CatBus

Yes, we have Brazilian Portuguese subtitles in BD-SUP format, and PM sent.

Or poking a dead bear.

I liked the changes to signature lines and occasionally usernames.  Your whole trilogy got Italian releases:

Episodio I: La Minaccia Ridicolo / Episodio II: L'attacco dei ridicolo / Episodio III: La vendetta dei ridicolo

PM's sent.

It really doesn't make a whole lot more sense in English.

TV's Frink said:

I don't post nonsense on an Italian Star Wars site.

Are you sure?

TV's Frink said:

There is no try.

Only Zuul.

You mean he's a ...?

I just tried to send you Peter Mayhew but apparently there's some sort of nonsense bureaucratic restriction about people in packages.  Will you thank me for trying?

DuracellEnergizer said:

Personally, I'm used to disappointment when it comes to anything. ;-(

Give pessimism a try.  If you do it right, you'll never be disappointed again.

PM sent.

SilverWook said:

CatBus said:

SilverWook said:

Were there any insiders expressing dismay about TPM back in 1999 though?

The internet rumor mill wasn't what it is now of course.

The only advance warning I got about TPM was a local popular theatre owner who declined to show TPM after they saw a preview screening.  It seemed like a crazy decision at the time--it even warranted a local newspaper story where they essentially were asked to explain themselves, because it was right in the middle of the crazy TPM-buzz-media-blitz, and how can you not show Star Wars?

But I think even if TFA's pretty bad, most people would still show it--even this theatre--because it would draw crowds and money regardless.  It would have to be a real howling dog for it to get the TPM treatment, and I don't really think that's in the cards.  And in the end, TPM (hell, even ROTS!) made fistfuls of money, so it proved that even if the theatre ultimately boosted its reputation by avoiding TPM, they still lost money on that decision.

 I wonder if that fellow regretted the decision? If he's even still in business after that. ;)

I can't answer either of those with absolute certainty, but they were still in business last time I checked, and they didn't run AOTC or ROTS, so I'm guessing No and Yes.

Admittedly it was a small independent theatre, and while they did run mainstream first-run blockbuster stuff, they also ran their share of foreign and independent films--so for their target audience, maintaining their "I've never heard of this film before, but if it's showing here then it must be good" reputation can't be dismissed as a good long-term move.  Lost reputations are harder to recover than lost money.

SilverWook said:

Were there any insiders expressing dismay about TPM back in 1999 though?

The internet rumor mill wasn't what it is now of course.

The only advance warning I got about TPM was a local popular theatre owner who declined to show TPM after they saw a preview screening.  It seemed like a crazy decision at the time--it even warranted a local newspaper story where they essentially were asked to explain themselves, because it was right in the middle of the crazy TPM-buzz-media-blitz, and how can you not show Star Wars?

But I think even if TFA's pretty bad, most people would still show it--even this theatre--because it would draw crowds and money regardless.  It would have to be a real howling dog for it to get the TPM treatment, and I don't really think that's in the cards.  And in the end, TPM (hell, even ROTS!) made fistfuls of money, so it proved that even if the theatre ultimately boosted its reputation by avoiding TPM, they still lost money on that decision.

SilverWook said:

That would tie in with the old Bantha Tracks newsletter where someone let slip Beru was going to be in ROTJ. ;)

And we already know the Emperor can change both his voice and appearance, just by comparing ESB against ROTJ.  I wasn't actually convinced when I wrote it at first, but now I'm pretty certain.

EDIT: And I'm pretty sure this is topical, in the sense that it fits the thread title of "Stuff that never happened in a Star Wars film".

towne32 said:

Darth Id said:

But...but...without that scene, we wouldn't know why Palps was all wrinkly and shit.

I distinctly remember watching RotJ as a kid and thinking:

Why is the Emperor all wrinkly?   There must be some pat explanation for that.

I sure hope they make a movie one day that accounts for all those wrinkles in one single, climactic scene!

They could have at least been consistent and shown us why Beru aged 50 years in 20 due to that moister vaporator accident.

They already explained this: Beru is the Emperor. Once she freed R2 from the garage and sent Luke off to chase after him, her plan was in motion.  She then faked her own death and waited for Luke to destroy and replace Vader.  Also, it wasn't vegetables she was putting in the food processor.  It's sadly pretty easy to find dead bodies for faking your own death on Tatooine, but they don't come pre-skeletonized.

Sevb32 said:

CatBus I am surprised you are even posting in this thread.

Well, the title of this thread is "What if TFA is awful?", which pretty much flags it as an "angst over yet another potential Star Wars disappointment" thread, don't you think?.  And what better way to prevent disappointment than to walk in with realistic expectations?  Enter CatBus, with perspective.  Not really such a huge surprise after all, now, is it?

You are one of those opinions are facts people. When film and art is highly subjective.

I can't even see where in any of my posts you could even read between the lines and come to a conclusion so completely opposite my intent.  Whether TFA is any good or not is of course subjective, but going into it expecting historic cinema is setting yourself up for the sort of disappointment I'd like to prevent.

Lord Haseo said:

Considering the prequels are what they are I'm sure JJ will have made the film at least watchable without having to be inebriated. I'd say worse case scenario it will be a 7/10 film. Also if the movie end up being great you'll regret not being there on that historic opening night. 

If I had as much confidence in JJ's abilities as you seem to, I might be more excited.  But frankly, on the anticipation scale, TFA doesn't rank as high as the possibility of another Lilo and Stitch direct-to-video sequel.  Hey, they could both be good, right?  Also they might not.  My happiness does not hinge on getting either of those questions answered.  Ever, really.

I don't regret not seeing Star Wars on opening night--I don't see how I could possibly regret not seeing TFA on opening night.

I think we're just on opposite ends of the caring spectrum.

