For a little more background on the edit. Marcia Lucas was told by George that she was an okay editor and she says after working with him for so long that was his only compliment he ever gave her. They got divorced after Jedi and she ended her career there. She was an amazing editor and Lucasfilms tries their best to remove her from the history of star wars despite her monumental work as seen in this video. I believe her absence is obvious in the prequels.
Editing is such a misunderstood art but you can see from her portfolio that she was exceptionally talented, much moreso than George. In a way, the fan revolt against the prequels was perhaps her best revenge.
odstlover George Lucas was, and probably still is, an ass with a narcissistic view of himself. I'll never forget an interview I saw of him around the time of the original trilogy where he is lamenting all these people talking back to him, doubting his "vision" of the story, wanting to try different approaches...and the whole time I realize he's begrudgingly talking about the people who saved his films, what an ass.
Its such a shame, because George had fantastic ideas but simply was terrible at implementing it. Imagine how good the sequels would have been with editing like the original trilogy...
Yeah, editing is very important in all aspect of film making, especially before pre-production and on the script. Seriously, bad stuff happens when you give the directors too much leeway in the story side. An example of this is the crap that is Alien Covenant.
I kind of feel sorry for Luke's buddies who were cut. Sitting in a bar years later.."I was in the very original Star Wars, but then something happened...."
I feel sorry for Wedge - he's Scottish; and a trained Shakespearian actor as well. But the Rebel Alliance only lets in Americans apparently (against the evil British Empire!) So Wedge's dialogue was dubbed over by an American voice actor.
When I first found out about how terrible the initial versions of the movie were, it made a lot more sense how George Lucas could be the same person who made the prequels and this movie. The editors should get a ton of credit for making this series as big as it is.
George Lucas's strength is world building and the amazing creativity and imagination that takes. When it comes to directing he isn't the best. His best work is when he is overseeing the project as a producer like in Episode 5 or Star Wars the Clone Wars.
Rekasha couldn't agree more. Dave filoni really took George's outlandish vision and was able to make fantastic stories. In the new movies, I feel like part of that is missing. Disney seems to miss the point that Star Wars isn't great because of storm troopers and tie fighters and at-ats and x-wings, it's great because of the fantastical nature of the setting and the interestingly realistic world that is a resultant of the story. Again, the one thing the prequels got right is the imaginative part of Star Wars, something I hope Disney learns with The Last Jedi.
I think you are underestimating the need to reintroduce Star Trek to the market. Yes for someone where all the films are in their memory, Force Awakens may see to not push things. But for for everyone else it reintroduces and pushes forward. Also those elements are things that attract people. Don't think imagination solves everything.
Neoblackdragon True, I do think that bringing in a new generation is a good idea, and bringing new life to old characters is wonderful but if it has no creative spark it just feels like a heartless cash grab.
He's also an innovator. Every movie he made introduced technology that had never been used before (or hadn't been used that way). Lets also never forget LucasArts.
@@mrkitty777 A little? Well, I guess Avatar is just Pocahontas modified a little because they have a similar structure. JFC people like you are so insufferable
I thought other people and myself like the opening 20th Century Fox theme because of nostalgia. But I read John Williams made the opening score align with that fanfare. Definitely better to have John Williams than to use classical music; it was OK for _2001: A Space Odyssey_ which is so slow, and we hadn't seen it before. The score for _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ was also good (they re-used the title for _The Next Generation),_ but there's too much staring at the models.
In the original script Obi Wan, during his fight against Vaders would originally say this: "If you strike me down, my ground will become higher than ever"
I wonder why they didn't talk about their last battle on Mustafar? Vader tells Obi-Wan, "When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the Master". That's not how it was at all.
Trevor Estrada if you watch the "making of" for Lord of the Rings you find that Peter Jackson's wife Fran Walsh had a similar critical role in ensuring that Jackson didn't make huge blunders, like having Aragorn fight Sauron at the end. Lesson: always listen to your wife.
I'm glad she's getting more kudos for Star Wars. Did you know she also helped with the script? Along with Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (although they all went uncredited, presumably since Lucas wanted to seem like he knew how to write). She also edited The Empire Strikes and Return Of The Jedi. I have nothing but love for the woman.
P Ferreira Why are you shitting on a woman you don't know about her divorce arrangements? What does that have to do with anything? What does it have to do with you? Oh I get it, someone is giving credit to someone other than George Lucas for Star Wars huh? That upsets you doesn't it? Read a little deeper and don't believe every piece of bullshit you have been brought up to believe about who was responsible for Star Wars. I was brought up with that belief too but, after the prequel trilogy (when I couldn't understand how the man who made Star Wars could make three such ineffective films), I researched a little deeper. The more I researched, the more it became obvious that one of my childhood heroes was not responsible for a lot of the stuff he took credit for. If it hadn't been for Marcia Lucas then the first film would have been shit and Star Wars as a concept would not have grown into the behemoth it is today. She nurtured that film, like she no doubt nurtured her husband through the film, so effectively you're criticising someone who is largely responsible for one of the most loved films on planet Earth because you don't agree with their divorce arrangements? You make me laugh. Come to think of it your statement is sexist even. Where is it written that a woman should end up with the children in a divorce proceedings? You're also assuming that was her decision and not the result of Lucas hiring expensive lawyers. I will answer my own question though. Nowhere, nowhere is it written that women should keep the kids. Like I say, that is a sexist assumption on your part.
Hey everyone. In this current form our pro-collaboration message has been interpreted by many as anti-Lucas. That was never the goal, nor the intent of this video. It should go without saying that George Lucas supervised, approved, and even contributed to all of these editorial changes. However, having seen the response, this is a point of fact that clearly should’ve been stated and it was an oversight on my part that that simple acknowledgment wasn’t included. George Lucas made Star Wars with the help of incredible team of people and that is an achievement worth celebrating. -Joey
You gave Lucas credit - it's just that us fans have a love / hate relationship with the man. Clearly, he was at his best when he had a smaller ego and had the sense to listen to others.
well put to the commentor. As the 2004 DVD set explains, the first edit was terrible, because the first editors, just did as they wanted, and didn't listen to George Lucas. George Lucas had to fire them and hire the two men and his wife, who created the final film. This video doesn't explain this.
Perhaps you should have used Annie Hall as an example. That movie went through some genuinely extensive changes and revisions through the editing process (much more extensively than any Star Wars movie that Lucas made) and went on to win Best Picture.
RocketJump Good, I am glad. Because in your anti-Lucas rant you forgot to mention how when Star Wars was a big success he shared his earnings with the cast. Lucas has thanked and acknowledged the talented people that made Star Wars possible. You didn't mention that did you. Oh, by the way...JOHN WILLIAMS SCORE WAS NOT ALTERED IN THE 1997 VERSIONS. Star Wars hard core fans are a joke. They complain about 3 frames missing from a scene 18. Since you are so much into nitpicking - Let's look at what happens when Mr. Lucas is removed from Star Wars. Oh, that's right the crappy Episode 7. Merry Christmas....
At 13:35, C3P0 talks about the tractor beam. In his autobiography, "I Am C3PO," Anthony Daniels recalls that in 1977, after he finished recording his lines, he thought he was done with the role. But they called him back to the studio three weeks before the film was released, to record one more line: "He says he's found the main computer to power the tractor beam that's holding the ship here." The reason the filmmakers gave him for recording the new line: "We forgot to tell the audience what a tractor beam is for."
@@sandal_thong The only factual mistake in this entire video -- which sadly gives more fuel than intended (or warranted) to people claiming it's "all lies" -- is its claim at 13:28 that C3-PO's line about "7 locations" was added during editing. In actually, this line was never in the original theatrical cut. It was added later, in the "silver screen edition" (the first "altered cut" Lucas ever released, in 1981). In general, C3-PO having new lines via ADR is one of those special edition changes so subtle and so pointless, that most people don't even realize it's there. Many people falsely believe C3-PO's new lines are in the original theatrical version, then baffled when they aren't there (I know I was). So this isn't an intentional error, because that was one of the _first_ changes Lucas ever made to SW, but the fact they got it wrong is now used as "proof" the entire video is fake (it's not, there are literally hundreds of sources confirming what it says).
@@Lady-Ythis video is nothing but a collection of falsehoods, half truths, blatant omissions and misinformation. ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.htmlsi=IQWFeUFoauJ3EopW
@@Lady-Y What about the fact that Marcia wanted to keep the early Luke scenes? And there are dozens more inaccuracies. What are these "hundreds of sources"? The author of this video cites one, and gets stuff wrong from that source.
@@Lady-Y Actually, this line does date back to 1977. The original Star Wars film had three different audio mixes for theaters with different sound capabilities: a Dolby Surround mix, a stereo mix, and a mono mix. The mono mix was created last, so the editors were able to make a few changes that they weren't able to make to the other two mixes, one of which was adding Threepio's line about the tractor beam. There are a few other changes, too; for example, the "close the blast doors" line, which most people think is a Special Edition change, also originated in this 1977 mono mix. While certain elements exclusive to it were eventually incorporated into later releases, the complete original mono mix was never released on home video, at least as far as I'm aware. Most people these days who watch the theatrical cut are only familiar with the stereo and surround sound mixes, which is why there's so much misinformation going around regarding what changes were made when.
@@murciadoxial8056 If you think about that.. they divorced during ROTJ production.. wich is where the problems began :we got a frakin boring and redundant Jabba's palace that takes over 1/3 of what was suposed to be the saga grand finale.. 40m where one character gets captured, then another, then another then another.. and all that "just" for getting Han.. they could had done it in 10m ..15 tops. then there is the whole Ewoks thing.. and the final simultaneous ground-space-throne battle. Wich ok its awesome.. but why every time i watch it i find myself fast forwarding all Ewok scenes? there is barelly NO rebels fighting footage.. mere seconds.. Han and Leia just hide in the door and shot at troopes here and there until Chewie (and Ewoks) capture an AT-ST.. the whole ground battle becames Ewoks vs Stormtroopers and thats it..
Two things really jump out at me: 1. The way the scenes are placed in the rough cut are the exact sort of things the prequels suffer from 2. This also seems to be why Lucas likes changing things in post so much.
listen to Lucas's audio commentary on Ep4. . Lucas contradicts every thing you are saying. Can you provide links to real interviews to back up what you are saying?
Brandon Smith Though I do find The Phantom Menace boring, I personally find that Attack of the Clones is the “peak” of George’s directing. I feel that at least Phantom Menace could’ve been saved with some editing which is why I think it’s somewhat better than Attack of the Clones
"But I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters with my friends." "Your friends are such a drag on this story, we're just cutting them out."
You know what the irony is? By removing the scenes with Biggs, a major emotional beat was lost on audiences, so Lucas had to go back to the edit and re-insert the scene where Luke reunites with Biggs.
@@qty1315 Star Wars did not start off slow in the beginning, if you've seen the movie there is an action sequence right at the start. George Lucas wanted a "James Bond" feel to the movie, where the audience sees the end of a character's last adventure, at the beginning. Interrupting the flow of that sequence with scenes of Luke and his pals added nothing more to the story. They were interesting to read in the novelization, but, they had to be cut! Lucas even decided to kill Ben off while shooting. But it was the correct decision. This video should mention that ALL MOVIES are changed by editing. Lucas still had his vision, and thanks to the late Gary Kurtz it was greatly improved!
@@agfagaevart The movie starts off with a slow text crawl, then a shot of a space battle which looks like two spaceships lazily drifting through space, then the action sequence begins. So yeah, slow start. Also, again, it did add to the story because we got to know Luke's pals who would die later in the movie. Without that sequence, it doesn't make sense for Luke to react the way he does later in the movie when his friends are killed, because the audience doesn't know that they were his friends.
Cutting the Luke/Obi-Wan hut scene right next to the Vader/Tarkin scene where he chokes the guy out was brilliant. Because you have back to back explanations about what the Force is, once from the good guy and then from the bad guy. I always thought that was a masterstroke because you have this same powerful force juxtaposed and explained from two wildly different perspectives one after another.
Yeah, definitely a difference. No more, "No, George, we need to do this..." only "Yes, sir!" But to be honest, everything 'wrong' with the prequels was there in Return of the Jedi.
@@GinjaNingerMan Not everything. No long expositional walks through Marriott hotel lobbies, for instance. No complete lack of a compelling conflict. (There's nothing in the first two prequels anything like the tension between the Emperor and Luke--nor nothing as subtle and complex--as the tension between Vader and the Emperor--"Strange, that I have not felt it (Luke's presence)...are you sure your feelings on this are clear, Lord Vader?" "They are clear...my master." Ewok nonsense aside, the main plot was completely compelling in Return and the final throne room battle...Luke's unmasking of his father...and the funeral pyre scene all well realized, powerful moments.
Have you ever seen the credits at the end of a movie. How many thousands of people it takes to get a movie done and most of them are not that good. This was a great movie. Lucas didn't fall off the turnip truck one day and accidentally make a great movie. Watch the documentaries on the making of Star Wars. Every editor saves the movie. That's the editors job. But if he or she doesn't have anything to save, it won't be a great movie no matter how good the editor is.
@@davidc.2878 Yeah but the 'Ewok nonsense aside' covers a large chunk of the story. The problem with Jedi is that you have basically two extremely successful parts within the story, which are the Jabba introduction and the Throne Room sequence (which is extraordinary, true). But they are act I and III of the story. The whole act II (which in screentime is almost half of it) should have been the epicenter of conflict, but it is mostly Luke brooding and... Ewoks. And Han & Leia become glorified extras in Jedi. They have nothing to do. Clearly Lucas did not want to make something out of Luke's newfound identity except use to it to fuel his internal conflict. We could have had a film where the rebellion found out about it and started to question Luke, or something of the kind, something that would have exteriorized his internal conflict and turned it into proper plot material (not filler) and given muscle to his character development. Leia has literally no interesting lines past the introduction and Han and Lando are basically the same character in Jedi. Only Luke and Vador get interesting stuff (and of course the Emperor) throughout.
Something tells me the *prequels* could have been saved in the edit. Unfortunately by the time George Lucas got to make them he was already surrounded by yes-men and his vision and storytelling wasn't openly questioned or challenged. The Phantom Menace is just a nightmare. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in a serious fight with Darth Maul is interlaced with Jar Jar Binks clumsiness in battle against battledroids. WHO in their right mind thinks that works?? Tons of scenes in The Phantom Menace should have been cut altogether.
Jar Jar should have been cut out altogether. The fact that Palpatine was behind the Trade Federation guys should have been revealed in the final act of the story not 5 minutes into the movie because it reduced the Trade Federation into some lackeys taking orders from some (to them) unknown guy. The script is so lousy no amount of editing can save The Phantom Menace.
Research "The Phantom Edit". The folks behind that project couldn't do as much for these movies as the editors did for the first Star Wars, but they still made them so much better.
Jar jar shouldn’t have been cut, fans shouldn’t have been so toxic- if they hadn’t been a bunch of bullies they would have found out in AOTC why he was like this because he was actually meant to be a Sith Lord. There’s a reason why dooku comes from absolutely knowere just search it and you’ll find a 45 min video explaining it in detail.
@@wezmarauder2754 Correct. I doubt even better editing could have saved The Phantom Menace. People blame Jar Jar Binks too much but he is just one in a line of badly written characters. Jake Lloyd was wholly unconvincing as young Anakin. Qui-Gon seems to decide things arbitrarily and at no point does one think:"Wow, Gui-Gon really is a wise jedi who sees the big picture of things." Queen Amidala says very little and when she does (as queen) you just cringe at her lines. And last but not least. The Trade Federation are cowardly wimps and their battle droids are useless. Some threat. You'd think Palpatine would pick a more competent and scary lot to be his partners in crime/unknowing pawns.
People only talk about Star Wars, but in a remaster of THX-1138, George Lucas added CGI wings on a lizard in some random scene. Imagine, 30 YEARS after making a movie, feeling the need to put wings on some lizard ? The guy is mentally ill.
While I believe this video wasn't meant to bash George Lucas, it omits a lot of key elements about the making of the film, and makes Lucas pass for a clumsy guy who really didn't had much idea of where his film was going... which is far from being the truth
He omitted and changed so much from the original source (JW Rizzlers book).If he didn't do this intentionally, then he simply has worst research skills. Either way, RJ isn't worth listening to.
It WAS intentional. He doesn't just omit key info, he presents actual lies, warping the timeline of all of this. How did Marcia Lucas save Star Wars after Lucas's rough cut screening when she LITERALLY QUIT BEFORE IT!? Why is John Jympsan NEVER EVEN referenced? Why is Marcia credited as cutting the Tatooine scenes when the book explicitly states she FOUGHT to keep them in? Not to mention the way they precisely choose to clip quotes... Yeah they knew what they were doing
Yeah, it's always said that they were people all around Lucas who helped to cut down some of his ideas, but somehow we never talk about the ideas his surrounding had which he didn't retain for the better... But yeah, for a subject with this much documentation, they really should have gone further, unless they really wanted to discredit Lucas...
@@ludwik7326 They did want to. It's almost irrefutable at this point. The information they leave out, and the WAY they choose to leave it out. As well as the random lies that they start pulling
She is the reason Lucas made the special editions, if he had not vastly changed them, he would have to pay Marcia a % of the earnings. And now that Lucas appointed Cunthleen Kennedy to run Lucasfilm, who gave us TLJ, I just want to say: Fuck you George!!!
Lucas had people like Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston design EVERYTHING you see on screen. I've seen Lucas behind the scenes and he just asks people to design a spaceship and they design it for him. His input is THAT basic!
@@Jucelegario blame steven spielberg for kennedy. he collaborated with her husband on close encounters in 1977. and then rather than firing her for being a terrible PA to spielberg on raiders, he appointed her to a producer role, which is what she was for almost all of spielberg's movies including the indy films, ET and jurassic park and movies like the bourne films. Had he fired her, she might not have grown to such heights and been trusted by lucas. although the signs were there she sucked like the jurassic park /// trainwreck production and other stuff. this time it wasn't george's fault.
