JMK
Dec 8th, 2003, 09:34:19 AM
http://www.starwarz.com/tbone/guest_editorials/phil_tinajero_why_care.htm
Why Exactly Do We Care So Much?
In defense of George Lucas. Guest Editorial by Phil Tinajero.
Wednesday, Wednesday, October 15, 2003 0:36 AM EST
By: Phil Tinajero
Recently there's been a boom of negative criticism towards George Lucas. I think it's been sparked by the recent City of Angels Film Festival where A NEW HOPE was shown to represent one of the films of the 70's that shaped the face of cinema. They showed the Special Edition, despite efforts to get permission to show the original version. Over the past two days I've heard comments like"F--- Lucas" or "Lucas is a selfish a--hole" or even "Lucas is a rapist of cinema." Well, I'm here to ask, Do you really care that much?
I mean, all the man's doing is trying to improve on his work. He's made these movies and he's made us happy countless times. All this fretting is just proving one thing, we care TOO MUCH. They're just movies after all. I am one of the biggest SW geeks on the planet and right now, I'm kind of ashamed of myself. Here is Lucas, spending over 25 years of his life making us smile with his fun stories of fantasies and we're cursing his name because he wants to fix a few of his mistakes. That's why pencils have erasers, ladies and gentlemen. I know a lot of us love the old rusty effects of the Classics,
but we're getting carried away.
Maybe bad special effects aren't necessarily mistakes, but to Lucas they are. After that horrible car accident, when he was lying in that hospital bed, George Lucas dreamed of starships and a galaxy far, far away - one single story of a certain family living in that galaxy, to be exact. He put those ideas on paper and trasnformed those ideas into a movie. Imagine his dreams during those times when he was lying there, folks. Was he dreaming of a stop-motion rancor, or snowspeeders with black lines around them, or lightsabers that fizzed in-and-out, or landspeeders with yellow blobs floating under them? His dreams weren't restricted to that kind of technical stuff. But when he made those dreams come alive, they were restricted. If you look at some of the old Ralph McQuarrie art, you can see that Lucas had a grand vision. I mean, he’s been wanting to use those air whales that we saw on Kamino, since A NEW HOPE. They got nixed, and then he pushed to get them in EMPIRE, but then they got nixed again. Poor George.
I know everyone must believe that all Lucas believes in now is special effects, and that’s understandable, but imagine if the world was flipped around for a second - the Prequels made in the seventies and RETURN OF THE JEDI coming out in 2005. Everyone would be saying “Why can’t these movies be more like the originals? I loved how the Geonosis battle was kind of old and model-looking. It’s just classic. Or how Watto is obviously a puppet held up by wires. I like how Coruscant looks like an old model city. Or how they used a dummy for Yoda’s fight with Dooku. I like that stuff. These new movies only rely on CG. There’s no story anymore.”
I know you’re all thinking, there’s no way it would be like that. Oh yes, my friends, it would. For some reason, human kind has found a new enemy; CG. “I hate that CG crap” or “It looks like a video game or something.” Even Quentin Tarantino chimes in with: “If I wanted some computer game bulls--- I would have stuck my d--k in a Nintendo.....that CGI s--- will be the death of movies.” Wow. Okay, I see your point. But CG is ultimately a tool. It’s the same as prosthetics, pyrotechnics, matte paintings, models, stop-motion, or any other effects device. It’s a way to make unreal things real. Maybe all this hatred, comes from the fact that it’s not physically real. You can’t touch it. It’s a animated image created by a computer. But it’s still living on the screen. Okay, CG Yoda may not seem as tangible as Classic Yoda, but he’s a creature from a fantasy world. It’s almost like looking at a dream. Maybe in 20 years or so, there will be another method of visual effects and we’ll all be defending CG then. It’s the way of the universe. People miss things once they’re gone.
Maybe you’re saying that you’re totally fine with CG in new movies, but going back and adding CG to classic films is unforgivable. Maybe that’s true, but it all goes back to IMPROVEMENT. All Lucas is trying to do is improve his invention. If we thought this way about everything, imagine where the human race would be in terms of technology? No innovation? I mean that’s all this is. “Oh my God! A phone that’s not held down by a chord? You’re raping the original, classic telephone model!” or “Why can’t we just stick with the grammaphone? I mean, why do we have to have a CD Player. Listening to music worked just fine with the grammaphone! It was a little scratchy, but hey it’s CLASSIC!”
See what I mean? Innovation, my friends. It’s improving on what we have created or built. It’s just paving the road to the "ultimate" of things. You start small, basic, maybe even crappy, but you get there. You get to what you DREAMED of. This is what this is all about: innovation.
Imagine Lucas hearing stuff from the early ILM guys like "we can't do that" or "that's definitely not possible" or "there's no way in hell we can even attempt that." I know I would've been crushed; how about you?
Right now, fanboys' minds are being dominated by the LORD OF THE RINGS films. I know, I love them dearly, as well. But those movies have a lot of things that only could have appeared on screen via today's visual effects and yet those films aren't undergoing serious verbal bashings like the Star Wars films are. JRR Tolkien had a dream of another world, just like Lucas did. The only difference was that Tolkien could let his dream live within readers' minds. Lucas was a filmmaker and had to let his distorted, revised dream live on film.
We all love the Classics for what they are. But all Lucas is trying to do is make his dream finally come to life! We're living in a time when filmmakers can do things that were never possible. It's Lucas' turn. Let him have it.
