DominicCobb

FreezingTNT2 said:

Saying it’s a Jedi’s weapon doesn’t mean he’s saying it’s exclusive to the Jedi.

I don’t understand this… we aren’t supposed to believe a “Jedi weapon” is a “Jedi weapon”? So what does it mean then? Was the Emperor supposed to say, “this is a Jedi weapon and no other group of people can use it ever, for any purpose” for the intent of his statement to be clear?

Why would he not just call the lightsaber a lightsaber, or not discuss it at all?

I think the use and discussion of lightsabers throughout the films make it abundantly clear what the intent is.

I don’t really understand your reasoning. Is he not allowed to call it a Jedi weapon if other people use it too? It’s still the “weapon of the Jedi” either way (do we need to change that line too?). The point is moot anyway because like I said the weapon isn’t exclusive to the Jedi in the OT either, the PT doesn’t change anything in this regard. So I really don’t get where you’re coming from, sorry.

SilverWook said:

I do wonder if there was ever a crawl shot with Revenge.

Late response, but almost certainly not. According to Rinzler’s book, ROTJ finally officially became Return around December 17, 1982. The crawl wasn’t shot until the last day of February, 83.

Broom Kid, it’s like you’re reading my mind.

Broom Kid said:

act on instinct said:

I’m not willing to bow in allegiance to brand alone.

For what its worth, I think this is a valuable lesson to learn, no matter how you came to learn it. Nobody should be “bowing in allegiance” to any brand, and forcing an expectation to do so onto yourself is pretty unfair to both the movies and to yourself.

Star Wars shouldn’t be expected to “top” anything. It’s not really a competition. Star Wars movies need to be good, entertaining, involving movies on their own, first and foremost. Whatever standing they may or may not secure in some later brand hiearchy isn’t really anywhere near as important. If Star Wars isn’t the A1 premier brand in film anymore… eh. I don’t think I was getting anything more out of the movies and stories when it was. That status doesn’t really have anything to do with why the stories are great, you know? Something else can be the biggest brand for awhile. I’m not a shareholder in those brands so it really doesn’t matter to me which “team” is ranked #1 anyway, so long as the movies are good.

It’s really weird how everything these days has turned into, basically, sports teams. People hold allegiances to certain one with rivalries against another. I suppose the term franchise is inclusive of both, but I’d hope that the audience engagement would be different. It’s especially weird when the whole competing thing comes up because yes, these days Star Wars isn’t the number one film franchise. But the franchise that is number one is owned by the exact same company as SW, so what difference does it make?

act on instinct said:

Well I pretty much laid out I wasn’t automatically loyal to the brand, so no I don’t care so much who is making the most money or which brand is rated the highest. It’s what’s so special about Star Wars in a post Star Wars world. When the original Star Wars was made the team that would become ILM was flying by the seat of their pants, the technology that made the original films possible had to be invented, many didn’t believe in the film and it had no prior foundation of brand recognition to build upon. I personally take this context into consideration, and take the achievement of A New Hope as a pretty monumental one, enough that it not only worked, but changed the industry. So with that history there is a lot of expectation, seemingly impossible to live up to, but I’d like to see them try anyway. I know some might be fine if the new movies just looked like shinier versions of the old ones, with same but different adventures, I personally want to see the leap that Lucas made, to really push beyond what seemed possible. But the stakes are in the billions now so I understand why ST went throwback, but again I don’t care who makes the most money so I would have probably just preferred the version that audiences hated if it was a result of trying something really new.

You’re absolutely right that Lucas always tried to push the boundaries of what’s possible on Star Wars, and that isn’t really happening post-Lucas (besides Tarkin/Leia in Rogue One). It’s basically the reason he complained about them, according to Iger’s biography. From my perspective, though, it’s kind of a ‘who cares?’ sort of thing.

First of all, these days there’s really only so much boundary pushing you can do. With the advent and proliferation of CGI effects has come the desensitization of the ‘special’-ness of FX of all sorts. The assumption these days is that you can do anything with a computer, so truthfully there isn’t much room for boundary pushing in general. I am curious to see what Cameron does on the Avatar sequels, but I am also skeptical of how ‘revolutionary’ they will be.

All that aside, obviously everyone has different experiences with Star Wars, but for me the appeal was never the effects. Since I grew up with the films, I never quite understood at the time how revolutionary they were, not to mention I also grew up with all the films that came after, so I never saw their effects as special or unique. What always mattered to me far more was the story and the characters. Lucas might have invented a new form of filmmaking on the prequels, but it was the stuff that really mattered that tripped him up.

