This thing about how Ford wanted to be killed in RotJ is kind of dumb but at least he didn't try to sabotage the film like he allegedly did with the narration in Blade Runner he was opposed to doing and I really hope they didn't kill him off just because he wanted it to happen. However, he only got ran through the torso. Darth Maul survived worse.

No he didn't :-/

What's with the unnecessary Mexican characterization to everything I do?

I wasn't surprised with the result of the scene, but I was surprised with how it played out. It was more brutal and darker than I expected it to be. I also had hopes that the spoilers were false... but just about every last one of them turned out to be true. This time around, I decided no spoilers for Rogue One and no spoilers Episode VIII.

Wait, what's wrong with being Mexican?

If I ever teach high school history, I promise to refrain from characterizing the Zimmermann note as a telegram from Germany to Mexico, or the 1918 pandemic as a Spanish flu....

Clearly there's a difference between "He's a Mexican citizen" and "oh, he's one of those Mexicans.." even though both statements might be true. He's complaining that people seem to be connoting something when they mention his nationality.

Which, by the way, I did not. Unless Mexico built an outwardly facing internet firewall when I wasn't paying attention, thus revealing anybody accessing a Mexican server to be within the country's borders!

By the way, I am truly sorry for this, but I completely forget all about it.

Happy Kwanzaa.

Oh, snap, you're just so witty. I swear you're both the least effective and least amusing troll we have here.

I am neither trolling, drunk, racist, nor concerned too terribly what anybody here thinks of me.

Eh, it does seem to be a tinge on the racist side, especially since it wasn't a Mexican website at all.

This was my impression also.

It wasn't a Mexican site? Hmm, my bad. Sorry, Gold!

But wait a minute, what is this? (Emphasis added.)



But yeah, if you'll allow me to semi-seriously self-flagellate just a bit, I'll confess to being a "tinge racist", but then again do you expect me to remember that it was a tabloid, when printed sheets of newspaper aren't exactly memorable when they have to compete with images of bandits sporting sombreros and mustaches??

I don't think you're "racist" but this "mexican" as a negative adjective has been thrown at Gold for quite some time now and, to me, you sort of come across as jumping on the bandwagon with others when it comes to "trolling" comments towards others. This mexican thing in general towards Gold is getting particularly old.

That's you jumping on the trolling bandwagon and I assume Jon`C's troll comment was based on an earlier remark about Latino Review which who knows if that's a Mexican site or not? Not that it matters.

On behalf of all racists, I apologize for Mexican tabloids for letting us cast aspersions on their more noble countrymen.

With a name like Latino Review, who really knows? And of course it doesn't matter, since the question would only decide the heart of the discussion anyway.

To get back to the original topic it seems to me that Carrie Fisher's death seems to me to be the hardest hitting death from the franchise. Of course there have been many others but Fisher's seems more impacting. Of the many other deaths not one of them was a major unmasked character still active in the franchise. Kenobi was dead and Artoo a droid. Sebastian Shaw's screen time can be measured in seconds.

Another thought that I've had is that even though I know it was important to have a story about Anakin Skywalker, isn't the story most of us wanted the one of what happened to our beloved characters? Certainly there were games, novels, and comics all approved as canon that told the stories and even though many of them were great it really didn't take the place of seeing the actors on the screen. I know Lucas had a story in mind for what happened previous to episode IV and I really don't know what he thought about going forward but there is one depressing consequence of not moving forward. Our original actors are all elderly now and I don't think any of them went on to be as lucrative as Ford, the guy that actually wanted his character offed. It was an opportunity that nobody seemed to notice or care was passing us all by.

Lucas always had a bizarre conception of what stories people wanted to hear. Or maybe he didn't care.

I read that Steven Spielberg, back in the day, thought George Lucas had a brilliant sense of pop filmmaking. I wonder what he thinks now.

The reason I cast aspersions on a Mexican-source rumor isn't because racism, it's because it'd be incredible for a Mexican (or Spanish language) source to scoop American journalists on an American/British production. I would have also scoffed at a Russian source, or a German source, or a Japanese source, for the same reason. It is not plausible that a foreign publication would have special insight into the industry of a country when the citizens of that country do not.

Edit: I frankly also didn't realize that it was an English-language website registered by someone who claims to be in Arizona (not that the latter is advertised anywhere, or even guaranteed to be true). Even if it is true, though, that doesn't explain why an Arizonan blog would have inside information on Disney casting decisions or why we should believe them if they did.

And also keep in mind that the rumor Gold posted was that they were going to cast a specific black actress as lead to be "progressive" / token black, not because she was the right actress for the role. Which, besides being a ****ty thing to say and repeat, wasn't even ****ing true.

From what I gather, Lucas is very individualistic when it comes to his artistic vision. I mean the man created Star Wars for Pete's sake, which was just supposed to be something like a version of Flash Gordon, but became so much more.

I can totally see his independence not always working out in practice. For example, he didn't give a whole lot of direction, not withstanding his job title. I feel that Lucas just goes his own way, and waits for something to stick.

Of course along with a generally douchey patronizing comment. I'm not being critical, I understood the context, your comment is just one of many with the "mexican" adjective and I can understand how Gold feels in general.

There was a youtube video referenced late in the last page. I found the video that came up after it interesting.

Well **** that guy. Lucas is a great man. Every artist is going to squirm the moment they must finally confront the final form of their creation.

I don't recall if this was Lucas or if it was Spielberg, but one of the two really only agreed to do a fourth Indy film once he had the epiphany that "there should be aliens".

Lucas is bad at writing dialogue, by his own admission. Actors constantly complain about his directorial talent. His initial assemblies are notoriously bad*; he really has no idea how to order scenes or pace a movie, so the eventual quality of the film ends up dictated by his editor alone**. He doesn't self-reflect or criticize his own work early, unless he's prompted by people around him who are willing and able to push back. Lucas has admitted to pretty much all of this but blew it off, saying that audiences only care about sound and special effects anyway.

