DarthXenu

Oh and I love the original jerky mechanical motions of the walkers too. Bit of a homage to Ray Harryhausen I reckon. However for the taun tauns I like the new fluid motion, after all they are supposed to be alive.

I am glad to hear that the AT-AT doesn't fall. I like the fact that in the original movie they only manage to take out a couple of walkers. the battle of Hoth was a walkover for the Empire. Showing more walkers getting destroyed would lessen the impact of the story.

IMHO

:: Off-topic post removed - warning given

Vampire slayer? You seek Buffy. Take you to her I will.

Hi Ady,

Will you be changing Yoda's name to Buffy? 

Radi0n said:

Back in the day when realism mattered, instead of sticking everything on there with damn computers...
I still prefer the OT battles over the PT ones. PT is just too damn chaotic.

There's just something about the ESB battles that makes me drool.

Totally, there are so many great flying sequences in ESB. The asteroid scene blows away the one in AOTC. I also love the falcon attacking the star destroyer, the little flip the falcon does as it doubles back over the cloud bank to rescue Luke on Bespin and that flight along the edge of the executor. All done with little plastic models!

IMHO the only parts of ESB that look dodgy are some parts of the battle of Hoth. When the tripped walker blows up, the way the snow surface reacts looks just like a table covered in flour (or whatever they used). Also the walker falling over after Luke throws the grenade in, well I never noticed the stick pushing it but the model looks like... a model.

In other scenes however the walkers look great. I particularly love the moment towards the end of the battle when the rebel troops are fleeing before a walker that is picking them off with turbo lasers. The empire look like real bullies and you get a real sense of how outgunned the rebels are.

The other really poor scene in the trilogy is the executor crashing into the DS2. That should have been a spectacular moment but it looks like a model crashing into another model. Hope you plan to fix this Ady. Would particularly like to see the view from the bridge or DS (or both!) as this happens. Anyway that is off topic and I don't want to risk another train wreck.

I didn't think Ady was using photoshop. I was assuming there was an equivalent of photoshop but for moving images but that the basic image editing principles were the same.

Do those images just look bad when looked at frame by frame? I seem to remember that the existing scene looked great when I last saw it.

Mind you my telly is an old PAL widescreen CRT. Maybe if I viewed it in HD I would see what you are all seeing. I will have to get a better TV in time for the release.

OK I have an on topic question for Ady.

Sorry if this has been covered before but I am interested in the process you are using to do this revisit. I understand you are redoing the asteroid canyon and are building a canyon so that you can refilm it. Presumably you aren't going to redo the TIE fighters, but what exactly is involved? I guess it is along these lines:

1: Use photoshop (or similar) to isolate the existing TIE fighters, falcon and explosions from the background.

2: Shoot footage of the new canyon and paste it into the background of the isolated spaceships.

3: Do some photoshop magic to make it all seamless.

I am sure that that alone is a huge job but is that more or less the right idea or are there some extra steps involved?

Secondly, what is wrong with the existing canyon shot? I can't see anything myself but I have not studied it in the detail that you have.

asterisk8 said:

Yes, sorry, that's what I get for trying to explain FTL travel after a long day of work. The time would be theoretically instantaneous for those inside the ship (ignoring the fact that they would've reached infinite mass), but for everyone else, like those waving goodbye to you or waiting for you on the other side of the galaxy, it would take so long as to be pointless.

You're right that Star Wars cannot be explained with realworld physics, that it proposes a stable space outside spacetime called Hyperspace, and that this space has dimension and objects within it have mass. Hyperspace is about as real as Middle Earth, but I just thought it might help some people here if they visualized just how much distance is being traversed by characters in space sagas like this. I mean, Star Wars starts with "... in a galaxy far, far away." I think Lucas recognized that even highly-advanced civilizations weren't likely to leave their own galaxy.

Actually in the travellers frame of reference they would have normal mass (they might have felt quite heavy during the acceleration stage of the journey though!). It is only the outside observers who would see them as having infinite mass. This is why the only particles known to travel at the speed of light have a rest mass of zero. Even neutrinos are now thought to have a small rest mass and I look forward to the first measurement of the time delay between the light flash and the neutrino signal from a distant supernova.

The fastest particle (with a rest mass) ever observed was a cosmic ray detected by the fly's eye experiment. It had an energy of 3*10^20 eV which is about the same as that of a bowling ball dropped from about a metre (imagine it landing on your foot) all contained in a sub-atomic particle (probably a proton). It was so close to the speed of light that it travelled 160 Million Light Years in about 15 minutes in it's frame of reference. It took rather longer in ours!