FreezingTNT2 said:

Here’s a suggestion: remove the part in RotJ were Palpatine refers to Luke’s saber as “A Jedi’s weapon”.

Does that really contradict the PT, though? We see Vader has a saber throughout the OT, and we know for a fact that it’s not just his leftover Jedi saber, because Ben had that and gave it to Luke. Saying it’s a Jedi’s weapon doesn’t mean he’s saying it’s exclusive to the Jedi.

Yeah, I saw some really stupid headlines for that (whatever ‘that’ is). “Episode One of The Mandalorian has a Huge Spoiler for the Star Wars Universe.” That doesn’t even make sense. Who the hell knows what it means. Anyway, that’s a topic for a different topic.

Broom Kid said:

They’d still have to do the other two, though. And at that point, why wouldn’t they just do all three? Especially since they already have access to the material they need in a higher quality than theatrical release prints.

If I’m wrong, I’ll be happy to be wrong, because it means the original versions finally got a proper home theater release, no matter what. Although I’m certain there’ll be something that jumps out at the eagle-eyes among us that necessitates further fan-restoration is needed. But at least at that point we’d be working from a very high-quality 4k source to make whatever changes need to be made.

But I don’t see Lucasfilm releasing the original versions and using Verta’s fan-restoration as part of them.

Listen, I as much as you hope they do a proper restoration using the actual elements. But also, corporations are lazy. It’s not implausible to suggest they might take the easiest possible route when given the option.

doubleofive said:

Broom Kid said:

If they’re taking screenshots from Vimeo previews for their books, how is that a sign of anything deeper or more troubling? Deeper or more troubling than what? It’s a tie-in book that probably won’t really sell a whole lot to anyone who isn’t already a superfan. What signs are you seeing in the decision by an editor or graphic designer to use a frame from a Vimeo screencap that are so troubling?

If Lucasfilm continues to have to go to fan restorations they found on YouTube over actually restoring the film, then there’s something wrong there. Film history is being ignored because fans posted clips somewhere? What if they accidentally use Revisited or any of the other fan edits that are right next to it online? Why would they know to reference Legacy if they didn’t have Legacy on hand?

Something to consider though, it’s not an altogether unlikely an explanation that the people writing these books are as much a fan as we are, and specifically sought out the Legacy clip to use for the book. You could even say that this is the Occam’s razor explanation - the shot from Legacy is arguably the highest quality clean still of that shot out there, which is why it might have been used.

Important to note as well, the writers do not technically work for LFL, they work for Haynes publishing.

I didn’t mean to suggest a direct comparison with Solo by any means, just a similarity. One thing that’s probably worth noting about Disney+ is that it will have every SW except TLJ, which I might say is an issue, but on the other hand the reason is because TLJ is on Netflix, which arguably is a better spot for it in regards to being accessible to watch for potential TROS audience members.

One thing I wonder is how Disney+ will handle advertising within the service. By which I mean, Netflix, like Disney+, is “ad free,” though it’s impossible to spend a second on the service without seeing an ad for a Netflix show or movie (either on the landing page or at the end of a movie/tv show). I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney+ did the same, and I also wouldn’t be too surprised if they had ads for their theatrical films as well.

It might not be a sign of anything.

That said, I will say LFL using/releasing Legacy is not that far fetched. There’s a pretty decent case to be made that they only reason we haven’t seen new releases of the OOT is because they don’t care enough to restore them. Yes Disney is a massive company with deep pockets, but the home video market is a dying one, so it’s not crazy to think a proper restoration might not be in the budget. In this scenario, being offered a restored version on a platter might be something they’d be open to.

You know, back to the discussion we had about the Mandalorian’s affect on TROS, I will say this, I do feel like its proximity to TROS is sort of zapping up some of the latter’s marketing. If you look at the Star Wars website or social handles, it’s all the Mandalorian right now. Which makes sense, but TROS is coming out in a month. We aren’t really seeing that full blitz because the efforts are divided. Arguably we saw the same thing with Solo where they held off until late, simply because they wanted TLJ to have its time in the spotlight.

