Lawrence Kasdan and TPM

'I saw him a couple of weeks before he left to shoot Phantom Menace - and we did a speaking thing at USC - and the first remark he made to me was, 'Hey, do you want to write Phantom Menace?' I asked, 'Aren't you starting to shoot it?' 'Yeah,' he said, 'but it would be great if you took a second pass at it.' For George, the movie is bigger than the script'. - Lawrence Kasdan
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/arts/bal- as.kasdan12may12.story

Damn, if Lawrence Kasdan had helped Lucas with TPM and AOTC, probably we would be much happier today.

That's a great article, but speak for yourself regarding TPM and AOTC, I like them the way they are.

Too many people whinging about how corny the dialogue is or too much CGI, as Kasdan said in the article George is more interested in moving the plot along rather than focusing on individual's. If you look at the dialogue, although not entirely great in some place's, it's quick and too the point. The audience knows exactly what's going on and once he's established something then he move's on to the next shot and keeps moving forward.

A classic example of moving the plot forward is Anakin's search for his mother, we know from TPM how important his mother was to Anakin, so he find's her, she dies, he get's very angry and pissed off and slaughter's an entire camp of Tusken Raider's. People have critisised this scene because his mother just happen's to survive long enough for him to see her die, but as a plot point to show Anakin full of hate and anger, trait's we all know 'lead to the dark side', it get's to the point very quickly and show's what it needs to. That scene probably could have been done more dramatically and even stretched out to 20 minutes in length or something, but in the end you would have had the same result.

Where Kasdan say's he likes to explore character's and add thing's which will show another side to them, a bit more of what's going on inside, they aren't essential to telling a story. They are if you want to focus on the character's, but with SW the character's really aren't the central theme which is why they don't seem to have a lot of development into their personalities.

If GL had brought in Kasdan to flesh out the character's and add in lot's of nice trivial stuff to enhance them, give them lots of depth and, give the audience a deeper understanding of how each of them tick, you probably would have ended up with 9 SW films instead of 6 because you'd be focusing on them rather than the fact it's a story of how Anakin fell to the dark side and was ultimately redeemed by his son.

If, as GL has said, he's targeting 12 year old's with these movies then if you think about it, most 12 year old's don't give a shit about character development and what makes them tick. They just want lot's of action, and that's exactly what they get.

I couldn't agree more.

Thanks for the article! I quite liked both 'Menace' and 'Clones,' but I think Kasdan might have improved the romance in the latter. The romance may work for some people, but I feel it could have been

Errr.... you mean things like Jar-Jar Binks were essential to telling the story????

Sorry dude.

Well you can't deny that Jar Jar has played pretty pivotal points in the plot in both Ep. I and Ep. II. Does that mean I like it, no. But its GL's vision.

Deborah Proctor

To cut out Jar Jar, you would have either drop the Gung-Gan for the finial battle. he is the bridge to the Gung-Gan.

Yeah.... Georges vision of making tons of money marketing Jar Jar shit to litle kids. Jar Jar was and will always be a marketing ploy aimed at kids. He could easily have created a far more interesting and complex character/race and wrote them into JJ's slot...but then what would he put on drinking cups at Wendy's ?

George... you old fart.... you suk!