-
Archives
-
Categories
- Anime (72)
- D&D Campaign (84)
- DM of the Rings (156)
- Escapist (319)
- Game Design (69)
- Game Reviews (314)
- Lets Play (78)
- Links (210)
- Movies (208)
- Nerd Culture (135)
- Notices (82)
- Personal (114)
- Pictures (114)
- Programming (21)
- Projects (88)
- Random Thoughts (123)
- Rants (149)
- Tabletop Games (62)
- Video Games (135)
-
RSS Links
-
Links
Star Wars: Done Today
Previous in Movies: Half-Life 2 | Next in Movies: Worst Casting Ever |
Imagine what it would be like if Star Wars had not been written 30 years ago.
Now picture a young, idealistic George Lucas showing up in Hollywood with the script for Star Wars: A New Hope in 2006. It’s a safe bet the studio executives of today wouldn’t look at the script and see “blockbuster”. Actually, it’s a safe bet they wouldn’t look at it at all. It doesn’t have any toy or comic-book tie-ins, after all. But, assuming George worked hard and was lucky, he might get the thing into the hands of someone who could make it happen. Some Hollywood bigshot. This person would not see the script as the start of a revolution. They probably wouldn’t even green-light it. But if they did, what would happen to the story? How would the movie turn out?
Very few scripts are filmed as written. This is even more true today than it was in the 1970′s. Certainly Star Wars would not make it to the big screen as we know it. Someone who had already written “successfull” movies (that is, movies that made money – it doesn’t matter if they were any good or not) would be brought in to give the script a treatment. Their goal would be to make it more marketable.
Let’s imagine that George is having a tough time making ends meet in 2006 L.A. Because of this, he decides to sell the script and let the studio have their way with it. He knows they will make changes, they will not let him direct his own picture, and if they take time to even listen to his advice they will smile, nod, and ignore it. Still, he hopes he can take the money and use it on this “American Graffiti” idea he’s been working on. George Lucas takes the money, and signs over the rights to the script.
Then they give the script to an expert…
The re-write
So, here we are with this script from Jeff Lucas or whatever his name is. You know, the goofball with the beard? Nice kid, but he has no sense of what people want to see. My personal trainer just finished reading me the script during my Tae-Bo session. Great stuff. Tae-Bo, I mean. The script itself is a little shakey.
Anyway, I’ve got some great ideas that will really bring this thing to life. I think there are some good ideas buried in here, and we need to leverage those.
The first thing that has to go is the title. Star Wars? I only count one war in the movie, and it seems more like a couple of battles. Also, we don’t want to use the word “Star”. Like “Star something because it sounds too much like Star Trek, Starman, or Starship Troopers. Those guys would sue our pants off. No, we need something new. Something punchy.
I’m thinking… wait… how about, “Space Battles”. No? I got it. “Galactic Conflict”. Or wait, how about just “Conflict”. One word titles have power and gravity. Check it out: Doom. Stealth. Domino. Impostor. Red Planet. See? Gravity. Also, what’s with this “episode IV” stuff? I’m all for making this into a trilogy. Or quilogy. Or whatever you call a trilogy of four, but you don’t start at the end.
Now, this “other galaxy” business. That seems silly. Why not just say it’s in the future? Like, the year 5,000 or whatever.
It says here to use John Williams for the score. I don’t know. John’s good, but we go to him for dramas or historical pieces. Mom-has-cancer and Waterloo kinda stuff. We need something more intense for a story like this. We could go with Danny Elfman. No Danny? That’s fine. We can just license some stuff. Something sort of Hardcore. Like The Matrix. You like The Matrix? Good? Alright.
Okay, so let’s go over the script:
Opening Credits
Obviously we’re not going to use this goofy scrolling intro. That will just annoy people. These people are coming to see a movie, not read a book. Plus, when we cut it for TV or video you’ll chop off the sides and it won’t work. You won’t be able to read it. Let’s just have someone, the Kenobi character I guess, read this stuff in voice-over. We’ll cut it down. Get rid of the stuff in ALL CAPS. Looks like chatroom text for crying out loud.