He was, he would never shut the fuck up, and the only thing useful he EVER said was that they hyperdrive was damaged in empire.. which, wasn't really needed. The clunking sounds told us that
Meesa C3PO meesa can speaksa 6 millionsa forms of dialogsa. I think 3PO can safely go down in Star Wars history as actually being loved by most people who actually understand the value of having characters of different tone to give the other characters balance. EI Mary & Pippin in LOTR. Jar Jar and his ridiculous race is only enjoyed by light sabre loving fan boys who need to cling to something
Yes but C3PO nailed it. I loved him playing the victim in his British accent. He was an awesome character. He should have been used in TPM and the rest of the prequels instead of JJ Ab.... oh I mean Jar Jar... LOL
@@Artielectric okay, see, I loved him too, he was like salt, he enhanced and added contrast to what was there. If you pay attention, in the prequels, esp TPM jar jar is in every. Fucking. Scene. Fan edits have an awful time removing him because he's always there, so integral. Like salt.. too much kills the food.
I saw it as a teen in 77, in my opinion the sound sold the movie. Loaded with cool unique sounds for the special effects, The voices, and the Music was so well loved it sold as a double album.
I asked for _The Empire Strikes Back_ soundtrack, but didn't get it. It must have been a double album too, and doubly expensive. Instead I got a record that had one track from SECO's disco groove.
When you compare it to some of the stuff in theatres and on TV at the time, with it's halfhearted computer noise and literal "pew pew" noises, Star Wars significantly raised the bar for science fiction. 2001: A Space Odyssey used a pioneering classical music score in '68, and Star Trek used original classical music scores in its run from 66 - 68, but Star Wars solidified these elements in a way that resonates to this day. Now that I think of it I wonder if Star Trek's serious take on science fiction on TV didn't influence Kubrick in some way.
Everyone's saying Lucas was a crap director/writer, but he was actually opposed to the Luke scenes at the beginning. A colleague (Barwood, I think) told Lucas he needed those scenes to make the movie "more human." Also, the Twin Suns scene? It originally had WAY different music. It was switched AT LUCAS'S REQUEST. Lucas hated the first cut himself ("It's not the movie I wanted to make"). The main reason the first cut was bad? It wasn't Lucas. It was just REALLY POORLY EDITED. That's the whole point of this essay.
Lachlan Macfarlane I think the idea was that the script (by Lucas) has bad pacing. And the first edit mainly followed it. It was just at the first screening it was realized that the script flow/dialogue did not work on the screen. So it needed a major not just re edit but more so reconstruction.
that's all great alexandre but in the end he didn't do the first edit, he highered some one from the studio to edit the film he showed to his friends. Who later helpped him edit the film so your point falls.
Simply the Best Well not really though right? Cause, if parts of the script were studio mandated and he hired someone to do the first cut per the script, then it really weren't his choices that were the problem there no? The script problems don't really fall squarely on his shoulders there is the point I was making. When the first screening helped break studio mandate, Lucas was able to work with his team to make a much better final cut. In the end, all movies are team efforts and that's the real takeaway here. It's never 100% a single person's film. That's why you often see the greats working with the same people often; they work well together.
Lachlan Macfarlane great points and thanks for the info! People are so bent on criticizing Lucas because they’re mad about the prequels that they are blind to the fact that he is actually a great director.
My jaw dropped when you said "The Death Star wasn't about to blow up the rebel base." It's mind blowing how they were able to edit that entire sequence practically out of thin air.
... and mind blowing that GL would overlook such an obvious way to make the movie not suck. Guy understands world building but that's it. Not story telling, not dialog, not characters...
When I watched that scene as a kid, I didn't notice to plot line about the Death Star about to blow up the rebel base, and I found myself getting bored watching that sequence. Now when I watch it I'm more on the edge of my seat.
@@stevecarter8810 That's my big problem too. I'm good at world building, but that's it. Unlike GL, I have the humility to admit it and (should I ever become a filmmaker) defer to the expertise and wisdom of others to make up for my shortcomings.
If Lucas didn't have Marcia, Geoff Unsworth's photography (Lucas intended a gritty, hand-held style, not old school Hollywood), Ralph McQuarrie's incredible artwork that basically defined the visuals of Star Wars, the ILM guys that made the Universe real, the woman that designed Stormtroopers (I forget her name), the writers that were brought in to inject some humour and warmth to the rather cold script and, of course, John Williams' legendary score...Star Wars could well have been a cult 70's sci-fi B movie. Lucas owes an awful lot to a lot of people. I hope he paid them all their relevant dues.
@@FancyFramePictures You're right, but when seeing the sheer amount of Star Wars iconography that was actually conceived by other people, while Lucas continues to be regarded as 'the creator', it seems worthy of mention.
@@Tokiofritz He is still the creator since it was his idea and he made the production happen. As well as we humans are lazy and it would be too time consuming to look up all that was contributing and mantion them in dialouge.
To be fair, he choose most of these people, even the ones that polished and re-cut some of the shit he had produced up until that point. It’s not as if anyone was forced on him.
this video is full of false information literally please just google the title of the video and you will see the second video in the search proves this.
This is such a great example of how such a great step in cinematic history was not taken by just one man. It would have failed without his colleagues and friends. If it was just up to Mr. Lucas, he would have dropped the ball and never changed the future of Sci-fi.
This is probably why the prequels are so bad compared to the originals, he surrounded himself with yes-men/women and made some stupid decisions (like not making jar-jar a sith, which only made him that much more of a useless and annoying character, also that's probably why the 2nd movie is generally considered the worst, because they had to rework the entire thing)
wow, I consider myself a pretty diehard Star Wars fan and I didn't know about 90% of this. Excellent video. I have even more respect for the editors now
Maybe you've read the JW Rinzler books, but if you haven't I'd recommend them highly. You can get these on a kindle/tablet with sound bites and small videos embedded in them.
Also this explains a lot. Lucas is simply mediocre. He has a vision, but that is it. Apparently (with that quote in mind) he does terrible job as a director (of actors and scenes), hates it and if able, make his films just about editing few algorithms. And based on the films that followed (prequels) he is also terrible editor. So kudos for his creativity that introduced us to the Force, little green monsters and so on. Nothing else is earned, just parasited. All his 4bln empire would be nothing. A F-rated (not even B-rated) space crap that would fall into oblivion.
Malisman77 Since you are so easily persuaded by UA-cam videos to a certain opinion, I have a gift for you: Look up "What the sequels can learn from the prequels" on the Schmoesknow channel.
@@Malisman77 mediocre but made THX-1138, american graffiti and star wars. and he was awarded heavily and acclaimed heavily for graffiti which is why star wars was greenlit in the first place. AND was tabbed to do APOCALYPSE NOW because studios and his colleagues thought he was that good. Do some actual research....maybe you have in the 2 years.
As a kid I used to look down on editing, I just thought it cut things and I believed the more stuff the better. Later I realized it is essential. You convinced me it is an art form of its own.
as a kid you thought every scene in every movie should begin with the director yelling “action!” and contain every take of every shot? like how could you not think editing was important
The video also indirectly highlights how George basically wrote his wife and editting team out of the history of Star Wars. Without them, Star Wars would have been some forgettable schlock sci fi movie with some good effects. It's only after the prequels exposed George that people have realized how much he leaned on others. Which is perfectly fine, no one can do stuff alone. But taking nearly sole credit for a collaborative work was shitty of him.
Lucas actually used to patronise his wife about her editing skills, because he thought and still thinks that he's a master film editor! He even says that it's his strong point in the PT Making of docs. He said that's where he feels most at home, in the editing room. Trouble is, he's a disaster in the editing room! Take the Falcon's escape from Bespin in ESB, for example. Originally we had a perfectly paced action sequence, but then Lucas dumped a load of mini clips of Vader making his way back to Executor in there for absolutely NO reason! I mean, WHY?! Not only are they not needed in any way whatsoever, but the stupid little clips break up the action and drama!
She was a genius and saved the OT, imagine if Obi Wan hadn't died (meaning probably no Yoda ever existing) and the Death Star battle wasn't all that good. I think people should give her credit without talking about Lucas, she won an Oscar and he never did.
the fact that a video with bullshit charged language and blatant misinformation has 3 million views and more appraisal than pushback is an affront to the art of creation and fills me with despair for the human race.
17:30 - ...and then promptly got rid of most of them by Return of the Jedi, and ALL of them when working on the prequels. The success of the original Star Wars trilogy, by all accounts, was due to his then wife (Marcia Lucas - a very smart and talented woman, whom Star Wars fans have mostly ignored; if you love the original trilogy, THANK Marcia Lucas) saving George from himself (he remains his own worst enemy), and in collaborating with very talented people, with far better ideas than Lucas had. Unfortunately, George received all the credit, and the clout / power he received from it allowed him to do whatever he wanted going forward.
People don't know about her because he pretty much deleted her from star wars history, he took her credits off the film I believe and then of course down played her input
TuomioK - True. But how many of those Oscar winners became multi-billionaires, had the power to do whatever they wanted, and were a household name worldwide? Recognition from your peers is nice, but that quickly fades when you see the decades of outrageous rewards George Lucas reaped off of other people's talents and creativity.
To be fair, most great movies go through a lot of re-writes, scene deletions and recuts. Even reshoots. As a professional film editor I can tell you it is standard practice to call the editing process the 3rd writing process. For all movies. That said, seeing this process you put together is fascinating! Thanks for doing it.
George Lucas was the chief editor on the original Star Wars. He oversaw the entire process and edited the acclaimed gunport sequence himself. His wife Marcia only edited a third of the film and left to work on another film before the final edit was even completed. There were two other editors on the film, who edited the other 2/3 of it. And besides, nearly every film, as you said, is saved in the edit. ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.html
I love this video! I've heard many times that Star Wars was saved in editing by Marcia Lucas but now I know how exactly she did it. This must have taken an insane amount of research and it's really well written and edited. Thank you!
Except the fact the GEORGE worked hand in hand with Marcia in the edit room - uncredited. G Lucas has edited *all* his films and others (like THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE NOW). Something the history revisionists either hide or forget.
He was on STAR WARS. The type of revisionist history in these videos need to end, people still so butthurt about the prequels they want to rob Lucas of any accomplishment.
EVERY MOVIE IS SAVED IN EDITING. We just don't know enough about most movies to understand the extend to which their rough cuts did NOT work. The first cut of almost every movie is a mess.
As a professional editor, this isn't entirely true. Yes, there have been MANY films that were saved in editing. However, most GOOD films had a very deliberate and planned concept of how they would be edited before they were even shot, because not having any kind of clear idea of the film's overall structure would be utterly incompetent. Hence, _STAR WARS_ is a unique case of an editor (Marcia Lucas) actually being more responsible for authoring a film than its Director. This is certainly not a common process for most films. For a better indication, the rough cut of _RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK_ was virtually identical to the finished film. There were a few scenes that got trimmed, but the ones that stayed were generally left untouched from their rough version and their sequence order in the film was also the same. The only major change from rough to fine ("fine cut" is the most commonly used term in the industry for a final cut) was the addition of the closing romance scene, outside the steps of Washington... ...The original included no such scene... ...but then Marcia Lucas commented how odd it was that such an integral character just disappeared from the film, never to be heard from again. So George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan wrote it as a new scene, which Spielberg filmed as a reshoot; it was added between the final two scenes. Otherwise, it's the same film. This is probably a more common example of what happens during movies editorial processes; trimming and minor addition. The "fine tuning" segment of the video is usually all that happens on most films, but some exceptionally troubled productions have had to do more work in certain historical instances. _STAR WARS_ is one of them. Interestingly, since that film was made, it inspired a radical new way of working; in which directors will now DELIBERATELY shoot their films with next to zero vision, and drastically rework them in editing. Terrence Malick is an example of a great filmmaker who works this way on purpose. Every film he shot since 1998 stopped using storyboards, and every film he shot since 2010 (with the exception of _A HIDDEN LIFE_ ) was shot without a script. So this style is usually done INTENTIONALLY when it happens now, as opposed to this film where it was a happy accident of being able to save a film with no vision upfront.
@@MrMarsFargo No, Marcia Lucas herself debunked this idiotic theory, look it up. George Lucas is one of the greatest filmakers of all time, and he alone came up with everything Star Wars fans have grown to love today. To pretend that literally everyone else "fixed" the movie is moronic at best.
@@MrMarsFargo Also, George Lucas was one of the chief editors on the project as well, because he is also a great editor. So if the movie was "saved" in the edit, guess who saved it?
@@calebadams690 Kay, go ahead and argue with an ACTUAL PROFESSIONAL EDITOR who had to study and research how this film was made as part of his training. That’s not arrogant at all 🤩
Everyone needs to watch Nerdonymous review of this analysis; this "analysis" is very poorly researched and completely fabricated at many points. I like RocketJump, but man you guys missed the mark on this one.
Which is not true. The editing in Star Wars did change key tactical points of the narrative and made the film the classic that it is. Other films adhere pretty much to the screenplay. The only other film that I could readily think of where the narrative structure was built through editing was Apocalypse Now! which was also edited by Marcia Lucas.
@@toddsputnik8265 That's just a lie. The narrative structure was not changed by the editors (apart from the fact that George supervised all the editing!), and certainly not by Marcia 🤣 For example, it was Marcia who fought to keep the earlier introduction of Luke in the film (according to Rinzler's "Making of Star Wars" book).
I did not mean to imply that Marcia made the changes and that George was not an integral part of the editing process, after all, he wrote the screenplay. George and Marcia did work hand in hand during THX 1138 and American Graffitti so the narrative changes in the editing process were done under his auspice. But SW is amazing as to how it improved from the original raw cut to the version released in 1977. And the editing out of the Biggs scenes was brilliant because those scenes are really bad.@@fundhund62
@@toddsputnik8265 You know nothing of how the editing process works. I'm a skilled hobbyist editor myself and can straight up TELL you that every film relies upon the editing process to fundamentally shape the final film. Editing isn't just placing scenes in order. There's a rhythm to editing; every single shot has to be framed and cut to a beat. Your argument is akin to saying that individual musicians don't make any real impact upon a song. They just play the notes in order. You're ignorant. Literally every great film ever made owes a part of its success to the editing process, just as it owes a part of its success to the script and to the direction and to any number of other filmmaking techniques and skillsets. As a skilled editor myself, I am sick to death of ignorant plebs thinking that the editing process is akin to putting a child's jigsaw puzzle together and essentially monkey work. It's an art form, so show it some damn respect.
The problem with the prequels lay more with Lucas' shortcomings in the areas of screenwriting and directing actors, as far as I'm concerned. Even so, I'll take them over any of the movies Di$ney has put out so far. They clearly don't "get" Lucas' universe.
You know what I find ironic? Many of the deleted scenes from the original trilogy would have made the originals worse, but a lot of the deleted scenes in the prequels would have made the prequels better. You can really make or break a movie depending on how you edit it.
@Captain Brandon Horror Lover Yes, and if George cared enough about his marriage during the original trilogy, he could have saved it and kept the one collaborator, his wife, and co-editor, during the Prequel trilogy whose artistic opinions he couldn't ignore.
This video actually isn’t very well researched, and fails to back up even its simplest claims. It’s a nice short and flashy video that makes you go “Oh, that’s neat”. I honestly advise you to do your own research into the production of Star Wars and it’s editing, because most of what this video says either isn’t true or is framed as bad when the edit made actually doesn’t change much. There’s also a much more researched video on the subject by Nerdonymous, that I would highly recommend. I’d also just recommend reading the book “The Making Of Star Wars” by J. W. Rinzler. RJ pulls a few things from that book, but either skews them, leaves out half of a quote, or just straight makes something up. This comment is not here to discredit the editors of Star Wars, they did a fantastic job and deserve a lot of praise. But to say “Star Wars was saved in the edit” is ridiculous when in reality it when through the same drafting and editing that all films go through.
Nerdon's video is far worse than RocketJump's. Unnecessarily long and for a video that's meant to only be analysing RocketJump's video, which is entirely about Episode IV, there is a worryingly high amount of sequel bashing with edited clips. Is it really necessary to have that every two minutes, is their video really that boring to them? Also the video doesn't really back up its points with more than assumptions. Its research is fragmented at best. I think Nerdon was just so hellbent on not giving RocketJump any amount of credit for anything that he ended up going way too far. RocketJump's video is not perfect, but it's definitely more interesting and better made than the nearly 90 minute rant of some guy trying to channel their inner MauLer.
@@destinedwarlord2128 “A poorly researched, falsehood filled dumbass hit piece on George Lucas is better than the video that debunked it presenting actual facts, backing up every single claim and doing extensive research because the latter is lOnGgG” -you
@@cryogenixoldskool5803 its only right in the sense that every movie ever made goes thru extensive editing, but ofc hese acting like this is a special case which either means hes extremely bias or just dumb. both maybe?
It's a shame how a really interesting documentary about how editing "saves" a movie it brought down by deliberate misinformation about when the changes were made and who made them. By February 1977 the rough cut you describe didn't exist, many of the changes you describe were already made, and two of the three editors had left the picture already. The rough cut you describe is the October/November 1976 cut, in which Chew, Hirsch and Marcia Lucas worked. Instead of describing the editing as an organic process that slowly improved the movie, you present it as "Lucas' first edit was bad, then three editors came in and they saved the film". A shame really.
Current narrative is that "women are amazing", to score social media points, and it's always easy to use Lucas as blame for everything. That's all they did with this vid. Promote a narrative based on current meta, that has nothing to do with facts but feelings.
@@Janzer_ I mean it's pretty well documented the Prequels were ass because Lucas didn't have anyone to tell him no, and was kind of megalomaniac while running them. So it's not just a phony narrative to look back and notice the differences between who he collaborated with on his earlier projects compared to his later films.
@@llJiggyFlyll I mean, it's not really documented at all. It was claimed in some retarded internet video by RLM and then repeated ad nauseum by even shittier internet commenters.
"If my blade should find its mark, you will cease to exist. But if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." That sounds pretty damn badass, actually.
@@Digital111 I bet Sir Alec Guinness told Lucas to say that line rather than the original dialogue. Guinness did openly complain to Lucas the lines were incredibly clunky and poorly written. Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill said the same.