It kind of makes you wonder if putting out the Mandalorian a month before the new movie was a good decision (not to mention, it’ll be airing weekly up to and past the release of the film), but then Disney+ is launching in November and they need a flagship show. When you look at it that way, it’s actually reasonable to assume that Disney is putting more stock in the Mandalorian succeeding than TROS. The ST has already made Disney plenty of money and then some, so TROS is really just icing on the cake for the trilogy and Disney’s insanely successful year. More importantly, TROS is the end of that story, while Mandalorian is the launch of a show that could potentially go on for years, and the launch of a platform that will house most of the future Star Wars content (between the live action and animated shows, and, I would argue, eventually movies as well).

sade1212 said:

“I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.”
This quote would make more sense if he said Qui-Gon, clearly, but we’d have to establish somehow that Luke knows who Qui-Gon was or else it’d seem odd that he didn’t ask. Putting the name Qui-Gon in “was I any different when [Qui-Gon] taught me” in ESB probably helps this a bit but it still seems odd.

I don’t have the biggest issue with that line, personally. Easy to think that Ben could have swapped in “Yoda” there for “Qui-Gon” or “Mace Windu” or whoever, but decided to use Yoda because Luke was familiar with him.

Arguably, with the PT in mind, the line meaning now is essentially that he was arrogant and thought he could train Anakin as well as the greatest Jedi teacher there is could.

Octorox said:

Don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up just yet but I’ve started tinkering with this again. Trying to find a narratively satisfying place to put the 3rd seeds of the rebellion scene and I think I may have finally cracked it. Borrowed a shot from Siliconmaster482’s edit which I believe was pulled from Attack of the Clones and flipped/color corrected.

Here is the clip: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ar3OOaZZGQ9oaf5ZGoqojil3Dj2Ugwy4

EDIT: Watching through it a few times, I may ultimately decide to wipe to the next scene after “Senator Amidala is hiding something, I can see it in her eyes”. Thoughts on that vs. how the clip currently plays?

Nice, this is similar to how I did it in my edit (only I put the dream after the deleted scene). One minor suggestion would be to add a beat after Anakin asks if Obi-wan has been there before we cut to him saying his next line, only because the pacing feels a bit awkward on that edit.

ChainsawAsh said:

The “8 minutes” thing also makes it seem like they really are only using TFA outtakes, since I can’t imagine that between TFA and TLJ there was only 8 minutes of unused footage of her. Unless RJ used everything he had and put everything else on the BR deleted scenes section (assuming they’re trying to avoid using any footage we’ve seen, even if it wasn’t actually in the films).

Well I don’t think it’s that hard to believe. When TFA came out, the editors said there was around 20-30 minutes of deleted scenes, and what did we end up with on the BD, 10? Whereas for TLJ, we did get about 30 minutes of deleted material on the BD, and I can’t find any sign or mention of any scenes that were shot but didn’t make it on disc. Of course, there are always moments and lines here and there that get trimmed and never show up in anything, so it’s possible that there’s some extra Carrie bits, but it’s probably just as possible that there isn’t.

When you factor in as well that Leia specifically had a subplot that was cut from TFA (though who knows how much there is besides what we’ve seen), plus we know that there was a lot of rewriting/reshoots/restructuring with that film (there’s at least one Leia scene, from the trailer, we know they shot that didn’t make it on disc), I think it makes sense that they’re pulling from TFA primarily. But we’ll see when it comes out. I’d love a really in depth doc on how her role (however the size) was accomplished, though I fear that’s the sort of thing they’d rather not go into.

Billie Lourd mentions Leia in TROS in this, but it really should be read because it’s just a very nice and touching piece in general about her relationship with her mother - https://time.com/5720323/billie-lourd-princess-leia-essay-carrie-fisher/

adywan said:

There isn’t going to be 8 minutes of Carrie. They had 8 minutes available and analysed every frame. This doesn’t mean that they were able to use every second of that footage though. I’d say it’s going to be a lot less than that.

Yes I know (plus who’s to say there even is 8 minutes of footage). This is all secondhand information so it’s hard to trust it completely anyway. Just working out the best case scenario. Star Wars is about hope, isn’t it?

Force-Abel said:

Carrie Fisher’s brother reveals new details about Leia’s ‘Rise of Skywalker’ role: ‘She was going to be the last Jedi’:-

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/details-of-carrie-fishers-rise-of-skywalker-role-revealed-210514180.html

Hard to take what he says without a little grain of salt, as we know the script went through multiple revisions between the different screenwriters and directors. That being said, obviously what we’ll end up with will be a much less prominent role for Carrie than they ever would have wanted to do.

