He's my favorite screenwriter! He's written THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and my favorite movie RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. He's also writing the new STAR WARS movie. What do you guys think of him?
He's a fine filmmaker in his own right. He had a spectacular year in 1981. Writing the screenplay for Raiders as well as writing and directing Body Heat. I don't know if he had a hand in choosing composers for his films, but you can't go wrong with John Barry for Body Heat, John Williams for The Accidental Tourist and James Newton Howard for Wyatt Earp. I also very much enjoyed The Big Chill.
What Adam said. Kasdan makes movies like the movies that excited him growing up. I've seen many of his films and loved them all, and most of the scores as well. SILVERADO and BODY HEAT are two of my favorite films and film scores, and I think Kasdan must take great care in choosing composers for the films he directs.
He's my favorite screenwriter! He's written THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and my favorite movie RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. He's also writing the new STAR WARS movie. What do you guys think of him?
For me The Big Chill was way way overrated, but I enjoyed Wyatt Earp, thought his work on Raiders and Empire was excellent, and for The Accidental Tourist alone he gets a lifetime thumbs up from me.
I loved his work in the 80's. I also think that Wyatt Earp is vastly underrated and vastly superior to "Tombstone", which was more of an action picture than bio.
He certainly has been quiet as of late though and his film adaptation of Stephen Kings " Dreamcatcher" left a lot to be desired.
I am excited that he is involved with the new Star Wars series and I think that is a huge step in the right direction JJ Abrams has taken.
"Body Heat" to me is his masterpiece as a writer/director.
I like Kasdan. He does smart films with clever cast ensembles -- sometimes struggling with issues on an OPERATIC scale. For that reason, I think SILVERADO is one of the best westerns ever made.
At the risk of being the only nay sayer here, I feel compelled to point out that Kasdan also co-authored the screenplay for Return of the Jedi which is hardly a triumph of scriptwriting.
Granted, Lucas' smudge marks are all over the screenplay - even more evident now we have seen further examples of his writing with the insufferable prequels - so I'm willing to accept that the really clunky sequences (Luke and Leia on Endor for example) are his. But Kasdan was the co-writer and I really don't think there is a lot in the finished screenplay to be proud of.
As I posted elsewhere a few weeks ago, I re-watched Jedi for the first time in years and still found it to be quite a badly made movie. The dialogue in particular is terrible and very "scripty" (i.e. not natural), which is an accusation I'd point at also Body Heat and, in parts, Raiders too ("I was a child. I was in love. It was wrong and you knew it") (and I say that as an unabashed fan of Raiders).
Now I accept that Jedi is hardly representative of Kasdan's overall body of work and I agree with the comments about Silverado being a terrific movie (dare I say it lags in the middle a teeny bit though!) but for me, Jedi is unforgivable.
NB. On the subject of Jedi I always laugh at that scene were Luke and co have been caught in the Ewok net and Luke says to Han "see if you can reach my light sabre". SEE IF YOU CAN REACH IT???? Blimey, some Jedi knight you are Lukey boy!!! Use the bloody force!!!
In ROTJ, I was a little disappointed to hear "I love you." "I know." --one of the great character moments of TESB -- reduced to the level of other supposed catchphrases like "I've got a bad feeling about this."
In fact, in ROTJ, I do believe they were even trying to create an all-new catchphrase with "Good luck . . . You're gonna need it." Why?
Mike J The central problem with Jedi was the plot. They got the writers together, and they said;
'Remember blowing up the Death Star in Star Wars, well we are going to do that --Again!
I admired a lot of the effects work in that picture, but when I watch it on bluray now the seams are showing, little things, like the star background in the scene where Luke and the Emperor are fighting do not move perfectly, and otherwise matte lines. They were really great models though.
The score and the models are the redeeming attributes.
Kasdan does seem like someone who likes the sound of his words on screen a bit much. I could never get into that Grand Canyon type stuff. A good writer does not 'sound' like a writer coming out of the characters.
Ado, I agree about the plot of Jedi being largely an uninspired retread of A New Hope but ai could probably just about live with that if the dialogue and characters had been written well.
Some films suit a "wordy" screenplay. Case in point is one of my all time favourite movies, A Few Good Men. In reality nobody really talks the way Cruise, Moore, Bacon, Pollock and Nicholson talk in that film but Aaron Sorkin's dialogue is just scintillatingly sharp with so many zingers, I just get caught up in it. In the context of that film, the dialogue MAKES the movie rather than detracts from it, the way the bad dialogue in Jedi does.
Like Kasdan's work in general, and, I'll say it once more--I love DREAMCATCHER. (And I'm confirmed in my love of it because my wife loves it too.) I may make myself a t-shirt that reads, "Shit-weasels Forever!"
Like Kasdan's work in general, and, I'll say it once more--I love DREAMCATCHER. (And I'm confirmed in my love of it because my wife loves it too.) I may make myself a t-shirt that reads, "Shit-weasels Forever!"
Word on the street is that your affinity for Kasdan is based on the little-known fact (except among friends and relatives) that -- you look just like him! Now it's out!
I think the two repeated lines that cause me to groan inward ever so slightly are: "there's too many of them," (come again?) and "how rude!" There are undoubtedly others nestling out there. Battle droids also have a tendency to utter "uh-oh" just before being permanently bent out of shape. Mesa tink dis iz baaad!
