Anchorhead

CO said:With all due respect guys, I don't even bother seeing these movies anymore, as the summer movie these days is a joke. 

Termimator Salvation, Transformers 2, Wolverine, GIJoe, all stuff that appeals to the 'action and CGI' crowd, and I am not a part of that crowd. 

That's where I am on the whole summer blockbuster thing these days as well.  In fact, it's where I've been for a long long time.  Seems like maybe Matrix might have started the visuals-over-story trend, or at least that seems to be where it really became the go-to.

Once studios realized they could create films without sets, locations, and often times without a need for more than a few cast members (yes, George - I'm speaking of the prequels also), they were all over it.  Once they realized they could make millions in revenue off of these two-hour advertisements for the software that created them - they sold their souls.

I haven't seen any of the movies CO mentioned, but I've seen plenty of trailers and clips.  All the CGI-fests seem to have the two requisite shots;

1. Something huge moves through the air (with little regard for actual physics) and someone narrowly avoids being crushed by it - often times as they use it as a stepping stone while it's in motion - again, with little or no regard for physics.

2. The gold standard - real time to sudden slow motion, then back to real time shot. Thank you Matrix.

I really thought that second one would have become passe by now, but I see it's alive and well - and even makes an appearance in the trailer for the new Tron film.

I only go the movies maybe three times a year, so you guys have more knowledge of current films than I do. I may be off on my observations. They're just what it seems like to someone whose only real exposure is trailers.

For more years than I can remember - Planes, Trains, And Automobiles has been a Thanksgiving Day tradition for me.  With the smell of dinner filling the house on a cold day, and mirroring the story, the film fits perfectly. It's one of my favorites.  Another favorite of mine is The Breakfast Club.  I'm a huge fan of films that take place in a single room or location.  It's quite a task to pull that off successfully and Hughes' work on that film is excellent.  As Boost said, a truly iconic body of work.

R.I.P. sir.  You defined, as well as preserved, the 80s.  They wouldn't have been nearly as much fun without you.

I have a copy in my car and listen to it twice a year.  Each episode is about 30 minutes, which also happens to be what my work commute is, so it takes me 7 or 8 days to get through the entire thing.  I also have it on my iPod.

DarthPlagueis said:

...most of what Lucas came up with was really an afterthought (Luke and Leia - brother and sister; Vader as Luke's father, then as Leia's father too...) it's not much of a surprise that some things just don't make... sense.

That's really the heart of all the problems with the plot holes and continuity errors.  Lucas didn't have a master plan\story back in the 70s, he wasn't a terribly gifted writer, and he just made up stuff on the fly whenever he reached an impasse. It's no wonder the story makes no sense, no matter how many times he tries to fix it or explain it. 

After Empire, it's just poorly written. In fact, there is a Lucas interview posted on here somewhere where he mentions writing in the Yoda line "no, there is another" because he was stuck, didn't know what else to do, and figured he's just think up something later when they were filming the next one. He was already in trouble on the second film. There was no master story.

To me, what seems sad & humorous at the same time are all the TFN gushers and apologists going over plot details and minutia trying desperately to make sense of all the plot holes & inconsistencies - while thinking they can reconcile the six films into a solid, continuous story.  Even more hilarious is when they have to redo their work every few years after Lucas makes yet another change to the story. 

They give him much more credit as a gifted writer & story teller than he deserves.  What seems lost on them is the fact that if the story's creator can't make sense of the story, then there's no way they can.

CO said:

 Lets' see what will come first, the 2012 Summer Olympics, or Star Wars movies on BluRay....

20th Century Mark said:

Hey all.

I am considering a new TV. Buget is tight so nothing spectacular. I am looking at a Panasonic 42" plasma 720p. How will standard DVDs look on this TV? I understand that they will up-scaled, what will the quality be like? I currently have a 5 year old 27" CRT. DVDs look great, but I want something bigger. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regardless of what type you get, read up and take into consideration the size of the screen vs the size of the room.  Too big + the inability to get far enough away can end up being a big headache.

http://www.cnet.com/hdtv-viewing-distance/

Personal favorites;

Patton

Apocalypse Now

Mr. Roberts

Tora! Tora! Tora!

Bridge On The River Kwai

Nanner Split said:

When I saw the title of this thread I was rather puzzled. I thought it was completely obvious as soon as he came on screen in TPM.

It was to me also. 

