Broom Kid

People are guessing (details haven’t been released as to what the contents are)

9 4k UHD discs (one per film)
9 Blu-ray discs (one per film)
9 bonus discs (one per film)

And that seems to be the best bet considering the blu-ray only set is exactly 9 discs less than the 4k set.

It could be possible that the 9 bonus discs are not a per-film thing (this is where whatever original versions hope one might have still lives) at which point you could have the bonuses broken out in a bunch of different ways, with three discs (or even more, considering the theatrical cuts of the Prequels aren’t available anymore either) dedicated to presenting the originals at 1080p, and all the rest of the bonus features occupying whatever discs are left.

I guess the sense of contention I’m feeling is basically that I said “I would probably buy these if it had X thing that I want and I think has a lot of value” and the direct responses TO that contain a lot of things that essentially suggest “the thing you want is basically worthless, let me count the ways.”

Like this whole scenario:

And if this set is the only way to get them, then that’s 27 really expensive coasters heading my way, 24 of which I suppose I can immediately throw away, and three of which I can handle like my existing official Blu-rays: glue them all together, put a string through the middle, and suspend them inside one of the cavities in the walls of my house, so nobody accidentally watches them or stumbles across them and thinks that I like those films enough to buy them, but good enough to fish out if someone ever questions my legitimate ownership requirement for the fan reconstruction.

I guess it’s just coming across as sort of a passive-aggressive means to minimize the possibility I might get something out of this official release, which seems like a weird response to my direct statements (and direct conversations) explaining why I want a thing, and would get said thing if it was provided. You say it isn’t an implication that I’m making some sort of mistake in finding something potentially worthwhile in this set (should it even be there), but it feels that way to me, and apologies on my part if that’s a misunderstanding, but I’m not really convinced it actually is, considering your direct response denying any implication really exists is essentially “oh, well, that’s all well and good but the thing you want is so worthless to me I wouldn’t just destroy it, I’d turn it into something so unusable I’d put it INSIDE the walls of my home so I wouldn’t have to pretend I even own it unless the Fan Edit police come and investigate me.”

It’s hard to believe there’s no implication there of subtly suggesting or demonstrating that accepting any conditions by which this set might have value is being frowned upon.

I’ll stop bringing it up. Apologies to all, again.

I liked both Jedi Starfighter designs. The “sorta-kinda mini-Stardestroyer” ones AND the “Sorta-kinda TIE-fighter/Stardestroyer hybrid” ones.

Sebulba’s pod is a pretty fun design as well. That and Mars Guo’s pod are probably the best looking machines in The Phantom Menace, I’d say. I really like how they look. Mars Guo was my main character in Episode I Racer mostly because I liked the way his pod looked.

I doubt even PT fans could name any of Padme’s ships.

There’s the one that looks like a silver bar of soap

And the other one that looks like a silver bar of soap.

I think the Clone/Republic Gunship is a great design. For my part, if I think “prequel ship” I think that one. What it has going for it is essentially the same thing the Falcon had going for it - there was a core recognizability in its shape that allowed you to essentially “play” with it whether or not you had a toy.

If you ever had a paper binder around the house or on a nearby desk, you had a gunship.

I also agree that the prequel saber designs were mostly great.

The PT is even more “reverse engineered” than the ST is. The amount of “reverse engineering” is the whole reason people honestly believe “The Ring Theory” has merit.

The PT films are ALL bad stories, but they’re bad not because they’re reverse engineered, but because the ideas behind each entry aren’t elaborated upon, or executed competently. They’re THERE. But their mere presence isn’t enough to justify the larger story they’re trying to prop up.

The ST has one decent-ish story (TFA) that led into one great story (TLJ) that ended with a giant mess (TROS). Execution means more than intent at all times. If you execute well the intent doesn’t even really get questioned. If you don’t execute well… well, you wind up here, haha.

A movie making a billion is still a very big deal, no doubt, and Rise of Skywalker is likely going to start making a profit (I should put quotes around it considering how Hollywood accounting tends to work) very soon, but it’s all about those certain points of view.

