Cthulhunicron

So, rumor has it that a character from the prequel trilogy makes a cameo.

I wasn’t terribly impressed by this movie. I guess it’s…okay, but it just felt kind of like a mess to me.

I give it credit for being more creative with the story than TFA, but there were still parts that felt like they were included just to reference moments from previous films. The frustrating thing is that these moments have these superficial veneers painted over them to try to make them feel more original, but it’s so shallow and obvious that it comes across as pandering. For example, there’s another AT-AT assault against a rebel base. But don’t worry, it’s at the end of the movie now! And it looks at first like the ground is covered in snow, but don’t worry, we’ll have a character look right at the camera and tell the audience that it’s actually salt! It’s the same problem I had with Starkiller Base (it’s not technically a Death Star…) Btw, how were those speeders supposed to stop the walkers? They didn’t have any weapons.

I have really mixed feelings on the subplot with Finn and Rose. It feels like it goes on too long, and it’s unnecessarily complicated. They make a big point of needing to find the guy with the flower pin, they find him, he’s in the movie for like 2 seconds, then they just happen to meet another code breaker (who’s annoying as hell, by the way) in the jail cell, then he betrays them, etc you get the point. I’m always saying I want Disney to take more risks with these films and show us something new in the Star Wars universe, but I can’t help but feel that the casino scene felt really…out of place. I don’t know…it just felt a bit too close to a real-world casino inhabited by Star Wars characters.

I think one of the biggest problems for me is that there are several parts that are downright cringe-inducing. Some that come to mind are Leia’s “Mary Poppins” moment, the awful Yoda cameo (Force ghosts can apparently summon lightning now?), Luke milking the sea cow, and the MCU-style humor between Hux and Dameron at the beginning. Actually, most of the humor in the movie didn’t really work for me.

I was also disappointed with the complete lack of any exposition about Snoke. Who the hell is he? How did he corrupt Ben? He looks old, so is there any connection between him and Palpatine? I’m the first to agree that not every detail needs to be spelled out, and I like it when there are things left to the imagination, but it would have been nice to at least know something about him.

However, it’s not all bad. I liked most of the scenes between Rey and Luke, and between Rey and Kylo. I liked how Kylo destroyed his mask, further distancing him from Darth Vader. The fact that he started out as a Vader wanna-be is part of his character, and I liked how it visually symbolized him growing beyond that. I liked the fight scene in the throne room, and I was actually genuinely impressed with the twist at the end. I have mixed feelings about Luke dying, though. It actually shocked me that they killed him off, considering they just killed Han, and Carrie Fisher passed away. Although, in a Star Wars movie, it doesn’t really matter that much, since he can always come back as a Force ghost. I’m very curious to see how Leia’s character will be handled, moving forward.

This turned into a bit of a ramble, and it’s not nearly as well worded as I would like. The movie had its moments, I guess I just wish it was a bit more focused and not as long.

Mocata said:

darthrush said:

NeverarGreat said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjEd3DpH_e0
Warning: Detailed spoilers for the upcoming Han Solo movie! Proceed at your own risk!

This was hilarious.

It was.

I thought it was funny, too. They’re totally right, you just know they’re going to work the Kessel Run into the story somehow, and of course Boba Fett’s going to show up somehow. I just wish these things could be left to our imagination, I don’t need every little detail of Star Wars backstory over-explained.

TV’s Frink said:

I will never understand the attitude that a new movie can ruin an older movie. I will see this once, and if it sucks, I’ll never see it again, and it won’t affect my opinion of the OT or TFA one bit.

That’s not really the problem. I simply don’t care about seeing this movie. I’ll probably watch it when it comes to streaming, out of curiosity, and if I wind up liking it, that will be a pleasant surprise.

SilverWook said:

I suspect all the disinterested parties will watch the trailers anyway. 😉

Maybe out of curiosity. I watched the trailer for Transformers 5, but I still didn’t see it.

I’m not trying to sound cool or anything, just being honest. I saw TFA and Rogue One, and I thought they were okay: not great, but not terrible. I genuinely can’t imagine anything that could make me want to go see a Han Solo prequel.

Even before I heard about the directors being replaced, there was absolutely nothing that could make me interested in seeing a Han Solo prequel. Now, I’m even less interested.

ray_afraid said:

Tantive3+1 said:

Even if it might make sense to some people, I never liked them changing Boba Fett’s voice to sound like Jango Fett.

Yeah, the idea is stupid because there’s a million different things that affect the creation and development of a person’s voice. Nobody sounds exactly like their parents. The original Bobba Fett voice could easily be the voice of a Jango clone.
And the execution is terrible. It sounds dubbed in and the delivery of every line is awful.

Agreed. Not to mention, things happen in people’s lives to affect their voices. As a bounty hunter, maybe he sustained a throat injury? Maybe he smoked too many death sticks. Hell, maybe the helmet just distorts his voice. It’s so bizarre to me that Lucas obsesses over continuity details like Boba Fett’s voice, but then he has Padme die minutes after giving birth, Uncle Owen meets C3PO years before ANH, gives R2D2 rocket boosters, etc.

Okay, let’s try this. Let’s say I want to create a fan edit of Star Wars, so I need to create a high quality digitized version from the discs. Vegas doesn’t support MKV files. Which file format would be best for creating a fan edit? Would an AVI or MP4 work for my purposes?

Frank your Majesty said:

Cthulhunicron said:

Leia remembers her real mother for the same reason I remember my grandfather who died when I was very young.

“Very young”, like 10 minutes old?

No, he died when I was 7. It’s never stated in ROTJ how old Leia was when her mother died.

Leia remembers her real mother for the same reason I remember my grandfather who died when I was very young.

