DominicCobb

Oh, yeah I forgot about this thread. Maybe it would have been a more appropriate place for my rant in the ESB/ROTJ Wishlist thread. What was the rant? Oh, just that I don't think we should "preserve the twist" so to speak. I gave quite a bit of reasons there, but I'll try to summarize here:

1. I know the twist. You know the twist. We all know the twist. You aren't fooling me by killing Anakin in ROTS.

2. Yeah, but so what right? Well, know. The prequels were made to show us how Anakin became Vader. When I watch the prequels I want to see how Anakin became Vader.

3. Yeah but what about the people who don't know the twist? Who? Kidding. No, I think for people who honestly don't know the twist, showing them a version of the PT that "preserves the twist" before the OT is a mistake. WHY? Because the twist is diluted. HOW? Well, let's see

a. Obi-Wan lied! Oh wait, we already knew that.

b. Anakin turned to the dark side! Oh wait, we already knew that. A significant amount of the twist's shock comes from realizing that Luke's father (that great jedi that Luke is trying so hard to follow) became a sith. Really, without this, you're left with this: Anakin is still alive! And he's this guy in the black suit who showed up and has been in the past two episodes! Yeah, not too shocking.

4. You should really watch the OT first. Or at least make it 4-5-1-2-3-6. Contrary to what Lucas says, the PT was not made to be watched before the OT. The PT would have made very little money if no OT fans saw it. The PT was made with the mindset that "people have seen the OT." I realize this isn't much of a reason, because this is one of the things that people try to fix with fan edits, but I'm just saying I would never show someone the PT before the OT. Even if it was fan edited.

Now I'm going to ease back and say that I don't necessarily mind an edit that tries to "preserve the twist" (it would be interesting to watch [and, by the way, the way to do it is to remove Skywalker from Anakin's name. So we know he's Vader, but we just don't know he's Luke's father]), but if I want to watch a definitive ROTS/PT edit/s, I want to see how Anakin became Vader. Not even if I'm watching 4-5-6-1-2-3 or 4-5-1-2-3-6, but even if I'm watching chronological, I know the twist, so I want to see everything that happens. I don't want to miss out on seeing something just because a twist that I already know is being "preserved." 

My two cents.

There are definitely some OTT elements in the cartoon, but in the end it's a personal favorite of mine. I watched before EpIII came out, and it filled in many gaps, i.e.

1. How did Anakin get those scars?

2. So what's the Clone Wars all about? (granted you learn this when you watch ROTS, but the cartoon nicely set up the main idea: jedi generals lead armies of clones against droids on many different planets)

3. We see Anakin knighted.

4. C3PO's armor change is mentioned.

5. Qui-Gon Jinn is not forgotten (he's in it! And Anakin is angry about his death)

6. Obi-Wandoes awesome things.

7. Anakin's a good pilot.

8. Mace Windu (and many other jedi) don't do nothing.

9. There are some actually funny moments.

10. We see the battle on Coruscant and Palpatine get captured.

11. We see Anakin add to his robotic arm.

12. We see Anakin and Obi-Wan board their fighters to go get Palpatine (leads right up to ROTS).

13. And, most importantly, we get to see Anakin and Obi-Wan be friends.

The only problem with the series is that Grievous is portrayed as a total bad ass - and he's not.

I don't know if anyone has thought of this, but I know how to fix the discrepancy of Luke doing nothing after he leaves Tatooine if you move Yoda to the start. What you do is, you use the sandstorm scene, and instead of having Luke leaving the planet, Luke goes to his old house to reminisce or something and you put the scene with Ben right there, in the house.

$2 for a criterion is a ridiculously good deal.

Okay, subtitle ideas:

"I feel pretty"

"This isn't a car"

"Hey, look! There's an old guy on the bridge!"

Hmm. I thought I had a good subtitle in mind.

I love Vertigo, but would personally place Rear Window and Psycho above it. With out a doubt a magnificent film, though.

Good post ender. I too loved this project, and hope that it will help inspire... something. Anyways, I think it will. And it's great to see you're finishing that script. 

If I could just stay off for a little bit, I don't think "killing Anakin" is a good idea at all. I think it goes to the root of the prequel concept. If you make it seem like you've really killed Anakin, sure it would be a big twist that Vader is Luke father, but there will be two major problems.

