Fang Zei

Well, if none of that really mattered in the long run....

Like I've said before, there's stuff that can be retconned/explained away and there's stuff that can't. Splinter (which I've had a copy of for years but still haven't gotten around to reading) sounds like the former while Chewie being in Episode VII would be an example of the latter.

There's a difference between ignoring something and actively contradicting it. I can understand the viewpoint that keeping continuity with the EU isn't worth Chewie's absence in Episode VII, but I also don't see why an in-continuity Episode VII necessitates people having read any EU. It really wouldn't. To be honest, this is kinda why I didn't like the news that Abrams was changing the script to focus more on Han, Luke and Leia. I wanted this new story - whatever it ends up being - to be told more from the younger generation's pov, much like Abrams' first Star Trek movie or the original Star Wars before it.

Tobar said:

Well technically there've been two for over a decade now. All of the stories deemed non-canon fall under "Infinities."

I just hope they wipe everything NJO and up.

 I just don't see why any EU needs to be jettisoned. It's not like they need to bring any of it up in the movie. You don't need to have read Splinter of the Mind's Eye to enjoy The Empire Strikes Back.

I disagree that the version of 2001 we have now isn't the "true" original version simply because the premiere (one single screening) was a different cut of the movie.

It's the version that first gets widely released to the public that should be considered the original version. That's where this argument begins and ends for me.

To further drive this point home:

When Kubrick restored 2001 in the late 90's he did exactly that - restore it. No changes were made to the movie itself AFAIK. I finally got to see one of the 70mm prints a couple years ago and it looked and sounded amazing, beat up though it was in certain sections after more than a decade of running through the projectors.

A friend of mine saw it as a teenager in '83 and told me about how people in the audience would throw their hands in the air during the "fighters, coming in" shot because it felt like you were actually flying the Millennium Falcon.

digitalfreaknyc said:

He talks about how it was an original print that was in fantastic condition.

 But .... But ..... I thought "original prints are in poor condition." ;)

DuracellEnergizer said:

SilverWook said:

Vector Prime got a lot of publicity when it was published in 1999. IIRC, it was the only EU novel to have a tv spot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOV2dGdFbGk

I find it pathetic that the first and only Star Wars novel to receive advertising on television is an entry from one of the worst Star Wars series ever.

It wasn't the first. I distinctly remember seeing commercials for The Hutt Gambit and Rebel Dawn. I don't remember seeing any after Vector Prime, though.

Minor inconsistincies can be explained/retconned away by Chee and Hidalgo, outright contradictions like Chewie being alive in an Episode VII set 40 years after RotJ cannot.

DuracellEnergizer said:

SilverWook said:

Can't the EU continue on it's merry way while the new films come out?

AFAIK, this isn't even an issue with Trek fans, and that particular EU has been around a lot longer.

Ah, but the Star Trek EU isn't canon, isn't meant to be canon, and makes no pretentions of being canon, unlike the Star Wars EU, which has had The Rod of Continuity rammed straight up its backside by elevated, anal-retentive fanboys who can never see the forest for the trees.

 It's had it rammed there by Lucasfilm. All the while, Lucas himself was saying "there is no Episode VII" and that RotJ is The End of The Story as far as he's concerned, meaning the EU stuff never really happened in his eyes....

....Except now there is an Episode VII, which means RotJ wasn't the end and, well, y'know....

Look, I've barely read anything that takes place post-Jedi. Reading wookieepedia timelines and such has been the farthest extent I've kept up with the story. Since I don't have much invested in it, it wouldn't be the biggest dissapointment if it were to be rebooted.

That said, I think it would be a bit hypocritical of Abrams to ignore Chewie's death after chaining himself to the death of Kirk in Generations as the reason for not including Shatner in the new Trek movies. It would also be kind of a dick move on the part of LFL and Disney to just go "Hey, remember how we killed off Chewie and it was a really big deal? Well, we need to maximize our profits on these new movies, so, guess what? It never happened! Sorry!"

To me, whether or not Chewie is in the movie has absolutely zero bearing on how good the movie will actually be.

As has been stated in this thread by myself and others, hopefully we'll find out soon.

timdiggerm said:

All they have to do is not include Mara Jade, and there goes another chunk of EU.

 Well, that shouldn't be too complicated because (spoiler, I guess) she was killed off in the books.

See, this is a good example (to me, anyway) of how they could take the "constrainments" of the post-RotJ EU and use it to do something interesting. I can't help but think of JJ's Star Trek. Han Solo's relationship with his nephew could be like Christopher Pike and Kirk. Luke could be the shadowy Obi-Wan/Spock character who's out there and Ben eventually bumps into him. All I'm saying is that it makes for an interesting dynamic.

