Gaffer Tape

Jay said:

I don't think you guys are quite getting this. It's meant to mimic a constant height setup, which is what decent theaters employ when displaying movies at different aspect ratios.

Nothing should be squished or cropped at all. Scope films should take up the entire screen when properly scaled, and if the Blu-ray author has a brain, the subtitles, if not already burned in, should appear within the image. Placing subtitle info within the black bars is a holdover from the laserdisc era that was wrongfully passed on to DVDs and probably a lot of Blu-ray discs.

All other material should be displayed at the proper proportions with sidebars just like they do in the theater with curtains; nothing should be cropped.

Constant height setups are the shit in the front projection world and I hope to have one someday. In the meantime, this is a cool solution. I hope we see more displays like this.

Quoted for truth.  Nearly everybody on these boards should have at least some experience with this, since Star Wars movies have been placing the subtitles in the matte for years!  I remember one of the often brought-up problems with the GOUT was that, when you zoomed in to watch it on a 16:9 TV, the subtitles were cut off!  If they had been in the pictures (as opposed to in the matte) and (preferably) burned-in, there would not be a problem (of course, it should go without saying that it wouldn't solve all of the GOUT's problems).  You can't blame the television for shitty ideas in the home video market. 

I only have a few gripes about this 21:9 concept.  The above was one of them.  Another is a silly personal problem about lack of space.  And the final reason also ties into Jay's argument.  If you think 4:3 images stretched out to 16:9 look disgusting, wait until you see Joe Six-Pack Consumer stretch out an episode of Happy Days into 21:9 because he doesn't want to see those black bars!  Again, though, that's the fault of the consumers, and you can't blame the television for that.  I think it's a great idea, although I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I'd actually consider getting one in the future.

Which set was that?  The set that I have was by Collier Books (a division of Macmillan Publishing).  I believe they were printed in the 1970s.  At least the publication date on the individual books say 1970.  This set consists of tiny, white books, topped with "C.S. Lewis" in black.  Under that is the title.  Then below that is an extremely colorful, '70s-esque cover image (in the one for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Peter and Edmund remind me of The Beatles from the Yellow Submarine movie).  In a tiny arch above the image, it says "Book X of The Chronicles of Narnia."  And then on the back, there's a little blurb about this book being like a passport to Narnia and encourages you to read them all.  And then, there is a list and one-sentence description of each book.

So, yeah, which set do you have, and how old is it?

Man, for someone who hasn't seen the movies, she does know quite a bit more than I would have expected.  But, damn, that was hilarious!  I love Leia's gold suit and those death animations.

I enjoyed Across the Universe, and I own it on DVD, but I think it was overhyped.  The visuals were great, and so were the covers of the songs, but the story really couldn't hold up on its own.  It literally seemed like a ton of music videos haphazardly strung together.  Granted, they were very good music videos.

C3PX said:

Mielr said:

Huh. So, they had a bunch of those butt-ugly covers left over. I like the '06 covers MUCH better.

 

 I find them both to be unbearably unattractive, but I guess the '06s look a little better. I haven't seen the '04 cover for quite sometime, but they mesh better with the prequel covers don't they?

 

I'm one of the few who actually likes the '06 covers, so I agree with Mielr.  Then again, I didn't hate the '04 covers, but I prefer the '06 covers.  I was actually quite fond of the idea of remaking the movie posters with the live actors.  I thought that was pretty cool, especially since the original posters are on the back.  In comparison, the '04 covers seem pretty empty, and the backs were just atrocious.  A landscape from the movie was the background, and that was okay, but the only screencap they have is a picture of the damned menu!  Who gives a rat's ass?!  I don't know if I've ever seen a movie that promoted its DVD release by using an image of the menu!  I'm exaggerating.  It doesn't really piss me off, but I have always found that rather odd.  And, yes, the front cover does sorta mesh with the prequel covers, except that while the prequels used a collection of the main characters, the '04 covers just seemed to use any combination of characters.  That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, because the '97 posters did the same thing and turned out alright, but it is kinda weird.

FanFiltration said:

One of the best moments of humor in "Star Trek VI" was when the crew of the Enterprise had to answer a Klingon guard outpost in Klingonese, because the universal translator would be recognized. 

Yeah, I laugh out loud every time I see that.  Too bad Nichelle Nichols did it under such duress.  I read she didn't like the idea because she felt the communications operator should know the language of their chief enemy.

Wait, he didn't?  Hadn't he been up to this point, though?

Well... I can't really agree with that either.  I've never understood the reasoning behind not liking to watch foreign films simply because you have to read subtitles.  I just... I don't know.

