A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Is there any chance that a young Han Solo and Chewbacca make an appearance in Star Wars: The Mandalorian? No. Not a chance. The series’ position in the timeline does not permit it. The Mandalorian  is set between  Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi  and  Star Wars: Resistance,  two stories   which are set before  Star Wars - Episode VII; The Force Awakens. Per Deadline Hollywood, which quotes the show’s creator, Jon Favreau: “After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the  Star Wars  universe.  The Mandalorian  is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic,” the  Iron Man  and  Jungle Book  filmmaker posted. So, no. There is no chance that we’ll see the character of Han Solo in this new series set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Source: More Details Revealed For ‘Star

Photo Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd. © 1983 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Is it true that in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, they used Ewoks because they would be cheaper than Wookiees? There are three reasons why Ewoks were used in  Return of the Jedi  instead of Wookiees for the Battle of Endor, and the expense of outfitting a large number of extras was certainly one of them. The Empire Strikes Back,  unlike the film that came before -  Star Wars -  was financed by George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd. It cost $25 million in 1980 dollars, a princely sum in those days, and even though director Irvin Kershner and producer Gary Kurtz did a good job at getting the movie made on time, it still went over budget. Say what you will about Lucas as a director, but the man is an extremely conservative person when it comes to the business end of filmmaking, so sticking as closely to a projected budget was a big deal for him. Even more so because it was his money on the line, not 20th Century Fox’s, and thou

Reviewing  Star Trek: The Motion Picture  is one of those “some say the glass is half-empty, some say it’s half-full” conundrums. Robert Wise’s final science-fiction film is a decent film in some respects, but a dull, even cold and soulless one in others. Greenlit by Paramount Pictures in a bid to compete with 20th Century Fox’s  Star Wars,  the film was  Star Trek  creator Gene Roddenberry’s second and last theatrical production. He didn’t write the screen story (Alan Dean Foster’s ‘In Thy Image,” the treatment for a pilot episode to a canceled TV series titled  Star Trek: Phase Two  was the movie’s starting point), nor did he write the screenplay (Harold Livingston wrote a partial script that was added on to during filming). But he sure loaded it with many of his favorite  Star Trek  tropes and saddled it with an unnecessary amount of pretentiousness and a cold, sterile look that is the antithesis of the television show that begat  Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In brief, here

Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. On Quora, member Cody Pafford asks: Why are people offended by the Confederate battle flag? My reply: Because the 11 states that formed the Confederate States of America from March 1861 to April of 1865 rebelled against the Union to defend the odious institution of slavery. As a result of this dark stain on the American psyche, and because Southern apologists have tried mightily to whitewash history by claiming the Civil War was fought over the more innocuous principle of “States’ Rights,” the Stars and Bars - which was originally the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, but was later incorporated into the last two national flags of the entire Confederacy - represents the side that started the bloodiest war in American history. Most people who know the history of the Civil War and the design history behind American flags will say - accurately - that this is not the  national flag  of the Confederate States of Amer

J.J. Abrams did not, as you put it,  give way  to anyone as far as directing  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Per the original plan that Abrams and the people in charge of Lucasfilm Ltd., each of the  Star Wars  Sequel Trilogy films was to be directed by a different director. Thus, by the time Abrams began pre-production on  The Force Awakens,  the lineup looked like this: The Force Awakens -  Directed by Abrams, with a December 2015 release date Episode VIII -  Directed by Rian Johnson, originally scheduled for a May 25, 2017 release Episode IX -  Directed by Colin Trevorrow, scheduled for a May 2019 release. And in between each of the Saga films, a  Star Wars Story  anthology movie would be released as well. For  Star Wars: The Force Awakens,  J.J. Abrams would direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with Lawrence Kasdan. Originally, the writer for  The Force Awakens  was Michael Arndt, a solid writer but one who takes a while to get a script done. Abrams re

