I actually do have an Uncle Bob which possibly explains why the world so messed up (I don't have a nephew or niece who is a monkey though).
I'm sorry but it's a very valid observation that's held up by the evidence.
The planned episodes of Crusade followed a very different path to the one it was forced into and Threshold was actually rather fun (no classic but it was beginning to go places especially with the built in direction changes).
Some of the best shows on television show very little clue to their potential in the first season.
B5 was justifiably likened to a poor man's Star Trek going from season one (which had some of the weakest stories) something it found hard to shake off when it went to more interesting and epic places.
NuGalactica's mini-series showed none of the moreish wonder it would later show as a series.
Buffy was fun from the start but if you went by the first season alone you have no idea how great and daring it would get later.
Executives need to take more chances with the shows they commision if they want to get the most from their investment, commercial studios especially.
It's impossible to tell which shows are going to get a large and avid, money generating following going by first season ratings alone.
The original episodes were fine but in the series as we saw it (if we saw it at all) they were pushed around so they fitted in with TNT's new vision of what the then unbroadcast show should have been like.
So the pilot ended up being half way through the truncated season, the new pilot wasn't even finished and was rubbish and they had to come up with an instory explanation for why the uniforms and sets had changed and changed back, which is a stupid way to run a show.
Some of the stories were really solid as were some of the characters until TNT got their hands on them.
I don't know if you are familiar with the series bible but it showed it could have been a much stronger show than B5 was.
It annoys me that executives green light things and then back peddle and screw up what they actually agreed to do. The Lost Tales suffered the same problem, it ended up being almost a fan film, so many people actually volunteered their work on that project because Warner Bros wouldn't give them the money they agreed they would. The discs still sold well but JMS wouldn't do anymore on that sort of set up (a huge station full of people and all they could afford was a corridor full of nothing, that's hard to work around in terms of story).
The same thing happened with Firefly with some of the episodes being shunted around so they no longer made sense.
So many potentially interesting shows have suffered the same way with Fox that I'm convinced it's a way of buggering up things for their competitiors rather than actually making shows for themselves.
Tru Calling and Threshold were two other shows shafted just as they were getting off the ground.
In a sense I don't have a problem with the basic mechanics of the romance.
He can see the future (to some extent) he knows they will be together and it's been an obsession of his since he was a boy, he doesn't have the emotional maturity to cope with the fact she doesn't feel the same way yet (largely because the Jedi don't let him develop it) so he tries to force it to happen.
She has probably not given him much more than a nostalgic thought once in a while since they first met and suddenly there's this young man coming on really strong and it's making her understandably uncomfortable.
But why did they have to make it so bloody obvious?
Ric, did you write those scenes?
In this instance the incidental music seems to be telling a different story from the dialogue.
It's all romantic pastoral sweeps when the scenes themselves are edgy and uncomfortable (like teenage romance angst should be I guess but the miss-match is jarring in a bad way) though the actors themselves add to screw up by turning and edgy angsty scenerio into something rather embarrassing.
The pod racer guys were the worst for cartoon crapness. The little guy with the body shaped like an ear of corn just makes me want to explode, what on Earth was he thinking when he put those scenes together?
Vaderisnothayden said:
Ziz said:
Well instead of just shitting on everyone else, how about contributing to the conversation - what shows of theirs do you consider worth saving/reviving? What kind of "art" has come out of the Fox TV network that you consider worthy?
Expressing my wish for certain shows to be cancelled is not shitting on everyone else. To suggest it is suggests overidentification with one's tv shows. You are not your tv show. If I shit on Firefly I am not shitting on you. One needs to put a certain distance between oneself and the things one likes or else it becomes impossible to hang around a place where there's free discussion (which includes criticism) without getting all worked up and hurt all the time (on account of things you like get criticised or dissed). And expressing such opinions as I expressed IS contributing to the conversation. The fact that it's not contributing what you want to hear doesn't mean it's not contributing. Let's not get into the mindset some sites have where anything that is critical of something is "not contributing" and only stuff involving praising stuff is considered contributing. I'm sorry if my opinion bothered you, but I do believe in expressing my opinions even if they're not to everybody's taste.
Firefly was a great television show (clearly not to everyone's taste) but there was a large enough following to keep it going and it could overtime won over a lot more viewers, same with Crusade (which showed a lot of potential if the production crew were left alone to do their job).
Fox comissioned the show on the back of the scripts they received and then mucked the show about before it was aired just as TNT did with the B5 spin off.
Legend Of The Rangers was crap though and I'm glad that never got picked up.
I think they buy up these shows just to stop their competitors from getting hold of them and making a mint and then wreck them so they don't have to keep paying for them.
That would cut my posting woes down too, most of the time I'm posting here I'm trying to do half a dozen things at once so trying to do mental arithmetic while posting images usually wears down my multi-tasking circuits.
That would be a very welcome feature.
Thanks again Jay.
I can't even remember the cave looking like much, he enters in under some pretty anonymous looking tree roots.
If we could go back in time and get Mark to shiver a bit while looking at some root or other it might have given the impression that there was still one trial he never successfully completed but it doesn't seem the sort of thing that could be conveyed well after the event (though as always I'm happy to proved wrong).
He could only do that if he conquered his fears (all of them) but he still fears for his friends, especially Leia. A weakness Vader will later try to use as Ben warns so I can't see him passing that test even by the time of ROTJ, he fails it again in the Emperor's throne room.
