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Star Wars Disenchantment


John

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56 minutes ago, Arpy said:

According to Kennedy Palpatine's return was planned from the beginning, another indication that the trilogy wasn't as up in the air as people thought.

 

If it was you'd expect some build-up towards it. I can't think of anything in either of the previous two films (Luke mentioning Darth Sidius doesn't count) that prefigures his return, in body or spirit.

 

I understand some of this is taken from an idea for The Force Awakens which was turned down. So they did think about it in 2015, but they didn't plan for it to be in IX until they got around to working on it.

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“This is the third act of a three-act structure,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said today. “That’s exactly what it is. We immersed ourselves in everything George created, talked about it endlessly, and we’re so excited.” 

 

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"We had not landed on exactly how we might do that, but it was always [to be in Episode IX]."

 

 

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“This is the third act of a three-act structure,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said today. “That’s exactly what it is. We immersed ourselves in everything George created, talked about it endlessly, and we’re so excited.” 

 

Bollocks. There's never been a trilogy where the three entries paralleled the three-act structure, nor would you want there to be. The act breaks are always somewhere during the entries.

 

For instance, if you want to look at the first Star Wars trilogy as a story with a three-act structure, the end of the first act isn't the end of the original Star Wars, nor something throughout its running time. Its actually some way into The Empire Strikes Back when Yoda says: "stopped they must be. On this all depends." The end of act I in The Lord of the Rings is when the Fellowship is formed, only half of the way into the Fellowship of the Ring, etcetra.

 

And I've said it before, but planning ahead when you produce the films separately, with different screenwriters, directors and creative teams on each entry is almost like having no planning at all. You leave too much of the overriding story to be twisted out of the shape through the interpertation of the individual filmmakers.

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Jeeez, but nobody believes an obvious lie, like that, right??? What a load of BS to try and fool people who don’t know any better.

 

Just own up to it instead. Say: “We looked at a bunch of different alternatives, but kept coming back to the source. In the end, it kind of makes sense, everybody will understand when the movie’s out.”

 

Or something like that.

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Perhaps it's that some guys on an internet forum don't have the insight and knowledge of this corporation and think that they know better. It's foolish to be so presumptuous. 

 

It could very well be the case that they're just bullshitting their way through everything, but I have no reason to doubt that Kennedy etc. have everything under wraps.

 

@Chen G.

 

Act I: Setup - Fellowship of the Ring - The Shire, The Hobbits, The Ring Quest and the forming of the Fellowship

Act II: Confrontation - The Two Towers - Saruman's army, Frodo and Sam encounter Gollum and Faramir, Battle for Helm's Deep.

Act III: Resolution - The Return of the King - Saruman is defeated, Aragorn's ascension, Sauron unleashes his forces, and finally the destruction of the Ring

 

 

 

The Lord of the Rings and both SW trilogies have followed this structure. When analysed film-by-film each one diverges in some way - but as a whole they follow this very basic and successful structure.

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Its always tempting to put the act breaks in such places that make them self-contained. Most people simply take the opening setpiece and call it act I, the final setpiece and call it act III and everything in between is labeled act II. That's what you're doing here, but on a much larger scale, of course.  In actual fact, its much more organic than that.

 

One of the failings with the "film = act" outlook is that it completely throws out of the window the issue of proprotions. The three-act structure denotes a certain proportion between the different acts. Its a short-long-short form. 

 

If each film is an act and all three of them are of approximately equal length, that's not going to translate into a balanced structure at all. Without those proportions, you can't really say that a piece has a three-act structure just because some plot-points line up with some pretty diagram.

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It's not as clear-cut as a simple categorization delineating the films into three clear acts, no, but it does represent the overall structure to which multiple stories will have in the form of a trilogy that was designed to be a trilogy. I never said it wasn't more complex than that - each film contains a variation of the act structure that is going to be tailored to each film's story, the twists, complications, the film's placement within the context of the trilogy etc.

 

The How to Train Your Dragon film trilogy to me has three distinct 'acts' - and all three films portray an evolution of the film's protagonist at three important stages in his life. The first is a coming-of-age story, the second is coming to terms with his new life with the Dragons, whilst the last film deals with the repercussions, responsibilities that come with legacy - and letting go of all that he's come to learn from the journey from child to chieftain and dragon-trainer.  Within each film is, as you say, a more organic form the storytelling and filmmaking structure takes.

 

 

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Its not just that its more complex, its that if your trilogy's first act is the entirety of your first film and therefore roughly a third of the overall running time, well that's not a first act: its a bit too long to be one, which is to say nothing about the third act encompassing the entirety of the third film.

 

The three-act-structure is a short-long-short structure. If its divided into thirds, you can't really say its a three-act structure.

 

The actual act breaks of a trilogy tend to happen somewhere within the course of the individual films. Here's an example:

Narrative Structure.jpg

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The actual act breaks of a trilogy tend to happen somewhere within the course of the individual films.

 

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...each film contains a variation of the act structure that is going to be tailored to each film's story, the twists, complications, the film's placement within the context of the trilogy etc.

