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chokeout

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7 hours ago, chokeout said:

He's really not though. I love Star Wars and Indy but Lucas is a terrible director who lucked out in the people he got involved with and the less hands-on he was with films, the better they were for it. 

He is an amazing producer though, not just for film. lucasarts, skywalker sound, THX and Industrial light and magic are some of the most important companies for entertainment of the last century and that's where his strengths were; finding and letting talented people do what they do. 

There's an argument to say the wrong Lucas gets the credit for A New Hope, that Marcia Lucas saved it in the edit. While George had captured every conceivable angle and shot, the stress of Tunisia, budget and UK Union rules brought on a heart attack so struggled to complete the film. Marcia had clarity enough to turn the documentary pieces into a proper film. 

Lucas is an incredible ideas man and world builder, but his projects are improved hundredfold with a talented director crafting the vision into a narrative. 

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I'm not even convinced he's that great an ideas man and world builder. 

I used to say that Star Wars was at its best the furthest removed George Lucas was from it - Solo has ruined that idea for me by arguably being the worst of the bunch.

But take out Marcia Lucas, take out Gary Kurtz, take out Carrie Fisher's script edits, take out Ralph McQuarrie and Brian Muir (who designed the Darth Vader costume, and made the decision to give him a samurai-styled helmet and breathing apparatus), take out Harrison Ford's performance and ad-libbed "I know" in Empire, take out John Barry's set design, and you're left with The Adventures Of Luke Starkiller. Lucas' original ideas needed to be hammered into shape by dozens of other people to become great, and the prequels show what you end up with when you have a cast, crew and studio too afraid of telling George Lucas "no". Star Wars is good in spite of George Lucas, not because of him.

As an ideas man, the best thing he did was the idea of "old future", that dictated the whole visual aesthetic of A New Hope and, again, was almost entirely absent in the prequels.

That said, it may only be possible to break down the individual contributions of different people because the film was so huge that it's been pored over a million times, and there could be other great directors and producers just as reliant on other people's ideas as Lucas, we just don't drill down into the "Making Of" enough to realise it.

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American Graffiti is excellent and I also liked THX-118.

I love Event Horizon - my mentor in sound design was the sound supervisor on that film and I spent about 6 months discussing it with him.  I saw it in the cinema and that first spiral shot out from the space station is an absolute belter of a shot on the big screen - genuinely gives you motion sickness.

However, I think even though he's been quite shit, Anderson has other stuff on his resume - Shopping for example was really clever on zero budget.

Even though he's a household name - Steven Seagal is great in Under Siege, which is a genuinely fantastic action film.  Everything else he's been in, really, is a big old bag of shit.

 

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13 minutes ago, Loki said:

Even though he's a household name - Steven Seagal is great in Under Siege, which is a genuinely fantastic action film.  Everything else he's been in, really, is a big old bag of shit.

Out for Justice and Marked for Death are both superb as well otherwise, yeah, absolutely hopeless.

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6 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

I remember liking Hard to Kill as well, but I haven't seen it in a long time. 

Oh yeah, Hard to Kill has its moments, as does Under Siege 2.

There's also Executive Decision.....

but we probably can't count that!

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James Franco and The Disaster Artist

Seth Gordon and King of Kong

Guy Ritchie and Lock Stock

Uwe Boll and Rampage

(to be fair, Boll’s Rampage isn’t a great movie but compared to his others it’s a masterpiece. I haven’t seen the whole film either as the 10-minute “best of” video that used to be on YouTube was enough. It was great fun though. Basically a movie version of when you get bored on Grand Theft Auto). 

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1 minute ago, wordsfromlee said:

Guy Ritchie and Lock Stock

I liked Snatch, and the first Sherlock Holmes film. Haven't seen the second, but it's on my list.

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1 hour ago, Carbomb said:

I liked Snatch, and the first Sherlock Holmes film. Haven't seen the second, but it's on my list.

Second is genuinely good in places. One of the best Moriarty's I've seen. The moment where they meet is electric.

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1 hour ago, wordsfromlee said:

James Franco and The Disaster Artist

Seth Gordon and King of Kong

Guy Ritchie and Lock Stock

 

Wrong.

Franco was in two good Spider-Man films as well as 127 Hours and Rise of the Planet off the Apes.

Ritchie did Snatch, the Sherlock films and his Aladdin is Disney’s best re-imagining.

Gordon did Horrible Bosses and Baywatch which were both quite good. Certainly not turkeys

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Just now, Hannibal Scorch said:

 

Wrong.

Franco was in two good Spider-Man films as well as 127 Hours and Rise of the Planet off the Apes.

Ritchie did Snatch, the Sherlock films and his Aladdin is Disney’s best re-imagining.

Gordon did Horrible Bosses and Baywatch which were both quite good. Certainly not turkeys

Wrong

Franco didn’t direct any of those movies. 

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