ChainsawAsh

It still made a shit-ton more than any other Trek movie ever has, so sequels are certainly guaranteed.

Alright, I just finished watching The Voyage Home.  My thoughts:

It's not nearly as bad as I remember, but not great.  The "alien probe" angle is a retread of The Motion Picture, but the difference lies in its use as an excuse for the crew to go back in time.  The film is clearly the product of an attempt to make a more widely-appealing Trek, and as such the past-Earth scenes (the bulk of the film) really don't feel much like Star Trek.  The bus scene in particular grates on me every time, as does Chekov's interrogation (come on, he really wouldn't know those expressions?) and Scotty talking into a mouse.

However, it does have several things going for it:  It's about something, unlike The Search for Spock; it brings up a lot of the "utopian future" ideas that other films glossed over, bringing it closer in spirit to the intent of the original series; and the environmental message, while overbearing at times, is positive and quite ln line with what Trek is supposed to be about.  Finally, it adequately wraps up storylines left lingering from Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock.

The only other major problem I have with this is how it adds yet another incredibly inconsistent type of time travel, namely you can go to the past and change whatever the hell you want, but it won't make a difference in the future, whereas in the new film changing the past creates an alternative timeline from that point on, and on TOS episodes such as The City On the Edge of Forever, it's clear that any small alteration in the past will have grave effects in the future (the A Sound of Thunder idea).

All in all, not the greatest Trek film, but not the worst - merely average.

Final list:

- The Undiscovered Country
- The Wrath of Khan
- The Final Frontier
- The Voyage Home
- The Motion Picture
- The Search for Spock

Oh, and one last thing - how the hell did those whales breathe once they were beamed into the Klingon ship?

That helps a lot - in fact, thanks to your post Ady, I think I'll finally start serious work on this project tomorrow.  Beyond the initial idea and the opening crawl test, I haven't been able to get excited about taking on this project in full, but now you've got me thinking about it again :-P

Seriously thoughk, thanks a bunch, that's a big help.

TheBoost said:

Heroes was an awesome 22 episode miniseries that ended when they killed Sylar and Peter blew up. It was great.

(puts fingers in ears and runs away)

I approve of this post.  Exactly my feelings on the matter.

Reminds me of the last 4 panels of this xkcd webcomic.  Which I also agree with.

One thing I never understood - I know Saavik was originally meant to be half-Romulan, half-Vulcan, and that's the way Kirstie Alley portrayed her, even though this was never explicitly stated in the films.

Then why doesn't she have the pointed eyebrows (something Robin Curtis did have in III and IV)?  Romulans and Vulcans both have pointed ears and eyebrows, but Alley's Saavik only had the ears.  It would make more sense for Spock to have human eyebrows and pointed ears since he's half-human.  (Though I'm glad he doesn't.)

Janskeet said:

Would it be legal for me to sell my edit if I change the name of the title, the characters, spaceships, and everything else that identifies it as Star Wars?

If you use absolutely nothing at all that is copyrighted by Lucasfilm or 20th Century Fox, then yes.

This would, however, require making your own movie from scratch, and making it different enough so you don't get sued for plagiarism.

I like to think that when the Fox execs saw Star Wars before release in 1977, one of them cried because he thought he'd go bankrupt with it, since the deal they worked out with GL meant they couldn't pull a Weinstein on the movie and recut it.  Then George misinterpreted this as the guy being so moved by the film he was brought to tears.

I could be wrong, though.

Yeah ... sorry, but that was pretty terrible.  And that lightsaber duel is, in my opinion, the absolute best out of the entire saga, with the ESB duel running a very, very close second.  TPM's end duel is third, and ANH's is fourth.  Anything from AOTC or ROTS isn't even on the chart, and if any of them were, they'd be waaay at the bottom.  (Yes, I'm most definitely including the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel ... ugh.)

Vaderisnothayden said:

ChainsawAsh said:

I find that analogy pretty funny since most Americans I know would compare American football to the guy on the Harley and soccer to the guy on the Vespa.  Here, if you like soccer but not football, you're probably gay.  Or communist.  Or something.

