Anchorhead

Johnny Ringo said:

I've got this friend who invests in high end cameras and in general he takes some good shots - BUT he's also the kind of guy who likes to HDR the hell out of things

I really don't care for HDR.  Mildly interesting the first few times I saw it,  but after a while everything looks the same. To me, it takes all the depth and emotion out of the piece, literally and figuratively.

I have a friend who shoots nearly everything HDR now.  Looking through her portfolio is like looking at a box of crayons - lots of color, not much else.

Oddly enough (considering we're a movie-based board), I see HDR as a very similar situation to the over-use of CGI or shaky-cam in films.  As a tool to help convey a message within a scene it's fine.  When it becomes an obsession with a film maker i.e. Lucas or Greengrass, it takes the place of content, emotion, and story.

I don't think there is any advice for HDR lovers.  I think they're looking for something else out of a photograph.  Whatever it is, depth and mystery aren't part of it because HDR does away with all that.
[/rant]

Regarding finding a Holga, I thought they were still being made but I may be wrong.

*edit*

You can get them on Amazon for about 30 bucks.

Anchorhead said:

I'm going to stop on the way home today and look for Tales From Mos Eisley.  If it's not at Borders, I'll just order it from Amazon.

 

Update;  I bought Death Star.  Won't start it until maybe later this year. If it isn't too bogged in prequelism, I'll be ok-ish. If not, I'll bail.

I had to order Tales From Mos Eisley.  I keep a small group of books & DVDs in our Amazon wish list for whenever we need to spend a few bucks to push an order over to free shipping.  I had Tales in there.

A couple of days ago my wife called me at work.  She needed to spend a few dollars more on an order so she asked me what I had in the wish list.  Her work machine didn't have the list saved.

I told her the title and she looked it up while I was on the phone so she could verify it was the right book.  When she saw it, here is her reply, verbatim; "Is it the mass market paperback with a bald guy shining a big flashlight on E.T, and a green armadillo is standing next to him?"

Star Wars looks totally different to non-nerds.  ;-)

ray_afraid said:

 

Also,  to whoever said that Leia is a stuck up snob in SW, I disagree. She's a military leader who's mostly only posing as royalty to disguise her real motives. She's been captured and tortured and now she's being rescued by some guys who don't know what the hell they're doing. I'd be grumpy to.

I agree.  Captured, family & home destroyed, tortured, rescued by a kid and a pirate, Ben killed - she gets a pass for anger and being unfriendly.

That is a little unsettling.

"...and then use rope to keep the bookcase from falling over in the truck"

msycamore said:

Don't try to pretend it's something different than it is, it's a very well made fantasy film for kids, and when I say kids, I mean 7-18 year olds, (yes, a kid can be 18) don't be ashamed for liking a good film primarily directed towards kids. Just because it showed burned bodies in one scene doesn't directly make the film only made for mature audiences.

I don't pretend it's something it isn't.  No two ways about it, it's an outer space fantasy enjoyed by all ages.  My point was that Star Wars' darker moments had a feeling of heaviness, of actual danger.  Return's darker moments were either cleansed or played for laughs (or at least along with laughs). 

During Return, at no point what so ever did I get the feeling our heroes were even close to any sort of danger.  In Star Wars, Luke's family is murdered, Leia's family is murdered, Vader murders a guy while he's talking to him then throws his body on the ground, and Ben is killed (albeit willingly). There's a seriousness to Star Wars & Empire (to me, at least) that doesn't exist in Return.

Return is like a roller coaster at an amusement park.  When it goes through the dark tunnel, you know the monsters are fake, so you laugh while you're jumping out of your seat.  In Star Wars & Empire, when it goes through the dark tunnel, the monsters burn your family, kill your best friend, and cut your hand off.

timdiggerm said:

kilik64 said:

Akwat Kbrana said:

Mostly innuendo. "Look at the size of that thing!"

"Get on top of it!" "I'm trying!"

"You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!"

"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

Etc.

Put "that's what she said" after each one.

