A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Superman was also released as a "Christmas movie" in 1978. It didn't change the "true meaning of Christmas." © 1978 DC Comics and Warner Bros.  Someone on Quora asks: Do you think that Disney's plan to release Star Wars movies around Christmas is to make the holiday about Star Wars instead of the true meaning of Christmas? Hardly. Traditionally, all of the major movie studios, including Paramount Pictures, Columbia, Universal, MGM, and Disney’s newest acquisition, 20th Century Fox, have  always  released major movies during the December holiday season. This is nothing new, and it’s not, as you suggest, a marketing strategy centered around one movie franchise. There are several reasons behind this strategy, but the biggest ones are: The holiday season is when most businesses usually make the most money Children and adolescents are on winter break The last quarter of the year (October, November, and December) is when most studios releas

Someone - naturally - on Quora asks: Is the MCU based on anything? If you’re asking if the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is based on a single book or comic book story, the answer is  no.  As far as I know, there is no single source for the various films and television series produced by Marvel Studios over the past 11 years. The first film in the current MCU was 2008’s  Iron Man.  The latest entry in the series is  Avengers: Endgame.  In addition, ABC-TV (which is owned by Marvel Enterprises’ corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company) airs  Secret Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,  which is also integrated into the MCU. That having been said, the MCU is based primarily on the characters created by Marvel Comics and the various comic book series that shared a common fictional universe. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Spider-Man, Hulk, Doctor Strange, Nick Fury, and Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel are all characters created originally for Marvel Comics. Unlike  The Lord of the Rings, 

Someone on Quora asks: Are you disappointed that Rey has seemingly reforged the Skywalker lightsaber hilt, rather than constructing her own design? No. Why would I be? Look. I’m a movie buff. I’m a reviewer. I’m a  Star Wars  fan. And I’m also acquainted with creating content because I’m also a writer. I learned long ago that I, a consumer of the  Star Wars  films that Lucasfilm has made from 1977 to 2019, have no say in what George Lucas or Kathleen Kennedy decide to make or green light. That applies to every other movie I have watched, whether they’re franchise films or standalone ones. Therefore, since I was 17, I have gone to each film without a wishlist of “fanboy theories” or things I want to see happen. Same applies for Star Wars - Episode IX; The Rise of Skywalker. In this specific instance, I am not disappointed at all that Rey managed to repair the Skywalker lightsaber. In fact, this is one of the very few plot points that I anticipated when I watched  Star

Cover photo © Los Angeles Philharmonic © 2019 Deutsche Grammophon On March 29, Berlin-based Deutsche Grammophon released Celebrating John Williams: Gustavo Dudamel/Los Angeles Philharmonic, a 2-CD set that presents 19 of the world-renowned composer-conductor's best-known (and best-loved) themes. Recorded live at the Los Angeles Philharmonic's (LAP) home in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the album showcases music from Maestro Williams' illustrious career, including selections from the Harry Potter series, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and other films by Steven Spielberg, the 1984 Summer Olympiad in Los Angeles, and more.  No other world-class orchestra champions the classic film music tradition like the Los Angeles Philharmonic does - and the close working relationship its Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel has established with legendary film-music composer John Williams makes this the ultimate showcase album of the composer's greatest works. - B

Someone on Quora asks:  What do you think of the Star Wars Episode IX trailer? As someone who has seen every  Star Wars  trailer for the live action Episodes since 1976, I can honestly say it’s par for the course for a Lucasfilm  Star Wars  trailer. In essence, it follows the conventions of the  Star Wars  teaser trailers that have come before. It gives the audience glimpses of what the filmmakers have to offer without giving the narrative away. Obviously, there are stylistic differences between the teaser for the first  Star Wars  Skywalker Saga film and the one for the last. For instance, there’s no “voice of God” narrator in the teaser for  The Rise of Skywalker ; instead, we have Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, reciting some dialogue that gives viewers a hint about the thematic content of the film  without  spoilers. I also like the fact that the  Episode IX  trailer is itself a callback to the teaser for  The Force Awakens. And I love the twist at the

Would "flying water tankers" have been able to successfully extinguish the Notre Dame fire? No. Firefighting “bombers” would not have been able to successfully extinguish the fire that seriously damaged the Cathedral of Notre Dame. On the contrary, they would have just completed the destruction of the ancient structure that the flames started. To wit: Call them air tankers, water bombers, or aerial firefighters, fixed-wing aircraft that drop either water or flame retardant are fine for helping douse or at least diminish wildfires in remote, unpopulated areas such as forests or national parks. In heavily urbanized areas, such as Metro Paris in France, water bombers are useless. I mean, okay. The planes will douse the fire, sure. But they’ll also cause a lot of destruction, injuries, and even loss of lives. Air tankers are not precision instruments. If we were to make an analogy, using a water bomber on Notre Dame is like using a sledgehammer to swat a mosqui

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