Kosher Ham Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 The sequel was already in the works by '78. Hell, I bought an Empire Strikes back shirt last fall for an '80's party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artmonkforHOF Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 another fact: Lucas is a rip off artists with no creative abilities. He wrote Star Wars after he could not get the right to film an updated version of Buck Rogers. He then goes off and writes Willow when he cant get the rights to the Hobbit. Yeah Lucas is a great movie man, if someone gives him a template that he can rip off and pretend is his own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blue collar Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 Hindsight is 20/20. It wasn't that stupid at the time. Merchandising prior to Star Wars wasn't anything like it was today. Fox undoubtedly thought they had really got one over on him. Who knew it would re-write the way money is made on movies?The really shocking thing is that they made the same mistake a 2nd time, and gave Matt Groening such a huge piece of the Simpsons merchandising in exchange for lowering his shares or other more traditional forms of payment. Fool me once... Exactly. Yeah, Lucas was smart, but in no way you can say that 20th Century Fox was stupid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosher Ham Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 Keanu Reeves made a ton of money doing the Matrix movies. To the point where he gives a lot of it to charity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterMP Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 another fact: Lucas is a rip off artists with no creative abilities. He wrote Star Wars after he could not get the right to film an updated version of Buck Rogers. He then goes off and writes Willow when he cant get the rights to the Hobbit. Yeah Lucas is a great movie man, if someone gives him a template that he can rip off and pretend is his own. It was Flash Gordon, and all writers take their inspiration from outside sources. The end similarities between the two are slight at best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACW Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share Posted May 26, 2010 The really shocking thing is that they made the same mistake a 2nd time, and gave Matt Groening such a huge piece of the Simpsons merchandising in exchange for lowering his shares or other more traditional forms of payment. Fool me once...Are you serious? :rotflmao: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GibbsFactor Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 Yes, a very similar success story to Bill Gates and how he duped IBM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACW Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share Posted May 26, 2010 Yes, a very similar success story to Bill Gates and how he duped IBM.Elaborate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveakl Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 Is this the OFFICIAL thread or am I in the wrong one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArmchairRedskin Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 It was Flash Gordon, and all writers take their inspiration from outside sources.The end similarities between the two are slight at best. I agree. He took inspiration from a lot of sources. Seven Samurai was another one that he infused into SW. WWII aerial battles. Tolkien fantasy elements. He didn't just take a story do a second rate take on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArmchairRedskin Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 I think the biggest problem is it overall suffers from a plot that is a grade-Z dungeons and dragons game storyline. It is so simplistic that it requires spectacle and awesome effects,,, or people would see it for the rather bland and totally unoriginal idea that it is.One thing I'll give him,, he's managed to ride the living hell out of it. ~Bang If Tolkien can take a simple storyline and turn it into something epic, than so can Lucas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GibbsFactor Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 Elaborate. He wanted to "license" an operating system to IBM vs outright selling it to them. IBM figured that the money was in the hardware, not the software. Gates went back west and bought DOS for 50K (dude developed it in his garage) and licensed it to IBM. The rest, as they say, is history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 He wanted to "license" an operating system to IBM vs outright selling it to them. IBM figured that the money was in the hardware, not the software. Gates went back west and bought DOS for 50K (dude developed it in his garage) and licensed it to IBM. The rest, as they say, is history. Yep. IBM didn't understand the concept of a natural monopoly. Gates did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgold Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 Yep. IBM didn't understand the concept of a natural monopoly. Gates did. Yeah, IBM also thought all the money was going to be in mainframes and that PCs were a bad investment. They made a lot of bad bets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 Yeah, IBM also thought all the money was going to be in mainframes and that PCs were a bad investment. They made a lot of bad bets. My mom owned a chunk of IBM stock. If IBM hadn't screwed up, Microsoft would not exist, IBM would have boomed instead, and my mom would have been about a million bucks richer. :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistertim Posted May 27, 2010 Share Posted May 27, 2010 Lucas got lucky, that's really all there is to it. I think this is pretty accurate. One of the main differences between the original trilogy (semi-including RoTJ) and the prequels was that originally Lucas actually had people who would tell him when something sucked and should be done differently. He was also on a limited budget with time constraints and had to improvise. He had and accepted input and ideas from plenty of outside sources. Then it was a hit and he became a billionaire over time and could do whatever he wanted, including surrounding himself with people who just went along with his ideas. He didn't really have anyone who would say "um, George, look...there is just to much crap going on in these takes and these characters are very bland because of <x>". Whoever said that would likely be fired on the spot. You can tell this sort of stuff watching the special features from the prequels. Everyone was a "yes person", no matter how absurd the idea or character...I have a very hard time that NOBODY who was working on TPM went home and had nightmares about what a horrible character Jar-Jar Binks was going to be. I said "semi-including" RoTJ because, from what I've read, Lucas and either one of the other producers or the other guy he was writing it with originally had a bit of a falling out and Lucas essentially just took everything over. Then we got Ewoks and a second Death Star; neither of which were originally in it. By that time I think Lucas was leaning towards the "yeah, I own this, I do what I want, you follow" stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vicnielsen Posted May 27, 2010 Share Posted May 27, 2010 Similar to this, I recently heard an interview with one of the founders of the Electronic Arts who claimed they offered John Madden 49% of the company to put his name on the original John Madden football game. Madden declined the offer, instead insisting on 50k. EA is now worth 5 billion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chachie Posted May 27, 2010 Share Posted May 27, 2010 You're just learning this? It happened in 1977. Maybe you've been too busy missing clues on Lost. Aw now that's just nasty, Rince. (Lost... sniffle.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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