That bitch Lucas announces Star wars on Blu Rayz

[Ed Oscuro]

Hell, I still remember that "side story" with the Ewoks fondly. It was Star Wars! But...not! AWESOME

[CMoon]

A big middle finger to Lucas as I watch the original version of Empire 1080p. I'm sure Lucas could make it amazing if he would make it.

Edit: Grrr, it's not the original version--not that it made that big a difference in Empire. Looks beautiful in HD.

[GaijinPunch]

Is it a fan edit of the "special edition"?

[emphatic]

Seriously, I still don't get why some people remember Willow fondly

After watching the world premier of The Fellowship Of The Ring a friend of mine went "Willow is sooo much better". I was like "don't bother coming by my house anymore".

[Warp_Rattler]

It's a pretty big claim to make, Willow being better than Fellowship, but it was pretty good--certainly better than those Ewok atrocities, and it doesn't feel like it's aged too badly. Nostalgia may color some of my fondness for the movie, but I like to think not every turd of my youth is polished to a shiny gold nugget through its magic.

From a techical restoration standpoint, it took a whopping seven years to do each frame-by-frame restoration of Blade Runner: Final Cut version. Makes me wonder just how much $$$ was budgeted to make it happen.

That's the thing that gets me--Ridley Scott, a director with as many giant misses as huge hits under his belt and very little income from the power of licensing, is able to sink that much effort into restoring a near-cult film, while Lucas with all him money and resources deems the proper restoration of three monumental films in cinematic history too expensive or difficult.

[Specineff]

Ridley Scott, a director with as many giant misses as huge hits under his belt and very little income from the power of licensing, is able to sink that much effort into restoring a near-cult film, while Lucas with all him money and resources deems the proper restoration of three monumental films in cinematic history too expensive or difficult.

Hey, man... digitally inserting Jar-Jar in the original trilogy is not going to be cheap. Cut George some slack.

[Daigohji]

Same thing with Star Trek the slow-motion picture. They restored it with Robert Wise overseeing the work. On one of the extras some fella says that they only wanted to clean up or produce effects that were possible at the time of the original release. You could tell where that comment was aimed. It's no great film... and I don't particularly like Star Trek, but they did a pretty good job on it. I actually thought it was the original version I was watching because my flat mates had put it on and I missed the first 10 mins.

Like many people, Wrath of Khan was my favourite Star Trek movie for years, but these days The Motion Picture is top on my list. It's the only one of the eleven films that adheres to the essence of the original series and one of my favourite forms of SF: an encounter with something truly alien and unknown. It's also a masterclass of scale model work and optical compositing. The scenes of entering the V'ger cloud and the fly-by of the alien vessel are more mesmerising than anything in 2001.

I thought the director's cut did a great job of smoothing the rough edges of the theatrical cut. So I was sorely disappointed to find that the new effects elements were only rendered in SD, and consequently the blu-ray is the theatrical version. I was all set to double dip on the movie box set, but now I'm back in the usual release limbo of not knowing if/when the director's cut will come to blu-ray at some point.

As for the Star Wars movies, I think A New Hope was the only one that was damaged by the 1997 alterations, and that Phantom Menace was the only really bad movie in the franchise. So I'll be looking forward to the blu-ray release next year.

[CMoon]

but these days The Motion Picture is top on my list.

I should really see that movie again at some point.

As for the Star Wars movies, I think A New Hope was the only one that was damaged by the 1997 alterations

Well the problem is, A New Hope and Empire are the only ones I like, but I think you're right. The changes to Empire really aren't significant enough to justify all my bitchin'.

[greg]

I actually liked Star Trek The Motion Picture quite a lot. Then again, I like slow-moving movies. 2001, Blade Runner, etc. Syd Mead did design work for Star Trek TMP. Also, the Enterprise refit is just plain awesome.

The final cut of Blade Runner is perfection. It's the way movies ought to be touched up. Very subtle. I went to go see it with Undamned in the theater in December '07. I apparently have seen the movie more often then he did, and I was like, "oh, that's new. oh, they changed that. oh..." He didn't pick up on a lot of the changes. It's subtle.

Likewise, cleaning up the transparency of the snow speeders' cockpits, fixing the matte in the detention center to make the long corridor actually look real, getting rid of the English text on the tractor beam's control panel and replacing it with the Basic written language, fixing up the TIE fighter vs X-Wing dogfights at the end of A New Hope to make the action look better, having Lando clap to the rhythm of the music, getting rid of the dumb Ewok song... THOSE are the good edits. But the Greedo shoots first crap, the song and dance scene in ROTJ, making Mos Eisley a goofy place when it's supposed to be a hive of scum and villany... that's stupid.

