Never had a lasedisc player, but for anyone who has the Star Wars LD Set and the GOUT, which version would you say is better on an HDTV?
theprequelsrule said:
Wow. How does this guy have any credibility? I noticed the colour problems immediately (the Tantive's laser blasts were so dull).
You have to remember that Bill Hunt is routinely invited to Skywalker Ranch for previews when the DVD's came out and the Blurays just a few weeks ago.
If he blasts Lucasfilm, then he won't get that invite anymore. I email him all the time that he needs to take a stand against Lucas tinkering with these films and stop attending these Lucasfilm promotions because he doesn't look objective.
Of course, I dont' get a response, and I'm sure he will give this Bluray set a nice review, and just a passing mention that the movies have been altered again, and no originals in this set either.
Uhhhh..... If I don't have anything nice to say, don't say it.
:)
Then they very politely asked why he wouldn’t make the original versions of the movies available on DVD/Blu-Ray. They stressed that they don’t mind the retroactive edits (doubtful, but they were being nice), they just wanted good digital copies of the original cuts, too. Lucas’s response? An eyeroll and a huffy, “Grow up. These are my movies, not yours.”
What I have come to understand about Lucas is if you don't follow his vision 100%, he DOESNT want you to be a fan.
Think about it, he has been pulling this shit since 1980, except we were the fans who followed his vision back then so we never saw the way he treated the Star Wars 77 fans.
If you loved the Original Star Wars, everything changed in 1980. Vader became Lukes father, then a bigger smack in the face was Luke and Leia being siblings! Then Obiwan becomes the biggest liar as everything he says in the original is contradicted. Now the movie is called Episode IV: A New Hope, as it isn't referred by Lucas as Star Wars anymore. The only reason it was still listed as Star Wars on the VHS sleeves was because FOX owned the rights, but after they gave up the rights to SW for the right to distribute the PT, every release after was A New Hope.
Star Wars was never sold seperate as you had to buy the Star Wars Trilogy, or fuck you he could care less as you have to see the movies 4,5,6. Fast Forward to 1997, everything changes as we (OOT fans) are pushed aside like the SW 77 fans. The SE comes out and the OOT is nowhere to be found in good quality again. The PT comes out, and now the Saga is 1-6, and either you see it like that along with updates to the 4-6, or fuck you, that's the way the movies are now.
As much as I disagree with Lucas in his way of thinking, he has always had contempt for the fanbase that doesn't look at things his way RIGHT NOW at the moment. Right now, in his mind, the OOT crowd is old news, and he doesn't want us as part of the fanbase anymore, hence why he won't release the OOT the right way for us to enjoy it.
Star Wars Saga Boxset has been #1 on Amazon since it was announced, but has dropped to #2 this week to X-Men because of the pre-order cancellations.
Now as I have said, this set will still sell like hotcakes, but I firmly believe the NOOO change was the turning point in the 'casual' fan getting fed up with all the OT changes. When the 04 Set came out, there was not as much anger as I have seen by fans and columnists.
I'm starting to wonder with all these changes to the OT, is Spaceballs spoofing the OT or the OT spoofing Spaceballs?
:)
The fatal flaw were the characters, because as a viewer I could give a rats ass about most of them. The only character I somewhat gravitated to was Obiwan Kenobi, but I could honestly care less about Padme and Anakin.
I still think the overall story of the Prequels was pretty good, but Lucas couldn't pull off the emotional part of 99% of the scenes, so the movies just felt very stale when you watch them.
Star Wars Prequels are a perfect reason why I don't go to summer movies anymore, because most are flashy on action and CGI and light on character development and story.
People like Katie Lucas are the reason why Facebook and Twitter are a joke, and they don't understand how to use these social sites to their advantage.
I am on Twitter and Facebook and I actually use it to get breaking news information rather then announcing I am taking a shit after dinner tonight like many people do.
I read Katie's Tweets and its typical like many of my friends who post meaningless shit that nobody cares about. She has stuff like, "What should I do for dinner tonight?" "I am going out with friends." or "Just sittin at home and watchin a movie." NOBODY CARES!!!!
