool and all that jazz. Tatooine is Arrakis without the awkward bits, Echo base is the American research base from The Thing from another World without the unsavery horror, Genosis is a nod to First Men In The Moon and creatures from Harryhausen and Tippet movies. Locations and situations were not a result of some grand effort of world building, not in the way Tolkien elaborately created a world's language and geography, nor the politics or warnings of Herbert, but simply what felt right at the time.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Almost as bad as J K Rowling for it...

The US's giant laser moon was always gay!

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Almost as bad as J K Rowling for it...

The US's giant laser moon was always gay!

Always thought something wasn't quite right about the Death Star...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

So much this. Any time anyone in these arguments starts talking about something Lucas said or intended, it's exceedingly difficult not to tune that person out. Anything Lucas says has to be taken with massive, earth shattering mountains of salt.

Almost as bad as J K Rowling for it...

Rowling is nowhere near Lucas's level for this. Her 'crime' was having a lot of character backstory in her head that just isn't reflected in the books... but she's at least consistent with it. Lucas with his 'I'm planning a series of 12 movies' - 'No, no, it was always meant to be six movies' - 'No, I always planned to do 9 movies' and 'The Adventures of Luke Skywalker' suddenly having always been 'intended' to be Anakin's story are a whole different thing. I don't know whether he actually convinces himself that whatever is currently in his head is what he always intended to do, or if it's just something he likes to say to fans for some reason, but it does make using anything he's ever said about the intentions and motivations behind his movies somewhat questionable.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I'm not sure that George knows anymore what was in his head when he came up that stuff. It's all just one "that was always planned" and "I meant to do that" after another.

So much this. Any time anyone in these arguments starts talking about something Lucas said or intended, it's exceedingly difficult not to tune that person out. Anything Lucas says has to be taken with massive, earth shattering mountains of salt.

Almost as bad as J K Rowling for it...

And George Lucas reveals that you, the viewer, were Luke’s father all along...

My increasing misgivings about Star Wars have mostly been about how lifeless and sterile the settings etc have started to feel. I was a little offput by the hype for Russian Doll, but I just caught two episodes by accident and it's really something. I'm really struck by how messy and lived-in the characters and setting are, and I'm intrigued by how organically and well paced the unfolding plot is teasing out.

I love the idea of something that grimy, personal and weird in the Star Wars universe. Idk, this could be genuinely really interesting.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I'm not sure that George knows anymore what was in his head when he came up that stuff. It's all just one "that was always planned" and "I meant to do that" after another.

So much this. Any time anyone in these arguments starts talking about something Lucas said or intended, it's exceedingly difficult not to tune that person out. Anything Lucas says has to be taken with massive, earth shattering mountains of salt.

Even when, again, its in the production notes that predate the release of the film itself?

The SW production notes are filled with a ton of weirdness that never made it to the screen.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I'm not sure that George knows anymore what was in his head when he came up that stuff. It's all just one "that was always planned" and "I meant to do that" after another.

So much this. Any time anyone in these arguments starts talking about something Lucas said or intended, it's exceedingly difficult not to tune that person out. Anything Lucas says has to be taken with massive, earth shattering mountains of salt.

Even when, again, its in the production notes that predate the release of the film itself?

Yeah, there was a lot of crazy stuff in the original drafts. We could of had a 65 year old Luke with a robot head, or a big family of Starkillers (trained by Jedi Owen Lars, that'd be Biggs and his twin Windy, Deak and Luke Starkiller), 'Dai Nogas' rather than 'Jedi', 'Lettow' (or 'the Bogan') instead of 'Sith'

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Adventures_of_the_Starkiller,_Episode_I:_The_Star_Wars


Lucas was functionally in damage control mode as he was filming, and trying to salvage a fairly major mess. He had tons of bad ideas (and terrible names) that were continually dropped and recycled later.

Voss wrote:
He had tons of bad ideas (and terrible names) that were continually dropped and recycled later.

Yeah, apparently he fought hard (but thankfully lost that argument) to keep the jedi weapon named a 'laser sword' rather than a lightsaber. He was rather pleased with himself in Phantom Menace interviews for working that reference back in.

The point is that its hard to argue that Lucas is trying to retroactively add context to something when contemporaneous evidence indicates that it was there in the first place.

And the counterpoint is that anything Lucas says, ever, has been shown rather conclusively over the years to be a reflection of what's in his head at that particular moment in time, rather than an indication of any actual design process.

While for just about any other director on the planet, I would happily admit that the production notes were a good indication of their intentions for the movie, with Lucas, they're a good indication only of his intentions at the time that particular copy of the production notes was written.

 insaniak wrote:

Voss wrote:
He had tons of bad ideas (and terrible names) that were continually dropped and recycled later.

Yeah, apparently he fought hard (but thankfully lost that argument) to keep the jedi weapon named a 'laser sword' rather than a lightsaber. He was rather pleased with himself in Phantom Menace interviews for working that reference back in.

Yep. Though, of course, the bigger one was bringing the 'Whills' back in the form of Midichlorians, and completely losing the audience on that nonsense.

