Should Lucas be removed before he ruins SW completely?

[SirNitram]

Of course he's a shrewd businessman. But I was arguing against the annoying "GL doesn't care about the story, so long as he gets to line his pocketbook" bullshit.

My complaint: the man's just too detached now. He's lost the fire he had when he made the OT.

Judging by what he's said in the DVD's features and commentary, I'd say it's almost the opposite: He's so involved in the stories in his head, he's following the same problem my writing is plagued with: Inadequete expansion of ideas. Part of this is he crippled himself with A New Hope: Named Ep IV, he could only ever have three to tie the strings together.

[SirNitram]

Maybe you don't like them for a different reason.

Tell me, would you ever really want to know how the Wicked Witch of the West got that way? Or is it better left shrouded in mystery? Ever wonder why origin myths tend to be vague rather than detailed?

Part of the magic of myth is the open ends, the unanswered questions, the sense of a past that is glorious and mysterious at the same time. Answering those questions punctures some of that magic, and can be downright tedious (look at the Silmarillion).

There is that point. Though I do like many of the things that have been tied up, like where Obi-Wan got that ridiculous little twirl he did once or twice in A New Hope, and where the Wedge Shape came from(A Jedi Starfighter is the origin of the Star Destroyer shape!). But yes, every part explained is one part which is less magical.. But if we must choose(And we must, some author would do it someday) between Lucas explaining what he meant for it and some author like Stackpole coming up with a BS reason, I'll take Lucas.

[Stravo]

Why does this bother people? I really think the canoncity of the EU has been raised to a nearly Fundie level of sanctity. A level that GL obviously does not feel. Is the EU important? Sure. But the final arbitor is GL, ALWAYS and who the hell are we to say that he is ruining his story.

NO. MAYBE he's ruining what YOU think is Star Wars but he is NOT ruining HIS story.

That's true. It's his story but the points is that so far it's not as good a quality of a story as the original. The quality of the films isn't as good. It has nothing to do with my vision, I just don't like them as much. Too much flash and to little heart.

I agree totally. TPM was utter CRAP. BUT I was not one to say that GL is ruining his story, stop him before he does it again. The magic is gone and quite frankly maybe its us AND GL. That same magic CAN'T happen again because of everything we've seen since OT. Maybe it was a once in a lifetime kind of magic that can never be captured again and we're unfairly maligning what is actually pretty good sci fi.

[Stormbringer]

Stormbringer: Maybe you don't like them for a different reason.

Tell me, would you ever really want to know how the Wicked Witch of the West got that way? Or is it better left shrouded in mystery? Ever wonder why origin myths tend to be vague rather than detailed?

Part of the magic of myth is the open ends, the unanswered questions, the sense of a past that is glorious and mysterious at the same time. Answering those questions punctures some of that magic, and can be downright tedious (look at the Silmarillion).

Hey, I liked The Silmarillion!

I don't think it does. I've wondered about how Anakin came to be Vader. It was some I wanted to see. The problem with movies is really just that they're lacking a human quality. They captured that a bit at times but it just didn't work. It's a matter of passion, George had it before and it's dimmed now.

[Joe]

Stormbringer: Maybe you don't like them for a different reason.

Tell me, would you ever really want to know how the Wicked Witch of the West got that way? Or is it better left shrouded in mystery? Ever wonder why origin myths tend to be vague rather than detailed?

Part of the magic of myth is the open ends, the unanswered questions, the sense of a past that is glorious and mysterious at the same time. Answering those questions punctures some of that magic, and can be downright tedious (look at the Silmarillion).

Hey, I liked The Silmarillion!

I don't think it does. I've wondered about how Anakin came to be Vader. It was some I wanted to see. The problem with movies is really just that they're lacking a human quality. They captured that a bit at times but it just didn't work. It's a matter of passion, George had it before and it's dimmed now.

There still is vagueness; how did the Emperor, a figure of evil surely comparable to Vader, become so evil?

[Stormbringer]

Why does this bother people? I really think the canoncity of the EU has been raised to a nearly Fundie level of sanctity. A level that GL obviously does not feel. Is the EU important? Sure. But the final arbitor is GL, ALWAYS and who the hell are we to say that he is ruining his story.

NO. MAYBE he's ruining what YOU think is Star Wars but he is NOT ruining HIS story.

