STAR WARS: EP V "REVISITED EDITION"ADYWAN - 12GB 1080p MP4 VERSION AVAILABLE NOW — Page 498

Darth Venal said:

Ady, are you planning on any sexy Bespin sunset mattes? I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd like to see something like this... Not to put pressure on you, but you know we're relying on you :-)

 

Well that shot has been changed. There is no sun behind the clouds in my version because the sun in all the other shots is in the opposite direction. Only the shots you see of the city has the sun facing the approaching falcon.

Sounds good! Do you plan on including those gas mines/balloons in any part of the movie?

Darth Venal said:

Adywan:

Well that shot has been changed. There is no sun behind the clouds in my version because the sun in all the other shots is in the opposite direction. Only the shots you see of the city has the sun facing the approaching falcon.

Although, there is only one other shot with the sun in it and it's behind and to the left, as it is in the matte I put up. The other shots are only cloud shots, and the lighting seems to be inconsistent from shot to shot.

Better check the movie again. :)  The shot you put up and the shot where you first see the city are the only shots where the sun is behind the city. all the others are in the opposite direction (west vs east positioning kinda thing).yes the positioning is slightly inconsistent but not much in the other shots, but you can clearly see where the sun is positioned by the clouds almost all the shots. here are a few examples:

Now you can clearly see in the bottom one that the sun is behind the clouds and to the left. Now the next shot below follows directly from this one (and the bottom one precedes the last shot above).

Wow, the sun has magically moved 180 degrees. Now they fly straight into the city and the sun is once again more behind them and not in front like the last 2 shots

so going by all the shots, bar 2, the sun should be behind/ to the left of the falcon as it approaches the city and definitely not in front

And the matte painting issue has already been fixed. I'm really surprised (well probably not) that they didn't fix this in the SE

I feel a little weird. Not sure if we're supposed to be happy or we're supposed to mourn the fact that Empire was the truly last superb Star Wars film... the best of them all. No other installment of the series would be able to top the genious of the tandem that was George Lucas - Lawrence Kasdan - Irvin Kershner. Especially the last two ones that is.

All hail [the] Empire! I guess...

Classic trailer though! Always nice to see that shot of 3PO ripping the Wampa sign of the door... I guess they had good reasons to leave that out of the movie.

Tobar said:

Almost time to celebrate a noteworthy event.

Funny, I've never seen that clip of C3PO ripping that flyer before.

Always fun to see the old trailers

I always thought Kasdan was responsible for almost all of the final screenplay, as Brackett's had been scrapped.

I'll have to try and find back where I read that.

Tobar said:

Almost time to celebrate a noteworthy event.

Right, tomorrow I'm gonna watch that trailer and then watch The Empire Strikes Back again :)

Darth Venal said:

But anyway, I don't really care who wrote it, I just know it's the best written of all six Star Wars movies, and the best directed.

Yeah, but we also know about Lucas' obsession with "revisionist history", so there could be more Brackett there than most people believe.

Darth Venal said:

Darth Plagueis:

o other installment of the series would be able to top the genius of the tandem that was George Lucas - Lawrence Kasdan - Irvin Kershner.

Actually, Leigh Brackett was responsible for most of the writing on Empire. She wrote virtually all the first draft of the screenplay before she died and Kasdan came in to work on it later because Brackett didn't have time to rewrite or polish

I don't have much faith in George Lucas' words either but seemingly - according to various sources, most notably the Secret History of Star Wars and the Starkiller website's list of draft variations almost everything Leigh wrote was discarded by Lucas.

The following basicly happened: Lucas sat down with Leigh and discussed the story. Leigh went of to write a first draft, although being terminally ill. Lucas didn't like it at all and decided to write the second draft himself. Facing the issue that Ben and Anakin were actually serving the same plot purposes and driven by the discovery that Vader and Anakin had a lot in common Lucas decided to merge both characters. Resulting in Vader becoming Luke's dad.

Then Kasdan came in and worked on the next drafts. Say about Kasdan what you want, but he did hell of a job, just check the screenplay for yourself.

Darth Venal said:

But if you read all the drafts, the great writing on Empire is largely down to her, not Kasdan.

Again, not intending any offence against Leigh Brackett, but... my mother suffered from cancer this year (for the second time) and knowing what she gone through - and she thankfully recovered - and judging from my limited experience as a aspiring screenwriter myself I seriously doubt that she could have pulled off something really good in those conditions. And both Lucas (still had some credibility in those days, the source I read quote from the early days, not now) and keeping in mind screenwriter John August's words on screenwriting: "It's hard to do on a good day and unbearable on a bad day" I seriously doubt that the greatness of Empire  can be attributed to her... because of the pittyful circumstances and what I've read from the script variations online rather than her personal abilities.

