monkeymagic
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Where Once it never rained until after sundown.
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Post by monkeymagic on Feb 22, 2012 8:57:06 GMT -5
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ye5man
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Post by ye5man on Feb 23, 2012 5:28:32 GMT -5
Bollocks, I am in London the week earlier. Take some pics if you can MM
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Feb 23, 2012 11:14:31 GMT -5
Wonder if he'll give his side of the story on Superman II (or III?)
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hursty
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Post by hursty on Feb 23, 2012 15:35:48 GMT -5
Hmm, I could be interested.
Is it a Q&A session. I would literally ask him if he sabotaged Donner's position on STM
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Gandy
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Post by Gandy on Feb 25, 2012 11:23:14 GMT -5
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Feb 25, 2012 18:11:17 GMT -5
All kidding aside, I doubt he'd answer anything related to the SII situation. He's had plenty of time (and opportunity) to share his side of the story, though I really wish he would in some venue.
After years of loathing the Salkinds for firing Donner, after listening to the Salkinds' commentaries and interviews, I was more willing to cut them some slack. (Same with Joel Schumacher after his commentary on "Batman and Robin")
Would like to be able to do that with Lester, but harder to come to the worst conclusions, without hearing his defense (or from an assistant of his or a third party) and seeing all the evidence around since that time to support the idea that he did try to relaunch his stalled career by taking advantage of the situation and letting people go with the feeling that he was the main reason SII was any good.
(The closest objectivity I've read was from Mankiewicz, who just said that Lester was the wrong type of director to complete the film, but didn't have enough knowledge to know if there was any real ill intent or not on Lester's part).
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monkeymagic
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Where Once it never rained until after sundown.
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Post by monkeymagic on Mar 20, 2012 12:46:57 GMT -5
Just to drag this up again. If anyone here is on Twitter you may 'Tweet' the BFI with any questions for Richard Lester. Link is here: twitter.com/#!/search/%23bfiquestion |
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Post by Jor-L5150 on Mar 21, 2012 16:11:37 GMT -5
Wonder if he'll give his side of the story on Superman II (or III?) i'd be shocked if he gave either of them any thought at all. |
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 22, 2012 2:40:39 GMT -5
Possible--- but.... I'd be suprised if he didn't get a bad reputation in Hollywood after SII then SIII, as the guy who ruined the Superman franchise. Why did WB pursue (as in the documentary) Donner and Mank to fix the franchise after SIII? At the very least, WB must not have been happy with continuing with Lester, at that point and realize what a mistake they had made....
If SIV ruined Sydney Furie's career, is it possible SIII damaged Lester's?
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ye5man
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Post by ye5man on Mar 22, 2012 5:56:24 GMT -5
He didn't ruin it. Reeve didn't want to do more for the Salkinds. If Reeve wanted another one for 1985 or whatever for them they'd have done it. No Reeve = Supergirl instead.
Grossly unfair to blame Lester, especially when Reeve actively got involved with getting IV off the ground for Cannon
No, Lester retired after the Muskateers tragedy in the late 80s.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 22, 2012 19:56:50 GMT -5
Life is not fair.  Was Lester available at the time of SIV? (I don't know) If so, why didn't Reeve pursue Donner and not Lester, then? We don't know. But if Lester isn't shining a light on any of these situations, we can only draw conclusions based on what's there. We're just coming up with different conclusions. I heard that, too--- from the Salkind commentary....but I just am wondering if there were politics that were also a contributing factor as well--- Why wasn't WB courting Lester for any other movie if Lester did such a fantastic job on SII and SIII? We know that Lester wanted to direct the "Christopher Columbus" movie, but Salkind wanted someone different. Was Lester hungry for work at that point? Also, if I recall right, "Return of the Musketeers" had Spengler's name on it, but not the Salkinds. Interesting.... Again, we can just speculate.... but the interviews, story, the final film, and all to me points to him as guilty of him ruining the franchise, to you, what's there points as innocent. It's cool. Until we hear more, doubtful things will change. Here's hoping that Lester eventually writes a book (or someone does) giving us the full goods....  |
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monkeymagic
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Where Once it never rained until after sundown.
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Post by monkeymagic on Mar 23, 2012 8:23:41 GMT -5
Hi all, he glossed over S2. The person who was interviewing Richard Lester obivously knows nothing about comics or where heroes live. He mentioned the price of shoes in 'Gotham city'.  Richard just talked about how the producers and Donner didn't get on and that he was the 'go between'. He didn't mention Donner by name. Lester talked about wanting to go for 'realism' in the Superman films. Not sure it worked from what we've seen onscreen. I did take some pics but I dunno how to upload them all for you all to see. Anyone able to help?  |
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 23, 2012 10:45:16 GMT -5
Cool, thanks for the report! Interesting how he didn't mention Donner by name--- maybe there was already bad blood with him and Donner on-set from the beginning (although interviews mentioned that Donner considered Lester as having become a friend until the SII events happened)- from Lester's side?
If Lester sincerely wanted to go for realism, then maybe the guy is just delusional based on what we saw. Looked like he wanted simple comedy.
