indyfan105
New member
personity I think the only movie that was ever a really decent rip off from indiana jones was romancing the stone.
Jacob
Jacob
Romancing the Stone was OK, but nowhere near Indy's league. I think "The Mummy" was better, but again not anywhere close to as good as Indy.indyfan105 said:personity I think the only movie that was ever a really decent rip off from indiana jones was romancing the stone.
Jacob
Skipper said:Sure, Lucas had the right to make whatever movie he wanted, but by your logic, every single movie ever made is immune from criticism because the filmmaker has the right to do whatever he wants.
I see I'm simultaneously being criticized for being a Lucas-hater and a knee-jerk Lucas defender. The truth is somewhere in between. I love Indy, and I'm grateful to Lucas for inventing him. I love the original Star Wars and I like the prequels, too, but I still think Jar-Jar sucks and that Anakin as an 8-year-old was ridiculous. Oh, and I also hated the CGI in the prequels. I don't think I'm being unreasonable.
tnswman said:Why did he need someone to sit him down and correct HIS VISION?
tnswman said:The common movie goers understand the reality of the situation and are THANKFUL that we are seeing something NEW that continues what Lucas and Co. started in 1981.
herr gruber said:Haven't read this thread. Don't want to read this thread. All I know is that if Indy gets married I shall lose a £1000 bet. I'm keeping optimistic about my potential windfall.
Moedred said:Odd, like Michael Crichton's "Sphere."
Poor, poor Gruber...herr gruber said:Haven't read this thread. Don't want to read this thread. All I know is that if Indy gets married I shall lose a £1000 bet. I'm keeping optimistic about my potential windfall.
DrBeezer said:Because Lucas, like many creatives, needs someone to focus and cultivate his great imagination. Before he was a giant, people weren't afraid to tell him "no George, that idea isn't working", people like his wife and Gary Kurtz. Because of that temperament and fine tuning, we were given some of the greatest stories of all time... but now he's a juggernaut and no one will say no to him, no one will tell him something can be done better. He fired a guy from ILM because he spoke up while working on TPM. He doesn't have anyone left to fine tune his ideas and his imagination, to sculpt it and raise it to the next level. All his has now are yes men who tell him he is great and magical and collect their fat paychecks. Personally, I blame Rick McCullam for George's creative state. If ever there was a "blow sunshine up your ass" kind of guy... it's him.
I still think Lucas has a great imagination, and lots of really good ideas, , but like everyone, he's got bad ideas too... no one is perfect. Even the prequels after some re-editing, some "focusing" of good ideas (re: Phantom Edited versions) were solid films IMO and exponentially more enjoyable. If he had said Jedi have to defecate into their hands and manually load their feces into their lightsabers to provide them power, would everyone still be declaring it brilliant and his vision that should not be questioned?
And excuse me, but he didn't "allow" anyone anything... we paid him for a product, as a consumer we have the right to demand a quality product. That's how business works. If he made his movie and let everyone in the world see it for free, to share his art for the better of society... then sure, we don't have much say... but this is the real world, and it's business. He's made a half a billion dollars from consumers, those consumers have the right to demand a quality product. And it's bad business to deuce on your consumer base after you've taken their money (re: all his I don't care about the fans talk)
The alien angle is very disappointing to me, I love Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, X-Files the list goes on and on... I'm not adverse to aliens in my fiction, in fact I rather enjoy them, but aliens don't feel right in Indiana Jones to me. I'll see the film eventually, and hopefully I'll get enjoyment out of it.
Really, I think the "common movie goer" doesn't give a rats ass about Indiana Jones IV. They care about Iron Man and Batman. It's been 20 years since the last Indiana Jones... the people fueling any kind of excitement and hype for this film... are the Indiana Jones fans... not the "common movie goer"
DrBeezer said:Because Lucas, like many creatives, needs someone to focus and cultivate his great imagination. Before he was a giant, people weren't afraid to tell him "no George, that idea isn't working", people like his wife and Gary Kurtz. Because of that temperament and fine tuning, we were given some of the greatest stories of all time... but now he's a juggernaut and no one will say no to him, no one will tell him something can be done better. He fired a guy from ILM because he spoke up while working on TPM. He doesn't have anyone left to fine tune his ideas and his imagination, to sculpt it and raise it to the next level. All his has now are yes men who tell him he is great and magical and collect their fat paychecks. Personally, I blame Rick McCullam for George's creative state. If ever there was a "blow sunshine up your ass" kind of guy... it's him.
I still think Lucas has a great imagination, and lots of really good ideas, , but like everyone, he's got bad ideas too... no one is perfect. Even the prequels after some re-editing, some "focusing" of good ideas (re: Phantom Edited versions) were solid films IMO and exponentially more enjoyable. If he had said Jedi have to defecate into their hands and manually load their feces into their lightsabers to provide them power, would everyone still be declaring it brilliant and his vision that should not be questioned?
