I once was fooled into thinking Luke screaming hey, was Carrie.
Of course he wrote it and Luke is George. Like Terry the Toad in Graffiti and Milner, and Curt were all aspects of him. It was his imagination that was up there on screen in Star Wars.
But it is true the editors and Lucas himself was one of them, saved that film. And John Williams score and ILM finally bringing it all together.
There is a lot of trying to discredit him these days due to the prequels. Like he never was on top of the world and never was a great director, writer or producer. Like those original Star Wars films were accidental. And not everything he had learned about making movies since film school.
It didn’t hurt that he surrounded himself with the best people and creatives and had a lot of friends who also made movies or who he went to film school with.
But maybe there is a bit of truth to the yes men stuff and not being challenged on the prequels, but when you’ve been a genius and done everything right for so long, its hard to argue even when what you are doing isn’t working or is ill advised. He was Mr Star Wars and that meant he had the final say on every single detail. Nobody else was going to figure it out it was in George’s head. The story and characters sprang from his mind.
A lot of people saw Luke’s final purpose and death in that film the same way Marcia did. But i don’t think that was Rian’s intention. You see Luke force project himself across the galaxy to save the rebellion and save his sister and his death isn’t without purpose anymore than Obi Wan’s in Star Wars.
I also don’t think Han Solo’s death is pointless he wants to see his son and touch his face, he doesn’t even raise a hand to defend himself he just lets Ben kill him. He loved his son and just wanted to bring him home.
Its true they aren’t the heroes of the sequels and they were diminished to make room for the Disney characters, but so were Artoo and Threepio. And Chewie. Not just Han, Leia, Lando and Luke.
The new trilogy is Poe, Rey and Finn’s adventures. The OT characters were the heroes of the EU forever, or at least until its cancellation. And Lucas never allowed them to kill Luke, ever.
Watched Rogue One. I liked it very much. The last act is pretty good except for the Vader scene it is mindlessly stupid and you could easily edit that part out. You could just show the plans were beamed to the Tantive IV and The Devastator was in pursuit.
I’d still like to see the version with the Imperial Walkers and Jyn and Cassian running like in the trailer, and all the deleted Saw Gerrera scenes.
Vader was playing with Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. Like a cat playing with a mouse. He could have easily have killed him, he was the far superior swordsman. Luke was impelled by his hate and reckless and got in one lucky strike of his lightsaber. Vader was corrupting him tempting him to cross over to the dark side and Luke nearly did. In the next film Return of the Jedi Luke wears all black like his father and has a machine hand just like his father. And his first act in that film is to get Revenge on Jabba and to rescue Han Solo.
Ultimately in the Throne room he makes the choice to not kill his father and throws away his lightsaber when he realizes he is turning into Vader.
The war is only won when Anakin throws Palpatine down the reactor core in a final act of defiance. Its too bad it was undone by the Rise of Skywalker.
It is an act of faith when Luke is willing to stake his life on the good in his father, he wills the spark of light within Anakin into existence with his belief, when he proudly proclaims to Palpatine i am a Jedi like my father before me. If he had been wrong wow he just would have been cooked by Palpatine’s force lightning.
As for Rogue One i liked the design esthetic and how it looked the most Star Wars of anything since Empire. The writing and directing and the shaky cam weren’t really very Star Warsy. But the soundtrack was pretty close even if it wasn’t John Williams. And it doesn’t suffer from being poorly lit like Solo. Also like Last Jedi the digital models are really good they are as good as you are going to get with cgi, the only way to get better detail would be physical models. Leia and Tarkin look like they are out of a videogame though. There is something about them that isn’t quite believable while Leia in Episode 9 was. Vader’s design was correct even down to his lenses being red like in Star Wars.
What i missed was it seemed to get to the edge of being really gritty and bold and it held back. I wanted to see more of the more rogue and dirty aspect of the rebellion, wanted to see more of Saw.
David Bowie. I’m afraid of Americans.
Space Oddity
Man Who Sold the World
It didn’t feel out of character of the Vader we see in Revenge of the Sith who cut down younglings. It doesn’t fit Vader in the original film though.
I mean its a sequel to Revenge of the Sith. It even has Jimmy Smits and prequel Mon Mothma Genevieve O’Reilly.
JJ really only liked the original film. He remade it as Force Awakens and swapped Luke out for Rey. Except she doesn’t destroy Starkiller base while flying an X-wing down its trench, and her Obi Wan is Han Solo and she isn’t mentored in the ways of the Jedi. She only sort of by pure grit, will and determination survives being captured. Is lucky she isn’t killed by Kylo in that duel because he was unbalanced by the killing of his father, and shot by Chewie’s bowcaster. Rey was lucky in being able to do the mind trick to escape. It takes Finn and Poe along with Rey to win the day. Not just like Han and Luke to destroy the Death Star.