There was a scene in the ESB comic book adaptation where Luke fights against remotes, I'd imagine that Yoda would have brought them with him knowing he might have to train Luke and/or perhaps another sometime in the future.
It kind of give Han a bit of retro insight too, "Going against remotes is one thing, going against the Emperor is something else".
It's starting to look like Han is some kind of latent Jedi Master, with all these Bad Feelings he keeps having.
"Come on shape it up guys!"
No name thowing in here please.
As penance Darth Solo, pick a creature that doesn't look quite as good as it should and describe how it could be improved (words or pictures), let's get this thread back on track.
Call me optimistic but is it possible to trucate and distort Looking as in "I'm looking forward to completing your training" into Luke?
Ady did such wonders with creating the second "Yeesssss" that I'm possibly being fooled into believing he can do anything.
There's a lot to love about SSWR's last lesson mockup.
To those who think it spoils the reveal at Jabba's Palace as I said before the reveal is already broken in the theatrical cut where the mysterious powerful looking Jedi falls down the first trapdoor.
To build a more interesting last lesson it may be fun to mirror the very first lesson.
Remember Luke deflecting remote blasts with his sabre?
If Vader can deflect Han's bolts with the Force alone it would prove that Luke has stepped up a notch if he learned to do it too (totally useless against the power of Palpatine's Force Lightning but he did say they were feeble skills).
Here's how I see it.
Sinister music (something like The Magic Tree from ESB).
A mysterious hooded figure approaches Yoda's house.
A couple of remotes activate and he effortlessly deflects their blasts against them using only the Force (no saber yet).
Is Yoda safe? Who is this sinister chap?
He lifts his hood to reveal Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight.
Yoda sitting on a log congratulates him and then coughs, Luke looks concerned.
Then the scene inside.
That way you can start the film (from Luke's end) on Dagobah and still have the mysterious intro, a final lesson that mirrors the first and sets up a scene at the end.
Is it doable?
"I'm just making this up as I go along"
The Gods are angry, they won't allow me to hotlink pictures from Clash Of The Titans.
Call me daft but the PT was (compared to most summer blockbusters these days) relatively cheap, why couldn't he just get some good writers in to do a sequel trilogy?
George keeps saying he's burned out Star Wars wise but he keeps making all these Star Wars things.
Why can't he just hand the baton over and give the fans what they want (the much promised trilogy of trilogies with him as far away from the last three as possible and the OT available to buy restored to it's former glory) he'd still rake in the money and in the free time he would now have do all those experimental projects he keeps going on about.
Seeing as the tactical display is transparent he could be looking through it to a window over to one side but it sounds like more effort than it's worth.
Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news but I've been trying to keep my posted images as small as necessary to get the point across (oversized images can break the flow of the thread and right clicking means that users can see the full sized image if they want a better view) but for the last few days whenever I try to reduce the in forum size of an image it posts the full sized version anyway.
Sorry folks but I couldn't resist it:
Indeed I'd love to see the various Jabba, Rancor and Sarlacc designs on other threads migrate over here too just to give people some inspiration but people without photo manipulation habits can just post descriptions of what they would like to see too.
Sometimes a few words can work better than a photoshop mockup.
Anything we come up with here could feed into the the other threads too so it could be a very useful point of focus.
Remember how effective Adywan's Cantina alterations were (and we know he has done similar work to some of the aliens in ESB, notably Yoda).
I like the floating but I think there would be more visable underneath (going by the earlier model pass), the colour is a bit too washed out in the mockup but it demonstrates the idea.
One of the things that gives Jar-Jar his cartoonish appearence (his voice and actions have been proved to be something that can be worked around) are things like his Bugs Bunny teeth and his bright colours.
We know he can exist underwater with as much ease as on land so giving him traditional toady colours and losing the teeth seemed to make sense.
Amphibians can come in a huge variety of hues but giving him bright colours makes him look clownish before he even does anything which spoils the small amount of comedy he should be allowed to get away with (after his worst excesses are trimmed away).
One design I wouldn't want to change much but instead add more movement to is the Quarren.
He has the tentacles, the mandibles, an impressive brow, a squishy tongue and little cranial flanges.
However none of these seem to move much it would sell his general squidgy squidness more to put more motion in there.
His hands could do with a bit of a make over too (rubber gloves are good for washing up but they can limit the authentic organic nature of a beast).
The pale blue featureless eyes also look a bit fake, adding a pupil in there might improve an already nice design.
To get the ball rolling how about a more toady/fishy Jar-Jar?
I thought I’d start a thread for suggestions and ideas for altering specific aliens or species in the Star Wars universe.
Change their colour, change their voice, add more animation to specific parts of their face, make their hands look less like rubber, change their eyes etc.
Take a good hard look at those creatures from a thousand stars and think how they could be improved.
Video, audio and visual mock-ups most welcome.
Let’s go up to lab and see what’s on the slab.
I too would like to see the Gungans altered to look less clownish in colour which with a redub would make them more approachable.
It might be worth setting up a gallery thread for suggested changes in specific aliens in ROTJ and the PT.
The line is cheesy but the kiss itself has a nice A Tale Of Two Cities feel to it, editing or altering the spoken lines could go some way to restoring the idea. Putting back the declaration of sentence of death scene would add to the comparison.