I meant to comment a couple pages back re: continuity.

It's my prediction that we're not gonna see any EU reboot happening, mainly because "the big three" are still alive and well in the books. Also, Luke's son is in his 20's now, pretty much perfect timing for a young actor to step into his shoes. I can understand the potential complaints of Chewie not being around, but I think that would be coming from a place of nostalgia. If anything, it might actually force Abrams and Kasdan to get more creative with writing the story.

An EU reboot would also be a huge slap in the face to all the fans who've made the company millions of dollars by continuing to buy the books. It could result in the exact kind of backlash Lucasfilm is trying to avoid.

As for Chee and Hidalgo's new task force, I think the "canon/ not canon" dichotomy will only extend to future stories, not the existing EU.

All of this continuity speculation is exactly why I hope someone out there gets their hands on the script sometime soon so we can finally know one way or the other. The script is supposed to be done by now, right? At least a first draft from what I heard.

The store I rented the OT movies from was originally a West Coast Video that opened near my neighborhood in the early nineties. It became a Forbes and then a Potomac Video before moving next to a smaller space in an adjacent strip mall and then closing.

Potomac video had several locations around the DC area. By complete coincidence, I now live only a few blocks from the last remaining location.

The last time I saw a Star Wars movie on the big screen (RotS) was at the historic, single-screen Uptown in DC. It was the only theater in the area showing Star Wars on May 25, 1977.

They converted to digital in 2010. For 3D movies they usually alternate 2D and 3D showtimes. I'll probably end up seeing Episode VII there at the midnight opening, unless that particular screening is in 3D.

I remember seeing the clip of Sacheen Littlefeather at the '73 Oscars and thinking how Leia-like she was. George would've just been writing or about to write the first draft of the movie at that time, so I wouldn't be surprised if it had some sort of influence on him.

If there's any merit to the rumors of Abrams doing tests to try and recreate the look of the film grain from the OT, then I would hope and expect that level of fetishization to extend to all other aspects of the cinematography as well.

So, if they're to stay as close as possible to the look of the OT, we should only see a flare whenever there's an explosion. It should look unintentional, as it most likely was in the original films.

Bingowings said:

I just wish someone at Disney would activate the Farscapestarwarcrossovermattron.

Y'know, Chris Pine as Kirk in that first Trek movie always reminded me of Ben Browder as John Crichton. Abrams and Mindel's camerawork even reminded me of that show, the way we'd fly and swerve through the hallways of the Enterprise. Pretty much everything about the "Numb Tongue" scene practically screamed Farscape to me, to the point where I'd be surprised if Abrams had honestly never seen the show.

Also, just making sure:

Unless I missed something, Disney only ever bought The Muppets, not the Jim Henson company as a whole. The creation of a Farscapestarwarscrossovermattron device, as awesome as that sounds, is a pipe dream.

TFN is the darkside of being a Star Wars fan first and a movie fan second. I stopped posting there the moment everyone lept to Lucasfilm's defense after they announced they were putting 1993-quality transfers on frickin' dvd. Only a few months later, and just a few weeks after said transfers-on-dvd streeted, I stopped lurking here and started posting.

Also, they're not really competing with each other since Bond is hitting a whole month before ep7.

The real head-scratcher is the Bad Robot-produced M:I-5 hitting within only a week or so of Star Wars. Some people are theorizing it's because Paramount expects Disney to push it back to May of '16. I've even heard the wild theory that the studio bosses know something the rest of us don't and that a December '15 date for Star Wars is only there to keep the shareholders happy until the time is right to announce a new date.

I've ranted about this before, but the blu-rays of Aliens and Evil Dead are not those films' theatrical versions as far as I'm concerned. The directors just couldn't help themselves and had to digitally erase things that were visible in the original release.

CO said:

I have always said if Lucas would have just changed a few special effects in the OT movies, fans like me would still be on his side. 

I only got mad when he started tampering with scenes:  Greedo shooting first, deleting Sebastian Shaw from the force ghost, and Jedi Rocks.

Even though I still prefer the OOT versions, I wouldn't have complained as much as I do now, and probably would have just lived with the SE if he just updated effects.

 

Didn't realize I posted in this thread in October 2005.  Oh well, atleast I have been consistent:

CO said:

Kinda agree with everyone, if it was just effects, I don't have a problem with it. But when it comes to additional scenes, or change/editing a scene, it is insulting, and makes me want O-OT even more. Lucas could have just really updated the effects in the original Star Wars, and slightly touched ESB & ROTJ and we all would have 'lived' with these SE Editions. But again, Lucas has miscalculated his original fanbase.