I have never posted anything on Facebook or Twitter about what I am doing for dinner. For twitter, I follow many news channels, reporters, etc who break information quicker then even many websites about stuff I'm interested in.
She uses Twitter like 90% of the people I know for trivial shit that is a waste of time, so of course she is going to get idiots posting on her twitter board wishing death to her father. I am not condoning their behavior towards her, but she doesn't use Twitter the right way, and she ends up getting in arguments with people she don't even know about her dads movies.
The tide maybe turning......
One of my friends who was buying the set, and has never been bothered by the changes Lucas made to the OT movies. I just played him a clip of the ROTJ change with Vader saying, "NOOO!" and he stood there in dead silence and then said, "Are you fucking kidding me?" I asked him if he was still buying the set, and he said, "I'm definitely reconsidering."
TheBoost said:
Went to TheForce.net forums for the first time. Aren't they are enemies?
Anyhoo, there's a thread in their OriginalTrilogy section that's 100% anti-"Nooooooo!" and in their Saga section its about 75% ant-"Nooooooo!"
That suprises me because the majority of those people are always lockstep in defending Lucas for changing anything.
Sadly, there are enough SW fans out there who will buy this product, so it won't make a dent in the Lucas bank. The only way he willl stop this shit is if one of the boxsets doesn't sell, and then they'll get the point. Now I am not saying that fans will endorse this change, but there are enough fans out there who love the movies so much, they put up with these changes.
I for one always thought Jedi was the weakest of the OT, and now Lucas has made this movie unwatchable for me, and that was BEFORE this ridiculous change! I still can't watch the ending with Dickhead Hayden as a force ghost, but now the WHOLE ending is ruined when Vader saves Luke.
It's really sad that SW has gotten this way, as it would be so easy for Lucas to bring back my enjoyment of the movies. I have so many BluRay movies and I am used to the great quality they display on screen, as I just can't go back to watching crappy laserdisk versions of the OOT. As a lifelong SW fan, I can honestly say I can't remember the last time I sat down and popped in a SW movie.
@Alexrd:
Not sure how long you have posted at TFN, but they pretty much ran every OOT fan off the site after Episode III. They had a whole forum called 'The Bashers Sanctuary' where fans could talk about their problems with the PT and that way we would stay out of the PT threads so it wouldn't get too heated. They closed that in 2006 during the release of the OOT DVD's, and thats when all hell broke loose.
I am one of them as I got permabanned there for arguing with many PT fans during the 06 OOT Non-Anamorphic Release.
What pissed me off is many them were laughing that Lucas was putting out a shitty release of the OOT after it was announced that wasn't restored, and they would say to me, "You are getting what you deserve!" The mods would do nothing as the main rule at TFN is no baiting or no talk about fans or fanbases (meaning generalizing).
So I went back at them, and it got heated, and I was permabanned there, yet the PT fans who argued with me were still posting. After that there was a huge effort to rid of any OOT fan, as most of us left there for OT.com or Outerrimsieges.com.
The sad thing is at one time it was a pretty good site as it had a good combo of PT fans and OOT fans, and there was alot of good threads. Then they tilted to the PT fans and ran all the OOT fans off, and the site is an utter joke these days.
I never hated the PT, essentially because I never thought they would be as good as the OT back in 99, so I was never disappointed.
I said in another thread if the OOT was never touched, and every SW release contained the OOT + PT, I would buy them everytime the same way I buy the Godfather Trilogy everytime even though I am not a fan of Part III.
I have always said that the irony of the Special Edition is Lucas actually created the OOT fanbase, and if he didn't fuck with the movies, I would be a saga fan even though I am not a huge fan of the PT.
Gaffer Tape said:
I agree with Puggo. "Resent" is the word I would choose. Yes, the prequels are pretty awful, but I do sometimes enjoy watching them (although I probably haven't watched any of them in at least two years). What causes my resentment is the fact that they are infiltrating the other movies. People like Katie Lucas bitch at us and say that if we don't like it, we can just ignore it. But, no, we can't. Not when the only modern release of the original trilogy is trying to shove prequel crap down our throats.
