But the sequel designs are straight-up lifted from Ralph McQuarrie's design prototypes of the X-Wing with VERY minor touch-up.
If anything, his original designs of them really look sleeker and more streamlined than the OT's one, which is clunkier (
must also account that it's for practical effect's sake at the time, not the CG mish-mash we have nowadays) and you can see the differences from draft production to what they could actually do at the time.
I wish I could find the webcomic, but somebody made the point that the new TFA X-Wing designs were re:tarded because when the wings would open, they would bisect their turbines and immediately go tits-up. I don't think even McQuarrie intended his original design to have actual turbines.
They've won. Their goal wasn't diversity, it was the destruction of every myth and values in our current societies.
I'm not so sure they succeeded, otherwise they wouldn't be losing money and asses in seats. They're certainly going in that direction.
I used to think like a RLM drone but now after watching Star Wars and Star Trek turn into crap I believe that you should let the creator do whatever he wants. It's the same for the Alien franchise for example, I know a lot of people want to see the IP taken away from Ridley Scott's hands but I don't want that to be given to Blomkamp the one-trick pony or someone else.
Shit, I'll take an Alien 5 with old Michael Biehn and Sigourney Weaver. I'm not interested in yet another movie about David the gay genocidal android.
The prequel stuff is complicated. One, George knew his limits. He tried for a while to bring in co-writers, like Kasdan and Darabont. Also, a few others, don't remember who. Not to mention, he approached other directors...
I remember this from
The Secret History of Star Wars. George knew he couldn't write for shit since day 1, but to his credit, he did write the big Vader reveal in Empire, where before he was just the same second-in-command villain from teh first Star Wars.
The big fuck up though, by everyone, was Jar Jar Binks. That was something George was, clearly, taking an unnecessary risk on..
Even taking him out, you still have Anakin as a 10-year-old engineering wunderkind and pilot who's strong with the Force. Still had more personality than Rey mind you, but I imagine people didn't like him that much more than Jar Jar at the time.
The PT is rich with new ideas and that's great but there's so many areas just a slight alteration could have made the PT so much more impactful. One of the simplest examples of environmental storytelling that would have been easy as hell to implement would be to gradually make Coruscant look more and more worn, ragged, and less busy as the PT progresses, circumstances obviously brought about by the ongoing war. Clone wars for all its problems got this, so it's very clear that the concept was solid.
I would've liked to have seen or heard about Count Dooku in Episode I, assuming George already had plans for the character by then. I also would've reimagined much of the assassination attempt scenes up until Anakin goes off-world with Padme. I wouldn't have been against a chase, but the whole convoluted sequence from Padme's suite all the way down to Jango Fett conspicuously jetpacking into the sky needed to be scrapped or redone. I don't think it did much for Anakin's character that a more subtle sequence of events might have, like the same assassin trying to poison or shoot Padme at a dinner function with important parties. Anakin could stop a poisoned dart mid-air or get between Padme and someone trying to nick her with a poisoned pin, thereby initiating a chase.
Scott wasn't the creator of the Alien IP, though, not like Lucas was with Star Wars. There are certainly moments in the first film where his influence seems obvious, story-wise (Ash randomly bloviating about the parasitic xenomorph being "perfect" mirrors Scott's weird fixation on "superior" synthetic organisms as seen in Blade Runner and his two Alien prequels), but on the whole, Dan O'Bannon and James Cameron should receive just as much if not more creative credit.
Thanks, I didn't know about this. Too bad Cameron cares more about Space Indians than making good Terminator or Alien flicks.
My only stipulation is that they have a point to it. Also, the character needs to serve the show and not outshine/overtake Din...
Dyn shouldn't be a pushover at this point, but then neither should Boba. They ought to be evenly matched at first, having almost the same equipment. Maybe Boba got some upgrades after his disgrace on Jabba's sail barge.
Hope they enjoy losing money. Is this a case of "any attention is good attention"?
[The Phantom Menace] was an atom bomb on the reputation of Star Wars. People were furious/betrayed with it...
I think that's overstating it. It was the first real disappointment in a Star Wars movie, but I don't think it was ever a complete disappointment. While on the one hand you had Jar Jar, Anakin and midichlorians, on the other hand you had Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Maul. Then of course there's Sheev, but he didn't really start to shine until Episode II.
At worst I heard that it was a bad movie with bad writing and bad pacing, which is fucking accurate.
Bad dialogue mostly, but there's enough bad writing in it overall (Naboo has a hollow core? Okay). I'm not sure I ever had a problem with the pacing of TPM.
and the most popular character prior to 1999 was Han Solo, with the West End Games RPGs being organized with the expectation that most players were going to be adopting some variation of his archetype as their PC
As charming as Han Solo is compared to Luke, I always liked Luke more as a sword-wielding Jedi hero. I care more about seeing him on adventures post-ROTJ, but it wouldn't be complete without Han, Leia & co.
