Posts for Tag: christopher nolan

'Empire Strikes Back' director Irvin Kershner dies and why CGI is killing my childhood memories

Kershner said he had only one sharp disagreement with Lucas. The script originally called for the heroine, Princess Leia, to tell space pilot Han Solo "I love you" and for him to reply "I love you, too."

"I shot the line and it just didn't seem right for the character of Han Solo," Kershner said.

Instead, actor Harrison Ford improvised the reply: "I know."

We mourn today the passing of Irvin Kershner, the director of The Empire Strikes Back. Let's be glad that the above dialogue happened between Kershner and Lucas. That one line encapsulates the Han Solo character better than any I've heard. A big softy but also the biggest pimp in the Star Wars galaxy. Everybody wanted to be Han Solo even though Luke Skywalker was the protagonist of the series. And apologies to all Boba Fett fans but George Lucas pretty much ruined his machismo by showing him as a whiny little boy in Episode 2 (same for Anakin).

It's somewhat ironic that Spike TV was running a Star Wars marathon over the weekend and it always makes me cringe whenever I see Lucas' re-imagining of the series. The CGI ruins the entire series for me. Totally unnecessary. In fact, I can't really think of any movie I've ever watched that was made better by CGI (I'm not talking about movies shot entirely in CGI like Pixar films or Avatar). What happened to good old fashioned real explosions and huge sets? For me, it's the obvious artificial feeling of CGI that turns me off. It's like seeing a beautifully decorated cake and taking a bite only to find out it was cooked with Sweet'n Low instead of sugar. Bad taste in my mouth. That's the feeling I get when watching anything George Lucas has made in the past 10+ years. Episode 1-3, Indy 4, all poor caricatures of what came before. It always makes me sad that these movies can't live up to their phenomenal legacies. On a brighter note, guys like Christopher Nolan are making amazingly beautiful/engaging movies where CGI is in the background versus front and center.