CO

The ultimate PT gusher thread at TFN was when I think her name was Rhonderoo posted, "Is ANH....meh?"

That sort of sums up the PT crowd that they talk about the Original Star Wars like its some boring movie and they don't understand the big deal about it. The best response was by someone from the Bashers Sanctuary, "ANH might be meh, but Star Wars is great." Great mocking of the fans that the movie was called Star Wars when we were growing up!

I remember Harrison Ford making one comment about the Prequels in the VH1 Special, "When Star Wars Ruled the World" in 2004. He said (I am paraphrasing), "And now George is making the new trilogy, or the unfunny trilogy!" As he smirks.....

Wolfman said:

I was in at the Gary Kurtz talk at Elstree Studios last month and after sharing some likes/dislikes of the SE, he also said that George should release the OOT on blu ray.

If you look at the PT vs OT, many things were different when Lucas made the PT compared to the OT.  He had Kershner and Marquand direct the OT sequels, while he directed all 3 PT movies.   He had Kasdan write the OT sequels, while he wrote all 3 PT movies.  He had a hands-on Producers in Kurtz who didnt cater to everything on Lucas, whereas Rick McCallum was a total lacky to everything Lucas wanted.

The one thing that didn't change with the OT and PT is John Williams, hence why the music for all 6 movies is great. 

Hoth-Nudist said:

Im right there with ya GF. I dont really think Luca$ is a trickster, just an overrated, talentless shmo that got lucky and made lots of shrewd business decisions.  Personally I dont hold Luca$ in the same light as I did from 77'-99'.  I used to think the world of him.  For the past 13 years Ive learned the UOT to be a collaborative effort, but with Luca$ name on it.  Originally George just wanted to make a Flash Gordon film, when that was rejected, he cobbled a bunch of space characters/ideas around on paper, and with TONS of collaborative help and editing and direction from REAL creative minds, we got ANH in 77.  Years ago at TF.N we had a forum called the "bashers sanctuary", which was created at the time of TPM, for obvious reasons.  Its shut down now, but I do recall there being many articles posted on Luca$'s original unedited scripts for the OT.  They were as circus-bad as the writing for the prequals.  I find it a blessing that Luca$ had executives telling him what he can't do and honest colleagues standing up to his silly ideas.  All in all I dont think Luca$ a trickster, but I do think he has held a grudge against all the people REALLY responsible for making the UOT spectacular, and has gone to great lengths to change and distort the UOT in order to avoid paying royalties and to thumb his nose at them.

 HN, we go back to the TFN days at the Bashers Sancttuary, and I think both sides goes too far in praise and criticism of Lucas.

I think the Pro-PT think Lucas had EVERYTHING to do with the success of SW, and think of him like a God and state that when they say, "Its his movies, so he can do what he wants with them."  So in that respect, they're wrong as they were more collaborative and there were others should be acknowledged for the success of SW.

But I think our side is wrong sometimes when they say Lucas is a talentless hack.  You can make that argument today, as I believe once he built Lucasfilm he was never going to be that renegade director who tooks chances.  But we must acknowledge whether it was collaborative or not, that he deserves alot of credit for the OT movies.   Of course Kersh, Kasdan, Kurtz, Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and others should get credit, and the 7 Academy Awards will always make that point.

I have always said Lucas is a like an athlete or musician and he was making SW in his prime, and making the PT well PAST his prime.  I mean Jedi isn't as great as SW and ESB, but that happens in every movie series.  Lucas isn't a GOD, but he's not a hack either.  He just a jerk for not releasing the OOT.

George Lucas couldn't even make an outline for the PT and stick with that story after he had 16 years to think about it, and you're saying that Lucas crafted this whole SW conspiracy back in 1977? 

Just remember that Luke kisses Leia in ESB and then they are siblings in ROTJ, so I don't think Lucas looks ahead at ANYTHING when he is writing SW.

Just bought the 'There's Something About Mary' Bluray today, and they have both the Original and Extended Cut. 

And its too expensive for Lucas to put both versions of the OT out  :-(

georgec said:

 To read about these jerkoff adults dressing up for the midnight show for this slop makes me embarrassed to be a human being.

 LOL!

TPM 3D made 23 million this weekend???   Thats pretty damn good for a movie thats been released before.  I swear I shake my head at this fanbase, and I think I just need to walk away for good as my only hope of a BluRay OOT look less and less possible.

I am telling you that Lucas could make a 2 hour movie of Darth Vader taking a shit in trash compactor of the Death Star, and fans would flock to it.  They would say, "Well, its still Star Wars!"  To read about these jerkoff adults dressing up for the midnight show for this slop makes me embarrassed to be a SW fan.  

You  notice you never see this shit in any other movie series except SW and shows how much the PT fans will go out of their way to try to make the movies relevant.

You never see any articles:  Why the Rocky Sequels are better then the Original Rocky!  Why Temple of Doom, Last Crusade and Crystal Skull are better then Raiders of the Lost Ark!  I could go on and one.

Here is my summation as to why the OT is better then the PT:  I like the movies more!  So stop telling me I'm wrong for not liking the PT movies!

I haven't checked over at TFN but they must be loving these comments by Lucas.  That is the sad thing about the internet is that it has made fans pick sides and defend stupid shit like this.  I guarantee they are continuing to use the old line, "Well, its his movies and he can do what he wants!"  I guarantee if they took a poll of ALL Star Wars fan the majority would want both versions and as much extra material on any boxset because that is the reason you buy a boxset, you want everything!