But as you say the SW universe is as fantastical as Middle Earth. I like both of them for that reason. I put wands and light sabers in the same category, though I think light sabers are cooler. I just get a bit hacked off with people trying to use science to explain things in these movies. Firstly they are just escapist fantasy and secondly they DON'T NEED FURTHER EXPLANATION. I saw ANH when I was 9 and I pretty much understood it all. Well except why Han and Luke seemed so keen on a girl. I didn't get that until a couple of years later in ESB! Incidentally, does anyone else think Leia looks hottest in ESB? I know in ROTJ that she has the slave girl outfit but there is something about her in ESB...

asterisk8 said:

As a lifelong fan of astrophysics, and having contemplated the vastness of space quite a lot, I think it's entirely unlikely that that is a galaxy at the end of ESB. I understand that Star Wars rarely, if ever, obeys the laws of physics, so this is just for the sake of providing some insight and I think adywan is thinking along the same lines, so maybe this avoids him having to elaborate.

I've often felt that only the worst space fiction treats galaxies like countries or planets one can easily hop between. For all intents and purposes, this galaxy we live in IS the universe. Even after we achieve faster-than-light travel, we will likely never leave our galaxy. Even at 100 times the speed of light, it would take 1,000 years to cross the Milky Way. Talking about the distance between galaxies, even at 1 million times the speed of light, it would take 2 full year to get to the nearest galaxy.

It is simply unlikely, even with the most advanced technology one can dream of, even with wormholes, that lifeforms are capable of leaving their own galaxy.

EyeShotFirst said:

DarthXenu said:

Bingowings said:

Lucky it doesn't sound like 'density' and Vader does the Vulcan salute while threatening to melt Luke's brain unless he takes his sister to the prom.

Ady, can you add this just after "I am your father". You will have to replace John Williams with Van Halen for the full effect.

Good idea, but is it going to be Van Halen or Van Hagar? I'm more of a Roth kinda guy.

I may be wrong but I think Marty had Van Halen playing on his walkman in that scene.

The Delorean would look pretty cool as part of the rebel fleet!

Bingowings said:

Lucky it doesn't sound like 'density' and Vader does the Vulcan salute while threatening to melt Luke's brain unless he takes his sister to the prom.

Ady, can you add this just after "I am your father". You will have to replace John Williams with Van Halen for the full effect.

Just seen the trailer for the first time (like I say I am a newb here). I Loved the new dialogue between Vader and the Emperor. Sounds very similar to the original. Also sounds more natural than that wordy exposition crap that GL wrote for the DVD. Poor old GL can't write dialogue to save his life. If only The PT actors had had the balls to quote Harrison Ford to him:

"George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can't say it..."

That's a relief for me Adywan! You can enjoy your star and I'll be happy with my galaxy.

Hi Adywan, So if some people think its a new star and some the galaxy is the best solution to leave it as is? I personally think the existing backdrop looks great and people can see it as a galaxy/new star as they see fit.

I have been thinking about why this scene is so powerful and it seems to me a very clever piece of film making.

At the start of ESB, we are presented with our first glimpse of the Imperial fleet, a vast array of giant warships. In the finale, we get our first look at the rebel fleet, a small number of puny freighters and a medical frigate*. This emphasises the gulf between the two adversaries. It adds to our feeling that the rebel cause is hopeless.

Secondly, the scene shows both the audience and our heroes exactly what is at stake: the entire galaxy**. This reminds us that the loss of Han Solo is just a small human tragedy compared to the bigger picture.

At the start of the film we see the Empire focus its considerable power upon a handful of humans hiding out on an inhospitable planet in some galactic backwater. At the end of the movie we see the puny rebel fleet up against the whole galaxy. The comparison could not be starker. This is the cliff hanger taken to a whole new level. Not only are we left wondering how they will rescue Han but how can they possible save the galaxy.

The situation is hopeless; but by some light touches, a smile from leia and by having our heroes stand firm and face the task ahead (literally having them stand at the window and gaze at the galaxy they must save) we are given a glimmer of hope. 

The finishing touch is John Williams score. I think he peaked with Empire, the music as the rebel fleet fades out is full of both hope and despair.

What a setup for a finale. If only I had a time machine I would go back and beg Kershner to direct ROTJ.

