On David Lynch's Revenge of the Jedi

The main thing I learned was that Cronenberg was offered the directing job for ROTJ. Cronenberg was at one time in line to direct Totall Recall, and he wrote a draft of the screenplay. Totall Recall certainly includes a bit of the trademark body horror.

Cronenberg made The Fly in Hollywood, and I think it's it's great, but he wasn't able to get much more than that on the go, even though he came close to landing several high profile gigs.

In some alternate history timeline Cronenberg's name would have been attached to several big time Hollywood properties, and the world would be mostly the same just a little bit grosser. Of course, I'm happy with Cronenberg's mostly Canadian produced oeuvre the way it is, I just like to wonder.

I also used to wonder what the world would look like if Lynch has directed ROTJ, but I came to realize it was a ridiculous premise, Lynch needed far more creative elbow room than what the 3rd instalment of an established franchise could possibly afford, and there was no chance Lynch would ever agree to such a thing. So we got Dune instead and I'm happy with that too.

This painfully long and meandering piece is about how David Lynch chose to not direct Return of the Jedi. If that interests you, you will enjoy it more than I did!

I remember as a kid seeing ads on TV for some contest where you could win tickets to be the first to see Revenge of the Jedi. I also remember the name changing when it finally came out.

As a kid, I thought Revenge of the Jedi was so much better of a title. As an adult, of course I get how it doesn't fit well with the idea of a Jedi. But I still have to say, Revenge of the Jedi was a kick ass title and Return of the Jedi was very milquetoast.

> the back of Threepio’s golden head: the reflected light fills the screen, dims as the giant metal door closes behind them—just before we hear the sound of the door’s teeth meet, the light goes—for a long second, we see nothing but the faint, oval-shape of Threepio’s head, then on either side of Threepio’s head, appear the grotesque faces of the palace guards: skin the texture of a slug’s and slick with a sweat of mucus, pink-rimmed snouts, stupid-marble eyes, and yellowed tusks protruding from their lower lip.

It's not long before we can feed that script to one of the AI engines and tell it to make a Lynch movie out of it. For other directors I don't know, but for Lynch that would be quite something.

endlessly entertaining is lynch describing "next to zero interest" in directing starwars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJQ4vCu-S0U

Cronenberg’s best film after Videodrome is Existenz; it’s not as we’ll know as The Fly which has always puzzled me.

       There are several explanations for why Lynch turned down Lucas’ offer. Kazanjian implied—in either an interview [..] that Lynch turned down the offer because Dino De Laurentiis offered him Dune, an offer Lynch accepted. More recently, Kazanjian said, at a Star Wars Celebration convention in Anaheim, that Lynch wasn’t hired because, “Ah, he didn’t want Johnny Williams to do the music and he didn’t want Ben Burtt—Academy Award winner like three times—to do the sound.” [..] Incredible, yes—as in hard to believe. Kazanjian’s original claim, that Lynch weighed the pros and cons of Lucas’s offer and chose Dune instead, is more credible.

Not so much. Lynch already had the idea before Dune that he wanted more creative control because he was afraid what a studio exec would do to his vision. After Dune, he resolved to never give up creative control ever again, and repeated that time and again to anyone who would listen.

Sound was incredibly important to Lynch. He produced his own music and partnered with other artists on many of his projects, to get the exact sound he wanted. Lynch having to work with Williams and Burtt would be like Aphex Twin having to work with Walt Disney.

I stopped reading as they keep trying to probe what Lynch's Return would be like. It's like asking what David Cronenberg's Toy Story 2 would be like (though obviously that would end up like MAD GOD). Why speculate about something clearly unsuitable, other than for a grim chuckle?

This was apparently published in 2018:

https://www.bennington.edu/news-and-features/bennington-revi...

The issues are frustratingly undated, except the first. It strives to publish twice a year.

I asked Gemini to pretend that David Lynch directed the only existing version of ROTJ and write Roger Ebert's review. It got four stars, and I'd definitely go see it.

No-one ever squanders anything by going to see David Lynch's Dune.

I want to see the Terry Gilliam version. I guess someday I will.

Pet peeve: people saying "A New Hope" when referring to the original 1977 film, which was actually called "Star Wars", dammit.