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Modern Hollywood
High Concept, Production Values and Movie Brats
What were the last three films you saw at the cinema and why did you go
to see them?
The hunger games trip
Thor into marvel films
The woman in black went with a friend
What do you expect when you go and see a film in the cinema and why?
I expect to be gripped by the plot of the film and wowed by the visual effects
Budget Task
Spider-Man 2
Story rights:
Screenplay:
Producers:
Cast:
Tobey Maguire:
Kirsten Dunst:
Alfred Molina:
Rest of cast:
Production costs:
Visual effects:
Music:
Writing Task
People want to believe that they are going to be shown something that
theyve never seen before and want to know that they have spent their
money wisely. New technologies have impacted this by giving people a better
and more thrilling experience
Be ready to feedback
Research Task
Look online and make a list of all the tie in products you can find for the
new Star Wars film. (5 mins)
svelte spacecraft that go whizz in the sky and make 100m hits on
our enemies. Its worth noting that Reagan may have felt the
sweetness of SDI when he remembered how it fulfilled the boyish
adventure of Murder in the Air, a 55-minute B-picture he made at
Warner Bros in 1940. Dont knock dreaming (even by presidents)
or its big hopes. Plus, The Force Awakens is a more stirring or
encouraging subtitle than Revenge of the Sith.
Sith was 10 years ago, and it was the third of the second group of
three Star Wars pictures. The first trilogy (Star Wars, 1977; The
Empire Strikes Back, 1980; Return of the Jedi, 1983) constitutes
the turning point in modern cinema though the turn was so large
that the word cinema no longer quite applies. This was an
entertainment franchise that inaugurated action on the electronic
screen. They were shot on film, but the profusion of special
effects characterised a comic book adventure come to life. The
trilogy spurred the development of video games, many of which
were a lot more violent than the Star Wars pictures.
Those first three movies helped reinvent a prospect of exuberant
action films for kids that parents could also enjoy. They had vivid
yet offbeat leading characters Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and
Princess Leia with epic supporting figures: those chatty robots,
R2-D2 and C-3PO; Darth Vader (splendidly voiced by James Earl
Jones); Alec Guinnesss Obi Wan-Kenobi (the wealthiest actor for a
moment on the strength of his residuals, and a focus of gravity in
the first film); and maybe the most original and beloved
character George Lucas has ever created, Yoda, with Frank Oz
doing the voice and activating the puppet figure.
legend of Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Walter Murch (an editor
and sound designer vital in the work of the others) abandoning
the culture of Los Angeles and moving to the San Francisco Bay
Area to be independent. Lucass eminence surpassed that
achieved a few years earlier by Coppola as he made the first two
parts of The Godfather and The Conversation. If you wanted to be
a film-maker, you could believe that the art (and the business)
had been liberated for a fresh generation.
But was Lucas a maverick movie director or a new entrepreneur?
Was he an independent artist or someone refashioning the
media? He was born in Modesto, California, in 1944, the son of a
walnut farmer in the agricultural expanse of the San Joaquin
valley. It was a dull rural town that felt a long way from San
Francisco. Lucas did poorly in school, but painted in junior college
and that led him to film school at the University of Southern
California (USC). Gradually, he found a fascination with cinema,
along with the company of Murch and Coppola (his senior by five
years).
Francis and George made an odd couple. Coppola was far more
confident and outgoing; he saw himself as an auteur and a leader,
while the diffident Lucas concentrated on every detail in putting a
film together. Lucas worked for Coppola on The Rain People
(1969), and it was at the older mans urging that he directed his
first film (derived from a college project), THX-1138, made for
Coppolas American Zoetrope studio. This is the most personal or
revealing film the shy Lucas has ever made, a grim parable about
a romantic rebel in a regimented and repressive future society. It
was so pained it seemed confessional, and its failure hurt him
badly.
Again, it was Coppolas energetic defence that prevailed upon
Universal to stick with Lucass second film, American Graffiti, a
story of teenagers, set in Modesto and full of autobiographical
material. Whatever the foolish studio thought, it turned out a hit:
on a budget of $770,000, it grossed $140m. Not only is it (in my
opinion) the most satisfying and dramatically intriguing movie
Lucas has ever made, it prompted Fox to put up the $11m for Star
Wars.
George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola in 1988, on the set of
Coppolas film Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Photograph:
Sunset Boulevard/Corbis
Lucas wrote and directed the original Star Wars and he had every
reason to exult in its eventual gross of $775m. The shy kid had his
revenge and vengeance or payback is a persistent theme in the
franchise. Then, as Coppolas fortunes fluctuated in the early 80s,
so Lucas became the supporter of his old patron. A new godfather
had arrived, quiet, introspective, inarticulate, and more excited by
technology than creative expression. So, he didnt direct the
second and third films, but instead developed Industrial Light and
Magic, a special effects and post-production outfit that would
influence the entire industry. He got involved with the new
geniuses in Silicon Valley. Pixar was an offshoot of the Lucas
empire; in time it would be purchased by Steve Jobs. Lucas grew
helplessly rich. But he has never won a competitive Oscar.
Lucasfilm produced many more pictures (notably, with Steven
Spielberg, the Indiana Jones series). But after Star Wars, Lucas did
not direct another film untilThe Phantom Menace (1999), the first
of the three prequels followed by Attack of the Clones (2002)
and Revenge of the Sith (2005). Lucas personally wrote and
directed all three.
Was that part of the problem? Doubts over the first three films
resurfaced, as many noted how, in the second trilogy, the stress
on increasingly assured and beautiful effects failed to mask the
flat characters, banal dialogue and rather apologetic acting. The
new films did very well; they won many good reviews. But
hardcore fans were often disappointed: the fun and passion
seemed in retreat. You could believe that Lucasfilm had simply
acted on the assumption that a few more films were bound to
clean up. And now we have Episode VII.