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[Doom85]

You know, I know a lot of people here don't particularly care for the new movies, but you've got to admit this, they at least understand that they take place out in the stars and not hanging around micro-organisms: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...n-for-star-wars-7-through-9-and-it-was-awful/

I mean, what? Like, I might have been fine with a stand-alone film (like Rogue One or Solo) exploring this, but the actual 7-9 would have been this? And hey, if people want to be nit-picky and argue that hyperspeed ramming completely changes the ramifications of battle then I would hope they would hold the same standards to this as I'm pretty sure SHRINKING TECHNOLOGY would massively change a ton in the verse (now I realize George didn't say that's what would be done, but he makes it clear the trilogy would focus on these creatures so shrinking technology makes more sense than tons of scenes where Luke, Leia, and Han stare into microscopes).

You know, I thought George might have at least done a better job with 7-9 than he did the prequels because he did start to correct a few mistakes with each consecutive prequel. Now I wonder if the prequels was actually him being somewhat restrained due to not being able to go too off the stray path since it's focused on characters whose stories have to reach a certain point which only gives so much wiggle room in the narrative. Once he was off those restraints, it looks like anything would go regardless if it felt like natural story progression in the slightest or even made sense for the franchise (again, STAR Wars. Like, make a new new series Lucas if you want several films about micro-organisms). Like, I'm sure a few people will be like, "oh, but it's so different!" Yeah, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3's story being about the Guardians dropping all the epic space adventures and they spend the whole movie joining a basketball team to win the championship would certainly be different for the series but I would still think it's a stupid direction for a series like that.

 

[finowns]

Midichlorians were a big mistake by Lucas. The force didn’t need to be explained in that way. But honestly I think his 7 - 9 would’ve been be better than the one we got.

 

[CaliggyJack]

Coming from a person who had no issue with the prequels and actually prefer Midichlorians over "Space Magic", this sounds ridiculous.

That said however, it would still be interesting to see how he would have handled that story and what it would entail.

 

[kunonabi]

It's not where I would go but I'd take it over the Disney stuff.

 

[mrkgoo]

Coming from a person who had no issue with the prequels and actually prefer Midichlorians over "Space Magic", this sounds ridiculous.

That said however, it would still be interesting to see how he would have handled that story and what it would entail.

The existence of midichlorians never precluded the existence of "space magic" (the Force). It merely explained how some were sensitive to it, and could manipulate it (and attempted to explain how it was hereditary). Even with midichlorians, the "space magic" is still as magic as ever.

 

[zombrex]

Midichlorians where a terrible idea, and so were nano machines in Metal Gear Solid.
You don't need to make up explanations for supernatural elements they people already accept within the stories universe.

 

[WaterAstro]

Grand Admiral Thrawn save us.

 

[CaliggyJack]

Midichlorians where a terrible idea, and so were nano machines in Metal Gear Solid.
You don't need to make up explanations for supernatural elements they people already accept within the stories universe.

Why have supernatural elements in Science Fiction though? I felt Midichlorians added a much needed depth to understanding the Force and how it works with the Jedi and Sith.

 

[Doom85]

Why have supernatural elements in Science Fiction though? I felt Midichlorians added a much needed depth to understanding the Force and how it works with the Jedi and Sith.

Most label Star Wars as "science fantasy". It's not meant to be as potentially realistic as Star Trek is for example.

 

[Warm Machine]

He doesn't actually say this in the quoted text. He said that he would explore that world, which doesn't mean he'd shrink people down just that he'd use it as the backdrop for the story. Basically how the force actually binds the galaxy together. He also dipped his toes into this exact thing in the Clone Wars series. Lucas also often speaks metaphorically when he discusses story.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

The Last Jedi was excellent, probably behind ANH and ESB.

 

[Alx]

(now I realize George didn't say that's what would be done, but he makes it clear the trilogy would focus on these creatures so shrinking technology makes more sense than tons of scenes where Luke, Leia, and Han stare into microscopes).

