Darth Lars

"That was took loose".

SilverWook said:

IIRC, they shot closeups and inserts at ILM. When Nubb talks or his face moves, it's the puppet.

Yes. The puppeteer is Mike Quinn.

Richard Bonehill wore suits for a great many background characters and was a stand-in at times. There were several extras who did the same, but I don't know of anyone else who did as many.

I think that Nien Nunb was the only character that he did that also got closeups and dialogue, so of all characters, it might be the most well-known. He was stormtroopers in both ESB and ROTJ, Snowtrooper, several Rebels, Mon Calamari officer, Ree-Yees. etc. 

Great guy with fans btw. Enjoyed talking stories.

From http://starwarsinterviews1.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/richard-bonehill-interview.html?m=1

Probably my biggest claim to fame on the Star Wars films is that I was the only extra whose autograph was requested by one of the principles. When some of the ‘regular’ crew of extras were working on the film we got quite friendly with the leading actors. At that time they was a special anniversary edition of The Eagle comic. I had been doing some photo -story shoots and I appeared in a story in this anniversary edition. What I did not know was that Mark Hamill was a great Eagle collector. He recognized me in the comic and was mightily impressed! So in front of all the crew he asked me to sign his copy of the comic!! Isn’t life bizarre !!!

Another rather strange story I remember is that one day four of us stormtroopers we asked to do a stills photoshoot with Darth Vader. We were asked by the second assistant director to make a mess of it, dropping our guns, helmets etc. and try and make it last for at least three hours. This did seem very strange at the time but as it meant extra money we did our best to make fools of ourselves! We found out later that the object of the exercise was to keep Dave Prowse away from the shooting stage where the main unit was filming the scene where is helmet was removed to reveal a different actor as Darth Vader !

emanswfan said:

This confirms:

- Again mentioning them using practical fx wherever possible, and often using CG to remove rather than add things, such as in the case of BB-8.

Where does it say that BB-8 was practical with CG to remove things?

They did not mention the ball droid in the interview at all.

I really hate the Goblin fight and the look of the Goblin king. I would cut those images away completely.

An idea I'm toying with is to let some sound from the dwarves meeting with the Goblin king echo down into the cave where Bilbo has fallen so that we can still hear some of it in the background. Then we don't see the dwarves again until the passage where Bilbo jumps over Gollum. The point would be to keep everything in Bilbo's perspective, but not to miss the context of the Goblins calling the orcs.

I think you could explain this easily. The Empire had been intruding on the Ewok's moon for quite some time, so the Ewoks could have made the traps before the Rebels even arrived. It is not like the Ewoks would have just accepted the Empire's intrusion and not been the least bit afraid of them.

In a small/medium-sized country in the real world when there is unrest near a border, the local military gets beefed up because the likelihood of a conflict has been increased. If your country gets invaded then you would form a guerilla and you hide arms and make traps at various locations in case you would need them in the future.

You could find the Mythbusters episode on Youtube quite easily if you searched for it. Spoiler: The armoured truck gets smashed. You could surmise that the armour of the truck, like the AT-ST's, was made to withstand small arms fire - not a large pounding. The logs in the movie were also twice as long and pulled up higher.

In the Ewok movies, we also see them having beasts of burden and we can assume that they are skilled enough with ropes/vines and wood to make pulleys. Also, C-3PO's recognition of the Ewok language as being a dialect of a language known on other planets does indicate that Ewoks have come from another planet (moon) originally and/or would have had interaction with other worlds, which means that they could have imported knowledge for how to lift them up.
... and it is not like there aren't examples of great feats of engineering in real-world human pre-history.

Spy/diplomat, what's the difference ...

The scene I'm most looking forward to is when an giant AT-AT walker breaks the wall of the senate chamber and sits down to read the newspaper.

Could mean something that evolved out of lasers and then the word stuck... like how pencil leads aren't made of lead and how tin cans aren't made of tin.

So, is this a fan-edit, a comic or something else?

Does it belong in the Fan Edits forum?

Darth Id said:

Yes because "real" lasers have so very much recoil...

The blasters in the original trilogy were mostly real working guns that shot blanks, so that there would be muzzle flash and smoke.

You can see that in behind-the-scenes footage, blooper reels, deleted scenes without effects, etc. ANH, ESB and ROTJ.

This includes the Stormtrooper blasters, Han's, Leia's and Luke's blasters, and only shot (no pun intended) at Elstree. The Rebel blasters and blasters used on location outside the UK were casts or built from gun replicas.

BTW. Brian Muir's last name rhymes with "pure". (I had asked him.)

CO said:

I think the fanbases you are talking about is the other way around.  Out of all of my friends who love SW, only 1 really has read the EU novels, as he has kinda filled me in through the years of the characters like Mara Jade, Han/Leia's twins, etc.

I know several fans who have floor-to-ceiling bookcases full of Star Wars books... There is a huge amount of books that share a continuity, starting with the Thrawn trilogy in 1992 (which introduced Mara Jade and set the EU going) up until only a year or two ago, right before Lucasfilms "Legends" announcement. That's twenty years of books! And it is not only books, but also video games, comic books and collectible figures within the same major continuity.

When I say "fan", I am talking about people who are real fans, not just people who like Star Wars. Practically everyone likes Star Wars, but not everyone is a fan. The fan community is so much larger than the OT-diehards on this forum who see Star Wars as being only the three original movies.

Every person that I know personally who I would classify as being a Star Wars fan has read at least one book in the post-ROTJ EU continuity. People know and like these characters. For example, in my local 501st Garrison alone, there is soon to be a third Mara Jade costumer.

