I’d love to hear more about how, why and when they got Marcia Lucas to speak.
The director was on the Rebel Force Radio podcast and he explained how they got her.
A clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IscUAME2o4
Full show with his appearance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86e3kP2eyMo
I saw the entire trilogy at the American Film Institute theater at the Kennedy Center in 1994 or 1995. The best print of Empire that they could find had the opening crawl in Korean and a pinkish color to the red laser blasts.
Better than Star Wars II.
Goshhh Dooku is seriously the biggest missed opportunity of the prequels. He has like, a minute or two of screen time where he isn’t fighting and it’s so infuriating.
For about 20 minutes while watching Episode II for the first time I thought it was brilliant that he captures Obi-Wan and basically tells him the truth. It looked like they were setting up Dooku as one of the founders of the Rebellion. Having a “bad guy” be basically be on the same side as the Rebels would have been an interesting twist. But they flushed that down the toilet by the end of the film.
Hope you enjoyed it thelonius - did it sold out or near capacity? A good atmosphere and people dressing up etc? Were there many younger fans there too for the GOUT showing?
About half-full for the Star Wars screening on Saturday afternoon, but it’s a huge old theater with hundreds of seats. Mostly younger and middle-age adults, but a handful of kids. There were some lightsabers in the crowd and we got our picture with the local Darth Vader cosplayer. My kid was obsessed with Star Wars last year and has kind of moved on to dinosaurs and real space exploration, but he was way into the big-screen experience. Which is a big step, because he’s had sensory issues. He liked it so much I almost decided to stay for Empire, but I didn’t want to short-circuit his brain.
Also, it was sponsored by a local travel agency that was promoting their Galaxy’s Edge package. So there were some cool Disney things too.
It was the DVD. I sat in the back row of the balcony and the resolution was almost acceptable. It was nice to see the '77 version with my kid in a theater. Big applause when the real Greedo scene ended and my son wanted to know why!
The weird part was that the theater manager introduced the film and claimed that this was the only version they were authorized to show. I was half-suspecting this was some sort of cover story to show 4K77, but I guess they are not that sophisticated.
A theater near me (https://carolinatheatre.com/) is showing the original trilogy this weekend. On their Facebook page they claim:
Heads up, Star Wars fans: Han shoots first! We’re screening the highly-coveted (and very rare) digitally remastered & unaltered original theatrical release steelbook. Please note: There’s a slight sacrifice in clarity compared to the new and “enhanced” releases, but as all of the die-hard fans will tell you, DO, OR DO NOT. THERE IS NO TRY.
Fri, June 21:
7PM - Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
Sat, June 22:
4PM - Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
7PM - Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
10PM - Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi
Sun, June 23:
4PM - Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
7PM - Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi
Full details online: https://bit.ly/2Y09Rsw
Sponsored by Imagine Travel & Acme Comics!
I bought tickets for tomorrow’s 4:00 screening before I saw this. I’m worried they are going to project the 2006 DVD on a giant screen. Although I suppose that’s better than charging $10 to see a fan edit…
I wonder how they handle the really odd edits from the Falcon taking off from Mos Eisley and Vader’s shuttle in Empire. Seems like those would be hard to play naturally.
I think the pink that’s coming out in some of the day scenes is actually accurate to what we know about ESB, in particular the 1980 VHS bootleg (which is overly pink, but gives a good hint as to how much blue there is) and some scans.
Back in '95 or '96 the American Film Institute showed the trilogy at their theater at the Kennedy Center. Empire looked very pink, particularly the laser blasts on Hoth. I assumed it was a damaged print and the best they could find (the crawl was in Korean). It would be interesting to find out that that’s how it was supposed to look.
Just uploaded them to Spleen.
They are probably small enough to send another way if you’re not a member there.
Give the guy a break, he aged at least four decades on only 19 years.
I have watched the despecialized edition a few times with my four-year-old in the room and he usually doesn’t pay attention.
Last week we had the TBS airings on TV and he goes “wow, that stormtrooper is riding a Komodo Dragon!”
So the pointless CGI actually does work on some people.
I just watched the despecialized version of ESB and I am overjoyed to see the Vader “Bring my shuttle” line restored to all of its glory.
I always loved that line and remember being horrified when I saw it had been taken out. To me it’s the worst change in the SE’s for many reasons.
{Many excellent points removed}
Agree 100%. “Bring my shuttle” has been my favorite Vader line for years because it says so much with so little and was accompanied by the best building tension and musical sequence in the entire trilogy.
Saw the first two films during their original run when I was a small child but they had little impact. But by the time I got to first grade so many kids had the toys and talked about it all the time that I got my parents to buy the Story of the Empire Strikes Back and to take me to the 1981 re-release of Star Wars.
Can you have Clive Revill do the voice in his other four appearances?
He should have been older.
He should have grown up with Owen (actual brother or brother-in-law or at least close enough to be an "uncle" to his son), who thought Anakin shouldn't follow Obi-Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade.
Basically, the prequels make Obi-Wan into much more of a liar than he originally appeared to be. According to ROTJ he only lied about the identity of Darth Vader, not all the other stuff. That's helped by him actually looking uncomfortable on that line reading.
I also guessed back then that there would be a real or imagined love triangle between Obi-Wan, Anakin and Luke's mom that would be the basis of their conflict and mistrust.
Ronster said:
Yes I would Have to agree with you, I would like to have seen the first cut though.
Actually I made a mistake with Robocop 2 It's Peter Weller that was really upset about his character becoming de-humanised further. Not Studio involvement it was Kershner's choice to cut it apparently which is a bit strange going from Empire a very human film...
But Marquand was not on the same big hitting scale as Kershner he must have been far easier to tell him what to do. But I don't think ROTJ was Chopped about as much as ESB was in Editing. Or ateast I don't think it was?
ROTJ has a lot going for it still but I think Lucus did not want a repeat of Empire where it seems George and Kershner both had to compromise on final cut. Or George was making more compromises than he wanted to.
George wanted more control Back on ROTJ and he got it.
At the time, he was also more interested in controlling costs than anything else. The Secret History book has a lot on how out-of-control TESB seemed during production. Obviously it made that money back many times over, but to Lucas it seemed like there was a real chance that trusting Kershner and Kurtz would have bankrupted him. He wasn't ready to go through that again with ROTJ so they were gone.
I recommend the Dark Lord Trilogy, which includes the novels that take place immediately before and after the ROTS novelization.
Some people prepared scripts for Ep. I in the same format as the radio dramas for the original trilogy. Would be cool if those were recorded as a full audio drama.
These are supposedly packs of four action figures to be released in May in conjunction with some sort of “digital release.” Apparently, the debut of all six films on the Netflix-like services.
You pay royalties, not loyalties.