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10 years after Episode I - Jake Llyod interviewed

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And he doesn't like Episode I much either...

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/buzz_log_anakin.html

Lucas also continues to lead the fight for film preservation. "It's amazing," he says, "that you have to fight the studios to get them to preserve their films. . . . Parts of 'Dr. Strangelove' are gone; some of the music is lost. Kubrick is having to photograph individual frames to create a new fine-grain negative. That's madness, tragic madness."

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He goes to my college.  Haven't met him yet.  It's an interesting interview, he seems like a pretty grounded guy.

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Interesting.  He comes across as a regular guy that happens to have a moment in his past that will forever connect him to a nerd group that he's not part of.

He does seem grounded - to the point of coming across as though he'd be much more likely to pursue a career behind the camera. In fact, he didn't look particularly comfortable in that interview.

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Wow, that was kinda of depressing. Poor kid. I never really took the time to think how hard it would be to live that movie down in the eyes of your peers.

 

"Kinda of for the fans who can let themselves enjoy it..."

I love that quote. Sums up the entire PT in my eyes. The movies are to awful to like by their own merit. You really do have to make a concious desicion to like them.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Feel pretty bad for the guy now, as he seems he regrets doing Episode I. Ford and Guiness hated SW years later because the fans loved them so much and thought of them as Han and Obiwan, but it sounds like the fans mock Jake Lloyd for being a young, whiney Darth Vader. I blame his parents because I don't believe any kid actor chooses that path, and most kids end up screwed up because they can't deal with the fame. Lloyd got the opposite as he got the fame of being in a movie hated by many diehard SW fans.
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CO said:Feel pretty bad for the guy now, as he seems he regrets doing Episode I. Ford and Guiness hated SW years later because the fans loved them so much and thought of them as Han and Obiwan, but it sounds like the fans mock Jake Lloyd for being a young, whiney Darth Vader. I blame his parents because I don't believe any kid actor chooses that path, and most kids end up screwed up because they can't deal with the fame. Lloyd got the opposite as he got the fame of being in a movie hated by many diehard SW fans.

I feel bad for the guy, too, but I mainly blame the "fans" for it.  I'm sure that most of us here can distinguish between the actor and the role being played, but many others apparently cannot.  These are the a**holes that Jake Lloyd apparently kept running into, so I don't blame him for having a negative opinion of his experience.  "You know, Mr. Lloyd, I didn't much care for how Anakin was portrayed in Episode I, but I realize that you did your best with what you had to work with" is a lot different from "God, I hated Anakin in Episode I, you really suck, you know that?!"...

 

There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who do not.
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How can anyone blame jake for destroying star wars, Lucas was the destroyer of his own creation that he gave to the world. 

He also destroyed indiana jones.

Only took about nine years to destroy both franchises credibility while at the same time becoming a billionaire from the profits off a bunch of horrible films.  He had 5 chances to deliver.  Even films he did not direct like the animated clone wars and indiana jones are so modern lucas he may have well as have directed them.

Then again what have spielberg and lucas had there hands in in film lately that has not been destroyed?

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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We are not talking about irrate fans taking their frustration out on the kid, we are talking about high school students teasing one of their peers.

I am sure he got teased quite a lot with the lines "Are you an Angel?" and "Whoa, this is intense!" etc. But I would be willing to bet the vast majority of kids who gave him a hard time were not even really SW fans. The Phantom Menace is something Jake had that made him stand out, which is very likely why other kids took it and used it as a handle for giving him a hard time.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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You guys are reading way more into it. If he had the chance to not make the film, would he? He said yes,  he'd do it again. I take this as though he's just tired of assholes giving him shit all the time about doing  what they think is a crappy movie. He knows and understands the target audience, I'm sure he loves it when kids get all giddy and come up to him to talk to him about.

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From my point of view, Star Wars was not destroyed in anyway.  Not by Jar-Jar or Lucas.  I just think some people over-react because the prequels didn't turn out to be what THEY had expected, and that the classic OT has updated with CGI.  Lucas just wanted his movies to be the way that he had envisioned them.  In my eyes, Star Wars has been the same for the last 27.6 years of my life: an excellent plot about the hero's journey.

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G E Predator said:

From my point of view, Star Wars was not destroyed in anyway.  Not by Jar-Jar or Lucas.  I just think some people over-react because the prequels didn't turn out to be what THEY had expected, and that the classic OT has updated with CGI.  Lucas just wanted his movies to be the way that he had envisioned them.  In my eyes, Star Wars has been the same for the last 27.6 years of my life: an excellent plot about the hero's journey.

One can, as in the present example, use the "point of view" argument in such a way as to negate any discussion of content. After all, there's no way to see things through your eyes, so it may indeed be true that you see no erosion in quality, no fan-pandering, no rudderless direction, no meaningless stories, no unconvincing characters.

One can also live in denial if one wishes to. I left the theater 10 years ago convincing myself that I had just seen another great Star Wars movie. But because I have no allegiance to every declaration George Lucas makes as though this is the word of God, I couldn't ignore all of the shortcomings provided by Lucas' return to the world of SW.

