Darth Lars

Red Three was played by a British woman but voiced over by an American man.

Luke's lightsaber was portrayed by four different props with small differences, and even some small dimensional differences. The one sticking up of R2-D2 lacks a knob at the end of the emitter, which the other props have.

There are at least three different lightsaber props for Darth Vader. The one he throws is unique for that scene and the blade is coming out of the back end. The prop held by the severed hand is also unique. In all other shots, Vader is using a prop like the one in ESB.

Han Solo wears restrains when he is frozen in ESB, but not when he is thawed in ROTJ. (This continuity error would be easier to fix in ESB, though.)

Bantha herd (SE...) looks like a cut and paste job.

BTW, there is a long thread in the Fan-Edit forum called ESB and ROTJ Wishlist where lots more errors are mentioned but there is a lot of other stuff to wade through.

adywan said:

 Some buildings? Actually it's all of them, including the same clouds because they used the exact same matte for both platforms, so it is a flaw:

Duh. I did not spot that. Thank you for your polite response.

Yeah, your new cityscape behind the Falcon matches the city in extended approach scene in the SE, and the matte painting would be unsuitable behind the Slave I because it shows a sky that would be later in the evening than the rescue of Luke.

Still, I'm bummed out that Lucasfilm chose to create a new look for the city's buildings in the SE instead of basing them on McQuarrie's. His paintings are so beautiful.

Hmm.. I like the original cityscape and sky better. First, Slave I going up into a bluer sky illustrates better that it is heading towards Space. Second, I prefer McQuarries architecture better. It is not a flaw that some building in the far distance is the same behind both the Millenium Falcon and the Slave I.

I wonder if we are going to see any women dubbed over with male voices in the new movies ... :-þ

Clarifies what? ... They haven't really said anything new.

RicOlie_2 said:

OBI-WAN37 said:

The dialogue. ("Hello There")

I love how you used an example of dialogue that they borrowed from the OT. Name some original dialogue in the PT that is good.

That is hardly dialogue, but Ewan McGregor delivered it well and different to how Alec Guinness had.

The MUSIC.

Indeed. My favourite tracks:

* TPM: Droid Invasion march when the landing ships land in the Naboo forest
* TPM: Anakin's Theme
* TPM: Qui-Gon's funeral.
* AOTC: Confrontation with Count Dooku
* ROTS: The mashup of the funeral music / Imperial march at the very end.

However, there is a lot of music in ROTS that I don't like very much, mostly because they don't feel very Star Wars-y. I also don't like On the Conveyor belt or the party music at the end of TPM.-

Bingowings said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

As I hate the whole PT-spawned notion that only certain genetic supermen get to have an afterlife,...

 Maybe only Jedi can see or hear them.

I think it is more about there being a connection between the individuals than anything else. Darth Vader/Anakin did not fade away like Obi-Wan and Yoda, yet he turned up as a ghost in the end scene of ROTJ.

In that scene, Luke sees Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin while Leia walks up to him and looks in the same direction and does not see anyone.

KilroyMcFadden said:

The original hut reminds me of the dwellings you would find in spaghetti westerns of the 60's and is in every respect the dwelling in which I would expect to find a desert hermit. 

Indeed Tatooine is an analogy to the Old West as seen in Western movies.

Mos Eisley is a Western town. Chalmun's Cantina is a Western-style saloon. "Cantina" is also a Spanish word. Phil Tippet called it a "Western Town" in interviews.

Sand people = "Indians". Back in '02 there was someone who identified that a particular shot from Anakin's ambush on the Sand People village was composed just like a particular shot in some old Western movie showing an ambush of an "indian" village. Their dwellings also look like a cross between a wigwam and a tepee. Shmi is a squaw.

Jetrell Fo said:

The Crispy Creme Calendar Girls ...

 I was stupid enough to google that...

Jaitea said:

X-Wing shape can actually fly!

 An aeronautical engineer once told me, about the X-wing: "Anything can fly with a strong enough engine"...

I wish that I could filter this thread to only contain posts by AdyWan, so that I did not have to wade through all the chatter about unrelated stuff ...

Rigoletto in Stockholm, Sweden. Built in 1939. Still standing. Refurbished a few times, last 2012. Largest theatre with the largest screen in Sweden.

I was too young to see the original movies in cinema, but I know they were screened here first in the country.
I was almost about to see the SE here back in '97 before being told about the bad quality of the changes.
I saw AOTC and ROTS here and will again see Episode VII here on opening night, maybe even if it would be in "3D".

BTW. That Yoda doll is not mine, but has travelled the world and met more Star Wars actors than I have. I only had him as guest for a day in 2007. Other Yoda dolls have made world trips later.