Soccer IS football. The other thing is American Football. Both are dumb. American football is basically rugby with a ton of protective gear.

 

Uh ... yeah, I know.  That's why I called it "American football."  I didn't the second time because I assumed you'd figure out that I was talking about "American football."  For me, typing "American football" feels very, very strange, since for me and most Americans, there isn't any other kind of "football."  It's about as strange as hearing "soccer" referred to as "football," even though I know it technically is and we just stole the name.

Actually, what I've seen of JasonN's ROTJ edit ("Last of the Jedi"), it seems that he's got a lot of the same ideas I do.  He's also managed to do quite a good job with that very scene simply by removing the "sister" comment, making it seem as if Luke is in love with Leia in the same way that Han is.  In fact, I may scrap this project altogether if JasonN's edit turns out as good as I think it might.

Then again, he's not rearranging the opening like I plan on doing ...

Wow.  I just wrote a long review, then accidentally highlighted the whole thing while typing the word "had," and was left with a "d" in the box and nothing else, and I was unable to undo it.  Fucking hell.

So here's the short version of my The Search for Spock review:

It sucked.  The only purpose of the film is to retcon the changes The Wrath of Khan made (Kirk's son, the Genesis planet/device, Spock's death), the most offensive of which is resurrecting Spock.  That action cheapens his sacrifice in WoK immensely - the producers should've had the balls to kill him and keep him dead.  It also doesn't work even remotely as a standalone film - it's all about bringing Spock back to life, the only conflict being Christopher freakin' Lloyd's Klingon commander trying to steal the "Genesis secret" (which he apparently thinks can, what, be told to him?  How does that work?) ... ugh.

Then there's the out-of-place humor.  Tribbles?  Again?  Really?  And they're on a table at a bar with two patrons petting them?  Plus McCoy/Spock's conversation with the backwards-talking alien that's even worse than Prequel Yoda, and the Uhura/transporter room ensign scene ("Get in the closet").

One thing I'm surprised wasn't brought up later was the potential for Spock's child - it's pretty clear that Saavik mated with Spock on Genesis to get him through pon farr, and when Spock sees her at the end she gives a very embarrased look.  The film was released before TNG, so I'm surprised that Spock's child wasn't a character on that show.  Or maybe the producers changed their minds.  I dunno.  Whatever.

Finally, there isn't one real Star Trek idea in this film.  TMP had V'Ger, and a very clear theme of exploration and discovery.  WOK had the return of Khan from TOS, and the Genesis device.  Voyage Home, if I recall, had its environmental themes and a very Star Trek idea of time travel.  TFF had exploration and discovery, as well as a God-like entity.  TUC focuses on peace and learning to live together despite differences.

The Search for Spock has none of that.  And it suffers for it.

Updated list:

- The Undiscovered Country
- The Wrath of Khan
- The Final Frontier
- The Motion Picture
- The Search for Spock

Now I guess I need to watch The Voyage Home again so my list will be complete.

I finished watching The Final Frontier a couple nights ago, and it was actually pretty good.  Definitely nowhere near unwatchable.  My biggest gripes are the unnecessary cheesy humor ("I know this ship like the back of my hand!"), the somewhat dull climax, and the fact that the entire movie seems to directly contradict the TAS episode The Magicks of Megas-Tu (where the Enterprise goes to the center of the galaxy, there's no Galactic Barrier, and they witness matter being created and get sucked into a parallel universe), but then again, much of the time the original episodes contradicted others anyway.

I do, however, wish Sybock's "Let me feel your pain" or whatever thing was explained, you know, at all.

My revised list, best to worst:

- The Undiscovered Country
- The Wrath of Khan
- The Final Frontier
- The Motion Picture

Next up are The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home, which I remember so very little of that I didn't feel right in putting either one on the list with the other four.

The only difference between the 1983 and 2004 versions of the rancor fight (other than bad color timing in the 2004 DVD) would be the re-compositing and removal of matte lines in the 2004 version.

