Gaffer Tape

Whoah, hold on.  Who ever said there was a 400 page script?  I don't think any movie script is that long!  Even the one that Lucas claims was the big one that had the entire trilogy in it (which was just the aforementioned wookiee and asteroid stuff) was shorter than the final draft, if I'm not mistaken.

EDIT:  And as for your other post, I believe it's visible on his bookshelf (or at least it's believed to be this) in the first webisode of the making of episode I documentary.  If this is the case, it existed by 1995.  Therefore, it would most likely contain notes on everything he'd written by that point.  Obviously the knowledge of the original trilogy would be completed along with whatever ideas he had figured out for the prequel trilogy by that point.

Once again, I'm sourcing most of this from what I remember from reading zombie's book twice.  I hope I'm not totally fudging things.

I haven't read anything by King, so I really can't judge if his writing is mediocre or not.  It's been ten years since I read The Lord of the Rings, but I remember liking the books and thinking they were great works.  But just because Tolkien is great doesn't mean he's immune to any kind of criticism.  But since I haven't read King and haven't read Tolkien in so long, I'm not really the best person to evaluate any of this, I guess.

Yeah, and as you can see, people were defending that lame plotline back then just like they were a couple of months ago! =P

You really need to pick up The Secret History of Star Wars.  None of that seems to mesh with the actual history of the drafts that he wrote as far as I know.  One of his scripts had a few action sequences that ended up being scrapped and the ported over to the sequels (like asteroid chase and wookiee/ewok planet) but the stories themselves weren't there.

Geez, I'd totally forgotten I made this thread!  And I had no idea that three years ago I made a thread that's very much similar to the "Return of the Jedi Rescue Operation=FAIL" thread that I made a few months ago.  Although I think I did much better with that thread than with this one.  ^_^

EDIT:  Ooh, and a post from TheSessler.  Haven't seen one of those in a while.  Thanks for bringing this up because now I got to check his profile and see that I've finally passed him up in posts.  If the new software had a Top 10 list, I'd finally be in it!  All bow to #10!

C3PX said:

I get where you are coming from Gaffer, as a student of multiple languages, I was very much thinking along the same lines as you were.

Phew.  At least it's not just the crazy theatre major who studied this. =P

Oh, yeah, Quarren.  They got poisoned in the X-Wing series.  And, yeah, Needa is obvious as well.

And thanks for the clarification.  I get what he was going for now.  I was thinking of systems like the International Phonetic Alphabet, used for transcribing sounds in human speech in order to help with things like learning dialects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

EDIT:  And, funnily enough, if you go to that page, it says at the top "not to be confused with the NATO Phonetic Alphabet" with a link to the page you listed, humdingers.

EDIT AGAIN:  Oh, and the NATO page says, "Though often called "phonetic alphabets", spelling alphabets have no connection to phonetic transcription systems like the International Phonetic Alphabet."  So, technically, "spelling alphabet" is a more accurate term.  Sorry, I just had to point that out, not to be a dick, but to keep myself from feeling stupid that I was the only person in this thread not to pick up on what the original post was referring to.  ^_^

I'm not exactly sure how that serves as phonetic (using symbols to represent sounds), but it's still pretty fun, especially for just screwing around at work.

Q might be a problem to get for OT, but there has to be something for N!  Let me think...  Damn.  Well, I'll keep thinking.

Since everyone's addressed the Hayden issue to death, I guess I'll pick on the Star Wars Jabba scene.  In some ways, I find it worse than Hayden because while that's pandering and annoying and disrespectful (things we expect from George Lucas), adding back in the Jabba scene is just bad filmmaking and editing (well, things we also expect from him lately, but since it's his job to be a filmmaker, he should know better).  It's redundant as hell.  When the scene was cut, some of Han's lines were edited into the Greedo scene, so now he says the exact same thing twice.  No new information is presented.  It also destroys the pacing of the movie by sidelining the real focus of the movie at that point:  to get to Alderaan.  It also screws up the reveal of the Millenium Falcon by having it just appear in this random scene before Luke and company arrive to see it.  There were so many things wrong with this scene in 1976 that it's no wonder it ended up on the cutting room floor... where it belonged.  Adding a horrible-looking CG Jabba just made it even worse.  It was clearly done as a test to see if CG characters interacting with humans could be done in the prequels.  Oh, and this scene is pandering too by compositing in a Boba Fett mugging the camera.  Sooo many things wrong with this scene.  The fact that it was changed again in 2004 should tell you that.

