Has George Lucas ever openly admitted to making up Star Wars as he went along?

[winb83]

Because all that stuff about having a binder with 9 or whatever movies mapped out is bullshyt. It was obvious with the original trilogy but painfully obvious with the prequel trilogy where even with a set destination the quality is all over the place. I don't get why these guys have to advertise in public that they have some sort of set plan when they clearly don't.

 

[Kill Dat Noize]

he probly had a loose outline of the story which he claims was in 9 parts, but hey at this point who knows.

apparently 7-9 all got combined into ROTJ. instead of making more movies about luke finding "the other skywalker" and taking on the emperor, they made leia his sister and concluded the resolution with the emperor in ROTJ.

but i don't know the accuracy of all that either. that's just some shyt i heard.

 

[the cool]

Never seen any Star Wars movies

 

[Black Hans]

He made up the prequels. He didn't make up the first trilogy. Way too structured in its promotion of the New Age doctrine.

 

[Hi!]

The fact that they went with the construction of a new Death Star in ROTJ and Leia being Luke's twin tells you the shyt was made up as they went along

 

[Tikal]

I'm sure I read somewhere that when lucas wrote the first star wars he hadn't planned for darth vader being luke's father

 

[nieman]

He had an outline from the gate for all 9. But as he did the first, he didn't think that there would ever be another, so it serves as a stand alone. However, over the course of completing, I think that the stories and characters took on a life of their own. Somethings are evident.

Even with writing the prequels, there's no way things could change so much from what we already know, unless the stories took their own direction. It wasn't Lost make it up as you go, but it's obvious things did change.

 

[I AM WARHOL]

Lol ironic OP made this thread today. Watched a New Hooe for the first time since I was a little kid yesterday after marathoning the prequel trilogy a few weeks ago. Tbh I've been very disheartened by the storytelling. You can tell Lucas just kinda made this up has he went along. Just not as good as I remember as a little kid. Still awesome cause it is Star Wars, but as an adult you can just see more flaws in Lucas's storytelling ability

 

[Master Teacher]

of course he made it up as he went a long, it's called writing

 

[winb83]

He had an outline from the gate for all 9. But as he did the first, he didn't think that there would ever be another, so it serves as a stand alone. However, over the course of completing, I think that the stories and characters took on a life of their own. Somethings are evident.

Even with writing the prequels, there's no way things could change so much from what we already know, unless the stories took their own direction. It wasn't Lost make it up as you go, but it's obvious things did change.

Lost was a different sort of made it up as they went along. Random ideas being implemented with no idea how they'd be resolved. Lost wasn't as much trying to tell you a story as it was trying to purposely create mysteries and leave the viewer in the dark about them because that was the nature of the show. Later they set out to create answers to those mysteries.

Lucas probably wrote this series on the fly as the movies happened but he was telling a story so the pieces needed to fit together sensibly. He wasn't just flinging crap at a wall to see what stuck like the Lost writers were.

 

[winb83]

of course he made it up as he went a long, it's called writing

except you can write out something in it's entirety and smooth out the inconsistencies and errors then execute that plan or you can write the skeleton of a concept and pitch that then as more of it gets approved go back and add stuff.

Let me put it in video game terms. Mass Effect, they were making it up as they went along. from game to game even. from there the writers changed between some of the games and stuff that certain people created was abandoned and concepts they came up were completely changed. The whole game series suffered as a result.

Xenosaga for the PS2 was pre-written by Soraya Saga. She had a plan for the entire series but in Episode 2 they fired her and largely abandoned that plan. They still had her source material and came back in Episode 3 and used it and created one of the best JRPGs of the PS2 generation.

When something is pre-written the quality is better.

 

[Master Teacher]

except you can write out something in it's entirety and smooth out the inconsistencies and errors then execute that plan or you can write the skeleton of a concept and pitch that then as more of it gets approved go back and add stuff.

Let me put it in video game terms. Mass Effect, they were making it up as they went along. from game to game even. from there the writers changed between some of the games and stuff that certain people created was abandoned and concepts they came up were completely changed. The whole game series suffered as a result.

Xenosaga for the PS2 was pre-written by Soraya Saga. She had a plan for the entire series but in Episode 2 they fired her and largely abandoned that plan. They still had her source material and came back in Episode 3 and used it and created one of the best JRPGs of the PS2 generation.

When something is pre-written the quality is better.

It's called writing, do you know how much the star wars script changed from the beginning

just because you outline something doesn't mean you aren't gonna change it or threw it out completely

at the end of the day you make these decisions has you go along

also nothing was wrong with the plot points of those prequels, it's how it was executed why they were terrible

let's not act the original star wars wasn't campy, cut and dry type of stuff

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

of course he made it up as he went a long, it's called writing

seriously. what does this even mean "making it up as he went along"? It's all made up regardless if it's done all at once or as he went along...

 

[kp404]

Never seen any Star Wars movies

Thanks for the off topic info Mr. Attention seeker :comeonstarks:

 

[winb83]

seriously. what does this even mean "making it up as he went along"? It's all made up regardless if it's done all at once or as he went along...

You can sit down and for the most part mostly map out your story before it even goes into any sort of production and know the major plot points and where it's headed even down to the conclusion before it gets made

or

you can create a basic concept and as the stuff is being made decide where its going on the fly. by this I mean you create say episode 1 then it gets made and after that you create episode 2 and it gets made and after that you create episode 3 and when you made episode 1 you didn't really know what would happen in episode 3 or even 2.

making it up as you go along means the story is being created as it unfolds so basically in real time. every written media will have some of that going on but there's a huge difference between the majority of that happening before anything goes into production and the majority of that happening as the media is being made.

This sort of thing happens in prequels because you'll often find major characters in prequels that are never alluded to in the subsequent movies because they didn't exist when the those movies were made. These characters were created for the prequels and since the following work is finished they can't be added in. Now if stuff in pre-planned characters don't vanish into thin air between prequel and the following movies because they actually exist when the those movies are made.

So when a guy says he has a notebook with it all planned out and between made later prequel and the made first sequel whole characters are vanishing or never even referenced something doesn't add up.