 

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May the trilogy be with you for the best price ever. Plus, From Star Wars to Jedi is also available at a new low price. This stunning documentary takes you deep into the fascinating world created for the Star Wars trilogy. Immerse yourself in the mind of George Lucas.

 

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Special effects are just tool. Means of telling story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.

 

From storyboard to creature creation. From character development to the puppeteers who gave them life.

 

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Eventually, you actually take a real person and stick them into that character and that real person brings with him or her an enormous package of reality. I mean, Threepio is just a hunk of...plastic. And without Tony Daniels in there, it just isn't anything at all.

 

Join George Lucas and friends for a delightful look at From Star Wars to Jedi.

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On 4/14/2019 at 12:22 AM, Arpy said:

According to Kennedy Palpatine's return was planned from the beginning, another indication that the trilogy wasn't as up in the air as people thought.

Just like it was always known the Vader was Luke's dad and Leia was his sister.

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Have they ever actually acknowledged that Leia's dad is Vader? Of course it's obvious, but I don't recall any specific moment of Leia commenting on it, or anyone else at all saying that she is Vader's daughter. Vader is always seen as 'Luke's father' and no one ever seems to say he's Leia's father.

 

The only scene that comes close to recognising it is the Endor treehouse scene, but even there she doesn't have a chance to say "what the f**k, Vader's my damn father?!!" because Luke tells her that Vader is HIS father first and then says you're my sister afterwards, so it seems Leia never had a moment where she acknowledged she was Vader's daughter. It seems strange considering she spent her whole life knowing who Vader was and fighting against him and the Empire, knowing how evil he was. Seems like finding out she was the daughter of an evil psychopathic mass-murdering ex-jedi would be interesting to her, yet we never see a reaction.

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28 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

Have they ever actually acknowledged that Leia's dad is Vader? Of course it's obvious, but I don't recall any specific moment of Leia commenting on it, or anyone else at all saying that she is Vader's daughter. Vader is always seen as 'Luke's father' and no one ever seems to say he's Leia's father.

 

The only scene that comes close to recognising it is the Endor treehouse scene, but even there she doesn't have a chance to say "what the f**k, Vader's my damn father?!!" because Luke tells her that Vader is HIS father first and then says you're my sister afterwards, so it seems Leia never had a moment where she acknowledged she was Vader's daughter. It seems strange considering she spent her whole life knowing who Vader was and fighting against him and the Empire, knowing how evil he was. Seems like finding out she was the daughter of an evil psychopathic mass-murdering ex-jedi would be interesting to her, yet we never see a reaction.

Well Ben solo acknowledged his grandfather so....

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PSX_20190417_100641.jpg

 

The last one was like, uh. I was amazed about it, uh, how you could make out of half of a movie a finale. You know, it's pretty much like the longest showdown ever in movie history. It goes on for an hour and it works.

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3 hours ago, JoeinAR said:

Well Ben solo acknowledged his grandfather so....

 

That isn't Leia though. I said a specific moment where Leia or someone else directly acknowledges that Leia is Vader's daughter.

 

2 hours ago, Demodex said:

It's addressed in the novels. 

 

2 hours ago, mstrox said:

Yes, read Bloodline - it goes into when Luke and Leia's parentage became public and Leia's internal feelings on this

 

I was referencing the films directly, but interesting to know that somewhere it's recognised.

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3 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

That isn't Leia though. I said a specific moment where Leia or someone else directly acknowledges that Leia is Vader's daughter.

 

I mean, there's that scene in Return of the Jedi where Vader reads Luke's mind and figures out he has a sister, and that if Luke won't turn, then she will. I don't remember them saying Leia's name, but the point is clear. Does that count for what you're looking for?

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1 hour ago, Arpy said:

Why?

 

🤔

 

Because it very obviously wasn't the plan all along and it just served as a cop out ending to the Luke-Leia romance that never quite happened. Lucas apparently didn't have the balls to just have the hero not get the girl, he had to make up some weird family connection as an excuse to keep them apart.

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That may not be the reason it turned out that way. I like that they ended up siblings. 

 

 

7 hours ago, JoeinAR said:

The novels don't count they are written by people with possibly less talent than GoT guy

 

This is ridiculous. The ASOIAF novels are brilliant and complicated. 

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4 hours ago, A. A. Ron said:

 

Because it very obviously wasn't the plan all along and it just served as a cop out ending to the Luke-Leia romance that never quite happened. Lucas apparently didn't have the balls to just have the hero not get the girl, he had to make up some weird family connection as an excuse to keep them apart.

It's not that strange in a movie about space wizards. It doesn't take away from the story, it adds another strength to it. To me, Leia is a strong woman who could hold her own against the Empire without Force powers, and having a connection to Luke gives another way for Vader to exploit this fact by discovering her heritage and spurring Luke to unleash his anger.

 

 

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What's wrong with that? That's what this new trilogy has been about, family, legacy and the force...

18 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

...and tethers the character forever to her "family" and the Force. 

 

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