Save Star Wars Dot Com — Page 40

Tobar said:

IGN reviewed The Secret History of Star Wars

And they hate it. 

Which is odd.  Because it's Star Wars.  In Book Form!

I hope this review on a major site helps encourage v2! Sounds like he would have loved a leaner meaner version.

Well he's right, in that it is a lengthy book (and it does repeat itself sometimes).

It just seems like he isn't really that taken with the narrative of the story's development over the years, which personally, even though I think of myself as very well versed in the lore of it all, I thought was fantastic and very insightful, not to mention entertaining. And also he just doesn't seem to like the painstaking forensic approach Michael took, which to me is the very reason the book is so compelling.

Eh.  Average review.  I do agree that the book has quite a bit of repetitive information that needed to be weeded out, I still couldn't help but get the feeling all of the reviewers complaints boiled down to, "He's being so meeeean to Lucas, so I can't like this."  And anytime I've ever heard anyone have that opinion, it's hard for me to fathom.  I think the book is extremely fair and oftentimes very sympathetic in its portrayal of Lucas.  Despite all the exposing of lies, I found myself able to relate to him much more than I ever had before, so I have no idea how anyone could pass this off as a Lucas-bashfest.  This in itself seems contradictory.  He admits that the real measure of importance in this book is exposing Lucas's lies, but a paragraph earlier, he was complaining that the book had an agenda at all, completely missing the point by thinking zombie is condemning the haphazard storytelling process, the element that zombie specifically cites as being extremely fascinating?!

Gaffer Tape said:

I still couldn't help but get the feeling all of the reviewers complaints boiled down to, "He's being so meeeean to Lucas, so I can't like this."

I wouldn't expect anything different from IGN.

Did check out the Theatrical Audio Resources - article on your site zombie, and you might want to make a few minor corrections on it.

"In 1985, Ben Burtt supervised a stereo remix for home video, taking into account the acoustics of television audio (as this was the pre-home theatre days it has the least dynamic range of any mix)."

Comparing it against the original Dolby Stereo tracks available, the dynamic range is pretty equal. The '85 re-mix have actually a wider stereo separation.

"But there are more obvious examples, probably the most noteable of which is that Aunt Beru is voiced by a completely different person (neither the stereo nor mono version is actress Shelah Fraser)"

Is this correct? As I recall, ADR was done with Shelagh Fraser for the film.

"The 1993 mix has been theorized to be based off the 70mm stems, since it is missing a few sound effects (such as the crashing snowspeeder) that appear on the stereo mix (as the 70mm would have been readied first, it is thought that these effects were only added for the later mixes). There are no surmised differences between the other mixes of the films, however."

The '93 remaster was done by going back to the four-track master mix, THX Technical Supervisor Dave Schnuelle's own words on it;

For The Empire Strikes Back the best material was the four-track master mix. It was supplemented with “boom” from a sound effects master running along in synchronization, in the same manner as Star Wars. What you must realize is that the perceived low-frequency capability of conventional optical sound tracks is very limited, and what most people remember is the 70mm version. Since the existing Dolby Stereo print masters had to be limited for optical, that means that they sound bass shy much of the time, so this addition should be considered to be really a purist one, getting it to sound more like itself.

Why the sound effect went missing for one of the crashing snowspeeders is unknown. David Morgan's in-theatre recording of the 70mm version tell us that this sound effect was heard in the 70mm mix as well. If you exclude the low frequency and much greater dynamic range of the 70mm versions, the 35mm and 70mm mixes is overall quite similar in terms of content, see here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/70mm-6-Track-Dolby-Stereo-mix-differences/topic/14058/

I also noticed that you list the 1425-85 ESB LD as containing a 1985 Stereo Remix, nothing indicates this to be the case, it seems very much like the original 35mm Dolby Stereo mix was used, the difference is that it was encoded with digital sound in addition to the analog track.

msycamore said:

...

"But there are more obvious examples, probably the most noteable of which is that Aunt Beru is voiced by a completely different person (neither the stereo nor mono version is actress Shelah Fraser)"

Is this correct? As I recall, ADR was done with Shelagh Fraser for the film.

...

No concrete source, but I reckon that both the mono and the Dolby mixes are Fraser, but different takes from the ADR session.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Berus-voice/post/472283/

Interesting discussion, seems like there are many conflicting stories around this. Your take on it seems logical.

msycamore said:

...

"In 1985, Ben Burtt supervised a stereo remix for home video, taking into account the acoustics of television audio (as this was the pre-home theatre days it has the least dynamic range of any mix)."

Comparing it against the original Dolby Stereo tracks available, the dynamic range is pretty equal...