I wasn't vested in anything post-77 at that point, but it certainly seemed obvious to me.  Plus, Lucas had already shown that his style of storytelling was to just shrink the universe into a smaller & smaller cast of characters who took on new & second identities whenever he had writer's block or had painted himself in a corner.  As soon as Palpatine was on screen, I knew we were seeing the early days of the emperor. It reeked of Lucas' style.

Zombie,

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

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.

Gaffer Tape said:

... it's probably a flannel cock ring.

Yeah,  I went there.

skyjedi2005 said:

He knows kids don't want to see the hero die.

And that is why Return feels, to me, out of place in the trilogy (and why I wanted to walk out of the theater in 83).  It's a full-on children's film.  Star Wars was a serious science fiction\outer space adventure.  Return isn't even remotely serious.  It's comedy & cute stuffed animal marketing tie-ins.

In Star Wars, Luke's aunt & uncle are killed (complete with close up of the burned bodies), his mentor is killed, the princess is tortured & her family killed, and Luke's best friend is killed.  Star Wars isn't a children's film.  Lucas moved away from the seriousness almost as soon as the franchise got going.  Even Empire shows signs of the comedy\cute feel that was fully realized in Return.

Deckard2 said:

ROTJ feels like all of the main actors are winking at the camera and not really taking the movie seriously.

It definitely feels that way to me, and it's not at all surprising.  If the story is no longer serious, why would the actors have even bothered with trying to continue playing the characters seriously? 

For me - if a science fiction story starts out like this;

...then there's no way it can successfully morph into this:

As a 15-year-old who sat in the theater in 1977 (at least once a week) and was very moved by Star Wars, the series' transition to children's bed time story was a transition I wasn't able to make.

auximenies said:

might be worth considering modifying or adding to the tagline to reflect the desire for a legitimate transfer/proper archiving of the originals (nothing too verbose, though).  You know and I know what's going on, but if someone out of the loop were to see that homepage they might think "It's already on DVD.  This site needs some updating!".

I had a few versions - "...on anamorphic DVD", "...on Blu-ray", ...historical preservation", etc - but I couldn't come up with anything I liked, so I just stuck with our old one for the mock-up.  I agree, it does need a better explained tagline.

Janskeet said:

Sorry but wasn't the general consensus of Krystal Skull a horrible movie? If you liked it that's fine, but you thought it was good enough to make the switch to HD and turn a room into a theater room?

Do you let "the general consensus" decide which films you enjoy? If you do, that's fine - but I prefer to do my own thinking. 

Allowing other people's thoughts to control your likes & dislikes would be an incredibly shallow and dishonest way to go through life.

C3PX said:

I have the HDDVD of the 5-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition on my shelf. There's a commentary by the person who wrote that Blade Runner book I also have

 

Whoa! The work print has a commentary by Philip K. Dick? I had no idea!

Philip K. Dick died before the film was finished.  How could there be a commentary track from him?

*edit*

Just saw that Bingo covered this already.

C3PX said:

Fang Zei said:

The Blade Runner release alone should be shaming Lucas into preparing a monster-sized blu-ray set for each of the movies, but it probably isn't.

"Shame" and "Lucas" two words that are so alien from one another, they should probably never be used in the same sentence.

I was thinking the very same thing.  Lucas doesn't get shamed into action.  If anything, over the years he's shown he's just the opposite.  The more fan & peer pressure he receives - the more he digs his heels in.

DarkGryphon2048 said:

Batman Begins isn't a remake, it's a whole new start of a new Batman film franchise.

 

As a lifelong Batman nerd, I'm well aware of that.  In fact, I had an explanation as to why I added it to the list, but then I removed it because I assumed it was unnecessary. I knew the members here would understand why I added it (that's the edit on my post).

Batman Begins is not a direct remake, but it's hardly new ground.  We've already seen his parents killed, we've already seen him struggle with dual identities, we've already seen him being accused of being a dangerous vigilante, etc, etc. Batman Begins is just Nolan's version of the story & character we already know, and has been done before. 

Anothology = 1989-1997 and Nolan is 2005=current.

You can put whatever names\classifications\dates\tags\etc you want on it, but in it's purest sense, as a film, it's still a remake.

For the record; Batman Begins is, by far, my favorite thing Batman.  I had a post stating otherwise a while back but have since revisited the film and need to explain all that went into my thoughts regarding it. Some other time, when I'm not so busy.

