DavidMDaut

ZigZig said:

Actually, it is quite the opposite for me. I didn’t like the movie after the first viewing, but I began to understand what GL tried (and I began to appreciate it) after repeat viewings and a few days of reflection.

Time has been kind to The Phantom Menace, at least compared to the other two prequel movies. I still don’t love it, but I appreciate it way more than I used to. It feels the most like a work of sincere (if sometimes misguided) passion and the higher ratio of practical effects worth and film-based photography means it looks substantially better than its peers in that trilogy (just don’t watch the blu-ray version that has been scrubbed of all texture).

captainsolo said:

I think that as said above the distinct lack of energy and vibrancy is a major problem. The thought of going to a park which is teeming with life/activity/droids/scum and villainy like a real spaceport is MUCH more like it.

While I fundamentally disagree on the issue of content as it relates to the sequel trilogy, the lack of energy is a fair criticism, and unfortunately comes down to a lot of eleventh hour budget cuts imposed by the current president of Disney Parks. There were plans for autonomous roaming droids, stunt shows, and more characters and creatures populating the land, but Bob Chapek – who has quickly gained a reputation as something of a miser – pulled the ripcord and refused to hire the performers necessary to fill these roles.

The most frustrating thing is that the infrastructure is all there in plain sight in the land, it’s just not being used. There are stages and performance spaces around just about every corner of the outpost, there are props and set pieces placed conspicuously close to doorways that hide the beacons that would have told the droids areas to avoid. The grand opening press event in California featured one of the stunt shows that has yet to materialize for the general public, and similarly the opening in Florida featured a full Hondo Ohnaka walk-around character costume that – again – has not shown up since then. There’s all of this stuff that they spent the time and money to develop and have basically ready to go, but none of it’s online because the guy holding the purse strings is too cheap to hire performers.

Biggs Audio Dynamite said:

I imagine it will be super expensive, yet worth it if you have that kind of money!

There’s a report going around quoting $3,300 for the full three-day experience for a single occupancy cabin or $7,200 for a cabin with five passengers. Keep in mind, though, that even if these reports are accurate to what’s currently being discussed (dubious), we’re at least a year and probably a recession away from this thing opening. Nothing is set in stone yet.

Also worth noting is, despite being commonly referred to as a hotel, this will be more like “what if Sleep No More was on a cruise ship?”, so expect pricing closer to a cruise than a typical hotel.

Now that we’ve made it through the prequels and Solo, I’m back in cartoon mode until (checks calendar) October. I know that doesn’t carry as much interest as the films do around here, but I thought I’d share my piece on Star Wars Rebels’ first season either way.

After Lucas left, the future of Star Wars was uncertain. Still dealing with the fallout from a decade backlash against the prequels, the series needed a renewed statement of intent. Star Wars Rebels became just that, appealing to nostalgia for the original films while at once working to unite Lucas’s two trilogies into an inseparable whole and lay the ground work for the future of Star Wars stories.

This show is one that means a lot to me, and as such this is probably the most sentimental this series is going to get. Anyway, you can read it here if you’re into that. Enjoy!

Back again with another entry, this time on Solo: A Star Wars Story. This one isn’t the worst Star Wars film, but it’s maybe the most frustrating. A work that is more Easter egg hunt than movie; a tremendously directed film where empty fan service eclipses story and character development.

Read it here.

timdiggerm said:

I’ve really been enjoying this series, but was surprised you didn’t talk about the Opera scene. Isn’t it…decent?

Had to narrow my focus a bit on this one since I was already knocking on the door of 3,000 words just focussing on three major moments from the film. The opera scene is pretty good – one of the better scenes in the movie, certainly. I didn’t get to talk much about Ian McDiarmid, but it’s clear he’s having so much fun, and all the better he’s not buried under a stupid-looking makeup prosthetic at this point. I think the direction of the scene is a bit flat (like nearly all of the rest of the movie), but since the scene is carried by McDiarmid monologuing, it generally works.

SilverWook said:

I’ve long thought AOTC was the worst, but YMMV. 😉

They’re both pretty bad, but there are at least entire sequences I like in Clones. Sequences! There are barely entire scenes I like in Sith. This is the one that had the most it needed to get right, and it just falls flat at every single turn.