That's true. It's his story but the points is that so far it's not as good a quality of a story as the original. The quality of the films isn't as good. It has nothing to do with my vision, I just don't like them as much. Too much flash and to little heart.

I agree totally. TPM was utter CRAP. BUT I was not one to say that GL is ruining his story, stop him before he does it again. The magic is gone and quite frankly maybe its us AND GL. That same magic CAN'T happen again because of everything we've seen since OT. Maybe it was a once in a lifetime kind of magic that can never be captured again and we're unfairly maligning what is actually pretty good sci fi.

Except it's new movies, new memories. And I can still feel that sort of emotion with the Original Trilogy. Face it, George lost something. Too much emphasis on the mechanics of the story and too little on the heart of it.

[paladin]

SW is his baby, so he has final word over control.

[Stormbringer]

SW is his baby, so he has final word over control.

Of course he does. I'm not supporting some of those ridiculous notions about taking his control away. I just don't believe he's done the best job possible.

[Sea Skimmer]

In SPR we also troops from horizon to horizon. In AOTC we saw the edges of the battle.

If we assume that this particular factory was the only target on the planet, yes. The more technologically advanced a war is, the more dispersed its actions will tend to be. However, I don't see any reason to leap to the conclusion that the Republic army was limited by the troops we saw deployed during the brief snippets of the Geonosis battle in that area, or that George Lucas' portrayal of the battle is similar to the kind of moronic downsizing that Zahn has committed. The battle of La Drang in Vietnam involved only 400 American servicemen; do we conclude that America had only 400 men?

The novel also confirms that unit=man.

Really? I still have to read that thoroughly, rather than skimming it.

We saw a handful of ships; we saw one battle portrayed in the Command center in rather large scale. If there was significant other fighting going on then surely they'd split the screen to show the others. Nothing suggests there was other combat.

They would not be concerned about combat farther away from their own location, so why would they show it? If you're in La Drang and you're sketching enemy troop positions, would you also throw up information about troops hundreds of miles away, just for good measure?

The High command of the entire separatist movement was evacuating the planet over it. If there were combat across a wider area they would certainly pay attention to that before fleeing. A defeat at La Drang wouldn't trigger an American Evacuation of Vietnam, this defeat did.

[Sardaukar]

I'd just like to point out that while many people seem to be distressed by the direction of the Prequels so far, I am not. I am finding them very familiar and am as enthused about AotC as I was about tESB when I first saw it 17 years ago when my dad insisted I check out what he was taping off the television.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The problem is Lucas' own undecision. People criticize the Zahn misdating and such, but do not they respect the fact that Lucas was intimately involved in the original Marvel comics and deep in the history of the Sith in the Dark Horse comics and then changes his mind? Lucas gave him the 30 years before ANH date. Lucas literally brainstormed and directly worked with Vietch for Dark Empire and the Sith War comics. Lucas literally edited the age of the Republic by a factor of 25 and continuity editors had to fix this themselves. Lucas did make commentary about the "three trilogies" but then he says this was all rumor blown out of proportion. Lucas has been inconsistent several times from the beginning: the EU's fractured nature is a trait inspired from the top. People credit Lucas with his grand vision and all, but I do believe that much of this has been blown out of proportion. The Geonosian battle and the battle of Naboo illustrate that his own sense of scale is not really in-line with the Death Star and the sheer number of ships in the opening of TPM. A New Hope's Obi-Wan provided background doesn't mesh well with the Prequels at all, but the EU has suffered indiginities rather less severe then the total flop with Anakin's training and how he met Obi-Wan. While we've accredited Lucas with understanding things through his implications of the Jedi Order's corruption in AOTC, he's been quoted as saying that Anakin's flaws are rooted in the fact he wasn't snatched up as a infant by the Order and condemned to a monk-like existance.

I love the creations, but he just needs to be responsible for the cohesion with that which he created, and that which he allowed. Besides: removing the conscription element just adds one more reason to wonder what the big deal with the Empire's "oppression" was anyway.