In general, I would keep people and places from the film and post-ROTJ eras that occur in several books, video games etc, but not all the stories. Keep stories that expand on the story of side characters we see in the movies, such as the bounty hunters, etc..

Do away with weird science (that belongs in Star Trek :-þ ), Force mumbo-jumbo, surviving Jedi, new superweapons, aliens from outside the galaxy, etc.

Some post-ROTJ EU characters have many fans, and I think that it would be a bad move of Lucasfilm to just delete them. I am thinking primarily of the Rogue Squadron, Mara Jade, the Organa-Solo kids. Perhaps Kyle Katarrn, but I am not sure.

I would not mind if the pre-prequel eras EU was wiped completely.

I wouldn't mind keeping the Eagle Rescue, and it seems to be one of those things that people remember most from the book. I think that scene it could be cut down pretty well to just wargs, fire and eagles.

I'll believe it when I hear it from official sources.

Latino Review does not have very good reputation.

Another thing that went wrong:  Several things that were said in the OT that referred to the past were contradicted in the PT or left out:

- "Damn fool idealistic crusade". I suppose that this refers to the Clone Wars, but what was the "idealistic" part? What was the "crusade" part? It was a war, but there wasn't much of a movement for anything - instead the Jedi were against anything that could lead to war.

- Leia remembering her mother.

- "Yoda, the Jedi Master that taught me"

Bingowings said:

Having Yoda in the PT was a mistake in my opinion and having him be a saber throwing acrobat was a disaster the series will be hard pushed to recover from.

No, I think that Yoda being in the PT was absolutely compulsory. Just has Luke is compulsory in the ST. There are too strong hints in the OT to what the character did/will do. I think that more fans would have got outraged if Yoda wasn't in the PT than they are of how Yoda was portrayed.

I agree about the saber fights. The fight in AOTC was a very cheap flirt with the fans and the fight against the Emperor in ROTS is a memory that I prefer to suppress.
The OT had Yoda set up as being primarilya great teacher and we don't see much of that. I think he would have been more interesting if we only got glimpses of his abilities in using the Force.

Dooku would have been so much more tragic/potent a character if he was the same character Liam Neeson played in TPM leaving Obi-wan to do all the ground work of finding Anakin.

Wow. I have never thought of that ... Very interesting. What if Qui-Gon was only badly hurt in TPM. The pain and suffering would make it easier for him to succumb the dark side, and also motivate him to seek out the Sith for revenge. He was already somewhat of a rogue who wouldn't have stayed on the "right" path just because doctrine said he should.   His wounds and his disobedience against the order would have kept him away from official Jedi duties, giving him time to pursue the Sith on his own .. and still have Obi-Wan be Anakin's teacher.
Even though Obi-Wan was Anakin's teacher, Qui-Gon would naturally have more access  to and influence over Anakin than Palpatine had.

* Lack of clear protagonist, especially in TPM. This has been brought up by several critics. We don't get to see Anakin until half-way into the movie.
In the prequel-trilogy, the protagonist was an ordinary guy swept up in galactic events. He had human flaws, and we could feel for the guy. Then we saw him grow and mature. What was Anakin's story? First we stupid little kid, then in the next movie we see an annoying broody teenager, and in the last movie we see an annoying broody teenager yet again.

* Star Wars is supposed to be a roller-coaster ride, both physically and emotionally. Don't drag it out in the Galactic Senate (TPM) or make it overly dark (ROTS). There needs to be both light and the dark in the movie.

* Cringe-worthy moments type 1: Aliens are depicted as funny. Even aliens getting killed is depicted as comedy ... In the OT we did not see this until a little bit in Jabba's palace .. but we got more of it in the Special Edition, and then a truckload of this type of manure in TPM.

* Cringe-worthy moments type 2: Real bad dialogue/directing. The script needs more than one script-writer. Most of the most memorable moments and lines in the OT were not from GL but from several people who helped out with the script .. or even ad-libbed by the actors. ("You're lucky you don't taste very good", "I know"). We have seen from deleted scenes/alternate takes from the OT that not all lines came out right the first time either - shooting should not be rushed.

Some acting is wooden because of overuse of CGI combined with a lack of direction. Several actors have said that they really hated having to work alone in front of a green-screen, and it shows in the result - the same actors' performances are not good in those scenes, and these are well-known classic actors with a good reputation.

* Bad female characters. In the OT, Leia is not only beautiful but she kicks ass, and we love her for it. She is the only woman we see much of, but she is a role-model for girls. She is strong, takes charge, challenges the men and she keeps her poise even when she has been taken as a slave. In the PT, Padmé can shoot droids and lead her kingdom of Naboo, but then she turns into a total wuss when she falls in love and in ROTS she has been transformed into something horrible. The OT got widely criticised for having only one leading woman, but there is still only one woman in the PT, except for the few who are practically extras because they don't say anything of value. If you want to attract female Star Wars fans, you can not do it with Padmé's wardrobe alone. The Sequel-trilogy needs strong female characters, and more than one.

