One good film

[Loki]

I'm about 99% convinced Spielberg shot Poltergeist.  I'm sure a film editor could put together a better case, but everything about it feels like Spielberg, from the way the house is shot with the use of tight camera angles, to the characters and representation of small-town America, to the way the kids are smarter than the adults... it's classic Spielberg. 

The scene with the re-arranging chairs, which is done in-camera... not many people apart from Spielberg could pull that off I reckon.

 

[Factotum]

Isn't that now accepted as fact that he directed nearly all of it? I've heard it so many time and nobody has ever really denied it. Plus it was marketed so much around Spielberg's involvement.

[Hannibal Scorch]

35 minutes ago, Factotum said:

Isn't that now accepted as fact that he directed nearly all of it? I've heard it so many time and nobody has ever really denied it. Plus it was marketed so much around Spielberg's involvement.

Well, to be fair Poltergeist was granted a PG rating in America. Not sure how you are going to get many families to watch your film if the poster says "From the twisted mind of the creator of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."

At the same time though, it is weird how it has never actually BEEN confirmed either. I agree all signs point to Spielberg, but it's odd almost 40 years on there has been no official comment on the whole thing.

 

1 hour ago, Loki said:

I'm about 99% convinced Spielberg shot Poltergeist.  I'm sure a film editor could put together a better case, but everything about it feels like Spielberg, from the way the house is shot with the use of tight camera angles, to the characters and representation of small-town America, to the way the kids are smarter than the adults... it's classic Spielberg. 

The scene with the re-arranging chairs, which is done in-camera... not many people apart from Spielberg could pull that off I reckon.

 

If Spielberg is directing you on how to do the shot, it's going to look very Spielberg. It's a shame he never visited any Kevin Smith film sets

[Hannibal Scorch]

Sorry for the DP, but on the George Lucas talk, there is an article on Den of Geek about unreleased Spielberg Projects (https://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/steven-spielberg/66893/the-unmade-films-of-steven-spielberg), and thought it was interesting based on some of the conversations. 

"

We’ve detailed the numerous unproduced drafts of the fourth Indiana Jones film on the site in the past. After making Schindler’s List, Spielberg was reluctant to revisit the Nazis in the more light-hearted adventurous playground of an Indy sequel. Still, for a while there, the potential fourth film would have found Nazis hiding out in South America after the end of World War II as its main antagonists, rather than getting the Soviet Union involved.

Written by Frank Darabont, the script for Indiana Jones And The City Of The Gods is not difficult to find online. It features many of the elements that would appear in Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, including crystal skulls and an alien intervention rather than a divine one. Furthermore, the turncoat sidekick character that would become Ray Winstone’s Mac was originally called Yuri, a younger Russian colleague of Indy’s who was earmarked for Simon Pegg to play.

This 2004 draft, which was originally readied for production following War Of The Worlds, is funnier, smarter, and considerably more enthralling than the film we eventually got. Spielberg and Harrison Ford were all for it, but producer George Lucas vetoed it and a new script was sought ahead of the film’s eventual production in 2007. The rest, as they say, is history."

Oh what could have been

[Chest Rockwell]

Oh.. I might go find that script and give it a read. Thanks!

[HarmonicGenerator]

Also speaking of George Lucas, this article on Cracked goes into how the editors basically did the climactic trench run of Star Wars for him:

The success of Star Wars is an object lesson in how nobody can win without a little help. Or, you know, a lot. For all of George Lucas', let's say, inconsistent creative instincts, he was wise enough to hand a massive amount of control over to a trio of skilled editors: Paul Hirsch, Richard Chew, and Marcia Lucas, the latter of whom George apparently married out of gratitude and then divorcedshortly after Return Of The Jedi.

These editors sat down and adjusted huge swaths of this very weird little film Lucas had shot called Star Wars. Most notably, Marcia rebuilt the Death Star trench run scene from the ground up. She knew that, as originally planned, it dragged and had no sense of urgency, saying that audiences needed to "cheer when Han Solo comes in at the last second" (rather than, say, simply wake up during the end credits music). But the biggest problem she had to solve -- one that is lethal to any action sequence -- was that there was no tension.

That's why the biggest change was cleverly altering and reediting the footage so that, instead of hanging in space like a fat machine moon with nothing to do, the Death Star was actively attacking the Rebel base on Yavin IV. Yep, that was all added later. You ever wonder why the Death Star didn't just shoot the planet Yavin, which was in the way, and destroy the moon that way? Because none of that stuff was originally filmed. In the original script, they weren't under a direct threat.

The whole notion of the Rebel base being on the brink of obliteration by the Death Star's giant laser (thus putting a ticking clock on the mission) was created in post-production with whatever they could cobble together. That's why you never see any onscreen character mention the base being under attack, and instead we're given offscreen voiceovers and random cut-ins of computer screens saying "The Death Star is totally about to fire on us, you guys!" That was all their attempt to add excitement to the sequence.

You can see what the original would have looked like here, or read the shooting script. The whole third act is just lifeless. The motivation for the final sequence would have boiled down to "The Empire is probably going to destroy our base at some point in the future, so we'd better take out the Death Star as a preventative measure." Important side note: Film editors don't get nearly enough credit in general.

[Hannibal Scorch]

So can we now agree my George Lucas shout wasn’t as awful as it first appeared