It's needlessly wordy and inferior to what we saw in the original 1977 theatrical edition. It's the equivalent of turning the Terminator's "I'll be back" into "Give me a moment. I will return shortly after I've completed other tasks." Of course, "needlessly wordy" and "inferior" are exactly the words to describe 90% of the dialog, story, and imagery in the prequels too. You know, those movies where George had full creative authority and nobody around him to tell him how much it sucked. In this respect he's much like Gene Roddenberry: a guy who came up with a great idea and then made it suck (a.k.a "ST:TMP") when he got his way. At least Roddenberry was stopped after ruining one film. George got to ruin three prequels and retroactively ruin the original trilogy. George is a great idea man. He took Kurosawa's stories and transformed them into a sci-fi universe. But that's where it ends. George is not a good movie maker. The success of 1977's Star Wars is despite him, not because of him. Empire, arguably the best of the originals, had George involved the least. One is compelled to wonder how much better RotJ might've been had that trend continued.
So this basically goes to show George Lucas shouldn't have had free-range on the prequels because on his own he can't make a good film. Episode 4 wasn't saved by him, it was saved by Steven Spielberg/Others. Edit: It's been 6 years since I made this comment at the time of writing this edit and there's clearly a new-found appreciation for George Lucas' work in this saga, and this video has been disputed by other creators. Either way, these films were clearly a collaborative effort, and I think Lucas stretched himself too thin on attempting to direct all 3 prequels compared to only 1 of the originals.
one thing to remeber in all of history there has never been a great movie which was made by 1 person film-making is a collaborative art one person can never make it good
So, that may be true, but if we look at the new sequels, we kind of see what happens when collaboration takes place...I mean, sure the Force Awakens was good, but only because they brought nothing new to the table. It was a complete rehash of Episode IV. If felt like a corporate product. I think there needs to be a balance: a director has a vision and the editors try to work with that vision, but also at the same time make clear that there are some things that the director gets wrong on many things.
Gary Kurtz should get most the credit. He was the producer up until RotJ and was instrumental in fleshing out the stories. He came up with the idea of the force. Lucas wanted it to be a crystal with magical powers. Kurtz said that was shit and made it more of an "eastern" type philosophy.
Well, sure, I think that the Force Awakens is better than Rogue One, and I loved the Force Awakens. However, the similarities don't just end at the Death Star. Tell me if you heard this: A evil military organization is searching for important documents that is entrusted to a small droid. A young adult who has been stuck on a desert planet with two suns comes across the droid and is caught up in the operation to bring the droid to the rebels. The young adult also comes across an old mentor who took part in the previous war and has a deep relationship with the Sith Lord. He's obviously hiding a secret about her relationship with said villain. Later the Sith Lord kills the mentor, and the young protagonist sees this. Overtime, said young adult gains powers in the Force and is driven to the Rebel's cause. Also, a Death Star comes into play primarily because said Rebels have gained the droid's information, and said Death Star blows up. The Force Awakens and a New Hope both fit these descriptions. It didn't necessarily anything new to the table in terms of plot. It does bring in new characters who I am interested in their arc, but that's it. Same battle between Rebels and Imperials. Now the question comes: can The Last Jedi build on said characters? If so, then The Force Awakens gets better. If, however, the Last Jedi becomes a repeat of the Empire Strikes Back (and a training scene with an old mentor already screams as such), then we are in big trouble, and I can safely say that the Force Awakens was a corporate product (because Star Wars didn't really need a sequel) designed to work off our nostalgia that I enjoyed, but kind of felt empty.
The original turned into the classic we know it today because there were people around to tell Lucas "Nah, let's go back and take another look at this." If only they'd been around when he made the prequels...
Honestly this is why I hate the Prequels with the passion of a thousand suns. I rage at what could have been, what we would have in their place if talented people had still ridden herd on Lucas. And that lack of second thought was an albatross around the necks of the people charged with giving us the last trilogy.
@randomguy8196 you do know that Lucas offered both the director of empire strikes back and spielberg the direction of the prequels but they rejected it? He also asked chew and Hirsch to come back and they declined.
@@onemoreminute0543 I can't understand how people can be so naive and believe in any nonsense they are told. I don't know really much about film industry. But I'm 100% sure that director of any movie has full control over filmmaking process, this is why he is called Director. Editor can't just say "Fuck you" to director, make his own scenes out of nothing and put it in the movie without permission. He is not involved in shooting process, he is working with the material he is provided. If this material is shit, not a single editor can save it. It is same with music. If it has shitty chords and melody it can't be saved in the mixing process.
Again people trying to make up the narrative that Star wars is good in spite of Lucas and not because of him. “How star wars was saved in the edit was saved in the edit” clears up all these points.
I think both worked very well together. People blame that GL was not instrumental, which is wrong. George clearly had a unique talent no one ever thought of at the time. He had a vision, an original idea, and a mettle to do things no one tried before. However, he needed a team of good crews to make that dream come into true. Original ideas in prequels were genuine and good. The execution was horrible. I wonder what prequels will be like if Marcia Lucas and other editors that helped GL were there. Unfortunately, GL failed to see how important his support crews were.
Without Marcia Lucas, we may not have known that Chewbacca was someone to be feared. She not only edited the movie -- she provided a lot of input during the entire production. For instance, it was her idea that Chewie would scare a Mouse Droid.
"In the first five minutes, we were hitting everybody with more information than they could handle. There were too many story lines to keep straight: the robots and the Princess, Vader, Luke." If this doesn't sound exactly like the prequels, I don't know what does. It highlights PERFECTLY what happened to the series once George Lucas took command of editing.
Marcia Lucas fought to keep the early Luke scenes in. George didn't want them in and got his way. Ergo those cuts are not proof that Marcia and Marcia alone saved Star Wars.
@Grasshopper From JW Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars p.232: "George also felt there was no reason to see Luke until he became an active participant in the story. But it was not an easy decision to make to just delete those sequences; Marcia fought to keep them in, and the four scenes with Luke and his friends were tried in different places. But more arguments for cutting came from the fact that George didn't like the performances, and that the later relationships Luke creates are stronger."
George edited a good chunk of Empire Strikes Back and aided Spielberg's editorial of Jurassic Park once Steven moved on to Schindler's List during post. And he was involved in lesser extents to the editorial process for all the films he directed and/wrote. As well as the Indy films. He CAN edit just fine.
@@MiguelCruz-oz7km Marcia had minimal input on the film. George, Chew and Hirsch presided over many more of the changes. Really it was Chew's baby if any of them.
@@scottb3034 picked up Paul Hirsch's memoir. According to him, his and Chew's contract ended at the end of 76, but Marcia left to go work on Scorsese's New York, New York after his original editor died. Of the two editors remaining Lucas chose to keep Hirsch on board into 77 to work on the fine cut of the film as well as inserting the VFX shots as they came in from ILM. What lends credence to his account is that Hirsch was hired as the sole editor of The Empire Strikes Back. Hirsch says he ran into Lucas at the premiere of The Force Awakens. Lucas told him, "You were the last man standing. You saved my picture."
No one under 45 will understand this films impact on Generation X. It was our Wizard of Oz. It blew us away. I get thrown back to 77 every time i see clips of SW. How we lined up around the block, seeing kids beaming faces coming out, who had just watched it before we were about to. Space was captured on the big screen like nothing before. No movie has had that impact since.
The early 70s in the UK were a bit rubbish. Oil crisis, miners strike, 3 day week, c**p fashion, lousy music (except hard rock - my opionion, other opinions exist). Then we got Star Wars (followed by Indiana Jones). Was a great time to go to the cinema.
Actually, it was George's idea to take out the unnecessary scenes of Luke in the beginning, and Marcia fought to keep them in. It says so in JW Rinzler's book. ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.html
This video makes lots of false statements like that to fit his narrative that Lucas is a dunce whose mediocre work was saved in the edit by brilliant editors. The rough cut that DePalma & co saw was edited by her, for instance, and a lot of the other things this doco likes to credit to her is in the original script, written by Lucas. And none of them said the rough cut was a disaster, etc. DePalma made fun of the missing special effects scenes, and “this force shit”. They were great friends and liked to tease Lucas.
This video is complete and utter fiction. You can literally read the shooting scripts to see what George originally intended. Also he fired the first editor and started editing himself. He then hired the three final editors and they all worked together towards George's vision. Nothing ever gets put into a Lucas film unless he wants it there. Just look what he's done with these movies over the years. As technology improves he adds things back. Special editions anyone?
Holy crap I never knew! This makes all those hours planning and editing my short films worth it!!! I always felt like the whole story was changed no matter what during editing but this proves it1
LMAOOOOOO yeah this video sucks. It's poorly researched and spread so much misinfo just so Lucas haters can have another delusion of him being an incompetent dweeb who stumbled on success rather than writing and directing it.
Jesus, this video is not only malicious, it's incredibly idiotic. Obviously, George Lucas would never give a fuck, not in a million years, but I start to think the general public should mount up some mass lawsuit. It did hurt my brain.
Yeah, wtf you on about? This isn't 2012; people actually put effort into their videos, specially documentaries like these. Sure crap is still more popular, because crap will always sell, but this isn't that uncommon anymore.
It's not that quality. It portrays Marcia as some kind of savior of Star Wars. She edited one sequence in the entire film. Battle of Yevin. The other two editors did the vast bulk of the work that turned it into what it is today. Ppl like to over sell her role.
People are over blowing the argument that star wars was saved in the editing room because for every great movie there's a previous version of it that it's inferior. No matter what editing techniques they used, if the script wasn't working then the movie would still be a mess!
@@adamcade604 True. Given what they say towards the end of the video about the special editions, I think these guys have a chip on their shoulders with Lucas.
@@adamcade604 Well the main point of the video is that Star Wars had crucial *script* changes in the edit without which it probably wouldn't have been a smash hit.
Facts. I m saw that vid a few uears ago after watching this vid. And it blows my mind how ppl can be easily led astray with deceptive lies by omission. Ne4dnoymous vid did a fantastic job on actually showing the failings of Red Letter Media's vid.
yes but it wasn't and he had the wisdom to have it changed. Most movie scripts go through many changes. I am going through the 7th revision of a movie script now. THIS IS HOW MOVIES ARE MADE.
The Phantom Meanace had pretty good editing actually. It's not like we jumped to young Anakin playing with his friends in the middle of Obi Wan and Qui Gon's battle on the ship.
@Legendary Vocalists Dumb stories are dumb stories. The opinion that the Phantom menace is a bad film is a personal one, and not an objective one. The plot holes and incoherence in the last Jedi, the contradictions with the rest of the saga, and the fact that it's forced to continue from the worst sequel of all time... those are objective problems. TPM is a star wars film. The last Jedi is not
This video kinda further validates this notion that I've felt for a long time. George Lucas was extremely fortunate to attain the levels of success he did because clearly if it weren't for the team he had, Star Wars would not have reached the the legendary status it did. Lucas did great with coming up with the original idea of Star Wars but it was the people after him that took it to fame. Unfortunately, the average Star Wars fan would have never known who these editors were (I know I didn't). And to further highlight my point: the prequels. Lucas reached that level of fame to where no one wanted to openly criticize his work with the prequels. However, with the original Star Wars, people was upfront with him and ripped his movie apart.
Most successful people had help. I don't think it's unusual that Lucas was one of them, or that that makes his success less impressive. Probably every creative victory is full of unsung heroes. Like they say, 'no man is an island'.
I know this is hard to believe, but I sincerely think Lucas was aiming more for a "Godfather 2" kind of epic movie, a visual feast with some lengthy exposition, but he couldn't do it, so instead we got a tightly-edited James Cameron-style blockbuster. In fact, look at Terminator 2, and check out how much stuff was edited out. Lengthy and very expensive scenes had to be cut, once Cameron realized they didn't work too well. We get a better movie, but with a slightly odd feel and quirky pacing. In the end, the amazing effects sequences in both films save the day, and make them classics.
Aliens is another good example movie of a husband director/wife production team. Gale Anne Hurd made huge and very effective changes to cut down and tighten up the theatrically released version. IMHO Cameron's full 'director's cut' version isn't nearly as good as the theatrical release.
At the time, that was all I could say. What's sad is that there are still people who follow Rocketjump's "logic." Not as much as before, as the myth's been debunked and shredded countless times. Still, there are a few people who are so biased that no matter what you tell them, they still want to believe George was a lucky moron. Another myth that's been debunked was the idea that Gary Kurtz saved Star Wars. However, when you read about how ESB had all these problems on set, as well as the disastrous rough cut (all of which Lucas wasn't initially involved with), you get the idea that Kurtz had no idea what he was doing. @@KRobinson-ko1ne
Just watched a much longer and more detailed video essay that debunks the whole narrative of this video essay. It's called "How ,How Star Wars was saved in the edit' Was Saved In The Edit".
Yea i saw that too, but I think it misses the main thesis. The point is not that other films are not also saved in the edit, nor that star wars is unique in changing significantly through editing. The point is that Star Wars, as originally cut was a mediocre film. It only became a great film because of good editing.
@@jessehunter7197 Buuut the guy here lies and says the rough cut was what was shown to everyone when it was a later cut. He does stuff like that throughout this video, lie and misrepresent what happened to support his narrative.
Yes, when you read what Marcia did with the film story in edit, divorcing her took the heart out of George Lucas' work. Imagine what the prequels could have been like if George took a breather from film-making like she asked him to focus on his family for a bit.
@@kchishol1970 Imagine if Marcia just didn't decide to cheat on him with a worker building Skywalker Ranch. BTW she contributed to the relative disappointment that Return of the Jedi became compared to Empire and ANH and she had the least amount of input on Empire. So her savior capabilities were probably overblown. And Lucas was so unwilling to focus on family for a bit he quit directing/making films literally 6 months after she asked for divorce to raise their adopted daughter for 15 years AND have 2 more kids. LMFAO bro.
She only edited about a third of the film. George closely supervised the entire editing process, and he edited the famous gunport battle sequence on his own. The third of the film Marcia was responsible for editing included the scenes of Luke on Tatooine before he meets the droids. George was the one who wanted to cut them out. Marcia wanted to keep them in. Pretty fucking strange that this video doesn't mention that fact at all.
George Lucas was the chief editor on the original Star Wars. He oversaw the entire process and edited the acclaimed gunport sequence himself. His wife Marcia only edited a third of the movie and left to work on another movie before the final edit was even completed. There were two other editors who edited the other 2/3 of the movie. The notion that Lucas had nothing to do with the editing of the original movie, that he's a terrible editor, or that his wife singlehandedly saved from the movie from him--it's all a myth.
Talky, boring exposition-heavy and bad pacing. Now the prequels make sense. I wish more people realized how many unsung heroes there were in the first trilogy who saved Lucas' original ideas and made them into something better. Now we just need more recognition for Ralph McQuarrie.
hell, I would argue that the thing that cemented star wars as a cultural phenomenon was empire, and that movie was almost completely out of lucas's control, so lucas was just the guy that wrote a first draft that, in better hands, would have lead to something better from the get go.
Also ESB's success had a lot to do with Irvin Kershner rejecting a lot of Lucas's ideas and doing his own thing. Also Lawerence Kasdan and Leigh Bracket's script.
So, this makes sense why later movies weren't as good. You need the whole team. A good script A good shooting and a good editing. All to bring Lucas's vision to the silver screen. But the moment he starts trying to take complete control, shit hits the fan.
degree7 you haven't bothered to watch much or any of the behind the scenes ACTUAL non-biased commenting between Lucas and his "team"....have you? He literally surrounded himself with YES people. Most were his team from "young indy." Hell, there's even a scene where he's showing Spielberg the damn droid troops,...and Steven is like..."yeah,...cool guy...looks....great." Might want to take off the practice blinders and listen to some conversations.
+degree7 Nah, if you look at the behind the scenes footage, none of them dare to even question him, let alone tell him his idea is shitty. They are all yes-men. Unlike in the original film where his buddy told him the film was a bunch of bullshit and had to be heavily edited, and got him to let people refine his work. By the time of the prequels no one dared question him.
Actually the script wasn't THAT good, LOL. Alec Guinness had said the dialogue was "rubbish" and Hamill had asked Lucas to drop some lines too. By all intent, if the finished movie had followed the script verbatim it would have been a disaster...so Marcia Lucas basically help re-wrote the story via her editing.
@degree7 Money-making and merchandising motivated both the original and prequel trilogies, the original more so, although whether they were motivated by greed is debatable: A New Hope was meant to bail out American Zoetrope which Lucas co-owned with his friend Francis Ford Coppola, and the prequels were made to advertise the abilities of Lucas' CG animators so they'd have greater job security.
To be fair, he did ask other directors to helm the prequels (Ron Howard for TPM, Robert Zemeckis for AOTC, and Steven Spielberg for ROTS; Frank Darabont was also apparently supposed to write all the scripts), but the fact that they all turned him down and told him he should just make them himself is what led to all these problems.
+John Crafton It didn´t suffer at all. The prequels are actually the best Star Wars trilogy we have gotten so far. And I say this as someone who grew up with the original trilogy, and saw them all in theater!
@@fundhund62 so, what are the best - the terrible playing of HC, stupid dialogs ("send is bad"), plot holes, far-fetched to the OT, as if explaining everything unsaid or misinterpret everything, a rehash of a rehashed old things? Why Obi Wang not finished off Vader on Mustafar for example? It's so cruel to leave the dying wounded enemy (ex-friend & pupil), and quite dangerous, if he'll suddenly be cured? Or R2-D2, who knows everything but didn't say anything? Or the open secret with the Lord of the Sith, entrenched in the bowels of the Republic, which trough all 3 movies in a row dripping on the fragile young man's brains? Or Yoda, who ran away from the fight with him, what's worse than Obi WAN's act? Yoda knew Chewbacca? What for?? Why Tatooine again? C3PO was made by Darth Vader - LOL! Why didn't he take it with him as his property after Padme's death?
Nothing of what you claim is actually there. Or if it is, how the hell is it "bad".. or even a "plothole"?? So you don´t like Anakin building C-3PO? Or Yoda and Chewbacca knowing each other? That´s fine.. but it´s just your taste, nothing wrong with it at all.
John Jympson was the original editor, and it would be impossible to overstate his contribution to the art of film editing on A Hard Day's Night (which, when you think about it, was essentially the very first music video, almost 20 years before anyone had ever heard of such a thing). But it was clear that Star Wars was too new and unique for Jympson, and he didn't quite grasp what it was going for.
