Dune and Star Wars

[TheDukester]

My favorite Jabba is the early Marvel Comics version. Marvel got the okay to write new Star Wars adventures right after the first movie and they really did some neat, wonderful stuff (along with having a few clunkers, too). With no art direction to speak of, they imagined Jabba as some sort of bipedal, furry, green crime lord:



Total awesomesauce.

[Omphalos]

**I don't do "Episode IV" or "A New Hope" or any of that crap. Star Wars is Star Wars.

I don't recognize the title "Led Zeppelin IV", either. It was untitled.

Zoso.

[Freakzilla]

**I don't do "Episode IV" or "A New Hope" or any of that crap. Star Wars is Star Wars.

I don't recognize the title "Led Zeppelin IV", either. It was untitled.

Zoso.

There was no writing on the cover and the "runes" on the liner and disc were symbols for the band members. "ZoSo" being Jimmy Page.

[Omphalos]

**I don't do "Episode IV" or "A New Hope" or any of that crap. Star Wars is Star Wars.

I don't recognize the title "Led Zeppelin IV", either. It was untitled.

Zoso.

There was no writing on the cover and the "runes" on the liner and disc were symbols for the band members. "ZoSo" being Jimmy Page.

Blah, blah, blah, "Zoso," blah, blah.

Hey, glad you agree, buddy!

[SandRider]

Star Wars is pure low-grade horseshit,
and should not be mentioned in comparison with Dune,
unless you are talking about how bad Keith fucked up the "franchise" (if you will)
by "Star-Warsing" it, everyone's a Jedi, &etc.

just to be clear - Star Wars is low-grade horseshit;
acceptable (to some degree) for small children & retards,
but not to be taken seriously on any artistic level whatsoever ....

the 77 Star Wars derailed the direction Hollywood studios were heading,
(Drugstore Cowboy, Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Klute, &etc) and made
everyone out there money-grubbing blockbuster whores ...

Star Wars sucks Cartman's balls ....

[Robspierre]

Star Wars is pure low-grade horseshit,
and should not be mentioned in comparison with Dune,
unless you are talking about how bad Keith fucked up the "franchise" (if you will)
by "Star-Warsing" it, everyone's a Jedi, &etc.

just to be clear - Star Wars is low-grade horseshit;
acceptable (to some degree) for small children & retards,
but not to be taken seriously on any artistic level whatsoever ....

the 77 Star Wars derailed the direction Hollywood studios were heading,
(Drugstore Cowboy, Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Klute, &etc) and made
everyone out there money-grubbing blockbuster whores ...

Star Wars sucks Cartman's balls ....

Actually, we must blame Jaws for this. When the head of Universal heard about how well word of mouth was he ordered the number screens it was to show on halved. When his lackey's howled, he told them we already have the audience! Jaws started the summer blockbuster phenomenon that has been the driving force behind the movies we see today. Not to mention that marketing shows that the target audience are males 15-25. Those dumb asses are why we get shit like The Clash of the Titans and shitty horror remakes.

Rob

[Hunchback Jack]

Actually, the real culprit is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It turned its back on the fine tradition of the gritty, sunburnt western film, and started the trend of superficial, feel good buddy movies going for the cheap laugh. After BCstSD, movie studios realized that all you needed was a few funny lines, a couple of name actors, a dash of romance and gunfire, and the money would just roll in.

HBJ

[merkin muffley]

movie studios realized that all you needed was a few funny lines, a couple of name actors, a dash of romance and gunfire, and the money would just roll in.

You mean like Red River, Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, North by Northwest, and Stagecoach? (Also, Robert Redford wasn't really a name actor at the time.)

[Hunchback Jack]

Don't event *talk* to me about Casablanca! That piece of shit movie was what *really* started the eroding of quality films into mass-appeal money-grubbing lowest-common-denominator *trash*.

HBJ

[SandRider]

I was gonna throw "Jaws" in there, too,
but I thought it would muddy the Lucas-Hatin' Water ...