I thought the narrator was harsh, but otherwise 100% spot on. A lot of the things he said were real issues, and most of the big names in that video have publicly aired some of it. Essentially, though, Lucas is kinda bad at his job. He has poor incentives and doesn't want to improve; he's not dedicated to his craft. He's like the opposite of an artist.

Know where he really shone, though? He figured out that sad 30-something boomers would pay a ****load to see a 1960s high school nostalgia piece. He saw a new and obscure source of inspiration in Japanese films, especially their cartoons, and correctly predicted that it would resonate with consumers. He knew the real money was in toys. He has convinced people to buy multiple copies of 40 year old movies by 'tweaking' them just enough to generate controversy. (Did you really think it was about polish? lol.)

I mean, Lucas might be a perfectly nice guy. I don't know. But he ain't an artist, he's a businessman, through and through.

[sub]* Example: the ship infiltration sequence at the start of RotS was initially an entire hour longer, and introduced several new characters only to quickly kill them off. Most of the deleted scenes were Anakin and Obi-Wan killing CGI droids in CGI hallways while cracking the same dumb CGI jokes.

** ANH was rescued by Lucas's ex-wife, who not only provided massive input into the original script, but also edited the movie down into something watchable. Marcia Lucas was one of the only people in the world who has ever stood up against George Lucas and the result was magnificent.[/sub]

Okay. I can't speak for anybody else, but it kinda seems to me like Mexico is frequently relevant to a lot of the stuff SF_GoldG_01 wants to talk about. Like his different consulting and side job advice threads, where his country is a legitimate concern. Or political threads, where Mexico is occasionally topical and more often a useful example. I guess if the root problem here is that just discussing SF_GoldG_01's nationality bothers him, then, well, ****, I don't really know what to say about someone being that ashamed of where they live.

But if you're talking about the "Mexican vacation" comments, lol, that isn't about him being Mexican. That's about him getting banned for scamming.

Well, thanks for demolishing my half-assed defense of Lucas. I guess I admit to feeling an instinctual desire to defend the guy responsible for starting something that made for so many magical childhood memories, but can't quite stand up to scrutiny. Maybe this feeling is pity, for a magnanimous but not quite intelligent family relative?

I remember learning from a documentary included as a forth disc in the 2004 DVD set of the OT, that a very late cut of ANH was a poorly paced mess (no doubt creating some very long faces resembling those seen in the footage of the Episode I screening), and was only rescued after being drastically edited (by Marcia Lucas, you say). Lucas was in over his head from very early on, I suppose. And yet, he must have realized this somehow, given his choice to delegate the task of directing and writing ESB and RotJ. Had he not, the results would have been similarly disastrous, if Luke had crowned himself king of the rebellion at the end of ANH by arguing that the Force helped him make that shot rather than luck (or if a billionaire became the POTUS, as soon as he realized how good he was at "winning").

I'll have to watch American Graffiti to see if "early Lucas" really did have a kernel of genius (unless that too was simply a by-product of preceding Lucas' fame and authority).

Jon, I understand your view. Hell, Brian just called us both *******s in another thread. It's easy to forget what it's like to be on the receiving end though.

Star Wars was originally an alright series of movies. It hit a few good buttons and was memorable. I have some childhood nostalgia from watching the original trilogy in the mid 90's. It was overhyped but the games were good. Then the prequels came out which sucked. And really since the prequels, but probably even longer Star Wars has been more of a culturally enforced topic than a culturally generated topic. The constant stream of advertising, merchandising, the forced cultural perception that "true nerds :-)" like Star Wars, the forced Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate, it's all artificial and I've come to despise it. Rogue One wasn't terrible but in general Star Wars is vastly overhyped.

As well, seriously damn this to hell:



Right now, they could announce that no more Star Wars movies, merchandise, games, anything, they could retire the brand and I would not care.

I wonder if those grapes taste Star Warsy. I want to try them out, I bet they're wonderful grapes.

I couldn't care less what advertisers and mechanisers are "forcing on the culture". The original trilogy was more than just "alight", it was ****ing awesome.

The prequels don't encroach on that nostalgia in my case, because they don't too closely resemble the OT artistically.

FWIW I rip on Gold because he's terrible, not because he's Mexican.

I can't watch the OT anymore because I can't find the OT anymore. I have the VHS "remastered" editions which were my favorites but I don't have a VCR anymore. I don't think it's possible to get the non-bastardized versions in HD right? The originals were on DVD for a while but the sound was nerfed, and they were really the originals where you could see the all messed up special effect crap like the cutouts around the ships in space and the petroleum jelly smears under luke's desert speeder thing. Cleaning up that kind of thing for the remastered editions was A-OK in my book. But it's just too difficult for me to watch the "special editions" where they inserted **** and fart jokes and turned Han Solo into a pussy and whatever else. No, I'm not claiming anybody "raped" my childhood, but certainly a piece of it has been erased and I can't share it with my kids which is a weird situation to be in. I guess this is similar to that Asheron's Call discussion.

Clearly.

Brian, there are a lot of fan-remasters in HD out there. Most of them focus on removing the Special Edition crap and fixing the awful colors of the DVD release.

Unfortunately the DVD version is all I can share with my kids at the moment because no one bothers with adding the German dub to the fan-remasters, of course. And even they get distracted by the Special Edition Mos Eisley.

ikr, remember when he walked right across Jaba's tail? What a pussy!

I'm not sure how to decipher this comment. That entire scene was stupid. And it wasn't the one I was referring to. And sorry for the language, I thought the forums would edit it out.