The rebels have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, a weapon with enough power to destroy an entire planet.Their hope now rests on Princess Leia, who must bring the plans back, and turn the tide of… the conflict.
Then when he reads “conflict” we launch into opening credits. Like names blowing up in space and stuff.
Scene 1: Space Battle
I like this. We open up with lasers and ships exploding.
These two robots. I love these guys. Funny. I think we’ll get John Cleese for the tall one. The short one with the beeps? That doesn’t work. He needs like a chirpy voice that says just a couple of phrases. Like catchphrases. Like, “Outta my way junkpile!” “Move it or lose it rust-brain!” Stuff like that. I bet Robin Williams will do it. Think of the marketing tie-ins. Happy Meals and stuff.
Now, the princess. She zaps one guy and they knock her out? What kind of rebel is she? My kids are more rebellious than that. We’ll make her sexy but tough. The way I see it, she has lots of attitude, doesn’t play by the rules, doesn’t respect autority, nobody can tame her, etc. I’m thinking Charlize Theron for the part. Instead of this big white bedsheet costume she’ll have tight leather uniform, see? She’s a bad girl. And she’ll fight these stormtroopers with karate kicks and guns. I’m thinking big, elaboate fight scene where she kills like a dozen of these guys before they capture her.
Then Dark Vader shows up. What? Garth Vader? Oh Darth? Whatever. He’s wearing black. Dark Vader. Simple enough.
Anyway, I don’t know about this guy. I think the full mask is too much. Kinda makes him seem more like a horror movie villian. Like Jason or the guy from Scream. Nobody with any star power is going to want to spend the film behind the mask. We’ll lose the mask and get Alan Rickman or Gary Oldman for the Vader part. It’ll be awesome.
Then when Vader comes aboard to talk to the princess she needs to be be defiant. Spit in his face. Show how fearless she is. Better than boring everyone with stuff about the senate or whatever. Then, he hits her! This will establish right away that he’s a bad guy in the minds of the audience.
Scene 2: Sand Dune Planet
First off, we are not calling this planet Tattooine. Sounds ridiculous. No, call it Dryadia or Aridon or Dune-worldia or something.
I like this wacky dialog these robots have. I think the little one should have a nasty streak, but only with the yellow one, and only when nobody else is around. Like a running joke. He turns all mean when nobody’s looking. For this scene when they argue about which way to go, I think we need a little more visual comedy here. Something for the kids. Like the yellow guy falls down and says he can’t get up or something.
Scene 3: Buying the droids
The Luke character isn’t strong enough. He’s our leading man. I got it! Paul Walker. He was great in the Fast and the Furious, and I think that has a lot in common with our Luke character. He’s a rebel and a bad boy. Confident. Cocky. Sexy. Yeah. Maybe he’ll even bring some females in to see the movie.
Scene 3: Chasing R2D2
Okay, they chase this little droid out into the wasteland. Tense. Then we introduce Kenobi, but all he does is scare the robbers away by making monster sounds? This guy is supposed to be a general! I think Kenobi would run in and carve these guys up with his lasersword.
This sounds like a good part for Walter Matthau. Dead? I didn’t know. Well, who else is old? Nevermind. We’ll come up with someone later.
Scene 4: Kenobi’s house
Looks good. We could speed this up a bit by leaving out all the stuff about Luke’s father. It’s not that interesting, and it doesn’t really move the plot forward.
Scene 5: Death Star
I like the scene, except where Dark Vader chokes the guy from across the room, and then lets him go. I think it will confuse people. They will think this guy is choking on a peanut or something. Just have Dark Vader stab him with the laser saber. Show what a badass he is.
I like this scene where all these evil, sort of facist guys, are all plotting the war and stuff. I think it would really amuse people if we worked in some Bush refrences. The facist thing makes me think of him. I say we re-name this Tarkin fellow to Chaney. Like Cheney, get it? It’s clever. People love clever.
