Gaffer Tape

Really?  I could have sworn I heard otherwise.  ROTJ just seems so different from the other two.  Aside from promoting the special edition, the first two I have don't have anything special edition related, but the ROTJ has Jedi Rocks and the new ending song.  Then again, ROTJ is the only movie of the trilogy to actually have new pieces of music written for it.  The other two just used unused music cues for special edition-specific scenes, so maybe that's it.

What EU I've read, I've really enjoyed.  I first read the Zahn trilogy about 12 years ago and loved it.  About half a year ago, I got into EU again and read Splinter and the first four books of the X-Wing series and loved them all.

I haven't read Vector Prime, but I used to think it was a cool idea to kill off Anakin Solo.  Then I found out it was just because the prequels were starting, and they didn't want two characters named Anakin.  And another one bites the dust because of that selfish little bastard...

EDIT:  Whoops, Vector Prime is where Chewbacca dies, right?  Well, at any rate, I still haven't read it.

A scan would be awesome!  Thanks!

(And while we're on the subject, what's the difference in actual content between the '97 and '04 soundtracks?)

So I finally completed my trilogy soundtrack collection.  I don't know what took me so long.  I got the soundtrack for Star Wars over five years ago.  But I finally got ROTJ the other day.  Of course, the problem is obvious.  The soundtracks I got for the first two movies were the '97 releases that had the extensive liner notes (which I love).  But they're out of print, so I got the '04 version of the ROTJ soundtrack, which just has a crappy fold-out poster.  Ugh!  I would love to know what information there is about the music, so does anybody happen to have a transcript (or know where I can get a transcript) of the liner notes that came with the '97 ROTJ soundtrack?

Yeah, I remember when those figures came out.  I was big into my figure collecting then, and I had been waiting for those (especially the Bespin) Luke for a long time.  As a kid, I used to act out the movies with the figures while watching the movie, and it was annoying that I didn't have a Luke to use for the majority of ESB.  I had the Dagobah fatigues Luke, but a no sleeves Luke just didn't work, especially not for the hand being cut off, so I'd have to go back to the barrel-chested Tatooine Luke figure from the first movie.

CO said:

I think what character you loved said alot about what SW movie was your favorite.  As a kid, I wanted to be Luke Skywalker, he was me, and I related to him, so essentially SW was my favorite movie, and ROTJ was a close second. 

As I got older I realized how f-n cool Han Solo was, and in that time I realized how great ESB was.  But my friends growing up who loved Han Solo more then Luke were bigger fans of ESB then I was back in 1980.

 

 

Really?  Cause Luke's always been my favorite too.  I thought Luke had quite a lot to do as a character in ESB, so I'm curious:  how come being a Luke fan would cause you to like the other movies more?  I suppose I'm asking, what makes the outer movies "Luke" movies to you and ESB a "Han" movie?

Yeah, the lightsaber fight has always been my favorite of the series, and I always thought the hand getting chopped off was an awesome moment too!

And, of course, since I was introduced to the series on VHS, I had no anxiety about the next chapter either.  =P

Wow, am I the only kid who always loved ESB for being dark?  I was a little older than you (9 instead of 8) when I first saw it, but I loved the fact that everyone came away a little more scarred and worse for wear.  Maybe I'm just a sick, twisted soul.

Mielr said:

I remember seeing photos of the unfinished Death Star and thinking that it was the DS from SW- and this is what it looked like now after being blown up. :-P

That's what I thought too!  In fact, I assumed for years that the DSII was simply rebuilding what was left of the original, and that's why it looked like that.

I know I technically don't belong in this thread because I wasn't born until '86 (this exact day in '86 actually), but you people keep on bringing up things that I have to respond to!

The only really strong memory I have from my first viewing (which was on the '95 Faces VHS set) was that halfway through Empire, my mom said something to the effect of, "I think Darth Vader is Luke's father," which I didn't believe, but it's always annoyed me that I had that spoiled for me.

Interesting take, especially in the way it meshes/contrasts with my own.  See, I never minded Jar-Jar.  He's never bothered me.  Yoda in the prequels bothered me much more than Jar-Jar.  Jar-Jar and I have always been cool. 