And I dunno why the prices work our that way in France, but any 2-disc release of the original trilogy contains both the 2004 DVD and the 2006 GOUT - and it's also the only way to get the 2006 GOUT.

Okay ... really?

Fine, I'll play along:  What about Obi-Wan's "smirk" is inappropriate?  He's "smirking" because Han's boasting is probably exaggerated, and he doesn't buy it.  Han's trying to put one over on a crazy old fossil, but Obi-Wan's smarter than that.

And why is Han's smile inappropriate?  He's not taking their "local trouble" seriously, but once Obi-Wan mentions the Empire he realizes that there's more to this old guy and whiny kid than he initially suspected.

The GOUT would be the only way for you to experience the pre-1997 versions.

For Star Wars:

In 1981, the words "Episode IV: A NEW HOPE" were added to the title crawl and the words were re-formatted (including the capitalization of "rebel").

In 1997, the "3D monsters on Tatooine" were added, as was the Jabba scene, the Han/Greedo scene was altered to make Greedo fire when he never should have, the end battle was "enhanced" with extra CG shots, a short scene (that was chopped up to fit with the Vader-as-Luke's-father idea) with Biggs was added on the Yavin IV base, and many other, smaller changes were made.

In 2004, additional changes were made, in addition to incredibly fucked-up colors and a horribly "remastered" sound mix that included swapping the left and right surround channels for the music, for no apparent reason.  All in the name of "deliberate creative decisions."

The GOUT uses the 1993 laserdisc audio instead of the theatrical mono or stereo audio, but other than that every change listed above is not present in the GOUT.

For Empire:

In 1997, more footage with the Wampa was inserted, which arguably ruins the suspense of the scene.  Cloud City had CG "enhancements" added, including the addition of windows throughout the city that sometimes mysteriously disappear when ILM forgot they added some.  Darth Vader's trip to his Star Destroyer was spliced in after the duel as well, using outtakes from ROTJ, again arbuably ruining the flow of the scene (and changing Vader's "Bring my shuttle!" line to "Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival").

In 2004, Ian McDiarmid, while shooting ROTS, re-shot the Emperor hologram scene (originally Clive Reville's voice and an old woman's mouth with monkey eyes) in his horrid ROTS makeup that doesn't look a thing like his ROTJ makeup.  Lines were added to this scene as well that - arguably - ruin it.  Also, Boba Fett's lines were (again, arguably) horribly re-dubbed by Temuera Morrison (clone troopers/Jango Fett in AOTC/ROTS).

The GOUT includes none of these changes, but again, includes the 1993 laserdisc audio.

For Jedi:

In 1997, the Jabba's palace musical number Lapti Nek was replaced with Jedi Rocks, which sounds (arguably) awful, and Sy Snootles (singer) was replaced with a CG model.  Other new CG creatures have been added to the band as well.  Then, the original actress for Oola (the green dancer) was brought in to shoot additional scenes of her actually in the Rancor pit (you still don't see the Rancor).  The Sarlacc was "enhanced" with a CG beak-looking thing coming out of it and extra CG tentacles.  In the end celebration, instead of the Ewoks singing Yub Nub, John Williams re-scored it with a new, (arguably) more appropriate, New Age-y song.

In 2004, Sebastian Shaw's head has been replaced with an outtake of Hayden Christensen from ROTS in the Force-ghost scene.  In the Vader unmasking scene, Sebastian Shaw's eyebrows have been digitally removed (this change I actually agree with).  I don't think there were any other major 04 changes for ROTJ ...

The GOUT includes none of these changes.

So, if the version you grew up with didn't have all this shit in it, then yes, that's what you want.  If you grew up with the 1997 versions, you're shit out of luck, unfortunately, as there is no official release of the original Special Editions on DVD.

The new "Star Wars Original Trilogy" DVD box that contains all 3 movies in 2-disc versions in slim cases with a blue outer box includes both the 2004 SE DVDs and the GOUT.

Zion said:

The 4-eyed stormies are a result of the rudimentary DVNR process, which I'm sure used some sort of temporal algorythm, but that's not really what I'm getting at here.

Ah, I see - I was misinformed then.  My mistake.