If you’ll indulge me in reviving a dead thread, I’ve finally made it through The Clone Wars and have another entry in this series examining one of the films. I figured more people around these parts might have interest in that.

This time I’m digging into the very worst Star Wars movie: Revenge of the Sith.

Also, if any of you are interested in my series of articles on The Clone Wars, you can find all of those right here.

captainsolo said:

I too think the asking was more of a formality as I don’t see how there would be any legality binding it to George’s say so since he pretty much signed over everything.

A formality, yes, but I think it’s one they intend to carry forward for the foreseeable future. Lucasfilm doesn’t want to alienate their namesake, and Disney wants to stay on good enough terms with George that he’s willing to, say, come out and give his blessing at the opening of their new theme park land.

Just got out. Program began with Rogue One introduced by John Knoll. Super neat, but that’s not why you’re here.

John Dykstra introduced a 70mm print struck for the UK but never screened (I heard someone say it was ‘81, but the date was never formally stated). It was never screened because the first time it was projected, the print tore, and thus there was about two seconds of pretty major damage right as the Death Star blows up, but otherwise, the print was immaculate. Minimal damage and virtually no fading. “A New Hope” was on the crawl, but otherwise, it’s the original film.

Apparently, after some convincing, Lucas himself signed off on the Academy showing this version of the film. That’s huge, because he has firmly not allowed the original version to be publicly screened since before 1997. What does that mean for future releases? Who can say, but this screening is something that seemed impossible just one week ago.

A YouTube channel called “Cow Missing” recently uploaded a version of the Star Tours workprint footage I’ve never seen before – one that includes the video from the second screen inside the Starspeeder.

https://youtu.be/D43_dr7_JKg

Also, they’ve posted the tail end of the pre-show video including the safety spiel.

https://youtu.be/e3_94NFtSvI

Apparently this wasn’t just weird shenanigans on Netflix’s part. This was not only authorized by Tarantino, he oversaw the cut himself.

He also talks about wanting to do a longer cut of Django Unchained as well.

https://www.slashfilm.com/hateful-eight-netflix-miniseries/

No idea when this happened, but Pablo Hidalgo just tweeted about it. The Ewok Adventure movies are now available for digital purchase or rental on Amazon. It’s still just SD, but hey, it’s something.

Caravan of Courage

Battle for Endor

I agree that too many sub forums might fragment readers and have a negative impact on discussion. Maybe separate it out by type of media?

-Star Wars Movies & TV
-Video Games
-Theme Parks & Exhibits
-Novels & Comics
-Theatrical Cuts vs. Re-releases
-Toys & Memorobilia

You could make a solid argument for splitting some of those into separate categories (especially movies and TV), but I think there’s enough overlap to justify keeping them together. It’ll be hard to talk about, say, the Cassian show without also talking about Rogue One.

The Chronological Star Wars is back with a look at the The Clone Wars and how, over the course of its first season, the show developed from just another Expanded Universe story into something that could begin to legitimately stand alongside the films.

Check it out here.

Flubly said:

Would love to, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen Disney animation classics in any of the theaters around that do those type of screenings. I’ve seen some older Disney live action around, but not animation. I’m definitely keeping my eyes open.

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a little more than five years, and outside of screenings at the Disney owned El Capitan in Hollywood (which are all DCPs based on Blu-ray transfers), Disney animation never shows up in repertory screenings. I’ve seen plenty of Disney live action stuff – even heavy hitters like the first Pirates of the Caribbean and Mary Poppins – on 35, but I suspect Disney keeps a pretty tight lid on their animated classics. It’s enormously frustrating.

Valheru_84 said:

though it seems to ramble a fair bit which makes it unnecessarily longer than the first

Well, I suppose that’s in keeping with the source material 😉

Part of what killed Filmstruck, though, was Warners pulling their catalogue with the assumed intent of consolidating everything they own to launch their own streaming service to compete with Disney+. We’re rushing headlong into a return to the bad old days of vertical integration and Disney is leading the charge.

