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#george lucas
writerbuddha · 1 month
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One of the reasons why the Jedi Order is criticized is the fact that George Lucas' Star Wars actually shows that the good guys can't be always nice and you can't do perfect. The Clone Wars illustrates this masterfully: as Lucas said, "Are they going to stick with their moral rules and all be killed, which makes it irrelevant, or do they help save the Republic?" But some people are just unable to accept this.
There is always a right choice. Right doesn't mean it's the nicest and most perfect choice, the one that you might find the most satisfying and pure. But it's the best choice you can make in given circumstances. And in 99% of life, that's all we can do.
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atomic-chronoscaph · 5 months
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Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Peter Mayhew - Star Wars scene rehearsal (1976)
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guillotineman · 1 year
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nox-lunarwing · 1 year
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Happy Star Wars day! I love how happy Mr Jackson is upon hearing those final words :3
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fuzzyghost · 9 months
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david-talks-sw · 7 months
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Dooku didn't leave because of the Jedi.
At least, if you're going by George Lucas' word.
In deleted scenes of Attack of the Clones, when we learn about Dooku's departure and his values, there's no mention of the Jedi or "the Jedi Order as an institution".
And every time Lucas refers to Dooku's disenchantment and reason for falling, he doesn't mention the Jedi.
"When you realize that Dooku is Darth Tyranus, it explains what Darth Sidious did after Darth Maul was killed: he seduced a Jedi who had become disenchanted with the Republic. He preyed on that disenchantment and converted him to the dark side, which is also a setup for what happens with Anakin." - Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Attack of the Clones, 2002
"[Dooku is] one of the few Jedi who became disenchanted with the Republic and left the order and he is leading a separatist movement." - Vanity Fair, 2002
"I wanted a more sophisticated kind of villain. Dooku’s disenchantment with the corruption in the Empire is actually valid. It’s all valid.  So, Chris plays it as, 'Is he really a villain or is he just someone who is disenchanted and trying to make things right?'" - Starlog Magazine #300, 2002
He probably meant the Republic/Senate in that last one, but you get the point. And you're seeing the pattern, right?
Dooku's problem isn't the Jedi, it's the Republic.
He's become disenchanted with a system that - according to Lucas' prologue in the 2004 book Shatterpoint - worked for 1,000 years...
"For a thousand years, the Old Republic prospered and grew under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the venerable Jedi Knights."
... but has been rendered ineffective because of 1) senators becoming corrupt and 2) corporations gaining political power.
"But as often happens when wealth and power grow beyond all reasonable proportion, an evil fueled by greed arose. The massive organs of commerce mushroomed in power, the Senate became corrupt, and an ambitious named Palpatine was voted Supreme Chancellor."
That's the message Dooku runs on, when he rallies the systems to form the Separatist Alliance.
"By promising an alternative to the corruption and greed that was rotting the Republic from within, Dooku was able to persuade thousands of star systems to secede from the Republic."
The Jedi aren't really a factor in his decision to leave.
Why would they be? Their political status isn't very high, they're virtually powerless, as illustrated by the film's narrative and stated repeatedly by Lucas.
On the contrary, as we already established in this post, Lucas full-on confirmed that Dooku actually carries the sympathies of most of the Jedi. Again:
Most Jedi agree with Dooku, ideologically.
As far as the Jedi are concerned, the politicians are effing up the Republic, and it sucks because the Jedi see this but aren't allowed to interfere in the political process. They have to resort to looking for loopholes in their mandates to actually get stuff done.
That's what that whole "she's a politician" scene is meant to hint at. In the commentary of Attack of the Clones, Lucas uses a similar turn of phrase as he does with Dooku.
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"[This scene gives us] a chance to talk a little bit about politics and the Jedi’s disenchantment with the political process, due to the corruption and the ineffectiveness of the Senate." - Attack of the Clones, Director’s Commentary, 2002
Considering all this, it becomes clear that the intended narrative surrounding Dooku's decision to leave the Order is not:
"The Jedi are dogmatic and asleep at the wheel except for Dooku, who is ahead of the curb and sees the system is flawed, so he left."
It's actually:
"ALL Jedi see the system is flawed, Dooku's the only Jedi who decided to take it a step further and leave the Order so he can try to get into politics himself and change things."
That's why they hesitate to accuse him of murder.
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That's why in an earlier draft of the Attack of the Clones script, by the end of the second act, Mace STILL has his doubts that Dooku would sign a treaty with the Trade Federation to attack the Republic.
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As far as the Jedi are concerned, Dooku is out there fighting the good fight, making noise because whenever they try to protest it falls on deaf ears... until his betrayal on Geonosis.
After all, let's not get it twisted: the Dooku we're introduced to in the films and The Clone Wars, isn't really just Dooku anymore.
He's Darth Tyranus.
