Alderaan

TV’s Frink said:

And here’s The Blaze.

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/03/18/tim-allen-destroys-hollywood-liberals-over-their-intolerant-elitism-its-like-1930s-germany/

Not only was there no mention of joking, he’s getting praised for taking on the damn liberals!

Right wingers don’t have a sense of humor. About the only good parts of Inglourious Basterds, which was otherwise a terrible film, were the scenes where it mocked the Nazis either not having a sense of humor, or only capable of possessing one that was cartoonish and farcical.

Some of the moderate conservatives are of course going to be more normal, but the large masses of them further out on the spectrum are self-hating hypocrites and paranoid, and it’s hard to laugh at much else besides sadism when you go through life living that way.

It’s just Kevin Smith voting over and over again.

Kind of a funny story. I haven’t been to an opening weekend movie in a long time, and when g/f and I got tickets all they had left were seats in the front corner. We couldn’t see anything, so I went out and asked if we could exchange for the late showing. Ticket guy said sure, he would put us in handicap seating for that one. I told him I didn’t want to take anyone’s seat who needs to sit there, but he assured me nobody would be using them, so we exchanged the tickets.

Anyway, an hour later we go into the last showing, and the handicap area is prime real estate right in the middle of the theater, distinctly set aside from all other seats. We were embarrassed, so watched the previews from around the corner and waited to take our seats after the lights dimmed. Awkward, but worth it!

SilverWook said:

Bet the owners of that drive in that refused to show the movie are kicking themselves now. 😉

What was the story behind that?

SilverWook said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbL_KjOBHe8

So yeah, in the animated version they use a montage of stained-glass frames to setup the story, which is very different from actually showing the principal characters in real life before their transformation. You can tell that the people who made the original understood this, as they did not open with animation of the prince; conversely, you can tell that Condon and those involved in making this movie, mysteriously, did not.

Overall, the production value of the film was eye-popping and enjoyable, but there was no charm or chemistry in any of the interpersonal relationships on screen. Emma Watson was just dreadful, and the arc of the story was missing soft transitions, which seems to be a common theme in many of the remakes and rehashes these days. The creative energy seems to be focused on paying homage to and hitting the big notes, and the effect is often a movie that brings back memories of beloved classics, but at times feels like it’s just going through the motions.

Saw Beauty and the Beast (2017) last night:

Animation and production quality was outstanding. Film looked beautiful, although the interesting shots were all CGI, and nothing great from the camera work otherwise. There were even some moments when the camera panned around that everything went out of focus for an extended amount of time. We watched just a normal showing, maybe that stuff wasn’t a problem in the 3D or IMAX shows, I don’t know.

Biggest problem with this movie was the miscasting of the lead actress. Emma Watson never owned the role and I spent the first half hour pining for someone like Julie Andrews. There was no love or charm emanating from her persona, no connection between her and her father, none between her and the beast, and she was even entirely unconvincing and moribund in feigning her contempt for the boorish Gaston. The framing of the story also missed the mark, in my opinion, as there was no need to show the prince before he turned into a beast, nor any need to show the servants in the same way. Those early intrusions sapped energy from the story’s pathos, but maybe it was the same way in the original cartoon, I really don’t remember.

By far the best part of this movie was the animation and production quality, however. Unlike the CGI junk that is present in all of the newer Star Wars films (including TFA and R1), everything in Beauty and the Beast looked seamless. It was an entertaining film and better than most anything I see at the movie theater these days, but the poor casting of Emma Watson and the lack of real talented creative leadership kept it from being a really great film.

I’m guessing Jeebus is in his early 20s and a libertarian.

I don’t know what you mean by screen cluttering. That’s not what I was talking about. I was arguing that you could write the script and plot in such a way that you don’t need to even have the Death Star in the movie, and yet the movie could still be about the Death Star. It could even be easily conveyed as a very scary, existential threat to the Alliance and freedom-lovers all over the galaxy, without even being shown one time on screen. But that’s obviously not the creative choice that was made. Although I wish it had been.

OK took that one down, and uploaded a new update. Dimmed the first shot of Red leader to make the transition from the digital shot more seamless. Fixed a lot of the colors so the Death Star grays are now actually gray.

Outside of the 2nd X-wing explosion, which still needs to be color corrected, I think this sequence looks much better now. The digital shots blend in pretty seamlessly with the more natural looking Despecialized footage, but let me know if you agree or disagree or what you think!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFmyvm4LPcc&feature=youtu.be

Lord Haseo said:

Alderaan said:
The nonsense with him and Leia and their “son” was just a waste of time.

I’m going to regret asking this but why did you put quotes around the word “son”?