It won’t happen overnight; I think we’ll continue to see at least the big stuff be released on disc for a while (Marvel, Star Wars, the headliners of the Disney animated canon), but smaller stuff and movies that failed to make a splash will quietly stop showing up on store shelves. It’s already happened with the back catalogue stuff, and I would bet money that box office duds like Tomorrowland or A Wrinkle in Time will be the next thing that become “Disney+ Exclusives”.

I don’t have anything in the way of hard data, just a somewhat informed guess based on observation and some of the rumblings I’ve heard. It’s been years since Disney has released any catalog titles on Blu-ray that aren’t just re-releases of films that have already been released on the platform, and they’ve been a slow adopter of 4K to say the least. I think they’re biding their time to see how Disney+ performs, and if it’s a hit, I think they’ll massively scale back the number physical releases.

At this point, I think the best we’re likely to get is for these to end up being included in the Disney+ streaming service. Disney desperately wants out of the physical media game, and I just can’t see them doing a physical release for something with such niche appeal.

Glad you’re enjoying these so far! The next entry is up now.

‪On paper, the Star Wars prequels were not terrible ideas, but they consistently missed the mark and failed to live up to their own lofty ambitions. Nowhere is that divide between intentions and execution clearer than in Attack of the Clones.

https://davidmdaut.com/2019/01/14/star-wars-attack-of-the-clones/‬

Enjoy!

I moonlight as a film critic, and with Episode IX on the horizon for the end of the year, I thought it might be fun to embark on a personal project to re-watch and review every canonical Star Wars film and TV series in the twelve months leading up to the so-called final installment in the Skywalker Saga. If you’ll excuse a bit of shameless self-promotion, I thought some of you might find it interesting.

The first entry on The Phantom Menace is already up on my blog. Spoiler: it’s actually less about the film itself and more about the way the discourse surrounding the movie in the early days of the internet set an unfortunate precedent for online fandom that we’re still dealing with to this day. Yay movies!

In the coming weeks and months I’ll also be writing about the 9 remaining films as well as The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and Star Wars Resistance and maybe a few extra surprises along the way.

Also, just for kicks, I wrote about some of the no-longer-canon Star Wars productions like The Holiday Special and the Ewoks and Droids cartoons as a sort of prelude to this series. You can read all of those here.

Anyway, I hope plugging my own stuff like this isn’t too crass. Hope at least some of you find it compelling.

Williarob said:

While I don’t disagree with anything you just said, I would argue that a “hardcore” Star Wars fan could point out to you a number of key differences between the 1977 version, the 1981 version, the 1985 Audio mix, the 1993 THX masters, the 1997 Special Edition, the 2004 DVD and the 2011 Bluray. While a Casual (or new) fan probably wouldn’t know about these differences (or care).

Oh, for sure. There are definitely different levels of knowledge and interest, but from my experience those specific distinctions (hardcore/casual) most often tend to be used for the purposes of gatekeeping so that older fans can wield their knowledge of trivia as a cudgel. And this is hardly exclusive to Star Wars fans. It’s one of those ugly aspects of fandom that is pretty consistent regardless of your interests.

skywalkerfan101 said:

A little off topic, but can somebody please explain to me the difference between a hardcore and casual Star Wars fan?

The only real distinction is that a “hardcore” fan thinks the fact that they saw a silly space movie in 1977 makes them superior to someone who didn’t see it until 1997 or 2007 or – heaven forbid! – 2017.

If you like Star Wars, that makes you a fan. Anyone who tries to perpetuate some sort of hardcore/casual dichotomy is just acting on their insecurity in the silliest way imaginable.

Pop Zeus said:

I was too young to see any movie in 1977, let alone SW but I remember going to see ANH during the 1997 re-release and thinking how strange the print looked (besides all the CG). It was distracting to the point where I wasn’t sure I enjoyed the experience. I think those issues partially carried over to the SE blu-rays.

Similar experience for me. I grew up with the original on home video and saw the Special Editions in theaters, but the most remarkable thing about 4K77 is that it looks like a film shot in the ‘70s and I’ve literally never seen it look like this before. Even if Disney/Lucasfilm were eventually to release the original cuts on home video, I doubt they’d look like this just because it’s so radically different from how the films have been presented for the past three decades.