Who SHOULD have directed the Star Wars prequels???

My first post... and why I choose this oddball subject I have no idea. It's just something I thought about while reading reviews of Inland Empire & Apocalypto (giveaway... but here goes:

Episode 1 - Steven Spielberg
Episode 2 - David Lynch
Episode 3 - Mel Gibson

 

George Lucas - 20 years ago, before he got the 'Wacko - Jacko' syndrom.

Welcome.

 

No one. A bad idea from the get-go.

 

Mel Gibson makes only sadistic films now. And Lynch's Dune was pretty bad.

Why Not: Speilberg, Sam Raimi and Alfonso Cuarón

 

Peter Jackson?
Bryan Singer?
Christopher Nolan?

 

Joel Schumacer, Michael Bay, John Woo!

 

Steven Spielberg should have directed all of them, and since he has a long-time working relationship with George, it coulda happened...

Derek

 

Funny, Lynch was tapped to direct "Return of the Jedi" originally.

My .02:

Ep I - Terry Gilliam
Ep II - Ridley Scott
Ep III - David Fincher

All three should have been "Story by George Lucas, Script by ...", my vote would have been Lawrence Kasdan, Tom Stoppard, and Frank Daranbont, to name a few.

 

All that cheese just made my cholesterol go up!

 

Irvin Kershner, Irvin Kershner, Irvin Kershner.

But someone else would have had to write them too. For that I nominate Lawrence Kasdan.

Can anyone tell I think The Empire Strikes Back is the best of all the movies?

P.S. And Rick McCallum, Lucas's producer at this point, would have to be banned from having anything to do with the movies. He's a grade-A yes-man. It's amazing he was able to take a break from kissing George's butt long enough to do commentaries on the DVDs. This may be Lucas's fault for hiring him, but the guy just makes my skin crawl.

 

Kevin Smith!

(Complete with Jay & Silent Bob cameos)


Evan

 

Kershner is 83 years old and long since retired. He hasn't directed a film since "Robocop 2" in 1990. Not a film that was better than a Star Wars prequel.

 

Hey, he took issue with George cutting the Yoda scene.

I just hope I'm not running into Star Wars snobbery here, too - the prequels weren't THAT bad (George Lucas has NEVER been able to write romantic dialogue or direct actors - we just accept Mark Hamill's bad 1977 acting as a period thing. )

 

You mean Like American Graffiti

 

YES! It's not really the directing (which is bad to an extent) but it's really the scripts that suck big time. They really needed someone like Lawrence Kasdan to punch the dialogue up, trim the fat...

 

They brought many people to trim the fat and it went into George Lucas's neck. The remaining fat stayed in the pictures.

 

I read that he asked Spielberg to direct the prequels but Spielberg said "no thanks, they're yours" or something like that.

I really think Stephen King should have written the screenplay for Ep. 3.
Lucas was just too out of it to successfully pull it off.

And I totally agree with the McCallum yes-man thing. What a waste.
"these things are the greatest things ever made!"
You just wonder if they are on the same planet looking at the same movies we are looking at.

 

If I recall, Spielberg was offered the chance to direct "Empire" but declined due to possible fallout with the Director's Guild. I don't believe that anyone besides George Lucas was offered the chance to direct the three prequels.

 

The originals were - and people still complain about ROTJ.

 

I thought I read somewhere that Spielberg said no for some reason (thought it was a 'they're yours' type of thing).

I could be wrong.

 

Yeah the teddy bears
ROTJ was actually a pretty good movie. I mean in terms of the acting and Vader/Luke interaction.

The Yoda/Luke scene was really good. But those damn care bears.

The way no one seemed to question Lucas about anything in the prequels

 

I'll still insist that the biggest difference between the original three movies and the prequels isn't the scripts, directing or acting, but the age of the viewer. The first three original films ain't that great, either, but people have attached fond childhood memories to them and subsequently overrate them.

I was very disappointed seeing the original during a second run after the initial release. Even as a teenager I thought it was cartoonish and not in the good RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK/ROAD WARRIOR way of films that had yet to be made. That is, STAR WARS was Hanna-Barbara cartoonish, not Warner Brothers cartoonish.

 

Well I agree somewhat that A new hope isn't THAT amazing. My favorite has always been 'Empire'. That is a great movie.

Everything about it is fantastic, obviously the fight at the end is incredible.

That one isn't just great because of how old you are (I was too young to see it in the theaters originally) it's simply a great movie.

The hero pattern/journey element is perfect too.

The acting, script and to a lesser extent, directing were all bad in the newer movies.
Hayden C. was a dud. He was miscast imo. Sam Jackson, Jimy Smits, both great actors looking and sounding totally flat. That's weak directing.

Lucas should have just made a outline and given it to any great director back in '99.
Anyone would have done it better. He's past his time.

 

I think they shouldn't have been filmed. Yes, the three of them bear the "Star Wars" name, but neither the story nor the aesthetics or the characters blend with the original trilogy.