"Original trilogy better as a trilogy?" Topic

Not sure how to word that.

Would the original Star Wars trilogy have benifeted or suffered from being made as a trilogy?

The First film, despite what Lucus may have hoped, was made as a one off with only Vader's escape and a few unanswered questions there in case a sequel may be made. Certainly not the shot to heck and needs fixing ending Empire had, considering its planned sequel in Jedi.

So, the question above, would the trilogy have been better or not?

I say no, as a closed film the first had loads to biuld on that would have been already being built on if a sequel was confirmed. Unlike, say The Lord of the Rings, the film can be watched without the need to watch them all. I doubt they would have had 2 death stars either, more likely had a Star destroyer blown up first.

DA BUG

I think it would have suffered, making stand alone films seems to focus the story, in my opinion.

I think they worked well as they were. If they did three closely tied movies it wouldn't have been as effective.

No need. Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back were excellent films, with the second building fine off the first. What was needed was a better-written final movie. The Return of the Jedi wasn't a hash because of ESB, or because it wasn't written concurrently with SW; it was a hash because it wasn't well thought out and failed to effectively build off the previous two films. It should have been easy to combine the rescue of Han with an effective encounter with Vader and the Emperor (who, for one thing, should have known Luke would try to rescue Han, and set up another trap; no need for the whole Jabba side story, or at least not as executed). There was no need for a second Death Star, though honestly that wasn't the actual problem with the third film. The failure to make the most of Bobby Fett, combined with the horrible Jim Henson alien designs, and of course the *&%$ Ewoks, were a bigger part of the problem than anything else.
Part of the problem was that Star Wars contained the bulk of the ending that Lucas originally imagined for his story, including the destruction of the (one and only) Death Star. Lucas either didn't know how or didn't want to come up with a better ending after that, so just redid it with more "cool stuff" going on. By that point, it was obvious that Lucas had no one around willing to tell him, "No, George, that's not a good idea" as he crammed more and more silly stuff into the film.
Filming the whole thing as a trilogy wouldn't have helped, as Lucas originally didn't have a story big enough to fill three films (compare, for example, the trilogy for The Lord of the RIngs, which was big enough for three good films, even with some nonsense shoved in, vs. The Hobbit, which really wasn't epic enough for the same treatment, and wound up leaving too much space for Peter Jackson and De Toro to cram in a bunch of unnecessary, over-the-top garbage in order to produce the trilogy approach— but I digress).
What Lucas needed was some guidance in coming up with an ending to a galactic war that still required the presence of three heroes (plus a Wookie and two droids), with the victory hinging upon their personal actions. Real wars for the most part don't do that.
He almost did pull it off; the throne room sequence is excellent, with the duel between Vader and Luke, under the evil mastermind of the Emperor.. Even the battle on the planet wasn't a bad idea, just the Ewok element (and the ridiculous tactics). Nor was the space battle being a trap for the Rebel fleet. But Lucas missed a trick, not using the setup of Leia as the "another" of Yoda and Obi Wan. Or even letting the audience believe that Leia was the "other hope," but in reality Yoda meant their father (which he may have, but that was never made clear).

I could go on and on, but in the end, the truth is that SW and ESB worked fine together, and RotJ wasn't a bad film or even a bad ending; it was just not as good as it could have been; but that wasn't a problem of when it was conceived, just that it could have been conceived better.

I think the toy line had a lot to do with your least favorite bits. Ewoks and Aliens make great action figures. Thus, also, lots of money.

Ewoks were possibly influenced by care bears, devised in 81.

I have no issue with all that, but there was probably way too much crammed into the last film. That could have been a trilogy itself.

ewoks were wookie lites

Originally, the final battle on the planet was supposed to be on the Wookie home planet. But showing Wookies ripping storm-troopers arms off would have put the movie into an R rating.

So the Wookies needed to be replaced by something a little less visibly violent. (Don't forget, the Ewoks were going to roast the heroes alive and eat them for dinner)

Well said, Parzival!

Two movies from recent memory that were made into trilogies, the LOTR and the Hobbit both disappointing. These decisions to make movie trilogies are purely financial in nature and not artistic. Even JRRT planned LOTR as a single volume. The publisher came up with the titles, JRRT later said he didn't even know which towers The Two Towers referred to, as there are five towers named

Lotr films are only a trilogy because the books are, as noted. It had nothing to do with the film makers…

…except that they were only going to be two films, then newline picked it up for three.

It would be dodgy if lotr films had been made as only one or two films, as the books are a trilogy, no matter the reason.

I agree hobit should have been one film, however such little screen Time for something as big as lotr would be ridiculous. Three films and they still skipped bits.

Tripods, I would love to see. The 2/3 done for the show was top notch. Probably be wrecked with CGI these days, pity, the show had great model effects. Highly recommended viewing.

A little history on LOTR. JRRT wrote it as six books, to be contained in one volume. It was never his intent for it to be published as a trilogy, that was something his publisher did. In the 1980's the BBC produced a radio adaptation to the LOTR. It was done in 13 episodes, approximately 1 hour each. IMHO it is the best adaptation ever made of LOTR. If I were king, I'd make a movie version along the lines of Game of Thrones and make as many one hour episodes as necessary to tell the story. (I wouldn't limit myself by artificial contraints such as it all has to fit in one movie or three) I'd also start with the Hobbit first as that story is critically linked to the telling of LOTR.

Getting back to the original Star Wars, the opening said episode four. So it was never really a trilogy to begin with.

The original opening (in 1977) did not say episode anything. It was just Star Wars because originally there was no plan for other movies. That changed immediately of course. :)

Amen.

No official plan at least. I'm sure Lucas had his dreams at the time.

I still can't believe how many people think the first film was titled episode 4. It is quite creepy, actually. Please, please, tell all your friends and spread the truth.

savestarwars.com

It's Lucas's goal for everyone to forget the original trilogy and only remember the special editions (although which of the many special edition versions, we can not be sure).

Very unfortunate that the original film s are not aired or available to buy New. They are on the 2 disc DVDs from 2006, on the second discs. Still questions as to how original they are, but they are as close as you can buy on disc, originally mastered for the laserdiscs.