I don't get what the deal is.  Aliens in Star Trek spoke English all the time.  The Klingon language wasn't heard until TMP and wasn't fully developed until ST3.  Even then, the aliens spoke English whenever it was convenient.  Am I to assume that a universal translator was in play in every instance?  The only time I can think of where the reality was "fudged" for the audience in terms of language was the court room scene in ST6 where it makes it clear that a translator is being used before breaking out the "English."  Not to mention that most aliens in Star Wars spoke English as well.  It's just one of those things we accept because it's too hard to deal with every new race speaking its own language and having to deal with those barriers.

I agree.  I think the optimism might come from this idea.  If the originals are presented alongside the SEs long enough and enough different releases, it'll seem stranger when they suddenly don't show up.  Lando's discovery marks the third separate packaging that these have appeared.  The only SE only DVD packages were '04 and '05.  So there have now been more DVD releases with the OOT than without it.  Does that necessarily mean anything?  Probably not.  Does it mean that fans will be up in arms or extremely confused if the OOT suddenly stops appearing?  Probably.  But that's never stopped George before.  Whenever they choose, they can fall back on the whole "limited edition" excuse that originally accompanied the '06 sets.

Thanks for having my back.  I just want to clarify, though, that I never gave The Clone Wars (film) a chance because I haven't seen it.  I have, however, watched a couple of episodes of the series and enjoyed what I've seen.  Not enough to devoutly follow it, but if I catch it on TV, I won't automatically change the channel.  Just wanted to get that straight.  ^_^

I think nearly all Star Wars fans gave the prequels a chance.  Remember, this board is originaltrilogy.com, not prequelhaters.com.  The main thing that got us together was the irritation at the treatment of the original versions of the original trilogy.  I first found this place in 2004 because of the then new DVDs that I'd heard were going to have even more unnecessary and disrespectful changes.  I hate the special editions, not the prequels.  The thing is that OT purist and PT hater often go hand in hand.  That is, people who have one trait often have the other.  I don't hate the PT.  I probably watch that trilogy a couple of times a year at least.  Not as often as the OT, but I often follow the OT with the PT.  I don't hate the prequels.  I don't think they're wonderful, but I don't hate them.  I resent them more than anything because of what they've done to Star Wars as a whole and how they overshadow and cast their mark on the original trilogy.  They contribute to the alterations of the original films (in 2004), and they're also treated much better than the others.  Therefore they earn my ire.

You mean rcb?

I'm just posting this on a whim.  For the first time in my adult life (and for the first time in over a decade for that matter), I decided to re-read the books that comprise The Chronicles of Narnia.  Over the past decade, though, there has been some controversy about the order in which the books should be read.  There's the publication order of:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Horse and His Boy
The Magician's Nephew
The Last Battle

Then there's the chronological order, in which the series is currently being released and presented:

The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

I felt this worthy to bring up here because Star Wars fans get into similar debates, especially at a forum like this, where, if we acknowledge the prequels at all, we encourage people to watch the OT first, despite the official sequence handed down by the company.  It should come as no surprise that I'm a publicationist when it comes to these books.  So, yeah, any and all Narnia fans on these boards, which order do you prefer, and what's your reasoning?

Weird.  A new boxset with new packaging and old content.  And an individual of old content in an even older box that was originally in a set?  I just... wow.  I hope I run into these soon because I honestly have a hard time believing that's true (not that I doubt you, Lando).

I'm assuming the point is that this is a thread about "Episode 3's Wasted Characters," and all the things you mentioned were from episode one, without so much as a mention of it being so.  I would guess that was what his point was.

AxiaEuxine said:

You all KNOW thats not what I meant. I love episode 3. I was commenting on how the audience never gave it a chance, like all the prequels.

Then you obviously haven't been reading any of the posts surrounding yours.  Like the one I wrote directly above yours that said the first time I saw it I was enthralled.  And how about Erikstormtrooper's post right above this one that explains he liked it the first time but after repeat viewings he realized that it wasn't as good as he first thought.  He hit the nail on the head.  It's not a movie that holds up well under close scrutiny.  All of us gave the prequels a chance, otherwise we never would have seen them.  Conversely, I could say that I never gave The Clone Wars a chance because I never bothered to see it.  But since I saw ROTS three times in theatres, I think I gave it quite a large chance.  It is possible that people dislike certain movies not because they have a vendetta against a franchise or fans of a franchise but because they've (objectively as they can) weighed the good against the bad and ultimately decided it's not that good.  Just like I assume you love the prequels and special editions not because you simply love anything that has a Star Wars label attached to it no matter the value but because you honestly believe they're good movies.

Well, by literal standards, nearly every video game would be a role playing game.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but what we call RPGs really inherited the title from old table top games like D&D.  Therefore, what we refer to as RPGs are in a similar vein to those.  I haven't played The Force Unleashed.  As far as I've been able to tell, though, it's not an RPG, right?