Just because there are a few extreme people on both sides (a few idiots on our side who have to wish death to Lucas), and (a few idiots on their side who love it when Lucas wont release the OOT), fans like me in the middle have to suffer.  Lucas is actually listening to both extreme sides on the internet (for some reason I have no idea) since he and all of us have never talked face to face!  Just listen to his daughter on Twitter, you can tell she is caught up on internet talk cause she is reciting all the talking points.

As much as I love the internet for the many tools it affords me in life that I didn't have 20 years ago, its pretty destructive because its gives many people a forum to talk and hide behind a computer, and they would talk MUCH differently if we were all face to face.

Sadly, George Lucas has bought into the internet bitching of a few, and lumped us altogether.  Pretty sad if you ask me. 

You think Lucas would release the OOT on BluRay just to get this fanbase off his back so he could focus on the younger generation with the Clone Wars stuff he is doing.

Its like the scene in 'A Bronx Tale' where the kid owes 'C' money and C wants to confront and him and chase him for his dough.  And Sonny says that the 20 dollars was the best money he ever lent out because that kid will never bother him again.

If Lucas put out the OOT on BluRay, the majority of the fanbase would probably walk away from SW along with their new OOT version and the only ones left would be the true whiners who can't let the PT go. 

This interview furthers my opinion that we will NEVER see the OOT fully restored on any format.   I'm sorry, but the guy has comtempt for this part of the fanbase, and seeing his daughters tweets about the OOT fans too, she won't be releasing the OOT either when she inherits Lucasfilm.

I will always laugh when Lucas is talking about how fanatical we are about the movies.....the same movies he's made billions of dollars off of and never needs to work another day in his life because of them.  If it werent for us fanatical fans who saw the movies a zillion times in the theater, on VHS, on action figures, he would be still tied to the studios instead of running his own empire. 

Geez....can he be somewhat grateful???

And whenever Lucas says that movies are being improved with each new version, I answer:

1980 ESB:  Luke doesn't scream when he falls from Cloud City

1997 ESB:  Luke DOES scream when he falls from Cloud City

2004 ESB:  Luke doesn't scream when he falls from Cloud City.

THIS IS CALLED TAMPERING!!!!

I will never understand George Lucas????  The SW BluRay saga set are the highest selling BluRays of alltime, the Prequels grossed over a billion dollars, SW itself has made Lucas a Billionaire and Lucas is mad at a small minority of people that rant and rave on the internet????

Talk about sour grapes.  Give me a billion dollars and a company like Lucasfilm, and the last thing I will be worrying about is what people say on the internet.

Talk about insecure!

These threads need sub-sections for arguing in the context of:

1977

1980

1983

2005

Because at each time period, you can look at the Star Wars universe in a different context due to Lucas changing the story despite it not matching up. 

Alexrd said:

CO said:

This was the first fatal plot hole of the SW movies when Darth Vader's name appeared in ROTJ.  If Luke was hidden from his father, why the hell would they use his same last name???????

Who said Skywalker was such an unique name?

 Doesnt matter, if someone goes into witness protection for the FBI, they give you ANOTHER name.  Its just common sense if you are trying to hide someone, you would first start by changing his/her last name.   ;)

Then again dying very young is the same as dying at childbirth in the SW universe.  So logic goes out the door sometimes!

This was the first fatal plot hole of the SW movies when Darth Vader's name appeared in ROTJ.  If Luke was hidden from his father, why the hell would they use his same last name???????

He could have been Luke Johnson, and it would have made sense.  Thats why you should never look too deeply into the SW movies, or you will be scratching your head at the obvious plot holes.

Sometimes trailers are misleading, but this looked kinda cheesy for such a serious subject from WWII.  The dialogue felt like Independence Day, but again this is only a few snippets so I cant assume its total cheese.

The key thing about any film for me:   Is it driven by the story and characters or the action and CGI?  If its just another Michael Bay CGI shitfest with lame characters, then I'll pass.  If they create good characters and tell a good story and the action is secondary, it could be a good movie.

nightstalkerpoet said:

 Most likely your watching the DVDs upconverted anyways. Which ones blend the effects better, and have a better feel to them?

 I lost touch of the whole BluRay details after they announced there was no OOT included.   Are you saying they didn't do a whole new restoration and just took the DVD's and converted them to 1080i for the Bluray Set?

If so, that is pretty lazy on Lucasfilm.

The interesting thing about Star Wars (taken in context without sequels) is that there are so many things in that Lucas gives from a military perspective, but there are just as many things he gives you from a fantasy perspective.

Tarkin is pure military, Vader is pure fantasy.  The whole empire is really taken from WWII fascist dictatorships (Lucas and Spielberg are huge WWII buffs)  Heck the stormtroopers are just like the SS as someone mentioned earlier.

I don't know who was the 'true' villain of Star Wars, but I think that is the brillance of the Original Star Wars:  As you get older, and understand miilitary history, you sort of understand the hiearchy of dictators and Tarkin seems like the real bad guy.  But as a kid, I was geared to the fantasy end more and I thought Vader was the real bad guy.

For whatever you want to say about Lucas and his later failings in the series, the Original Star Wars has alot of depth to it for a simple fairy tale movie.

I was 6 years old when it aired, I remember it very well for some reason.  I was over my aunts house and it was a train-wreck from the start.  I still haven't watched it since then so it would be funny to see it again.

I remember alot when I saw Jedi in the theater in '83, but I can't remember the crowd reaction when Leia tells Han that Luke is her brother.

However, I vividly remember when ESB SE came to theaters in 1997 and Leia kisses Luke, the whole crowd went, "Ewwwwwww!"