Making Rogue One money domestically (between 510-540) and settling around the 1bil mark (970-1.05) worldwide is a huge haul for 2019’s box office. That domestic would put Rise of Skywalker at #3 for the year, behind Avengers: Endgame (The #1 film of all time) and The Lion King remake. That’s a success by most metrics.

It’s only when you acknowledge that the final episode of the sequel trilogy will fall about $100 mil short of its predecessor (never before happened in Star Wars history), and might end up making just barely more worldwide than the first episode did DOMESTICALLY (and that worldwide number might only be good for #9 on the 2019 ww list, under JOKER) that you start to get a sense of how much goodwill got eroded by this movie. No matter what happens from this point forward, this film is going to be the worst reviewed film in the ST, and the lowest-earning as well.

Slavicuss said:

Steal what? You mean like all the people that have downloaded the fan restorations/preservations? perhaps yourself included?

I’ve spent enough money on STAR WARS over the decades, I’m not wasting more money on constantly revised rubbish that barely resembles the classic original films.

I promised myself I would only be interested in this if the originals are included.
I would like to own the official product and not a fan edit. I don’t have a problem paying for it.

What you just described isn’t the same as what you’d initially said. You don’t already own a version of blu-ray extras that haven’t ever been made, so you “waiting til they’re online” isn’t the same thing. That’s just pirating. The amount of money you’ve spent and the personal promises you’ve made (and the entitlement you think it provides you) is your business, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the point I’m making, which you just unintentionally highlighted with the bolded:

I would like to own the official product. An official version (possibly taken from new elements, even) of the full scores to ALL the Star Wars movies in that set, synced to picture. That doesn’t exist yet. It’s never existed, in fact. if this set has it, I’m going to buy it. I don’t know why this has become such a point of contention. There’s a lot of unreleased music I’d love to listen to and this hypothetical extra would give it to me.

If we’re going to start arguing that “well what you’d like to see in an official release already exists in a fan-edit so why bother” that kinda defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

(Besides - for most of these movies what I’d like to see - or hear, rather - doesn’t exist in a fan-edit).

I believe it’s also an option on 4K83 - and there’s a version where the music from Ben Kenobi’s sit-down with Luke is restored to picture as well.

I do believe there’s more than that, but even if there isn’t, there’s still a ton from The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens, and The Rise of Skywalker that hasn’t been released yet.

Besides which, being able to watch the movies with that music synced to picture hasn’t been an officially released option ever.

Again - if you choose to describe HOURS of new music never before released as “meaningless” because three of the 9 films will have that music synced to the 4K cuts, that’s your choice, but I don’t understand describing John Williams’ Star Wars music as “meaningless” in any context, really. It obviously has some value otherwise you wouldn’t be implying that you’ll just steal it once it’s pirated online anyway.

My hypothetically choosing to buy a hypothetical set with Isolated Scores of John Williams’ compositions isn’t encouraging Disney to bury the originals. And as has been stated before - the idea they’re going to be encouraged or discouraged by anything we do at this point is pretty silly.

As an aside: I’m getting the sense people here might honestly believe all the music in the OT was presented exactly as Williams composed it and it wasn’t changed until 1997? That’s very much not true. And further - a LOT of the music we have gotten from the OT we only got thanks to the SE being released in theaters. Before that, some of it saw official release in 1993, but up until that release, all we had were the original album releases.

There is still a LOT of Star Wars music we haven’t heard outside of their placement in the films, and if there’s an extra that allows us to hear it, that’s a worthwhile extra, to me.

Update: That 75-77 estimate might be way low. Looks like Saturday is looking to drop to the 21-22 range. If Sunday follows the standard 10% drop from Saturdays, That’d put it around 68mil for the weekend. Saturday dropping from Friday is the first real piece of un-spinnably BAD news this movie’s had. Movies (especially super-popular ones) aren’t supposed to decline day-to-day over the weekend.