I'm a Star Wars geek, and always will be. Way back before 1997 on the FidoNet Star Wars Echo, there were discussions on edits that we were anticipating that never came. Check out the Millenium Falcon evading the Star Destroyers in the Hoth system in Empire. The freighter is obviously modified and is not a clunky, slow-moving barge. It's juking back and forth, diving, and dodging the Star Destroyers. They Destroyers launch TIE Fighters to pursue the Falcon because it's moving too fast for their lasers to track it. Then look at the Falcon being pursued by Star Destroyers in A New Hope. "Don't worry, I know a few maneuvers to lose them." And as they pointed out in Riff Trax's commentary, this entails SLOWLY FLYING IN A STRAIGHT LINE. Back prior to 1997, we figured that we'd see the Falcon flipping all over the place. But we didn't get that. Or when the TIE Fighter is "too far out of range." Uh, you can throw a rock and hit that fighter... it was right in front of their cockpit! They did at least insert the moaning sounds of the Falcon's ship computer that brought the ship to life in ESB, but the maneuverability just isn't there in ANH. Instead, we get that stupid droid floating around Mos Eisley doing everything short of putting "KICK ME" signs on the backs of Storm Troopers just to show off the technology of digital insertions. DUMB.

I picked up the recent issue of Star Wars Insider magazine because it is for the 30 year anniversary of ESB, my favorite Star Wars movie as well as everyone else's. This magazine has some quotes from Harrison Ford. Here's one about how the "I know" line came to be just before Solo was frozen:

"Film is a collaborative process," says Ford, "and I was happy that I was able to make a small contribution. It didn't go down so well with George at the time. He would have been a lot happier with the scripted line which is, 'I love you too.' But I felt, and Kersh (director Irvin Kershner) agreed, that it was the opportunity for a more 'character-smelling' moment."

Ford then explains how Lucas said that it was a bad line and that people would just laugh. He says that the test audience thought it was great, so it stuck. But what strikes me as amusing is how Ford points out the collaborative process of filmmaking. If dumb George had his way, ESB wouldn't have been the great movie it was.

Oh, and also in the magazine is an ironic interview of Lucas from 1980. Here's why he didn't direct the movie:

"I've never really enjoyed directing. So I have more or less retired from directing. I felt that if I directed Empire I'd have to direct the next one, and the one after that, and so on for the rest of my life. Being an executive producer si a much easier job than directing. I generally oversee the production and, although I have less control over specific things, I find I can live a much saner life than as a director!"

Oh, if only he could have kept to his promise to be the idea man behind the scenes instead of the director. Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor are not bad actors, but under George's directing, there were some pretty poor scenes. And to think that Halley Joel Osmet could have played young Anakin in TPM! Watching the DVD's special features and seeing the other kids who tried out for the part, there were others who did a better job than the kid who got the role.

But ignoring the collaborative process that kept Lucas in check...that made Lawrence Kasdan leave. It's interesting to read what Kasdan had planned for ROTJ. Lando wouldn't have made it out of the Death Star alive, for example. Lucas more or less hid for a very long time, building up everyone's anticipation and admiration for him. He surrounds himself with ass kissing yes mans, then we get a bunch of crap.

Like I said, I am a Star Wars geek and I love the universe. The basic story to the new prequels wasn't all that bad, and the novelizations were great. I'm currently enjoying the X-Wing novels, which revolve around Wedge, Janson, and Tycho. Great stuff. But you do have to take the bad with the good, and there are plenty of things that are annoying, thanks to Lucas. Like midichlorians, and why the hell does a backwater planet like Tatooine on the outer rim of the galaxy seem to be the constant centerpoint for the movies and the books? It's just Tatooine! If it was that exciting of a place, why was Luke so anxious to escape that crapball? Anyhow, I'm rambling. The Clone Wars cartoon isn't bad, and I'm really hoping that the live action Star Wars TV show is going to be decent.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

After watching all three original SW films again in their entirety, some pressing questions still come up:

So how old is Anakin Skywalker and son when he fights with his son in the final climatic lightsaber duel scene in ROTJ? I've noticed that the ages between Anakin and his children Luke and Leia, are never disclosed in any of the SW films. And how many months/years lapse from the events that take place in TESB and ROTJ with Luke and Yoda finally meeting again for the second and final time? Of course, Yoda is much older in the ROTJ film indeed.

