Named Actors Important Anymore?

I don't know if this is OT, but I've been wanting to say something about name actors.

William Goldman said that, in any scene, a named actor must not lose to anyone, UNLESS there is another scene where it's made clear that he lost on purpose. IOW, if Johnny Movie Star lost a fight, he will have a scene where he tells someone else, "You know I could have won, don't you?" - and that someone else says, "Of course you could have - you just lost so the other guy would feel good."

Applying this to my beloved Empire Strikes Back, if Luke Skywalker had been played by that Johnny Movie Star, he would never have lost to Darth Vader - or, if he had, Obi-Wan would have shimmered into existence, and Luke would have said he could have beaten Vader but didn't because Vader was his father. That would have ruined THE ENTIRE MOVIE.

If Goldman is anywhere near correct, I will NOT have any named actors, because they will not lose to anyone else. To me, the SF movie is the star, NOT the actors.
 
sfoster said:
goldman sounds like an idiot
Click to expand...

That idiot wrote "Marathon Man", "The Princess Bride" and won the
Oscar for "All the President's Men" and "Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid". It is said that he did a full, page one rewrite of "Good
Will Hunting".

Mogul has misunderstood what Goldman meant. And didn't mention
he wrote that in another era of filmmaking – 30 year ago.
 
@directorik

I'm sure that sfoster wasn't saying that Goldman actually is an idiot.

@AspiringMogul, here are some films that starred movie stars, but their protagonists either lost or were killed unexpectedly.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054215/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477348/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407887/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112573/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114369/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117381/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/

&

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061418/

----

Not gonna lie, I would NEVER turn away the chance to work with a Holllywood star. Why? Because they do attract attention from people and ARE good for distribution. They don't guarantee success, but they do not hurt... AT ALL. But that's not going to happen for almost everyone on this site, because well, we're not nearly to that level yet... not even close.
 
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ChimpPhobiaFilms said:
@directorik

I'm sure that sfoster wasn't saying that Goldman actually is an idiot.
Click to expand...
I, too, am sure he didn't say Goldman is actually an idiot . What I
read was "goldman sounds like an idiot" - not Goldman is an idiot.
What Goldman meant, writing at the beginning of the 1980's, is very
different than the analogy Mogul made. Reading what Goldman actually
wrote (and in context) I believe one could not draw the conclusion that
Goldman sounds like an idiot.
 
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