I agree.  The first time I saw it I was pretty enthralled.  But it's one of those movies that falls apart under close scrutiny.  And I might have fallen asleep and just never realized it because it took me three viewings before I ever had any memory of that horrible wookiee battle.  That's never a good sign...

As far as I remember he just made a tongue-in-cheek remark about how Empire is the worst film in the series.  Whether or not he actually believes that is his own secret, but I don't think he ever seriously publicly stated that he thinks it's the worst.

This is very true.  The movie used the audience very poorly.

Wow.  I find that odd that you've never heard that before.  I always thought it was very common.  I'm not sure what its origin is or in what context it was originally used, but I think most people familiar with it can agree that it's considered harmless humor nowadays.

Like I said in my other thread, the usual ROTJ criticisms don't bother me either, but I still find it inferior.  Even when I first saw it as a kid, it just didn't have the spark the other two did.  Star Wars was amazing and exciting, Empire built up the excitement even more... and ROTJ just felt like an obligation to find out what happened at the end.  It wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it just didn't provide the same emotional kick in the pants the others did.  A total of about half an hour of the movie did, but the rest just sorta fell flat, especially after Empire brought things up to such a high level.

Well, I'll still argue that ROTJ is the least of the OT, but it's the Jabba stuff I mind while the ewoks don't bother me at all.  Aside from Luke's part of the story and Leia's kick-ass bikini, everything seems to be either a retread or not as well-realized as the previous movies.  And it certainly didn't benefit from suddenly becoming the last chapter of a trilogy when it was originally supposed to launch three more sequels.  Obviously the main problem was the Leia/sister thing that always felt tacked on and implausible, even when I was nine.  And Robot Chicken brilliantly parodied the end of the movie with their scene of the imperials arguing why they can no longer fight back even with Vader and the emperor dead.  But while I agree that the Jabba stuff was fun adventure and showed off Luke as more heroic, I stand by my reasons I posted when I started this thread.  It seems it was written to let the characters do things, but nobody seemed to bother to make sure it actually made any sense or was an intelligent plan.

...which it wasn't.

While I'm going to check out your video, I haven't yet.  So without bias from your opinions, I'll go ahead and give my opinions on the list as posted in this thread.  Then, after I watch your video, I'll comment based on that.  Gee, I'm really being demanding here, aren't I?  Sorry.  I'm tired.  Anyway, to be brief:

For Padme and Qui-Gon, their realized potential was certainly written but then discarded, either on the proverbial editing room floor (because we all know there was no actual film to drop on a floor!) or earlier than that.  However, Padme's cut potential of forming the Rebel Alliance... eh, I'm not too upset that that's gone.  The prequels were already full of implausible, coincidental oddities (C-3PO, R2-D2, Jango Fett, Chewbacca with Yoda, and the list goes on...) that Padme forming the Rebellion would just have been another kick in the groin.  I just hope its deletion removes it from canon.

As for Qui-Gon... eh, he wasn't there, but I feel it worked just as well as it could have been.  I read the part of the script where he actually talked, and, honestly, the whole Force Ghost thing didn't seem any more "explained" there than what we actually got.  And I didn't mind that he devised it.  It didn't seem nearly as asinine as the above coincidences I listed.  Maybe it's because Qui-Gon already felt disconnected enough from the OT that it doesn't seem so implausible.  Or maybe it's because it's a broad concept rather than a direct event/character, and that's why it doesn't seem as stupid.  Then again, I never needed an explanation for the Force Ghost thing at all until Phantom Menace didn't have them fade away.  Then again, I suppose I can forgive that with the increased number of Jedi, many of whom were constantly dying within seconds of one another, especially in the latter two prequels.  It just would have seemed weird to have a constant stream of disappearing bodies.  But with all the things that didn't make sense in the prequels, the force ghost explanation pretty much goes under my radar.

And as for Grievous, he was a total waste of a character.  There was no potential to tap in the first place, and the world would have been a better place had he never been invented at all.  That damned, irritating, waste-of-space, cliched, inept, non-threatening, unfunny, unsympathetic, uninteresting, poorly-conceived, poorly-directed, poorly-executed excuse for a major villain can suck my lightsaber as far as I'm concerned!  Man, I hate that... thing!

I can definitely see how people would think of Dash as a Han Solo ripoff.  In fact, it's possible that's what they were going for.  Although, since Lando was already a Han substitute, it seems strange why they had to add another one.  I think it was mostly to give a new character to play as in the video game.  Remember that Shadows was more than the novel.  To George it was, "A new Star Wars movie with everything but the movie."  Luke and co. were the focus of the novel, Dash was the focus of the game, and Boba Fett was the focus of the comics.  And since it was the same overall story, those paths would occasionally collide.  It seems logical that Dash flying at Hoth was just fan service, so you could play at Hoth on your N64.  And it had good ramifications:  that first level of SotE was the inspiration for the Rogue Squadron series that I love so much.