Anyhow- I haven't figured out how to get my pictures bigger, but at least I was able to post- here's how (maybe someone out there has better/other alternatives, but here's mine):
#1: Set up a free account at photobucket.com
#2: Upload your picturess from your computer to your account.
#3: At the bottom of each picture in your 'album' you create at photobucket is a code 'IMG' for images--- you copy that and paste that line of code into a new post here in a separate window.
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ye5man
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Post by ye5man on Mar 23, 2012 10:52:27 GMT -5
Cheers for the report, MM
I thought Lester was into surrealism, so surprised he made that remark. Donner was the one into verisimilitude
How old is he now anyway? Must be about late 70s.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 23, 2012 20:38:21 GMT -5
Yeah.... "Hard Day's Night" was pretty surrealistic- but funny as well- I'm not sure when Monty Python started, but if this came first, I'd wonder if Monty Python was inspired at all by this.
On the other hand, "Three Musketeers" I thought was BRILLIANT by Lester- just the right balance between drama, comedy, and adventure.
"Four Musketeers"- which was filmed at the same time, is good, but oddly the pacing and editing pull it a bit off-track. (Haven't seen "Return of the Musketeers" yet, but I did purchase it).
I'll never dispute that Lester put out some fantastic films, but in the end I just think that (1) either he was given too much leeway by the Salkinds, or (2) he could have tried to finish things to honor Donner's style for SII, and done his own thing with SIII- but chose not to.
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Post by Kamdan on Mar 24, 2012 1:04:19 GMT -5
Just listen to Lester on the Making of Superman II documentary. He sounds smarter than his material.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 24, 2012 2:54:33 GMT -5
I remember watching it and being infuriated at how much it didn't give Donner any credit for the material. From the way it was cut, it gave the impression that Lester filmed just about the whole thing.
And, of course, Lester never came out to share credit or set the record straight during the time he could have.... grr....
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Post by booshman on Mar 24, 2012 4:01:25 GMT -5
Watching how proud he sounds about his adlibbed slapstick section of the Metro battle is infuriating. Also, the discussion he has with Reeve when filming Clark crossing the road and is hit with the cab,  . Of course hitting a brick wall would do a lot of damage to the cab, but as far as anyone knows, Clark has little in common with a brick wall. Lester, for the most part, just didn't get it. It makes me think that the moments he got it really right; the alley change/ junkyard shirt rip, might have had little to do with him. |
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Gandy
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Post by Gandy on Mar 24, 2012 8:11:28 GMT -5
What was the presentation of Robin and Marian like?
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 24, 2012 10:47:17 GMT -5
The alley change could well have been second unit or just the special effects unit assigned to it. As an aside, I have this gut feeling that the 'super-speed' effect that they did here was the same effect that WOULD have been used for the DP jump scene originally- as it was pretty novel in the 1980's....until Donner/Thau decided 'faster faster' cutting. (Or maybe it was just that it was a much cheaper effect, considering the fx budget seemed to be 3 cents for the entire RDC project)
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Post by Jor-L5150 on Mar 24, 2012 10:54:03 GMT -5
gotta be honest- did not care for "robin and marion". i really wanted too- but it just didn't do anything for me. too slow, too....dull. not much happens, the pace is always slow. it has a great cast, and the set-pieces and on-location are superb.  |
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 25, 2012 18:35:48 GMT -5
In retrospect---
Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on Lester---
If Lester was having good success at the time that he was offered liason between Donner and the producers, maybe he either would have passed on finishing the production or just have shot it fast and quick, but with a more serious tone like the Mank script.
If he was caught with a downwards career situation, maybe it was his only chance (in his mind) to strut his tastes and talent, even though it was doing so on someone else's half-finished project and letting people assume the full credit for the film belonged to him.
Cowardly, perhaps, but if someone is starving, I guess they'll do what they think they'll need to.
In any case, he's probably not a young guy anymore and cant' remember half of what happened... and his career didn't end on a high note, but a tragic one, so maybe I should cut him some slack....
But...
If he does remember, it would be still nice for him to detail his side of the story of STM/SII to a biographer or a dvd commentary or SOMETHING before too long....
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monkeymagic
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Where Once it never rained until after sundown.
Posts: 242
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Post by monkeymagic on Mar 28, 2012 7:29:55 GMT -5
Hi, guys, sorry the pics are so big. I've no idea how to resize them.  But some images from last week. The Robin and Marion presentation wasn't much. Just Lester introducing the film and talking about how hard it was to assemble the cast. Half of them were tax exiles and Audrey Hepburn would only do it during her child's summer holiday. They also changed the inital shooting location. The film itself was a decent print. I enjoyed watching it. If someone wants to resize the images for me, feel free.  ][/img]   |
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Post by booshman on Mar 28, 2012 8:42:10 GMT -5
He doesn't look to have aged much.
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ye5man
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Post by ye5man on Mar 28, 2012 10:59:28 GMT -5
Indeed. He looks better than I thought he would.
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But some images from last week. The Robin and Marion presentation wasn't much. Just Lester introducing the film and talking about how hard it was to assemble the cast.