Darth Venal said:

And remember what he and Lucas managed to do with Jedi's script...

Remeber what he and Lucas managed to do on Raiders? And remember what Gary Kurtz had to say about this. He said that he thought that Raiders could've even been a better movie if Spielberg wouldn't have messed around with Kasdan's brilliant script. Spielberg and Lucas decided on doing a rollercoaster ride... this was agreed always the original intention but according to Kurtz they cut out some very important character scenes (which were in the screenplay but never shot) that made the movie even better.

And about Kasdan messing up the ROTJ script... I wholehartedly disagree. Remember that Kasdan has to work with what he gets offered. On Empire this was a pretty good draft on Lucas' account (the man had a vision, don't forget that although he got lots of help from his industry friends he still came up with the concept and story ideas), but this time Lucas seemed to have become as we know him now.

Kurtz said in that same interview that Lucas wanted a rollercoaster ride. He said "the movie will make as much money as it would even if the story isn't that good." That is unfortunately the GL we know today. Kurtz did however go on to praise the first rough draft (not the one you can find online today, which is a revised version of a rough draft that Lucas wrote after trashing this first rough draft) that never saw the light of day in finished form.

Also don't forget that because Kasdan also wasn't too happy with what Lucas came up with for ROTJ he disagreed on doing a script polish on the prequels. (And probably also because he didn't have much time to do it, but nonetheless he didn't hold ROTJ in very high esteem too)

Here's the link to the interview. It's very interesting to say the least.

Darth Venal said:

You also forget Gary Kurtz, who produced both Star Wars and Empire, but not Jedi. He might have had differences with Lucas, but he did a hell of a job on both Star Wars movies - the best two - that he produced.

AMEN to that. I've had a pretty rough day yesterday and today doesn't seem to be much better. Forgive me.

And his differences with Lucas were only for the better, trust me. Kurtz is indeed another of the factors that made Empire in what it is today.

~ Darth Plagueis

EDIT: I seem to have missed reading the other comments that came after yours, Darth Venal. Most of what I said has already being said. I'm very sorry for that.

On the WGA checking these things... That wasn't exactly the case back then. You might've heard of the current issue of Jonathan Nolan's work on Terminator Salvation that didn't change the screenplay in such a way that he could receive credit for it. Well, in those days if I recall correctly that wasn't the case. And I don't think Jonah really wanted any credit on Terminator Salvation...

Plus as you will probably wholeheartedly agree on, post-mortem credit is an exception on its own and if Lucas wanted to do this as a tribute, the WGA wasn't going to stop him for any reason.

And of course, there is the fact that the she shaped the screenplay by writing the first draft, even if that means that it mostly was discarded, there was enough material that came directly from Lucas to remain in later drafts... So this indirectly could be attributed to Leigh Brackett, if you're still following me... I can be a little unclear on these matters I'm afraid. Especially when I'm in a hurry...

Darth Venal said:

Blimey, that's me updated. I wasn't aware how convoluted it had all become! Ah, I long for the pre-internet days where we just had fanzines and the pace of information was, shall we say, more tempered. Or do I. Hm.

Sorry to hear you're having a rough time, is it in relation to anything specific? Hope it's something you can overcome easily. Take it easy. I'm laden with work to catch up on all weekend, most of which is other people's that they didn't finish (gah!), so I'll be online for the duration.

Thanks for all the extra info.

No problem. I've always been very passionate about movies, I guess. And since I am - as undoubtedly everyone on these boards - a SW and ESB fan, I'm very interested in how these movies came to be and recently - as you said - because of the internet there litterally has been an explosion of information on these topics. So once you start walking down the cyberpath, forever will it dominate your destiny. Meaning: when you start reading this stuff you keep hunting for more.

I really can recommend this book, the Secret History of Star Wars, it gives a great insight into these matters, and stays neutral. Well, not really neutral. It's the SECRET history of Star Wars, so it tries to unravel the truth behind George Lucas' recent statements... Great read.

On the rough time...Maybe I exaggerated a little. Yeah, I've been missing out on some sleep lately since there is some stuff going on right now that I'm working on. It's nothing serious. It's just you know... you spend your nights working on stuff only to find yourself the day after for not getting any sleep. The hours of work you do at night are ultimately lost during the day because you being a total wreck... It happens to me all the time. Bat habbit, I guess. And yes that's a pun. To quote from Batman Begins: "bats are nocturnal." I guess I am too. But it's not very healthy...

~ Darth

EDIT: and very sorry for all the typo's in the previous (and this??) post... I must be really really tired... Might take a short nap... then I'll get back to work...