|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 |
Story by Jack Foley |
   |
HARD to believe now, but the origins of Star Wars lie in a 1930s-style Saturday
matinee serial genre which George Lucas sought to use as a vehicle for a new
re-working of an old mythology. It then grew from one little movie, which
was Episode Four, to a six hour movie, which remained Episode Four.
The rest, as they say, is history. Star Wars has gone on to become one of
the biggest movie franchises in motion picture history, spawning two hugely
successful sequels - The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi - and
paving the way for a series of three prequels; starting with 1999's The
Phantom Menace and continuing in cinemas right now with Attack of the
Clones.
For Lucas, however, the Star Wars story, once written, was always one that
he intended to tell whole - even if it meant not starting at the beginning.
Speaking at a press conference held to mark the release of Episode Two at
London's Dorchester on Wednesday (May 15, 2002), Lucas revealed that he doesn't
particularly like starting at the beginning, 'because it is not particularly
entertaining' - a point which critics and some fans, no doubt, would probably
agree with in light of the lacklustre response to Episode One.
Yet Lucas, his producer Rick McCallum and several of his stars will probably
be among the first to agree that The Phantom Menace suffered from being the
first in the series; given that it had to establish the story and lay the
foundations for what was to come in the next five episodes.
Lucas refers to Attack of the Clones, which has already received a favourable
response from critics, as a 'much richer' movie experience which not only
entertains as a film in its own right, but which makes use of the considerable
advances in technology since the original trilogy.
"Star Wars was written, as a film, within the technology that I had existing
and I pushed that as far as I could in the world of special ef