Lord Haseo said:

Why not just see it for yourself and form your own opinion? There are a few movies I enjoyed in which my trusted reviewers didn't or just didn't like as much as I did. 

That was the logic behind my watching the prequels, and see how well that turned out.  Sure, reviewers can be wrong, even ones you like.  But they're also often right, and failing to watch a good movie isn't exactly the worst thing in the world you can do--it's not like I'll otherwise spend those two hours jabbing forks into my eyes or something.  I haven't watched the entire BFI or AFI top 100 films yet, maybe I'll try one of those.  Forgo one good thing for another good thing, it's a wash.

On the other hand, I often regret my choice to give the prequels a fair shake, instead of jabbing forks in my eyes.  Fair shakes are overrated.

joefavs said:

I get that we've all been burned before, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect this to be one of my four favorite Star Wars movies.

Talk about lowering expectations...

I think it's pretty much impossible for it to be worse than the prequels--so worst-case scenario, it'll make you retch, but a lot less than you're used to during a new Star Wars film.  But that's not the same thing as saying it won't be awful.

And does it matter?  I plan on waiting for the reviews on this.  If the reviews (the ones I trust) are bad, I really won't feel the slightest remorse in skipping it (I feel quite a bit of remorse for not skipping the prequels due to the poor reviews).  If watching fan preservations continues to be the only way to actually enjoy the Star Wars universe, that's not really so bad.  I don't need new films.

Let's not water this down too much though--the Special Editions really are bad.  Now, that's in my opinion, of course, but that opinion is widely shared, especially in these forums.  Yes, it would be a lovely world in which all versions were available for everyone to enjoy, but that wouldn't make them immune to criticism.

I don't hate them because they're revised--there are many revised cuts out there that I hate and many that I love.  I hate the Special Editions because they are worse than the originals (a characteristic they share with other revised cuts I dislike).  In isolation, A New Hope SE is merely middling, Empire SE is still good, and Jedi SE is rather awful.  But they're not in isolation--relative to the original versions of each, they are all without exception worse.  Again, others may feel differently and bully for them I suppose but that's the view from over here.  Then there's the historical preservation angle which is much less forgiving.

Is it fair to judge Empire SE (which is good in isolation) against the original Empire, and downrate it simply because it's across-the-board worse?  I think so.  Most good-but-flawed films you can give a pass, because you're comparing them against a perfect version of the film that doesn't exist.  The SE's don't get that pass because the idealized versions actually exist.

NeonBible said:

I would love it if there was a smaller version of this. I have not requested the full size version because my speeds and HDD space are not great.

if anyone is kind enough to encode a 1080p version (with audio untouched) to below 8gb so it can be burnt to DVD9!

FWIW, an encode of such a small size would probably look better in 720p than 1080p, as scaling artifacts are less noticeable than over-compression artifacts, and this film is soft enough that, for the most part, you wouldn't be losing very much detail at 720p anyway.

PM sent.

hairy_hen said:

U-He Satin is probably the only digital version that exists.  I discovered this capability yesterday while researching the issue—I'd been aware of its existence as a tape emulation plugin before, but hadn't had a reason to look more closely since I already have the Ampex ATR-102 and Studer A800 from Universal Audio, which are extremely accurate reproductions of popular studio tape machines from the 70's.  (The Ampex was a 2-track mastering deck, while the Studer was a multichannel machine, very similar to the one used to record the score for Star Wars.)

It looks like the U-He plugin is a more general 'tape effect' rather than an exact recreation of all the electronic nuances of one particular machine, like the UAD plugins.  But it does appear to be the only software solution for decoding a track that has been recorded with Dolby noise reduction.  Dolby themselves have never made a digital version, so either their hardware or this plugin would have to be used to get the right sound from the film prints.

Assuming the Wikipedia article on Dolby A is correct, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to recreate the exact multiband processing necessary for decoding; it's simply a matter of setting the thresholds and attack/release times for the compression and expansion to the right values.  The U-He plugin is well viewed for its quality, so in all likelihood its reproduction of the Dolby process is an accurate one; and given its high rate of internal oversampling, any aliasing distortion should be virtually nonexistent.  It would, however, be necessary to ensure that the analog signal from the film print has been digitized at the same reference level that the plugin operates at (ie, 0 VU = -18 dBFS, or however the plugin is set; looks like it has a variable calibration capability).  Otherwise the thresholds of the processor will be incorrect, and frequencies will be boosted or lowered at the wrong levels, yielding an inaccurate sound.  The input to the plugin can be trimmed to the appropriate level easily enough; but the importance of using proper calibration cannot be overemphasized.

Satin doesn't have Dolby SR capability, so it wouldn't be any use for film prints encoded with that, but I'm not sure how useful that would be anyway.  SR is much more complicated than Dolby A, and hardly ever used for music recording since digital was taking over around the same time, so I expect it wasn't worthwhile for U-He to try to implement it.

kpmgeek said:

Dolby B is not compatible with Dolby A.  And if I remember right, Satin has some issues with how it decodes.

What issues?  I haven't seen anything about this . . .

Sorry to dredge this issue back up after so long, but after much pain on this front, either this software and all its related software is far too modern, or I am far too old.  I'm just gonna let this one stay put until we either get another capture of the Latino dub with NR enabled, or someone else wants to take a crack at the software side.  This may very well be fine and perfectly functional software, but all it did was give me a headache, and that's coming from someone who thinks nothing of attacking a binary with a hex editor and thinks Perl is nifty.

DominicCobb said:

It was a fad that passed.

Yeah, but it took so painfully long to die this time around that they might be gearing up for its next revival already.  3D is the Rory Pond of technology.

TV's Frink said:

why does not anyone use punctuation here anymore

i think father skywalker used it all up