Verboten said:

Apologies if this has been covered.

It's recently been noted that the exterior shots of the Falcon cockpit have been cropped in Empire. Unless I'm mistaken, there has been some mystery as to why this was done.

Well, the answer seems to lie in The Making of the Empire Strikes Back. See, when George had the cockpit set designed for Star Wars he wanted it be a cramped set in order to reflect real world cockpits.

When it came time to rebuild the set for Empire, Kurtz requested that it be built a bit more spaciously. Why? Apparently, the actors had complained to him that the cramped quarters of the original set were hindering their performance. Lucas didn't know about the change and was not pleased once he found out, but by then the set had been completed and he could not afford the time or money to have it rebuilt.

So, over twenty years later he has the cockpit frames zoomed in and cropped to give the appearance of a more compact space. Why he simply didn't have Kershner film it that way in the first place remains a mystery.

It's almost like Kershner had his own idea about how to frame shots and it wasn't Lucas' call anymore.

It blows my mind, all of the things they DIDN'T fix and Lucas apparently was still upset about it that he had them rescan and zoom in every cockpit shot in Empire.

I wonder how long Lucas' stay in Purgatory will be.

For which version of ESB does the cropping take place? On the blu-rays? 2004? 1997?

georgec said:

For which version of ESB does the cropping take place? On the blu-rays? 2004? 1997?

On both the '97 and '04 editions, not seen the blu-ray so I don't know if further alterations have been done, a few shots were still left alone on the DVD.

msycamore said:

georgec said:

For which version of ESB does the cropping take place? On the blu-rays? 2004? 1997?

On both the '97 and '04 editions, not seen the blu-ray so I don't know if further alterations have been done, a few shots were still left alone on the DVD.

Interesting. Never knew of or noticed this change before.

"Your weaponssssss...you will not need themsessss, you ssstupid, fat Jedi."

 

Yollum

"At an end, yesssss, your reign isssssss...hmm, yes, precious.  And not short enough it wassss."

Poor Jessica.

 

Imagine the fees for overweight baggage!

Heh. Darth_Ender called Han fat. Lawl.

 

Also: It's good to see people finally coming around to our point of view... oh wait, no. No they aren't.

French? French what?

French fries, of course. They're delicious.

I'm sick and tired of Jan Duursema's Star Wars work. She isn't bad by any means, but I've come to associate her art with eras I hate, so I want her gone pronto, today, chop chop!

Gotta be better than Zorba Zumba.

 

Frink and Xhonzi comin' over?

darth_ender said:

 

Frink and Xhonzi comin' over?

Depends... what they cooking? Dog?

Here's a random thought...

If you could only choose one... would you rather:

1) have LucasFilm release an absolutely perfect, pristine, unaltered version of SW on blu-ray,

or

2) get to see the entire "lost cut" of SW.

 

I'm actually kinda leaning towards #2...

Can we have both?

SpilkaBilka said:

1) have LucasFilm release an absolutely perfect, pristine, unaltered version of SW on blu-ray,

or

2) get to see the entire "lost cut" of SW.

No question option #1. Option #2 is a fools choice. Seeing the ever fabled "lost cut" would be neat for that afternoon but that'd be it. You'd see a variable quality black & white version of Star Wars. The second option merely states that you get to see it. Not get to own any copy of it. Nor would it uphold Lucasfilm to present it to you in any reasonable quality whatsoever. The first option allows you to purchase several copies of the movie presented in very high quality and everyone else can buy their own copy too. With the addition of making Lucasfilm accountable to present Star Wars in a respectable quality, the choice is clear, number one.

What lost cut is this again?

From what we've seen of the lost cut, its boring as sin. I'd rather have the original versions.