The largest EU fuck-ups can be attributed to the lack of concern for what WEG originally spewed out, and Zahn's minimalism can be attributed to his close association and appreciation for WEG. The rest was, as they say, history. By the time they clamped down on continuity, many brain-bugs had set in, but I don't find the Unknown Regions one to be that severe. One that really irritates me is how Tattoine is treated like the waystation for everything in the EU. It's in the fucking middle of fucking nowherem why's that so hard to understand? Though it can be traced to Jabba's HQ being there, but I can understand Lucas' reasoning behind that.

[Illuminatus Primus]

And for the record, I don't support someone else doing SW, God knows they'd screw it up worse.

That said, I still enjoy the TTT better then TPM.

[Illuminatus Primus]

If we assume that this particular factory was the only target on the planet, yes. The more technologically advanced a war is, the more dispersed its actions will tend to be. However, I don't see any reason to leap to the conclusion that the Republic army was limited by the troops we saw deployed during the brief snippets of the Geonosis battle in that area, or that George Lucas' portrayal of the battle is similar to the kind of moronic downsizing that Zahn has committed.

Just an FYI, but Zahn derided Vietch and Dark Empire and Marvel, but he adored WEG. His minimalism can be traced to his association with them and their brain bugs. I can provide a quote soon if you'd like.

Here we see a significant problem: the novels and their authors followed Zahn's precedent, and Zahn followed WEG. Vietch and Dark Empire better followed the scale and spirit of the OT (for the record, Lucas loved DE and bought it for his employees that Christmas, and according to early manuscript rumors, that DE borrowed some elements that the Sequel trilogy was supposed to have). Marvel also correctly figured out that the ISD was not the largest ship in the Empire, and also established a predecessor of the TPM established "rule of two" where a former agent of Palpatine and later Sith acolyte Shira Brie (self-styled "Lady Lumiya") and Sith-influenced strongman Flint formed a pair which Luke dealt with in the year following Endor). Many of Marvel close-links to "real" SW can be linked again to Lucas' involvement with it.

And although we all hate KJA, he consulted Lucas more then Zahn: it was under Lucas' instructions that Exar Kun was made a Sith Lord with the backstory rather then the original plan, that he'd be a Dark Jedi.

The novel also confirms that unit=man.

Really? I still have to read that thoroughly, rather than skimming it.

This doesn't seem to be a problem, the Republic likely was immediately building an extensive support infrastructure across many planets for their clone armies, as the Kamino facility is about to be attacked by the Seperatists in the upcoming Dark Horse comic, "Attack on Kamino."

[Slartibartfast]

Why does this bother people? I really think the canoncity of the EU has been raised to a nearly Fundie level of sanctity. A level that GL obviously does not feel. Is the EU important? Sure. But the final arbitor is GL, ALWAYS and who the hell are we to say that he is ruining his story.

NO. MAYBE he's ruining what YOU think is Star Wars but he is NOT ruining HIS story.

That's true. It's his story but the points is that so far it's not as good a quality of a story as the original. The quality of the films isn't as good. It has nothing to do with my vision, I just don't like them as much. Too much flash and to little heart.

I also have complains about the quality of the new films. Also about the storytelling (not about the STORY, about the storyTELLING).

I hated TPM because I think it was childish, poorly acted and stuff that was supposed to be important didn't seem so. I didn't have any problems about the story itself.

About AoTC, I also think the plot was okay. I didn't have a problem with the clone trooper, separation, etc stuff with it. I hated the slow scenes - the way OB1 handled the investigation, the romance part, etc. Not because they were slow, but because they sucked. NOT because it didn't belong in the story, but because the dialogue was bad, it was poorly directed and acted. I hated also the bouncing back-and-forth between planets!

I do think it's stupid that George Lucas is planning on re-doing the stormtroopers in YET ANOTHER friggin special edition/director's cut. IMO, you only get to do ONE director's cut. You can't make a director's cut of the director's cut.

To sum up, my main complain about the Prequels: the PACING is all WRONG.

No EU complains shit.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

My biggest problem with both the prequel movies was the script and the acting. Like when Dooku said something like "It is clear that this battle cannot be decided by our skills of the force, we must use our lightsabers". What a ham-fisted segue that was! Of course, Hayden Christianson should be dragged 40 miles from the back of a speeding Porsche, and Jake Lloyd should be thrown through a plate glass window (lesser punishment for juviniles). The directing may have been crappy, but if the casting and the script had been better, they would have made up for it.

[neoolong]

Yes, that is why I think Lucas needs a co-writer and someone to read the screenplay and tell him when it sucks.