The notion that the Beatles created the first "music video" with "A Hard Day's Night" is complete nonsense. It was a musical and musicals existed before the Beatles came along, even in rock 'n roll music. Did you ever see "Jailhouse Rock" or "The Girl Can't Help It?" Just about every Elvis movie was a "music video," and as far as I know, John Jympson didn't work on any of Elvis'' films.
@@metv2363 Take a class in film montage or read a book about it and you'll find out that AHDN has WAY more in common with music videos than with Elvis movies. Good Lord.
@@metv2363 You're looking for a flame war. I'm not biting. Let me just say as a final response: ua-cam.com/video/y8AavEpS6CI/v-deo.html "...reconceived the movie musical and exerted an incalculable influence on the music video..."
3:00 Shows that Lucas is a genuis with a huge imagination, but needs other experts to help him simplify. It's like channeling the rage of a beast to something great
That's how it is with all of them. The advice and assistance Lucas received from the other filmmakers at that screening is similar to the advice and assistance Lucas provided to those same filmmakers on their projects. And a lot of those filmmakers were present and offered feedback on the prequels. The hatred comes not because they are bad movies, but because they didn't line up with fan expectation.
Not overstating. The prequels seriously sucked because no one bothered to cut the crap out of a crappy story. The editors on Star Wars ruthlessly cut the crap out of a bloated story to create a lean movie.
As revolutionary as it was, I would not call it a masterpiece, outside of a specific aspect like world-building to tell part of a bigger story through visual effects. Which is... very specific.
@A. Dimchev It's not overstating at all, the prequels show what would've happened if Lucas didn't have a bunch of critical people around him, telling him when he was being a dumbass and re-editing his scenes. Lucas by himself never could have turned that rough cut into the masterpiece that we got in the end. Lucas is saying that editing "is the part I have most control over", but if you notice, the edits that improved the original rough cut were all initiated by other people and largely out of his control, while the edits that ruin the original release version were all done purely by himself. Lucas is clearly very bad at self criticism and introspection, and this would've resulted in ANH being a complete disaster if it weren't for the team that he had around him.
Maybe this is why the prequels were awful compared to the first trilogy. Lemme explain. In the original trilogy, George Lucas hadn't had made a name for himself yet. Meaning the editors felt they could do more since they didn't think of Lucas as some genius. Looking at the script, it looks like an awful movie so the editors seemed like the backbone of the originals. The originals were a big hit so Lucas had a reputation. He wrote a similar script for the prequels except he probably took less feedback from his team. He had more control so it went his way. The editors didn't feel like they could challenge someone like him at this point, so they went with it. Maybe George Lucas isn't as great as people make him out to be. Maybe he is pretty great. You decide.
"In the original trilogy, George Lucas hadn't had made a name for himself yet." Umm, I'm sure some people at least regarded him as "the American Graffiti guy".
He has a great imagination but works better when he's on a leash. The same went for the indiana Jones movies. George had pretty crazy ideas but Stephen Spielberg talked him down and made mutual agreements. In the last crusade he originally wanted the film to be about Indiana Jones running around a haunted mansion. Also he came up with the alien idea in kingdom of the Crystal skull and in the bonus feature making of the film, Stephen said he didn't want it to be about aliens but George persisted
This video is such an inaccurate hit piece, trying to shift credit away from Lucas, literally contradicts the sources it gives. Like it’s so well documented that George wanted to have Luke introduced when he buys the droids, but he was convinced to add and shoot the extra scenes by his friends, but ultimately went back to what he wanted originally. Next, the idea of the Death Star blowing up the base is mentioned tones by Vader and Tarkin, the cutaways just empathised it more. The editing in Star Wars was great, but to say it was saved by it more than any film is so misleading.
george lucas isnt gonna come and suck u off for defending him in the comment section so i must ask why do u care so much LMFAO i cant stand star wars fans holy shit
@@kg7219 So let's put all the idea of fan dick sucking here as if anyone is really even doing any of that comments to the side for but a moment. You really don't think there is anything particularly wrong with noticing someone making false statements about a movie and the process it took to create that movie, and then correcting them about that? If there is something wrong with that then please, tell me what it is because being in the right and knowing what factually happens about movies and the creation process, is not being a dick sucking fanboy as you so obviously mean to imply.
To quote Luke "What a piece of junk". Ive never seen a more ill informed and whole heartedly made up collection of fanboy supposition and opinion trying to be passed off as fact in my life. You couldn't even get the info from the book and other fanboy video you "based" this on correct.
In the end, this "essay" is in fact just very bad fan fiction, and should not be taken seriously by anyone, really. AT BEST, this video is misleading and offensive. Whether or not it was the result of purposeful duplicitous-ness or just woefully incomplete or faulty research, this essay is riddled with inaccuracies, thereby rendering every conclusion suspect (and I'm being nice there, as I personally think the conclusions are just plain *wrong*.) The entire concept of Star Wars being "saved" in the edit is a complete fallacy: Real filmmakers know there are three versions of any movie... The version that was written, the version that was shot, and the version that was edited. OH WAIT. You KNOW that. There is plenty of evidence from interviews with the three editors that George was absolutely involved with the editing process, oversaw the entire thing, and it's a known fact that he did half of the assemble cut himself on weekends because he had to fire the original editor due to him not understanding George's vision., so the suggestion that Richard Chew, Marcia Lucas, and Paul Hirsch had to bail George out of a hole is just a joke! (which is further proved by the fact that Marcia fought to save those early, "pointless" scenes introducing Luke." *It was George's idea* to get rid of those scenes!)
This is fascinating! It brings to mind the numerous fan edits that exist of the Star Wars prequels. Last night, I watched Red Maple's 45 minute edit of Rogue One featuring John Williams' score and a few alterations, and found it immensely better than the actual film.
@@peterjoyfilms It seemed like it was just an experiment, since Rogue One is meant to take place shortly before A New Hope. Interestingly, even though the music was pretty good, the score was composed by Giacchino just a month or so before the film was released. They fired the original composer who was attached to the film, who I imagine had an entire soundtrack ready to go that Disney wasn't happy with.
Ceceli He does mention that he is going "to town", so to speak, to buy some parts and hang out with his friends. He likes to mod his crappy lansdpeeder.
Ceceli Lucas wanted to portray his love of souped-up cars, and hanging out with friends at some cool hangout, talking about mods and parts, but in a science fiction setting. But he couldn't achieve it.
@@stephenkeen5737 Or you could, you know, just watch them on a Blu ray or DVD collection. I mean, what kind of Star Wars fan doesn't at least have a DVD if not a Blu ray of AT LEAST the original trilogy, if not the first 6 films? I personally just completed my collection a few days ago when I bought Solo on Blu ray.
Excellent video essay! George was the visionary behind the entire concept, but film is a collaborative effort. When George himself got TOO MUCH credit and too much control, we got...well, you know what we got. Thank heavens for good editors and a director with the good sense (or wife) to listen.
He tried to do the same with the prequels but no one would help him. Too much risk I guess. We ended up with a good story but bad acting and dialogue and CGI. Some good lightsaber duels here and there. Not the best movies but hey, it could have been worse. Could have been The Last Jedi.
I like the story that Marcia said "What happened to Marion" in _Raiders_ so they went back and filmed a scene on the steps. Too bad she wasn't around to fix Willie Scott's character. There was a point when Indy might have left the kids to their fate and just run off with the treasure. She could have been the person to turn him around, then no more screaming from her. But of course, part of the reason _Temple of Doom_ was dark was due to the divorce. I even saw a scene recently where Indy punches the cigarette girl in the face (accidentally, but still!).
Michael Burke true. Still problem was that he was not so easily filtered later on. A lot of the great no sayers already started to leave him after EP V
Stefan Holmqvist That's true. You can tell that by Return of the Jedi, something was off. The ewoks, Jabba's palace dragging on, some parts had the PT vibe.
Michael Burke all is hard to say. I think we never know where stuff is true to Lucas intention or not. Maybe he envisioned a lot of things different than they ended up. The thing I personally believe is that Lucas is not such good when it comes to visuals. Like when the prequel preproduction. Almost every time we see concept art and design with multiple design the one ended up in the movie was the worst for me. Compare with Ralph M who had so much more visual control just because Lucas was force-d to handle a lot other and could not decide on all concept design.
When he made the first trilogy, Limitation of time and money forced George Lucas to rely on other peoples ideas and talent. when he made the PT, he had unlimited funds and time, and he didn't have to listen to anyone.
I think this youtube video about editing has been brilliantly edited. The rough cut of this video about editing did not convey well enough how important editing is.
While I agree intercutting all that at the beginning of the film was a bad idea, I think we still needed an introductory scene with Biggs. In the final cut he just kind of shows up without any fanfare and we the audience have no idea who this guy is or his significance to Luke. When he dies in the battle of Yavin it should be a gut punch moment but it just looks like another pilot died.
Agreed--that was one of the few mis-steps the editors made, in my opinion. Biggs wasn't critical to the overall storyline, but he is a link to Luke's past and a scene could have been incorporated on Tatooine without compromising the narrative flow. It also makes Biggs' sacrifice far more poignant and meaningful.
I agree with My Account. When I saw the film as a kid, I pretty much understood they were buds from the hometown. Though I remember photos of Biggs were included in the storybook and rumors swirled for years there were scenes of them together and we all wondered why they weren't included and wished that they were but in the end, it wasn't necessary.
For many years I didn't understand how, by the time of the battle, Luke already seemed to be on first-name terms with some people in the rebellion (Biggs, but also Wedge) despite seemingly having been there for about 5 minutes. Maybe some people guessed that he already knew Biggs from before, but I don't think that was at all clear. But maybe that was a deliberate choice for the audience not to care about any of the people who die in the film. It is a kids film after all ;)
MetalPersonJ I agree, Bigg's death was supposed to be a meaningful blow to Luke, but with his late introduction and skipped over past history together it kinda falls flat.
It should be noted that Marcia's work on Star Wars (about 4 weeks worth) was on the BAD version, being discussed at the beginning of this video. She was in tears after the fateful New Years Eve screening for their friends. All of the improvements were made AFTER she had already gone back to work on another project. Certainly Star Wars was greatly improved by the time of its final edit, but it was long after Marcia's work had ended.
For a little more background on the edit. Marcia Lucas was told by George that she was an okay editor and she says after working with him for so long that was his only compliment he ever gave her. They got divorced after Jedi and she ended her career there. She was an amazing editor and Lucasfilms tries their best to remove her from the history of star wars despite her monumental work as seen in this video. I believe her absence is obvious in the prequels.
Editing is such a misunderstood art but you can see from her portfolio that she was exceptionally talented, much moreso than George. In a way, the fan revolt against the prequels was perhaps her best revenge.
odstlover George Lucas was, and probably still is, an ass with a narcissistic view of himself. I'll never forget an interview I saw of him around the time of the original trilogy where he is lamenting all these people talking back to him, doubting his "vision" of the story, wanting to try different approaches...and the whole time I realize he's begrudgingly talking about the people who saved his films, what an ass.
The Rosalind Franklin of science fiction.
Its such a shame, because George had fantastic ideas but simply was terrible at implementing it. Imagine how good the sequels would have been with editing like the original trilogy...
Yeah, editing is very important in all aspect of film making, especially before pre-production and on the script. Seriously, bad stuff happens when you give the directors too much leeway in the story side. An example of this is the crap that is Alien Covenant.
I kind of feel sorry for Luke's buddies who were cut. Sitting in a bar years later.."I was in the very original Star Wars, but then something happened...."
I feel sorry for Wedge - he's Scottish; and a trained Shakespearian actor as well.
But the Rebel Alliance only lets in Americans apparently (against the evil British Empire!)
So Wedge's dialogue was dubbed over by an American voice actor.
lol, i must say that is certainly the most epic 'fail' of all time! lol... oh my god... Each time someone say they watch star wars.... lol oh god....
@@jazzx251 Brits have made up for it in later and spin off films though ;)
I was thinking the same thing, wondering if they were watching it like 'here comes my scene! ... Oh...'
Well, us Star Wars nerds have seen their work. That's some kind of consolation prize.
When I first found out about how terrible the initial versions of the movie were, it made a lot more sense how George Lucas could be the same person who made the prequels and this movie. The editors should get a ton of credit for making this series as big as it is.
George Lucas's strength is world building and the amazing creativity and imagination that takes. When it comes to directing he isn't the best. His best work is when he is overseeing the project as a producer like in Episode 5 or Star Wars the Clone Wars.
Rekasha couldn't agree more. Dave filoni really took George's outlandish vision and was able to make fantastic stories. In the new movies, I feel like part of that is missing. Disney seems to miss the point that Star Wars isn't great because of storm troopers and tie fighters and at-ats and x-wings, it's great because of the fantastical nature of the setting and the interestingly realistic world that is a resultant of the story. Again, the one thing the prequels got right is the imaginative part of Star Wars, something I hope Disney learns with The Last Jedi.
I think you are underestimating the need to reintroduce Star Trek to the market. Yes for someone where all the films are in their memory, Force Awakens may see to not push things.
But for for everyone else it reintroduces and pushes forward.
Also those elements are things that attract people. Don't think imagination solves everything.
Neoblackdragon True, I do think that bringing in a new generation is a good idea, and bringing new life to old characters is wonderful but if it has no creative spark it just feels like a heartless cash grab.
He's also an innovator. Every movie he made introduced technology that had never been used before (or hadn't been used that way). Lets also never forget LucasArts.
Up next, how John Williams saved Star Wars by adding music.
It's based on a classical music composition called Jupiter. He modified it a little.
Try watching a scene without John Williams music.
@@mrkitty777
A little? Well, I guess Avatar is just Pocahontas modified a little because they have a similar structure. JFC people like you are so insufferable
I thought other people and myself like the opening 20th Century Fox theme because of nostalgia. But I read John Williams made the opening score align with that fanfare. Definitely better to have John Williams than to use classical music; it was OK for _2001: A Space Odyssey_ which is so slow, and we hadn't seen it before.
The score for _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ was also good (they re-used the title for _The Next Generation),_ but there's too much staring at the models.
That one is actually true
In the original script Obi Wan, during his fight against Vaders would originally say this:
"If you strike me down, my ground will become higher than ever"
I wonder why they didn't talk about their last battle on Mustafar? Vader tells Obi-Wan, "When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the Master". That's not how it was at all.
@@gregr3720 "When i left you, my ground was lower, but now, my ground is higher than ever!"
@@DarkOmegaMK2 It's true, when he was just a torso he was very low to the ground.
Another 'higher ground idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about LMAO Surprise...
@@DJRitty Another lower ground idiot who can't even distinguish proper height, lmao, get back to your low ground where you belong, peasant!
Thank you Marcia Lucas
Trevor Estrada if you watch the "making of" for Lord of the Rings you find that Peter Jackson's wife Fran Walsh had a similar critical role in ensuring that Jackson didn't make huge blunders, like having Aragorn fight Sauron at the end. Lesson: always listen to your wife.
Yeah let's thank Marcia for running out on George and leaving him to look after the kids.
I'm glad she's getting more kudos for Star Wars. Did you know she also helped with the script? Along with Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (although they all went uncredited, presumably since Lucas wanted to seem like he knew how to write). She also edited The Empire Strikes and Return Of The Jedi. I have nothing but love for the woman.
P Ferreira Why are you shitting on a woman you don't know about her divorce arrangements? What does that have to do with anything? What does it have to do with you? Oh I get it, someone is giving credit to someone other than George Lucas for Star Wars huh? That upsets you doesn't it?
Read a little deeper and don't believe every piece of bullshit you have been brought up to believe about who was responsible for Star Wars. I was brought up with that belief too but, after the prequel trilogy (when I couldn't understand how the man who made Star Wars could make three such ineffective films), I researched a little deeper. The more I researched, the more it became obvious that one of my childhood heroes was not responsible for a lot of the stuff he took credit for.
If it hadn't been for Marcia Lucas then the first film would have been shit and Star Wars as a concept would not have grown into the behemoth it is today. She nurtured that film, like she no doubt nurtured her husband through the film, so effectively you're criticising someone who is largely responsible for one of the most loved films on planet Earth because you don't agree with their divorce arrangements?
You make me laugh.
Come to think of it your statement is sexist even. Where is it written that a woman should end up with the children in a divorce proceedings? You're also assuming that was her decision and not the result of Lucas hiring expensive lawyers. I will answer my own question though. Nowhere, nowhere is it written that women should keep the kids. Like I say, that is a sexist assumption on your part.
Marcia is/was a freaking genius. If GL had bothered to come home once in a while...
Hey everyone. In this current form our pro-collaboration message has been interpreted by many as anti-Lucas. That was never the goal, nor the intent of this video. It should go without saying that George Lucas supervised, approved, and even contributed to all of these editorial changes. However, having seen the response, this is a point of fact that clearly should’ve been stated and it was an oversight on my part that that simple acknowledgment wasn’t included. George Lucas made Star Wars with the help of incredible team of people and that is an achievement worth celebrating. -Joey
You gave Lucas credit - it's just that us fans have a love / hate relationship with the man. Clearly, he was at his best when he had a smaller ego and had the sense to listen to others.
well put to the commentor. As the 2004 DVD set explains, the first edit was terrible, because the first editors, just did as they wanted, and didn't listen to George Lucas. George Lucas had to fire them and hire the two men and his wife, who created the final film. This video doesn't explain this.
Perhaps you should have used Annie Hall as an example. That movie went through some genuinely extensive changes and revisions through the editing process (much more extensively than any Star Wars movie that Lucas made) and went on to win Best Picture.
RocketJump Good, I am glad. Because in your anti-Lucas rant you forgot to mention how when Star Wars was a big success he shared his earnings with the cast. Lucas has thanked and acknowledged the talented people that made Star Wars possible. You didn't mention that did you.
Oh, by the way...JOHN WILLIAMS SCORE WAS NOT ALTERED IN THE 1997 VERSIONS.
Star Wars hard core fans are a joke. They complain about 3 frames missing from a scene 18.
Since you are so much into nitpicking - Let's look at what happens when Mr. Lucas is removed from Star Wars. Oh, that's right the crappy Episode 7.