Scene 6: Return Home
I think it would be more damatic if Luke arrives just as his family is getting killed. So we get to see them die. More dramatic. Also, I think the family needs a pet. Some cute animal, like a space-dog or whatever. Maybe he leaves thinking the dog is dead and finds out it’s still alive at the end. Symbol of hope and all. Put the fuzzy little guy in the trailer and bring in some kids to see the movie.
Anyway, he shows up and the troopers see him, and we could have a great chase scene where they go after him in his hovercar. Some shooting. Kind of show that even though he’s a farmboy he can handle himself.
Scene 7: Cantina
This is a great scene. They meet Han Solo at the bar. Good character. I like him. A read bad boy. I’m thinking Johnny Knoxville. I’m also thinking we get rid of this wookie thing. The toy would scare children. This Solo guy seems like the loner type to me anyway.
The place needs some dancing girls. Like, some blue-skinned women in thongs dancing around. Give it all that “outer space” feel. Also, I’m going to assume that the notes on the music are a joke. It’s the year 5,000 and it’s going to sound like Jazz music? Gotta be a joke. This would be a good spot to drop in some Rod Zombie or Lint Biscut or whatever the kids are listening to. You know, hardcore. Give the place a deadly, gritty feel.
Then, when the bounty hunter comes in, I think we need a brawl. I mean, here we are, in a bar and these two guys are enemies. The audience is going to expect a brawl. I say, like six bounty hunters come in, and Solo takes them all on. Alone. Solo. I love it. They should be really big black guys. Well, not black guys, or it would be racist. And I hate racists. So, we get a bunch of big black guys and color them green or something.
Although, these guys are like the mob. Maybe they should be Itialians? We could have James Gandolfini play Jabba. I don’t know. We’ll talk about this one later. Call me.
Scene 7: Spaceport
What is this “load your weapons” stuff? What kind of stormtroopers walk around with unloaded weapons? How about, “Don’t let anyone stand in your way. Shoot to kill.” Much better.
Scene 8: Death Star
I like when they bring Leia in and trick her into reveling the location of the rebel base, and then blow up her planet anyway. But we need more. We should have some shots of the people on the planet. Show how inhabited it is. I’m worried the audience will have trouble grasping just how bad it is to blow up a whole planet. It’s not like just destroying a city or a building.
Scene 9: Spaceship
I don’t understand this “force” stuff. I’m thinking it will confuse the viewers. Let’s just call them psychics. Or Psy-warriors. People understand psychics.
Scene 10: Death Star
I love this. They get captured, and decide to rescue the princess. The whole thing with the tractor beam was kind of hard to understand, though.
Scene 11: Prison
This is lame. Princess Leia is just sitting around, waiting to be rescued? I mean, a helpless princess? Is this a fairy tale? Trust me, nobody will want to see this as written. Here is how it needs to go: Luke and Solo break in, start a fight, and find she’s already escaped and fighting her way out! In fact, I think it would be really ironic if they got pinned down and she rescued them. Like, the troopers surround them, all hope is lost, and then BOOM! Princess Leia blasts open a nearby door, runs across the room, and drop-kicks the commander. Maybe knock his head right through a console, which opens the door so they can escape. Now, there is an action scene for you!
Scene 13: Trash Compactor
Great scene. Gives the guys a chance to prove themselves after being rescued by Princess Leia, and return the favor. Except: I don’t know about the underwater monster. Wouldn’t it be more scary if we got to see it?
Scene 13: Kenobi vs. Vader
I enjoyed this up until the part where I read General Kenobi LETS himself be killed? What? What kind a general is this, anyway? Is he a pacifist? And this stuff about the force. It’s a superpower but they act like its religion. This is making everything too complicated.
The whole scene where Kenobi just dies… it lacks closure. Vader should stab Kenobi and walk away. Vader assumes he’s dead, BUT! He’s just barely alive. (Am I reading this right? Ben is supposed to vanish? Lame. ) Then Luke can find him just as he’s dying, and Kenobi can tell Luke to lead the resistance to victory. Then he dies.
