Christopher Bahn has some rather pointed suggestions on how to save Episode Three from the vast wasteland of suckitude that it’ll otherwise inhabit. I should be using qualifiers, no doubt, but hey, I saw the last two films: the next one is going to be even worse. Bahn’s suggestions range from the serious
Considering that most of the worst ideas in the last two films came from Lucas himself, he might start by handing over the reins to another filmmaker.
to silly-in-any-other-context
In many ways, “Phantom” and “Clones” were the answer to the unasked question “What would the director of ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’ have done with a talented effects crew and a $200 million budget?” Well then, why not bring Ed Wood back from the grave to direct Episode III? Sure, it’s a farfetched idea, but it’s easier to swallow than “midichlorians.”
(pause)
Damn, but that’s cold. Accurate as all hell, but cold.
Anyway, check out his article for more suggestions. I’m holding out for Kevin Smith for the script and John Woo for the direction…
Hey. Would it be worse?
(Via Pejmanesque)
I agree that the modern Star Wars films don’t catch the imagination like the others, the first ones were ahead of the curve.
Not being much of an afficionado, I can say little about it except Episode One was built for 8 years olds and I never bothered to see the second one.
Anyway, being in a spamming mood, here’s a recent transcription I made of an interview with quantum physicist Brian Greene. The topic is space and time, kind of obscure but edifying nonetheless.
I went to see Episode One hoping for the best. On hearing that Jar Jar Binks was to be in Episode Two, I never bothered to go see it. As far as I’m concerned, Episode One was just an excuse to create the Sith Academy.
Besides the awful dialogue of I and II, the bigger problem will be the plotting. There are only a few ways to get from II to IV so we already know the following will occur.
Early in the film Dooku will die and the Emperor will need a new Sith flunky.
Padme gets knocked up and moody and has a terribly acted bitch scene with the insufferable Anakin.
Yoda morphs from a mighty warrior to frail muppet and runs away to hide under a rock in a swamp.
Obi Wan thrashes Anakin, maiming him. That’s that last time Hayden Christensen will ever be seen at least. Obi Wan then goes and hides under a rock in the desert.
Mace Windu and the rest of Jedi who aren’t cowards all die.
Padme’s twins get separated and placed with Owen Lars and Bail Organa.
On the positive side:
– Jar Jar Binks may die
– Once the transformation to Vader is complete his voice modulator thingy should impair most of Anakin’s whining
Visually I expect the movie to be awesome. What I’d like to see, but don’t expect, would be some sort of revelation/twist so shocking that it would make us reexamine our understanding of Episodes 4-6.
Of course, most of the shooting is already wrapped, so we’re already locked in a crash course to suckitude, I fear.
But Jes, you missed the highlight of Ep Two: Jar Jar Binks is responsible for the destruction of the Republic. Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it? 😉
[Ok, two highlights, the other being the Clone Troopers in action to the strains of the Imperial March.]
That’s that last time Hayden Christensen will ever be seen at least.
Not quite the last time.
“Ok, two highlights, the other being the Clone Troopers in action to the strains of the Imperial March.”
They had me there. They so f*cking had me. I was ready to forgive Lucas everything, then and there; Jar-Goddamned-Jar, the midichlorans, the bad acting, the stupid plot holes, the utter lack of anything resembling characterization… it was all washed away in pure “Yes! YES! We’re going to have a pukka war, now*!”
Then I saw that the proto-Empire hadn’t brought along any artillery.
Curse you, George Lucas.
Moe
*I’m the sort of person whose review of Gladiator was, “Well, it started off with this really, really good battle scene, but then the B plot took on a malignant life of its own and shunted off the stuff about the, you know, war and sh*t in favor of gladiator combat and weird cloud effects.”
That Spirit Anakin pic is fairly conclusively a fake. This doesn’t mean that the rumors of this truly abhorrent change are necessarily false, though. The rumors go farther, suggesting that the unmasked Vader/Anakin in ROTJ will be replaced with an aged Hayden Christensen.
And of course George shouldn’t be directing these films. “A New Hope” was the weakest of the original trilogy, and it was the only one he directed himself. The butchery that went on with the Special Editions only confirms that while he might have had a grand vision once, he’s really off ranting in the wilderness now.