Merry Christmas....
Francis Hooton Thank you sir. God bless you sir.
At 13:35, C3P0 talks about the tractor beam. In his autobiography, "I Am C3PO," Anthony Daniels recalls that in 1977, after he finished recording his lines, he thought he was done with the role. But they called him back to the studio three weeks before the film was released, to record one more line: "He says he's found the main computer to power the tractor beam that's holding the ship here."
The reason the filmmakers gave him for recording the new line: "We forgot to tell the audience what a tractor beam is for."
When people say "this video is all lies" does that include C-3POs lines in this scene being done later?
@@sandal_thong The only factual mistake in this entire video -- which sadly gives more fuel than intended (or warranted) to people claiming it's "all lies" -- is its claim at 13:28 that C3-PO's line about "7 locations" was added during editing. In actually, this line was never in the original theatrical cut.
It was added later, in the "silver screen edition" (the first "altered cut" Lucas ever released, in 1981). In general, C3-PO having new lines via ADR is one of those special edition changes so subtle and so pointless, that most people don't even realize it's there. Many people falsely believe C3-PO's new lines are in the original theatrical version, then baffled when they aren't there (I know I was). So this isn't an intentional error, because that was one of the _first_ changes Lucas ever made to SW, but the fact they got it wrong is now used as "proof" the entire video is fake (it's not, there are literally hundreds of sources confirming what it says).
@@Lady-Ythis video is nothing but a collection of falsehoods, half truths, blatant omissions and misinformation.
ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.htmlsi=IQWFeUFoauJ3EopW
@@Lady-Y What about the fact that Marcia wanted to keep the early Luke scenes? And there are dozens more inaccuracies. What are these "hundreds of sources"? The author of this video cites one, and gets stuff wrong from that source.
@@Lady-Y Actually, this line does date back to 1977. The original Star Wars film had three different audio mixes for theaters with different sound capabilities: a Dolby Surround mix, a stereo mix, and a mono mix. The mono mix was created last, so the editors were able to make a few changes that they weren't able to make to the other two mixes, one of which was adding Threepio's line about the tractor beam.
There are a few other changes, too; for example, the "close the blast doors" line, which most people think is a Special Edition change, also originated in this 1977 mono mix. While certain elements exclusive to it were eventually incorporated into later releases, the complete original mono mix was never released on home video, at least as far as I'm aware. Most people these days who watch the theatrical cut are only familiar with the stereo and surround sound mixes, which is why there's so much misinformation going around regarding what changes were made when.
"Help us Marcia Lucas , you're our only hope!"
And hten they divorced, and lucas had full control in phantom menace... It all makes sense now
Lucasfilm should totally re-hire Marcia for episode IX
R. G. W 50,000 points!!
@Jkd Buck76 it costed enought that he had to sold what today is known as Pixar..
@@murciadoxial8056 If you think about that.. they divorced during ROTJ production.. wich is where the problems began :we got a frakin boring and redundant Jabba's palace that takes over 1/3 of what was suposed to be the saga grand finale.. 40m where one character gets captured, then another, then another then another.. and all that "just" for getting Han.. they could had done it in 10m ..15 tops. then there is the whole Ewoks thing.. and the final simultaneous ground-space-throne battle. Wich ok its awesome.. but why every time i watch it i find myself fast forwarding all Ewok scenes? there is barelly NO rebels fighting footage.. mere seconds.. Han and Leia just hide in the door and shot at troopes here and there until Chewie (and Ewoks) capture an AT-ST.. the whole ground battle becames Ewoks vs Stormtroopers and thats it..
Two things really jump out at me:
1. The way the scenes are placed in the rough cut are the exact sort of things the prequels suffer from
2. This also seems to be why Lucas likes changing things in post so much.
listen to Lucas's audio commentary on Ep4. . Lucas contradicts every thing you are saying. Can you provide links to real interviews to back up what you are saying?
@@JohnMorris-ge6hq Don't believe Lucas for a second.
@@JohnMorris-ge6hq To whom are you responding ?
Marcia Lucas fought to keep the Biggs scenes in.
Brandon Smith Though I do find The Phantom Menace boring, I personally find that Attack of the Clones is the “peak” of George’s directing. I feel that at least Phantom Menace could’ve been saved with some editing which is why I think it’s somewhat better than Attack of the Clones
"But I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters with my friends."
"Your friends are such a drag on this story, we're just cutting them out."
You know what the irony is? By removing the scenes with Biggs, a major emotional beat was lost on audiences, so Lucas had to go back to the edit and re-insert the scene where Luke reunites with Biggs.
@@qty1315 no. it slowed the film down. we didn't need to see Biggs at the start.
@@agfagaevart It's 70s sci-fi, it's supposed to be a bit slow in the start.
@@qty1315
Star Wars did not start off slow in the beginning, if you've seen the movie there is an action sequence right at the start. George Lucas wanted a "James Bond" feel to the movie, where the audience sees the end of a character's last adventure, at the beginning. Interrupting the flow of that sequence with scenes of Luke and his pals added nothing more to the story. They were interesting to read in the novelization, but, they had to be cut! Lucas even decided to kill Ben off while shooting. But it was the correct decision. This video should mention that ALL MOVIES are changed by editing. Lucas still had his vision, and thanks to the late Gary Kurtz it was greatly improved!
@@agfagaevart The movie starts off with a slow text crawl, then a shot of a space battle which looks like two spaceships lazily drifting through space, then the action sequence begins.
So yeah, slow start.
Also, again, it did add to the story because we got to know Luke's pals who would die later in the movie. Without that sequence, it doesn't make sense for Luke to react the way he does later in the movie when his friends are killed, because the audience doesn't know that they were his friends.
Cutting the Luke/Obi-Wan hut scene right next to the Vader/Tarkin scene where he chokes the guy out was brilliant. Because you have back to back explanations about what the Force is, once from the good guy and then from the bad guy. I always thought that was a masterstroke because you have this same powerful force juxtaposed and explained from two wildly different perspectives one after another.
I didn’t even think about it that way, really is brilliant!
So Lucas had a great idea, but couldn't execute it without his team. Makes sense. Prequels, "I'm a big boy. I don't need your help." Makes sense too.
Yeah, definitely a difference. No more, "No, George, we need to do this..." only "Yes, sir!"
But to be honest, everything 'wrong' with the prequels was there in Return of the Jedi.
@@GinjaNingerMan Not everything. No long expositional walks through Marriott hotel lobbies, for instance. No complete lack of a compelling conflict. (There's nothing in the first two prequels anything like the tension between the Emperor and Luke--nor nothing as subtle and complex--as the tension between Vader and the Emperor--"Strange, that I have not felt it (Luke's presence)...are you sure your feelings on this are clear, Lord Vader?" "They are clear...my master." Ewok nonsense aside, the main plot was completely compelling in Return and the final throne room battle...Luke's unmasking of his father...and the funeral pyre scene all well realized, powerful moments.
Have you ever seen the credits at the end of a movie. How many thousands of people it takes to get a movie done and most of them are not that good. This was a great movie. Lucas didn't fall off the turnip truck one day and accidentally make a great movie. Watch the documentaries on the making of Star Wars. Every editor saves the movie. That's the editors job. But if he or she doesn't have anything to save, it won't be a great movie no matter how good the editor is.
@@davidc.2878 Yeah but the 'Ewok nonsense aside' covers a large chunk of the story. The problem with Jedi is that you have basically two extremely successful parts within the story, which are the Jabba introduction and the Throne Room sequence (which is extraordinary, true). But they are act I and III of the story. The whole act II (which in screentime is almost half of it) should have been the epicenter of conflict, but it is mostly Luke brooding and... Ewoks. And Han & Leia become glorified extras in Jedi. They have nothing to do. Clearly Lucas did not want to make something out of Luke's newfound identity except use to it to fuel his internal conflict. We could have had a film where the rebellion found out about it and started to question Luke, or something of the kind, something that would have exteriorized his internal conflict and turned it into proper plot material (not filler) and given muscle to his character development. Leia has literally no interesting lines past the introduction and Han and Lando are basically the same character in Jedi. Only Luke and Vador get interesting stuff (and of course the Emperor) throughout.
what about the sequels?
Like 5 seconds in I forgot I was watching rocket jump. This was actually refreshing lol .
Holy shit I didn't even know until i read your comment. After watching the whole video. Lol!
Same here.
Yup! Usually RocketJump posts stupid pointless FX videos, but this was actually entertaining and also eucational for once.
@@kurkuless7719 None of those FX videos are "Stupid" or "pointless" As they're all incredibly informative. The hell are you talking about?
Something tells me the *prequels* could have been saved in the edit. Unfortunately by the time George Lucas got to make them he was already surrounded by yes-men and his vision and storytelling wasn't openly questioned or challenged. The Phantom Menace is just a nightmare. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in a serious fight with Darth Maul is interlaced with Jar Jar Binks clumsiness in battle against battledroids. WHO in their right mind thinks that works?? Tons of scenes in The Phantom Menace should have been cut altogether.
Jar Jar should have been cut out altogether. The fact that Palpatine was behind the Trade Federation guys should have been revealed in the final act of the story not 5 minutes into the movie because it reduced the Trade Federation into some lackeys taking orders from some (to them) unknown guy. The script is so lousy no amount of editing can save The Phantom Menace.
Research "The Phantom Edit". The folks behind that project couldn't do as much for these movies as the editors did for the first Star Wars, but they still made them so much better.
Jar jar shouldn’t have been cut, fans shouldn’t have been so toxic- if they hadn’t been a bunch of bullies they would have found out in AOTC why he was like this because he was actually meant to be a Sith Lord. There’s a reason why dooku comes from absolutely knowere just search it and you’ll find a 45 min video explaining it in detail.
@@wezmarauder2754 Correct. I doubt even better editing could have saved The Phantom Menace. People blame Jar Jar Binks too much but he is just one in a line of badly written characters. Jake Lloyd was wholly unconvincing as young Anakin. Qui-Gon seems to decide things arbitrarily and at no point does one think:"Wow, Gui-Gon really is a wise jedi who sees the big picture of things." Queen Amidala says very little and when she does (as queen) you just cringe at her lines. And last but not least. The Trade Federation are cowardly wimps and their battle droids are useless. Some threat. You'd think Palpatine would pick a more competent and scary lot to be his partners in crime/unknowing pawns.
People only talk about Star Wars, but in a remaster of THX-1138, George Lucas added CGI wings on a lizard in some random scene. Imagine, 30 YEARS after making a movie, feeling the need to put wings on some lizard ? The guy is mentally ill.
While I believe this video wasn't meant to bash George Lucas, it omits a lot of key elements about the making of the film, and makes Lucas pass for a clumsy guy who really didn't had much idea of where his film was going... which is far from being the truth
He omitted and changed so much from the original source (JW Rizzlers book).If he didn't do this intentionally, then he simply has worst research skills. Either way, RJ isn't worth listening to.
It WAS intentional. He doesn't just omit key info, he presents actual lies, warping the timeline of all of this. How did Marcia Lucas save Star Wars after Lucas's rough cut screening when she LITERALLY QUIT BEFORE IT!? Why is John Jympsan NEVER EVEN referenced? Why is Marcia credited as cutting the Tatooine scenes when the book explicitly states she FOUGHT to keep them in?
Not to mention the way they precisely choose to clip quotes... Yeah they knew what they were doing
Yeah, it's always said that they were people all around Lucas who helped to cut down some of his ideas, but somehow we never talk about the ideas his surrounding had which he didn't retain for the better...
But yeah, for a subject with this much documentation, they really should have gone further, unless they really wanted to discredit Lucas...
@@ludwik7326 They did want to. It's almost irrefutable at this point. The information they leave out, and the WAY they choose to leave it out. As well as the random lies that they start pulling
Marcia Lucas; The TRUE unsung hero of Star Wars
Roland Rockerfella well you know, except for coming up with the whole universe and all
She is the reason Lucas made the special editions, if he had not vastly changed them, he would have to pay Marcia a % of the earnings. And now that Lucas appointed Cunthleen Kennedy to run Lucasfilm, who gave us TLJ, I just want to say: Fuck you George!!!
Without george lucas no STAR WARS!
Lucas had people like Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston design EVERYTHING you see on screen. I've seen Lucas behind the scenes and he just asks people to design a spaceship and they design it for him. His input is THAT basic!
@@Jucelegario blame steven spielberg for kennedy. he collaborated with her husband on close encounters in 1977. and then rather than firing her for being a terrible PA to spielberg on raiders, he appointed her to a producer role, which is what she was for almost all of spielberg's movies including the indy films, ET and jurassic park and movies like the bourne films.
Had he fired her, she might not have grown to such heights and been trusted by lucas. although the signs were there she sucked like the jurassic park /// trainwreck production and other stuff.
this time it wasn't george's fault.
C3PO could have been the Jar Jar Binks of the Original Trilogy
He was, he would never shut the fuck up, and the only thing useful he EVER said was that they hyperdrive was damaged in empire.. which, wasn't really needed. The clunking sounds told us that
Meesa C3PO meesa can speaksa 6 millionsa forms of dialogsa. I think 3PO can safely go down in Star Wars history as actually being loved by most people who actually understand the value of having characters of different tone to give the other characters balance. EI Mary & Pippin in LOTR. Jar Jar and his ridiculous race is only enjoyed by light sabre loving fan boys who need to cling to something
Yes but C3PO nailed it. I loved him playing the victim in his British accent. He was an awesome character. He should have been used in TPM and the rest of the prequels instead of JJ Ab.... oh I mean Jar Jar... LOL
@@Artielectric okay, see, I loved him too, he was like salt, he enhanced and added contrast to what was there. If you pay attention, in the prequels, esp TPM jar jar is in every. Fucking. Scene. Fan edits have an awful time removing him because he's always there, so integral. Like salt.. too much kills the food.
C3PO is the key to all of this.
It seems that George Lucas is more of a world builder than a storyteller.
Absolutely nailed it - give this person a cigar!
He's an Idea Man. Put him 5 feet near a script and the universe implodes tho
True of many, many fantasy series writers as well.
Is that why Lucas was involved with loads of fantasy films y'know about storytelling...
He need to colaborate more with his crew
I saw it as a teen in 77, in my opinion the sound sold the movie. Loaded with cool unique sounds for the special effects, The voices, and the Music was so well loved it sold as a double album.
Sound makes the difference! Ben Burtt is a genius.
It's over 100 year old classical music but i bet you didn't know
I asked for _The Empire Strikes Back_ soundtrack, but didn't get it. It must have been a double album too, and doubly expensive. Instead I got a record that had one track from SECO's disco groove.
When you compare it to some of the stuff in theatres and on TV at the time, with it's halfhearted computer noise and literal "pew pew" noises, Star Wars significantly raised the bar for science fiction. 2001: A Space Odyssey used a pioneering classical music score in '68, and Star Trek used original classical music scores in its run from 66 - 68, but Star Wars solidified these elements in a way that resonates to this day. Now that I think of it I wonder if Star Trek's serious take on science fiction on TV didn't influence Kubrick in some way.
Everyone's saying Lucas was a crap director/writer, but he was actually opposed to the Luke scenes at the beginning. A colleague (Barwood, I think) told Lucas he needed those scenes to make the movie "more human." Also, the Twin Suns scene? It originally had WAY different music. It was switched AT LUCAS'S REQUEST. Lucas hated the first cut himself ("It's not the movie I wanted to make"). The main reason the first cut was bad? It wasn't Lucas. It was just REALLY POORLY EDITED. That's the whole point of this essay.
Lachlan Macfarlane I think the idea was that the script (by Lucas) has bad pacing. And the first edit mainly followed it. It was just at the first screening it was realized that the script flow/dialogue did not work on the screen.
So it needed a major not just re edit but more so reconstruction.
Stefan Holmqvist The script had that pacing at the behest of others, so the point still stands
that's all great alexandre but in the end he didn't do the first edit, he highered some one from the studio to edit the film he showed to his friends. Who later helpped him edit the film so your point falls.
Simply the Best Well not really though right?
Cause, if parts of the script were studio mandated and he hired someone to do the first cut per the script, then it really weren't his choices that were the problem there no? The script problems don't really fall squarely on his shoulders there is the point I was making.
When the first screening helped break studio mandate, Lucas was able to work with his team to make a much better final cut.
In the end, all movies are team efforts and that's the real takeaway here. It's never 100% a single person's film. That's why you often see the greats working with the same people often; they work well together.
Lachlan Macfarlane great points and thanks for the info! People are so bent on criticizing Lucas because they’re mad about the prequels that they are blind to the fact that he is actually a great director.
My jaw dropped when you said "The Death Star wasn't about to blow up the rebel base." It's mind blowing how they were able to edit that entire sequence practically out of thin air.
mightyvoovoo Credit where credit is due! She (Marcia Lucas) came up with that ALL on her own.
... and mind blowing that GL would overlook such an obvious way to make the movie not suck. Guy understands world building but that's it. Not story telling, not dialog, not characters...
When I watched that scene as a kid, I didn't notice to plot line about the Death Star about to blow up the rebel base, and I found myself getting bored watching that sequence. Now when I watch it I'm more on the edge of my seat.
@@stevecarter8810 That's my big problem too. I'm good at world building, but that's it. Unlike GL, I have the humility to admit it and (should I ever become a filmmaker) defer to the expertise and wisdom of others to make up for my shortcomings.
Because it isn't true.
The NOVEL, which came out in DECEMBER OF 1976, has the sequence in full, including Luke and Co. making TWO runs on the trench.
If Lucas didn't have Marcia, Geoff Unsworth's photography (Lucas intended a gritty, hand-held style, not old school Hollywood), Ralph McQuarrie's incredible artwork that basically defined the visuals of Star Wars, the ILM guys that made the Universe real, the woman that designed Stormtroopers (I forget her name), the writers that were brought in to inject some humour and warmth to the rather cold script and, of course, John Williams' legendary score...Star Wars could well have been a cult 70's sci-fi B movie. Lucas owes an awful lot to a lot of people. I hope he paid them all their relevant dues.
This is how all movies are made. Its not a one man show. I'm sure Lucas is aware of that.