If Lucas originally envisioned his SW films to be a nine film series, what happens in Episodes 7, 8 and 9? What becomes of the last remainants of the Galactic Empire now that the Emperor & Vader are dead? Would it be safe to have them assimilated into the general multi-species population and help create a "New Republic" order? The climatic battle at Endor shown in ROTJ was considered a multi-species war against the Empire if you stop and ponder a bit.

And are the Dark Jedi Sith still around to clash with the upcoming Jedi after the events shown in ROTJ? It would seem that there are no more Sith lords aside from Darth Vader and the Emperor. Considering that Luke is the very last remaining Jedi after the death of Yoda, it would make sense to create a Jedi training school and teach his sister (and others) the same arts of the Jedi. The new Jedis that graduate from said new Jedi academy can make their decision to fight for good or for evil, giving rise to a new batch of Sith Lords to persue/destroy.

The Emperor could've easily cloned himself with easy access to the Spaarti cloning technology if he wanted to do so (the same technology to clone them Stormtroopers).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[CMoon]

What becomes of the last remainants of the Galactic Empire now that the Emperor & Vader are dead?

Really anxious to see if the Teabaggers in episode 7 are the good guys, bad guys, or just jawas.

[Aguraki]

I think the franchise has been not-so-milked. Not compared to Star Trek or some others...

I dunno, when you have both a bevy of cartoon spinoffs AND multiple Lego-crossover video game entries under your belt you've got to be in the upper echelon someplace.

star wars games are well over the average overall.

It's just the endless releases of the original trilogy(and the bad 1/2/3) that fed up the fans.

more games please
also I want a classic shmup on star wars ( [ ] will happen)
don't need to be std vert/hori,but something different than rogue leader-)

[BulletMagnet]

Really anxious to see if the Teabaggers in episode 7 are the good guys, bad guys, or just jawas.

*insert Palpatine/Cheney joke here*

[dan76]

getting rid of the dumb Ewok song... THOSE are the good edits.

Too much to mention in your post - but this? Yeah ewoks... not great but you got to love the yub nub song - or at least take it over that awful "new" music.

Putting aside the extra stuff from the special editions I still think some of the grading has gone overboard. Particularly in Empire, all the Dagobah stuff has been saturated with colour. That bitch wants to "de-age" the old films, and by digitally colour correcting/screwing around with them he's trying to make one long 6 part film... Yeah, good luck with that - I bet he wished he hadn't used all that soft focus in Star Wars now.

Seriously, I can't see anything of worth in the prequels - a huge artistic folly, but financial gain - for him. Maybe it's a generational thing but they have nothing to do with Star Wars for me. This is also why about the only Star Wars games I've really enjoyed are the old Atari arcades and Sega's trilogy arcade.

And +1 for a Star Wars shmup - There are two that I know of - The original trilogy plug 'n play shaped like a Millenium Falcon. Has 4 games on it, one of them is a vert called Red Leader, you pilot an x-wing and shoot tie fighters and asteroids.

The other is an extra mode on the GBA's Flight of the Falcon - which I've got on an emulator for the old xbox. It's a side scroller where you pilot the Falcon shooting waves of Ties etc.

Both very basic.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yeah, those Atari Games produced color vector "Quadrascan" arcade games of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back PCB upgrade kit were cool for their time. Played some games of the classic SW arcade game at the past 2010 CAX show. Both the deluxe SW sit-down cab and the original upright SW cabs were out on display to try out. Played on a SW cab that had a super razor sharp vector monitor with no screen burn-in issues...looked like it was in super mint condition anyways. Had the obligatory "Not for Sale" signage on it.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[greg]

If Lucas originally envisioned his SW films to be a nine film series, what happens in Episodes 7, 8 and 9? What becomes of the last remainants of the Galactic Empire now that the Emperor & Vader are dead? Would it be safe to have them assimilated into the general multi-species population and help create a "New Republic" order? The climatic battle at Endor shown in ROTJ was considered a multi-species war against the Empire if you stop and ponder a bit.

Lucas was full of hot air when he bragged about episodes 7-9. And I'm sure that what happened in Phantom Menace was not what he'd originally planned way ahead with the whole Adventures of Anakin Starkiller stuff in the 70's. All we knew since forever ago is that Obi Wan finds Anakin who was an accomplished pilot (not a dumb hot rod driver), trains him as a Jedi, fights alongside him during the Clone Wars (and we thought the Mandalorians played a bigger part in that), and we knew that they fought on a volcanic planet, leaving Anakin severely disfigured and burned. Sure, there were some fantastic imagination brought to live in the prequels, like the beautiful Gungan underwater city or the sensory overload of Coruscant, but everyone had built up in their minds in anticipation what the prequels would have been like in those many years of waiting. And I bet many people had better ideas that what we ended up with in the movies.