[Ghost Rider]

Like he would listen.

And I agree with slarti...the pacing is bad...and sorry Jar-Jar makes no flarging sense, he's is the worst out of Lucas needing to kiddified SW.

Seriously it wasn't even the actors it's the pacing, the ideas are very good...but the presentation is poor.

As for taking Lucas out of the seat...it's his creation to destroy or create sadly...though it would be nice if he got out of fucking god complex and took advice.

[neoolong]

Like he would listen.

And I agree with slarti...the pacing is bad...and sorry Jar-Jar makes no flarging sense, he's is the worst out of Lucas needing to kiddified SW.

Seriously it wasn't even the actors it's the pacing, the ideas are very good...but the presentation is poor.

As for taking Lucas out of the seat...it's his creation to destroy or create sadly...though it would be nice if he got out of fucking god complex and took advice.

Man, sometimes I just want to drive to Skywalker Ranch, knock on the gate, and yell for Lucas to get off of his high horse and see how much he has screwed Star Wars. Then I would get beaten up by security.

[Ghost Rider]

That's why you pack a portable nuke...for those types of situations

[MKSheppard]

While I have argued in favour of the EU from the perspective of allowing Lucasfilm to decide what is and isn't valid, this should not be confused with fandom. I don't actually like a lot of the EU; it almost invariably downsizes Star Wars into bite-sized McStarWars pieces to make the writer's job easier (the Executor nearly "bankrupted" the Empire????), and if you think Boba's story prominence was a brain bug, take a good long look at the bullshit they routinely pull in the EU. The idea of flash-imprinting memories from one person onto another has no basis in canon (why the hell do they need to use torture droids to interrogate people if they can download their fucking memories?), and the EU is responsible for such idiocy as Zahn's "Unknown Regions", IG-88E taking over DS2, and that whole fucking biotech YV "singularity" bullshit.

And all that was APPROVED BY LUCASFILM, and by extension LUCAS HIMSELF.

You cannot do double flip flops like that, deciding what is official one
moment and then overruling it with canon the next. I like my stories
with a somewhat tight plot, and Lucas is currently proceeding to rip
the entire Star Wars Universe to shreds with his "I-Am-God" syndrome.

When you put your fucking SEAL of approval on the damn books, don't
turn around 10 years later, and say "oops, this isn't how we imagined it"
and invalidate it.

To argue that these hacks should be writing the prequels is heresy. GL may be clumsy, but I'd rather not have prequels at all than leave them in the hands of the EU authors.

You blaspheme Timothy Zahn? DEATH TO THE HERETIC!

[Sea Skimmer]

That's why you pack a portable nuke...for those types of situations

A good friend and an 81mm mortar would work just fine

[MKSheppard]

But let's not worship people like Zahn just because we're not wholly satisfied with the prequels. Most people are exaggerating the prequels' flaws (there's a difference between criticism and bashing), and while I like his writing style, let's face it; Zahn has no grasp whatsoever of the epic scale of the SW universe. If Zahn wrote AOTC, the separatists would have 30 star systems in one corner of a pie-shaped quadrant of the galaxy, and the Battle of Geonosis would have had a few hundred troops and 4 ships involved, but with really clever tactics. And we would be ranting and raving about how he's destroying SW from a different angle.

OK then, explain Endor in the context of a million million world empire, and
the necessary fleets needed to keep control of that Empire.

30 Star Destroyers and One Command Ship is a freaking DROP IN THE BUCKET. It is 0.0012% of the total 25,000 Star Destroyer Figure, and
a SPECK next to the Empire's total shipping strength. The Empire
could have spared more ships for Endor, a LOT more without
being noticed.

Lucas is just as guilty of downrating SW to manageable lengths as
Zahn is.

[His Divine Shadow]

I find the anti-Lucas sentiment to be surprising and a little disturbing. Why the vitriol? Do you feel this way about every director or producer whose work doesn't measure up in your opinion? I doubt it. I have also noticed that some of the most hardcore fans of SW are also the most vocal opponents of the prequels; it is my theory that when you have constructed a complete pre-history of SW in your mind, that you feel almost personally betrayed when GL doesn't conform to it.