Well, you did hit the nail on the head by saying that they are all fake.  A special effect is just a special effect.  But it's not as simple as that, either, and it's especially not as simple to say that CG trumps any other form of special effects.  I don't hate CG.  I understand that it's a necessary form of special effects, and it's coming along nicely.  However, that doesn't mean that other methods are suddenly obsolete.  Models are fake because they aren't actually what they're representing, but they do take up physical space, so they are real from that perspective.  Take a look at Back to the Future Part III (I think you've mentioned that you hate this movie, but bear with me anyway).  For the climax, they built a scale model of the train and plunged it into the ravine.  Granted, CG technology was at its infancy then, but even now, do you think a superior shot could have been achieved through just making a computer generated environment and a computer generated train?  Comparable, maybe, but not as real.  For another example, look at Serenity.  Through the TV series and the movie, the ship had been entirely CG.  But in the climax of the movie when the ship crashes, they built a model for those shots alone instead of doing it with computers because they needed something more real that could actually take damage and be pulled apart.  So I guess what I'm trying to say is that both models and CG have their appropriate uses.  But a lot of us here feel we have to overzealously hold on to models and puppets because we're being constantly told by people like you that those methods are completely obsolete and that CG is the only way to go.  CG doesn't need an advocate.  Models do.

Yeah.  I never see any Star Wars commercials.  I think I've probably seen a total of two commercials for The Clone Wars series.  I saw quite a few trailers for The Clone Wars movie, but that died out soon enough.  And ever since, I really haven't seen much Star Wars promotion.  What channel are you watching?  If it's CN, then that makes sense because they're currently running a Star Wars series.

rcb said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

Johnboy3434 said:

Whoa, wait a minute! It's GL's fault that fans of his work are so insane?

 

We were driven insane by watching CGI Jabba, Jabba's palace SE musical number, invasive ROTJ SE celebration scenes (with added Gungan) and Hayden Skywalker. ;)

 

 what the hell you talking about. CGi  jabba, the musical number and the ROTJ celebration was definitly nessecary. and haydens goast was one of the best add ins GL did.

Seriously?  Seriously?!  Am I missing the irony in your post?  Please tell me I'm missing the irony in your post.  I mean, as much as I disagree with your previous posts, I can understand to an extent why you might not like puppets.  But you're really going to have to explain why the above list of changes is necessary because I just can't begin to understand that. 

Man, what a downer you are!  ^_~  Honestly, it wouldn't cost much for me to build the collection, since I already own most of what I need.  The downside would be that I wouldn't have free access to them anymore since they'd be on display where a bunch of grubby kids and no-nothing adults would be free to ogle them.  Damn them all!

C3PX said:

Never seen this guy before, but after watching that review, I can say that angry video game nerd is a lot cooler and a lot funnier (well, most of AVGN's later stuff isn't that funnier either). The best thing about that review is that it showed the highlights of how freaking bad that movie was. The one scene he left out that was worth mentioning was where Miss. Earth-I-Think discovers a tiny duck dick sized condom while rummaging through Howard's wallet as he sleeps. Oh, and those duck tits are still one of the most disturbing images I recall from my childhood.

Well, due to downloading problems, I haven't been able to see this one yet, so I can't attest if it's any good or not, but based on all the videos I have seen, I wouldn't count him out based on... whatever his Howard the Duck video was like.  He usually has me cracking up, especially his Top 11 Drug PSAs video.  I literally couldn't breathe by the end of that one, and that's not something that happens to me a lot.