@@FancyFramePictures You're right, but when seeing the sheer amount of Star Wars iconography that was actually conceived by other people, while Lucas continues to be regarded as 'the creator', it seems worthy of mention.
@@Tokiofritz He is still the creator since it was his idea and he made the production happen. As well as we humans are lazy and it would be too time consuming to look up all that was contributing and mantion them in dialouge.
To be fair, he choose most of these people, even the ones that polished and re-cut some of the shit he had produced up until that point. It’s not as if anyone was forced on him.
Not to mention the woman who designed the logo!
this video is full of false information literally please just google the title of the video and you will see the second video in the search proves this.
Just found this out as well. It is intentionally wrong too which is horrible. They purposefully omitted facts.
@@Brandon.S.Brooker They lied! They lied to us!
We're far too trusting.
This is such a great example of how such a great step in cinematic history was not taken by just one man. It would have failed without his colleagues and friends. If it was just up to Mr. Lucas, he would have dropped the ball and never changed the future of Sci-fi.
"Sci-fi"
This is probably why the prequels are so bad compared to the originals, he surrounded himself with yes-men/women and made some stupid decisions (like not making jar-jar a sith, which only made him that much more of a useless and annoying character, also that's probably why the 2nd movie is generally considered the worst, because they had to rework the entire thing)
@Litshttam The prequels were Anakin's story. Why would Episode II and III hang on Jar Jar?
@@ludde12345678950 Where did you hear Jar Jar Binks was going to be a Sith? Jar Jar was the comic relief meant for the kids.
@Litshttam huh?
wow, I consider myself a pretty diehard Star Wars fan and I didn't know about 90% of this. Excellent video. I have even more respect for the editors now
Maybe you've read the JW Rinzler books, but if you haven't I'd recommend them highly. You can get these on a kindle/tablet with sound bites and small videos embedded in them.
Also this explains a lot. Lucas is simply mediocre. He has a vision, but that is it. Apparently (with that quote in mind) he does terrible job as a director (of actors and scenes), hates it and if able, make his films just about editing few algorithms. And based on the films that followed (prequels) he is also terrible editor.
So kudos for his creativity that introduced us to the Force, little green monsters and so on. Nothing else is earned, just parasited. All his 4bln empire would be nothing. A F-rated (not even B-rated) space crap that would fall into oblivion.
Awesome man. I haven't read those and I will definitely check them.
Malisman77 Since you are so easily persuaded by UA-cam videos to a certain opinion, I have a gift for you:
Look up "What the sequels can learn from the prequels" on the Schmoesknow channel.
@@Malisman77 mediocre but made THX-1138, american graffiti and star wars. and he was awarded heavily and acclaimed heavily for graffiti which is why star wars was greenlit in the first place. AND was tabbed to do APOCALYPSE NOW because studios and his colleagues thought he was that good.
Do some actual research....maybe you have in the 2 years.
they won an oscar for best edition, yet he went back and tampered with their work, jesus!
I understand why he did the space parts, but things like putting large animals in Mos Eisley was just unnecessary.
and the Jawa comedy. Yuck.
Exactly!
George purposely left Marcia out of the history credits. How unfair.
He didn't re-edit the movie. He just added a few touches and fixed the special effects.
I can't believe most of the things said and shown on this video were all lies... In such a crafted manner.
Yup. Go figure. I'm glad they were called out on it. Down vote,shame on this channel's creators.
One wonders if this could be used in the classroom, as an example of how propaganda manipulates and lies.
Very happy they were called out.
This video w as saved in the edit
I mean I knew they were stupid criticisms, but I didn't expect them to also be made up.
@@mattgilbert7347 I'm hoping that professionals realize this
As a kid I used to look down on editing, I just thought it cut things and I believed the more stuff the better. Later I realized it is essential. You convinced me it is an art form of its own.
as a kid you thought every scene in every movie should begin with the director yelling “action!” and contain every take of every shot? like how could you not think editing was important
@@MetalMarauder they were a kid dawg chill out
Wow it's almost like kids haven't lived long enough to gather all the nuance that goes into the filmmaking process.
We cannot live in this reality. If we want to save the future, then we have to repair the past. --Jean-Luc Picard.
They do give awards just for editing you know.
The video also indirectly highlights how George basically wrote his wife and editting team out of the history of Star Wars. Without them, Star Wars would have been some forgettable schlock sci fi movie with some good effects.
It's only after the prequels exposed George that people have realized how much he leaned on others. Which is perfectly fine, no one can do stuff alone. But taking nearly sole credit for a collaborative work was shitty of him.
He did not write them out of anything. They won oscars for editing star wars!!!
Lucas was the only one in the team who didn't win an Oscar
Exactly, the prequels had so much potential, but they had the same problems as the rough cut here evidently
Lucas actually used to patronise his wife about her editing skills, because he thought and still thinks that he's a master film editor! He even says that it's his strong point in the PT Making of docs. He said that's where he feels most at home, in the editing room. Trouble is, he's a disaster in the editing room! Take the Falcon's escape from Bespin in ESB, for example. Originally we had a perfectly paced action sequence, but then Lucas dumped a load of mini clips of Vader making his way back to Executor in there for absolutely NO reason! I mean, WHY?! Not only are they not needed in any way whatsoever, but the stupid little clips break up the action and drama!
She was a genius and saved the OT, imagine if Obi Wan hadn't died (meaning probably no Yoda ever existing) and the Death Star battle wasn't all that good. I think people should give her credit without talking about Lucas, she won an Oscar and he never did.
Wow, everyone involved in making Star Wars won an Oscar except Lucas. Now I understand the Salt.
lol
Woody Allen deserved best directing and best writing...but Gary Kurtz deserved best picture !
"its salt"
Specially when you ex-wife wins one.
And you secretly know that your ex is the only reason why your movies were a success to begin with! lol
the fact that a video with bullshit charged language and blatant misinformation has 3 million views and more appraisal than pushback is an affront to the art of creation and fills me with despair for the human race.
17:30 - ...and then promptly got rid of most of them by Return of the Jedi, and ALL of them when working on the prequels. The success of the original Star Wars trilogy, by all accounts, was due to his then wife (Marcia Lucas - a very smart and talented woman, whom Star Wars fans have mostly ignored; if you love the original trilogy, THANK Marcia Lucas) saving George from himself (he remains his own worst enemy), and in collaborating with very talented people, with far better ideas than Lucas had.
Unfortunately, George received all the credit, and the clout / power he received from it allowed him to do whatever he wanted going forward.
Nero Wolfe gladly, and yet sadly, the prequels proved to everyone George Lucas wasn't the god he thought he was.
Yes, so much this!
Well George didn't get all the credit. He didn't receive any Oscars.
People don't know about her because he pretty much deleted her from star wars history, he took her credits off the film I believe and then of course down played her input
TuomioK - True. But how many of those Oscar winners became multi-billionaires, had the power to do whatever they wanted, and were a household name worldwide?
Recognition from your peers is nice, but that quickly fades when you see the decades of outrageous rewards George Lucas reaped off of other people's talents and creativity.
To be fair, most great movies go through a lot of re-writes, scene deletions and recuts. Even reshoots. As a professional film editor I can tell you it is standard practice to call the editing process the 3rd writing process. For all movies. That said, seeing this process you put together is fascinating! Thanks for doing it.
George Lucas was the chief editor on the original Star Wars. He oversaw the entire process and edited the acclaimed gunport sequence himself. His wife Marcia only edited a third of the film and left to work on another film before the final edit was even completed. There were two other editors on the film, who edited the other 2/3 of it. And besides, nearly every film, as you said, is saved in the edit. ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.html
I love this video! I've heard many times that Star Wars was saved in editing by Marcia Lucas but now I know how exactly she did it. This must have taken an insane amount of research and it's really well written and edited. Thank you!
Harmy Despecialized he read a Wikipedia article lmao
Except the fact the GEORGE worked hand in hand with Marcia in the edit room - uncredited. G Lucas has edited *all* his films and others (like THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE NOW). Something the history revisionists either hide or forget.
peterthx oh, don't overplay what Lucas did on Coppola's films, he helped a bit. That doesn't mean he was a co-editor.
He was on STAR WARS. The type of revisionist history in these videos need to end, people still so butthurt about the prequels they want to rob Lucas of any accomplishment.
thats pretty much because the prequels were rubbish.
EVERY MOVIE IS SAVED IN EDITING.
We just don't know enough about most movies to understand the extend to which their rough cuts did NOT work. The first cut of almost every movie is a mess.
Ummm no, Phantom menace was not saved in editing, is bloated with useless scenes.
As a professional editor, this isn't entirely true.
Yes, there have been MANY films that were saved in editing. However, most GOOD films had a very deliberate and planned concept of how they would be edited before they were even shot, because not having any kind of clear idea of the film's overall structure would be utterly incompetent. Hence, _STAR WARS_ is a unique case of an editor (Marcia Lucas) actually being more responsible for authoring a film than its Director. This is certainly not a common process for most films.
For a better indication, the rough cut of _RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK_ was virtually identical to the finished film. There were a few scenes that got trimmed, but the ones that stayed were generally left untouched from their rough version and their sequence order in the film was also the same. The only major change from rough to fine ("fine cut" is the most commonly used term in the industry for a final cut) was the addition of the closing romance scene, outside the steps of Washington...
...The original included no such scene...
...but then Marcia Lucas commented how odd it was that such an integral character just disappeared from the film, never to be heard from again. So George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan wrote it as a new scene, which Spielberg filmed as a reshoot; it was added between the final two scenes. Otherwise, it's the same film.
This is probably a more common example of what happens during movies editorial processes; trimming and minor addition. The "fine tuning" segment of the video is usually all that happens on most films, but some exceptionally troubled productions have had to do more work in certain historical instances. _STAR WARS_ is one of them. Interestingly, since that film was made, it inspired a radical new way of working; in which directors will now DELIBERATELY shoot their films with next to zero vision, and drastically rework them in editing. Terrence Malick is an example of a great filmmaker who works this way on purpose. Every film he shot since 1998 stopped using storyboards, and every film he shot since 2010 (with the exception of _A HIDDEN LIFE_ ) was shot without a script. So this style is usually done INTENTIONALLY when it happens now, as opposed to this film where it was a happy accident of being able to save a film with no vision upfront.
@@MrMarsFargo No, Marcia Lucas herself debunked this idiotic theory, look it up. George Lucas is one of the greatest filmakers of all time, and he alone came up with everything Star Wars fans have grown to love today. To pretend that literally everyone else "fixed" the movie is moronic at best.
@@MrMarsFargo Also, George Lucas was one of the chief editors on the project as well, because he is also a great editor. So if the movie was "saved" in the edit, guess who saved it?
@@calebadams690
Kay, go ahead and argue with an ACTUAL PROFESSIONAL EDITOR who had to study and research how this film was made as part of his training.
That’s not arrogant at all 🤩
Everyone needs to watch Nerdonymous review of this analysis; this "analysis" is very poorly researched and completely fabricated at many points. I like RocketJump, but man you guys missed the mark on this one.
Lucas apologists.
How Star Wars went through the normal editing process that all films go through.
Which is not true. The editing in Star Wars did change key tactical points of the narrative and made the film the classic that it is. Other films adhere pretty much to the screenplay. The only other film that I could readily think of where the narrative structure was built through editing was Apocalypse Now! which was also edited by Marcia Lucas.
@@toddsputnik8265 That's just a lie. The narrative structure was not changed by the editors (apart from the fact that George supervised all the editing!), and certainly not by Marcia 🤣
For example, it was Marcia who fought to keep the earlier introduction of Luke in the film (according to Rinzler's "Making of Star Wars" book).
I did not mean to imply that Marcia made the changes and that George was not an integral part of the editing process, after all, he wrote the screenplay. George and Marcia did work hand in hand during THX 1138 and American Graffitti so the narrative changes in the editing process were done under his auspice. But SW is amazing as to how it improved from the original raw cut to the version released in 1977. And the editing out of the Biggs scenes was brilliant because those scenes are really bad.@@fundhund62
@@toddsputnik8265 You know nothing of how the editing process works. I'm a skilled hobbyist editor myself and can straight up TELL you that every film relies upon the editing process to fundamentally shape the final film. Editing isn't just placing scenes in order. There's a rhythm to editing; every single shot has to be framed and cut to a beat. Your argument is akin to saying that individual musicians don't make any real impact upon a song. They just play the notes in order. You're ignorant.
Literally every great film ever made owes a part of its success to the editing process, just as it owes a part of its success to the script and to the direction and to any number of other filmmaking techniques and skillsets. As a skilled editor myself, I am sick to death of ignorant plebs thinking that the editing process is akin to putting a child's jigsaw puzzle together and essentially monkey work. It's an art form, so show it some damn respect.
Did you watch the video at all?
Looking at how bad it was pre-editing, Episodes I-III suddenly make sense.
I think that explains the unofficial edit of the Episode-1 which was applauded by many
those films get way too much hate
By "get," I think you mean "deserve."
YEP!!!
The problem with the prequels lay more with Lucas' shortcomings in the areas of screenwriting and directing actors, as far as I'm concerned. Even so, I'll take them over any of the movies Di$ney has put out so far. They clearly don't "get" Lucas' universe.
You know what I find ironic? Many of the deleted scenes from the original trilogy would have made the originals worse, but a lot of the deleted scenes in the prequels would have made the prequels better. You can really make or break a movie depending on how you edit it.
ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.html
The prequels are good as they are
@@Replica_Films2000 don't click on that
@@firebal6129 why not?
@@observerdude9809 it’s just...not worth your time
It’s a hate video specifically against this vid
Thank you Marcia Lucas, you saved the franchise before it was even born
By editing ONE sequence, the battle of Yevin. She didn't edit the whole movie. Jesus.
@@alcovitch She did help edit the whole film. She was a regular editor for the whole trilogy. Jesus
There were also two other editors including Lucas himself who cut the gun port sequence.
keep in mind george was telling her what to edit. it was his vision and it would have turned out exactly the same if he was the one doing it
@Captain Brandon Horror Lover Yes, and if George cared enough about his marriage during the original trilogy, he could have saved it and kept the one collaborator, his wife, and co-editor, during the Prequel trilogy whose artistic opinions he couldn't ignore.
This video actually isn’t very well researched, and fails to back up even its simplest claims. It’s a nice short and flashy video that makes you go “Oh, that’s neat”. I honestly advise you to do your own research into the production of Star Wars and it’s editing, because most of what this video says either isn’t true or is framed as bad when the edit made actually doesn’t change much.
There’s also a much more researched video on the subject by Nerdonymous, that I would highly recommend. I’d also just recommend reading the book “The Making Of Star Wars” by J. W. Rinzler. RJ pulls a few things from that book, but either skews them, leaves out half of a quote, or just straight makes something up.
This comment is not here to discredit the editors of Star Wars, they did a fantastic job and deserve a lot of praise. But to say “Star Wars was saved in the edit” is ridiculous when in reality it when through the same drafting and editing that all films go through.
A typical youtube video made by and for laymen filled with holes and inaccuracies.
Nerdon's video is far worse than RocketJump's. Unnecessarily long and for a video that's meant to only be analysing RocketJump's video, which is entirely about Episode IV, there is a worryingly high amount of sequel bashing with edited clips. Is it really necessary to have that every two minutes, is their video really that boring to them? Also the video doesn't really back up its points with more than assumptions. Its research is fragmented at best.
I think Nerdon was just so hellbent on not giving RocketJump any amount of credit for anything that he ended up going way too far. RocketJump's video is not perfect, but it's definitely more interesting and better made than the nearly 90 minute rant of some guy trying to channel their inner MauLer.
@@destinedwarlord2128 Are you insane?
@@destinedwarlord2128
“A poorly researched, falsehood filled dumbass hit piece on George Lucas is better than the video that debunked it presenting actual facts, backing up every single claim and doing extensive research because the latter is lOnGgG”
-you
@@destinedwarlord2128 bang on lol. Too many seething idiots on the Internet
I never knew how much editing changed the film.
90% of the work is in the editing.
Scenes can be completely re-cut, re-arranged, & altered. It is how it is presented to the audience
That's how it is with most films
It didn't, this entire video is nonsense
@@cryogenixoldskool5803 its only right in the sense that every movie ever made goes thru extensive editing, but ofc hese acting like this is a special case which either means hes extremely bias or just dumb. both maybe?
It's a shame how a really interesting documentary about how editing "saves" a movie it brought down by deliberate misinformation about when the changes were made and who made them. By February 1977 the rough cut you describe didn't exist, many of the changes you describe were already made, and two of the three editors had left the picture already. The rough cut you describe is the October/November 1976 cut, in which Chew, Hirsch and Marcia Lucas worked. Instead of describing the editing as an organic process that slowly improved the movie, you present it as "Lucas' first edit was bad, then three editors came in and they saved the film". A shame really.
I know it drives me nuts. This is deliberate misinformation to bash on Lucas and people are too stupid to look any of this up.
Current narrative is that "women are amazing", to score social media points, and it's always easy to use Lucas as blame for everything. That's all they did with this vid. Promote a narrative based on current meta, that has nothing to do with facts but feelings.
@@Janzer_ I mean it's pretty well documented the Prequels were ass because Lucas didn't have anyone to tell him no, and was kind of megalomaniac while running them.
So it's not just a phony narrative to look back and notice the differences between who he collaborated with on his earlier projects compared to his later films.
@@llJiggyFlyll I mean, it's not really documented at all. It was claimed in some retarded internet video by RLM and then repeated ad nauseum by even shittier internet commenters.
@@llJiggyFlyll The idea that Lucas was surrounded by 'yes men' for the prequels has been rejected by film historians Paul Duncan and JW Rinzler
"If my blade should find its mark, you will cease to exist. But if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
That sounds pretty damn badass, actually.
I know, I liked that.
@@Digital111 I bet Sir Alec Guinness told Lucas to say that line rather than the original dialogue. Guinness did openly complain to Lucas the lines were incredibly clunky and poorly written. Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill said the same.
Alexandre Bourgoin I agree. Basically saying Vader’s screwed either way.
It's needlessly wordy and inferior to what we saw in the original 1977 theatrical edition. It's the equivalent of turning the Terminator's "I'll be back" into "Give me a moment. I will return shortly after I've completed other tasks."