It’s very likely Rise of Skywalker will permanently fall behind The Last Jedi’s pace either Wednesday or Thursday, and if the drops maintain this pace, not only will $1bil worldwide be in jeopardy, but breaking $500mil will also. In good news - it’s looking like of all the contestants, Rocknroll41 has the best shot at hitting the trifecta.

If I can get literal hours of unreleased John Williams music via isolated scores on this set, I’ll absolutely pay for that. That’s a pretty valuable “extra” should it be included, and it’s probably the last “big” extra that’s never appeared in any set. Even Lucas admitted that a huge reason any of this ever worked was due to that music, and I think a set for “The Skywalker Saga” could stand to dedicate something more than just a puff-piece 10min EPK to celebrating Williams’ contributions. Isolated scores containing hours of music we’ve never had a chance to hear or own before is a great way to do that.

DrDre said:

Both JJ and RJ reverse engineered the OT to figure out where to go with their part(s) of the story either in an attempt to replicate the Star Wars formula, or to deliberately starkly deviate from it at key moments, but neither feels like a good, and natural way of developing a story to me. It feels very artificial, like the writer is constantly aware someone (the audience) is watching over their shoulders, and so the entire trilogy is shaped by what the writers’ believe are the audience’s expectations, and they either chose to cater to, or subvert those expectations.

There are only 2 films I can think of in the entire saga that didn’t do the above (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back).

Writers are always aware the audience is watching/reading. Knowing that isn’t a bad thing. Catering to it CAN be a bad thing, depending on how indulgent the writers get. Pandering is absolutely a bad thing. But many good, natural ways of developing stories involve keeping the audience in mind. “Write for yourself first” is great advice for any storyteller, but that “First” implies that there ARE other concerns to keep in mind as well.

But creation (especially on a scale this big) isn’t all inspiration and desire. Sometimes you have to plink and plunk at it, and that can feel (or appear to be from the backseat) artificial in the moment. That’s where the craft comes in. Passion can’t get a project across the line alone. Often you have to “artificially” introduce things that didn’t just appear in a flash, hand-delivered from the muse.

But that’s also a huge part of why I feel like judging finished work mostly on suppositions of behind-the-scenes machinations and making-of anecdotes isn’t very useful. Most of the audience will never know HOW a thing got made, or what went into its making, or even think to wonder about that aspect, and it honestly shouldn’t really matter. What matters is if it works or if it doesn’t - and if it doesn’t, WHY it doesn’t should be pretty clearly explained without having to go “I bet the guy who wrote it just didn’t feel it like this other guy did.”

Granted, The Rise of Skywalker was very obviously fumbled in its execution and I imagine there are plenty of behind-the-scenes stories we’ll hear eventually as to why it’s such a mess. But acting like the very business of creating fiction is somehow “artificial” because they had knowledge of “the formula” and chose to tinker with the recipe for their own purposes seems like a weird read considering how often that exact bit of business is NECESSARY as a creator to come up with solid work.

Just because we notice the artifice involved in creating and maintaining good fiction doesn’t mean that by the mere fact of our noticing it that it’s now BAD. That’s unfair not only to the writer, but to us as well, because it assumes that we shouldn’t be smart enough to spot seams if we’re looking for them. Of course we are. Most audience members are, honestly. The magic of a good story is that it distracts us from looking, or it engenders enough goodwill that even if we do spot the seams - we don’t care. In some cases, even the seams look good to us.

Basically, what I’m saying is: The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t work because the elements IN the story aren’t well-thought-out, and aren’t executed very well on top of that. If I’m not willing to indulge an imaginative exercise as to how a fabulous movie I watched this weekend was written and executed - like, for example, I didn’t finish watching Little Women the other day and conjure up a possible story as to how Greta Gerwig adapted the book to explain why it worked the way it did - I don’t know that it makes sense for me to do that when JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio drop the ball.

I do think it’s safe to assume they didn’t MEAN to drop the ball.

theMaestro said:

Weren’t the finalized scores for some of the prequels hastily chopped up in editing? If I recall, John Williams wrote a letter to Lucas expressing his displeasure at how his music had been chopped up in episode 1. The scores for the original trilogy probably don’t have this problem because the final cut was locked down before Williams started scoring, though some weird edits may still have been introduced from all the special edition tinkering. So given that this is an issue, I can’t imagine that they’d just use the current “film version” of those scores as the isolated score tracks. And going in to smooth out some of the choppiness seems like work…and we all know they won’t bother doing extra work for something like this.