If your point of view is that there is no noticeable gap in quality between TPM and SW (or ESB or even ROTJ, for that matter), then I suppose this response is about as necessary as a fight scene designed to show off the Jango Fett suit. But I couldn't resist.

 

From my point of view, the moon is constructed entirely out of blue cheese.

From my point of view, Elvis Presley is still alive on a secret island in the South Pacific, swapping Samoan hotties with JFK.

From my point of view, there are reptilian humanoids walking among us.

The beauty of it is that you cannot convince me that my point of view is not truthful to me. Therefore, I win!

Want to book yourself or a guest on THE VFP Show? PM me!

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Technically, Star Wars was destroyed.  In 1996, when Lucasfilm destroyed the original negatives to make the special editions.

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vote_for_palpatine said:

From my point of view, the moon is constructed entirely out of blue cheese.

From my point of view, Elvis Presley is still alive on a secret island in the South Pacific, swapping Samoan hotties with JFK.

From my point of view, there are reptilian humanoids walking among us.

The beauty of it is that you cannot convince me that my point of view is not truthful to me. Therefore, I win!

 

Mmmmmm, blue cheese!

Actually, Elvis is curretly living in the balkans. Couldn't say where JFK is though.

As for the lizard people, it is great to meet someone else who knows about them too! Now I KNOW I am not crazy!

 

And now for something slightly less serious: it is hard to deny the destruction of a film that no longer exists, by admission of its own creator. The Star Wars that was, and not just the physical film, but also the cultural and popular perception of it is completely changed.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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vote_for_palpatine said:
G E Predator said:

From my point of view, Star Wars was not destroyed in anyway.  Not by Jar-Jar or Lucas.  I just think some people over-react because the prequels didn't turn out to be what THEY had expected, and that the classic OT has updated with CGI.  Lucas just wanted his movies to be the way that he had envisioned them.  In my eyes, Star Wars has been the same for the last 27.6 years of my life: an excellent plot about the hero's journey.

One can, as in the present example, use the "point of view" argument in such a way as to negate any discussion of content. After all, there's no way to see things through your eyes, so it may indeed be true that you see no erosion in quality, no fan-pandering, no rudderless direction, no meaningless stories, no unconvincing characters.

One can also live in denial if one wishes to. I left the theater 10 years ago convincing myself that I had just seen another great Star Wars movie. But because I have no allegiance to every declaration George Lucas makes as though this is the word of God, I couldn't ignore all of the shortcomings provided by Lucas' return to the world of SW.

If your point of view is that there is no noticeable gap in quality between TPM and SW (or ESB or even ROTJ, for that matter), then I suppose this response is about as necessary as a fight scene designed to show off the Jango Fett suit. But I couldn't resist.

 

From my point of view, the moon is constructed entirely out of blue cheese.

From my point of view, Elvis Presley is still alive on a secret island in the South Pacific, swapping Samoan hotties with JFK.

From my point of view, there are reptilian humanoids walking among us.

The beauty of it is that you cannot convince me that my point of view is not truthful to me. Therefore, I win!

Didn't know that this was a contest, but since we're in that direction:

From my point of view, Star Wars is real!  There are other galaxies, and some of the planets in those galaxies could be at war or may have been at some point in time.

From my point of view, Dragons live in the mountains of Asia and South America.

From my point of view, The Lochness Monster, Big Foot and Santa Clause are all real.  They're just camera shy...except for Big Foot.  He just can't stay in focus for some silly reason.

 

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ChainsawAsh said:

Technically, Star Wars was destroyed.  In 1996, when Lucasfilm destroyed the original negatives to make the special editions.

Lucasfilm didn't destroy the negatives.  The negative had deteriorated over the natural coarse of twenty-years.  It's just something that was bound to happen, and they did all that they could to preserve those negatives.

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According to Lucasfilm, the negatives were permanently altered when the SE-added/changed scenes were spliced in after the "restoration."  That's why they released the 1993 LD transfers in 2006 instead of a new transfer of the pre-SE versions - they don't exist anymore.  So it's not that they're "destroyed" so much as "permanently altered."

That's really a load of bullshit, since, even if they did that to the negatives (I have my doubts, but wouldn't be surprised in the slightest to discover that this was true), there's still several three-strip archival interpositives of the pre-SE versions - one (for each film) in Lucas' personal vault, one in the Library of Congress, and I believe one in the UK's equivalent of the Library of Congress, among other places.  Any one of those would be of high enough quality to make a very good 1080p transfer, and definitely a very nice SD DVD.

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I think people just don't understand the film process. Its not like the physical negatives were altered. Such a thing is impossible. Once the film is on film, its permanent, you cannot change it. What happened was certain parts were replaced. The original restored negatives were put in storage and replaced with newly-created ones involving CGI. People really don't understand the filmmaking process so when LFL says "the originals were destroyed" people assume it means they were chucked into a furnace, when it really means that the O-neg no longer conforms to the 1977 edit--which it hasn't since 1981, since that is when the "ANH" crawl was added. Technically, the "original" film was "destroyed" 3 decades ago. Fixing it requires simply hiring neg cutter to retrieve the shots from storage and putting them back in the O-neg conform so that IP's can be struck.

