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Soundwave on 21 June 2018
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Mandalore76 said:
Soundwave said:

Lucas has wildly changed his story over the years multiple times. When Revenge of the Sith came out he was adament there was only 6 films and that ROTS was absolutely the end of the story. 

Here's a fun interview with George saying politics were always a part of Star Wars and then a guy ripping Revenge of the Sith apart, lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giHnUr9wDu8

When Revenge of the Sith came out, George Lucas was 61 years old.  He stated at that time, that another trilogy would require 10 more years of his life.  And that he didn't have that in him.  He was willing to close the saga on 6 films, because it very nearly centered around the life of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.  In the 70's-80's interviews, he was much younger and had plenty of life ahead of him, and was therefore more willing to think of and talk about a trilogy centered around Luke Skywalker after Return of the Jedi.  

And going back to your statement that Lucas "made sh*t up as he went along" while filming the prequels:

"It is said that certain creatures are born with a higher awareness of the Force than humans. Their brains are different; they have more midi-chlorians in their cells." ¯George Lucas, establishing guidelines for the Expanded Universe in 1977[src]

Midi-chlorians were first conceived by George Lucas as early as 1977. In this time the first Expanded Universe products were being created, including the ongoing Marvel Star Wars series and Alan Dean Foster's novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Lucas sat down with a member of his staff, Carol Titelman, to dictate a number of guidelines for these works, explaining various concepts of his universe. Among them were an explanation of midi-chlorians, which Force-sensitive beings were said to have more of in their cells.[34] However, Lucas did not feel he had the time to introduce the concept of midi-chlorians. The idea would not appear in any Star Wars product for twenty-two years; Lucas chose 1999's Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace as the opportunity to first mention the midi-chlorians, explaining why some were sensitive to the Force while others were not, an issue that he had left unresolved since the original film Star Wars. Lucas incorporated the explanation of midi-chlorians into the film as part of Anakin Skywalker's journey towards understanding the Force.[35] That Lucas had planned the midi-chlorians as far back as 1977 was hinted at on the DVD commentary of The Phantom Menace, but the details would not be fully revealed for another eight years, coming to light in the 2007 book The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film, the hardcover edition of which had, among its appendices, Lucas' notes for the Expanded Universe authors.

Soundwave said:

You're the one who's turned this into a zero sum game where box office is tied directly to how good a film is or what's relevant. 

So by your own logic Cameron IS the rightful king of your fanboy throne. Titanic and Avatar BOTH made more than any Star Wars or Marvel or any nerd franchise you want to bring up. So bend the knee. 

Also the Avatar ride has become the biggest attraction at Disney parks, with thousands of people waiting 2-3 hours in a line up just to get on a 5 minute Avatar, that's in the here and now. People underestimate that franchise at their own risk, what the "general public" and what the "nerd community online" thinks are often two very different things.

People wait on line 2-3 hours to get on a roller coaster that lasts a few minutes?  In other breaking news, water is wet.

By the way, you should credit the success of Titanic and Avatar to George Lucas as well.  The effects in those movies that everyone wowed over were created by Industrial Light & Magic.  The company that was founded by George Lucas in 1975 because he believed special effects could be done much better than what was available at the time.  But, he must have "fluked" his way into that too right?

The special effects company don't magically pull shot lists out of their ass, what is on screen is 100% the vision and direction of James Cameron. By the way pretty sure Digital Domain (Cameron's own company) was the lead on Titanic, not ILM, and Avatar was not ILM either. 

The success of Titanic and Avatar is purely because Cameron understand story structure, can direct action (yes Titanic effectively becomes like a Die Hard film in the third act) clearly and concisely, and understands how to build emotion in a story better than almost any director in the fantasy/sci-fi/action genre (sorry Lucas and JJ, sit down and take notes). 

I don't doubt Lucas had crap ideas like the Midichlorians going back to '77. The Star Wars OT is largely likely a product of fluke in many ways because a lot of his terrible ideas weren't possible due to special effects limitations, Kasdan writing the scrips, his wife performing a huge re-cut on the original Star Wars, his friends helping him polish the dialogue in A New Hope's script, etc. etc. etc. When he was left to his devices, we saw what he did with the prequels and it was horrendous along with forcing aliens into Indiana Jones, something neither Spielberg or Ford wanted to do. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 21 June 2018