One - "wait, what? Anakin was definitely dead. There's no way Vader's telling the truth. Well I guess I'll have to turn on ROTJ and find out what happened..... hmm, I just watched ROTJ and they didn't explain it at all. I'm very confused."

Two - one of the reasons why the twist in ESB was such a shocker was because we were lead to believe that Anakin was a great jedi. We desperately want Luke to be as good. Then we find out Anakin was not a good jedi, and we are completely blown away. But if we already knew that Anakin turned to the dark side, the twist is diluted.

My solution for these - fixing number one is simple. Show that Anakin turned into Vader! I think it should be shown in full in ROTS. But, and here is how this post is on topic, you could, if you wanted to, have a flashback to Anakin being saved and turned into Vader in ROTJ. 

My solution to number two - actually there isn't really one from an editing stand point. That doesn't mean there isn't a solution. I firmly believe the saga should be viewed 4-5-6-1-2-3 (though 4-5-1-2-3-6 works to). I think a prequel is intended to show what came before. These prequels were made to show how Anakin became Vader. If you take that out, there's not much of a point.

(And to just bring it back to Padme dying for a sec, what I'm trying to say is, why would you take one of the better aspects out of a film that you are trying to make better? When you could easily take out a small line from another film (a change that would not hurt that film I would like to point out)?

Yeah, what I'm trying to say though is that while I thought it was cool to think that Yoda trained Obi Wan, there is only one problem with the fact that Qui Gon trained Obi and that's that it contradicted an OT throwaway line. So I realize why that can be an irritating plot point, the thing is it's not really a bad plot point, when you look at it from a PT perspective, it's a good plot point. So why get rid of that plot point? (I also have to wonder if getting rid of it is even possible.) 

Same goes for Leia's mother dying. Yeah, before the ROTS I thought Leia knew her mother before she died. ROTS shat on that. But you know what? I don't care. Because Padme's death was actually fairly emotional and really helped that film in my opinion. In ROTJ, Leia's mother surviving is, again, just a throwaway line. I liked it before for the sole reason that it made me curious. But does it really add to the film? I don't think it does.

No yeah I totally get what you're saying. I too think it's hard to believe the OT comes after the PT. That's why I think more PT designs should be in the OT. The slick stuff was only in the PT, but I think it might be cool to see some of it in the OT as many of the mock ups have proven.

As for the continuity errors, I think quite a few of them are hard to fix from a PT stand point, but much easier to fix from an OT stand point. I liked thinking Yoda was Kenobi's master as much as the next guy, but if you're putting the two trilogies in the same continuity, from which end is it easier to fix the error? As is Yoda being Obi's master is, unfortunately, just a throwaway line. But Qui Gon being his master is rather something of an unavoidable plot point. And yeah, when I first saw TPM I thought "who the hell is this Qui Gon?" But you know what? I kind of like him.

I love the OT as much as the next guy, and that's why it's great to have stuff like the preservations and Harmy's despecialized editions. But I don't think that when working on the OT one should go by the adage "make the PT match the OT instead of vice versa." For a special edition, it should be special. And yes, I like Revisited as much as the next guy, but if your going to visually update these films, why not add PT elements? I'm not really one to say since I don't mind the PT, but for people that hate them, are they really that bad that you can't admit to liking any aspects of them?  I think there are quite a bit of cool designs in the PT that would look really interesting in the OT.

I got a Sony a couple of years ago for under a hundred and it is pretty damn good. I don't have it hooked up to the internet, but I know someone has the same player as me and theirs is, and it's got some cool capabilities. I don't really know what else to say except it's quick, and when I turn it on it turns on my TV too. I don't know how it does that.

zombie84 said:

I think that Spielberg's best stuff has been since 1993.

-Schindler's List

-Jurassic Park

-Saving Private Ryan

-The Terminal

-Catch Me if You Can

-Munich

-Tintin

-Minority Report

I even think Lost World, Amistad, War of the Worlds, A.I. and Crystal Skull are really decent films, despite their problems. As much as I love the trio of Jaws, Close Encounters and Raiders, I think overall his output of 1993-2012 is stronger than his output from 1974-1990. Although Jaws and Raiders are two of his best films.