A point Lucas makes sure to highlight in his Shatterpoint prologue:
"Unbeknownst to most of his followers, Dooku was himself a Dark Lord of the Sith, acting in collusion with his master, Darth Sidious, who, over the years, had struck an unholy alliance with the greater forces of commerce and their private droid armies."
It's not about doing the selfless thing for Dooku, anymore. He's knowingly part of the problem.
He's all about ambition, now. His personal goals are things like overthrowing Sidious and becoming the most powerful Jedi.
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"[Anakin's] ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku’s. He says “I will become more powerful than every Jedi.” And you’ll hear later on Dooku will say “I have become more powerful than any Jedi.” [...] It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things." - Attack of the Clones, Director’s Commentary, 2002
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"If you put two Sith together, they try to get others to join them to get rid of the other Sith. [When revealing the truth to Obi-Wan], Dooku's ambition is really to get rid of Darth Sidious. He's trying to get Obi-Wan's assistance in that and help in that, so that he and Obi-Wan could overthrow Sidious and take over." - Attack of the Clones, Commentary Track 2, 2002
Y'know? Selfish things.
Dooku - like all other Sith, and like the very corporations and Senators he had sworn to destroy - is consumed by his own greed.
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gameraboy2 · 3 months
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George Lucas showing Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill how to use a blaster during filming of Star Wars (1977)
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short-wooloo · 1 month
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Now that the trailer is out, it's probably best that I get this out of the way before acolyte releases
The Jedi are right about the Force and the dark side
The Jedi did not lose their way
The Jedi were not corrupted
The genocide of the Jedi was not their fault
The Jedi are not wrong for being part of the Republic, it is in fact a good thing
The Jedi are not arrogant for thinking the sith are gone
and while we're at it the sith are evil, always, end of discussion
The Jedi do not steal children
If someone wants to leave the Jedi, that's allowed, no one will stop them
The Jedi are right about attachment
Attachment is not love (SW uses the Buddhist definition because Lucas is a Buddhist and the Jedi are based off Buddhist monks, Buddhism defines attachment as being possessive or unwilling to let go of people or things)
The Jedi do not forbid emotions, they forbid being controlled by your emotions, you must control them
The Jedi are not forbidden from loving people, nor are they celibate, they just can't get married (big whup) because their duties must come first
Being peacekeepers doesn't preclude the Jedi from fighting in war, sometimes to keep the peace you have to fight back, especially when its against tyranny, see WWII (or Ukraine today)
Gray jedi are not a thing
The Jedi are not slavers or complicit in slavery
Oh and of course, the Jedi are not elitists for not training non Force sensitives, (Han voice) that's not how the Force works, dave filoni broke the rules so he could shoehorn sabine into a Jedi (to give the benefit of the doubt, I do believe sabine's role as ahsoka's apprentice was meant for an original character but things got condensed by executives, so maybe filoni isn't entirely to blame here)
Feel free to add anything I forgot
Do not, DO NOT!! add anything Jedi critical, I'm done with it and won't hear it, don't have something nice to say? Then go away, I will block on sight, either reblog without comment (either in the reblog or the notes) or don't interact at all
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Gonna go make me some food, pack me a vase full of happy trees, and then Ahsokatime 😂
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Final Bad Batch episode title: “The Cavalry Has Arrived”
The Batch’s first line in Clone Wars: “The cavalry has arrived!”
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machetelanding · 5 months
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Deleted sandstorm sequence from Return of the Jedi (1983)
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dean-winchesters-clit · 3 months
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Gods, can I gush about the CGI in the Percy Jackson show for just a minute??
All of it is so fucking good!
The work was gone by ILM or Industrial Light and Magic, who are an incredible effects house and also one of the oldest effects houses there is. ILM was founded in the 1970s by George fucking Lucas to make the effects for the original Star Wars trilogy. They are the reason the original Jurassic Park had CGI in the first place! They worked with Jim Henson on The Dark Crystal and Tobe Hooper on Poltergeist, which has sone crazy awesome effects if you've never seen it. A part of ILM broke off in the 1990s and became fucking PIXAR!!
And Percy Jackson has had just the best looking effects I've seen in a long time. The creature work alone is worth so many awards. The minotaur was amazing.
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And the illusion of Chiron is never broken, it's just seamless and perfect.
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And don't get me started on Medusa's snakes. They're PERFECT. THEY ACT LIKE REAL SNAKES!!!
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And the chimera was beautiful. I loved the decision to give it a cobra's frill.
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Also, water is a notoriously difficult effect to do and all the water looks amazing in this show. I bet they pulled some people from the Avatar sequel to help with it.
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And Grover's legs never look bad. They're always perfect. I love the decision to keep them exposed the whole time, it adds to the magical feeling of the world while also showcasing how powerful the Mist really is.
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And one of my favorite effects HAS to be the way Mrs. Dodds' coat turned into her wings. I saw that and had an out of body experience.
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But this most recent episode just blew me away. Specifically with this (these next gifs are by @stevenrogered) :
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So, if you didn't know, tracking an effect onto someone's body is incredibly difficult. It's so difficult that CGI artists will often replace someone's body with a 3D model in order to make it easier. That could be what happens here in part, but they can't fake Walker's face.