The ANH and ESB posters look a little iffy ... I mean, they look good, but I dunno if they quite fit the tone of the films.

But that ROTJ one looks frickin' awesome!  Great work there!

I'd suggest to keep working on them, because the concept is great.  Using a combination of photos and paintings, however, doesn't quite work.  I don't know what else to suggest, but I'm sure with a little tweaking they can look great.

Monroville said:

the actual title on the screen will be ALIEN: REDUX, since I can have the five letter REDUX slowly appear below the five letter ALIEN on the top of the screen

Please don't do this.  I absolutely hate it when the title of a fan edit makes it clear that it's a fan edit.  This has prevented me from getting a lot of fan edits that I would otherwise have liked.  For instance, does the Final Cut of Blade Runner say Blade Runner: The Final Cut in the opening credits?  No, because "The Final Cut" is simply the name of the version of the film, not the film's title itself.  Make the menus say whatever you want, i.e. Ady's use of "Revisited" in the intro to his menu and throughout the menus, but please please please leave the title within the film itself the same.

Those are some very good ideas there.  I like it a lot.

Max_Rebo said:

As Moth3r said this is just temporal softening, which is the same thing applied to the Laserdiscs which is why we are left with 4 eyed stormtroopers.

No, we're left with 4 eyed stormtroopers because of bad IVTC on the GOUT.  The LDs themselves, if I'm not mistaken, don't suffer fromt eh "4-eyed stormtrooper" problem, just the GOUT.

I find that analogy pretty funny since most Americans I know would compare American football to the guy on the Harley and soccer to the guy on the Vespa.  Here, if you like soccer but not football, you're probably gay.  Or communist.  Or something.

AxiaEuxine said:

I just want to share my joy of Star Wars with people that enjoy it and there doesnt seem to be anyone that actually does anymore. It makes me sad.

I enjoy Star Wars very much ... I enjoy Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and, to a lesser extent, Return of the Jedi.  I also enjoy the Thrawn trilogy of novels.  That's it.  To me, that's canon.  Nothing else.

And just because the original creator made it doesn't make it "canon" - canon is different for everyone.  It's entirely personal opinion.  For example, my Star Trek canon is The Original Series, The Animated Series, the first six movies, and the new one.  I don't give two shits about Next Generation even if Roddenberry created it to begin with - I don't like it.  So, to me, it's not canon.

C3PX said:

I don't care a thing for it when played by Americans though, they have a weird way of making it less entertaining IMHO

It's interesting that you bring that up, C3PX - I was watching TV a few weeksa go, flipping channels, when I stumbled across 3 soccer (er ... football) games in a row.  One was a game being played in Europe with Spanish announcers, and it was quite exciting.  The next was a game being played in my own city (Chicago), with American announcers and it was boring as all hell.

Then the third channel was the exact same Chicago Fire game, the exact same shots, from the exact same feed.  The only difference was that the announcers were Mexican.  And the game was infinitely more interesting.

I'm not sure if this was just a coincidence, and for some reason I didn't compare the American and the European games at all at the time, but I think in this instance it was down to the American announcer, who was acting like he was talking about golf (i.e. the most boring "sport" to watch on TV in the history of the world, even if I do enjoy playing it quite a bit), while the Mexican announcer was very engaged and energetic.

Yeah, the theme of exploration was sorely lacking in the films.  As I said, I enjoy The Motion Picture, but I feel many of the sequences were added just because they needed more runtime than they had story, which brings the movie down for me.

I think I'll watch The Final Frontier tonight.  See if it's as bad as I remember.

That's true, but they clearly state that it's an alternate timeline in the film itself.

Besides, it's not like Abrams came by your house and took all your Star Trek DVDs and destroyed them.  You can still watch them just as easily as you could before the new film came out.  Nothing's destroyed.

And I happened to enjoy the music in the film quite a bit, especially the main theme.  And I was quite happy that the Alexander Courage TV theme was used at the end, though my personal favorite is the Goldsmith Motion Picture theme ... how disappointed I am that it's now the "Next Generation" theme ... ugh ...