Easterhay

Chewtobacca said:

ChainsawAsh said:

- Luke congratulating Wedge at the end

That is one of the few SE additions that I have always really liked.  I like the character of Wedge, and if ROTJ has to end in a big celebration it seems fitting that he is there.  I like the Biggs scene too, especially with Adywan's fix to it.

It looks improvised, too.  Denis Lawson seems genuinely surprised when Luke congratulates him.  Whether it was rehearsed or not, though, it is a beautiful touch (and the only time we see Wedge on his feet!).

Most of the planets we see in the OT are either on the fringes of the galaxy or have been picked by their current occupants because they are out of the way.

The planets we see in the PT are mostly a part of the Republic, which is still booming at this point, so I can see why they were already chock-full of people.  I always thought the tech issue was that, when martial law is imposed, the money just went into the war effort, hence the impoverished look of the galaxy - apart from Cloud City, which is a pimp's paradise.

You misunderstand.  I am tired of the negativity is what I said.  Did I say "your" negativity?  No. 

Don't know what I can say or do to prove the issue over attachment - and I'm certainly not going to take the pious route of "If you were a Buddhist, you'd understand" because it's not necessary to be a Buddhist to appreciate the point.

He strangled Padme, though, because he thought she was in league with Obi-Wan. 

Chewtobacca said:

Easterhay said:

Sorry, Chewtobacca - my caffeine intake must have been off the chart the night I posted this.

No problem! :-) What you want from the Empire Strikes Back is actually achievable, so an editor who likes the Cloud City additions might do that at some point.  I take it you prefer Clive Revill as the emperor too.

I think, for continuity reasons it was fine to replace Clive Revill (although he had a great voice for that scene) and I think, in the context of the revelation at the end of the film, the changes to the dialogue aren't so troubling either; it just hammers home that Vader wanted to overthrow the Emperor with his son by his side. 

However, Ian McDiarmid seems to have no animation to his face at all in that scene.  It's quite odd to watch.

Cheers, fellas.  Let's get back to arguing now; it's becoming like a love-in here! lol

D'oh!  I realised it was Ki-Adi Mundi when I hit the Post Reply button.

It never seemed so dumb to me, perhaps because in '99 I got into Buddhism and so many of the teachings about attachment I recognised in the PT.  If you can't let go of what you fear to lose (to paraphrase that line from ROTS) then you do run a big risk - not that any of us would want to lose those close to us.

Anchorhead said:

Easterhay said:

We would always wonder, though, what happened before episode four. .....We would always wonder...

No - we would not. 

In Star Wars, the audience were told what came before. Personally, I didn't need or want it shown to me in detail.  My imagination was enough to fill in any back story I may have had an interest in.  The mystery of the characters and the vastness of space served the story perfectly.

However, that's not how George works.  Fleshing out every tiny detail of back story is how George controls - and it's also great for franchising a story.  In my opinion, it also happens to be something he's not good at.  He tends to get writer's block rather quickly and ends up having to ham-fist his way out of it, e. g., Vader as father, Leia as sister, second Death Star, Lando as Han II.

He also seems to have an issue - the control mentioned above -  with wanting to explain every detail and nuance. The ridiculousness of Annikin Starkiller (who, by 1999, was an entirely different character than he was in George's original Grand Vision 1975 script) building 3PO is matched only by how completely unnecessary and pointless it is.  It is, however, a perfect example of how George does things - the present at the expense of the past.

He also did it with Indiana Jones.  Instead of letting the character remain a little mysterious and larger-than-life, he insisted on giving us too much information. No more pondering how he may have grown into the character we'd loved for years - turns out he got the hat, the whip, the jacket, the scar, and the fear of snakes all on the same day, within a few minutes of each other, when he was just a kid.  Lucas story-shrinking at it's finest.

I saw Phantom, just out of curiosity, and disliked it. I didn't bother with the other two.  I have zero interest in what came before Star Wars - not in 1977, not now.  Not ever.

You dig all the films - good for you.  You want to bait the board as you did in your Return thread - have at it.  However, if you're going to attempt to speak for me ("We would always wonder...") - expect some push-back.

Now, in the interest of disclosure;  I should point out that I really like all four Indiana Jones films. I'm an ongoing, from-the-start, fan of the franchise. However, the opening prequel portion of Crusade was done....poorly.

Sorry that you see my having an opinion that differs from yours as baiting (I don't disagree that some of my posts have come across as such).  I'm not so stupid as to think that enjoying the prequels is a minority opinion on a website called originaltrilogy.com but I am entitled to my opinion.

My use of the word "we" was too generic, I grant you.  As I say, I wouldn't expect to find too many PT fans here.