 

 

This kinda/sorta is how I feel, although what you described would still - for the most part - be the SE we actually got, simply minus the story changes like Greedo shooting first, etc.

If the '97 release had been nothing more than a true restoration of the films, we wouldn't have complained. Unfortunately, as KilroyMcFadden pointed out, George's SE kinda went hand in hand with his plans for the prequels. I should clarify that it's not the story of the movies that bothers me so much as the fact that George wrote the screenplay all by himself (okay, some help in that department on aotc) and directed the movies instead of hiring three new directors.

I've always thought it would be an interesting expirement to watch the theatrical cuts of all six films and see how well the PT blends with the OOT.

AntcuFaalb said:

Laserschwert said:

bkev said:

They were pretty prevalent in Super8 and didn't detract from how much I love that film

Granted, with "Super 8" he mimicked "Close Encounters" both in style and tone, and CE was FULL of lens flares, so that was pretty spot on (no pun intended). Generally Spielberg used them a LOT in his most iconic movies, and they never bothered me a bit.

Isn't the difference that JJ had to digitally add them in for Super8 whereas CE had them because that's the way that real-film Panavision cameras worked back then?

Hmmm? It was shot in the exact same format (anamorphic panavision). I would think the flares in Super8 are all in-camera.

Anyway, to be fair, there are some subtle (and probably unintentional) lensflares in the OT. The shootout in the detention block of the Death Star comes to mind.

Wasn't JJ's lensflare obsession pretty much limited to his Star Trek movies? I remember a line on the audio commentary about his idea being "the future is so bright you can't contain it." I don't remember there being much lensflare in M:I-3.

The big difference is that today's record-breakers seem almost manufactured to be record-breakers. They're the most expensive movies usually, whereas Star Wars was (relatively) low-budget. The Dark Knight and Avatar, while both risky and innovative, still had the full financial support of Hollywood behind them. If you adjust for inflation, Star Wars would cost around $50 million today. If you adjust to 2005 dollars, it would be just a little more than Serenity's $40 million. Has anything in the last eight years with that low of a budget really burned up the box office to Dark Knight / Avengers / Avatar levels??? That first Hunger Games movie comes to mind, but even that had a built-in fanbase from the books.

While that's a valid concern, I think Super 8 showed Abrams isn't all shaky cam and lens flares. He mimicked 70's Spielberg pretty well in that movie, and these rumors about how he's trying to get the look of the film grain just right for Ep7 say to me that he's trying to make a movie that feels of a piece with the OT.

I see Abrams going back to the original 1977 film just as he went back to CE3K era Spielberg with Super 8. That means exploring the potential of a story set in that galaxy far, far away. We didn't see a lightsaber until a good half hour into ANH, and we only saw them used twice more in that movie. Han Solo's role as surrogate for the skeptics in the audience provided a great dynamic for the other characters to play off of. Plinkett really hit the nail on the head when he pointed out how hard it is to describe the PT characters without simply stating their profession.

There's a great 15-part documentary, made just a couple years ago, that TCM has been showing another installment of every Monday called The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Mark Cousins wrote, directed and narrated this amazing history of - what else - motion pictures, going all the way back to Edison and the Lumiere Brothers.

Empire is randomly referenced about 48 minutes into the very first chapter (the scene between Vader and Ozzel is given as a good example of the 180-degree rule from sixty years after it was first used) and then again, halfway through chapter five, talking about Lea Brackett's contributions to the Noir genre and how Luke finding out Vader's his father was a very noir idea in a very mainstream movie. Both instances could've been using the '04 master but I can't really tell since neither clip had changes (and my memory of the different color timings is spotty).

Chapter eleven, about pop culture exploding around the world in the 70's, covers The Exorcist, Jaws and then Star Wars in the last few minutes. The crawl is the '77 version, and the rest seems to be taken from the GOUT as well, so they must've cropped it to 16:9.

The entire 15-part series is up on Netflix, so if anyone has access they can give their opinion on where the clips are sourced from.

OneCentSky said:

I can live with a special edition that restores the image substantially but keep the original special effects (which means no CGI at all), and please give Boba Fett his original voice back for Empire and Jedi.

What you're describing isn't a "special edition" (which makes it sound like some sort of luxury), but what the vast majority of movies made since the time of Star Wars - and many from the decades preceding it - have recieved. George's "special edition" mistook alteration for improvement.