What bothers me?  Well, it's in the next thing you said.  You say it's supposed to be the backstory.  I agree.  But they're not presented that way.  They're presented as the first three parts of the six part Star Wars saga.  That's what bothers me.  (And a lot of other things that I could go on about, but I'm with you in saying that I can sometimes sit down and watch them and relatively enjoy them)

C3PX said:

Yeah, I always liked that idea from the EU, it makes more sense. But the SE take priority over the EU, and according to the SE, Imperial City falls as the Ewok celebration is going on, while according to the EU, it happens quite a bit after the Battle of Endor.

 In the book "The Krytos Trap" actually, which is 2-3 years later.  ^_^

Actually, the content isn't the reason.  It's a licensing issue.  See, FUNimation first dubbed the first 13 episodes back in 1995, and they released them to home video.  However, they weren't in charge of their own distribution then, so the tapes (and subsequent DVDs) were released by Trimark.  However, the contract they entered into, for some reason had no clear end to it.  So to this day, Trimark still holds the distribution rights to those episodes.  So FUNimation redubbed those episodes in 2001 along with the rest of the series, and they were able to release bilingual DVDs for episodes 14-153, but they still can't release the first 13 episodes, which only exist in America in their heavily censored dub from 1995.

Heh, didn't I say that?

But where did you manage to track down those episodes?  The first 13 episodes of DB (in their original form) are the only episodes of the series officially unavailable in English.  And that sucks for me because they're some of my favorite episodes, and I'd love to get my hands on them.  Tell me!!!

Sometimes I wonder if Han couldn't have been used better for what he was.  He was supposed to be the anti-hero of the first movie, and he did a pretty good job of that, but, of course, he redeemed himself at the end of the movie by saving Luke.  Empire still had some of that.  His original motivation was to get back to that, but it never really worked out.  And, of course, in Return, they'd pretty much given up on his character moving at all.  So, really, both the sequels wasted that character (as in, there's very little ambiguity in Empire and absolutely no development in Return) as it was originally conceived.

(But I still like what they did do with him in Empire, don't get me wrong)

Yeah, that's definitely not true.  I've never even heard that before.  But there is no logo drawn on any part of the manga series that says "Dragon Ball Z" or "Dragon Ball 2."  The logo reads simply "Dragon Ball" all the way through to the last chapter of the series.

Now, the rumor I heard is that Toei came to Toriyama or Toriyama somehow heard that Toei was planning to relaunch its own series and suggested the Z himself as a rather tongue-in-cheek way of getting people to think that it was almost over.

And, perhaps most famously, he was Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Sounds pretty great so far.  I have a question, though.  How do they pronounce Leia's name in the radio drama?  Is it Lee-uh like in the original movie or Lay-uh like in the sequels?  I know that's something that Anchorhead has brought up before.

But honestly, even if they were made perfectly and fit seamlessly as true prequels, I still wouldn't watch them in numerical order (see for example my Narnia thread =P).  I'm thoroughly publicationist over chronologist.  In college, I was even annoyed that we started reading the Oedipus trilogy in chronological order, even though Medea, chronologically the last part, was written first!

C3PX said:

It is not bullshit to claim the PT was made to be seen after the original trilogy. It is pure fact that they were made to be seen before the original trilogy.

I agree with everything else, but I have to call shenanigans on this, and I'm quite shocked you said it.  As far as I can see, all evidence, apart from George's statements, point to the fact that the prequels were made to be viewed from the perspective of those who have seen the original first.  TPM's teaser poster, the Darth Vader breathing at the end of that movie, lines like, "I have the feeling you'll be the death of me," and advertisement for ROTS calling it the end of the saga clearly indicate to me that they were made with the OT audience in mind.  They totally failed in that regard, mind you, but it's clear to me that they were intended far too much to be seen after the OT to justify in any regard that they're meant to be seen first.

But not obsolete here!  Beak, what beak?  I deny any existence of such a thing!

You do know that the Ocean Cast did come first, and that they voiced the original DB series long before FUNimation started doing it in-house, right?  They didn't just do Z.

And since you are a fan of the FUNi voice cast, I have to wonder, doesn't it bother you that they've since re-dubbed some of their own work?  If you're nostalgic toward, say, season 3, doesn't that annoy you that that recording doesn't exist anymore?

(Geez, being a fan of dub DB is like being a fan of Star Wars.  Constant reversioning to be consistent with a newer version rather than the older version as well as production/chronology disputes.)

Yeah, at least FUNi was quite a bit more correct with their names, rather than Zero and Zedaki!