Of course, "needlessly wordy" and "inferior" are exactly the words to describe 90% of the dialog, story, and imagery in the prequels too. You know, those movies where George had full creative authority and nobody around him to tell him how much it sucked. In this respect he's much like Gene Roddenberry: a guy who came up with a great idea and then made it suck (a.k.a "ST:TMP") when he got his way. At least Roddenberry was stopped after ruining one film. George got to ruin three prequels and retroactively ruin the original trilogy.
George is a great idea man. He took Kurosawa's stories and transformed them into a sci-fi universe. But that's where it ends. George is not a good movie maker. The success of 1977's Star Wars is despite him, not because of him. Empire, arguably the best of the originals, had George involved the least. One is compelled to wonder how much better RotJ might've been had that trend continued.
Eric Smith The prequels are great; YOU'RE needlessly wordy.
So this basically goes to show George Lucas shouldn't have had free-range on the prequels because on his own he can't make a good film. Episode 4 wasn't saved by him, it was saved by Steven Spielberg/Others.
Edit: It's been 6 years since I made this comment at the time of writing this edit and there's clearly a new-found appreciation for George Lucas' work in this saga, and this video has been disputed by other creators. Either way, these films were clearly a collaborative effort, and I think Lucas stretched himself too thin on attempting to direct all 3 prequels compared to only 1 of the originals.
one thing to remeber in all of history there has never been a great movie which was made by 1 person film-making is a collaborative art one person can never make it good
So, that may be true, but if we look at the new sequels, we kind of see what happens when collaboration takes place...I mean, sure the Force Awakens was good, but only because they brought nothing new to the table. It was a complete rehash of Episode IV. If felt like a corporate product. I think there needs to be a balance: a director has a vision and the editors try to work with that vision, but also at the same time make clear that there are some things that the director gets wrong on many things.
Gary Kurtz should get most the credit. He was the producer up until RotJ and was instrumental in fleshing out the stories. He came up with the idea of the force. Lucas wanted it to be a crystal with magical powers. Kurtz said that was shit and made it more of an "eastern" type philosophy.
Well, sure, I think that the Force Awakens is better than Rogue One, and I loved the Force Awakens. However, the similarities don't just end at the Death Star. Tell me if you heard this: A evil military organization is searching for important documents that is entrusted to a small droid. A young adult who has been stuck on a desert planet with two suns comes across the droid and is caught up in the operation to bring the droid to the rebels. The young adult also comes across an old mentor who took part in the previous war and has a deep relationship with the Sith Lord. He's obviously hiding a secret about her relationship with said villain. Later the Sith Lord kills the mentor, and the young protagonist sees this. Overtime, said young adult gains powers in the Force and is driven to the Rebel's cause. Also, a Death Star comes into play primarily because said Rebels have gained the droid's information, and said Death Star blows up.
The Force Awakens and a New Hope both fit these descriptions. It didn't necessarily anything new to the table in terms of plot. It does bring in new characters who I am interested in their arc, but that's it. Same battle between Rebels and Imperials. Now the question comes: can The Last Jedi build on said characters? If so, then The Force Awakens gets better. If, however, the Last Jedi becomes a repeat of the Empire Strikes Back (and a training scene with an old mentor already screams as such), then we are in big trouble, and I can safely say that the Force Awakens was a corporate product (because Star Wars didn't really need a sequel) designed to work off our nostalgia that I enjoyed, but kind of felt empty.
Script wise The force awakens was awful. So was rogue one. Both are written for children with autism
The original turned into the classic we know it today because there were people around to tell Lucas "Nah, let's go back and take another look at this."
If only they'd been around when he made the prequels...
Honestly this is why I hate the Prequels with the passion of a thousand suns. I rage at what could have been, what we would have in their place if talented people had still ridden herd on Lucas. And that lack of second thought was an albatross around the necks of the people charged with giving us the last trilogy.
@randomguy8196 you do know that Lucas offered both the director of empire strikes back and spielberg the direction of the prequels but they rejected it? He also asked chew and Hirsch to come back and they declined.
@@thecollector4332 I see we have some logic in the comments section. Good job! :)
@@onemoreminute0543 I can't understand how people can be so naive and believe in any nonsense they are told. I don't know really much about film industry. But I'm 100% sure that director of any movie has full control over filmmaking process, this is why he is called Director. Editor can't just say "Fuck you" to director, make his own scenes out of nothing and put it in the movie without permission. He is not involved in shooting process, he is working with the material he is provided. If this material is shit, not a single editor can save it. It is same with music. If it has shitty chords and melody it can't be saved in the mixing process.
All movies are saved in the edit.
I think a better video would be how movies already released, could be saved in the edit.
Again people trying to make up the narrative that Star wars is good in spite of Lucas and not because of him. “How star wars was saved in the edit was saved in the edit” clears up all these points.
Nerdnonymous
Epic showdown. Who wins?
"It's stylistically designed to be that way." -George Lucas
vs.
"It was all editorially manufactured" -Marcia Lucas
"It's like poetry, everything rhymes."
@@dialecticalmonist3405 "I may have gone a bit too far in places..."
"Jar Jar's the key to all of this."
I think both worked very well together. People blame that GL was not instrumental, which is wrong. George clearly had a unique talent no one ever thought of at the time. He had a vision, an original idea, and a mettle to do things no one tried before. However, he needed a team of good crews to make that dream come into true. Original ideas in prequels were genuine and good. The execution was horrible. I wonder what prequels will be like if Marcia Lucas and other editors that helped GL were there. Unfortunately, GL failed to see how important his support crews were.
@@youngbear2258 Correct. George couldn't have made Star Wars great on his own...but his team also couldn't have made it great without him.
Without the edit Chewbacca would've unleashed his true power and one shot the death star just by staring at it
yea
Without Marcia Lucas, we may not have known that Chewbacca was someone to be feared. She not only edited the movie -- she provided a lot of input during the entire production. For instance, it was her idea that Chewie would scare a Mouse Droid.
And that wasn't even his final form!!!
Chewie is Jiren confirmed
NOT A SKETCHY LIKE AT ALL
"In the first five minutes, we were hitting everybody with more information than they could handle. There were too many story lines to keep straight: the robots and the Princess, Vader, Luke."
If this doesn't sound exactly like the prequels, I don't know what does. It highlights PERFECTLY what happened to the series once George Lucas took command of editing.
Marcia Lucas fought to keep the early Luke scenes in. George didn't want them in and got his way. Ergo those cuts are not proof that Marcia and Marcia alone saved Star Wars.
@Grasshopper From JW Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars p.232:
"George also felt there was no reason to see Luke until he became an active participant in the story. But it was not an easy decision to make to just delete those sequences; Marcia fought to keep them in, and the four scenes with Luke and his friends were tried in different places. But more arguments for cutting came from the fact that George didn't like the performances, and that the later relationships Luke creates are stronger."
George edited a good chunk of Empire Strikes Back and aided Spielberg's editorial of Jurassic Park once Steven moved on to Schindler's List during post. And he was involved in lesser extents to the editorial process for all the films he directed and/wrote. As well as the Indy films. He CAN edit just fine.
@@MiguelCruz-oz7km Marcia had minimal input on the film. George, Chew and Hirsch presided over many more of the changes. Really it was Chew's baby if any of them.
@@scottb3034 picked up Paul Hirsch's memoir. According to him, his and Chew's contract ended at the end of 76, but Marcia left to go work on Scorsese's New York, New York after his original editor died. Of the two editors remaining Lucas chose to keep Hirsch on board into 77 to work on the fine cut of the film as well as inserting the VFX shots as they came in from ILM. What lends credence to his account is that Hirsch was hired as the sole editor of The Empire Strikes Back.
Hirsch says he ran into Lucas at the premiere of The Force Awakens. Lucas told him, "You were the last man standing. You saved my picture."
YOU ACTUALLY STATED YOUR SOURCES!!! IS THIS EVEN UA-cam !?!
Times change, huh
hahaha ikr
Well not quite. It seems he cheery picked and hand waved a lot of contradictory information . . . ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.html
Lol, it's irrelevant stating sources if most of what is said here is literally historical revisionism and straight up lies.
No one under 45 will understand this films impact on Generation X. It was our Wizard of Oz. It blew us away. I get thrown back to 77 every time i see clips of SW. How we lined up around the block, seeing kids beaming faces coming out, who had just watched it before we were about to. Space was captured on the big screen like nothing before. No movie has had that impact since.
okay then boomer
I was 14 when Star Wars was out here in Birmingham UK and was blown away! Until I saw a re-run of 2001: A Space Odessey in 1978...
awesome! i wish i couldve experienced that! but i had my own magical individual experience with it.
Star Wars was made before I was born, but nevertheless it had a huge impact on me as well -- and not least due to the amazing film score.
The early 70s in the UK were a bit rubbish. Oil crisis, miners strike, 3 day week, c**p fashion, lousy music (except hard rock - my opionion, other opinions exist). Then we got Star Wars (followed by Indiana Jones). Was a great time to go to the cinema.
Actually, it was George's idea to take out the unnecessary scenes of Luke in the beginning, and Marcia fought to keep them in. It says so in JW Rinzler's book. ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.html
Really now
@@taylanozdemir8616
Yeah this video claims to use JW Rinzler's book as a source but the book debunks all the claims rocketjump makes
Ssshhhh you're killing thier narrative..
This video makes lots of false statements like that to fit his narrative that Lucas is a dunce whose mediocre work was saved in the edit by brilliant editors. The rough cut that DePalma & co saw was edited by her, for instance, and a lot of the other things this doco likes to credit to her is in the original script, written by Lucas. And none of them said the rough cut was a disaster, etc. DePalma made fun of the missing special effects scenes, and “this force shit”. They were great friends and liked to tease Lucas.
@@msandersen Hey now! Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!
This video is complete and utter fiction. You can literally read the shooting scripts to see what George originally intended. Also he fired the first editor and started editing himself. He then hired the three final editors and they all worked together towards George's vision. Nothing ever gets put into a Lucas film unless he wants it there. Just look what he's done with these movies over the years. As technology improves he adds things back. Special editions anyone?
wow this video made me appreciate the original movie even more.
Holy crap I never knew! This makes all those hours planning and editing my short films worth it!!! I always felt like the whole story was changed no matter what during editing but this proves it1
TrifelinJ Few things are perfect from the first draft.
TrifelinJ How about you spend some of that time editing your comment. I’ve read it three times and it still makes no sense.
Editing gives the perfect timing for things to happen.
vjrei Yea I'm starting to realize that the final rythym of youre video is so important. Something to keep in mind while planning/shooting
Apparently Top Gun went through some serious editing, probably a good doc about that out there somewhere.
It's funny how removing the history channel editing of this video make you realize that it's substance is on the level of a CinemaSins video.
LMAOOOOOO yeah this video sucks. It's poorly researched and spread so much misinfo just so Lucas haters can have another delusion of him being an incompetent dweeb who stumbled on success rather than writing and directing it.
This entire video is discredited. Watch "How Star wars saved in the edit....was saved in the edit"
@@bp6942 I did actually.
@@emilefoy-legault1031 Good good! (I was partially shamelessly piggy backing your comment to get this somewhere people might read)
@@bp6942 I'm fine with that.
Jesus, this video is not only malicious, it's incredibly idiotic. Obviously, George Lucas would never give a fuck, not in a million years, but I start to think the general public should mount up some mass lawsuit. It did hurt my brain.
Actual, REAL Documentary quality ? On UA-cam? WITH sources stated?!?! Is this real life??
Awesome ! THANK YOU! :-)
I always say that 90% of everything on UA-cam is crud but every now and then you find some good material or gold nuggets in this ocean of filth.
Is this the first youtube documentary you saw?
Yeah, wtf you on about? This isn't 2012; people actually put effort into their videos, specially documentaries like these. Sure crap is still more popular, because crap will always sell, but this isn't that uncommon anymore.
It's not that quality. It portrays Marcia as some kind of savior of Star Wars. She edited one sequence in the entire film. Battle of Yevin. The other two editors did the vast bulk of the work that turned it into what it is today. Ppl like to over sell her role.
@@alcovitch Yes true but she was also script doctor to the film
Lol, treadwell was wall-e
Actually he was Number Five, and then WALL-E came after that.
This is full of bad information. The producers didn't do their due diligence and research. Sorry. This video sucks.
this video is very "trust me bro" material.
Yeah, just watch another video debunking this kne with actual facts about what really happened.
The film was in danger because of unfinished sound, unfinished special effects, stock footage? That’s literally every film ever dude.
People are over blowing the argument that star wars was saved in the editing room because for every great movie there's a previous version of it that it's inferior. No matter what editing techniques they used, if the script wasn't working then the movie would still be a mess!
@@adamcade604 True. Given what they say towards the end of the video about the special editions, I think these guys have a chip on their shoulders with Lucas.
and also video games
@@adamcade604 Well the main point of the video is that Star Wars had crucial *script* changes in the edit without which it probably wouldn't have been a smash hit.
To quote Paul Hirsch (the co-editor): “it was tougher than rough cuts usually are”
Everyone look up nerdnonymous, he thoroughly debunks this entire slogfest
I watched 10 minutes of it and had to turn it off. THAT video is a slog!
Man, nerdnonymous absolutely tore up RocketJump's video.
Facts.
I m saw that vid a few uears ago after watching this vid. And it blows my mind how ppl can be easily led astray with deceptive lies by omission.
Ne4dnoymous vid did a fantastic job on actually showing the failings of Red Letter Media's vid.
"How A New Hope was almost The Phantom Menace"
yes but it wasn't and he had the wisdom to have it changed. Most movie scripts go through many changes. I am going through the 7th revision of a movie script now. THIS IS HOW MOVIES ARE MADE.
Like the phantom menace was worse than the last jedi
@@armywife04012000 other way around buddy
The Phantom Meanace had pretty good editing actually. It's not like we jumped to young Anakin playing with his friends in the middle of Obi Wan and Qui Gon's battle on the ship.
@Legendary Vocalists Dumb stories are dumb stories. The opinion that the Phantom menace is a bad film is a personal one, and not an objective one. The plot holes and incoherence in the last Jedi, the contradictions with the rest of the saga, and the fact that it's forced to continue from the worst sequel of all time... those are objective problems. TPM is a star wars film. The last Jedi is not
Nerdonymous video is better.
It's also truthful and accurate, unlike this shambolic POS video.
This video kinda further validates this notion that I've felt for a long time. George Lucas was extremely fortunate to attain the levels of success he did because clearly if it weren't for the team he had, Star Wars would not have reached the the legendary status it did. Lucas did great with coming up with the original idea of Star Wars but it was the people after him that took it to fame. Unfortunately, the average Star Wars fan would have never known who these editors were (I know I didn't). And to further highlight my point: the prequels. Lucas reached that level of fame to where no one wanted to openly criticize his work with the prequels. However, with the original Star Wars, people was upfront with him and ripped his movie apart.
Who chose Lucas' team?
Most successful people had help. I don't think it's unusual that Lucas was one of them, or that that makes his success less impressive. Probably every creative victory is full of unsung heroes. Like they say, 'no man is an island'.
the producers..
The producers were Kurtz and Lucas (executive producer), and it was Lucas to choose the members of his team.
I'm not defending bad behavior, I'm defending the idea that Star Wars is primarily a creation of George Lucas.
I know this is hard to believe, but I sincerely think Lucas was aiming more for a "Godfather 2" kind of epic movie, a visual feast with some lengthy exposition, but he couldn't do it, so instead we got a tightly-edited James Cameron-style blockbuster. In fact, look at Terminator 2, and check out how much stuff was edited out. Lengthy and very expensive scenes had to be cut, once Cameron realized they didn't work too well. We get a better movie, but with a slightly odd feel and quirky pacing. In the end, the amazing effects sequences in both films save the day, and make them classics.
You mean that James Cameron's movies have a George Lucas-Style.
Aliens is another good example movie of a husband director/wife production team. Gale Anne Hurd made huge and very effective changes to cut down and tighten up the theatrically released version. IMHO Cameron's full 'director's cut' version isn't nearly as good as the theatrical release.
@@gfarrell80 Cameron is very passionate about his films, and tends to go overboard with excessive scenes. He knows when to listen about making cuts.
Nerdonymous > Rocket "Dump."
You’re too fucking nice
At the time, that was all I could say. What's sad is that there are still people who follow Rocketjump's "logic." Not as much as before, as the myth's been debunked and shredded countless times.
Still, there are a few people who are so biased that no matter what you tell them, they still want to believe George was a lucky moron.
Another myth that's been debunked was the idea that Gary Kurtz saved Star Wars. However, when you read about how ESB had all these problems on set, as well as the disastrous rough cut (all of which Lucas wasn't initially involved with), you get the idea that Kurtz had no idea what he was doing. @@KRobinson-ko1ne
Just watched a much longer and more detailed video essay that debunks the whole narrative of this video essay. It's called "How ,How Star Wars was saved in the edit' Was Saved In The Edit".
Preach
Yea i saw that too, but I think it misses the main thesis.
The point is not that other films are not also saved in the edit, nor that star wars is unique in changing significantly through editing.
The point is that Star Wars, as originally cut was a mediocre film. It only became a great film because of good editing.
@@jessehunter7197 George Lucas is a genius
@@jessehunter7197 Buuut the guy here lies and says the rough cut was what was shown to everyone when it was a later cut. He does stuff like that throughout this video, lie and misrepresent what happened to support his narrative.
The more promotion of that video the better
"Everybody has their ace in the hole...mine's ̶e̶d̶i̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ my under appreciated ex wife."
Yes, when you read what Marcia did with the film story in edit, divorcing her took the heart out of George Lucas' work. Imagine what the prequels could have been like if George took a breather from film-making like she asked him to focus on his family for a bit.
Joker 😂
His wife didn't save the film LMAO. Hirsch and Chew did the vast majority of the editing. She contributed the most on Return of the Jedi.
@@kchishol1970 Imagine if Marcia just didn't decide to cheat on him with a worker building Skywalker Ranch. BTW she contributed to the relative disappointment that Return of the Jedi became compared to Empire and ANH and she had the least amount of input on Empire. So her savior capabilities were probably overblown.