Star Wars fans tend to buy not only books but a whole lot of other merchandise, and that has provided for a a significant portion of Lucasfilm's revenue in-between the movies.
That is why I say that I think that Lucasfilm would be disrespectful to the fans if they just ditched the post-ROTJ EU continuity outright.

TheBoost said:

 Making a movie that is based on stories millions and millions and millions of people have never read could be seen as a 'giant middle-finger' to the lovers of Star Wars moives.

Making a good movie for those who have not read any books and respecting the broad strokes of the post-ROTJ EU are not mutually exclusive.

I think that a decision to rub out the existence of Mara Jade, Jacen, Jaina, Anakin Solo and Ben Skywalker would be a giant middle-finger to the Star Wars fan community.
Outside the little group of "Original Trilogy Only" die-hards on this and other movie-oriented forums, there is a great community of Star Wars fans out there who have embraced the dozens and dozens of books that have been published since the Thrawn Trilogy.

I do expect some things to be pulled from the EU into canon - which has happened before - , but we don't know anything yet about anything because nothing of Episode VII's plot has been disclosed yet.

I don't expect anyone to care about the specific stories, and about various side characters, though. Also, people wouldn't mind if some details are different or of some of the character traits of the Solo and Skywalker children were different.

He turned 80 y/o a couple of weeks ago... What do you think?

SW: TV in 1983. Dad taped it. I and my brother watched the tape often. On the tape before the movie was also a documentary about the depiction of space aliens in movies throughout the years, hosted by ET and Robin Williams (RIP).

ESB and ROTJ: I got the comic-book version of ROTJ as a birthday present in 1984, right when the movie came out in my country. Star Wars toys and comics was a big deal then, but I did not actually see any of the movies until on cable in 1990 or thereabouts.

TPM: Not available in my country until August. Saw it not the first showing, but within the first week.

AOTC: Midnight. Not the best theatre, but anyway.

HS: Video-CD at a Star Wars party.

ROTS: Second in line for tickets for the midnight showing at the best theatre and the very best seats.

CW "movie": Avoided when it was in theatres. Eventually saw it on the Internet or on the Cartoon Network years afterwards, I don't remember.

Rebels "movie": Not happened yet, but got an invite to a Disney event in a couple of weeks.

Somewhat off-topic:

When I saw TPM the first time, I thought first that Amidala's handmaidens were clones and that Palpatine and the Trade Federation was after Naboo's handmaiden-cloning technology. :-þ

The idea was probably expanded from the Thrawn trilogy, which contains the clone Jedi Joruus C'Boath.

There was a tidbit in the book that either cloned Jedi, or clones made in a sped-up process were mentally unstable. I remember the former from reading the books; Wookieepedia tells the latter.

I knew I had seen that gate before ....

Left: Image at TMZ of a gate in the fence, supposedly the fence with the "Warning" sign.

Right: Concept art for Return of the Jedi. The entrance to Jabba's palace seen from the palace gate.

Imperial crewman in the crowd adjusts his eyeglasses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beZPPGdWhBw

First time regular eyeglasses (not protective goggles) are spotted in Star Wars. Error or not?

If The Empire Strikes Back had a trailed made in 2014: Glove and Boots: Please Stop Giving Everything Away, Hollywood!

RRS-1980 said:

DIY wall decoration

Source unknown... I wonder where did he get the mold!

The side walls are not slanted and don't have any side panel inserts ...

Check out the Star Wars section on The Replica Prop Forum for some better examples.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Personally, I like to believe that none of the lasers in the SW Universe are actual lasers, but some kind of slower-than-light plasma/particle bursts/beams.

Yes. Blaster bolts are called "bolts" for a reason.

A laser would be an effective means for exciting the plasma, though. It is used for that purpose in experimental fusion reactors.

TheBoost said:

How do I know Lightsaber blades stop at about a meter length? Real lasers don't, No character ever says that it is so. 

There is an annoying 10-year old kid in Episode 1 that uses the word "Laser Sword" the first time he sees a lightsaber. Nobody else does it. It isn't a laser just because a 10-year old kid who does not know better says that it is.

SilverWook said:

Murdered kids, dead jedi, dead Padme, and barbequed Anakin. And it's the only SW film to date to get a PG-13 rating.

ESB was rated NC-17 over here ...

Harmy said:

Sy Snootles doesn't sing in English in the SE. It's still horrible as f*ck, don't get me wrong, but she does sing in an alien language in the SE too.

Goddamnit! Now you had me again watch the abomination that is the musical number in the SE just to see how wrong I was ... Yes you are right, Sy Snootles sings in an alien language.

The chorus girls signing "Ee-ma chay-choo raun"  has always sounded like "ee-ma jedi rock" to me. That must be where I got it from ...

... and what is the in-universe name of the song if not "Jedi Rocks"? ...

Imrahil said: 

Henson was a neat guy. He wasn't a god.

 He ascended to godhood on May 16, 1990.

timdiggerm said:

by "Jim Hensony" I think he means "cartoony". The cartoony aliens are one of the many things I don't like about ROTJ.

SE or OOT? In the SE, Sy Snootles has CGI lips and eye-lashes and sings a song in English that is completely out of place for the time and place. Practically like a Disney movie.

In the OOT, Sy Snootles sings in an alien language and looks really alien. I love that. The party is violent and decadent and Salacious Crumb laughs so much because he is drunk.

ratpack1961 said:

That matte painting behind Han and Lando with the falcon is maybe the worst effect in the OT.  It's not an error per se but a real error in judgement!

It is mostly the colours on the SE DVDs/BluRays that are off. The background does not have a blue tint all over it in the original version.

When Lando turns around and moves towards the Falcon, he steps out of the light on the greenscreen set turning him into a black silhouette. Also, it is clear that the other people in that shot have been composited in, because a couple of them would have collided with ghost-Lando ...