Nah, neither is really likely. It's been established in the saga that force-sensitive people can feel each other from afar and communicate that way, shrinking Jedi or using optical devices don't seem necessary. If they had to encounter the Whills and interact with them, it would be through meditation or something similar.

 

[Atrus]

The Last Jedi was excellent, probably behind ANH and ESB.

The other two were timeless classics with lots of referencable material and quotes that people will watch for generations. The Last Jedi was a flm that was anything but that. This is the difference in quality when people hate on films like Indiana Jones 4 or The Last Jedi.

I never want to watch The Last Jedi ever again because there is no value to it. An easily forgettable film about a slow speed chase in space, pointless side adventures, and an empty, unrewarding narrative.

Lucas also screwed up by trying to rationalize the mysticism aspect of the story. It would be like having a LotR movie where they start to tell you that "magic" was actually the result of microorganisms created by the Valar; a pointless distraction from everything else and has little bearing to the rest of the story. Might as well be describing the molecular bonding chemistry of Mythril to the audience.

 

[Helios]

I don't know how many of you saw these, but there's a concept art book for the original TFA before JJ scrapped most of it. Here's a few of the pages https://archive.4plebs.org/tv/thread/92600356/
Most of these look amazing and don't even compare to what we got.
Edit: I probably shouldn't need to say this but the link is to a 4chan archive so beware the colorful language here and there. Most of the thread is okay, just a few of them "exercising their free speech"

 

[CaliggyJack]

Edit: I probably shouldn't need to say this but the link is to a 4chan archive so beware the colorful language here and there. Most of the thread is okay, just a few of them "exercising their free speech"

I.E. "Saying things I don't like"

 

[Punchpudding]

I like weirdness in my sci-fi and I would have preferred to see Star Wars get weird instead of the same but worse.

This quote really shows you how much confidence George Lucas has lost:

Of course, a lot of the fans would have hated it, just like they did Phantom Menace and everything

It takes confidence to make something weird and put it out there in the mainstream. I actually liked Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and how they added some comic book weirdness into their blockbuster franchise. Of course it's not Possession levels of weird but it's still something.

 

[CaliggyJack]

I like weirdness in my sci-fi and I would have preferred to see Star Wars get weird instead of the same but worse.

This quote really shows you how much confidence George Lucas has lost:


It takes confidence to make something weird and put it out there in the mainstream. I actually liked Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and how they added some comic book weirdness into their blockbuster franchise. Of course it's not Possession levels of weird but it's still something.

George Lucas is broken dude.

He endured over a decade of fan derision and hate despite his love and appreciation of the fandom through his support and award shows. Year after year after year of people screaming "George Lucas raped my childhood." So many people calling him a hack, a greedy bastard, and everything under the sun.

He fucking loved Star Wars, and instead of appreciating his vision, we shat on him for it. We didn't even try to understand his Prequel trilogy, we just looked at it, spit on it, and then told GL to make Original Trilogy 2.0. And then people wonder why Disney decided to rehash the OT in The Force Awakens. BECAUSE WE ASKED THEM TO.

I feel so bad for Lucas... He didn't deserve any of this. He has every right to hate the Star Wars fanbase for the treatment that he got. Despite this, he has never once attacked the fandom, he always respected their hate even if he didn't like it.

Rian Johnson got a couple angry fanboys for 1 specific movie and he lashed out on twitter over it.

That shows you who now controls Star Wars.

 

[nephilimdj]

Midichlorians where a terrible idea, and so were nano machines in Metal Gear Solid.
You don't need to make up explanations for supernatural elements they people already accept within the stories universe.

They had Jedi wookies under George, they honestly needed some type of reason why only a select few 1000 odd become jedi out of a Trillion high IQ creatures/humanoids

 

[Helios]

I.E. "Saying things I don't like"

Wrong, I don't give a shit. I just wanted to give a warning for the people that doesn't usually visit this site.