It's about internal continuity for my part, I feel that overall the EU has already brought alot into the SW universe and GL really should have either tried to not override it or scanned the books himself as they where written so they didn't conflict with his vision, that is, if he even had it all thought out then.

The idea of flash-imprinting memories from one person onto another has no basis in canon (why the hell do they need to use torture droids to interrogate people if they can download their fucking memories?)

Well thats something that was part of the cloning tech in mount tantiss, was lost when they lost the clone chambers on wayland.

and the EU is responsible for such idiocy as Zahn's "Unknown Regions"

I happen to like the unknown regions *sniff, sob*

and that whole fucking biotech YV "singularity" bullshit

True biotech generally sucks, but I think they have done it somewhat ok, excepting that whole gravity thing.

To argue that these hacks should be writing the prequels is heresy. GL may be clumsy, but I'd rather not have prequels at all than leave them in the hands of the EU authors.

I'd agree, I just wish he wouldn't create all these internal continuity conflicts, I feel thats kinda crappy a move to pull against us who has bought the EU books and read them and taken them as Star Wars, some of my favorite characters are in there.

[His Divine Shadow]

For all the EU's faults it's given me things I /really/ want to keep, like the 50 million worlds, colonies and protectorates figure, thats even more in line with what you'd expect for a galatic civilization than the 1 million number in the movies, sure there's not really a contradiction as that figure is rather vauge and the two can work together, but I wouldn't want to loose that, nor would I want to loose the story about the pulsar station(mini-DS) being manufactured by someone who had only 13 star systems under his control(13 star systems is alot of resources).

It also gave us the 10-22 million ship figure for the Empire at it's height, and the sourcebooks even said this was far from the size the fleet would have when it was completed.

Also from the sourcebooks we have the line about the Imperial Armed Forces doubling in strenght over 2-3 years, that's what you'd expect, millions of ships and billions if not trillions of soldiers and such, again something you'd expect from the /Galatic/ Empire who built the DS2 in 6 months.

As you can see, the EU has given us such good stuff that some of it is just too good to be left out.

If the EU has to die, or large parts of it, I'd like to see things like these "saved".

[Perinquus]

But let's not worship people like Zahn just because we're not wholly satisfied with the prequels. Most people are exaggerating the prequels' flaws (there's a difference between criticism and bashing), and while I like his writing style, let's face it; Zahn has no grasp whatsoever of the epic scale of the SW universe. If Zahn wrote AOTC, the separatists would have 30 star systems in one corner of a pie-shaped quadrant of the galaxy, and the Battle of Geonosis would have had a few hundred troops and 4 ships involved, but with really clever tactics. And we would be ranting and raving about how he's destroying SW from a different angle.

OK then, explain Endor in the context of a million million world empire, and
the necessary fleets needed to keep control of that Empire.

30 Star Destroyers and One Command Ship is a freaking DROP IN THE BUCKET. It is 0.0012% of the total 25,000 Star Destroyer Figure, and
a SPECK next to the Empire's total shipping strength. The Empire
could have spared more ships for Endor, a LOT more without
being noticed.

Lucas is just as guilty of downrating SW to manageable lengths as
Zahn is.

In the first place, he couldn't bring in much more of his forces and still lure the Rebels in. The Rebs were supposed to believe they had a chance of winning. In the second place, the plan would have worked if the ground team hadn't gotten lucky, pure and simple.

The Emperor did not bring in more of his forces because he figured he didn't need them.

And just to put my own two cents in: I have to agree with Mike. My God there is a lot of whining in this thread! It's like a lot of you had your balloon popped, and now you're sulking at mean old George Lucas for doing it. I think the prequels are pretty good over all. They've got some problems, but both of them are better than ROTJ in my opinion - that movie was like two completely separate hour-long stories pasted together, and I didn't like the Ewoks a bit.

Most of you were expecting the same kind of magic you sensed from the OT, but you're too old and too critical an audience for that now; it's not gonna happen. Live with it.

The other complaint I keep hearing is about GL's dialog. Guess what? He's always had a problem with that! Back during the filming of ANH, Harrison Ford stopped as they were filming a scene to remonstrate with Lucas about that very subject. He wouldn't speak a particular line the way it was written, telling Lucas: "You can write this shit George, but you sure as hell can't say it!"

Lucas' weakness has always been dialog. He's primarily a visual storyteller.