Instead of the plans of the Death Star Beach Ball 8 has the map to Luke Skywalker or a part of it. Finn who just wants to escape the first order somehow gets caught up in all of this, and he has his selfish Han Solo moment when he wants to run away at Maz’s castle. But later offers to help with Starkiller base.
Last Jedi is just Luke being Yoda like but subverted he doesn’t even train Rey. Unlike Yoda who was a bit of a jerk to test Luke’s patience Luke really is the curmudgeon. Rey really teaches him.
I won’t even touch rise of skywalker its a disjointed incoherent mess.
I liked the Star Wars Manga. Even if it is sort of based on the 97 edit.
I never did finish collecting the volumes for Star Wars, but i have all of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. And i have half of Phantom Menace i’m missing a volume.
Is it true nothing is new beyond the cast reunion discussions at the Alamo Drafthouse? The box just includes the 4k of extended and of theatrical, blu ray copies and digital codes and a booklet. And the same old DVD bonus feature discs in standard def and Costa Botes documentary.
Oh and the original 4K was a good value because it had the theatrical and extended even if it didn’t have a bonus material and it had a digital code. The stand alone blu ray they want you to buy the extended and theatrical separately and as far as i can tell no digital codes is included. I’m still upset my Hobbit movies didn’t come with digital codes for the extended when they were advertised to have them.
Added Star Trek 1-10 Blu-Ray box. Its the old transfers but it was under 40 dollars. Also came with digital copies so i was able to get Treks V-X digitally to supplement my digital copies of remastered Treks 1-4.
I’m probably going to get the Kelvin Timeline 4K box next. That also comes with digital copies so i’ll be able to watch all 13 Star Trek films on my Vudu.
Edit: Added Kelvin Timeline trilogy 4K. And El Hazard OVA Blu-Ray HD remaster.
Added The Suicide Squad digital.
I’ve seen these upscales on Starz and they are very good. At least for the first season.
They could easily scan the same film masters and fill in the errors with the original broadcast tape and use the original audio to create a blu-ray release.
Rhino used original 35mm negative and some low contrast prints. They telecined them. Used DVNR to removed dirt and scratches. They backed them up to Digital Betacam. The resolution is obviously standard definition.
It is worth reading. It isn’t the best work nor the worst. And it isn’t KJA’s worst. I think the consensus is that is Darksaber. As for Dark Empire i also recommend Dark Empire II, and completely don’t recommend Empire’s End. Its only important to know how the Dark Empire Saga ends, but its terrible.
The don’t tell the same story. I, Jedi is a first person narrative about Corran Horn. Its sort of connected to both the X-Wing series and The Jedi Academy trilogy but can be read independently of them.
The Jedi Academy Trilogy is about Kyp Durron.
I wonder how it deals with Picard being a robot or is that glossed over.
Star Trek First Contact. the 2005 DVD release with what is reported to be the theatrical DTS mix in stereo.
This looks to be a pretty straight forward release only marred by being in standard def. There is no revisionism and no dnr.
Edit: watched the Mortal Kombat remake. It was a mess the only thing going for it was the R rating. There isn’t even a tournament, the soundtrack stinks. And you don’t have Christopher Lambert to elevate the material. Also the new Shang Tsung isn’t even as close to as good as the original. Scorpion is a good guy for some reason and the main lead is his made up descendant. Also no Kitana. I didn’t think it would be possible but the characters have even less depth than in the original movie. I know its based on a video game but come on.
The only part i liked was Scorpion’s finishing move but he didn’t say Toasty.
Added Star Trek first contact DVD with DTS surround mix.
Added Goldfinger remastered pan and scan US laserdisc.
Added Thunderball Letterboxed US release laserdisc.
Added Thunderball Evergreen Japanese laserdisc.
Added Star Wars First Issue Japanese Laserdisc with triangle OBI. Pan and Scan, analog audio only. Not time compressed.
The blue in that scene matches the Willets Designs 70mm film cel series. Whether or not it is theatrically accurate depends on how they derived those cels.
The only thing i’m even remotely interested in is how fleshed out his story for Luke was and how much of the sequel would have been an organic continuation and extension of Return of the Jedi.
Not so much fanservice but character development if what i’m interested in. not really all that interested in him being a superhero who cuts star destroyers in half or waves around a lightsaber and does flashy things.
Very interested in the Jedi teacher story and the more mysterious sort of quasi religious aspects of the force, not so much the midichlorians.
I can see the Darth Maul stuff only working if he is the contrast to everything Luke and the Jedi represent and becomes an imposing antagonist, but its very hard for me to picture Maul being that.