* Adding the large mon calamari ships here would ruin the comparison of the Empire and the Rebellion. When I was a kid I just assumed the Squids joined the rebellion in between ESB and ROTJ.

** I think the imagery only works if this scene is the galaxy. A star forming region does not have the same impact.

BTW, since I am new here, I would like to say thanks Adywan. Mrs Xenu and myself watched ANH:Revisited for the first time last week and were blown away. Haven't watched SW in years as the SE crud just jars so badly with my fond memories of watching the originals as a kid on the big screen (opening day for all 3 at the Odeon in Liverpool).

We both loved the DS almost firing at the end. Generally I subscribe to the 'less is more' theory but your Battle of Yavin was superb.

Marcos_Edson said:

DarthXenu said:

The rebels are being hunted with such determination that they are forced to hide at the very edge of the galaxy. Nowhere inside is safe for them.

On the other hand, if it´s so easy, and apparently fast, for them to reach such regions of space, why not hide there in the first place? :) It almost make establishing a large base like the Hoth one pointless... :)

Maybe they can't stay out there and build a big base because they need a nearby planet for oxygen, food or water etc so the edge of the galaxy is a last resort, like hiding in the desert.

However I don't think you should rely on logic too much when talking about star wars, This is the universe where the empire uses walkers when nukes would have done. I am not interested in an EU explanation of this, GL admitted it made no military sense but he thought (correctly IMHO) that the walkers looked cool.

Another example of bad logic/science: the falcon gets from the asteroid belt (presumably in the Hoth system) to Bespin despite having no hyperdrive. Even a nearby star would have taken years at  <= light speed. Oh well I guess that gives Luke a decade or more of jedi training.

Or how about a cover over the exhaust port in ANH or some big gates in the tunnels in ROTJ? SW is fun and exciting but it's not science fiction. The x-wings and tie-fighters fly as if they are in an atmosphere and exploding space ships make a big noise. Not scientifically accurate but fun.

To be honest one of my most hated scenes in TPM was the scientifically accurate portrayal of the R2 units zooming around on the outside of Amidalas starship. There is no atmosphere so these guys should be able to move as shown (so long as the ship doesn't break/accelerate suddenly). But hang on, in star wars we expect to be given the feeling of speed because that's what makes it exciting. So it was quite out of character for GL to have this scene in. Even weirder, a few seconds later an R2 unit is shot and flys off into the distance!

I always liked the galaxy backdrop at the end of empire. I think it is one of my favourite scenes in the trilogy. The rebels are being hunted with such determination that they are forced to hide at the very edge of the galaxy. Nowhere inside is safe for them. 

It also gives the film a real epic feel to show the whole of the sw galaxy in the distance. In the booklet that came with "The Story of the Empire Strikes Back" vinyl LP (loved this as a kid), the backdrop was changed to a red nebula. Very attractive but not as awe inspiring as the entire galaxy.

I know I am a newbie here but can I make a plea that however you change this ending, keep it as the galaxy. When I was 11 years old the thought of my heroes out there at the edge of space just made my jaw drop when I saw it for the first time.

Radi0n said:

haraldo23 said:

Clones in PT were the same because they ate, drank and trained the same. They lived together in equal spaces. But Boba had a different life than clones, you don't know what Boba has been doing.

Sounds very logical. Never thought of it that way.

And also - the original voice kicks ass, but Morrison's version, on the other hand, sounds boring.

True. Morrison's version is inferior by far, I'll give you that.

OT>PT. No matter what.

Obviously.

RoccondilRinon said:

He's not Australian, don't blame us. He's a Kiwi.

Never meant to. But you've got to admit, he sure sounds like one.
Then again, New Zealand being so close to Austrialia is a Ric Olie explanation.

Adywan has said every damn time this has come up that he will be changing the voice in the PT to match.

Yes well, if you tackle the whole OT ánd PT, you pretty much eliminate EVERY conceivable flaw Lucas ever created. In which case, I rest mine.

Thank you both for the clear-cut answers.

True, Tem is a kiwi, but he is actually a very good actor. Watch 'Once Were Warriors'. His performance is legendary. The only reason he sounds so bad in the PT is because GL can't direct to save his life. Ewan McGregor is another great actor but he comes across very wooden in the PT. 

However I do agree that the original voice should be restored. It is what I remember and accents are based on upbringing, not on genetics. There is no reason Jango and Boba should sound alike.