In my mind, the interesting nugget here is that he says they had 8 minutes of footage of her, and analyzed every frame and then “reverse-engineered” them. If we are to take those statements at face value, it’s interesting to consider. On one hand, 8 minutes doesn’t sound like a whole lot in what’ll be a 155 minute movie. On the other hand, if it really is 8 minutes, that’s rather extraordinary considering the circumstances.

For reference, I did a quick search for screen time breakdown by character in the Star Wars movies, and was delighted to find a comprehensive list on the subject here: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls027631145/

So, if Leia’s role is 8 minutes long in the film, it’ll be a significant step down from the previous two OT character send offs (Han with 20:30 in TFA, and Luke with 21:15 in TLJ), which is to be expected. But, if it is 8 minutes, it’ll be on par with her role in the other two ST films (6:15 in TFA, 8:45 in TLJ). Which leaves me somewhat optimistic. If the footage is indeed integrated seamlessly and tastefully, this will have been a much better solution than writing her out of the film entirely, which would have felt jarring and clunky. We’ll never get that perfect sendoff picture that Carrie and Leia deserved (really, across all her appearances she deserved more), but if she’s got 8 minutes, and we have a film that treats her like Poochie (so to speak), we could still end up with a film that belongs to Carrie/Leia in spirit, if not actuality (I mean she does have top billing).

ATMachine said:

DominicCobb said:

ATMachine said:

The name “Utapau” in ROTS goes back to the original SW, but the idea of a sinkhole city postdates the 1977 film. Perhaps most notably, it was considered as an idea for Mos Espa in TPM.

I thought the sinkhole planet was from the original film as well, although maybe I’m misremembering (ROTJ perhaps?).

Where did you learn about the hyperspace-through-shield idea in TFA coming from ROTJ?

It’s from one of the earlier drafts of the film, per Rinzler’s making of book. I’ll have to check when I get the chance which draft.

JEDIT: from the “Revised Rough Draft” 6/12/81 https://www.starwarz.com/starkiller/revenge-of-the-jedi-revised-rough-draft/

I’ve seen one book (maybe it was Kevin J Anderson’s Illustrated SW Universe) claim the sketches of a “crevasse city” were done for ROTJ, but I think that’s inaccurate; several of the drawings appear in the various Episode I art books.

It was off the top of my head. I actually had thumbed through that exact book recently so maybe that’s what put it in my head (although, if it was that book it couldn’t have been TPM, right? That book’s a collection of McQuarrie illustrations and was published in 95). Will have to look into some more. Either way, it was definitely an idea that predated ROTS.

Thanks for the info about the hyperspace thing!

Yeah it was a fun find. One of these days I really need to read those early drafts myself. All I have to go off of otherwise are the details Rinzler found interesting enough to mention.

NeverarGreat said:

I didn’t know the hyperspace thing was from ROTJ, the first I heard of it was from the TPM rough draft:

http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistoryofstarwarscom/secrethistoryofstarwars.com/thebeginning.html

Yeah, the first I heard of it was when I read Secret History and it mentioned the TPM draft where Anakin did it. The ROTJ one is much more reminiscent of what showed up in TFA however, insofar as it’s Han in both (not using the Force), with a similar set up (sneaking through the shield around a planet as part of the plan to blow up the Death Star type thing).

ATMachine said:

The name “Utapau” in ROTS goes back to the original SW, but the idea of a sinkhole city postdates the 1977 film. Perhaps most notably, it was considered as an idea for Mos Espa in TPM.

I thought the sinkhole planet was from the original film as well, although maybe I’m misremembering (ROTJ perhaps?).

Where did you learn about the hyperspace-through-shield idea in TFA coming from ROTJ?

It’s from one of the earlier drafts of the film, per Rinzler’s making of book. I’ll have to check when I get the chance which draft.

JEDIT: from the “Revised Rough Draft” 6/12/81 https://www.starwarz.com/starkiller/revenge-of-the-jedi-revised-rough-draft/

OutboundFlight said:

DominicCobb said:

FreezingTNT2 said:

How would you feel if they remade the original trilogy films in a couple of decades from now? Personally, I’d be okay with it, especially in the form of a TV series which retells the whole saga.