 

[llien]

I mean, what?

Article that talks about article that is about interview... Can't we just check the actual interview instead?
Here is the original talk, James Cameron (JC) and George Lucas (GL):

“[The next three ‘Star Wars’ films] were going to get into a microbiotic world,” he told Cameron. “There’s this world of creatures that operate differently than we do. I call them the Whills. And the Whills are the ones who actually control the universe. They feed off the Force.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Lucas admitted, “Everybody hated it in ‘Phantom Menace’ [when] we started talking about midi-chlorians.” In terms of his storytelling, Lucas regarded individuals as “vehicles for the Whills to travel around in…And the conduit is the midi-chlorians. The midi-chlorians are the ones that communicate with the Whills. The Whills, in a general sense, they are the Force.”

Lucas is confidant that had he kept his company, the Whills-focused films “would have been done. Of course, a lot of the fans would have hated it, just like they did ‘Phantom Menace’ and everything, but at least the whole story from beginning to end would be told.”

For his part, Cameron has said that “George’s group of six films had more innovative visual imagination” than Abrams’ first follow-up. Check out an excerpt of the exchange below:

indiewire

 

[Relativ9]

Midichlorians where a terrible idea, and so were nano machines in Metal Gear Solid.
You don't need to make up explanations for supernatural elements they people already accept within the stories universe.

Did people accept it in MGS? I felt like MGS's universe pretty squarely placed itself in sci-fi where everything had a technological explanation. The sudden appearance of Vamp and Fortune kind of put the whole concept of the world of MGS into question until they explained it. Nanomachines gave Kojima license to do all the crazy shit he wanted to experiment with while still being able to "reasonable" wrap it into the MGS universe. I mean sure it's all a bit far-fetched and they ran the ghost-arm "mystery" across almost two whole games before finally revealing it, but throughout everything they've always approached all their mysteries as "how is this possible, let's figure this out" instead of "I don't know, magic I guess..."

This is the same reason people loved Mass Effect's story and universe but hated Destiny. Sci-fi shouldn't hit you over the head with sciency explanations for the unbelievable stuff that happens, but it should be there if you want it. In Mass Effect this is through codex entries and extended voluntary dialogue, in MGS it's through the Codec conversations.

The reason Midichlorians didn't work in Star Wars, is because Star Wars has never been a sci-fi franchise, Star Wars is high fantasy in space. There are more things in Star Wars canon that doesn't make sense then does. If you expect Star Wars to be reasonable or logical you've come to the wrong place, and Lucas messed up by trying to write what he thought was a reasonable explanation for force powers into a universe that didn't fit it. Of course, it doesn't help that it's not actually reasonable either, but that's besids the point.

 

[Bryank75]

Just another excuse for the new Lucas film and Kathleen Kennedy.

Talking about something possibly worse, doesn’t make the films any better.

 

[BANGS]

people want to be nit-picky and argue that hyperspeed ramming completely changes the ramifications of battle

I've never understood this complaint. The fuck do you expect to happen when you ram two ships, even at a slower speed?

The existence of midichlorians never precluded the existence of "space magic" (the Force). It merely explained how some were sensitive to it, and could manipulate it (and attempted to explain how it was hereditary). Even with midichlorians, the "space magic" is still as magic as ever.

Also seriously, this...

 

[manfestival]

I think what would have solved the sequels is if they hired Hideo Kojima to write them instead of having different people take shots at the story after the fact.

 

[888]

Sounds like either way, we were going to get screwed.

 

[BANGS]

Hideo Kojima

*SHUDDERS*

 

[manfestival]

*SHUDDERS*

Each movie may be 8 hours long but they would still be better than the trash we got now. Sure it may get real weird and "too deep for you" at times but it will be just as incoherent and far more entertaining/consistent.

 

[BANGS]

Each movie may be 8 hours long but they would still be better than the trash we got now. Sure it may get real weird and "too deep for you" at times but it will be just as incoherent and far more entertaining/consistent.