Scene 12: Escape from the Death Star
Space battle. Excitment. Great stuff. I suggest: Have princess offer to fly the ship while the boys use the guns. Solo objects, since he doesn’t let anyone fly his ship. But she does, and she’s even better than he is! She’s a marksman and a pilot and a kung-fu master and a princess and looks like a supermodel. Gives young girls someone to look up to. Make them believe in themselves.
Scene 13: The long, boring breifing and the final battle
This is too complicated.
The Princess stays behinds while everyone else goes off to fight? This Lucas guy must be a misogynist or something. Since she stays behind, she should change into some sort of low-cut admiral uniform and take over as the commander at the rebel base.
It would be more exciting if they don’t know how to beat the Death Star, but as a last desperate measure, they send their ships anyway. Then – just as the rebels are defeated to the point where only Luke and Solo are left – the little R2D2 guy comes in and tells Leia about the weak spot. He’s known it all along, but nobody would listen! Catchphrase!
Then Leia tells Luke, he blows up the Death Star, and the good guys win.
Scene 14: The award ceremony
This scene has to go. All these soldiers lined up like a big army? Our heroes are too cool for that kind of stuff. What are we saying with all these soldiers? That we replaced one jackbooted army with another?
They should have a big party. Work in the hit single. Luke and Leia finally loosen up and kiss.
This is gonna be huge. Bigger than The Fantastic Four.
Geeks like me would go to this movie. We’d watch it, and just be grateful Hollywood threw us a bone this year.
But we would have no idea.
Previous in Movies: Half-Life 2 | Next in Movies: Worst Casting Ever |
39 comments:
One Trackback
-
[...] Twenty Sided » Blog Archive » Star Wars: Done Today Imagine what it would be like if Star Wars had not been written 30 years ago. (tags: star-wars movies parody star-wars/episodeiv funny blogs) [...]
Leave a Reply
Yep. I’d like this movie. In fact Lucas might kinda like this movie.. he is a pulp fiction, saturday morning matinee kind of guy
You truly have a finger on the pulse of Hollywood… Those empty suits will suck the life out of anything.
You hear me, Daredevil? Highlander 2 (etc)?
“Geeks like me would go to this movie. We’d watch it, and just be grateful Hollywood threw us a bone this year.”
I enjoyed this one a whole lot. Then this line knocked me off my chair. Excuse me, I need to go soak my brain in acid now. That one is too true. Agh.
I really like the parodic comedy of the … treatment..
more than funny and possibly a little bit true for far too much of the major movies we are thought to enjoy and refinance by paying the cinema-tickets ;)
BUT… i don’t think that there would really be problems THIS big. The Original SW hasn’t been planned as big blockbuster itself and the budget was rather limited (what finally earned Lucas the golden nose by him securing a budget raise through agreeing in lowering his own income for the granting of the merchandising rights), and as an “independent” storywriter his chances wouldn’t be so bad, remember The Matrix, remember Underworld?
Followed the link back from the post about the unused Aragon-Sauron fight in LoTR. I only got as far as Scene 3 in this before my brain gave up and hung itself because, as you said in the latter post, this is WAY TOO ACCURATE. ;_;
Like Alex, I tracked back to here from the Aragon-Sauron fight.
This script makes me weep. Really. It also makes me laugh, and be thankful that at least Star Wars didn’t really turn out like this.
Isn’t that how Lucas planned the prequels?
It could quite plausibly end up a lot worse than this, actually. At the moment, all the scenes and the essential plotline are still there. It wouldn’t be particularly strange nowadays for Hollywood to be handed Star Wars and end up with The Chronicles of Ridley. Think about it.
Sorry, Riddick. You know, that Pitch Black sequel thing.
No, he asked his kids what they wanted to see.
Hey, that’s not a bad idea for a parody, somebody ought to film it!