Well, Timothy Zahn first came up with the name Coruscant for Heir to the Empire.  Lucas just liked it enough to use it in the prequels.  In earlier drafts for Jedi, the Imperial capital was referred to as Had Abaddon.

As for The Journal of the Whills, it was a literary device used in early drafts to make it sound like Star Wars was a small story told from a huge history of the galaxy.  It was eventually superceded by the "A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away..." opening.  However, fans picked up on the name (most likely from its mention in the novelization of Star Wars where the forward is said to come from The Journal of the Whills) and imagined it to be an actual chronicle of Star Wars stories that George Lucas had written.  Later on, as a bit of self-referential humor, George compiled all of his notes in a binder that he jokingly called The Journal of the Whills.

It stands for "George's Original Unaltered Trilogy" to make a clear distinction between this release and a true remastered release of the OOT.  It also has a humorously fitting pronounciation when you say the acronym.

Raiders paints away the track the boulder rolls on in the opening sequence.  And it digitally removes the reflection of the cobra on the glass separating Harrison from the snake, which is really funny because in the interviews on the 4th disc, Harrison mentions this minor gaffe, but the change itself is never mentioned.  If you don't know any better, you'll look at the scene and wonder why you can't find it.

In an overall sense, they're extremely minor clean-ups, but they still annoy me because it was completely unnecessary.

There are alterations on the 2003 DVD release and subsequent releases.

Just about to watch it.  Only vaguely Star Wars-related, but good find.  My girlfriend and I recently became Nostalgia Critic fans (finding out about him through his feud with Angry Video Game Nerd... ah, internet fame, huh?).

I'm willing to negotiate... =P

Well, I think he's joking, but I consider the unnecessary alterations they already made to Raiders as a "special edition."

C3PX said:

Gaffer Tape said:

Zombie is actually getting Secret History published?!  Amazing!  I've read that all the way through twice now, and one of the first things he says in the book is how the nature of it would probably keep it from ever being published!  I'm glad to see he managed to work something out.

 

Kind of off topic, but I just stumpled upon this. http://www.legacybookspress.com/books.html If you click on the link and think "What the hell? What's this have to do with anything" just scroll down.

Looks good, pretty generic cover, but of course he couldn't use anything that is copyright. Pretty steep price tag, but I think I will eventually purchase one anyway. Would be cool to have a hard copy lying around and Zombie put a lot of hard work into it, he deserves to get something for it, even if it is just whatever fraction of that price tag the publisher gives him.

Wow, I might try to pick that up.  Even though I already own the pdf, zombie definitely deserves some recompense for all his hard work!

Okay, "flea," that helps.  Are you talking about those weird creatures with the tiny heads and giant rear ends that throws Anakin off and tramples him, momentarily scaring Padme but ultimately ending in a fun little roll in the grass?

C3PX said:

The guy uses some very weird wording in his attempts to be poetic. "Suspicious of my fellow treasure hunters", "coughed defensively". Don't get how either of those work in their context. Oh well. Always good to hear of someone rediscovering a great old console. I like the picture of NES, SNES, NUS, and NGC all together.

If I ever become so rich that I simply don't know what to do with my wealth, I intend to open up a console museum. Imagine a room filled with every console ever made, under glass and surrounded by its accessories, showing first hand the changes in technology, shapes, sizes, and designs of consoles and their media over their history. I'd even hire a tour guide to memorize the entire history of each console, give guided tours, and answer any and every question they get asked about each console. That would be pretty cool, but a long ways off, at the moment I am just a poor hobo living under a bridge, my laptop powered via an extention chord spliced into a nearby street lamp, and my faint, but existant, wifi signal lifted from some nearby resturant.

Hell, just hire me!  You wouldn't even have to train me.  I know all that stuff by heart (at least for Nintendo) already!  You know what?  Never mind.  Screw that.  I'll open my own video game museum...  Why should you get the money when I have the knowledge and the consoles?

"Giant flee surfing"?  What?