As it goes, I don't think Lucas comes anywhere Tolkien, though, when it comes to overegging the cake where backstory is concerned.  Not that I want to introduce Lord Of The Rings and its increasingly dull spin-offs to the conversation.

SKot said:

Easterhay:

You haven't been here long enough to be rocking the boat so hard, so soon.

Right now you're the newbie who runs into a bar full of regulars and immediately starts shouting, getting confrontational, and picking fights before you've even taken time to sit down, have a drink, and meet people.

Take it down a notch or two, man.  Please.

--SKot

Yeah, you're right.  Can't argue with you, SKot.

Sorry, everybody.  No excuses, no explanation, just simply sorry.

Attachment.  It's there right from the start.  Yoda picks up on it.  "I sense much fear in you."

TV's Frink said:

Easterhay said:

I'm probably in the minority here - this site is called originaltrilogyform after all - in saying that I think both prequels deal with the journey to the dark side in equally successful ways. 

Yes, you are in the minority.

In the prequels, Anakin turned to the dark side like someone turned off a light switch.

Took three films to turn off that light switch.

Thanks, fleminec.  I have the three ABC scores - if memory serves I got them through TehParadox; they've got a pretty big thread on the Star Wars music.  Great to have another link to them, though.

And I agree with you on the old trading vines being superseded by the improvements in downloading.  I must admit, once I found a bittorrent site for the group I was talking about (which, incidentally, was Genesis) I stopped acquiring my bootlegs through postal trades.  It's so much simpler and quicker (but I do miss the anticipation of waiting for the postman to arrive with a bulky envelope!).

Sorry I can't help you with the vinyl rip for ROTJ.  Good luck in finding it; I hope someone can sort that for you.

Sorry, Chewtobacca - my caffeine intake must have been off the chart the night I posted this.

Whilst I dearly want my precious "bring my shuttle" back in the film, I also like the additions to Cloud City.  If I could find a version that only has the extra stuff from near the end of the film removed, I'd be happier.

CO said:

I think it is a hyped up urban legend that Lucas consulted a Child Psychiatrist for the ESB revelation.  I know he said it on the ESB '04 Commmentary, but he also said on those same commentaries that the story was always about the Tragedy of Darth Vader, which we all know that is utter bullshit.  Another bullshit statement by Lucas is that he fought FOX to put Episode IV in the original crawl in 1977, yet his first draft of ESB documented from 'The Annotated Screenplays' is called Star Wars:  Episode II.  It wasn't called Episode V til the third draft!

My point is that there are alot of exaggerated myths in Star Wars lore after all these years, as Lucas enjoys revisionism towards the Star Wars movies.  I'm sure it was discussed how kids would react to Darth Vader's revelation, but I don't buy that Lucas went out of his way to consult a professional opinion on this.

Sorry, but I have heard too many lies and exaggerations throughout the years from Lucas to believe alot of his nonsense these days. 

Sorry, but you say you've had enough of George's b/s?  I've had enough of the endless negativity.  I'm sure you think that his pledge to plough all that money into the education system is b/s too.

Look, he said it; it's been proven (and if you won't take it from George, I'm sure you'll take it from Kersh) so, whilst some of your gripes are well-founded I'm sure, I think you need to get a little perspective on things :)

I respect your passion as a fan and I'm sure it's that that fuels the bile and vitriol.  So, I'm not taking issue with you personally, just some of the things you said in your post.

I think the point raised about Lucas becoming a dad by ROTJ is entirely valid.  Certainly fatherhood has affected his art; he hasn't become "soft", he just thinks about things more.  Why else would he consult a child psychiatrist about the revelation about Vader revealing himself as Luke's dad in the previous instalment?  By the time of the prequels, Lucas had separated from his wife and gained sole custody of his children.  So now, more than ever before, he was aware of his responsibility as a storyteller and the messages his films were sending out to their target audience.  Maybe this is why segments of the prequels feel a little laboured whereas the OT had a breezy, devil-may-care attitude to it.

Part of the appeal for me with ROTJ is it has a the-gang's-all-here tone to it.  Yes, some of the actors are going through the motions - except Mark Hammill, for whom this is his shining hour - but the sequences between Vader and Luke fail to be diminished by this (and this really is their film, right?) and I really like then sense of this-is-the-last-one-so-let's-go-for-broke (a second Death Star is not so bad an idea - after all, people still make nuclear weapons don't they?). 

Watched in the context of the bigger story, the opening of the film is a blessed relief after the darkness of ESB (in the same way, ANH is a breath of fresh air after the death and misery of ROTS) and I'm sure that was deliberate; the characters are really  put through the mill in ESB, we really can't see them going through all that again in this, the final episode.