Yeah, I think I'd have to agree with pretty much everything here. Except I like to consider Amistad and War of the Worlds more than decent, and would add Hook as another decent outing; and War Horse is superb, in my opinion and the opinions of many others. Lincoln also looks like it should be pretty damn good as well. So yeah, while Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders, and E.T. are my favorite Spielberg films, I think he made a larger number of good ones after 87 than before, which now reminds me that the Last Crusade was 89, and that movie was awesome.

aalenfae said:

http://vimeo.com/47703851

And tease I will!

Name's a little misleading!

Oh, yeah. Forgot about the special edition. Well, that was a case of the studio asking for a shot inside the mothership. He regretted ever doing it. Though I wonder what his opinion of his later director's cut is now.  

Also, the title change for Raiders wasn't in the film itself.  

TV's Frink said:

Regarding the Pulp Fiction line, are we talking about the "English, do you speak it?" one?

Well, I thought we were talking about the line from "Ezekiel 25:17: The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon you."

You know, just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherf*cker before you pop a cap in his ass kill him with a lightsaber.

I always thought people were to harsh on Spielberg. He only changed one film (E.T.), and when he did, he still made a point to only include it with the original. I found the special edition, while obviously inferior to the theatrical, a unique and interesting look at E.T. You can tell he doesn't hate himself for it, but just regrets it, which is probably because there was the fan outrage saying "you're rewriting history!" I'm glad he won't revisit any other films in this way (because they don't need to be), but I don't know if I can honestly say I totally agree with his new philosophy. I'm very much a believer in film preservation, but I do see merit in changing an existing work just for the sake of curiosity, whether because of fixing dated special effects or reinserting deleted scenes. While I think it's important to keep films as they were originally released, I don't think people have to marry themselves to only watching the version of a film that was released in theaters, especially when that version could have been altered against the creator's wishes before its release. I see no reason why multiple versions of a single film can't coexist.

Warbler said:

zombie84 said:. It strikes me as similar to the likely scenario of how the Beatles started playing on the Paul-is-Dead theory

I just did a quick internet search to find out what the Paul-is-Dead theory was.   I had never heard of it before.    So let me get this straight,  some people actually believe that Paul McCartney died in 1967 and a look-a-like has been posing as McCartney ever since?    So they believe that the guy performing at Olympics opening ceremony was not Paul McCartney, but a look-a-like?   My god, people are crazy. 

If I'm not mistaken, people don't really believe this anymore. I think it was just a side-effect of Beatlemania - some people looked for meaning in the songs, and a select few thought what they found meant that Paul was dead. I'm also pretty sure that it quickly became little more than a joke after the Beatles heard of it.

TV's Frink said:

ww12345 said:

Could Mace recite his Pulp Fiction line right before he kills Jango?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzy9LnGSFs8

Maybe the Pulp Fiction line is best suited for when he comes to arrest Palpatine in ROTR.

Part of me wanted to name only 70mm films, because I wouldn't know where else to see them in their original forms. Anyways, now that you mention time limits, that reminds me that the current one for IMAX is 170 minutes, so I'm going to have to pick something other than LoA. How about E.T.

Star Wars (some one had to say it)

The Empire Strikes Back (see parenthetical for Star Wars)

My third would have been Raiders, instead I will go with Lawrence of Arabia (which also happened to have been filmed on 70mm)

Literally soiled my pants when I saw this. I was hoping Fathom would rerelease this ahead of the Blu-ray, but this is... just WOW. I can not wait. I don't know if I'm busy that week, but if I am I will make myself un busy no matter what. 

Yeah the score for this one is quite remarkable. The one's you mentioned are definitely some of the best, but my favorite one is "Gotham's Reckoning," which is partly because I love the scene it's from. Same goes for "Why Do We Fall?" another one of my favorites. 

Requiem for a Dream (2000) 9.5/10 - Quite powerful.

Pi (1998) 8.5/10 - Quite weird/interesting/crazy (in a very good way). Side note: I've finally seen all of Darren Arornofsky's films!

Anchorhead said:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt was outstanding.  I loved the nod that he was Robin the whole time, without actually being the traditional Robin. He was Bruce's partner, without a costume.  Fucking genius.

YES! Someone gets it!

Anyways it's always nice to see someone who was able to enjoy this fantastic work.