So given the two possibilities that they’d either include the final film versions of the scores for all the movies or not include any at all, I predict it’ll be the latter. Letting us hear the isolated scores will just expose how they were edited from their original compositions. I personally wouldn’t mind it, but I can’t see them releasing something like that.

There was some chopping going on in basically every movie but the very first. Return of the Jedi is probably the most cut-up of the scores in the OT (although Empire had its own fair amount of flat-out deleted cues and tracked music), and a huge part of Attack of the Clones’ climax didn’t even have music written for it because I believe Lucas told Williams his intent was to track in Phantom Menace music for most of the Geonosis battle (and some of that tracking doesn’t sound great).

I don’t know that the “Williams sent Lucas a letter” story has any truth to it - it’s one of those “facts” that fans regularly trot out that never has a lot of linking back or validation to follow it up. I find it unlikely mostly because I can’t imagine Williams would have to write him a letter to voice his displeasure, or that if he was THAT displeased that he’d come back for future scores. Williams has no problem walking away from legendary scores if he doesn’t feel like it would be worth his time (Superman, Jaws, Jurassic Park, etc)

I can understand why people would choose to look at the isolated score as “this exposes the editing flaws” but I don’t see that as being their primary utility, nor would it really “expose” the fact the film was edited (there are much more clear, telltale signs of post-production shenanigans than music cuts). The fact is that even though there are obvious cuts and tracking going on in basically every movie to some degree (and some more than others) there are also TONS of cues that have never before seen an official release, and that music doesn’t exist anywhere else. I can’t imagine anyone’s primary concern at Disney re: isolated scores is “but if we release it this way they’ll KNOW WE EDITED THE MOVIE”

Yes, any isolated score wouldn’t be a PERFECT presentation of the unaltered music as Williams initially wrote it, but I also don’t NEED it to be for this. The option to toggle a score-only version of the movie while watching would probably be, for me, the best extra that hasn’t yet been made available for the OT/PT.

That’s why I said “accompanying” it. I know it wasn’t on the disc, but thank you for the correction. Any isolated score inclusion, on-disc or not, that accompanies this set’s release, is welcomed, and would earn my purchase of this set by itself.

Again - I understand some people saying “no Original Versions, no sale” but I don’t agree. I don’t know if I’ll be getting this set yet, it really does depend on the new transfers, and whatever documentaries might be included, but of primary interest to me is seeing whether or not Isolated Scores will be included.

The original versions at least saw A release during the DVD era. Yes, they were the Def. Edition laserdisc masters, and I know how that doesn’t really “count” for many (myself included) but still - they at least got added as a bonus feature at SOME point in this saga’s long home video history.

There isn’t a single Star Wars release on DVD or Blu-Ray that’s EVER had an isolated score accompanying it, aside from The Last Jedi. I would 100% pay full price for a box-set that gives me the option to toggle to watching the movies with John Williams’ score. Or further, with alternate takes mixed back into the picture. That’s definitely pie-in-the-skying it, but still - if this set has isolated scores for every movie on it - that’s a must-buy for me.

It’s closer to 2.5x budget, and even then that’s maybe outdated at this point. But 2.5x is the rule-of-thumb now. I think it has something to do with studios aiming for large international numbers despite the fact international money usually only returns somewhere between 20-25% of a ticket, where domestic is 50% of a ticket.

I think the next season is going to have to do some light-to-heavy lifting on educating its characters (and by extension, its audience) on how understandably-yet-weirdly misinformed they are about the larger galaxy. I think it’s great that these people are mystified and bewildered about the larger truths of the universe they occupy. Yoda’s species (and Jedi in general) are considered an “Enemy sorcerers,” the Mandalorians themselves operate under a code that obviously wasn’t being observed by the larger Mandalorian people as little as a decade prior to this show’s beginning.