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Zombie,

Quit coming in here with your "intelligence", and your "explanations", and your discussions involving "reality" - you're ruining the hate, man.

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zombie84 said:

I think people just don't understand the film process. Its not like the physical negatives were altered. Such a thing is impossible. Once the film is on film, its permanent, you cannot change it. What happened was certain parts were replaced. The original restored negatives were put in storage and replaced with newly-created ones involving CGI. People really don't understand the filmmaking process so when LFL says "the originals were destroyed" people assume it means they were chucked into a furnace, when it really means that the O-neg no longer conforms to the 1977 edit--which it hasn't since 1981, since that is when the "ANH" crawl was added. Technically, the "original" film was "destroyed" 3 decades ago. Fixing it requires simply hiring neg cutter to retrieve the shots from storage and putting them back in the O-neg conform so that IP's can be struck.

You've got it on the nose.  But the thing is, conforming (at least today - this may not have been the case at the time given the prevalence of splicing tape seen on the laserdiscs) is, by its nature, a destructive process.  Two frames past the end of shot A are scraped off, leaving (effectively) blank leader, while two frames before the beginning of shot B are also scraped off.  These are each then cemented to black leader, alternating back and forth between reel A and reel B (shot 1 is on reel A, shot 2 is on reel B, shot 3 is on reel A, shot 4 is on reel B ... ) - these two reels are run through an optical printer, and out comes the interpositive, with everything put together nice and smooth.

But in order to remove any sections from the original negative, which is cemented into two separate reels like that, you have to destroy the head and tail of each shot, since it's fucking cemented down.

So, assuming this process was in practice in 1976/77 (I honestly don't know if it was), then changing the original negative would, in fact, destroy at least parts of the shots that have been replaced/altered.  In going through ANH for my Trilogy edit, I noticed that several frames are inexplicably missing from many shots that have been altered for the SE - this, in my opinion, supports the theory that this conforming process was used, and those frames were destroyed because there wasn't any other way around it.

For further proof of this issue, see the extended cut of Mallrats - there are many times when the frame will jump ahead two or four frames, because they wanted to extend a specific shot, but those frames were destroyed in the conforming process.

But then again, since this whole process was designed to eliminate the presence of splicing tape on release prints, and Star Wars has quite a lot of splicing tape visible in its pre-SE state, I could be dead wrong about this.

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Well, that may very well be true. I am willing to lose up to 4 frames in about two dozen shots, at the most. But in any case, it would be done digitally, not optically, they would just scan the stored originals and then edit them into scan they did of the SE in 2004, or just re-scan both--ideal, since the 2004 SE scan was only HD--but you could easily do a 4K scan of the 1997 SE and the stored originals, create a digital edit of the 1977 neg conform and then make home video and theatrical prints from that. I don't know if its even general practice to just print off stuff optically from the O-negs, at least when we are talking classic films here.

And, lets not forget, the O-neg was also irreversibly altered for the 1997 SE in its restoration--for the better. Some shots had faded so much that they were unusable, and I think there might be a couple of dinged up frames in there that had to be cut out. Its just the inevitable process of time. So if people want a true 1977 version made from the original pieces then you are shit out of luck, the film literally crumbled away like a yellow newspaper in some places, so you would have to make a "virtual" O-neg no matter what, by which I mean replacing damaged parts with lookalikes, which is what happened for the restoration, they took shots from the best IP/IN's available and put them into the O-neg to replace the damaged pieces.

If you really wanted to get hardcore about it, you could take the OOT IP's that they used to harvest donor shots for the restoration and retrieve the missing frames that might have been lost when conforming the SE neg.

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I still say just using the 3-strip archival prints would be fine for the OOT - many films have been transferred at very high quality using similar prints, without ever touching the o-neg.

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There's a very old Gary Kurtz interview where he explained the importance of those. I wonder if that's something Fox would still have for the first Star Wars or if Lucasfilm has them for all three.

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G E Predator said:

Lucasfilm didn't destroy the negatives.  The negative had deteriorated over the natural coarse of twenty-years.  It's just something that was bound to happen, and they did all that they could to preserve those negatives.

 

Don't believe everything you hear, kid. You have clearly been feed bullshit.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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C3PX said:
G E Predator said:

Lucasfilm didn't destroy the negatives.  The negative had deteriorated over the natural coarse of twenty-years.  It's just something that was bound to happen, and they did all that they could to preserve those negatives.

 

Don't believe everything you hear, kid. You have clearly been feed bullshit.

I'm not a kid.  I'm 27.  And I have not been fed "bullshit."  I just don't always assume the worst.  It's not wrong to be an optimist.

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Well without a time machine, you can't really be optimistic about something that already happened. (p.s. the negative wasn't any worse off than Jaws or Grease but somehow it wasn't necessary to reconfigure an animated dinosaur's ass into those movies)