Honestly, I probably wouldn’t mind all that much. Star Wars is a modern myth, and myths are meant to be told and retold. I’d only hope that if they were to do it again, they’d make it it’s own thing, and not try to merely replicate what made everyone enjoy the OT (like, for instance, how the Disney live action remakes often do).

If it sucks, who cares. I still have the OT (well, maybe not, but that’s what this site is for).

They’re already doing this with the ST. They try to make it its own thing, but the big reason for making it is to capitalize on these classic stories. And I’m perfectly fine with that. But if they want to do it again, just make a Sequel-Sequel Trilogy. Remaking the OT is too on the nose… although it’d probably still make a ton.

No, it really is two different things, I genuinely wouldn’t mind if somewhere down the line we got a new Luke Skywalker, for example, not just a character reminiscent of him. But you’re right that it is along the same principle I mentioned, in regards to repeating/reinterpreting myths. Which is probably why I never had any issue with the plot similarities.

As to a sequel-sequel trilogy that’s another permutation, in some ways it would be fitting. The ST certainly is already laying the groundwork of the ‘history repeating itself’ theme (“If you live long enough you see the same eyes in other people”), not to mention the PT as well was designed to mirror and “rhyme” with the OT. Arguably the concept is ingrained within the original film as well, which took influence from the serials of old, where you sort of got the impression that these characters would be living out these adventures every week into eternity, whether you saw them or not.

Now, as to whether or not that’s what I’d actually want to have happen, I don’t know. But I’ve always said I’m of the opinion that TROS/the ST should end on a note that these stories will continue on (even if they don’t plan on making more).

Well in the old EU, the Darth Plagueis novel basically laid out Palpatine’s whole life story, which didn’t leave much room for ambiguity. When they were originally designing the make up for the Emperor in ROTJ, the goal was to make him look not old, but “ancient.” I always liked the idea that we weren’t ever really sure where Palpatine came from or how long he’s been around. The “mask” concept allows for that ambiguity to remain.

It is a somewhat intellectual explanation, granted, but also I tend to think if you watched the saga in release order that the sudden reveal, rather than the deformation, would make more sense. At least I remember when I was a kid I always thought that what we saw in ROTJ was his real face, and when he showed up in the prequels he was just hiding it.

Perhaps a thread for another day (maybe once TROS is out), but it’d be interesting to collect all the ideas that were conceptualized for one Star Wars movie, but ended up in another. Things like Bespin in TESB from SW, the Endor battle in ROTJ from SW, Coruscant in TPM from ROTJ, Utapau in ROTS from SW, the lightspeed landing in TFA from ROTJ, Vader’s castle in RO from TESB, etc.

FreezingTNT2 said:

How would you feel if they remade the original trilogy films in a couple of decades from now? Personally, I’d be okay with it, especially in the form of a TV series which retells the whole saga.

Honestly, I probably wouldn’t mind all that much. Star Wars is a modern myth, and myths are meant to be told and retold. I’d only hope that if they were to do it again, they’d make it it’s own thing, and not try to merely replicate what made everyone enjoy the OT (like, for instance, how the Disney live action remakes often do).

If it sucks, who cares. I still have the OT (well, maybe not, but that’s what this site is for).

RogueLeader said:

The only idea I can think of to help support the ‘mask’ approach would be to change his appearance anytime Palpatine is disguised as Darth Sidious before the transformation. So when we see him with Maul on Coruscant in TPM, or with Dooku in AOTC, you could either desaturate his skin to be similar to his deformed look, or use deepfake technology to replace his regular face with the deformed face. It would be harder to implement this with hologram appearance (like his conversation with Grievous in ROTS or with Nute Gunray in TPM. Maybe you could obscure his entire face in darkness, or do something similar to what Ady did for ESB:R), but this idea could help make it clearer that Palpatine has always looked like that, but has just hid his true form with his ‘unlimited power’. But for LOE, I think it works fine and is still better than the theatrical, like Dom said. Might be something to consider in future edits though.

Yeah that would be a good solution, if feasible (unlikely, unfortunately).

jarbear said:

The hardest part is the whole Palpatine deform thing. We can logically say he is “unleashing” his dark side … or his “true” form in a sense. But when you watch it, I understand it does feel kind of random. I think I am kinda ok with it, but I do understand that is a bit harder to logically explain it, since originally he was getting deformed by his own lightning …

In my mind the easiest argument is that him deforming himself with his own lightning doesn’t logically make any sense either. So no matter what, you’re left with a confusing scene, but one option is stupid and the other isn’t.