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"The Rise and Fall of Star Wars" (former Lucasfilm historian J.W. Rinzler's blog)


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3 minutes ago, Fancyarcher said:

 

Although I wish Lucas was a better writing, I can't deny his storytelling / visual skills. Now if only his CGI lovefest had happened later as opposed to earlier. 

 

Modern CGI is probably as good as it is now because of the way he pushed it.  There were lots of advances made as a result of the PT. 

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4 minutes ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

 

Modern CGI is probably as good as it is now because of the way he pushed it.  There were lots of advances made as a result of the PT. 

 

True, but a lot of the CGI in TPM & AOTC holds up very poorly regardless. He should have mixed it in with more practicals, as opposed to trying to push the medium to its limits at the time. 

 

Plus if Lucas hadn't started his obsession with CGI, we may have not had some of the absolutely more bad CGI in KOTCS (gopher & monkeys for example), and hate on that film all you want, but it would have been less distracting for me, since I actually think that film is alright otherwise, hot take, lol. 

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tmp has a lot of practical effects. probably more than TFA.

 

You meant AOTC and ROTS, i suppose.

 

The gophers or monkeys are not really bad CGI... just odd scenes for an indy film. The gopher scenes are rather harmless anyway.

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4 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

Yes!

 

Thank god we didn't have that kind of crap when Lucas was in charge...

 

Indeed.  Such a shame what's happened to a franchise previously so well known for its restraint when it comes to licensing and merchandise.

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On 6/30/2017 at 6:48 PM, Luke Skywalker said:

tmp has a lot of practical effects. probably more than TFA.

 

You meant AOTC and ROTS, i suppose.

 

The gophers or monkeys are not really bad CGI... just odd scenes for an indy film. The gopher scenes are rather harmless anyway.

 

They were a bit distracting for me, I wish they were at least real anyway, since they were obviously CGI, but hey happens I suppose.

 

3 hours ago, RPurton said:

The worst part about Disney is that they had the gall to actually hire Williams. Sad!

 

Disney should have done the modern thing and hired a Zimmer clone to the music, instead of relying on Williams's "old school music". 

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Since seeing it in a book as a little boy, I've imagined Skywalker Ranch to be a most magical place. There's even a lake called Lake Ewok. The library is like Titanic's grand staircase meets Last Crusade Venice library. Tik Tok from Return to Oz is there.

 

Skywalker-Ranch_04-78305807b845.jpg

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18 hours ago, Diana0327 said:

Disney made sure to profit from Star Wars, they want to cater all ages. If I am not mistaken there is a Star War's program at Disneyland which children are fighting the Dark Side.

 

I did that when I was a kid like 10 years ago or more. It was fun

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  • 2 weeks later...
9 minutes ago, MikeH said:

oops!  Link is now a 404.  It's been a great read...wonder what happened? 

 

I hope its a technical issue and not that Disney have complained. 

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Just saw this. Very worried. I was so looking forward to his TFA posts. :(

 

I'll hope it's just a temporary issue! 

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7 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

Farewell, JW Rinzler! You were the second best JW in the history of JWs.

 

What about the Jehovah's Witnesses? They always entertain me!

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It was nearly bought out in the 80s but Frank Wells took charge and turned it around. What really changed in the aftermath of the Wells/Eisner era is that Disney began straight-up acquiring studios and production companies. They bought Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel over the course of like 5 years? That's insane. The theme parks went from empty for months out of the year to imploding like the house from Poltergeist every day and making more money than Walt Disney would have ever known what to do with. Well, maybe he would have tried to build his futuristic city, but the shareholders would have probably stopped him.

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We might've been given the real Tomorrowland, instead we're left with Yesterdayland, a world of reruns and endless Star Wars.

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Oh, Christ. I so wish Rinzler had managed to get the Disney stories out earlier, in one quick swoop. I guess it was too good to be true... :(

 

Rinzler should call up Lucas and ask for a statement in support of the blog! (Of course Lucas wouldn't actually do that but I'm just in that enraged state right now where I'll suggest anything.) 

 

If Disney Star Wars wasn't so good, I might consider boycotting it (at least in my most frustrated times!) Alas, it is quite good, particularly with Williams. :lol:

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It's a shame, because most of this information won't see the light of day, especially in the reign of Disney who will want to keep Lucasfilm operations a private affair until they can release a homogenized version of the events at a later time.

 

Lucas, too has become extremely remorseful over the years. It's fascinating to hear about Rinzler's time being around him and the production because underneath it all, there's no conspiracies, no cover ups, no hissy fits, it's just the sad, overexposed life of a director and his company, and how his creation became bigger than he ever imagined. 

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Disney bought Lucasfilm.

 

as a result we have sanitised focus grouped films that will not live long in anyone's consciousness. 

 

Star Wars was already a massive commercial machine, now it's nothing but a product that has to bow to wishes and fears of shareholders.

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Yeah, and it's not that if I were running Lucasfilm I wouldn't have told Rinzler to shut up too. 

 

It's just very frustrating. 

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12 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

The shareholders have every right to protect their investment!

 

They do. 

 

I'd have preferred Lucasfilm didn't end up in a situation where it was beholden to shareholders. Unfortunately that was never going to happen. 

 

I get people when they say TFA was a massive improvement over the prequels and I wouldn't argue with anyone over that. 

 

It's bland though. And outside of Daisy and JW's theme for Rey its largely forgettable. I enjoyed RO much more but that was hardly a masterpiece. New Star Wars used to be an event now it's one a year. Which is great but its more chewing gum than it ever was. It'll rehash the same ideas and concepts over and over. It won't use the MCU cookie cutter. It'll use its own. It'll get stale. 

 

I do think its ridiculous when a cooperation like Disney can stop someone like Rinzler from talking about their life's work even if they aren't happy with what he's saying. 

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