It’s such a shame. Hamill & co were the perfect ages to do a sequel trilogy in the 90s, if only Lucas had handed the reigns to someone else and said “do a Thrawn trilogy adaptation”.
The crash happened in between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, which is why at the start of ESB his character gets whomped in the face and why in the Holiday Special the camera only shows him from far away. The reason he made a career move to voice acting was that he was type cast as Luke Skywalker and simply couldn’t get work doing much else (except for Wing Commander).
At one point, Lucas admits to going back in to post-production and drastically recutting the movie to fit a more kid-friendly Disney-esque media market. Specifically, he was very excited to give Jar Jar Binks a bigger role. I’m convinced there’s actually an excellent film laying somewhere on the cutting room floor and Lucas’s own vanity was what stole it from us.
Also incidentally, the original New Hope screenplay was a total wreck. His first wife had to completely recut it before shooting began. She became good friends with Carrie Fisher, and Fisher learned the trade of script-doctoring from her masterfully. They both went on to work behind the scenes in a number of popular movies (Fisher even has a cameo in the first Austin Powers, where she tells Austin to quit all the silliness and get to the plot). There’s a good reason to believe that Marcia Lou Lucas was the hidden hand that made Star Wars a hit.
Do you ever get the feeling that all the right story beats are there, if only it were guided by a more masterful hand
Like some sort of invisible Force.
Oh definitely. It has the makings of an epic series, that gets dumbed down and ruined at every opportunity for greatness.
It’s such a shame. Hamill & co were the perfect ages to do a sequel trilogy in the 90s, if only Lucas had handed the reigns to someone else and said “do a Thrawn trilogy adaptation”.
Thrawn would have been such a home-run no brainer
Didn’t Hamill wreck his Corvette and end up requiring facial reconstruction? I thought that’s why he moved to voice work back then.
The crash happened in between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, which is why at the start of ESB his character gets whomped in the face and why in the Holiday Special the camera only shows him from far away. The reason he made a career move to voice acting was that he was type cast as Luke Skywalker and simply couldn’t get work doing much else (except for Wing Commander).
Ah okay. It is a shame they never made it then!
Go back and watch one of the original trailers for the Phantom Menace. They cut that scene from the final movie and it gave him more lines than the entire rest of the movie.
At one point, Lucas admits to going back in to post-production and drastically recutting the movie to fit a more kid-friendly Disney-esque media market. Specifically, he was very excited to give Jar Jar Binks a bigger role. I’m convinced there’s actually an excellent film laying somewhere on the cutting room floor and Lucas’s own vanity was what stole it from us.
Also incidentally, the original New Hope screenplay was a total wreck. His first wife had to completely recut it before shooting began. She became good friends with Carrie Fisher, and Fisher learned the trade of script-doctoring from her masterfully. They both went on to work behind the scenes in a number of popular movies (Fisher even has a cameo in the first Austin Powers, where she tells Austin to quit all the silliness and get to the plot). There’s a good reason to believe that Marcia Lou Lucas was the hidden hand that made Star Wars a hit.