Exactly. If the Star Wars Saga consisted of the OOT and PT for the fans, then many of us wouldn't even care about the PT the same way I don't care about Godfather III.
But the fact that this BluRay release will feature Hayden in ROTJ, the PT IS apart of the OT now.
mfastx said:
The prequels were doomed from the start. We already know what happens. We already know who lives, and who dies.
It's hard to get in to a sequence with, say, Obi-Wan Kenobi, because we know that he lives, so he can't die. It's hard to get into a movie when you already konw what happens.
Apollo 13 and Titanic come to mind of knowing the outcome before I walked into the theater. Both were very good movies, IMO.
I have said this many times but in fairness to Lucas, did anyone expect the PT to be as good as the OT? The key to any movie (IMO) is characters, if you don't have great characters, and don't care about the characters, then everything else doesn't work.
I remember telling my friends (who were juiced for the PT) in the spring of 99, that the PT wouldn't be as good as the OT because I don't think Lucas is going to be able to create another round of lovable characters. The OT cast is magical and like most great movies it is lightning in a bottle that cant be duplicated. Han, Luke, Leia, Chewy, Obiwan, R2, C3PO, and Vader, those characters are iconic, and fans cared about them. For great characters to succeed you have to have chemistry, you have to have to hire the right actor for that role, there is ALOT of luck involved.
Now you're asking Lucas to create another trilogy with iconic characters that equal the OT characters? It was never going to happen, because if it did then more sequels were be great.
I more amazed that ESB is a classic then the PT not living up to the OT (IMO), because the odds of making a great sequel/prequel that equals its original are very rare.
Star Wars: A+
Empire : A+
Jedi : C+
Menace : D
Clones : C
Sith : C
ChainsawAsh said:
I believe it was written and shot one way, then at the last minute George changed his mind, rewrote it, and reshot it before release.
I'd like to see the original version.
Zombie talked about this before, but here is the jist of it (and Zombie can correct me on anything I missed).
Lucas shoots Anakin turning to the darkside right when Palpatine reveals himself to be the Sith Lord. This context of the turn was more to do about power and how the jedi were treating him, and really didn't do as much about Palatpine conning him about trying to cheat death and save Padme.
So Lucas shoots the turn scene (and Anakin stands by Palpatines side when Mace and Co. come to arrest him) He then shoots the rest of the movie in the context of Anakin doing it for power and hatred of the jedi, so the next scene is him killing jedi at the temple.
The whole Mustafar fight is shot in the context of Anakin wanting more power thats why he says to Obiwan (something to the effect: "I knew all along that the jedi were evil." And Obiwan says, "When then you are lost!"
So Lucas watches dailies and thinks the turn scene doesn't work, as he feels it falls flat. So he changes the whole context of the turn, now that he is SOLELY doing it for Padme to add emotion.
The problem is he didn't reshoot the rest of the fucking movie in that context!!! That is why it doesn't make sense that Anakin kills all the jedi at the temple the second after he pledges to Sidious to learn the trick of cheating death. The whole Mustafar scene is still in the context of power, and hatred for Jedi yet we are to believe this fight happens because Anakin wants to save Padme from certain death???
I used to love bringing this up to the gushers at TFN, as they had no defense. The whole movie and trilogy fails because Lucas could not execute Anakins turn in my book. I actually liked the PT until the turn scene, as I find the whole execution worse then Jar Jar!
Hayden added in as the force ghost in ROTJ
-:)
zombie84 said:
It's the 2004 telecine/transfer, but not the same master. It's a new master derived from the 2004 HD master. The difference is that they have increased the gamma to resolve some of the dimness issues of the 2004 release. Of course, this introduces its own set of problems.
Zombie, if I pop in my 2004 DVD's in my BluRay player and upscale them, how close to quality will it be to the new BluRay set in September?
