After our failure to launch we have decided to scale back a bit. For now we will offer up some tasty treats before we put up the whole comic! Character sketches, landscapes, and other fun stuff!If you have been reading closely you will know that we are using some aspects of the Prequels as they are. We take the good stuff and combine it with history and imagery created before the Prequels.
In this example we have a character sketch of Anakin Skywalker. His face is drawn from screenshots taken of the actor Hayden Christensen. The costume however is based off of Ralph McQuarrie's early concept sketches of Han Solo. The blaster Anakin is carrying is also from a concept sketch by McQuarrie.
I like this costume very much because it feels like it belongs in an earlier time in Star Wars history. That's because it actually is from the earliest time of Star Wars history! It also is a great foreshadowing of what will become the iconic armor of Darth Vader.
Many people have said to me: "Why don't you create your own original story and your own original characters?"
The short answer is this: "Because as I have explored the world and life, I have found that everything is derived from something else. There is no such thing as truly original thought."
T.S. Eliot had this to say about a similar subject:
"One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest."
The Original Trilogy is a collection of blatant thefts from history, mythology, movies, pop culture and so much more. Lucas used to understand the importance of this.
Most important to me is keeping the feel of Star Wars. Most of the time when watching the Prequel movies I feel like I am watching a modern Sci-Fi movie that just so happens to be called Star Wars and has lightsabers in it. Every once in a while there is a scene when all of a sudden it feels like the classic Star Wars. A feeling which is ripped away with Jar-Jar's slapstick comedy and extraneous plot movement devices like pod racing.
This feeling is important because we want to make sure that we retain recognizability as well as adding a flavor not seen in the Prequel movies. The feel of Star Wars is even more important for the connection between the two trilogies.
That's the feeling we want to carry through this entire project. We want you to get caught up and get lost in the Universe we all love so much! We will weld the theft into the tapestry of history already in existence to give the Improved Prequels the honor they deserve.
We are working very hard! More to come soon!
Caleb
"I did feel something! I could almost see the remote!"
"That's good! You've taken your first step into a larger world...."
No comments:
Post a Comment