logo Sign In

JadedSkywalker

User Group
Members
Join date
7-Jun-2020
Last activity
17-May-2025
Posts
1,402

Post History

Post
#1634529
Topic
Before The Prequels were made, what the Jedi were supposed to be like?
Time

I was kind of shocked when I saw the prequels because I interpreted the Jedi to be like the Knights Templar mixed with Samurai, and a bit of the Lensman of the Galactic patrol thrown in.

I never pictured them as celibate monks in a political structure like the Vatican. I pictured them as having families, the EU strengthened this belief.

Warriors that can put down rebellions and can end conflicts but don’t seek them out because they are peacekeepers. And negotiators. Their entire bodies and minds are sharp and honed like a weapon, but they only use a lightsaber in defense, never for violence as its own end. The Sith use violence and intimidation to rule.

Post
#1634528
Topic
Lord of the Rings 35mm (FOTR/TTT/ROTK/FOTREXT released)
Time

Thanks to Elendil then. But you are the one who shared the film with me. I was just being grateful.

I had forgotten to thank you and felt like saying thanks.

I had the unique privilege of seeing the first screening of this at the Liberty Tree mall theater and having the print break halfway through. While they stopped it for 20 or so minutes to splice the print back together. Right at the Ringwraith scene. I was there with a buddy of mine Nathaniel, and his brother Eliot. Fellowship was a great film to experience except for the broken print and audio going wacky while it unspooled and broke.

The splice was an inventive temporary solution as they had to order a replacement reel for future showings.

Post
#1634501
Topic
Worst Dialogue from The Last Jedi
Time

I don’t agree with all of the choices made but I’m more than willing to argue in defense of what the film did well versus what it did not.

Good acting, cinematography, score, art design. The humor did not work in the slightest. But you know Mark and Carrie put their all into their performance. You get a good slice of the old Luke and Leia in there even if it’s not enough to satisfy original trilogy fans. And I like some of the film better than the novel, but the novel version is better in a lot of ways than the film in how it approaches the OT characters and treats them not as set pieces but people.

Han Solo’s funeral was moving beyond words to me. Why is that not in the film. Just so many odd decisions.

Lukes’s regret and Luke’s redemption are clear in the novel and not in the film. In the film you have to put yourself in his shoes and fill in the blanks, Rian gives you very little to understand other than the repetition of Kenobi’s hubris and pride as described in ROTJ novelization, being repeated. And a New Vader rising.

Watching the film with Rian’s commentary just confused me even more, I don’t see Star Wars the way he does or the character of Luke Skywalker and that is okay.

Maybe if duel of the fates had been made and Episode 9 stuck the landing people would be more forgiving of some of the more baffling choices made. I’m talking more of the sequel trilogy as a whole rather than the Last Jedi in isolation, the film does work better in isolation and not a direct sequel to Return of the Jedi.

Overall the sequels have better acting more understandable human interactions and motives and better dialog than the prequel trilogy. They are much better-looking films, the parts shot on film anyway and with real sets. You can fault them for not doing boring space politics, but I don’t disagree with why they did that, no one wanted midichlorians and space tariffs again. Rise of Skywalker has the worst story and dialogue period in the entire Saga enough for me to pull an Elrond say cast it into the fire destroy it.

Post
#1633748
Topic
Inside Edition: Inside One of the Last VHS Rental Stores in America
Time

I do remember Blockbuster Video and West Coast video. I used to go and rent a tape after work on most weeks. It was right next to my workplace Blockbuster.

Its where I rented my SNES games, Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. And where I bought used and new VHS tapes, and CD releases.

I remember when they rented DIVX and DVD and they were in competition. And some HD-DVD. Netflix and Redbox killed them they went out of business.

DVDs by mail killed them. Streaming wasn’t even a thing. Though piracy of DVD was an issue and so was illegal sharing of mp3 music files.

Now the Bestbuy and Walmart here pulled physical sales of discs. I do wonder if a retro video rental store would work.

I remember when VHS was king and Sam Goody and Suncoast were at practically every mall. I remember strawberry music and tower records. Even Newbury Comics is a shadow of what they once were. They at least still exist.