Remember when the Emperor revealed that the unfinished second Death Star was actually fully operational, and that he purposely mislead the spies that reported by the Rebels? That's the kinda stuff Kojima used to do. If he were to rewrite today on the other hand, the Death Star wouldn't even exist and the lasers came from nanomachines...

 

[Doom85]

Rian Johnson got a couple angry fanboys for 1 specific movie and he lashed out on twitter over it.

That shows you who now controls Star Wars.

I think he got a bit more than that: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/23...ts-after-star-wars-the-last-jedi-was-released Also, he lashed out at ONE user, which isn't great but the tweet itself was mere name-calling, nothing discriminatory or threatening. He acted immature once but hardly anything worth a massive amount of criticism IMHO.

And it wouldn't surprise me if Kathleen Kennedy received them as well. Which to me is exactly like the Lucas situation (although it's even more baffling in her case as she doesn't write or direct the films even. I guess we should blame Kevin Feige for Thor: Dark World being not that great?). Like, it's fine to not like something, but don't go insane over it. Instead we get this garbage, not to mention how Jake Lloyd and Kelly Marie Tran were treated.

Also, I don't care for your implication that those who didn't like the prequels didn't "try to understand it". What is that? By that same note, I could be arrogant and dismiss anyone's complaints towards TLJ with a simple "pssh, you just didn't understand it" which is ridiculous. Sure, there are a few people who missed out on the themes of the movie, but most who didn't like the film understood what it was doing and just didn't personally care for it.

 

[EviLore]

And it wouldn't surprise me if Kathleen Kennedy received them as well. Which to me is exactly like the Lucas situation (although it's even more baffling in her case as she doesn't write or direct the films even. I guess we should blame Kevin Feige for Thor: Dark World being not that great?). Like, it's fine to not like something, but don't go insane over it. Instead we get this garbage, not to mention how Jake Lloyd and Kelly Marie Tran were treated.

We would blame Kevin Feige for Thor 2, though, and people did at the time. Go back and look and you'll see it. That was the low point for the "MCU Formula." It required Joss Whedon to be helicoptered in and do some emergency doctoring to increase Loki's role in the film, too.

It was a financial success but it was a precipice. Ant-Man had a director change too, and things could have fallen apart like they are now for Star Wars, but they didn't and Black Panther and Infinity War are high points for social/criticial/commercial success for the MCU. The MCU adjusted appropriately and recovered. Thor: Ragnarok takes all the notes from Thor: The Dark World's shortcomings and fixes them. Black Panther found a balance between auteur project and studio project that pleased everyone and didn't cause production issues like Ant-Man did.

Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson are getting deserved criticism. Some people on the internet are crazy and that's not okay whatsoever (it really, really isn't). The problems are no less real though.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Seems to be the new pitch for TLJ
"Not worse than the Magic School Bus fights the Whills would have been"

 

[CaliggyJack]

We would blame Kevin Feige for Thor 2, though, and people did at the time. Go back and look and you'll see it. That was the low point for the "MCU Formula." It required Joss Whedon to be helicoptered in and do some emergency doctoring to increase Loki's role in the film, too.

It was a financial success but it was a precipice. Ant-Man had a director change too, and things could have fallen apart like they are now for Star Wars, but they didn't and Black Panther and Infinity War are high points for social/criticial/commercial success for the MCU. The MCU adjusted appropriately and recovered. Thor: Ragnarok takes all the notes from Thor: The Dark World's shortcomings and fixes them. Black Panther found a balance between auteur project and studio project that pleased everyone and didn't cause production issues like Ant-Man did.

Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson are getting deserved criticism. Some people on the internet are crazy and that's not okay whatsoever (it really, really isn't). The problems are no less real though.

Funny though because it was Joss Whedon's rewrites that fucked the movie over the most. The heavier focus on Loki did the movie no favors and actually made things worse.

