Hernalt

Hi. First post. I was avidly consuming the prospect (in http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-Deleted-Scenes-Reincorporated) that someone, anyone, was putting professional grade effort into restoring the deleted scenes to comparable quality. And then… the negative1 account is banned, stops posting back in January. Now I am here. Is there any thread that deals conversationally with the topic of *why the deleted scenes are worthy of re-introduction into a full, comprehensive Star Wars experience? That’s the conversation I want to see. (I think it goes without saying: on grounds alone that they are genuine material from the construction of the experience. But I would also make arguments on grounds that they stitch into, or hook into other lines spoken and actions taken in the trilogy that take on new meaning and context of value.) Where is that conversation happening? It’s 2016.

It is sad there are so few feature-length space war films. There are no Battle of Jutland ironclad slugfests, and no age-of-sail ship-of-the-line slugfests other than ROTJ or ROTS. Starship troopers has decent projection of alien planetary defense layers. BSG03 had useful depictions of space/surface combat. Independence Day was a decent synthesis of the genre. It cannot really inform your question. You can check Wrath of Khan for some classic age-of-sail cat and mouse combat. Undiscovered Country as well. Aliens and Predator offer ground force insight.

One thing I think it is critical to have clearly in mind is what is the resource value of the objective, in terms of what the technology can do with or without. Are planets absolutely critical? What fuels and materials are needed and are they found solely on planets? When you start postulating combat in a Kardashev III you need to be aware that they may be as tied to planets as modern civilization is tied to port cities. (We used to be; we no longer are.)

Like the Guns of Navarone, the primacy of Hoth surface defenses vis-a-vis orbital offense rings true. A planet can simply support guns more massive than what can easily be lugged in. But then on the surface, beneath the ion cannon, minute-oriented mobility generally trumps macro-oriented stability. Useful: Maginot Line.

SW EU has a useful craft called the interdictor which forces ships out of hyperspace. I assume there'd be silver bullets that can punch through such interdiction while ordinary military craft would be halted. It rings true to life that there is always an arms race between predator and prey, between offensive weapon and defense.

The ISD serves generally as both aircraft carrier and battleship - there's got to be some delicate balance between the two roles, and there's got to be capital ships specialized to roles.

There could also be forms of cyber warfare on a galactic scale.

Useful to know: Sun Tzu and great battles like Thermopylae, Salamis, Syracuse, Cannae, Carthage, Tyre, Actium, Hastings, Agincourt, etcetc.

Useful books: EON, Ender's Game, Gateway.

The two audition links supply evidence for the argument that the original actors, without any set design, props, costumes, matte back drops, and only what appears to be either a teleprompter or cue cards (or excellent memory), are sufficient in innate talent to supply more soul and earnestness to the dialogue than Lloyd, Christiansen and Portman can do under nearly the same circumstances. Under the worst performance conditions of the prequels, the prequel actors had at most a costume, some immediately nearby set design, maybe a prop. In their favor, they had some handicap of little preparation time, but it could not have been less than what the scores of actors applying for the parts received in '75 or '76. I would rather watch those two auditions with some random CGI blaster shots than sit through the worst of AOTC, which includes a lot of it.

auraloffalwaffle, I agree with your post. There's a slight increase in performance from ANH to ESB and a very noticeable decrease in performance from ESB to ROTJ. My tolerance allows me to let ROTJ remain in the fold rather than excommunicate it to the darkness, and to merely cringe in pain at some of the scenes, laugh with a release of endorphins, and move on.

Zombie, I owe you a debt of gratitude for clearing up a lot of things with "Secret History". It demonstrates how lightning struck twice, how the single-cell organism evolved into and was subsumed within the two-celled organism, how that new life-form was subsumed into a three-celled life-form, how an explosion of neurons or organs were whittled down and consolidated into fewer and stronger or at least expedient, and how revisionism seeks to make the ultimate adaptation - the effacement of the scaffolding supporting the ediface as happy accident is molded into epic intention. It's almost the exact same argument as occurs between evolution and intelligent design. Although your conclusions are highly forgiving (an understandable necessity for being published), your work allows me to see Lucas himself as the tragedy that he projects and banishes into Vader. The upshot of this is that it takes pressure off the actual movies for delivering "Tragedy" of any Shakespearean standard. The real story - that of Citizen Lucas - exists behind the movies and not in the movies.

auraloffalwaffle said:

For me, SW77 is not a well directed film.

It's success as a movie comes from the exciting production design, daring casting, tight editing, ground-breaking audio and visual effects and it's marvellous, Wagnerian score.

I think most of the power behind the dialogue and quips was the work he seeded in finding an ensemble that resonated:

"Longer Mark Hamill Star Wars Audition"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSjP2GBTr9U

"Longer Carrie Fisher Star Wars Audition"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCXrGuLix7M&

Once the casting was assured with quality performers, he didn't really _have_ to direct them but rather let them loose inside the candy store of the set design, matte paintings, props, costumes, make-up, and play back monitors if they had them.

I cannot imagine that the roles of young man Anakin and Padme were in any way given such an exhaustive match up. Because of the scarcity of set design and props, only actors with significant stage experience could hope to last long against the green Death Screen, the technological terror Lucas constructed to shock and awe audiences with his Saturday serial imagination.

I am still trying to articulate my thoughts on the whole in light of the new. I highly recommend "Secret History of Star Wars", which is very useful in unlearning a lot of ideals that get lodged in young minds. A lot of this negative energy strikes me as a kind of Miltonian Satan's defiance against a perceived unrighteous God (better to reign in hell than serve in heaven). Some it seems want to get credit from the legions of Star Wars fans for their steadfastness and strength in the face of this late and uncloaked self-serving evil. Over at TFN the photograph of Lucas surrounded by the models of vehicles, space ships, creatures in Star Wars is a lie. Yes, pictures can lie. Lucas did not come up with all that content. He did not personally envision, devise, test, sketch, paint, handcraft, sculpt, sweat, bleed, cut himself over the physical representations of a secondary reality. His starving underpaid minions did. Lucas was just this guy with some ideas. Very good ideas. Good recombination of sources, good speciation of diverse genetic inputs. But by circumstance and happy accident, he inadvertently allowed collaboration and experienced talent to walk all over him so that the final products emerged as an excellent romp and an unwitting masterpiece. It was a tragic, happy accident. When he defends all this late offer as "Tragedy of Darth Vader", he's not really talking about the original trilogy, and he is really just speaking of himself (I became what used to hate). Poor guy. Can I see a raise of hands of those who are so absolutely underwhelmed by all things Lucas since ROTJ that they feel compelled to redeploy their negative reaction constructively into their own fiction? I can't sympathize with those who won't help themselves. Savage recriminations, eviscerating mockery, implied insult, and perhaps some clever name-calling are all welcome.

Interesting read.

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/natureofthebeast1.html