The Darksaber’s presence hints that those discoveries are coming, and I think the one-two reality-shaking revelations for Din and co. are going to provide a lot of dramatic opportunities I hope the creators are up to the task of exploring. It’s a really cool hook they’ve provided, because it puts the audience members one up on the characters they’re watching, and that can make for some very satisfying storytelling depending on how they ratchet up the tension in those revelations coming to fruition.

2nd Weekend is looking to land somewhere around 75-76mil.

With that sort of turnout for the 2nd weekend, chances are pretty good this stops around Rogue One’s total. Whether its more or less depends a lot on that 3rd weekend drop, and if the weekdays hold somewhat steady, or continue to decline. (It’s also possible the actuals for this weekend are lower than 75-76… today’s totals seem to be DECLINING from yesterday’s. Which is a very bad sign)

it’s been great seeing more now accepting the numbers you’ve always stuck by

As one who pushed back on those numbers, I still don’t think the pushback was out of bounds. Anticipation WAS higher for the film than those numbers were suggesting right up until the first reviews started dropping, and only started to settle in around those numbers after it became clear to general audiences that the quality of the film wasn’t up to the modern era’s standards (whose low point was Solo and whose high point was The Last Jedi).

The numbers as posted earlier in the thread were, I think it’s safe to say, crafted with the assumption the film wasn’t going to be the worst reviewed film Star Wars film in the last 20 years. Had this film delivered on the promises made in either TFA or TLJ (or optimally, both, which wasn’t impossible, btw) I don’t think those numbers would have borne out as accurate. It took the movie being a giant mess for those numbers to finally fit.

Also - looking at international numbers, I should specify: Barring a further fall-off in audience engagement, “Stopping around Rogue One’s total” refers to domestic. It’s still pretty possible it doesn’t make a billion worldwide as international audiences aren’t responding very well either.

It’s Qui-Gon.

That doesn’t really have anything to do with camera moves though. And genre can inform style, but it also doesn’t dictate it. Star Wars isn’t “niche” anything, and never has been.

Looks like Sunday was 1.5mil higher than they intially projected this AM. So $177 mil OW.

Star Wars isn’t a genre. I haven’t missed your point, I think maybe you’re not grasping the terms you’re trying to use to arrive at the definitions that aren’t quite right. And your description of genre honestly doesn’t have much to do with filmmaking techniques anyway, because now you’re talking about character types and characterization tropes.

ray_afraid said:
There’s only a very small fraction of sad weirdos doing that.

This really isn’t true. And even if it was true, that wouldn’t make it acceptable. All I’ve said is that it isn’t acceptable, people aren’t helpless to engage in it, and I’ll I’ve really gotten back is “Yes it is, yes they are, and on top of that he brought it on himself.”

It’s not a small fraction of sad weirdos. It’s a lot of people. It’s happened in here many times. I don’t agree with it, is all. I can’t stop people from doing it, but I can choose not to join in, and that’s my choice. I can disagree with the man without maligning him personally and attributing things to him out of spite and anger. And if I’m in a position to debunk false accusations and ugly conspiracies, I’ll do that, because I think that’s only fair.

ray_afraid said:

Slavicuss said:

All the anger and bitterness could have been easily avoided if he released the originals alongside his preferred SEs.

Broom Kid said:

Definitely, but on the other hand, it’s not his fault people are being like that.

So, it’s his fault, but it’s also not his fault?
Hmm…

No - I agree that anger and bitterness would have been avoided if the thing that happened hadn’t actually happened. But that doesn’t mean he deserves to be blamed for other people’s actions and behaviors. Again, that’s some victim-blaming thought process going on. “You made me do this. You made us do this. Look at what you made me do.” It’s pretty poor justification for acting in a way you don’t have to act. You have a choice to take things that personally. You’re not helpless.

