If Star Wars (A New Hope) were made today, what it would be like? I mean here, suppose the script had sat around for 30+ years and was getting produced for the first time right now.
How would the resulting film differ from the original? And specifically, in what ways do you think they would totally screw it up? Who would be cast?
And does anyone think it would be better if made today?
Well, Luke & Leia would definitely be played by prettier actors (Mark Hamill & Carrie Fisher were cute but not wowing). Anthony Hopkins or Ian McKellan would be asked to play Kenobi. C-3PO wouldn’t be as poofy.
We might have more back-story about the Empire & the Triumvirate (Emperor, Tarkin & Vader) and the Jedi-Sith war, to whatever extent Lucas might have developed it.
Because if SW hadn’t been done, we’d be watching his new release AMERICAN GRAFFITI VII: The Grandkids, and he’d be trying to get backers for some movie about his WWII adventure hero Indiana Jones. Who’d like some old rehash like that?
Christopher Lee would be in it somewhere as a bad guy.
Han Solo would almost certainly be played by Will Smith, if his price could be met.
The incest subtext would be dropped as Lucas would presumably have thought things out more over the years.
The droids wouldn’t be played as a bickering gay couple.
Darth Vader would be a lot more sadistic. Lucas’d have scads of movie villains like Lecter and the Joker influencing him and he’d want to make sure we know Vader is a really Bad Guy.
If SW was released today…
It would be marketed more as a kids movie than it was in 1977…
Greedo shoots first…
No prequels!
If today’s George Lucas were to make it, then I think that movie already exists. It’s called The Phantom Menace. And it’s not pretty.
I think it depends on who makes it and who their target audience is, as noted above.
Kids Movie;
Some teenage Nickolodeon or Disney kids as Luke and Leia.
Big names for Han Solo, Obi Wan and even Darth Vader (whose face would be shown at some point just because).
No incest potential.
Otherwise probably not too different.
Adult Movie;
Latest hot early 20’s actors in key roles (Luke, Leia, Han)
Larger incest potential.
Snarky, “edgy” droids.
Samuel L. Jackson as Obi wan.
Darth Vader as a death machine.
Don’t forget, there’d likely be no score. Instead, we’d get the latest promotionally pushed bands like Fall Out Boy, Some American Idol winner, et al.
The movie would be 70% CGI. Which would ruin some aspects (Chewie would be a cartoon) and upgrade others (the lightsabers, sets and space battles).
Luke and Leia would be younger - 15-16 years old, both to make them more identifiable to younger audiences and to close the time gap between the movies (I’m assuming the prequels still exist but are not prequels anymore).
Ewan McGregor would play a CGI-aged Obi-wan.
Darth Vader would be more brooding and prone to outburst, changing his nature from just an evil, cool-headed tyrannical leader to a fallen Jedi resigned to his doom. He would also be more physically active the fight between him and Obi-wan would be longer and flashier.
Han Solo would be reduced to a comedic role and his role as a regular outsider removed: He will either be related to someone from the prequels or will be shown to have been a jedi’s apprentice before they were decimated.
You know, I could live with all of those.
I could too.
Well given that the script and overall bones of the movie would be intact…it wouldn’t be THAT far a cry from the original.
Some of the things listed here (target audience, “edgier” droids, more sadistic vader, etc.) would all be script and story arc changes. If we are just unearthing the script from a 70s time capsule, aside from greater use of CGI, and less memorable soundtrack, and different actors the movie would be essentially the same.
That’s exactly what I came to say. That alone would ruin the movie beyond all enjoyment for me. But they wouldn’t stop there, I’m sure. There would be pop-culture references strewn throughout (think: the Justin Timberlake poster in Shrek3, the Britney Spears dance in Robots, etc), and anyone not explicitly human would be computer animated (droids, Vader, Chewy, etc.) It would be filmed entirely in front of a green screen like Sin City, so that everything except the few human actors was computer animated. There would be at least one fart joke. And, above all, it would be rated Peee-Geeee Thuh-teeeeeeen.
I don’t know why people believe that it would use pop bands and toilet humor. Nobody but Lucas would make the movies today and he has always used John Williams to create the score and writes only the corniest dialog since 30’s, I wish he would put a fart joke in the movies.
It woould be 90% CGI and look a lot like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
That wasn’t stipulated. If Lucas never made Star Wars (1977), he probably wouldn’t be tapped to direct Star Wars (2009), and even if he did, he wouldn’t be the same Lucas anyway.
Nothing would change. Luke and his two Dell droids would still cruise in his Toyota hybrid landspeeder to the Mos Eisley Starbucks and enjoy a refreshing Frappuccino while using his Blackberry Storm to browse Travelocity for discount JetBlue tickets to Alderaan.
There would almost certainly be more slap-stick humor centering around the droids in their comedy relief roles. The necessary fart jokes could be shoe-horned in by having C3PO malfunctioning in some way that causes a farting noise at inopportune moments.
He wasn’t tapped to direct the prequels either. He owns Star Wars and LucasFilm. Who else is going to direct and produce them? And of course he’s not the Lucas of the 70’s but we do know what kind of Lucas he is from the way prequels came out.
I’m assuming that the prequels still exist and that episodes IV-VI are actual sequels to them. If no Star Wars movies are assumed to have been made then I would agree that it would just be another run of the mill SF movie, but more like a Bruckheimer flick than a Meet The Spartans clone.
The props and costumes would have been better. No sten guns and MG-34’s for the storm troopers. Probably more like the gear used in eps 1-3.
All correct, but let’s assume Lucas somehow failed after American Graffiti and is now an old guy employed as a clerk at AutoZone.
Also assume that somewhere in Hollywood a producer dies and his executor discovers a script in his closet titled “A New Hope”.
If the two points above occurred, then I’d wager the movie would be a CGI laden monstrosity directed by someone who thinks Michael Bay is a true cinematic artist and that Bruckheimer is too subtle.