He’s only their son because they said so. Otherwise, there is no history between them. The writing was lazy and there is so much **** going on, so much meaningless **** crammed into the movie, that no relationships were formed. We were just told things, like hey, this bad kid is their son. And hey, Finn and Poe are supposed to be friends. What, they didn’t really spend time together in the movie? Well that’s ok, we’ll just go back and edit in a shot of Poe from his X-wing, blasting a bad guy who was threatening Finn, and then have Finn look up at the sky and thank him, as if the two can see each other, so you’ll more readily make the connection and believe these two guys are pals.

The whole movie was filled with junk like that. Lazy writing. No real time or energy devoted to properly establish or progress relationships, except maybe for Rey/Han and Rey/Finn. Hell, even Leia didn’t have time to mourn with Chewie, because so much **** was crammed into the movie. I mean, we just had to have all those scenes with Captain Phasma, right?

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Vader would have been so much scarier if we never saw him.

Are you going to make an anthology film that is to be viewed after the audience has already seen Vader in a bunch of movies? Yeah, depending on the plot, you may not need Vader in the movie either.

Seriously, watch how Rick gets introduced in Casablanca. There is a great example. The other characters talk about him for almost a half hour before he even shows up in the movie. There are many ways to get things across on film besides just showing someone or something on the screen.

Lord Haseo said:

Alderaan said:

RRS-1980 said:

One of the things Rogue One did right was adding weight to Death Star, making it even scarier. When many creators fall into the trap of “even bigger explosions!”, R1 just holds the audience a bit longer in a scene which was so (too?) short in ANH.

It would have been scarier if it weren’t even in the movie to begin with.

Considering the fact that I’ve never been properly scared of the Death Star until seeing Rogue One I’m going to have to disagree with you.

Well we pretty much disagree on everything Star Wars related, so I’m not surprised. You can write the script so that the characters express the danger of the Death Star through their acting and dialogue, and what is going on in the plot, rather than just cramming everything on screen.

Are you a fan of the SE wampa by any chance?

Yeah but when you hire a movie star for tens of millions of dollars, you have to rewrite and tailor the entire script for him. The biggest problem with TFA is all the unnecessary screen time that Harrison got. The nonsense with him and Leia and their “son” was just a waste of time.

SilverWook said:

As for Vader, he was changing already at the end of ESB. His encounter with Luke started an internal conflict, or reawakened an old one. Note nobody gets strangled for letting the Falcon escape.

Having seen Empire Strikes Back hundreds of times on VHS and SD television, I don’t think the resolution was ever good enough for me to notice Vader turn his head and look over at Piett in the last couple frames where he’s walking off the Executor bridge. The camera just cuts to him from behind, and for all we know he’s looking at the ground, completely lost in his thoughts and oblivious to all the officers who are standing nearby afraid for their lives.

It was a negative surprise for me when I was watching Despecialized recently and caught that head turn, and I think it diminishes the scene a little bit. I think it could have been better directed, or at least cut a few frames sooner.

Kidding ldo

Sexist, reported.

RRS-1980 said:

One of the things Rogue One did right was adding weight to Death Star, making it even scarier. When many creators fall into the trap of “even bigger explosions!”, R1 just holds the audience a bit longer in a scene which was so (too?) short in ANH.

It would have been scarier if it weren’t even in the movie to begin with.

SilverWook said:

I think the original petition at least made us heard within Lucasfilm. And those who heard us pleaded with George long enough that we got the GOUT. (That it was a recycled warmed over LD master was not their fault.) But that was a decade ago. Social media is where it’s at now, for better or worse. Every retweet is as good as a signature.

And having a statement ready to go is a good idea. It’s got to be eye catching and slick to be noticed as people scroll by. Something with a classic logo and maybe that cool silver border all the Kenner packaging had?

It’s a good start Wook, but you’re going to need some media coverage. Try and get articles with the right people if you can.

Sougouk said:

Come on Disney, take my money!

I agree with this, but I don’t think they give a damn. Kennedy is on George’s side.

Fang Zei said:

I would even settle for them telling us right now in 2017 that it won’t be completed until 2020. Again, that would at least be something.

It has nothing to do with 2020. Despite the distribution rights deal, this is just an arbitrary excuse date you (and others) have assigned to the issue.

Disney has no plans to restore the OOT. None. It should be painfully obvious by now that Lucasfilm and Kennedy have discretion on this question and they simply don’t care.

Possessed said:
How? Not trying to be a dick if he is in fact going through something, but how can you even tell when every post he makes is complete gibberish?

Empathy for fellow banned users, obviously.

They have a selection show every March that unveils the NCAA basketball tournament pairings. Last year they waited 20 minutes to show anything and took over an hour to give out 5 minutes of information, got excoriated for it, had the worst ratings in decades, and swore they would never do that again.

She should have learned from CBS Sports last year.

That’s not what I said at all.

Jeebus said:

Alderaan said:

Shame and guilt are wonderful checks and balances.

You’re gonna shame people out of an addiction?

Preventative medicine? You know you don’t have to wait for someone to become obese or addicted to drugs or pornography before you try and promote healthy life habits.