And to be clear, I’m not any different here. I used to indulge the sort of easy, cynical, and mean-spirited demonization of this guy despite never knowing him, meeting him, hanging out with him, or having really anything to do with him other than watching his movies and buying the stuff. The whole of my “relationship” with George Lucas is consuming product, and that’s it. And after seeing the toll the internet and people’s behaviors have taken on so many people, not just associated with Star Wars but associated with ANYTHING remotely popular, there is no amount of product consumption that bestows upon me the absolute right to treat another human being like dirt. Even when I convince myself it’s justified, or worse, that it’s okay because he’ll never see me doing it. I’m still contributing to a pretty mean-spirited and shitty atmosphere towards a man who never did anything to me personally, for no other reason than he didn’t let me buy a blu-ray.

I think it sucks I can’t buy that blu-ray. It’s why I’m here, obviously. But I can think it sucks, and I can think he’s wrong, but I don’t have to let it personally affect me to the point where I’m indulging in conspiracy theories and ugly insults. That’s my choice to make. I used to make a different one than I do now. And making that other choice back then didn’t make me feel any better, in hindsight. It certainly didn’t get me what I want, either.

I don’t think it’s a gotcha at all, it’s basically going to my point! You gotta let Star Wars grow visually, and Star Wars is often the best possible vehicle to introduce new/more interesting ways to make movies in general. I often think the biggest positive the Prequels have going for them is that they were so groundbreaking in terms of how movies got made for the next 20 years, much in the same ways the Originals were.

Basically, some of the best movies of the last 20 years probably wouldn’t even have gotten MADE if it werent for the way the Prequels changed the production models in the industry. Attack of the Clones is a flat-out bad movie, and it’s not made very well on top of that - but a lot of what that movie did right became the basis for a TON of productions going forward, and those productions realized the promise of that movie and its production.

And to Ray’s question: Of course these are the right tools. Why wouldn’t they be? I can’t really see an argument that suggests Star Wars can’t avail itself of new tools, new ways of looking at things (especially since the series has a history of not only doing JUST that, but inventing more than a few along the way) simply because your favorite Star Wars was made in a time when those tools didn’t exist. The argument tends to become a binary disagreement over whether one tool is better than another and one tool should be used AT THE EXPENSE of the other, but I don’t like those arguments. Any POV that says ANY of those tools need to be taken out of a filmmaker’s toolbox is one I just disagree with. Let these people use what’s available to tell the story the best way it can be told. And if that means modern visual elements are being applied, I’m more than fine with that. If they’re blending them, that’s fine too. But that’s more a conversation about design and practical vs. cgi, and this conversation was at least initially more about filmmaking techniques. Cinematography, blocking, camera movements, that sort of stuff.

I think the big problem (and Creox is kind of getting at it) has more to do with people artificially limiting what Star Wars can be based on a sense of “tradition” where it doesn’t really exist. If anything, the most reliable “tradition” when it comes to Star Wars’ visuals is that it traditionally pushes the envelope when it can and it’s makers do what it needs to to stay relevant to the audiences they’re trying to reach.

Granted, you can use tools poorly, and I wouldn’t disagree that The Rise of Skywalker did so. It’s a very, VERY poorly edited movie. But I don’t think that movie’s problems are primarily with the fact the camera moves more, and the framing is often pretty dynamic (extreme low and high angles) in a way that wasn’t really seen in 77 or 80.

The phrase “typical blockbuster” is also sort of… styrofoam, to me. Some of the biggest blockbusters of the last few years don’t have a lot in common, visually or stylistically. They’re doing different things, and the variety of eyes behind the camera lead to very interesting, and rewarding, results. I think arguing Star Wars shouldn’t be a part of that simply because other very successful and very entertaining movies are already doing it is kind of a weirdly defeatist argument, and one that again relies on this weird notion that Star Wars is “precious” and needs to be treated as such.

It’s not precious. Not anymore. Hasn’t been since the late '90s, honestly, and it often feels like Star Wars fandom’s most pressing, constant source of friction comes from its members refusing to deal with that simple fact. Once you accept that other movies can do what Star Wars did, and ARE doing it, and HAVE been doing it for AWHILE now, it becomes EASIER to accept that Star Wars can (and should) shift with the times it finds itself occupying.