Robot Chicken made fun of the end of ROTJ with the Imperials immediately giving up on the war and going home. The movies show celebrations across the galaxy on different worlds (showing the Naboo celebration in the re-re-release should have sufficed to tie in ROTJ to the prequels without having to put that punkass in place of the original guy (Bernard Shaw was his name?) as Anakin's ghost), leading people to believe that there was instantaneous celebrations of people being freed. Star Wars fans all understand this to be a progression of time as these worlds are freed from tyranny, and the novels starting with Timothy Zahn's trilogy show that the fight against the Empire lasts for many years after the victory at Endor. Heck, one book even describes how the fallout from the Death Star wreckage falling on Endor wreaks catastrophic damage to Endor's environment and it kills all the Ewoks. A war of attrition is fought to liberate Coruscant and to regroup the galaxy's races into a New Republic and establishing a new government. The books can be rather good, but a lot of them fall into the trap of "remnant Empire faction X creates a new superweapon of mass destruction in order to resubdue the galaxy with fear and the heroes must stop them and their typical shenanigans" crap, but a lot of the books are quite good---especially the ones by Timothy Zahn and Michael Stackpole.

[Damocles]

After watching all three original SW films again in their entirety, some pressing questions still come up:

So how old is Anakin Skywalker and son when he fights with his son in the final climatic lightsaber duel scene in ROTJ? I've noticed that the ages between Anakin and his children Luke and Leia, are never disclosed in any of the SW films. And how many months/years lapse from the events that take place in TESB and ROTJ with Luke and Yoda finally meeting again for the second and final time? Of course, Yoda is much older in the ROTJ film indeed.

The timeline between Eps 3 and 4 falters. Even if you fudge the ages of Vader and the kids to make it work...and you need a lot of leeway to make it work, there's still the friggin Death Star that was being built in Ep. 3 yet was somehow kept secret and non-operational for 20-25 years. ...and then another one springs up almost finished in just a few years. It's sad, but I used to have a book that had a timeline that encompassed the original movies and the books published up to that point

According to the current "official" timeline by Lucas:
Vader was 19 during Ep. 2, 22 during Ep. 3, and 42 during the original film.
Ep. 1 was 33 years before Yavin. Ep.2 was ten years after that. Ep 3 was three years after that.
Empire takes place 3 years after Yavin. Jedi takes place one year after that.
I had to look this shit up.

The Emperor could've easily cloned himself with easy access to the Spaarti cloning technology if he wanted to do so (the same technology to clone them Stormtroopers).

It's been a while since I read any of the books, but I believe he does just that. IIRC, he pops up a few more times.

[Warp_Rattler]

The Emperor could've easily cloned himself with easy access to the Spaarti cloning technology if he wanted to do so (the same technology to clone them Stormtroopers).

It's been a while since I read any of the books, but I believe he does just that. IIRC, he pops up a few more times.

The Dark Empire graphic novel series. The first one was pretty good--I think it was the first continuation of the Star Wars universe in that format (the horrible '70s Marvel comics don't count). You had the aforementioned battles to liberate planets from the remnants of the Empire, awesome new war machines which were made into a great level for the N64/PC Rogue Squadron game, and of course the return of Boba Fett. The second volume was a bit too much of a rehash, and I never bothered to read the final one, as it seemed to be just more of the "Guess what? The Emperor's back, with a new superweapon!" that was so fresh in the first installment. That one was pretty good, though.

I wasted a lot of time in junior high and early high school reading all sorts of campy science fiction, Star Wars novels included. It never sat right with me what Lucas did with the prequels and how he re-arranged some aspects to be slightly off from and others to directly contradict the enormous amount of work that was created before he finally got around to creating the prequel trilogy. Lucasfilms has an enormously complicated licensing apparatus that makes sure that the various works--books, comic, games, etc.--don't contradict each other and fit into an orderly canon, but one of the main tenets of this system is that Lucas is the ultimate authority of what is official and what isn't. Writing licensed fiction is hardly high literature, and yet some of those writers did a really excellent job giving continued life to the universe created by the movies. Lucas's ham-fisted revisionism has to be a slap in the face to those people who put so much effort into their work, especially when they kept the property from fading away to just another cult fetish while he decided whether or not he wanted to go through with the prequels.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Thanks to greg, Damocles and Warp_Rattler for the informative SW answers to some of my questions. I had to figure out that Vader would be 46 and Luke along with Leia would be age 24 respectively in the ROTJ film going with the age/chonological info posted from Damocles.