And Lucas was so unwilling to focus on family for a bit he quit directing/making films literally 6 months after she asked for divorce to raise their adopted daughter for 15 years AND have 2 more kids. LMFAO bro.
She only edited about a third of the film. George closely supervised the entire editing process, and he edited the famous gunport battle sequence on his own.
The third of the film Marcia was responsible for editing included the scenes of Luke on Tatooine before he meets the droids. George was the one who wanted to cut them out. Marcia wanted to keep them in. Pretty fucking strange that this video doesn't mention that fact at all.
Use the edits, Luke
Lucas*
*after releasing star wars special edition*
Remember, the edits will be with you, always
George Lucas was the chief editor on the original Star Wars. He oversaw the entire process and edited the acclaimed gunport sequence himself. His wife Marcia only edited a third of the movie and left to work on another movie before the final edit was even completed. There were two other editors who edited the other 2/3 of the movie. The notion that Lucas had nothing to do with the editing of the original movie, that he's a terrible editor, or that his wife singlehandedly saved from the movie from him--it's all a myth.
Talky, boring exposition-heavy and bad pacing. Now the prequels make sense. I wish more people realized how many unsung heroes there were in the first trilogy who saved Lucas' original ideas and made them into something better. Now we just need more recognition for Ralph McQuarrie.
Hear, hear!
more recognition for Ralph McQuarrie ? evrybody knows that ralph did the design for star wars ...
hell, I would argue that the thing that cemented star wars as a cultural phenomenon was empire, and that movie was almost completely out of lucas's control, so lucas was just the guy that wrote a first draft that, in better hands, would have lead to something better from the get go.
Also ESB's success had a lot to do with Irvin Kershner rejecting a lot of Lucas's ideas and doing his own thing. Also Lawerence Kasdan and Leigh Bracket's script.
@@Godzilla52 Sounds familiar...
Terribly uninformed video from someone who did zero research and has a substantially poor grasp on basic deductive reasoning. Clickbait garbage.
So, this makes sense why later movies weren't as good. You need the whole team.
A good script
A good shooting
and a good editing.
All to bring Lucas's vision to the silver screen.
But the moment he starts trying to take complete control, shit hits the fan.
AND a good wife
degree7 you haven't bothered to watch much or any of the behind the scenes ACTUAL non-biased commenting between Lucas and his "team"....have you? He literally surrounded himself with YES people. Most were his team from "young indy." Hell, there's even a scene where he's showing Spielberg the damn droid troops,...and Steven is like..."yeah,...cool guy...looks....great." Might want to take off the practice blinders and listen to some conversations.
+degree7
Nah, if you look at the behind the scenes footage, none of them dare to even question him, let alone tell him his idea is shitty. They are all yes-men. Unlike in the original film where his buddy told him the film was a bunch of bullshit and had to be heavily edited, and got him to let people refine his work. By the time of the prequels no one dared question him.
Actually the script wasn't THAT good, LOL. Alec Guinness had said the dialogue was "rubbish" and Hamill had asked Lucas to drop some lines too. By all intent, if the finished movie had followed the script verbatim it would have been a disaster...so Marcia Lucas basically help re-wrote the story via her editing.
@degree7 Money-making and merchandising motivated both the original and prequel trilogies, the original more so, although whether they were motivated by greed is debatable: A New Hope was meant to bail out American Zoetrope which Lucas co-owned with his friend Francis Ford Coppola, and the prequels were made to advertise the abilities of Lucas' CG animators so they'd have greater job security.
When GL stopped collaborating with people, and instead surrounded himself with "yes men", the end product suffered greatly.
To be fair, he did ask other directors to helm the prequels (Ron Howard for TPM, Robert Zemeckis for AOTC, and Steven Spielberg for ROTS; Frank Darabont was also apparently supposed to write all the scripts), but the fact that they all turned him down and told him he should just make them himself is what led to all these problems.
+John Crafton It didn´t suffer at all. The prequels are actually the best Star Wars trilogy we have gotten so far. And I say this as someone who grew up with the original trilogy, and saw them all in theater!
+fundhund62 The prequels are considered horrible, though. Mainly due to Hayden Christensen and Jar Jar himself.
@@fundhund62 so, what are the best - the terrible playing of HC, stupid dialogs ("send is bad"), plot holes, far-fetched to the OT, as if explaining everything unsaid or misinterpret everything, a rehash of a rehashed old things?
Why Obi Wang not finished off Vader on Mustafar for example? It's so cruel to leave the dying wounded enemy (ex-friend & pupil), and quite dangerous, if he'll suddenly be cured? Or R2-D2, who knows everything but didn't say anything? Or the open secret with the Lord of the Sith, entrenched in the bowels of the Republic, which trough all 3 movies in a row dripping on the fragile young man's brains? Or Yoda, who ran away from the fight with him, what's worse than Obi WAN's act? Yoda knew Chewbacca? What for?? Why Tatooine again? C3PO was made by Darth Vader - LOL! Why didn't he take it with him as his property after Padme's death?
Nothing of what you claim is actually there. Or if it is, how the hell is it "bad".. or even a "plothole"??
So you don´t like Anakin building C-3PO? Or Yoda and Chewbacca knowing each other? That´s fine.. but it´s just your taste, nothing wrong with it at all.
Nerdonymous owned this video!!!!
John Jympson was the original editor, and it would be impossible to overstate his contribution to the art of film editing on A Hard Day's Night (which, when you think about it, was essentially the very first music video, almost 20 years before anyone had ever heard of such a thing). But it was clear that Star Wars was too new and unique for Jympson, and he didn't quite grasp what it was going for.
The notion that the Beatles created the first "music video" with "A Hard Day's Night" is complete nonsense. It was a musical and musicals existed before the Beatles came along, even in rock 'n roll music. Did you ever see "Jailhouse Rock" or "The Girl Can't Help It?" Just about every Elvis movie was a "music video," and as far as I know, John Jympson didn't work on any of Elvis'' films.
@@metv2363 Take a class in film montage or read a book about it and you'll find out that AHDN has WAY more in common with music videos than with Elvis movies. Good Lord.
@@edfelstein3891 "Take a class in film?" Like you did at as community college? Come see me in Hollywood, if you ever make the trip.
@@metv2363 You're looking for a flame war. I'm not biting. Let me just say as a final response:
ua-cam.com/video/y8AavEpS6CI/v-deo.html
"...reconceived the movie musical and exerted an incalculable influence on the music video..."
@@edfelstein3891 , go back to school and complete your education. You don't meet the height limit on this ride.
3:00 Shows that Lucas is a genuis with a huge imagination, but needs other experts to help him simplify. It's like channeling the rage of a beast to something great
If only he would use his powers for good instead of evil...
How did he use his powers for evil?
Benjamin Tyus prequels
That's how it is with all of them. The advice and assistance Lucas received from the other filmmakers at that screening is similar to the advice and assistance Lucas provided to those same filmmakers on their projects. And a lot of those filmmakers were present and offered feedback on the prequels. The hatred comes not because they are bad movies, but because they didn't line up with fan expectation.
@@urshitheads Exactly :(
Moral of the story to production: fix it in post
Moral of the story to post: fuck production
So it went from stale b-movie to movie/storytelling masterpiece thanks to editing? Damn...
Not really. The video is overstating. Rough cuts of films are incredibly bad-looking and overlong. It's a normal process for every single movie.
Not overstating. The prequels seriously sucked because no one bothered to cut the crap out of a crappy story. The editors on Star Wars ruthlessly cut the crap out of a bloated story to create a lean movie.
As revolutionary as it was, I would not call it a masterpiece, outside of a specific aspect like world-building to tell part of a bigger story through visual effects. Which is... very specific.
I wonder if someone could do that to The Room
@A. Dimchev It's not overstating at all, the prequels show what would've happened if Lucas didn't have a bunch of critical people around him, telling him when he was being a dumbass and re-editing his scenes.
Lucas by himself never could have turned that rough cut into the masterpiece that we got in the end.
Lucas is saying that editing "is the part I have most control over", but if you notice, the edits that improved the original rough cut were all initiated by other people and largely out of his control, while the edits that ruin the original release version were all done purely by himself.
Lucas is clearly very bad at self criticism and introspection, and this would've resulted in ANH being a complete disaster if it weren't for the team that he had around him.
Every movie is saved in the edit. Empires rough cut was also a disaster
No, you see, only anything that involves George Lucas needs saving from his grubby little hands.
I'm mocking every Anti-Lucas asshole.
Amen.
Maybe this is why the prequels were awful compared to the first trilogy. Lemme explain. In the original trilogy, George Lucas hadn't had made a name for himself yet. Meaning the editors felt they could do more since they didn't think of Lucas as some genius. Looking at the script, it looks like an awful movie so the editors seemed like the backbone of the originals. The originals were a big hit so Lucas had a reputation. He wrote a similar script for the prequels except he probably took less feedback from his team. He had more control so it went his way. The editors didn't feel like they could challenge someone like him at this point, so they went with it. Maybe George Lucas isn't as great as people make him out to be. Maybe he is pretty great. You decide.
That's pretty much exactly what happened.
"In the original trilogy, George Lucas hadn't had made a name for himself yet."
Umm, I'm sure some people at least regarded him as "the American Graffiti guy".
He has a great imagination but works better when he's on a leash. The same went for the indiana Jones movies. George had pretty crazy ideas but Stephen Spielberg talked him down and made mutual agreements. In the last crusade he originally wanted the film to be about Indiana Jones running around a haunted mansion. Also he came up with the alien idea in kingdom of the Crystal skull and in the bonus feature making of the film, Stephen said he didn't want it to be about aliens but George persisted
This is pretty much the conclusion that Red Letter Media made in their epic critique of the prequels.
+SuperNavatar He's fine with story; he just needs someone else writing the final scripts and, at the very least, directing the actors.
This video is such an inaccurate hit piece, trying to shift credit away from Lucas, literally contradicts the sources it gives. Like it’s so well documented that George wanted to have Luke introduced when he buys the droids, but he was convinced to add and shoot the extra scenes by his friends, but ultimately went back to what he wanted originally. Next, the idea of the Death Star blowing up the base is mentioned tones by Vader and Tarkin, the cutaways just empathised it more. The editing in Star Wars was great, but to say it was saved by it more than any film is so misleading.
george lucas isnt gonna come and suck u off for defending him in the comment section so i must ask why do u care so much LMFAO i cant stand star wars fans holy shit
@@kg7219 So let's put all the idea of fan dick sucking here as if anyone is really even doing any of that comments to the side for but a moment.
You really don't think there is anything particularly wrong with noticing someone making false statements about a movie and the process it took to create that movie, and then correcting them about that? If there is something wrong with that then please, tell me what it is because being in the right and knowing what factually happens about movies and the creation process, is not being a dick sucking fanboy as you so obviously mean to imply.
To quote Luke "What a piece of junk". Ive never seen a more ill informed and whole heartedly made up collection of fanboy supposition and opinion trying to be passed off as fact in my life. You couldn't even get the info from the book and other fanboy video you "based" this on correct.
In the end, this "essay" is in fact just very bad fan fiction, and should not be taken seriously by anyone, really.
AT BEST, this video is misleading and offensive. Whether or not it was the result of purposeful duplicitous-ness or just woefully incomplete or faulty research, this essay is riddled with inaccuracies, thereby rendering every conclusion suspect (and I'm being nice there, as I personally think the conclusions are just plain *wrong*.)
The entire concept of Star Wars being "saved" in the edit is a complete fallacy:
Real filmmakers know there are three versions of any movie... The version that was written, the version that was shot, and the version that was edited. OH WAIT. You KNOW that. There is plenty of evidence from interviews with the three editors that George was absolutely involved with the editing process, oversaw the entire thing, and it's a known fact that he did half of the assemble cut himself on weekends because he had to fire the original editor due to him not understanding George's vision., so the suggestion that Richard Chew, Marcia Lucas, and Paul Hirsch had to bail George out of a hole is just a joke! (which is further proved by the fact that Marcia fought to save those early, "pointless" scenes introducing Luke." *It was George's idea* to get rid of those scenes!)
This is fascinating! It brings to mind the numerous fan edits that exist of the Star Wars prequels. Last night, I watched Red Maple's 45 minute edit of Rogue One featuring John Williams' score and a few alterations, and found it immensely better than the actual film.
Timothy Mably
Interesting! Is it on UA-cam? If not, would I just google Rogue One fan edit?
i would like to know as well
www.maple-films.com/rogue-one-downloads.html
Timothy Mably Rogue One had pretty good music, replacing it with John Williams seems a little unnecessary
@@peterjoyfilms It seemed like it was just an experiment, since Rogue One is meant to take place shortly before A New Hope. Interestingly, even though the music was pretty good, the score was composed by Giacchino just a month or so before the film was released. They fired the original composer who was attached to the film, who I imagine had an entire soundtrack ready to go that Disney wasn't happy with.
Wow... I never knew Luke had friends.
Ceceli He does mention that he is going "to town", so to speak, to buy some parts and hang out with his friends. He likes to mod his crappy lansdpeeder.
I will sure try to remember that when a rewatch 456123.
Ceceli Lucas wanted to portray his love of souped-up cars, and hanging out with friends at some cool hangout, talking about mods and parts, but in a science fiction setting. But he couldn't achieve it.
You can look up the deleted scenes on UA-cam. Wedge is introduced, who is in Ep 4-6. Also that's part of the book.
@@stephenkeen5737 Or you could, you know, just watch them on a Blu ray or DVD collection. I mean, what kind of Star Wars fan doesn't at least have a DVD if not a Blu ray of AT LEAST the original trilogy, if not the first 6 films? I personally just completed my collection a few days ago when I bought Solo on Blu ray.
Excellent video essay! George was the visionary behind the entire concept, but film is a collaborative effort. When George himself got TOO MUCH credit and too much control, we got...well, you know what we got. Thank heavens for good editors and a director with the good sense (or wife) to listen.
He tried to do the same with the prequels but no one would help him. Too much risk I guess. We ended up with a good story but bad acting and dialogue and CGI. Some good lightsaber duels here and there. Not the best movies but hey, it could have been worse. Could have been The Last Jedi.
ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.html
@@ejn8982 Based ;)
I like the story that Marcia said "What happened to Marion" in _Raiders_ so they went back and filmed a scene on the steps. Too bad she wasn't around to fix Willie Scott's character. There was a point when Indy might have left the kids to their fate and just run off with the treasure. She could have been the person to turn him around, then no more screaming from her. But of course, part of the reason _Temple of Doom_ was dark was due to the divorce. I even saw a scene recently where Indy punches the cigarette girl in the face (accidentally, but still!).
if yall had any credibility yall would take this vid down. clearly yall dont
Ah yes... the line, "Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?" really highlights that the Death Star was "just sitting there waiting to be blown up."
I blame the yes men that surrounded Lucas for the disappointing PT. Lucas is a great idea man, especially when he's filtered during collaboration.
Michael Burke true. Still problem was that he was not so easily filtered later on. A lot of the great no sayers already started to leave him after EP V
Stefan Holmqvist That's true. You can tell that by Return of the Jedi, something was off. The ewoks, Jabba's palace dragging on, some parts had the PT vibe.
Michael Burke all is hard to say. I think we never know where stuff is true to Lucas intention or not. Maybe he envisioned a lot of things different than they ended up. The thing I personally believe is that Lucas is not such good when it comes to visuals. Like when the prequel preproduction. Almost every time we see concept art and design with multiple design the one ended up in the movie was the worst for me. Compare with Ralph M who had so much more visual control just because Lucas was force-d to handle a lot other and could not decide on all concept design.
When he made the first trilogy, Limitation of time and money forced George Lucas to rely on other peoples ideas and talent.
when he made the PT, he had unlimited funds and time, and he didn't have to listen to anyone.
Even some of the deleted scenes featured here seemed very prequelly.
Kinda makes me feel like George Lucas took the credit of these talented people for himself who fixed thid huge mess of a storyline for him.
To be fair, George himself did not get an award for A New Hope where the editors, VFX team, composer, and even costume designer did.
Andrew Pincock good point
Kinda makes why the prequels are so bad make a lot more sense
Andrew Pincock, really? That is actually quite funny.
Sadly often those who get the credit and fame is rarely those who deserve it.
I think this youtube video about editing has been brilliantly edited. The rough cut of this video about editing did not convey well enough how important editing is.
I recommend watching this video which is a response to this one: ua-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/v-deo.html
While I agree intercutting all that at the beginning of the film was a bad idea, I think we still needed an introductory scene with Biggs. In the final cut he just kind of shows up without any fanfare and we the audience have no idea who this guy is or his significance to Luke. When he dies in the battle of Yavin it should be a gut punch moment but it just looks like another pilot died.
Agreed--that was one of the few mis-steps the editors made, in my opinion. Biggs wasn't critical to the overall storyline, but he is a link to Luke's past and a scene could have been incorporated on Tatooine without compromising the narrative flow. It also makes Biggs' sacrifice far more poignant and meaningful.
I disagree. We can understand he is an old friend of Luke.
I agree with My Account. When I saw the film as a kid, I pretty much understood they were buds from the hometown. Though I remember photos of Biggs were included in the storybook and rumors swirled for years there were scenes of them together and we all wondered why they weren't included and wished that they were but in the end, it wasn't necessary.
For many years I didn't understand how, by the time of the battle, Luke already seemed to be on first-name terms with some people in the rebellion (Biggs, but also Wedge) despite seemingly having been there for about 5 minutes. Maybe some people guessed that he already knew Biggs from before, but I don't think that was at all clear. But maybe that was a deliberate choice for the audience not to care about any of the people who die in the film. It is a kids film after all ;)
MetalPersonJ
I agree, Bigg's death was supposed to be a meaningful blow to Luke, but with his late introduction and skipped over past history together it kinda falls flat.
Nice shoutout to the Despecializied Editions!
Isnt every film saved in the edit?
It should be noted that Marcia's work on Star Wars (about 4 weeks worth) was on the BAD version, being discussed at the beginning of this video. She was in tears after the fateful New Years Eve screening for their friends.
All of the improvements were made AFTER she had already gone back to work on another project.
Certainly Star Wars was greatly improved by the time of its final edit, but it was long after Marcia's work had ended.