Props to Walker for sitting as still as humanly possible during this incredibly emotional scene. Him sitting still helps make the tracking of the effect easier since the artists don't have to adjust the effect every frame to account for the slightest movements. Which brings me to the face.
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It is so hard to animate human faces and not fall into the uncanny valley, and yes this effect applies to that. Look at the way the gold conforms to the shape of his mouth as he speaks. Look at how it follows the movement of his chin, his cheeks. It's PERFECT. This is an incredibly impressive effect and I wanna just worship whichever overworked and underpaid VFX artist spent hours of their life working on it.
Okay, that's all, rants over, everyone go home!
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june2734 · 2 years
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atomic-chronoscaph · 5 months
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THX 1138 (1971)
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david-talks-sw · 7 months
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So that whole interaction between Ahsoka and Huyang, where they talk about Sabine's choice to help the enemy find Thrawn (in hopes that she can then find Ezra) is clearly meant to be subtext for what happened with Anakin.
I mean change the pronoun from "she/her" to "he/him", tweak some of the names and...
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... it's just blatant.
The parallels were already clear in the previous episode, as pointed out in this post here, and it still holds true:
Sabine's struggle with attachment mirrors Anakin's.
We know Filoni's whole stance on why Anakin fell to the Dark Side: he'll usually acknowledge that Anakin was ruled by his attachments, got possessive of Padmé, but then adds:
"HOWEVER is loving that way really that bad?"
"HOWEVER he never stood a chance because Qui-Gon wasn't there to teach him properly and be the father Anakin needed."
I've already gone into why both these statements don't track with Lucas' intended narrative here and here... but I wanna touch on this notion that "Anakin wasn't trained enough to make a better choice."
He was.
You know how we know? Because we saw him overcome his attachments before.
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We saw him explain the theory of the non-attachment rule, before.
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In fact, wee saw him pass down a lot of the Jedi lessons, in The Clone Wars, including being disciplined, following orders and not acting impulsively.
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The issue is that - while Anakin knows the theory, even has a few minor successes applying it - he never builds the self-discipline needed to master it because... deep down... he doesn't want to.
This is partially because you got Palpatine telling him he doesn't need to, molding him into an arrogant, power-craving person... but the fact remains that Anakin made the choice himself.
Which Filoni acknowledges, sure... but not quite. The difference between his thesis and George Lucas' is that the latter picks a stance and defends it.
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"He started out as a very loving and compassionate person. And as he progressed, it was his inability to control his temper, his inability to let go of things, and his quest for power that were his undoing." - George Lucas, E! Behind the Scenes - ROTS, 2005
Anakin fell because he was greedy, just like any one of us can be.
Cool. Filoni, on the other hand, doesn't seem to land anywhere.
He dances around the issue (as can be seen by the debate between Ahsoka and Huyang, with no clear winner) and merely questions whether it's as simple as that.
Clearly he wants to justify Anakin's actions to some degree... but y'know, the narrative considers those actions so reprehensible that Anakin gets friggin' burned alive for it.
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"I felt it was important that we actually see that happen so that we could see the consequences of these bad things that he did. […] He forces his friends to turn against him. Which is heartbreaking." - George Lucas, “The Chosen One” Featurette, 2005
Because Anakin's actions are not meant to be justified.
It's easy to see why Filoni likes Anakin. One of the earliest tasks he had when writing The Clone Wars was humanizing a character whose sole functional purpose was to carry out a narrative about how:
"Without self-discipline, greed [can] force a character off the path to freedom." - Micael Hearn, The Cinema of George Lucas, 2005
And Anakin is a very sympathetic character.
His flaws are flaws that we all carry.
Q: Is it fair to assess Anakin is kind of cursed by his own goodness/good qualities? "I wouldn't say that’s true. He’s cursed by the same flaws, and issues that he has to overcome, that all humans are cursed with. There's a lot going on there. [...] The whole point is—and the reason I started the story where I did—is that Anakin is a normal, good kid. And how does somebody who is normal and good turn bad? What are the qualities, what is it that we all have within us that will turn us bad?" - George Lucas, Star Wars Insider #52, 2000
But narratively, Anakin is selfish.
He doesn't want to save Padmé's life, he wants to save himself from the pain of losing Padmé.
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And while you're supposed to sympathize with him, you're not meant to agree with him. He's Darth Vader, the space nazi. He messes up and consequentially "leaves the Force in darkness" for 20 years, instead of ushering it towards the light in the chancellor's office, when he has the chance.
So to shift the blame and say that...
HOWEVER, Anakin didn't have the proper support system or training to make a better choice.
... when the whole point of the narrative is about taking personal responsibility and being selfless instead of selfish... well, it is missing that point.
He did know better. He just didn't want to choose better, so he convinced himself he wasn't able to.
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