Chen G.

Did you watch it?

It'd be cool if he did. But unlikely.

Well, I'll be! It is! They refer to it in the audio commentary. It never occured to me! Cool!

You know, I don't believe he is. My memory is Aragorn sits near the fireplace, whereas this guy is sitting perpendicular to it. I even think they remark on it in the director's commentary.

I prefer it more like this: "What is true in a man’s life is not what he does, but the legend which grows up around him. You must never destroy legends." Chen: Oh yeah? Watch me, Oscar Wilde!

He's just a mercenary that serves as an informant for Azog in the opening scene in Bree. Pretty cool scene.

Chen, biting his lips to stop himself being Cato about how Star Wars owes a lot less to Kurosawa than George Lucas would like us to think, and a lot more to Barsoom and Lensmen than Lucas would likewise have us think.

It doesn't help that the premise of Mangold's film sounds TERRIBLE! Yeah, the discovery of the Force, founding of the Jedi order, presumably the Republic, and I'm assuming the Sith splitting from the order. That sounds totally filmable!

Honestly, Williams scoring or at least contributing material for the Mangold film - which is effectivelly Episode 0 - wouldn't be the worst idea. Embryonic form of the Emperor's and the Jedi's music galore!

I think so, too. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong. I mean, its Episode X in all but name, so there would be some sense from Williams' standpoint to want to at least do something for it, and if he does it'll be pretty cool!

Very interested to see what insight into the process of this film they can uncover. I've done a fair bit of research into it myself. I'm willing to bet good money George Lucas wrote this story outline.

It helps that its "The greatest achievement of any artist in any form of human endeavour whatsoever." Yes, its slow. But its deliberate. It is assured. And, for a film so unrelentingly grim and intense, there's no other film in the whole world that leave me feeling uplifted in quite the same way.

Its less influenced by Dune than one might think, because Lucas was more influenced by some of the books that were the antecedents of Dune itself: so, sure, both Dune and Star Wars has a desert planet with two celestial bodies in its sky - but then so does Barsoom. And sure, Dune may have a Senate that rules over the known universe, aided by an order of psychics, but does EE Smith's Galactic Patrol.

There was always a wee bit of Dune in Star Wars... Tolkien (which is also referenced for this show a lot, and which I know Filoni is a big fan of), too!

Terrible production, superb musicianship:

I would agree, but I think there are ways to dance around it some: I never felt that Tauriel diminished Eowyn, because we can accept Elves being more progressive than Men, certainly the very Dark Ages Rohan. AND in the case of Héra, the fact that Eowyn is narrating her escapedes, is (or could be) a pretty clever way to present her as something of a projection of Eowyn's.

Not what my research would suggest: Throughout the entire series, the DNA of Burroughs, Smith, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, and to a lesser extent Richie, Herbert, Tolkien, Ford, Coppola and Bettelheim are appearant. That's not an accusation of plagiarism, mind you, nor - and this is where Nick's comment is very well taken - meant to shape the way people see the films. A film, much less a series, is not merely the sum of its influences. It should be understood from the experience of watching it, first and foremost. But, by the same token, taking Lucas at his own word as to the high-mindedness of his endeavour and his influences, is likewise a trap, and one that, if used as the key to engaging with his films, would only make us miss the forest for the trees. Indeed, I think if someone had the misfortune of first hearing Lucas speak, and take his attempt to present himself as Joseph Campbell's high-priest at face value, and proceed to go into his film expecting some deep, scholarly meditation of the mythological phenomena and its psychological and cultural significance, they'd be disappointed. In fact, HAD Lucas truly ever made a film like THAT, I think it would have in all likelihood been an extraordinarily unsuccesful and impenetrable work, and certainly one that wouldn't be as popular as Star Wars or Indiana Jones of whatever. A good example is the irony that, The Ewok Adventure notwithstanding, Star Wars is by FAR the most fairytale-like Star Wars film, even though Lucas discovered Bettelheim's writings on fairytales when most of the elements for the film were already in place; and when Lucas tried to very self-consciously channel Bettelheim in Return of the Jedi, it was mostly to the film's detriment. Indeed, the success of Star Wars compared to much of the prequel trilogy was that it was an unpresumptous adventure serial - what I call a "B-movie" - and NOT a sprawling, oft-gloomy, Machiavelian piece. Sure, you can make parallels to the Pieta, or to Greek mythology or whatever, but there's a difference between making a poetic parallel, and saying its something Lucas had in mind and modelled his scenes around. Frankly, when I see Shmi expire in Anakin's arms - and by and large this is a scene I think is done quite well otherwise - I don't see Michaelangelo, I see a cartoon: "I lov..." *head drops*

Seems like an appropriate place to put this:

I just find the attempt to relate Star Wars to more high-brow/erudite sources to always be a little...suspect, lets say. Obviously, there's some of that in there, but by and large, it plays like a B-movie, with the slight exception of The Empire Strikes Back and to a lesser extent Revenge of the Sith. And, unsurprisingly, when one really goes into what inspired George Lucas, it comes out overwhelmingly to be B-grade movies and picaresques, and mostly in its own genre of space opera/planetary romance/space fantasy. I don't think that's demeaning: if anything, I think the attempt to make Star Wars seem very high-minded and literate is doing it a disservice.

In this case, I don't think Lucas ever made the connection to the Pieta to begin with. Its the same train of thought (no offense, Herr Schilkeman) as the Kubrickians who look at the background of the conference room in 2001 and decide it has the same aspect ratio as some famous painting and that there's some sort of concealed statement in there...

Right. Surprise surprise, I don't buy it.

They might. The fact Eowyn is narrating it might allow them to get away with it, I suspect…

Sure. But if you look at enough illustrations of Dejah Thoris, you can see where the Slave Leia outfit came from. Actually, the entire Jabba "short."

Right. They beefed up that role some. But we know Haleth and Hama ARE in this, so she's not taking their place. I personally was always intrigued by Helm's daughter: its her wedding that Helm botches, so...

I mean, Philippa lives literally across the lawn from Jackson and Walsh. She did say she uses them as a springboard for ideas: the name for Helms' daughter, Héra, was appearantly Walsh's idea. She also says they were "hugely supportive" of the project, and certainly Jackson reacted extremly enthusiastically over his Facebook account. Of course, a lot of "his" people are working on it: I hear Weta has scoured their archive for the models and any artwork - used or not - of Edoras and the other settings. Demosthenes from TORn had what I think is a very intriguing and illuminating talk with Philippa a while back. I'm especially taken by these passages: You know, we hadn't REALLY had a major human antagonist in these stories before. So I'm very curious and very taken with the idea of Wulf as potentially a sympathetic, Hagen-like figure. Also, even though I typically believe a film series should have the same conflict driving it all throughout, it is encouraging - at least in terms of focusing a 120-minute film - that, both according to this interview AND interviews from later at Annecy, Philippa insists they didn't try to sandwich Sauron into the story of the film.