Sluggo said:

I think the Casino Royale remake (could you even call it a remake?) was excellent.

 

I wasn't sure how to classify it since the first one was a weird comedy. But it certainly fits within the scope of this topic.

To me, it's just a Bond film where he wasn't a 00 at the beginning. The whole reboot tag gets overused these days, sometimes as nothing more than a clever marketing tool.

And while we're on the subject; As a lifelong Bond uber-nerd (all the films, soundtracks, one-sheets, seen all in the theaters since 73, etc, etc), I should offer up this -  Casino Royale is my favorite 007 film ever - by far. 

It was finally the 007 film I'd always wanted.  Others had come close, but Casino Royale delivered on every level. In fact, I haven't watched any of my DVDs of the previous films since.

To me, it's an excellent example of what a fresh look at a character & story can be.  It's the opposite of the current trend in remakes\reboots\retcons\etc.  It kicked everything down a notch and got back to story. No invisible cars, plans of world domination, or villains genetically changing from Irish to Japanese.  Casino Royale was a basic story - wealthy businessman funding a terrorist organization and a government agent trying to stop him.  It was the story that was interesting - not the fluff.

C3PX said:

In other words, remake does not always = crappy disposable money grabber, but more often than not they do. Same for sequels, some exist just for the sake of milking a little more out of an already successful film. But sometimes they are very worthy continuations of the original story.

I agree and I should have elaborated in my original post.  There have been a few remakes that I thought were fantastic, well-written, and well-performed films that were worthy of the originals.

It just seems like we've entered a period where the mindset is that everything suddenly needs to be remade - and I don't agree with that at all.  So many people seem lost  to the story of a film - the true essence of what's being presented, the reason we're sitting in the theater in the first place.

Thousands of stories have been told very well over the years and don't need updating or fixing.  Better special effects, shorter skirts, more blood, and current slang don't necessarily make the story better.

The list of remakes that I've enjoyed and felt were as good or better than the originals is short.  These come to mind right now;

Ocean's 11

Solaris

King Kong (2005)

3:10 To Yuma

Batman Begins

LordVader said:

Oh for fuck sake why cant we just leave some movies alone...... To me, sequels will always be more acceptable than just "rebooting" a franchise, it completely devalues movies these days, there could always be that idea lingering that "we can just remake it" and it's turning hollywood into a giant clusterfuck, excuse me, a bigger clusterfuck than it has to be.

I'm with LV on this one. The disposable mentality of our society is getting out of hand.

My two cents in the form of a mock-up.  I went with a simple look using the three original one-sheets because our goal has always been simple - the three original films.  No improvements, no updating, no flashy animations, etc.  I kept the greys that have always been part of the site and went with some simple buttons for the different areas.

News - Jay's statements and updates that are currently scrolled at the bottom of the home page.

Community - The entrance to the forum.

Petition - The history & results of the original petition, as well as any future activity.

Multimedia - Maybe a central location for downloading the DVD covers or wallpapers that some of the members have made over the years. There have been some fantastic pieces, but it can get a little daunting tracking them all down.  Also the screen-grab comparisons of all of George's revisions and the fan attempts at preservation.

skyjedi2005 said:

Lucasfilm is not so stupid as to make a release on a niche format that not everyone has in their homes blu ray, when the vast majority have DVD.  They would lose money.  They have no stake in helping SONY and the other corporations invested in Blu RAY.

They may not have a stake in Sony, but Blu-ray is moving out of niche status.  Lucas may or may not realize it, but I believe he could alter Blu-ray player sales if he released Star Wars in that format. Regardless of version preference, we're talking about an incredibly popular film franchise.

I was a Blu-ray hold-out also, until the right film came along. Once it was announced that Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull would be a Blu-ray release, I reworked a spare bedroom into a proper theater room, complete with a Blu-ray player.

I imagine there would be a similar reaction if Star Wars was released on Blu-ray. Truthfully, if Indiana Jones hadn't been available on Blu-ray, but Star Wars suddenly was, I would have made the jump with it - and I'm only interested in one version of one of the films.  Considering the size of the fan base, I think people would make the switch if Lucas went Blu-ray.

Dances With Wolves

Apollo 13

Star Wars

Jaws

Raiders Of The Lost Ark

Planet Of The Apes

Treasure Of The Sierra Madre

I've seen all of these except Planet & Treasure.  I just tried to pick a few that look best on the big screen.