SilverWook

I never meant to imply it didn't get great reviews.

In the end, if you like a movie and the critics don't, (or vice-versa) what does it matter?

I honestly can't name very many critics beyond Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel. I didn't even know Rex Reed was still around until someone mentioned elsewhere he panned The Dark Knight!

And when a good review is in short supply, the studios quote someone you've never heard of from an obscure source. And if you're Sony, you invent a critic who always praises your films. ;)

It's easy to forget Star Wars was not universally beloved back in 1977. There were some critics who dismissed it as "junk food", and others took it to task for being too violent for little kids.

All I could do was wonder what the heck movie they saw. ;)

Did you guys know Robert Clampett wanted to make an animated John Carter back in the 30's? The test animation was included in the huge supplemental section on the Beany and Cecil DVD.

It's amazing stuff when you consider animation wasn't usually thought of as a medium for serious storytelling at the time.

With all the moolah LOTR and Harry Potter have raked in, I can't imagine Lucas hasn't at least toyed with the idea of Willow 2. ;)

Val Kilmer and Warwick Davis are still in pretty good shape too.

At least one local theater chain has been running behind the scene featurettes in those video loops that run long before the movies start here.

I still sort of hope this would open the door to a post ROTJ movie with Luke and the gang. Catching up with Dr. Jones after all these years makes me really want to see how the galaxy far far away is getting along.

No question Mark Hamill would do it. He did Luke on the radio, and voicing cartoon characters is his bread and butter!

I would imagine they could get just about everyone else except Harrison Ford. Perry King did an excellent Han Solo in the radio dramas though!

I was pondering "preserving" it, (it's as informative as all the original documentaries and then some!) but I'm waiting to see if Lucasfilm will reprint it unedited. I'm not sure George wants that interview about the nine episodes and script treatments back out there. ;)

According to Once Upon A Galaxy, it's the little scene where Luke is suiting up in the Medical Center and chatting with 2-1B before the big battle on Hoth. Kershner asked Lucas to help out after catching him peering through a camera viewfinder. Lucas allegedly did many takes.

Once Upon A Galaxy is such a great snapshot of what it was really like on the Empire set. I'm really hoping they follow up that recent making of Star Wars book, and reprint it. My copy is falling apart!

Lucas did personally shoot one small scene in Empire. ;)

There have been rumors for years that he essentially ghost directed Jedi. It's sad Richard Marquand passed away only a few years after making the film.

C3PX, Laserdiscs were on the market back in 1978, only a year after VHS came out. (And three years before CED.) It was originally called DiscoVision until the early 80's, but it's still the same format. :)

The first widescreen LD was probably Woody Allen's "Manhattan". He had the clout to demand it be letterboxed from it's first video release in 1984. This included VHS, Beta, and tv broadcasts of the film! (All these early video versions have gray instead of black bars.) I don't think a pan and scan version even exists.

Believe it or not, the honor of the first ever widescreen video release of a movie actually goes to CED!

http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/amarcord.html

VHS and LD were never really in direct competition with each other. The average consumer didn't know it existed, or confused it with RCA's CED videodisc format.

Laserdisc carved out it's own niche with the early home theater crowd. That lasted until DVD came along, but just about everything DVD is today is because of LD.

Digital sound, Dolby Digital, DTS, letterboxing, commentary tracks, supplemental material, even anamorphic widescreen all first appeared on those big shiny discs.

Laserdisc recorders did exist. But only in the expensive realm of professional broadcast gear. A blank disc could cost hundreds of dollars!

Lucasfilm's famous Editdroid system used LD too.

I should mention many VHS decks made in the late 90's onward have "quasi S-VHS playback", although it wasn't often mentioned as a feature. Simply put, they can play S-VHS tapes back but at regular VHS resolution.

Pixar rendered "A Bug's Life" twice. One version was for theaters/widescreen video and another for home video to avoid pan and scan. Characters were repositioned and camera placement changed for the full frame video version.

Lucasfilm could have done the same here with enough lead time before the theatrical release.

I can't really imagine Star Wars ever bombing. At worst, it would have been "moderately successful, like a Disney film" as Lucas expected, and he would have gone ahead with Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

If you stumble across a Universe where Splinter was actually made, please bring a DVD of it back with you. ;)

negative1 said:

doesn't disney pull the exact same stunts but worse..

 

i remember them saying the films were going to keep going back into the vault,

and here we are decades later, with 10 different formats, versions, and special

editions of the dvd's also?

Yeah, Disney pretty much ran this scam into the ground. Back in the glory days of VHS, they proclaimed Snow White and Fantasia would only ever be released on video once. Prior to that, Snow White was in the "when hell freezes over" video relase schedule. ;)

This is probably why nobody really took the "Last chance to own the original version of Star Wars" ads seriously.

Dammit. :(

The funny thing is the media didn't pick up on it until several years after the LD came out!

Another item that was changed was Baby Herman's rude hand gesture as he looks up the skirt of his girlfriend.

Holy Hell freezes over, Batman! The digital bits is reporting Adam West is working on special features for a DVD release!  :D

Maybe all that moolah Dark Knight is raking in shook things up?

As seen on ebay…

http://cgi.ebay.com/Laserdisc-LD-to-DVD-Raw-DV-Conversion-Service-CAV-CLV_W0QQitemZ270258971468QQihZ017QQcategoryZ50357QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Anyone know anything about this? I thought it worth mentioning here since not everyone has access to a good old fashioned LD player these days.

Some of us old Laserdisc guys can hear the difference. ;)

The age old problem is Fox owns the series and DC owns the character. And the usual culprit is money. We're lucky the movie seems to be free of this mess.

It's also amazing that the reunion movie got made, let alone released on DVD!

Bumping this up back from the dead to mention someone has put a "restored" cut on Youtube.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9b-e4Bz4rXM

The Neverending Story has been released on Blu Ray in Europe, so that might present a new opportunity to get that track in better quality?

As seen at rebelscum.com...

A full size Dewback! And it's apparently based on the original life-size prop, not that CGI one with the impossibly skinny legs. ;)

I'm sure many of you will find this one very amusing, for all the wrong reasons! :P

More photos here:

http://www.rebelscum.com/CJ/setup/

According the rebelscum, Royal Guard trainees from the Dark Horse comic "Crimson Empire".

Duck Vader on that Tiny Toons episode was funny, but this?

EDIT: Apparently, this ducky isn't an officially sanctioned item, so no angry letters to Lucasfilm this time! ;)

Go! Go! Power Rangers!