Some of it actually wouldn’t be too bad, I mean really, “Load your weapons.”? What kind of evil Empire troops don’t walk around with their guns already loaded?
Funny stuff! Of course, I’m betting that the “expert” would have suggested a re-write to make the bounty hunter shoot first in the cantina scene. We wouldn’t want people to think our good guy is a bad guy, would we?
That’s terrible, but even worse is that they really would have mutilated it that badly.
Okay, all I want from the original trilogy is one scene… if George Lucas can rape my childhood, why can’t I?
Han Solo walks into the first bar he sees after being frozen in carbonite just in time to see a decomissioned war droid lose at holochess and rip off its opponents arms.
Pause in shock. “Well, I’ll be damned…” (Yeah, I know it’s stupid as hell, but I think it’s a great kind of stupid.)
And to hell with Ewoks, the biggest red flag that announced Hollywood was seeping in like an gangreious infection. They should have stayed with Wookies, explored the newfound cultural gap between them and Chewbacca, and seriously destroyed a more heavily defended sheild generator. Every time I play a Star Wars RPG, any girl present wants to be a damn Ewok… AAAAAAUUUGHHH!!!
So, I came here from the Aragorn-Sauron post also. And all I can say is I got to scene 7 or so before the I was getting visibly angry at how bad this script is, and yet how likely it is that this could have happened. HONESTLY. Oh well. Thank god it is the way it is.
But, this parody script did do something positive for me: it helped me remember how the A New Hope is pure. F**king. Gold. I was able to think “man, if you changed it, you’d be messing with perfection.” so thanks for posting this so I could remember that. also, this is my first comment on here, and you have a really awesome website. so thanks for all the random crap that gets on here and keep up the good work
I dunno, I reckon Alan Rickman with a lightsaber would be something worth watching! :D
Gotta say though, I agree with the last few lines. We would go and see a film like this, and we would probably love it…
Good thing it never happened.
Like many others have already said, I would probably be very inclined to go see this new movie “Conflict” if just not to see another girl kick some butt!!! Need more of them. I was actually getting into the rewrite of the story too… is that bad?
The “load your weapons” line actually does kinda make sense, though not necessarily for an “evil” empire. I mean, cops go around with loaded guns, but without chambering the first round so the gun won’t fire. I see the “load your weapons” as something like chambering that first round.
I dunno. If I were some officer in the evil empire, I don’t think I’d want the troops following me to have loaded weapons. Lest they chose the ole promotion through attrition strategy on me…
So very well (badly?) done …
Now, if they’d made Star Wars in anime, X-Wings and TIE fighters would all morph into robot battle warriors, and the Death Star would morph into something resembling Unicron. And they’d all have lightsabers (and the Death Star/Unicron lightsaber would be big enough to slice a planet in half – well, how else is it gonna kill a whole world?)
You know they would.
“Load your weapons” – depends on doctrine of Stormtroopers in policing worlds, my guess is they’d have their guns set on safety and unchambered to prevent accidents (after all good ole’ Palpatine would hate to lose say loyal governor when a Stormtrooper numbnut on patrol accidentally unloads into his hover limousine) and would “load” them in case there’s trouble ahead (in this case, storming a landing platform of a known rogue pilot who just sacked a bounty hunter in the public CATCHING HIM OFF GUARD AND SHOOTING FIRST!)…
Other than that, I think Shamus underestimated the destructive powers of Hollywood, just take a look at that U-boat movie ;)
The parody is really well done and catches the spirit of 21st century Hollywood really good, but wouldn’t worry about a modern Star Wars because, when it appeared, in the ’70, it dramatically changed the face of blockbusters and sci-fi in cinematography. Since then, it influenced countless movies and created a whole legacy. Sci-fi would definetly be different today if it wasn’t for Star Wars.
OMG this thing is loaded with spoilers! You should have put a warning up!
Graywolf: The bounty hunter does shoot first, he just misses. the shot hits the wall to the above right of Han.