And excuse me, but he didn't "allow" anyone anything... we paid him for a product, as a consumer we have the right to demand a quality product. That's how business works. If he made his movie and let everyone in the world see it for free, to share his art for the better of society... then sure, we don't have much say... but this is the real world, and it's business. He's made a half a billion dollars from consumers, those consumers have the right to demand a quality product. And it's bad business to deuce on your consumer base after you've taken their money (re: all his I don't care about the fans talk)
The alien angle is very disappointing to me, I love Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, X-Files the list goes on and on... I'm not adverse to aliens in my fiction, in fact I rather enjoy them, but aliens don't feel right in Indiana Jones to me. I'll see the film eventually, and hopefully I'll get enjoyment out of it.
Really, I think the "common movie goer" doesn't give a rats ass about Indiana Jones IV. They care about Iron Man and Batman. It's been 20 years since the last Indiana Jones... the people fueling any kind of excitement and hype for this film... are the Indiana Jones fans... not the "common movie goer"
herr gruber said:Haven't read this thread. Don't want to read this thread. All I know is that if Indy gets married I shall lose a £1000 bet. I'm keeping optimistic about my potential windfall.
Avilos said:DrBeezer your "logic" is very flawed.
You assume that Lucas does not have people who work for him who disagree with him only because you don't like the end result. Through out the Prequels he took advice from his director friends like Coppola and Spielberg, etc. Giving suggestions on Editing, Spielberg even directed sequences in Revenge of the Sith.
You are certainly allowed to be disappointed in a product you paid for. But don't assume you represent everyone. Lucas's films have a HUGE audience. So lets assume that 50% of people hate his new movies....That still means that a s#1T load of people still like what he is doing. Thats the tricky thing of creating something that explodes instantly with popularity. Being that popular means that you somehow attracted a diverse group of people. That is what Lucas did with the first Star Wars film. But simple math dictates that you are going to lose some of the audience when you continue. Because the audience
was so varied in the frst place.
DrBeezer said:Because Lucas, like many creatives, needs someone to focus and cultivate his great imagination. Before he was a giant, people weren't afraid to tell him "no George, that idea isn't working", people like his wife and Gary Kurtz. Because of that temperament and fine tuning, we were given some of the greatest stories of all time... but now he's a juggernaut and no one will say no to him, no one will tell him something can be done better. He fired a guy from ILM because he spoke up while working on TPM. He doesn't have anyone left to fine tune his ideas and his imagination, to sculpt it and raise it to the next level. All his has now are yes men who tell him he is great and magical and collect their fat paychecks. Personally, I blame Rick McCullam for George's creative state. If ever there was a "blow sunshine up your ass" kind of guy... it's him.
gallandro said:Wow, you are incredibly misinformed. Gary Kurtz is not some sort of creative genius who co-created Star Wars or directed Lucas about how Star Wars should be done. He was a producer plain and simple, just like Rick McCallum who you are so quick to disparage. He was not some friend that Lucas kicked to the curb out of jealousy or envy. He was a producer who got fired because he failed at his job, namely to bring Empire on time and on budget... that's it.
Kurtz was a hired gun brought on board for American Graffiti by Francis Copolla who recommended him. Kurtz had pretty much zero input on Star Wars, all of the Lucas biographies (official or unofficial) as well as the "making of" books bear that out.
You really should read "The Making of Star Wars" it's pretty eye opening. At one point Lucas and director of photography Gilbert Taylor are discussing how they are going to shoot the landspeeder shots. Lucas and Taylor are talking about practical, realistic ways they could do it. Taylor recommends essentially putting the speeder on train tracks and shooting it from a slightly elevated angle. Now mind you, at this point the production is already behind schedule and over budget. So here comes Kurtz with his "brilliant" idea... helicopter shots. Wow talk about wasting money.
Next comes some meetings at ILM toward the end of production. Kurtz comes in and has ZERO to say. He's there for one reason... to play the heavy and to push ILM to get their job done.
On to Empire... I will say this for Kurtz he does defend Kershner and his spending like a drunken sailor to Lucas, but that probably has more to do with defending his own inability to get Kershner in line. Hell just watch any interview with Kersh, the supposed evil overlord Lucas gave him cart blanch to make Empire the way he wanted. It was Kurtz who failed in his job to keep the production on budget... and guess what, he got fired over it.
Really, go look at Kurtz track record after Empire. If he was this major creative genius living in the shadow of Lucas why does he rarely work? And why are his films such miserable failures (e.g., Slipstream... even though it's a guilty pleasure movie of mine) Sorry Lucas bashers, but that's the reality of the Lucas-Kurtz relation.
As for McCallum, you may not like him, but he does his job. He gets everything needed for Lucas to put his vision on the screen, and he gets it done on time and on budget (which is the job of the producer).
Yancy