ChainsawAsh

MJPollard said:

I don't believe this.  You're equating removing visible wires (which doesn't alter anything one little bit) to what Lucas did to create the SEs?  That fixing mistakes that don't make one single bit of difference to the film is some sort of "blasphemy"?  Please tell me I'm wrong before I start accusing you of being out of your goddamn minds.

Films are a product of the time they were made.  If you change anything about that - including removing wires or erasing matte lines/garbage mattes - it no longer represents filmmaking as it was when the film was made.  That, to me, is unacceptable.

Though when it's the only option, and the changes aren't too severe, I can generally look past it.  Like the Raiders of the Lost Ark DVD, or the Aliens Blu-Ray.  Would I prefer that they left in the reflection of the cobra in the glass, or the hole in the floor where Lance Henriksen's legs were hidden?  Yes.  Can I watch the movies and enjoy them despite these changes having been made?  Yes.

But it's not the original version, and that thought is always in the back of my mind.

Bingowings said:

So very much like the original then?

Yes, exactly.  Which is why I don't know how it's getting such bad reviews.

Yes, that's the exact interview I was referring to in my last post.  So everything I said about the Lucas draft stands - it's nothing at all like the Kurtz/Lucas plan.  The earliest screenplay for Jedi - which was written by Lucas - was already after he'd decided the story didn't matter as much as it did for the first two.

I liked it quite a bit, as well - I've been reading a lot of reviews bashing it, saying the story is weak, that it's too much about the visuals, blah blah blah ...

... but those were all issues I had with the original, so I'm fine with the sequel having some of the same story problems.

I just don't understand these reviews saying it's as bad as the prequels.  I thought it was pretty sweet.

I'm with Warb.

Now that I'd like to see.

haljordan28 said:

I never  said  Lucas did not write it.I said before Lucas changed it.  Gary Kurtz said   it  was about that time that Lucas ideas and direction changed from what he and kurtz planed to do with the frnachise and  lucas got more motivated   by selling toys  and mass appeal    and he rewrote  return of the jedi completly  from what  they had originally planed for it.  if you want a link to the gary kurtz interview ill post it.  as isaid  lucas wrote that script  but that is before he changed everything

The plan for Star Wars III that you refer to was worked out between Lucas and Kurtz during the making of Empire (I'll refer to it as the Lucas/Kurtz outline).  It was thrown out before any scripts were written, by Lucas or anyone else, as Lucas was dissatisfied with how Empire had turned out.

The script you're talking about was written after Lucas had already trashed his initial plans for Jedi.  Yeah, it still changed quite a bit from that draft to the final version, but so did Star Wars and Empire.  Read the first drafts of each of those some time.  This draft - the one you posted excerpts from - I'll call the Lucas draft.

So, how does the Lucas/Kurtz outline compare to the Lucas draft?  For example, in the Lucas/Kurtz outline - from the mouth of Gary Kurtz himself (probably in the same link you were talking about):

• There was no Death Star at all - in the Lucas draft, there are two
• Han Solo died heroically in the climactic battle, sacrificing himself so the Rebels could win - in the Lucas draft, he's alive at the end
• Luke's sister was not Leia - in fact, he went in search of his real sister at the end of the film, setting up a sequel trilogy.  In the Lucas draft, Leia is Luke's sister, as in the final film.
• There were no Ewoks in the Kurtz/Lucas outline, while Ewoks are definitely present in the Lucas draft.
• Leia was crowned Queen at the end of the Lucas/Kurtz outline, left alone to lead the new government now that Han was dead and Luke was traveling through the galaxy in search of his sister.  Obviously, none of this is present in the Lucas draft.

Basically, my point is, the Kurtz/Lucas outline you're talking about was never taken to the script stage, and the Lucas script you posted excerpts from contains many of the poor decisions that made Jedi vastly inferior to the first two films.

In fact, I'll wager that the initial draft of Star Wars and the initial draft of Empire are both more drastically different from their final films than the Lucas draft of Jedi is different from the finished film.  (Hope that sentence makes sense.)

The cut is exactly the same, but the incomplete audio mix in certain scenes on the DVD has been finished for the Blu-Ray - the actors were brought in to ADR the necessary lines, and the rest of the sound design was finished, too.  It really helps make it feel finished, where the DVD feels like a workprint.

Yep, as None said, that's a draft written entirely by Lucas, which directly contradicts what you said about said draft:

Has anyone here ever read the original script for return of the jedi before lucas changed it?

The answer to this is no, because such a draft never existed.

As before, it depends on the program you're using.  I personally use either Adobe Encore or DVD Studio Pro (part of the Final Cut Studio package).

You'll need to make a different menu for every section (i.e., one main menu with the options "Play," "Chapters," "Subtitles/Audio," "Extras;" a few menus for chapters, with "next," "previous," and "main menu" buttons on each; a menu for subtitles/audio; and a menu for extras), and link them all together through the buttons on each menu.

Be sure to have a link back to the main menu for each other menu page, otherwise navigation will be a bitch.

I thought the earliest available draft of Jedi was the one Lucas himself wrote, where there are not one, but two new Death Stars.

Meh.  Every movie has shit like that.  It doesn't bother me.

Usual Suspects is one of my favorite movies of all time, though.  I need to watch it again...

It was also the biggest missed opportunity of the original trilogy.

I like Star Wars, and I like Star Trek.  Why is that a problem, exactly?

My roommate's PS3 stopped reading discs entirely.  Apparently the blue laser in the disc drives of PS3's are faulty and are highly likely to fail at some point.

I have ... er ... a copy of it in 720p.  It looks pretty fantastic, and it is, in fact, the full 2.39:1 AR.

doubleofive said:

Why do so many people around here feel that these movies are too centered? Zooming in and tilting the frame does not add anything. Our eyes have been drawn to the right area for years, we don't need what I consider to be "music video" effects to be "modern". What's next, shaky-cam effects and random slow motion?

Kersh knew what he was doing. Ady knows what he is doing, which is respecting Kersh's compositions.

I don't usually like doing this, but...

Quoted For Truth.

Agreed.  I was thinking of OHMSS the entire time during that sequence.

2017?  Why would you want people to stay away?  That's when...

...Wait.  Yeah.  2017.  What Bingowings said.  Stay away from SF.  For the whole year.  Trust us, it's ... er ... for your own safety.

*slowly backs out of room*

Bingowings said:

That's sort of been done hasn't it?

All You Zombies By Robert A Heinlein.

I wrote a script based on that for my adaptation class this semester.  Which reminds me, I need to revise it pretty extensively before Friday...

Wesley's my favorite character on Angel ... which is odd to me, 'cause I hated him on Buffy.  But the dramatic shift his character underwent over the course of Angel's five seasons was, I think, incredibly well written and well acted by Alexis Denisof.

I think part of why I liked what they did with Wes so much is that usually on TV shows, when a character acts out of character, it's just that - they act one way, do something that goes completely against that, then go back to the way they were acting before.  But when Wesley started acting "out of character," his actions irrevocably changed his character.

And thus, the wimpy, stuffy British guy with glasses that pretty much seemed like a wimpier, much-less-cool Giles became one of the most badass characters I've ever seen.

And his and Fred's arc in season 5 ... I have to stop there, for the manly tears are beginning to form ...

This is why we can't have nice things.

That's a bold statement right there!

I'm on episode 9 of season 1 of Fringe at the moment.  It's not bad, it's just that it still feels like an X Files rip-off.

Ah, I love me some Twin Peaks.

Be warned that the second half of season 2 stumbles pretty hard, but the last 3 or 4 episodes make up for it.

Alright, now this is just getting out of hand...