 

Oh, I get it. I understand how it's potentially innuendo. But was it intended that way? Nope.

I'm with Tim on this one.  No way that was ever intended as innuendo.

captainsolo said:

Mono.

I don't think that one has really been discontinued.  I just think people in general are more careful.

Oh please, get off me - you were all thinking the same thing. 

;-)

Artwork moved to link above.

*edit*

I decided to rework this topic into a link to several Star Wars pieces.  It started when I stumbled across the R2 piece and started bouncing around between links.  I discovered some really great stuff, some fantastic takes on Star Wars.  The artists are very talented.

http://s1127.photobucket.com/albums/l634/Anchorhead/SW/

If I had a Star Wars DVD library that consisted of more than one DVD, these would be my cover sleeves for sure.  Lucasfilm has the worst Star Wars cover designs I've ever seen.

Gaffer Tape said:

I do always find it odd the assertion that kids will love  ROTJ and then grow out of it, or even Anchorhead's comment that kids won't notice the tonal shift as much since ROTJ was more focused towards them.  At 9, I always found ROTJ to be a lesser film than the previous two.  It always felt lighter and fluffier.  It always felt somewhat tired to me. 

That's why you're here, man.  ;-) 

S_Matt said:

I do have to agree with Anchorhead that the films did kind of shift in tone and that kind of does hurt the continuity of something intended to be a single story split into different chapters.

I also think (as some have already touched on) that opinions on that tonal shift may be directly related to age when first seen.  By the time Return was released, I was 21 years old, had my own house, had started my career in earnest, and was living with the girl who would eventually become my wife.

I was an entirely different person from the 15-year-old kid I was when Star Wars was first released.  Sitting in the theater in 1977, I was moved by the mystery, the darkness, and vastness of story in Star Wars - the seriousness of the story.

As a young adult six years later, I had zero interest in the shrunken story, shrunken universe, the shift towards children's film, or with the softening of the characters.  That's why I wanted to walk out of the theater.  I felt very let down.  It no longer resembled the story that had moved me all those years earlier. 

The people here who first saw return when they were 6 - 10 years old may not have felt that shift as much.  One main reason was the fact that the film was largely geared toward them.  By default, they would almost certainly be more accepting of it.

doubleKO said:

^ Hoping I'm not included here. I am genuinely curious to know if you knew about the originally intended story before you saw Empire, and if that is part of the reason you don't buy into it.

If you mean the original scripts - no, I did not.  That stuff wasn't readily available the way it is now.

I just didn't care for it from a story-shrinking and universe-shrinking point of view.  My dislike of it was strictly from a fan of the original film point of view. What spoke to me in 1977 was being done away with.

doubleKO said:

I agreed with S_Matt about this, not from the point of view of what was or wasn't originally intended but whether it works for the climax of a fantasy story.

I think if the change had been handled differently it would have worked better (at least for me).  It's still deep enough in Empire and worked well enough.  By the time Return was released the series had lost a lot of its harshness. 

In Star Wars we had burned bodies, mass murder (Alderaan), torture, severed arms lying on the floor, untrustworthy hired pilot, etc. Those elements were either castrated or g-rated as the series progressed and I think that hurt the OT overall.  There was real danger in Star Wars.  The lack of of any real danger in Return made me want to walk out of the theater in 1983.

For me, the change didn't work.  For a most others, it worked well and still does.

S_Matt said:

Anchorhead said:

It's well documented in articles, interviews, web sites, & books that Vader wasn't Luke's father prior to Empire.  To suggest otherwise is either revisionism or baiting. 

 

And the fact that Lucas changed his mind about it matters... how, exactly?

Could FriendsSpeak BE any more annoying?

So that I'm absolutely clear on this, Matt -  I've answered your baiting. You'll have to move on to someone else now.

S_Matt said:

My challenge to those who don't buy Vader being Luke's father is to actually come up with a good argument against it

It's well documented in articles, interviews, web sites, & books that Vader wasn't Luke's father prior to Empire.  To suggest otherwise is either revisionism or baiting.