[merkin muffley]

Don't event *talk* to me about Casablanca! That piece of shit movie was what *really* started the eroding of quality films into mass-appeal money-grubbing lowest-common-denominator *trash*.

That's not a list of my favorite movies, that's just a list of Hollywood movies before Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid that have "a few laughs, a couple of name actors, and a dash of romance and gunfire." I agree that Jaws and Star Wars transformed the film industry, bringing in the "blockbuster" and a new kind of merchandising, etc. But Hollywood has always been about "a few laughs, a couple of name actors, and a dash of romance and gunfire." Personally, I blame "The Great Train Robbery."

[lotek]

fuck it; I blame Keith!

[merkin muffley]

fuck it; I blame Keith!

But anyway, yeah, Kevin J. Anderson SUCKS.

[TheDukester]

Amazing, isn't it? Everything that's bad in the world always eventually circles back to TheKJA:

Oil spill? TheKJA

Recession? TheKJA

Celebrity Apprentice? TheKJA

[Nekhrun]

Amazing, isn't it? Everything that's bad in the world always eventually circles back to TheKJA:

Oil spill? TheKJA

I fucking knew it.

[Hunchback Jack]

Well, I wasn't really being serious. I was trying, in a not-very-successfully-humorous way, to say that in each decade or generation there was probably a movie that people at the time thought was the death of great cinema.

So much for my sense of humor.

HBJ

[merkin muffley]

Well, I wasn't really being serious.

Oh. Movies are going to give me stomach ulcers one day and I'll have to contact Frank Walden, Attorney at law of Norman, Oklahoma and Owner and Administrator of Blogs, Esquire.

[Tleszer]

Well, I wasn't really being serious.

Oh. Movies are going to give me stomach ulcers one day and I'll have to contact Frank Walden, Attorney at law of Norman, Oklahoma and Owner and Administrator of Blogs, Esquire.

ZOMG You too?

[georgiedenbro]

I read this book on how Star Wars was developed: http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Histor ... 0978465237" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As others have mentioned, it seems that Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress" was the main story plundered to make Star Wars, with Flash Gorden, pulp serials and other sci-fi space-cowboy material providing the style. I don't believe Dune was much of an influence on Lucas to speak of, other than occasional minor things like moisture farming. I also don't really believe any of the stuff claimed about Lucas studying Campbell or any study of mythology. I don't think Lucas studied much of anything in the making of Star Wars.

The original scene breakdown for Star Wars was a scene-for-scene copy of Hidden Fortress. Scene for scene. R2 and 3PO were copied off the two protagonists of that film, the other characters (Obi-Wan, Leia, Luke, etc) copied one for one from the characters in the Kurosawa. If Lucas had proceeded with that film he would have been sued for everything and been ruined. Luckily he was saved by a cadre of famous people he knew who helped him to change and develop his script, including Francis Ford Coppola. After all the editions, rounds of his friends giving him 'feedback' (see: "Dude, you can't publish that. Here are some ideas. Change it."), and working on it, a draft resembling the movie was finally made. None of the iterations resembled Dune or really borrowed anything from it that I could see.

I do actually think that Star Wars is a great film, but it wasn't written by Lucas; it wasn't really written by anyone, it seems like it was basically a group project, the result of a film-making think tank.

[Naib]

I do actually think that Star Wars is a great film, but it wasn't written by Lucas; it wasn't really written by anyone, it seems like it was basically a group project, the result of a film-making think tank.

If only he had accepted some help with the prequels.

[Freakzilla]

It's sounds like he's pretty much out of the picture for the upcoming sequels. I'm very curious to see what J. J. Abrams does with it.

[georgiedenbro]

Personally, I'm terrified. Lawrence Kasdan may be our last hope...

[lotek]

Can it be worse than the phantom menace?
Can anything be?

[MuaB'Beep]

Can it be worse than the phantom menace?
Can anything be?

I like the scottish ewok and the guy who sings in the opening song smoked something weird.

[georgiedenbro]

Hey I liked Ewoks as a kid! I put that, Caravan of Courage, and The Battle for Endor above the prequels any day...