RE: Blade Runner 2049 (Nitpix and Chill)

I wouldn't say Star Wars ripped off Dune, I think the novel was a big inspiration for the films though. But, in saying that, I think most large-scale Science Fiction films or novels have in some way been inspired by Dune, it was the first of its kind in a way. In Dune they have Spice for example and in Star Wars the main drug of choice is known as spice as a kind of nod to Dune and Frank Hebert. The main inspiration for the story of Star Wars though was The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell when he noticed and wrote about the fact that every myth in the world shares the same structure of the hero's journey as he called it.

It's funny seeing footage of David Prowse voicing Darth Vader, it's so cringy, but, James Earl Jones was always going to be the voice of Darth Vader and was in it during the first edit, the reason that the first edit was bad was because of the pacing and certain aspects of the film that wasted time, so George Lucas fired the original editor and his wife Marcia Lucas got in there and made it what we know and see today. Fox was prepared to cancel it essentially before she saved it. It's funny because similarly George Miller who made Mad Max also had his wife edit the films, so there are a few films that are what they are because the creators got their wives to help.

Star Wars is better though in the sense that the first film revolutionised filmmaking and essentially created so many things because at the time they didn't exist. As an example, Gimbles, ILM created them for filming models and if it wasn't for Star Wars we wouldn't have cinema, as we know it today.

I think Star Wars is a much vaster I.P than Dune and was marketed correctly, I've read so much of the expanded universe and I think the novels which were created have some amazing concepts, characters, races, planets, and stories, as do the games, tv shows, and films. Disney has kind of dropped the ball with Star Wars IMO, but, they have brought a few cool things to the table. If we're going by films I think Star Wars wins as I don't think there's been a Dune film better than the original Star Wars films and they didn't really revolutionise the industry in the same way. Also, for a filmmaker to come out of nowhere and have faith in his own I.P I think George Lucas wins too since he essentially took control of the whole process after the first film and cut Hollywood out of the deal for the next films after the original, which is pretty unheard of, then he even created companies that deal in filmmaking and were essentially for hire, I.E Industrial Light and Magic, which went onto work in so many other amazing films. The team didn't just expand filmmaking, Skywalker ranch another of Lucas's companies completely brought Sound Design to a new level which is probably one of the most epic elements of the original trilogy.

Blade Runner is interesting, but, it wouldn't be a favorite of mine by any stretch of the word, but it's interesting for sure. The new one is cool, but the story was a bit convoluted and left too many questions and the third act felt a bit rushed. I still haven't seen the latest Dune film, but it's on my list to watch, I think I might try watching it tonight. The first Dune film came out in 1984, so in a way, the success of Star Wars most likely made that happen, as the Hollywood machine only seems to take bets on certain genres if there is recent success in it, so essentially every great Science Fiction film after 1977 can thank Star Wars, as Star Wars has to thank the success of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Also, David Lynch essentially disowned Dune afterward, because it was considered a failure grossing about 30 million after a 40 million dollar budget. Whereas Star Wars had an 11 million dollar budget and managed to take in 775 million worldwide.

Sorry for the essay.