Anyway if the movie does flop, the “expert” can say he took it straight from G.L. and he did not change it at all. then he keeps his fame and poor gorgie gets blamed and ridaculed. not a good picture.
Er, FlameKiller you do know that originally Han did shoot first don’t you? It was only Lucas’s meddling for the special editions that sees Greedo shoot first instead and that’s what Greywolf was referencing.
This is what the Wachowski brothers did to V is for Vendetta.
sorry Jackal and Graywolf
i was not wearing my glasses that day.
I have to confess that I couldn’t get through scene three. This made…everything hurt. :weeping in a corner:
I am constantly reminded of how awesome this whole transformation is.
This is cute, and quite representative of modern Hollywood. The problem is, Star Wars, to a surprisingly large degree, created modern Hollywood: Toy tie-ins, merchandising, Huge summer blockbuster and more would not exist the way it is today if it wasn’t for Star Wars.
I think the rewrite you mentioned WOULD be okay for geeks, but it would alienate everyone else. When I saw Star Wars as a kid, I was geeked out. I loved the Force references and the funny robots.
I have nothing about your rewrite, but it sort of shows how far rock bottom the movie industry has come and why the only movies I will ever watch for the rest of my life are the last two Harry Potter movies. Harry Potter works because, even though they (censored) out a lot of what made the books good, they also kept what would draw in a newbie. Still, I shudder to think about what will be done with Deathly Hallows, since I know parents who take their kids to watch these movies.
Well, damn. It really makes me wonder what we’re all missing out on these days.
What’s sad is I kept thinking, “Wow… I’ve seen movies that did THAT.” over and over.
The thing is, I’m pretty sure that the Star Wars that we’re all familiar with actually WAS a rewrite. Granted, they at least let the original author iterate on it, but (at least according to Wikipedia ) he’d been going through major overhauls to make a more Hollywood appropriate movie since 1971.
Also, the original release was just as ‘Star Wars’. They didn’t add Episode IV until they re-released it in 1981, but I realize that that’s incidental to the main gist of your post.
[...] Twenty Sided » Blog Archive » Star Wars: Done Today Imagine what it would be like if Star Wars had not been written 30 years ago. (tags: star-wars movies parody star-wars/episodeiv funny blogs) [...]
I think my Inner Child has been killed!
He’s laying in the corner in a pool of his own fluids!
Bad Shamus! No cookie!!!
I know it’s been said before, but I couldn’t read the whole thing. I just couldn’t bring myself to face it…
Wow, I have seen the movie you described thousand times before.
Star Wars originally came out in 1972, and completely redefined not just movie-making, but art as a whole. It was derided at first, but, much like the Beatles the decade before, it turned out have been so sublime, so outside the box, that critics had simply failed to grasp it, and written it off as a flop. A few decades later, it was pretty much the watermark of all entertainment purporting to be intelligent, though-provoking and deep. Even within his life span, George Lucas attained a reputation to eclipse even Homer and Shakespeare, and he did so on a budget amounting to a comb and two pieces of string. In fact, the popular 80′s television series MacGuyver, which was an existentialist action-drama focusing on the acquisition and use of practical knowledge as an extension of the self, was modeled on Lucas’ experiences filming Star Wars. After the film’s release, the average critical rating of all other movies dropped two points due to the inevitable comparison, and though they slowly climbed back up to the pre-Star Wars levels, that was not due to any drop in critical standards. In fact, no course on any level of education can possibly avoid some level of analysis or discussion of Star Wars, since it seems to encompass the entirety of human existence, and to do so more fully and clearly than any other work has even managed a single trait of these. In most cases, a working understanding of Star Wars is, in fact, required in ordered to be considered to have even a rudimentary knowledge of any topic outside of hard science. It was, hands down, the best movie ever made.
Then we invented cross-temporal travel. Now, I’m stuck here. Thank you, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen. Thank you very much.
( ;) )
The movie you describe still sounds better than the prequels Lucas made.