In retrospect, Kersh has made some observations about ROTJ that I do agree with.  He said there's no sense of danger for the characters, they never seem in real peril.  And how could they, with such appallingly choreographed sequences as the fight over the pit of Carkoon and the fighting on Endor?  Also, the film moves from one set piece to the next in quite a ruthless fashion.  I can't argue with these criticisms.  Kersh also said he'd never have removed Vader's helmet.  I think the story demanded that we see Vader's face, though, to drive home the message that the machine side of him was dead, and he had regained his humanity.

To take a line from the ROTJ novelisation, something which has stuck with me through the years, and forgive the paraphrasing, "Vader did not hate, he just lusted too blindly".  Whereas in an interview with the official Star Wars magazine some time ago, Ian McDiarmid compared Vader to Lucifer Morningstar, insofar as he is a fallen angel, whereas Sidious represents original sin; he has no redeeming qualities and is evil for evil's sake.  His only saving grace is that he is a patron of the arts, as seen by his visit to the opera.

In ROTJ, there is a definite sense that Luke is teetering on the edge of darkness, after starting off so promisingly in A New Hope.  Anakin, meanwhile, is following a road that seems inevitable from the start (okay, we as an audience know what his fate will be but even if we didn't, the seeds of his destruction are there from the get go - he has already formed an attachment to his mother and his fear of losing her is too great to overcome).  As with all things Star Wars, the story is better than the execution.  I have found this out in telling people who are neither sci-fi nor fantasy fans what the story of Star Wars is about.  They've been enraptured by the telling (and I'm no Stephen King) but when they've sat down to watch the films, their attention has drifted somewhat.

What's interesting is the parallels in Luke and Anakin's journey.  When faced witht he death of his aunt and uncle, Luke firms his resolve to join the rebellion; when Anakin loses anyone close to him, he goes on a murder spree. 

I'm probably in the minority here - this site is called originaltrilogyform after all - in saying that I think both prequels deal with the journey to the dark side in equally successful ways. 

fleminec, this is fantastic.  So, these are the remastered scores from 1997, yes?  I bought these at the time they came out but I may well download these as a bakcup.  And in FLAC, too, yet.  Marvellous.  I don't know why people waste time with MP3, to be honest.  I've been using FLAC since my early days as a trader.

Speaking of trading, see what everyone thinks of this.  Back in the day, we had a system which was completely non-profit based, where we would trade bootlegs of a particular band (the band have issued statements saying as long as no-one is making money from this venture, they are completely fine with dedicated fans sharing what they have as long as none of the stuff is officially released product).  Basically, a poster would put up notice that they had a recording and the first three to ask for a copy would get a copy in the post, the only provision being that they, in turn, would offer up a copy to another three members, and so it went on: fans all sharing music in a completely altruistic fashion.  The recordings would be in lossless format and would stem from an authoritative release (in this case it would likely be ABC's) so as not to pullute the trading pool.

Would this work here or would that be pushing the legalities of this group? 

So, not only are you following me from thread to thread, you're also compiling a list of my posts.  My word; do you really not have anything better to do with your life?  I know films like Star Wars bring out the obsessive in people but, really, Chewtobacca, chill out, fella.

By the way, I have no idea who doubleofive is or the post to which you refer.  Which suggests my posts mean more to you than they do to me. 

Your correction is pedantic in the extreme.  It's a fan-edit,  Adywan is a fan, and he's constructing his own personalised version of the film; I've seen his Facebook page and the work he's done.  It's a fan-edit.

Really?  And yet a poster here has "F*ck you Lucas" as their signature.  Of course, that's not hating at all is it?

I know what a forum is for, thanks.  That sentence of yours must be one of the most overused in the history of online forums.

Of course you don't think AOTC and ROTS shows a more used universe than TPM.  I knew that would be your response.  I won't trouble you by pointing out that it does - because, in the time-honoured black-is-white-white-is-black argument you'll disagree with that, too.

So, in the interest of saving this old fan heartburn, I'll agree to disagree with you.

I have little in common with the fans who make their own edits, I'm afraid.  I'm aware of Adywan and while his passion is admirable, I won't be choosing his versions over the ones I currently have.  Thanks all the same :)

"Fail"?  Speak English and I'll converse with you.  Use some trendy new-speak on me and you'll be ignored. 

Rip-off how?  And it took a forum full of haters to tell you what to think?  Sad, that.  Oh, for the innocence of youth!

ROTJ has little substance?  I suggest you read a little tome commisioned by The Smithsonian, it's called Star Wars The Magic Of Myth, to show you a different perspective.

And yet I loved Temple Of Doom because it didn't simply re-tread old ground.  I think you're right, if a piece of art finds a fanbase, then they just want more of the same.  They don't like surprises; they enforce their own prejudices on the creator.

And we're all far too educated now, much more critical.  It's to our detriment, I think.