Luke and Leia both would have to become the symbol of the New Republic. Luke and the Jedi being the guarantors of galactic stability and peace, Leia being the face of the new republics government.
The comics sound interesting enough for me to check them out, thank you. It was helpful.
Probably just get both of the High Republic series, but i’m leaning toward the one with Yoda. Which interestingly enough isn’t Marvel it is IDW right?
Has pretty good art and the samples i’ve seen seem interesting enough.
Lucas is the consummate control freak and perfectionist. The idea he would write a story and hand it over to someone else to mangle is frankly ridiculous. He could have only done it if he had decided to move on. Because he could just as easily have not sold Lucasfilm and filmed episode 7 himself and handed off film 8 and 9 to other directors while producing them and co-plotting the screenplays.
Especially considering how shrewd he was to hold onto the sequel rights and the control of these films in the first place with FOX, i find it hard to believe he was tricked by Iger somehow. I just don’t think he was all that interested he wanted to open a museum and enjoy retirement.
Lucas had like 7 years in between episode III and the sale. He spent all this time on Clone Wars the cartoon and the unmade underworld tv series, time he could have spent at least writing and getting episode 7 out the door. I submit he was more interested in the prequel era, if he was so excited about continuing Luke’s story he had from 1984 to 2012 in which to resume it. He never did. The prequels robbed us of direct sequels as did general lack of interest on George’s part. If the prequel era interested him that much and consumed him, who is to tell him no. He created Star Wars.
And finally even when he handed off to Disney he knew the movie sequels he wanted to make were a continuation and extension of the prequels, and that the fans would have hated them. And Disney rightly or wrongly also made the same judgement on those treatments that they were sequels to the prequels and not the OT, and weren’t going to spend billions of dollars on some weird non commercial midichlorian movie.
I’m looking forward to watching the Criterion editions of a Hard Day’s Night, and The Wizard of Oz on laserdisc. Just have to find a good deal. I’m seeing tons of criterion titles for cheap on laserdisc. Yeah there are some that are way out of reach. Mostly rare titles, early titles or CAV editions. But a lot for 10 dollars or less or 12 bucks here or there. Some for 20 or 25. The ones fetching a hundred they can keep and i won’t pay 50 for anything. Except maybe Akira triple gatefold but i can’t find it in the condition i want it in.
I always figured Palpatine was the one pulling the strings when i saw Force Awakens and they had that ridiculous fade in of the hologram of Snoke being imposing and giant.
I said this is Wizard of Oz stuff that Palpatine was behind the curtain.
But then i didn’t think anything further of it when he was cut in half and discarded like the cast off knockoff darksider non Sith/ fake Palpatine he always was. So when he was just a stupid puppet clone in a vat in ROS i laughed.
I chuckled even harder when i realized Kylo’s vision of speaking to Vader were just visions given to him by the Emperor, so obvious Anakin was redeemed Vader doesn’t exist. But this kid held onto the concept of Vader and he wanted to finish what he started. And Luke is afraid he’ll become another Vader so he exiled himself and refuses to pick up a lightsaber again and takes the barash vow. And Ben lets himself be corrupted by anger and resentment over having imperfect but loving parents, when many of the galaxy’s children are orphans.
He is contemptible and evil for no reason. Only because the plot requires it. The worst part he killed his father over a lie. A trick of a Sith Lord. And somehow Leia and Luke never mentioned Anakin’s redemption and somehow Hayden Anakin never appeared to him as a force ghost to set him straight. Its plenty convenient.
Filoni was actually able to make Anakin likable and relatable though. And he got me to believe Ben and Anakin were really good friends. I agree when people say the Clone Wars redeemed the prequels. At least in the aspects of Anakin being a teacher, a leader and a good friend. The way he relates to the Clone Troopers and makes friendships with them and leads them into battle is good storytelling. He isn’t a sullen creep and loser.
While i can’t picture Hayden Anakin being a teacher to Ahsoka and a positive role model i can believe Matt Lanter’s Anakin is.
A bit off topic but someone said maybe someday the sequels will have some material to fill in the bad parts of the sequels and i thought about Clone Wars doing so for the prequels.
My opinion is remaking the sequels is pointless. But they still have time to make a Luke Skywalker show. Look how great Mark Hamill looked in those behind the scenes Mando clips without the need of cgi or makeup. A Jedi Academy series set in between episodes VI and VII where Luke actually does something and isn’t at the end of his journey would be awesome. Of course now it would just be pointless fanservice unless there is a sufficient story to connect to the one in Last Jedi and feel a part of the whole.
Hell they could even get Rian back to write and direct for the series to show Luke’s fall. Doubt he is available though because of Knives out sequels.