The Snyder Cut

[GloatingSwine]

Exactly - it's more than possible to take an established franchise and make something that is not just technically but also conceptually brilliant.

Especially if you're the original creator of that franchise and also a director with a good grasp of visual storytelling. Which George Miller is.

(George Lucas, by contrast, sort of isn't. His directorial style is much more akin to documentary filming than narrative filming).

[The Glyphstone]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like? Would that have actually played to Lucas's strengths, and/or been something interesting to watch at all?

[Gallowglass]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like? Would that have actually played to Lucas's strengths, and/or been something interesting to watch at all?

/exterior: the windswept duned of tatooine/

voice over: Today we are going to talk to the moisture farmers of Tattooine. These roughnecks of the sandwastes, these hidden heroes of the empire live isolated lives, far from the cities of Coruscant, and are responsible for almost .00000000000000000004% of the Empire's water reserves.

/camera sweeps over the Lars homestead. A series of igloo like adobe outbuildings in a small sea of moisture extractors.

/camera focuses in on Owen Lars, moisture farmer. In the background his adopted son Luke busily works on fixing a moisture tractor/

Owen: Yeah, its a hard life, for sure. But a good one. We have a purpose you know. The Empire needs this moisture and we are here to provide it. I just know that I'm building something today that my adopted son, Luke, will inherit and pass on to his sons.

Owen gets a far away look in his eyes. Hesitant. Conflicted.

Owen: Yep.... a real legacy of hope....

[Peelee]

Hell, Into the Spiderverse was a reboot/sequel/whatever of some sort, but most everyone here considered it a pretty decent film, despite the existence of quite a lot of other film takes on Spidey. Make a good story, and pretty much anything else is forgivable.

Exactly. That's why I dismiss claims that it's not possible to make a new Star Wars movie that will be liked as much as the originals as simply wrong. It's absolutely possible, they're just not doing it.

[Fyraltari]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like? Would that have actually played to Lucas's strengths, and/or been something interesting to watch at all?

Matt the radar technician?

[Mechalich]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like? Would that have actually played to Lucas's strengths, and/or been something interesting to watch at all?

Probably something like the Journals of Master Gnost-Dural that served as a previews for SWTOR. Those are a series of short videos shot in sequence in which the eponymous Jedi Master speaks in stentorian tones about historical events over a series of sequenced still images. Put together they're around 48 minutes, so that's basically a documentary episode.

However, I don't really think Lucas is a documentary style filmmaker, what he is an extremely archetypical filmmaker. He's not interested in complexity in characters or story, but in staging relatively simple events in a visually arresting fashion. He really doesn't do nuance, which can be seen in the case of something like Red Tails, which is basically 'black pilots awesome, protect bombers, beat Germans, everyone cheers' and that's the whole movie. I could actually see Lucas as very effective at a certain kind of superhero film, one that had a very simple get the gang together and then beat the dark lord kind of framework (admittedly someone would need to help him with the dialogue, but that's what god scriptwriters are for).

The interesting parallel there is that most superhero films are in fact incredibly simple, but because the archetypes they offer tend to be discomforting most filmmakers cover them in banter, jokes, quips, and general business to make sure the fridge horror stays buried. For example, in Aquaman Orm smashes every ship on the planet early in the film, an act that would kill millions and cause a massive disruption of the global economy triggering a worldwide depression that would kill tens of millions more in secondary effects. The movie very, very much doesn't want you to think about that at all and would rather you watch an octopus play the drums.

Zack Synder is interesting because he's the rare superhero filmmaker who doesn't hide from that, at least not as much. He embraces the superheroes = gods for the 21st century approach, including the trend toward horrible downer endings and the reduction of the entire human species to spectator status. Of course, this requires a different kind of deception, so it's probably a wash.

[Cikomyr2]

Probably something like the Journals of Master Gnost-Dural that served as a previews for SWTOR. Those are a series of short videos shot in sequence in which the eponymous Jedi Master speaks in stentorian tones about historical events over a series of sequenced still images. Put together they're around 48 minutes, so that's basically a documentary episode.

However, I don't really think Lucas is a documentary style filmmaker, what he is an extremely archetypical filmmaker. He's not interested in complexity in characters or story, but in staging relatively simple events in a visually arresting fashion. He really doesn't do nuance, which can be seen in the case of something like Red Tails, which is basically 'black pilots awesome, protect bombers, beat Germans, everyone cheers' and that's the whole movie. I could actually see Lucas as very effective at a certain kind of superhero film, one that had a very simple get the gang together and then beat the dark lord kind of framework (admittedly someone would need to help him with the dialogue, but that's what god scriptwriters are for).

The interesting parallel there is that most superhero films are in fact incredibly simple, but because the archetypes they offer tend to be discomforting most filmmakers cover them in banter, jokes, quips, and general business to make sure the fridge horror stays buried. For example, in Aquaman Orm smashes every ship on the planet early in the film, an act that would kill millions and cause a massive disruption of the global economy triggering a worldwide depression that would kill tens of millions more in secondary effects. The movie very, very much doesn't want you to think about that at all and would rather you watch an octopus play the drums.

Zack Synder is interesting because he's the rare superhero filmmaker who doesn't hide from that, at least not as much. He embraces the superheroes = gods for the 21st century approach, including the trend toward horrible downer endings and the reduction of the entire human species to spectator status. Of course, this requires a different kind of deception, so it's probably a wash.

This was discussed before. Snyder is extremely talented in depicting supercool ubermench archetypes. He frames the camera in love and in worship of the hero-savior.

Edit: Oh, and is it normal if I prefer the new Jumanji Movies to the original? Since we were talking about useless reboots

[Lord Raziere]

Hell, Into the Spiderverse was a reboot/sequel/whatever of some sort, but most everyone here considered it a pretty decent film, despite the existence of quite a lot of other film takes on Spidey. Make a good story, and pretty much anything else is forgivable.

Counterpoint: Into the Spiderverse is one the least formulaic takes on spiderman, with all the alternate spideys running around some of them being real outlandish, the protagonist being Miles Morales, the changes to Doc Ock and The Prowler, Green Goblin being minor, and Aunt May somehow becoming awesome.

[Peelee]

Counterpoint: Into the Spiderverse is one the least formulaic takes on spiderman, with all the alternate spideys running around some of them being real outlandish, the protagonist being Miles Morales, the changes to Doc Ock and The Prowler, Green Goblin being minor, and Aunt May somehow becoming awesome.

Excuse me, Aunt May is always awesome. The spider may have given Peter his powers, but Aunt May and Uncle Ben are who made him Spider-Man.

[Saintheart]

In the realm of hypothetical Star Wars movies that will never be...what would a Star Wars outright filmed in the style of a documentary/mockumentary look like?

Look up the old Star Wars fan film Troops. Come on, click the link, you know you want to.

Zack Synder is interesting because he's the rare superhero filmmaker who doesn't hide from that, at least not as much. He embraces the superheroes = gods for the 21st century approach, including the trend toward horrible downer endings and the reduction of the entire human species to spectator status. Of course, this requires a different kind of deception, so it's probably a wash.

This. Love or hate Man of Steel, the fact it started generating memes about how many people died in Metropolis while Zod and Kal were duking it out was only reflecting precisely the way it was portrayed on film. And indeed that very element of the story is an essential component of what I think of as the best part of Batman vs Superman: Bruce Wayne's reaction to the destruction and the most heroic illustration of his character: when everyone else is running away from the building collapse, he's running headlong towards it.