Could Hitler have been considered "good" in any way? Some argue he wasn't really evil as he really believed and followed his beliefs and thought he was right in his actions. No. Not in the slightest. There is no redeeming factor in Adolf Hitler’s life as a dictator and Commander in Chief of the Greater German Reich’s armed forces that can be even considered to be “good.” It’s amazing (and, frankly, appalling) that three-quarters of a century after the final campaigns to liberate Europe from Nazi domination, there still exist many people all around the world - including citizens of the Allied nations that waged war against the Third Reich - that think Hitler was a well-intentioned man who loved Germany and merely wanted to save Western Civilization from the scourge of Communism. It’s a matter of historical record that Adolf Hitler adored his mother Klara, was good to dogs, was kind to German children (except those who were Jewish or were related to his political

Some questions, apparently, keep coming back, like kudzu...or a boomerang.  On Quora, Raivo Berkins asks: Will Han Solo come back in the final installment of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy? My reply:  No, Han Solo, the iconic character played by Harrison Ford in the Original Trilogy and in  Star Wars: The Force Awakens,  will not come back in  Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.  His character was killed off in that 2015 film in such a way that only the dimmest and least observant person could possibly believe that he survived. Consider. In his last onscreen appearance in  The Force Awakens,  Han is: Stabbed through the heart with a highly unstable but deadly lightsaber blade wielded by his own son, Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren Right after being stabbed through the heart, Han falls deep into a chasm under the bowels of Starkiller Base, a planet-turned-into-a-superweapon even more powerful than either Death Star used by the Empire Shortly thereafter, Starkiller Base itself is de

The Blu-ray packaging for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. © 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. and Buena Vista Home Entertainment No. First of all, (and I’m tired of explaining this over and over),  The Walt Disney Company  does not, nor did it ever have, a plan “to have the audience focus on a new set of characters.” If anyone had such a plan, it would have been  Lucasfilm,  the Disney-owned subsidiary that is responsible for actually making  Indiana Jones  and  Star Wars. Second of all, creating a new set of characters for the Sequel Trilogy was always going to be in the cards, as the window for making a post- Return of the Jedi  trilogy closed sometime between 1983 and 1994, partly because of George Lucas’s divorce from Marcia Lucas and  Star Wars  burnout, and partly because when Lucas decided to go back to big-budget filmmaking, he chose to make the Prequel Trilogy instead. Meanwhile, as Steve Perry noted in his foreword to the  Shadows of the Empire  graphic novel based on his 1996 boo

Image by  Lukas Bieri  from  Pixabay   I was going to take the rest of Sunday off, but I received a series of encouraging texts from my New York City-based collaborator and friend, Juan Carlos Hernandez, about my recently-completed screenplay for Happy Days Are Here Again.  Juan and I have been working on our most ambitious collaboration to date since he and his wife Adria completed the post-production phase of A Simple Ad in May. As I've said in previous posts, Juan had originally asked me for a comedy rather than what he got in A Simple Ad, which was a brief but poignant rumination about loss and grief. And although Juan and Adria liked the script well enough to devote time and effort into making it into a short film, they still wanted a comedy script from me. This time, though, Juan wanted a longer, more elaborate screen story that included a part for his son Anthony, who is studying drama in college up in New York State. I eventually settled on a situation comedy-

Photo Credit: Pixabay I could be just a writer very easily. I am not a writer. I am a screenwriter, which is half a filmmaker. … But it is not an art form, because screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art. – Paul Schrader After a couple of days of anxious waiting, I finally heard from my friend and writing partner, actor-director Juan Carlos Hernandez, about the revised screenplay for Happy Days Are Here Again.  Juan sent me a couple of texts yesterday; they were not very long or detailed. but overall they were rather encouraging. Basically, he said that he had spent several days breaking the script down to determine how to best interpret it. At first, he had a bit of difficulty trying to understand the third act, but he added that after a second read-through, "I finally got it." I don’t think screenplay writing is the same as writing — I mean, I think it’s blueprinting. – Robert Altman Juan is a guy of few