Honestly, I don't think the idea of Midichlorians was so bad - the idea of some sort of parasitic lifeform that enhances your connection to the Force is fine. The problem was more, I think, that the name sounded incredibly lame coming out of Jake Lloyd's mouth, and having them also be Anakin's 'father' was unnecessary and stupid. How much more interesting would it have been for the background if Anakin's father had just been some passing traveler? We would have spent the last 20 years speculating on who he could have been, instead of complaining about midichlorians.

chaos0xomega wrote:

dyndraig wrote:

There is a bit of a difference between "We have female character, who is the best female actor for the job?" and "We need to hire a new writer, but he cant be white"

There is little difference between those two concepts. In both case you're showcasing talent from outside of your traditional and well-established talent pool. In the latter case, you are also recognizing that being white doesn't automatically make someone the best writer for the job, and that there is an intrinsic bias which gives the false perception that a white writer is superior to a writer of color, which has resulted in a gross over-representation of white writers in the industry. By disqualifying white applicants you are preventing that inherent bias from impacting your judgement, thereby allowing you to identify a more suitable candidate whilst also recognizing that white writers are already over-represented in the industry and not starved for opportunity like the POC writers out there and will have other options available to them.

There is quite a big difference between the two and I think you know that. Your justification of it also hinges on a weird racialist view of the world that really doesn't have anything to do with "Diversity" in the first place. For example, if you asked me to get you a "diverse" writer and I showed you a white Estonian guy, you would think me an idiot. Even though Estonians are unrepresented among Hollywood writers(I assume), but as he's "white" he's not "diverse" in that racialist world-view.

 insaniak wrote:
Honestly, I don't think the idea of Midichlorians was so bad - the idea of some sort of parasitic lifeform that enhances your connection to the Force is fine. The problem was more, I think, that the name sounded incredibly lame coming out of Jake Lloyd's mouth, and having them also be Anakin's 'father' was unnecessary and stupid. How much more interesting would it have been for the background if Anakin's father had just been some passing traveler? We would have spent the last 20 years speculating on who he could have been, instead of complaining about midichlorians.

Initially I hated the 'scientific' explanation for the force but I'm not so against it now. But the name, Midichlorians...it's awful. It's so stupid it just kills the sense of mystery and drama. We shouldn't be surprised though...names have never been his strong point.

Casualty wrote:
My increasing misgivings about Star Wars have mostly been about how lifeless and sterile the settings etc have started to feel. I was a little offput by the hype for Russian Doll, but I just caught two episodes by accident and it's really something. I'm really struck by how messy and lived-in the characters and setting are, and I'm intrigued by how organically and well paced the unfolding plot is teasing out.

I love the idea of something that grimy, personal and weird in the Star Wars universe. Idk, this could be genuinely really interesting.

Which is how it was in the beginning. I blame the prequels and their green screens for that sense of sterility they've developed.

The midichlorians were never really a "scientific" explanation for the force (conceptually they also predate any of the films), they were simply an added layer of mysticism that was interpreted as being scientific (possibly due to the name) and because they are "microscopic" which apparrently automatically makes them science-y. From a scientific standpoint, they are as unscientific as the force itself, and when the midichlorians are explored in more detail in The Clone Wars, theres very little in the way of science to be found with them.

Midichlorians certainly don’t explain the Force. All they do as far as TPM is concerned is allow characters to talk about who is potentially more powerful. It’s super lazy and boring.

 Manchu wrote:
Midichlorians certainly don’t explain the Force. All they do as far as TPM is concerned is allow characters to talk about who is potentially more powerful. It’s super lazy and boring.

It's about as scientific as power level in DBZ, just there to show off someone as big, bad and strong rather than provide any real background info behind their power.

Yes, I think that’s pretty accurate.

Its mostly reaching for an explanation that isn't needed. Space wizards do space magic. No matter how many layers of BS you trowel on top of that, it never becomes more rational- it just creates more problems.

Same thing with the lasers and hyperspace- they don't require an in-depth explanation, Star Wars isn't in a genre where that sort of thing requires screen time burnt on explanations for the background stuff- its focused on the characters and their (hopefully exciting) space adventures. Unfortunately the prequels and sequels forgot to add the exciting bits, and just papered over them with CGI.

You nailed it Voss. Explaining things that don’t require explanation (including by writing plots that focus on things that shouldn’t be scrutinized too closely) while forgetting the fundamentals. It’s hard to believe it could have gone so wrong TWICE.

Yes, very well said. We don't need to know what the Force is, and we're probably better if we don't know.

Just like the politics of TPM. We don't need to see the parliamentary procedure! It's not Prime Ministers Questions! Just briefly mention that there's been a change of Government, if you have to. Actually, this is exactly the kind of thing the opening crawl should cover.

And I just remembered why else I hate Midichlorians...it's an artificial power level, and I hate those kinds of things. I preferred it when The Force was a state of mind improved through introspection and mental thought, not how many germs you've been blessed with.

I’d argue we need to see some of Palpatine’s political wrangling. After all, the Prequels are charting his rise to absolute Power.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’d argue we need to see some of Palpatine’s political wrangling. After all, the Prequels are charting his rise to absolute Power.

Ah, now when you put like that, yes. We could do with some more of that. A couple of speeches, some meetings behind closed doors...but not what TPM gave us.

EDIT: Tarkin should have been a more important character in the prequels for these very reasons. You know what I think is a good level of politics seen in Star Wars? The end of the imperial senate meeting in ANH. Simple, to the point, but immediately conveys a lot that’s going on behind the scenes and how big changes are afoot.

 insaniak wrote:
And the counterpoint is that anything Lucas says, ever, has been shown rather conclusively over the years to be a reflection of what's in his head at that particular moment in time, rather than an indication of any actual design process.

While for just about any other director on the planet, I would happily admit that the production notes were a good indication of their intentions for the movie, with Lucas, they're a good indication only of his intentions at the time that particular copy of the production notes was written.

He's certain a unique personality. Because you have that kind of imaginative flakiness (which you can often see in talented creative minds) paired with a tendency to go down rabbit holes explaining all these in-the-weeds details...potentially on a rolling basis depending on where his mind is at that time. Hence the constant tinkering.