If we could get a repair shop that knows how to fix VCR’s we could keep the retro VHS era in continuance.

Post
#1633681
Topic
Worst Dialogue from The Last Jedi
Time

The answer is within Rey herself and the Jedi Texts, she never needed Luke. It’s pretty explicit. She wanted Luke to fill the void of her dead parents. He was too far gone to teach her anything, she taught him. She restored his faith and redeemed him. He used the last of his energy to fake a force projection via astral projection because he was no longer that hero but the symbol was important to inspire hope.
I don’t know why the movie says Luke is better dead as a symbol rather than being present. But i’m not Rian Johnson.

Luke needed to forgive himself for the fall of Ben. He thought he was beyond redemption. He cut himself off from the force as a punishment, but also to hide himself from Leia and from Snoke.

Luke went to the island to die and he did. The whole Jake Skywalker motif is all he did in the sequel trilogy. He accomplished nothing, passed on nothing. did not fulfil his charge of restoring the Jedi order or teaching Leia to be a Jedi Knight. ROS acts like he did train Rey and Leia but those are retcons. So is the entire I was a coward and afraid bit. Rian did not write it that way. He wrote it as if Jedi were the cause of the balance being in chaos and if the Jedi die then who cares.

Luke not talking a stand against fascism is treated like a noble endeavor to sit out the fight. Like being passive when billions die is not a dereliction of honor and duty. To allow Han, Luke and Leia’s causes to just slip away for nothing. Restoring the Republic and Democracy. Finn, Poe and Rey step into the breach to do what the last generation messed up and were too incompetent to keep the peace.

Han dies alone on a bridge while Luke drinks green elephant milk and whines about laser swords. Its like a nightmare. And Leia just lies down and dies like Yoda passing away. At least Lando was still heroic and rode in to save the day.

At least Mark gives a good performance and i will give Rian credit in the line about the vanity of the Jedi and their dogma. It’s also not wrong that Obi-Wan’s pride and hubris created Darth Vader the same way Lukes’ created Kylo Ren.

I do like the mythic scope of the photography and the Zen Buddhist concepts on Ach-To. I think Luke was profoundly wrong and at least Yoda corrected him for being foolish. I also like the force projection scene of Luke walking out of the Hanger on Crait, its awesome I only wish it wasn’t a mere image but that he was actually there with his green lightsaber.

I think the past scene of Luke trying to murder Ben in his sleep was novel but far too cute, ala Rashomon. It’s something only a film student or someone who knows Kurosawa would get. Typical of the auteur and film as art to be over the head of the audience these, are kid’s movies.

Post
#1633630
Topic
Simon Kinberg Star Wars Trilogy
Time

I meant in writing and directing a feature film. I guess you could consider Rebels significant in that some its characters ended up in the live shows, I’m the guy who says animation and live action action/ EU should be separate. I’m totally opposed to the concept of one canon. The Marvelization of Star Wars. Its lead to it being like butter scraped over too much bread and the films being abandoned. Star Wars was once a mighty multibillion dollar film series that can’t cut the mustard as streaming television. Disney has run it into the ground.

Can they recover somewhat probably. But oversaturation was reached long ago, quantity over quality. They made the same exact mistake with Marvel and are suffering for it with diminished box office.

I like Andor because it has something to say at least. Not much has been produced of any value, maybe Rogue One if you take out all the fan service. And some parts of the Last Jedi which are good storytelling and myth. JJ destroyed Star Trek and Star Wars and abandoned both.

Some of the comics and novels are excellent too but they are not movies. and yeah, Dave’s show’s I enjoy them but they are not on the same level as episodes 1-6.

Disney’s approach is just to make content and flood the zone with no regard to quality or even following Star Wars canon. Corporate assembly line product to meet prearranged in advance release dates. By committee of executives, they need to get out of the way and allow creative people to write and breathe life into this Star Wars universe with love for what came before.

All the corporate shenanigans and so-called creative differences they’ve tried to cover up are well known.

I’ve said my peace may the force be with you.