Gotta say, I agree with him. :)
Why Exactly Do We Care So Much?
In defense of George Lucas. Guest Editorial by Phil Tinajero.
Wednesday, Wednesday, October 15, 2003 0:36 AM EST
By: Phil Tinajero
Recently there's been a boom of negative criticism towards George Lucas. I think it's been sparked by the recent City of Angels Film Festival where A NEW HOPE was shown to represent one of the films of the 70's that shaped the face of cinema. They showed the Special Edition, despite efforts to get permission to show the original version. Over the past two days I've heard comments like"F--- Lucas" or "Lucas is a selfish a--hole" or even "Lucas is a rapist of cinema." Well, I'm here to ask, Do you really care that much?
I mean, all the man's doing is trying to improve on his work. He's made these movies and he's made us happy countless times. All this fretting is just proving one thing, we care TOO MUCH. They're just movies after all. I am one of the biggest SW geeks on the planet and right now, I'm kind of ashamed of myself. Here is Lucas, spending over 25 years of his life making us smile with his fun stories of fantasies and we're cursing his name because he wants to fix a few of his mistakes. That's why pencils have erasers, ladies and gentlemen. I know a lot of us love the old rusty effects of the Classics,
but we're getting carried away.
Maybe bad special effects aren't necessarily mistakes, but to Lucas they are. After that horrible car accident, when he was lying in that hospital bed, George Lucas dreamed of starships and a galaxy far, far away - one single story of a certain family living in that galaxy, to be exact. He put those ideas on paper and trasnformed those ideas into a movie. Imagine his dreams during those times when he was lying there, folks. Was he dreaming of a stop-motion rancor, or snowspeeders with black lines around them, or lightsabers that fizzed in-and-out, or landspeeders with yellow blobs floating under them? His dreams weren't restricted to that kind of technical stuff. But when he made those dreams come alive, they were restricted. If you look at some of the old Ralph McQuarrie art, you can see that Lucas had a grand vision. I mean, he’s been wanting to use those air whales that we saw on Kamino, since A NEW HOPE. They got nixed, and then he pushed to get them in EMPIRE, but then they got nixed again. Poor George.
I know everyone must believe that all Lucas believes in now is special effects, and that’s understandable, but imagine if the world was flipped around for a second - the Prequels made in the seventies and RETURN OF THE JEDI coming out in 2005. Everyone would be saying “Why can’t these movies be more like the originals? I loved how the Geonosis battle was kind of old and model-looking. It’s just classic. Or how Watto is obviously a puppet held up by wires. I like how Coruscant looks like an old model city. Or how they used a dummy for Yoda’s fight with Dooku. I like that stuff. These new movies only rely on CG. There’s no story anymore.”
I know you’re all thinking, there’s no way it would be like that. Oh yes, my friends, it would. For some reason, human kind has found a new enemy; CG. “I hate that CG crap” or “It looks like a video game or something.” Even Quentin Tarantino chimes in with: “If I wanted some computer game bulls--- I would have stuck my d--k in a Nintendo.....that CGI s--- will be the death of movies.” Wow. Okay, I see your point. But CG is ultimately a tool. It’s the same as prosthetics, pyrotechnics, matte paintings, models, stop-motion, or any other effects device. It’s a way to make unreal things real. Maybe all this hatred, comes from the fact that it’s not physically real. You can’t touch it. It’s a animated image created by a computer. But it’s still living on the screen. Okay, CG Yoda may not seem as tangible as Classic Yoda, but he’s a creature from a fantasy world. It’s almost like looking at a dream. Maybe in 20 years or so, there will be another method of visual effects and we’ll all be defending CG then. It’s the way of the universe. People miss things once they’re gone.
Maybe you’re saying that you’re totally fine with CG in new movies, but going back and adding CG to classic films is unforgivable. Maybe that’s true, but it all goes back to IMPROVEMENT. All Lucas is trying to do is improve his invention. If we thought this way about everything, imagine where the human race would be in terms of technology? No innovation? I mean that’s all this is. “Oh my God! A phone that’s not held down by a chord? You’re raping the original, classic telephone model!” or “Why can’t we just stick with the grammaphone? I mean, why do we have to have a CD Player. Listening to music worked just fine with the grammaphone! It was a little scratchy, but hey it’s CLASSIC!”
See what I mean? Innovation, my friends. It’s improving on what we have created or built. It’s just paving the road to the "ultimate" of things. You start small, basic, maybe even crappy, but you get there. You get to what you DREAMED of. This is what this is all about: innovation.
Imagine Lucas hearing stuff from the early ILM guys like "we can't do that" or "that's definitely not possible" or "there's no way in hell we can even attempt that." I know I would've been crushed; how about you?
Right now, fanboys' minds are being dominated by the LORD OF THE RINGS films. I know, I love them dearly, as well. But those movies have a lot of things that only could have appeared on screen via today's visual effects and yet those films aren't undergoing serious verbal bashings like the Star Wars films are. JRR Tolkien had a dream of another world, just like Lucas did. The only difference was that Tolkien could let his dream live within readers' minds. Lucas was a filmmaker and had to let his distorted, revised dream live on film.
We all love the Classics for what they are. But all Lucas is trying to do is make his dream finally come to life! We're living in a time when filmmakers can do things that were never possible. It's Lucas' turn. Let him have it.
Gotta say, I agree with him. :)