There is no way Episode 3 can salvage the franchise at this point. Anakin’s story arc has been completely wrecked. There is no audience investment in the character, because he was obnoxious from day one. The Jedi have been rendered positively feeble, even collaborative, for no apparent reason. Everything is so firmly in place for the rise of the empire that nobody even needs to see what happens in the next film. Stupid, stupid minds, indeed.
Of course, John Woo/Kevin Smith are terrible ideas, but I’m assuming you know that. Personally, I’d love to see what Spielberg could do with the franchise, because that man can direct him some movie. Even at his schlockiest (and, lets face it, Star Wars needs a bit of schlock factor) he runs circles around George. I’d also really like Ang Lee, as long as “The Hulk” turns out to be a one-film slump.
I don’t know, Gromit — the guys at The Digital Bits are giving confirmation, and they’ve almost never been burned on confirming a rumor. And they do have a lot of inside information from LucasFilm on these things. The Force.net board appears to contain a lot of speculation, but nothing definitive. Besides, from an SFX standpoint, it would make sense for ILM to have put Christiansen’s head on Shaw’s body; why make your own work harder on you, when you can save time and do just the head? They did the same thing with Jar-Jar on Ep II — some of his footage is the CGI Binks head on Ahmed BEst’s costumed body.
“Of course, John Woo/Kevin Smith are terrible ideas, but I’m assuming you know that.”
I do*, but at least they’d be terrible ideas that were nonetheless three steps up from what I’m likely going to get as of this moment. Possibly five. 🙂
Moe
*Mind you, I like Smith and Woo films.
The whole body will almost always be easier than just the head with moving footage. For the whole body, you just shoot a the actor in garb, remove the old actor (which with that footage, would have been a cinch) and comp in the new one. To match a new head onto the old requires the actor to closely match the movements of the old one, then requires doing motion tracking on the old footage (without the benefit of track points on the original) and/or painstakingly hand-matching the new head to the old neck. Any sane FX supervisor would recommend doing the whole body.
However, this is not to say that I have any confidence of the sanity of the involved parties. I won’t be placing a pre-order for the DVD’s, suffice it to say.
Just to clarify, I’m talking about comping in live action elements above, not animated elements. In the Jar Jar example it was probably deemed cheaper to track the neck (and the FX team would have been able to place track points on the actor for this purpose) than to have someone animate the body.
Anarch: But Jes, you missed the highlight of Ep Two: Jar Jar Binks is responsible for the destruction of the Republic.
You’re mistaking me for someone who cares. By the end of Episode One I wanted the Sith to rise up and take over the Republic and kill every single one of those characters that had bored me for the past two hours, and it annoyed me enormously that I already knew that Senator Palpatine, Anakin, and Yoda would definitely all survive to Episode 4. (I didn’t count Padawan Kenobi because I knew that between 3 and 4 he morphs into someone who can act.)
This trilogy is obviously ruined. It took a death blow in the first movie which might have been salvaged by a miraculous second. But instead Lucas threw the first shovelful of dirt on himself. The third is just going to be the wake.
I don’t know how closely this arc snaps into the original, but I expect there isn’t room for another movie in between. Given that, I think the best outcome would be another series directed by someone else (Spielberg isn’t a bad idea, but AI worries me. James Cameron might be up to it. The uber-exciting pick is Peter Jackson), have it set in the Knights of the Old Republic era, and slap a restraining order on that putz Lucas.
Oh, god, not Cameron. The guy made a couple of great films, sure, but he insists on writing his own stuff, and he’s really got some strange issues with women. Anakin and Padme would end up bitter divorcees, he with castration issues, she a controlling harpy. It just wouldn’t work out.
Jackson just got finished building the visual effects empire that is, by the looks of it, supplanting ILM as the most advanced (and probably most in-demand) in the world, and he just finished the trilogy that may very well have surpassed Star Wars as the ultimate fantasy creation. I think it is fitting that he and George Lucas are literal antipodes.
OK, here’s an idea: give total creative control of Ep3 to Charlie Kaufmann. Sure, it’d be fucked up, but it would be fucked up in a really interesting sort of way!
Two words…Tim Burton. Imagine a Tim Burton Star Wars movie.
Oh oh. . as long as we’re being weird, David Lynch.
Welcome to the Sith Academy, where the owls are not what they seem.