TBF, Mags, you have been doing a lot of the heavylifting for the quest, so this will be in good hands.
To be clear to everyone, this is just me burning out on imagination of the quest, since my muse has been hitting me over the head a lot with so many different ideas that I just can't find myself too interested in this.
I'll still hang out here, though, since this still does have a sepcial place in my heart.
I'd like to thank you all for making this a wonderful experience while it lasted.
I'd also like to thank @Magoose, @Fluffy_serpent, and @Martin Noctis for doing so much to help prepare and write this quest. I couldn't have done it without you all.
My idea behind buying the Steeplechase site and rebuilding the park was that a New Yorker like Bruce might have some childhood memories of the park before it closed and would want to give back to his hometown. Plus imagine how many people will flock to Coney Island if we've got the only authorized Star Wars themed attractions anywhere. Especially if we can fork out enough cash to pay for ex-imagineer experience to build them.
You know, there's another film that Lucas wanted to do besides Star Wars, one that he talked about ever since American Graffiti. A movie that has gone down in history like Star Wars, but unlike said film this could be said to be Lucasfilm's worst movie (Back before Disney made it common to shit them out).
I'm talking about Howard the Duck, the movie.
Lucas loved the character and the comic, the mix between film noir and absurdism really stuck with him. And apparently, it was his idea to make it live-action rather than animated, though that was perhaps because he was under contract to give a distributor a live-action film, so he had Howard the Duck be one. And if we know anything of George is that he's going to go for it if he can. So, what we should be doing now is trying to find a way to either discourage him from the fiml, or at least convince him that it can be done with animation instead.
In OTL Lucas went for it between 1981 and 1984, but in this more succesful world, who knws when he might get the desire to try for the film.
Howard the duck is it's own mess of legality due to Disney getting pissy about him resembling Donald too much and then forcing a redesign by their own people to make him look as fugly as possible and prevent it from being changed without their direct say so.
Audience Reception: 54
Critical Reception: 91 US Gross: $14 Million
Lucasfilms Profits: $7,394,883
While you and George spent months out of the country working on filming, the two of you gave Mike the keys to the kingdom with full De Facto authority over Lucasfilms. Fortunately from talks with the folks back home, Mike didn't do anything radical, but his schemes to take advantage of the ongoing strike and work on producing Rocky limited his scope and actions for import distribution, thus giving you a single film to release, Seven Samurai.
You were a bit frustrated with Mike when you found out because you wanted to bank on Toshiro's hopeful mega fame as Obi-wan to release Samurai and Hidden Fortress for mega profits, but Mike had his own arguments about timing and competition, and in the end it was a decent success so you couldn't begrudge him too much. Since Lucasfilms was only distributing in the US and it was released in April, you had no ability to see the film until you arrived, but thankfully even though it was exiting many theaters, Mike in a gesture of kindness reserved a theater for a night for Lucasfilms as a post-Star Wars celebration. You had a good time with Carrie, Mark, Marcia and George; the latter of whom had an absolute blast seeing his favorite film on the big screen again. What made the night even more special was that the screening took place before Toshiro headed back to Japan, so he was able to watch one of his classics without a shitty dub as other American companies were want to do, and once the lights turned back on he even received a standing ovation from everyone present. Afterwards, you went out to a bar with George and Toshiro and acted as interpreter for hours for all the questions and film talk that George had. It was a fun night, seeing two masters of their craft have a really passionate conversation about film, although you were tired as hell the next day and slept well into the afternoon.
As for how the film was? It was an absolute masterpiece. Leading up to production, George went on and on how Seven Samurai was the greatest movie ever made and his personal inspiration for not only Star Wars but entering into film. You thought George was exaggerating but after watching it you can definitely count Seven Samurai among your top ten. Western was your favorite film genre and it was clear from watching how all the great classics of the old west had their roots in Seven Samurai. Cinematography was gorgeous, set design was artistic, every actor from the leading stars to the extras executed their roles perfectly, the story was THE definition of a timeless classic showing the best and worst of humanity. This was one of the staples for how film was made and seeing it helped to make you understand why Star Wars was so great thanks to the many inspirations and lessons taken from Seven Samurai. You personally wrote a letter to Akira Kurosawa praising his masterpiece as a pillar of cinema and it seemed critics were in fine agreement with most giving similar praises, very thankful that America was properly exposed to one of cinema's greatest that went obscure and neglected in its original '56 release.