In Lucas' original script (vision), Luke is in his 60s, Annikin is 18, and Darth Vader (first name, last name) is just a military general - not a Jedi, not a Sith. Three wholly separate and unrelated characters.

and you'll have to do better than..."George Lucas never intended".

People are free to dig or not dig the story as it was changed by Lucas in 1980, but to suggest that it was always his intention is incorrect.

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/

http://starwarz.com/starkiller/2010/05/the-origins-of-star-wars-the-evolution-of-a-space-saga/

RedFive said:

 Nikon Coolpix L18.  It's a small point-and-shoot, but I make due.

 

As a former semi-professional photographer (really more of a side job back in the early 80s), it's not the camera that makes the picture, it's the photographer.  Composition and knowing how to get it are what make the photograph. If you think a modern-day Nikon digital is making do, you need to take a look at the incredible work people are doing with Holgas and pinholes. 

That first picture of yours is interesting.  A great example of how composition makes the shot.  Too far over one way or the other, to close, too far, and you lose the tension. Too early or too late and you lose the color and contrast.  Not really sure about that effect, if it's added, but still an interesting piece.

These days I use a Nikon D40, and only retired my old Nikon FM2 about 5 years ago.  It's never been about the technology for me.

TV's Frink said:

Oh boy, here we go....

;-)

...

In all seriousness Anchorhead, you should start a thread and put your feelings about Star Wars and the sequels in the OP, then whenever you get this question you can just point to the thread.

It's crossed my mind.  Not sure how to go about it yet.  I don't want to come across as an angry fan.  I'm not.  I just have a much smaller footprint of interest.  However, that footprint is very important to me and means just as much as other fans' do to them.

Maybe a blog type of deal where I could at least use it for some of my other interests - motorcycles, beekeeping, wine, travel, etc.

Used to dig it.  Saw it several times in the theater.  Had an original laserdisc for a number of years, which I lost in a flood years later and never replaced.  Drifted from it many years ago.  Last saw it as part of that same Lunchtime Theater.  It was the Faces box set that we serialized.  Took about a week.  Parts of Empire were a nice trip down memory lane, but that's about it.

Star Wars77 is all I have any interest in,  film-wise.

I've never cared for it.  In 1983,  I took the day off to be part of the opening day hype.  I was so let down that I considered walking out.  20 minutes or so into the film I started having my doubts.  3PO telling the story to plush toys was what finally started the long goodbye. I came out of the theater very disappointed.

I saw it again around 1997 or so.  We used to do Lunchtime Theater at work. We'd watch films in 45-minute installments during our lunch hour, in a nice conference room. That's the last time I saw it.  It still did nothing for me.

timdiggerm said:

TheBoost said:

not true, but would make a good EU novel.

I suppose it is a sad commentary on the EU that you actually fooled me.

Right there with you, man.  Didn't even consider that he might be joking.

From the opinions here and the Amazon reviews, it's not something I'll rush out and get.  I might just get it and toss it in my luggage.  I always have a paperback or two in my carry-on for the several flights I make a year.  Something I don't mind getting banged up from the abuses of traveling. This might be good for that.  If I don't dig it, I'll donate it.

RedFive said:

 

...when a girl tells me my motorcycle "sounds like a podracer"  I gotta lock that down.

Such a gentleman. 

I can't believe you guys believe any of Vader's story.  Clearly he blew up the Death Star himself so he could use it as an excuse to invade Hoth.  A planet, by the way, which had nothing to do with the Death Star attack.

You want proof?

1.  No WMD were found on Hoth.
2.  Look closely at the Death Star explosion photos.....

RedFive said:

Block-quote burn!

By the by, I just got back from meeting PinkFive's family and it went really well.  Quick, I know, but when a girl tells me my motorcycle "sounds like a podracer" I gotta lock that down.

Kid, did you get that pink ewok avatar saved yet?  I'm deleting it from my Photobucket account - soon.