It was Belbucus who said, referring to the '85 mix:

From a glance at the waveform it appears to be the least dynamic of all...

It would be fairly easy to check peak vs RMS levels for both mixes in an audio editor to confirm if he was right.

zombie84 said:

She's also Scottish. And based on seeing other films she is in, it's no wonder so many people think it's not her in any version. I believe it.

But thanks for the corrects regardless! I'll look into updating the page with more accurate info. :)

While her parents were Sottish-Irish, Shelagh was born and educated in Surrey, England.

As a versatile actress, she had a "deft ability with accents".

(source)

Moth3r said:

msycamore said:

...

"In 1985, Ben Burtt supervised a stereo remix for home video, taking into account the acoustics of television audio (as this was the pre-home theatre days it has the least dynamic range of any mix)."

Comparing it against the original Dolby Stereo tracks available, the dynamic range is pretty equal...

It was Belbucus who said, referring to the '85 mix:

From a glance at the waveform it appears to be the least dynamic of all...

It would be fairly easy to check peak vs RMS levels for both mixes in an audio editor to confirm if he was right.

Oh, I see. Well, he should know what he's talking about. Haven't actually checked and compared it in a audio editor myself, was just going by my ears so I might be wrong here, it's possible the wider stereo separation fooled me to think it was just as dynamic as the regular stereo. There's also many different sources of the '85 re-mix out there to complicate matters and we also have Schorman's recently found and preserved original stereo in digital.

Anything short of saying Lucas is a Christ figure will be reviled by the apologists and sycophants as being a lucas "bash-fest".

I thought the book was great, nice work Zombie.  You could have easliy gone much further in exposing lucas' fraudlence and deceit, but i think it was cool to frame the narrative as a contrast of how the OT was organic and somewhat accidental while the PT production was bland and sterile (and thats the best thing you could say about it).  I also like how you exposed lucas' blather about "its supposed to be like the serials!! old-fashoined!! i intentionally made the movies bad because its supposed to be bad!!" were nothing more than cop-outs and excuses that could easily be discredited because most of the SW movies in fact bear little resemblence to the old serials (certainly no more than any other sci-fi action movie). 

What I suggest to most fans and apologists is to read all of lucas' 'interviews' (which admittedly is difficult because he has given more than every other filmmaker in history combined) and track when and where he makes reference to the serials.  What you'll see is, from 1977 to the early 80's, he'll reference the old serials when talking about how the idea of Star Wars originated but then will move to japanese movies, westerns etc.  If you continue to track his 'interviews' post ESB and just before 1999, his references to the serials is trivial and the predominant theme of his talking points are the myths, Campbell, folklore and legends, etc.  It isnt until after TPM and especially after LOTR does he backtrack from myths and props up the serials talking points. 

Looking forward to next edition.  Has anyone heard if AOTC is still coming out in 3D?  2012 is almost over and havent seen anything. or is that whole enterprise on hiatus?

none said:

walking_carpet wrote: Has anyone heard if AOTC is still coming out in 3D?

Yes AotC 3D will be previewed at Celebration VI next week.

Which i find incredible concerning Episode 1 3D bombed at the box office.  And it cost 100 million to convert.

Is George Lucas just now in the idea of losing money because he is a billionaire?  Red Tails bombed as well.

Too bad he doesn't have any money he can waste on restoring the OOT.

I think i was misremembering one of the early Lucas price quotes for the 3D convert.  That must be why they waited nearly a decade before anything became of it.

Still a 23 million dollar opening for a star wars film is a failure period.

Not sure if the goodwill is still there but he should really have forgone the prequels, crappy movies beyond measure and release even the adulterated original trilogy since he would never in a million years release the oot properly restored much less in 3-D.

If they released the 2011 special edition trilogy they could easily make over a hundred million dollars.  Not a huge windfall after the conversion cost but still a profit. 

Making any new original films, or new star wars or indiana jones films is not what Lucasfilm is doing they are releasing 3-D versions of the standard blu ray release for something not even shot in the format.

A complete and utter waste of time and money of course this is opinion but they could have spent the money restoring the other 2 films in the indiana jones trilogy as well as the 3 original star wars films.

Lucas let both the 30th anniversary of star wars and empire happen with no re-release print of those films, i won't hold my breath for one for Jedi either, of a restored theatrical release in may 2013. The book by Rinzler will have to be a consolation prize i guess.

Anyway back to talking about saving the real star wars from 77-83.  Waiting to hear more on the loc actions to save these films from the hands of Lucas.

Don't forget Harry Shearer!

http://cinetropolis.net/interview-with-harry-shearer/