Post
#1633549
Topic
Simon Kinberg Star Wars Trilogy
Time

Well so far he hasn’t done anything for Star Wars or Star Trek for that matter. He was a producer on the Fox X-men series and did two lousy attempts on adapting the Dark Phoenix Saga the second of which he directed, and which closed out the Fox X-men franchise on a whimper.

I guess his name is in the credits of Logan and Deadpool and Wolverine and Lucasfilm wants that kind of cachet. I mean look they desperately want Sean Levy to make a Star Wars movie as well.

Post
#1632730
Topic
Rank The Indiana Jones Films
Time

Raiders
Temple
Last Crusade
Crystal Skull
Dial of Destiny

The quality actually is by release order. The only change is I raised LC up one slot. I do like Skull more but it’s got too much cgi and it’s too goofy in places.

I still like Dial of Destiny and its still the weakest entry. Worst Maguffin. I disagree with all the complaints about INDY he was still Indy. I disagree with 90% of the reviews on the Waller Bridge character I thought she would be awful from the trailer, but she had a Marion esque spunk, and she brought energy and verve to otherwise dead movie that had none. INDY is not without his weaknesses remember when he almost went to oblivion with Elsa, it’s not unbelievable that he could give up. Indiana Indiana, let it go.

My biggest complaint was it was character piece and not a Raiders movie like the other features. INDY felt like a man out of time in 1969.

Post
#1632289
Topic
The Worst Scene/Sequence in Any Star Wars Film
Time

Somehow Palpatine Returned or They Fly Now. In Rise of Skywalker.

Vader yelling No in Return of the Jedi, or Padme dying of broken heart in Episode III.

Hayden as Anakin in the ghost scene in Return of the Jedi.

I’d put Luke’s baseball bat lightsaber on the skiff that doesn’t take off an arm leg or head up there. Its freakin laser sword we saw what happened in the Cantina to Ponda Baba and when Luke lost his hand.

Post
#1632221
Topic
Terrible DVD/Blu-ray Cover Art
Time

Looks like they took the believe in angels poster and cropped the image to the right side instead of the middle why not just do the poster centered. Those ugly rating certs are always on Euro releases. I generally don’t mind if the disc is region free for a blu-ray or its a 4k disc. Other people lose their minds if not a one sheet or theatrical poster on a Zavvi steelbook, generally i just watch the damn thing. Like I pefer Jcard, OBI or slipcover. But it’s not a deal breaker for me except for Japanese laserdisc to have an OBI. Because as insane as that is it impacts the value. That and if or not its sealed.

Post
#1632131
Topic
Last movie seen
Time

Castle in the Sky Aka Laputa. The Japanese release is nicely filmic but not nearly a perfect transfer but it is reasonably faithful. Plenty of grain though I do wish it was less compressed. Its quite an older scan. Its from 2010 blu-ray.

Castle of Cagliostro from the 2014 Ghibli library. The least scrubbed of all releases and still the frozen grain and DNR is garbage. Its either put up with this the even worse 4K, or the 1080i blu ray from 2008 with edge enhancement to make it seem like it is more detailed. the Discotek 4K is probably the least worst of the options because you get multiple language tracks in English and Japanese and subtitles not dubtitles or so I’m told.

And to round it The Cat Returns which isn’t a film transfer at all. Very nice image quality not quite up to Ghibli feature quality this is more like an OVA. that is 75 minutes.

I think I’d like to watch Princess Mononoke next. Though I was thinking of Porco Rosso, and Whisper of the Heart.

Post
#1632111
Topic
New Lucas interview - the originals "look terrible"
Time

Apparently, Mark Vaz book Into the Digital Realm says they used the O-neg for the live action photography, they used Interpositve and YCM separation masters and they printed the cgi segments back out to film it had high resolution it didn’t say how many whether 2k or higher. They located the original Optical effects pieces that didn’t include the 86 lost shots on CRI stock and they redid those, and those are the recomposites the original pieces.

So unless you consider recomposites to not be original if you didn’t cut in those new cgi redoes you basically have the original except for having to redo those 86 shots.

Its more and more clear to me it would have been possible in the 1990s and certainly would be now. We were lied to.