Unfortunately while Seven Samurai was given mountains of praise from critics, it was met with a muted audience response in a repeat of Monkey Sun's performance. To be fair, 14 mil for a black and white 50's import is very respectable and Mike didn't even have to resort to ticket discounts or marketing gimmicks this time. However, while the movie got some theaters filled, the hype only lasted for a week or two and then petering out with the common sentiment from general moviegoers was it was decent. It was a very weird reaction considering everyone you personally knew who saw it fell in love. Clint used the film as major inspiration for his Josey Wales reshoots, Todd had a pretty good movie date with Donna, John gave it a recommendation in a newspaper interview, and Steve was once again so inspired that the day after you returned, he drove to Lucasfilms and begged George to start pre-production on his movie once the strike was over. From what you could best guess, either Mike bit off more than he could chew with a spring release or Seven Samurai being the progenitor of the Western served as a double edged sword and caused it to suffer in performance from the Western-malaise inflicting America, one that Josey Wales could hopefully avoid.
Overall not the powerhouse punch that you were hoping for after Godzilla and the Strike, but it was still a pretty decent outcome all the same. Lucasfilms got a nice cashflow to partially recoup from the Star Wars and Rocky investments, Distribution had another good run and Mike made even more connections, Toshiro was pretty happy that one of his works resonated decently with America, and Toho was once again pleased that a 50's film did well in the U.S and were patiently awaiting for more import requests or distribution successes. Another happy landing.
Freaking Awesome @Kaiser Chris ! It has everything I wanted to see in a review and more!
A bit sad to see it did not click completely with the audience, but it's to be expected. The whole fascination and interest in Japanese films and media has yet to start, but we're giving it a good push forwards.
Soon enough we'll be able to say we liked Japanese culture before it was cool.
Now hear me out, it's just because I'm afraid our movie might be too good you know? Like look, in 1983 Ronald Reagan is gonna unleash the Star Wars Program, a missile defense program. Now, it was seen as a joke/unfeasible to invest in, but imagine it's a world where Star Wars was this good? Every country will be doing Star Wars programs. Then counters to this program are developed, in the form of laser blasters. Then to counter the counters, defense systems are made to block plasma blasts. Then to get through that, concentrated plasma is turned into handheld weapons. Then to master these weapons biological experimentation are done to create master psionic warriors.
Then before you know it, we have Star World War 3 in real life. And it's all because this movie was too good.
We've got to take the L here, to save humanity from itself.
Instead of the gundam/mecha genre that took over anime in the late 70's onward, we'll be seeing that being mixed in with the rise of a more Scifi-fantasy getting through because of Star Wars!
Instead of the gundam/mecha genre that took over anime in the late 70's onward, we'll be seeing that being mixed in with the rise of a more Scifi-fantasy getting through because of Star Wars!
Gundam had Newtypes with psychic powers right from the original series, and I can't remember which Gundam series brought in the Mobile Suit-scale-lightsabres but it was one of the early ones, so it already had Star Wars elements OTL anyway.
Here are the rewards:
[]This isn't going to backfire (unknown effect)
[]The Strike continues (the strike continues for another turn)
[]Who the hell is the Goose (Japan and Korea inexplicably fall in love with the Goose due to MASH.)
It's like Columbo being so popular in Romania that Falk had to record a video telling the Romanian people that everything would be okay after Columbo finished airing. Or that cult in Russia centered around Gadget from Rescue Rangers.
It's like Columbo being so popular in Romania that Falk had to record a video telling the Romanian people that everything would be okay after Columbo finished airing. Or that cult in Russia centered around Gadget from Rescue Rangers.
"Bruce! How the hell are you so popular over there! MASH isn't even a big deal in Japan! And you haven't headlined a single movie yet!"
"Carrie's body pillows"
"…."
"…"
"I need a drink"
"Can I come too?"
Here are the Rewards:
[]Merch is King (Multiply the Merchendising Rolls by a factor of two)
[]Carrie, Who did you talk to for the Bodypillow Idea (Carrie has a chance to produce her bodypillows, and has patented it)
[]Mike finds your lack of Faith, Disturbing. (Kenner Toys tried to screw with George, but Mike did his thing. Now gain 50% from all production runs of Star Wars Toys.)
Oh this is going to be fun. Makes sense that we'd be popular in Korea since MASH was popular over there OTL and the Japanese film industry probably respects us a whole lot as a gaijin who speaks the language and respects their culture. I'd just love to do an event where there's a Star Wars convention in Japan and Bruce flies over with Carrie and speaks directly to the fans in Japanese, they'd probably love it. Also would love to do a guest appearence on a Sentai season, or perhaps if one of our kids does martial arts and becomes an actor, they can be a power ranger.
It's like Columbo being so popular in Romania that Falk had to record a video telling the Romanian people that everything would be okay after Columbo finished airing. Or that cult in Russia centered around Gadget from Rescue Rangers.
"Bruce! How the hell are you so popular over there! MASH isn't even a big deal in Japan! And you haven't headlined a single movie yet!"
"Carrie's body pillows"
"…."
"…"
"I need a drink"
"Can I come too?"