Cool touch with the Obama "The New Hope" theme, CMoon.

I recall watching an episode of Attack of the Show where the sexy Olivia Munn host is dressed up in that ROTJ slave girl outfit. Even Rachel (played by actress Jennifer Aniston) in the 1990s TV sitcom series of Friends had her dressed up in the ROTJ slave girl outfit in one episode.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Acid King]

I spotted this article earlier today and figured it's got some relevance to this thread. The author divides recuts/edits into a few categories and attempts to explain why some fail more than others.

When should a director stop messing with a movie?

[GaijinPunch]

Man, there's some serious dorkery going on in this thread. No problems w/ that.
I thought I was sick for seeing Jedi 15 times in the theatres. Remember when matinees were $2 for kids? Last movie I saw cost me twenty fucking dollars. O_o

Anyway, with technology being what it is, I think we can look forward to fan edits and whatnot, but if I'm not mistaken, there's no available source of the old school movies better than Laserdisc at this point, no? Shame dat.

The state of SW is almost like that of video games. "Remember when ______ didn't suck ass?!" Guess we're all getting old.

[CMoon]

Heck, one book even describes how the fallout from the Death Star wreckage falling on Endor wreaks catastrophic damage to Endor's environment and it kills all the Ewoks.

I would have paid to see this as a movie!

>Acid King: Great article.

[Warp_Rattler]

I thought I was sick for seeing Jedi 15 times in the theatres.

I almost saw it once.

There may have been another day of labor involved before I hit the scene, though. That point in my life is all pretty fuzzy.

[Ed Oscuro]

What becomes of the last remainants of the Galactic Empire now that the Emperor & Vader are dead?

Really anxious to see if the Teabaggers in episode 7 are the good guys, bad guys, or just jawas.

Sand people.

(quoting the image makes this post ironic)

[GaijinPunch]

Official Changes for Blu Rayz release

Anyone think it'll be worth it? Any word on what the deleted scenes are? Maybe that Chewbacca Anal scene we've heard about for so long...

[greg]

The puppet Yoda in Phantom Menace always looked dumb compared to the one in Empire Strikes Back. Apparently the big stupid addition this time around is Darth Vader saying, "No. Nooooo!" When he sees Luke getting zapped to death in ROTJ. It reminds me of how they added Luke screaming as he stepped to his death at the end of ESB, then they later realized how gay that was and removed it from the DVD release.

Making the X-Wing and TIE Fighter dogfights in A New Hope look faster and cooler was a good thing. Fixing technical glitches and such was also great. One thing that always bugged me was the matte painting in the detention corridor that didn't look right when filmed from different camera angles. They fixed that with the DVD release. I thought adding the Biggs scene was necessary, and adding Jabba's scene was a good idea, although the CG involved looked terrible until it was redone for the DVD. But when they add stupid stuff like the singing and dancing routine in ROTJ, putting the young Anankin's ghost at the end of ROTJ, and now this dumb "Nooooooo!" crap, that's when Lucas goes too far with tampering with his stuff.

[xbl0x180]

No. Unacceptable. I can't watch this with any changes made to it after its premiere.

[dan76]

Who cares if they replaced the puppet Yoda with a cgi Yoda in The Phantom Menace, it's not like anyone is dumb enough to watch that crap again are they? Seriously, three of the worst films ever made.

It's weird because in the (excellent) Star Wars to Jedi doc Lucas says that film makers spend to much time showing off their special effects and that you don't need to. A couple of shots is all that's needed to convince an audience. This from an interview in 1984... Seems like between then and now he completely reversed this opinion (or was the new trilogy just an ad for what ILM could do).

The only things of interest to me in this Blu Ray stuff are the deleted scenes from the original trilogy, plus the original making of docs. In The Making of Star Wars you see a very young Carrie Fisher being interviewed in an arcade. Basically Star Wars stopped in 1983, everything since has been garbage (the odd arcade game being the exception).

Edit: of the scenes cut there was one in Jedi where Vader chokes an imperial officer - this was in keeping with the previous two films, and a brief scene before he visits the Emperor where he uses the old jedi mind trick to get past the red guards - seems odd he'd have to do that, guess that's why it was cut. I'm also looking forward to seeing the sand storm sequence that was cut from Jedi, as I know that's included... but it's not like I'll be buying them.

[Gus]

Once you realize George Lucas is just a guy coasting off the success of 2 good movies from over 30 years ago it becomes a lot easier to stop caring about (and buying) any bastardized versions he chooses to make.

[xbl0x180]

Thankfully, Howard The Duck was left unmolested