A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

If you do not like the new Star Wars movies, why are you considered a toxic fan since opinions of movies are subjective? Oo, oo! I’ll take this one. © and ™ Lucasfilm and Dolby Laboratories From my perspective, this is what it boils down to: It’s perfectly fine to  not  like a movie. It doesn’t matter if the movie is a  Star Wars  Episode or Anthology film, or if it’s  Bolero  or  Ishtar.  As you say in your question, whether you like a movie is a subjective thing. It’s acceptable to write a negative review of a film, so long as you don’t insult the cast, crew, or director  personally.  Critique their work, yes, but stooping to calling them names or picking on them for reasons that are only tangential to the film is not okay. Your behavior can become  toxic  if you start flooding social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Quora, just to name a few) with long, overheated, and hateful diatribes about how X (X standing in for  George Lucas, Lucasfilm

Animation courtesy of Intrada Records. Art by Roger Kastel  © 1975, 2015 Universal Pictures "Dick Zanuck and David Brown, thank you both for giving me the opportunity to work with this extraordinary man, Steven Spielberg. The great Universal orchestra, my friend Herb Spencer, thank you, and all the members of this Academy for giving me this honor. I'm a grateful man, thank you very much." - John Williams' Oscar acceptance speech, 48th Academy Awards, March 29, 1976 "In doing the score for Jaws , John Williams has really outdone himself. The soundtrack is a stunning symphonic achievement and a great leap ahead in the revitalization of film music as a foreground component for the total motion picture experience...." - Steven Spielberg, director of Jaws , in the original 1975 LP liner notes In 2015, Oakland (California)-based Intrada Records released a deluxe 2-CD edition of composer-conductor John Williams' Academy Award-winning score for

© 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation Would audiences be interested if Disney-Lucasfilm remade Star Wars Episodes IV, V and VI with modern film-making techniques? Judging from the reaction of many  Star Wars  fans to the changes that franchise creator and founder/retired CEO of Lucasfilm, George Lucas, made when he decided to improve 1970s-era special effects shots that he felt fell short of his vision with late 1990s-era CGI effects for the 20th Anniversary Special Editions, I’d say…”No.” The  Star Wars Trilogy  is already one of the most “tinkered with” movie series in the history of the industry. Since 1977,  Star Wars  alone has undergone many adjustments, ranging from necessary fixes to its audio track, accidental deletion of scenes and re-insertion of said scenes, a 1981 title change from  Star Wars  to  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope,  a tweak that was first previewed in 1979 when Ballantine Books published Carol Titleman’s  The Art of Star Wars  and officiall

Is  The Rise of Skywalker  the last  Star Wars  movie? No. While  Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker  will bring the curtain down on the Skywalker Saga that began with 1977’s  Star Wars,  it is not going to be the  last  feature film set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” To be sure, it is the swan song, as it were, of the film series that bears - for good or ill - the DNA of George Lucas’s  The Star Wars.  The Big Three - Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher have moved on: Harrison and Mark have had their characters killed off or transformed into Force ghosts, and Carrie died in late 2016, so her role in  The Rise of Skywalker  has been minimized into scenes that can make use of existing footage shot for  The Force Awakens  and (perhaps)  The Last Jedi.  And, as George himself once said, the only characters that are in the entire Skywalker Saga are C-3PO and R2-D2. The Rise of Skywalker  will also be the last film that Lucasfilm and Wal

 'During Vader's confrontation with Admiral Motti, why doesn't the Dark Lord choke Governor Tarkin when he intervenes?' Because, as powerful and menacing as Darth Vader is, he can’t Force-choke anyone who is equal in stature, or even above Vader’s standing in Imperial hierarchy, even if he is tempted to. It’s just not something one does in a chain of command, and especially not in the ruling circles of the Galactic Empire. Understand. In  Star Wars,  aka  Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope,  Vader is not the big bad villain representing the Empire. That role belongs to Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Governor of the Imperial Outland Territories, author of the Tarkin Doctrine, and commander of the Empire’s new Death Star battle station. He is also a confidante and friend to Sheev Palpatine, aka His Imperial Highness, Emperor Palpatine. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corp.  In  Episode IV; A New Hope,  in which the “I find your lack of faith disturbing” altercat

© 2017, 2018 Del Rey Books/Lucasfilm Ltd. Which elements of 'The Last Jedi' do you think J.J. Abrams will retcon in the upcoming 'Star Wars: Episode IX'? Oh, Sithspawn. Will  The Last Jedi  bashing ever stop? All right. Listen. Apparently, you never took Basic Screenwriting 101 or understand how moviemaking at that level works  really  works. First, even though J.J. Abrams did not write or direct  Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi,  he is one of the film’s executive producers, which is the same job title George Lucas had when Lucasfilm Ltd. made  The Empire Strikes Back  and  Return of the Jedi. That means that even though he was not on-set every day or oversaw production in a hands-on way, he read Johnson’s script way before principal photography began. As executive producer, along with Kathleen Kennedy and others on his decision-making level, he had  veto power  over Johnson’s script. Thus, if Abrams believed, like quite a few fans seem to think, th

Concept art from The Empire Strikes Back by Ralph McQuarrie. © 1980 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) No. Going strictly by what we see in  Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi,  it is obvious that Yoda is  not  referring to Rey from  Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Yoda’s last words to Luke before crossing over to the other side of the Force are: “There is…another…Sky…walk…er.” In the  very next scene,  which is what writers sometimes call an “exposition dump,” we find out who  the other  is: LUKE I can't kill my own father. BEN Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope. LUKE Yoda spoke of another. BEN The other he spoke of is your twin sister. LUKE But I have no sister. BEN Hmm. To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did, if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him. That is the reason why your sister remains safely anon