 

[DiscoJer]

They should have just filmed the Thrawn trilogy.

 

[PerezDeCorcho]

Lol @ all of the people pretending that this should somehow vindicate the new trilogy.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

I don't know, I find it kind of interesting?

I think people are misinterpreting what Lucas is saying, his sequel trilogy would have simply delved into the origins of the Force, where are people getting the idea that this would emans character shrinking down or whatever?

Lucas for better or worse was trying to actually say something with Star Wars, there's an actual point to it all, it's not simply entertainment for entertainment's sake, I think that is why the original trilogy resonated with people like it did.

What is Disney's Star Wars trying to say? TFA wasn't saying anything other than "hey, remember this?", TLJ had meta commentary on the series itself, which is ok, but what is the endgame?

What can Disney's Star Wars really say since obviously Disney would want it to continue indefinitely so long as it kept making money, Lucas conceived of an epic length story, but still one with an eventual end.

 

[Doom85]

Well, even then, I don't think most people want to know the origins of the Force. Some things are most interesting without having someone drop a textbook down and begin explaining everything. It's the same reason most fans don't want to know Yoda's whole story and what's the deal with his species, some things are most interesting to not know the answers to.

And if Lucas didn't want to give us the impression that the characters would shrink, he probably shouldn't have used the phrase "were going to get into a microbiotic world. But there’s this world of creatures that operate differently than we do". He also acts like the Whills would be one of the main, if not the, main focus of the trilogy. If this is an entire world of creatures that are so important to this trilogy, well it would be rather odd if we never got to see said world at all? Like midi-chlorians were described in a way that we didn't need any visuals to them, but what Lucas is describing is clearly a unique world and it would be stupid to have three movies where said world and creatures are discussed a lot and never shown.

Also, Lucas is just as guilty of considering keeping the movies going indefinitely as they had originally planned to go well past 6, in fact they had no idea who the "there is another" Yoda spoke of was when they wrote it in 5 and were just using it as a plot device they could use in a later movie. Once they realized they would temporarily end it with 6, they had to decide on it being Leia and alter the story. Yes, the OT was not planned out, which is why anyone who goes, "the new movies suck because they don't plan everything out like the OT did!" gets a sensible chuckle from me. Another point is Lucas definitely didn't always put the story first. When Harrison Ford approached him about killing off Han in Episode 6, Lucas didn't shoot down the idea because he didn't think it would work with the story or any other such reason connected to the writing, but because "dead Han doesn't sell toys".

 

[Gander]

I'm not comfortable with people lumping The Force Awakens with The Last Jedi. For the task of setting the entire Star Wars universe back on it's feet and giving it some direction the Force Awakens did it's job. What happened after that was a train wreck.

 

[mckmas8808]

I like the Midichlorians stuff and I like what Disney has done. So where do I fit in?

 

[BANGS]

I like the Midichlorians stuff and I like what Disney has done. So where do I fit in?

You're just a Star Wars fan, welcome aboard

 

[iconmaster]

I'd like more lore on the Whills, actually. Ars seems to be extrapolating a bit -- George says the films "were going to get into a microbiotic world" which could mean "take place in a microbiotic world" as Ars thinks or just "deal with issues stemming from this microbiotic world."

But increasingly I think the only really great Star Wars film is Empire Strikes Back and we've all been chasing that dragon ever since.

 

[CaliggyJack]

I'd like more lore on the Whills, actually. Ars seems to be extrapolating a bit -- George says the films "were going to get into a microbiotic world" which could mean "take place in a microbiotic world" as Ars thinks or just "deal with issues stemming from this microbiotic world."

But increasingly I think the only really great Star Wars film is Empire Strikes Back and we've all been chasing that dragon ever since.

Funny thing is. George didn't even direct that film, his College Film Professor did.

 

[Sapiens]

Let’s not kid ourselves. It would have just been another remake of new hope. But they blow up a mitochondria or some shit.