So I’m trying to get into video editing (I’m hoping to make my own fan edits some day) and I’m not able to import MKV files into Sony Vegas. Does anyone know if there’s a way I can convert MKVs into some other format without losing any quality? Vegas supports the following formats: 4K XAVC S, 4K XAVC, XDCAM EX, XDCAM Optical, DV, HDV, AVCHD, NXCAM, MOV, MP4, WMV, MPEG-1/2/4, H.264/AVC, WAV, FLAC, AAC, MP3, OGG, WMA, Surround Sound/5.1, BMP, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, OpenEXR-, DPX- and WDP image sequences

dahmage said:

Cthulhunicron said:

I think I read somewhere that Harmy has a 1080p Despecialized version in the works. Is this true? Any updates on this?

This isn’t the thread for this, but to answer your question, after ESB 2.5, the plan is to do a 3.0 of all three films in 1080p, but who knows if/when it will ever be completed.

Sorry, I posted in the wrong thread.

I think I read somewhere that Harmy has a 1080p Despecialized version in the works. Is this true? Any updates on this?

I actually don’t. It’s not perfect, but still a great movie. I think it would have been better if Leia was not his sister, but I don’t see how it’s a plot hole. It’s more like a plot “minor dent.”

DuracellEnergizer said:

Not the “Leia as Luke’s sister” one.

It’s always made sense to me.

Hardcore Legend said:

Except every film after ANH attempts to retcon the original film.

The difference is that the OT retcons actually make sense.

Just shared on Facebook, and tweeted it to RLM.

I feel like they could plausibly release the theatrical versions shortly after the Blu-Ray release of Ep. 9, possibly as some kind of 9 (or 11) movie box set.

Hardcore Legend said:

Cthulhunicron said:

Maybe before his turn to the dark side, Anakin mentioned to Obi-Wan that he and his wife were trying to have children, and he said “You know, I’d like my son to have my lightsaber when he’s old enough.” Again, since we’re ignoring the prequels, the backstory implied in the OT could have Jedis that don’t forbid romantic love. There’s nothing in the original trilogy that says Anakin never knew he had children until after they were born, just that he didn’t know he had a daughter.

They were both hidden:
“To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did. If Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him. That is the reason why your sister remains safely anonymous.”

Based on that line alone, I think it’s ambiguous whether or not Vader knew he had children. He could be saying their existence was hidden, or he could be saying their location was hidden.

Maybe before his turn to the dark side, Anakin mentioned to Obi-Wan that he and his wife were trying to have children, and he said “You know, I’d like my son to have my lightsaber when he’s old enough.” Again, since we’re ignoring the prequels, the backstory implied in the OT could have Jedis that don’t forbid romantic love. There’s nothing in the original trilogy that says Anakin never knew he had children until after they were born, just that he didn’t know he had a daughter.

Hardcore Legend said:

That isn’t a PT plot hole, it is an OT one. Unless you just chalk it up to him lying.

How is that an OT plot hole?

Obi-Wan tells Luke “your father wanted you to have [the lightsaber] when you were old enough.” He also mentions Owen being afraid Luke would follow Obi-Wan on some “idealistic crusade” like Anakin.

This one bugs me because you can’t really justify it as Obi-Wan simply lying about Luke’s father. Why even bring it up? All he needed to say is “by the way, I have your father’s lightsaber, if you want it.” Why even mention anything about the “idealistic crusade” or Anakin wanting Luke to have the lightsaber? AotC shows us Owen and Anakin interacting for maybe a day. Prequel Owen clearly wouldn’t have any reason to care that Anakin left to go save Obi-Wan from the termites. Everything in the original scene points to a backstory where Owen and Anakin grew up together, and Owen was upset when Anakin left with Obi-Wan to go fight in the war.

SparkySywer said:

I have SW and ESB 1.0, and RotJ 2.7. I’m thinking about replacing SW and eSB with 2.7, what are the differences between them?

There aren’t too many noticeable differences, but one thing that stood out for me is the part in Cloud City when they are meeting Lando for the first time. Harmy replaced the background matte with a very high quality scan and it is GORGEOUS in the new version.

Fang Zei said:

Cthulhunicron said:

Another topic I’m interested is what exactly is meant by negatives. The camera negatives are the first generation, the actual frames taken from the camera. I’m assuming when people talk about the negatives of Star Wars, they’re referring to the frames that actually contain things like lasers and stuff animated onto the film. I know also some shots are composites, so there would have to be multiple negatives for that (one for a background, one for a star destroyer, another for a planet, etc).

In order for the negatives to be conformed to the special edition, wouldn’t some negatives have to start out unaltered, get translated into some kind of digital format, adulterated with CGI additions, and then re-printed back onto film?

That’s exactly what happened. They had to scan certain shots into the digital realm in order to add cgi (think all of those shots in Mos Eisley) and then print it back out to a new piece of negative. The original, unaltered piece of negative was presumably kept in storage.

But even the composite shots from the original version you mention in your first paragraph had to be redone for some reason, either because the existing composite on the finished negative had faded or because George thought that a digital recomp would make those shots look better.

Presumably? So we still don’t know for a fact that they were saved?

Another topic I’m interested is what exactly is meant by negatives. The camera negatives are the first generation, the actual frames taken from the camera. I’m assuming when people talk about the negatives of Star Wars, they’re referring to the frames that actually contain things like lasers and stuff animated onto the film. I know also some shots are composites, so there would have to be multiple negatives for that (one for a background, one for a star destroyer, another for a planet, etc).

In order for the negatives to be conformed to the special edition, wouldn’t some negatives have to start out unaltered, get translated into some kind of digital format, adulterated with CGI additions, and then re-printed back onto film? Or do HD digital scans still count as a negative?