I will always contend it doesn't matter which order a person first sees in the movies as quality will rule out in the end. So whatever the person sees as good or bad movies will not be affected by seeing them 1-6, or 4-6/1-3.
I grew up in the age before VHS early 80's and saw many sequels before the original simply because they came on HBO at that time. I saw Jaws 2 before Jaws, I saw Rocky II before Rocky, and saw Temple of Doom before Raiders. I had differening opinions of all those movies series growing up because I saw them out of order, but through the years the quality of each movie ruled out in what was my favorite. Rocky, Raiders, and Jaws are my favorite of the series, just as SW & Empire are my favorite of the series even though I loved Jedi more as a kid.
As much as I am not a fan of the PT, I have no problem with kids seeing them even first, because when they older the quality of each one will rule out.
@Tyrphanax:
I totally agree with your outline of the PT, as I always thought it should have started in Episode II.
I think the first scene of Episode I should have been Obiwan/Anakin on the elevator talking about that adventure where Anakin saves him. In fact all through Episode I they should have been friends, so the damn audience can actually like the character of Anakin!
The idea of having 2 actors play Anakin 10 years apart was a bad decision by Lucas, because youre asking the audience to like 2 different actors, and it is jarring at the beginning of Episode as you get used to an older Anakin. What makes ESB so great is that all the characters are there from Star Wars, the audience doesnt need any introductions, and the movie can get right into the plot.
As for Episode II, Lucas should have had Palpatine play on Anakin the whole movie and then he turns at the end of the movie, or some type of cliffhanger that makes you wonder if he turns.
Then ALL of Episode III can be a 2+ hour movie of the last hour of ROTS that is on screen now, as it wouldn't seem like a connect the dots movie as it is now.
The OT movies have been on Spike all weekend, and I noticed this is what it says about the movies when you hit the info button:
Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back (1997) Reissue of the 1980 Classic follows Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance in their continuing star wars with Darth Vader.
Before it used to say (1980) and no mention of 'reissue' either.
Do you think this is good or bad? Atleast they mention it's a reissue, so newer fans will have some reference that there was an older version.
dark_jedi said:
I was wondering how long it would be until that crowd made its way here, this BD EE Set is really, really nice, you will be amazed at how it looks if you just watch it yourself and not just believe everything you read.
I don't what crowd you are referring to? I am not a huge LOTR fan, but it has been all over the internet, so I wanted to see if there was any validity to this?
Not to change the subject, but it does have something to do with the future SW BlurRays:
Has anyone read that the new Lord of the Rings BluRay (Extended Editions), the colors on the Fellowship of the Ring version are fucked up. I know that the studio had to make a press release defending the transfer, but alot of the comments on the internet have been pretty negative.
This sounds like the '04 SW DVD release, how do studio's fuck this up? Doesn't someone pick this up before its released?
Tyrphanax said:
And I find it mind-boggling that some people, Anchorhead, for example, would limit their Star Wars universe so severely when I think that ESB was a masterpiece and that there's a ton of really great EU out there. But at the same time, I don't fault them for it.
I talked about this in another thread, but I know alot of people who consider Star Wars '77 their true canon and think the rest of the stuff is alright.
It all depends on when you're born in alot of instances (now i am generalizing so not everyone will be lockstep). I am 38 years old, and saw SW in '77 at 5 years, so EVERYONE of my friends is an OOT fan, as we love SW, love ESB, and put up with Jedi because it completes the trilogy.
Most of my older brothers friends are just SW '77 fans. They saw SW in '77 at 12-13 years old, and by the time they saw ESB/ Jedi they were highschool and thought the Vader revelation was where the series went wrong, and kind of laugh at Jedi the same way many of us laugh at the PT.
So trust me, there are a load of fans who don't think ESB is the greatest movie (I am not one of them as I love the movie), but if you look at the re-release in 1997, the total grosses of each movie do tell you something about the OT generation:
Star Wars: 138 Million
Empire: 57 million
Jedi: 45 million