* Pet peeve of many: Too much Tatooine. It is a backwater planet on the outer rim, far from the major events. People don't want to revisit the same boring old place, they want to see more of the Star Wars galaxy.

The (version of the) script that was released after the film, contains:

EXT. TATOOINE - ROCK CANYON - FLOOR - DAY

Artoo forces himself into the shadows of a small alcove in the rocks as the vicious Sand People walk past carrying the inert Luke Skywalker, who is dropped in a heap before the speeder.  The Sand People ransack the speeder, throwing parts and supplies in all directions.  Suddenly they stop.  Then everything is quiet for a few moments.  A great howling moan is heard echoing throughout the canyon which sends the Sand People fleeing in terror.

Artoo moves even tighter into the shadows as the slight swishing sound that frightened off the Sand People grows even closer, until a shabby old desert-rat-of-a-man appears and leans over Luke.  His ancient leathery face, cracked and weathered by exotic climates is set off by dark, penetrating eyes and a scraggly white beard.  Ben Kenobi squints his eyes as he scrutinizes the unconscious farm boy. Artoo makes a slight sound and Ben turns and looks right at him.

Hmm.... A "slight swishing sound" is not the same thing as a "great howling moan".

The Tuskens stopping quiet before the "howling moan" makes me inclined to say that they must have seen and been startled by Obi-Wan first. Obi-Wan makes a slight swishing sound as he moves around in his robe and the Tuskens got frightened by that and likely also from seeing Obi-Wan. This is important, because it says that the Tuskens don't just get frightened by the "great howling moan" itself.

So... the Tusken raiders hear the swishing sound from Obi-Wan approaching which frightens them to want to flee, but when they turn to see Obi-Wan, the sight of him frightens them enough to make them freeze for a moment and then the "howling moan" comes which triggers them to actually run away.

That still does not say who or what made the "great howling moan". It could have been Obi-Wan, it could have been one of the Tuskens in the group ("OMG, that is that crazy old Jedi! We are all going to die!"), it could have been a PA system that Obi-Wan had set up around the canyon, it could have been a Tusken sentinel on the rock above not frightened enough to not give a warning call, it could have been Obi-Wan's pet Krayt Dragon tied to a post behind the rock for all we know ...

The script does not contain the words "Krayt" or "Dragon" anywhere. That must have been made up afterwards.

Mavericks said:

Question: why [Leia] didn't take an occasion to escape in the lifeboat together with the droids?

"There goes another one"

"Hold your fire. There are no life forms. It must have been short-circuited."

Better to choose a small chance of survival, even though it is tiny, than choose certain death in the escape pod.

At least one escape pod was jettisoned before... Maybe that one contained another droid with another copy of the Death Star plans. ;)

But then why they tried to kill Luke, Han, Leia & Chewy in the trash compactor turning on the ramming?

Not planned. The trash compactor is automatic.

I don't think that the imperial officers tracked the heroes escape into the trash compactor.

4. The explosion of DS II at the end of ROTJ.

 This has been debated endlessly. Google "Endor holocaust".

Ack Pfft.. James Bond hasn't been interesting since Roger Moore played him.

The real music to Blunt The Knives. Sung by Tolkien himself, with the movie version for comparison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpWjgMgQIYA

With the second of three parts to come out tonight/already/tomorrow/soon (depending on where you live), here's again why I created this thread, told by movie critic Mark Kermode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P87Ahev4CDE

:)

TV's Frink said:

Darth Lars said:

adywan said:

Darth Lars said:

What Krayt Dragon? I did not see or hear any in that scene ...

... In fact, I didn't see or hear any Krayt Dragon in the entire movie.

... or in any Star Wars movie whatsoever.

You mean apart from this one?

Yeah, but that creature is very silent, you see.

You said see or hear.

Still, that is not a Krayt Dragon. That is an ex-Krayt Dragon.

adywan said:

Darth Lars said:

What Krayt Dragon? I did not see or hear any in that scene ...

... In fact, I didn't see or hear any Krayt Dragon in the entire movie.

... or in any Star Wars movie whatsoever.

You mean apart from this one?

Yeah, but that creature is very silent, you see.

I think that if The Phantom Menace had been made in the 80's and not been a Star Wars film, men people would have loved it today ... and loved Jar-Jar.  Maybe not loved Jar-Jar as much as the heroes from the original trilogy, but definitely more than an Ugnaught. It would have been a cult classic like Willow, The Last Starfighter or Short Circuit.

BTW, the title "Jar Jar's Big Adventure" has been around since right after TPM when people were joking about what the next movie was going to be called.