By Aaron 6/18/2008

Riding the wave of an imdb poll that showed George Lucas to be America’s favorite “George” director, beating out, well, every other George, Lucas announced “Red Tails,” a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen. This dispels earlier reports that “Red Tails” would be a documentary about Star Wars’ ‘red leader’ or even the beginning of an episode 7,8,9 trilogy. One Star Wars fan on hand was so devastated by the negative news he snapped his toy X-Wing in half and burst into tears. The fifty-seven year old fan was escorted to the back of the room by security at Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch.

Lucas continued the press conference by elaborating the role that Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic would play in the movie saying smugly, “you saw what I could do with monkeys and vines in Indiana Jones, just think what I can do above the jungle canopy!” Polite chuckles followed the remark as Lucas droned on about the long scriptwriting process, finally yielding the floor for some questions.

The first questions pertained to the revelation of the Tuskegee Airmen plot and earlier rumors. A man in a trench coat asked if Lucas was worried Russia, China or North Korea would target him after the early film reports about "Red Tails" alluded to revelations of harsh Communist authoritarianism in those countries. Lucas replied, "it's not realistic to see myself as a target for espionage. The reason is because the paparazzi media doesn't follow what I do. If someone were going to spy on me, it would be the tabloid newspapers and magazines. I don't have any classified information, which would be of interest to the Russians, Chinese, Iranians or North Koreans. In short, I'm just not very interesting." (1) The crushed Star Wars fan who still held the X-Wing in his hands demanded to know when more live action Star Wars movies were coming out and Lucas chuckled and said, “It's difficult to know what will happen to Star Wars after I'm no longer here. I have plans for Star Wars Episode 10, 11 and 12 to be produced after my natural life has expired. The last Star Wars film trilogy during my lifetime will be the Star Wars Episode 7, 8 and 9 film episodes. Beyond this, it is uncertain. My children have shown no interest in Star Wars. It would be unfair to expect them to follow what I've done with Star Wars because they would be in the impossible position of trying to improve upon the Star Wars prequel and sequel trilogies. I don't think you need to worry about Star Wars because eventually it will enter the public domain and your descendants will make unlimited numbers of Star Wars films. Two hundred years from now will probably be the true golden age of Star Wars since the fans will have advanced home super computers, which can produce photo realistic computer animation beyond what we can imagine today. Hopefully, being cryogenically frozen at death will allow me to return one day to see the millions of fan based Star Wars films, which will be created over the next millennia.” (2)

Lucas was first asked a series of questions regarding casting of which he promptly replied, “You know I like to work with the same actors.” Shortly thereafter a puzzled reporter remarked, “so Billy Dee Williams and Samuel L. Jackson?” Lucas just smiled and nodded yet some wondered whether he was trying to conceal casting choices or if he was planning on using CGI for all the actors too. Another reporter braved another question on the subject remarking, “aren’t they a little…old?” Lucas smiled again and replied, “I think the two of them have exceptional range. And I’ve worked with younger people before – I was looking through the script and found some parts I might send to Hayden [Christensen] and Jake [Lloyd]. But there are some parts in there for older people and I was thinking the flight instructor would be great for Harrison [Ford] – he was great in Air Force One.

A former Tuskegee Airman was at the conference and eagerly asked Lucas if he would bring the same merchandising power to Red Tails as he brought to Star Wars. Lucas began by saying that Red Tails was a much smaller movie and that his merchandising focus would remain, Star Wars, “I'm glad you buy things related to Star Wars. However, I want you [looking directly at the man with the broken X-Wing] to invest more heavily in the Star Wars merchandise. We make many products related to Star Wars like action figures, video games, novels and so forth. Don't spend all your time in one area. Make sure to purchase everything available. Producing the Star Wars film episodes and the TV series are very expensive. We depend on the revenues from the Star Wars collectibles to keep us in business. It should be the primary duty of each fan to buy as much of the merchandise involving Star Wars as possible. This also includes the new Indiana Jones products currently available…if you really love Star Wars, this will be your prime mission in life. Remember the fans are extremely special to me. Only my children and girlfriends are more important.” (3)

As the conference came to a close many people left quite disappointed muttering things like “we still don’t know anything about Red Tails,” and “is Jar Jar going to be in the movie?”

Much thanks to SuperShadow.com where several of the Lucas "quotes" are borrowed from. Hopefully you realized this article was fictional. Unfortunately the favorite George thing is true as is the curious fact that Lucas' Red Tails will be about Tuskegee Airmen. If you were unamused, offended, or didn't laugh, don't hestitate to complain by dropping me a line at aaron.saltystix@gmail.com. If you want to talk about Red Tails in seriousness or jest, hit back below.

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.