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1. Dewbacks on Tatooine
The new dewbacks are alright, it's the way they were used that sucks. The CG stormtrooper looks awful, and the new shuttle they added looks terrible too. There really was no reason to make this change. The best use of it however, is the dewback at the entrance to the cantina.
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2. Entering Mos Eisley
Absolutely useless. the little probe droid getting whalloped by the construction droid, so very un-star wars. And am I taking crazy pills, or did they totally screw up the model of 3PO on the cg landspeeder. His arms are STRAIGHT! 3PO's arm's don't straighten! they're permanently bent! And that redone rear shot where we see the speeder shooting away from us toward mos Eisley, pure ass. I'm all for expanding the scope of the place, putting some traffic in the sky, but they went too far. The peices of business with the jawas riding rontos and the swoop bikers, just ass. Having a ronto walk in front of the camera during a major scene with our characters!?! unforgivable.
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3. Greedo shoots first
The holy grail of Star Wars bitching. The single most damning piece of proof that Lucas has gone completely insane. First, the shot itself. Talk about amatuer night at ILM! Han's lips continue to move even though they cut off the dialogue (some excellent dialogue as it happens), Greedo misses, in spite of his blaster being aimed directly at Han, and being less than 2 feet from his chest, The shot looks horrible, the ricochet combined with Han's shot combine to make it look like Greedo got caught by his own ricochet, Han DOESN"T REACT to be shot at, doesn't even blink! just horribly executed all around. Beyond that, George's story as to why this change was made is in a constant state of flux. First, he was making the change because he didn't want Han to come off as a cold blooded killer. That's the story he gave in 97. More recently he's cllaimed that he always meant to have Greedo shoot first, and that they filmed it that way, and a flub during the editing and fx process lost the moment. Oh, I see, that's why Harison, in a display of mastery of his craft, failed to react to being shot at, riiiiiiggght.
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4. Jabba the Hutt
Crappy, redundant, and does a lot to destroy Jabba's character. Solo has no fear of Jabba in the scene, he does not treat Jabba with any kind of respect or fear of his position, and we're supposed to believe he's one of the most powerful gangsters in the universe. And don't anybody say it has to do with Han's "character" that's bull. You don't get to be the best smuggler in the biz by treating your client with outright disrespect and disdain, nor would he be stupid enough to think he could treat a crime boss of Jabba's stature like a two bit punk without fear of retribution, especially if he's already in debt in a major way. If they could have reworked the scene, leaving the guy in instead of replacing him with jabba, and redubbing some lines with Harrison and another actor, turning Jabba into, say, Heater (from the radio series) I would have no problem with the addition. Making it into heater (one of Jabba's contractors, think of him like an agent of smugglers) lends more credibility to Han's flippant attitude. Not to mention, a crime boss of Jabba's stature would never make a house call like that.
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5. Escaping from Mos Eisley
I'm happy with this addition for the most part. My only problem is that the CG falcon is too skinny. When you see it head on or in profile, she's not nearly as "thick" as the model was. That's fine, as long as they replace all of the falcon shots, otherwise it's a little inconsistent.
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6. Alderaan
god damn stupid praxis effect! Come on! you guys are freakin' ILM! You can come up with something more interesting for an exploding planet than some recycled crap from Star Trek VI! Let's see huge chunks of planet! a massive expanding debris field! perhaps a spherical praxis effect would even work better than what you guys did!
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7. Stormtrooper multiplication
Doesn't bother me, makes Han's sudden stop and run away funnier and easier to understand.
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8. Falcon approaches the rebel base
Looks real nice to me.
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9. Biggs
100% success! This was a beautiful addition.
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10. Battle of Yavin
Okay, a lot of the dog fight sequences were looking pretty bad. Really slow ship and camera moves in places, problems with perspective, what have you. I love most of the new Cg footage for the battle of Yavin. What I don't understand though is this: Why didn't they redo the trench run? That sequence is bursting with effects problems! Ships traveling along incorrect paths of perspective, such that they should be crashing into the walls of the trench. Lucas complained on "From star wars to jedi: the saga behind the saga" that he wished he could redo the trench run, make it more exciting, add some obstacles in the trench to enhance the sense of danger. Why didn't he do it? These are all changes that could have really enhanced the sequence. As it stands, it's cool, but inconsistent.
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11. Death Star explosion
See No. 6
"The Empire Strikes Back"
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1. Wampa cave
Hey look, there's the wampa, eating a pieceof tauntaun, now lets cut back to Luke so we can listen to the already dead tauntaun scream for a bit, before cutting back to wampa, still eating tauntaun, which is no longer screaming, and back to Luke, so the tauntaun can scream some more. I completely disagree with Lucas that seeing the wampa makes it scarier. Not seeing the wampa was way scarrier.
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2. Removal of matte lines during Hoth battle
Man, that would have been cool, it's a shame they didn't actually do it. Go check it out, the SE making of things all point out the same problem, being able to see through the canopy struts in the POV shots of the snow speeders. Supposedly they went in and fixed it. However, go watch the battle of hoth and frame by frame it. Guess what, you can still see through the canopy struts! they're just a little darker. Way to go ILM, that's earning the ol' paycheck.
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3. Various small musical changes
This bothered me to no end. I'm too familiar with the musical cues of the OT. I can name and describe a scene just from hearing the music. The little additions and subtractions of seconds here and there throws me off. I'm expecting to hear the music do something, and it doesn't happen, and while my brain is going "what the fu..?" in comes the cue my ear had been expecting several seconds before. Drives me nuts. And damn them for chopping up the music from the bespin escape sequence with that useless new Darth Vader scene with his shuttle. Sure it looks pretty, but it's an absolutely useless change!
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4. Slave 1 pursues the Falcon
I dig it, looks real nice.
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5. Arrival at Cloud City
Pretty, but a little much, and the Flacon is still not thick enough. you really notice the difference between the CG model and the regular Falcon when it lands on the platform, very jarring transition.
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6. Manic cloud-car shot.
I appreciate that you wanna show off Bespin Geroge, but honestly, this is an addition without justifiable purpose. Leave the views of bespin to scenes that justify them.
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7.