ferris209 said:

I would not call us "hardcore republican", I myself am an independent conservative, as I would tend to think about 75% of us here are. I would like to believe (and do assume) that the reason conservatives here are the majority is becuase of the demographics of the typical Star Wars fan. Most Star Wars fans are white, middle class, working, males in their late 20's and 30's. I assume that since this is the case, we have lived long enough to realize that welfare programs do not work, large government is never a good thing, taxes suck, and American defense is priority. The idealistic socialist ideas are usually that of college kids who don't know how this world even works. I, personally, do not like paying execessive taxes just to see my tax dollars spent on feeding and giving healthcare to some crackhead. Of course, this is just my assumption.

Well, I will agree with you that I don't like paying taxes to our current government. How can you just absolutely say that welfare programs do not work? There's always going to be people who take advantage of a system that gives out money to people. There's no way to get around it. Usually the number of people who take advantage of it is much smaller than the people who are using it responsebly. But you should've by now learned that you have to weigh out the bad with the good and realize that it is still helping out a lot of people in need who deserve it. I liked Bill Clinton's welfare program where he had people who were working and making under a certain wage get it and not just let unemployed bums get it. I found part of life is helping out people. I think our world is sick enough as it is without having to escalade it by refusing people services that we can easily supply if we're just willing to give a little. I think we are a sick society to think everyone should defend themselves. How do you tell that to a child who is born with difficienties in an unsupportive famiy?

I thought you guys were smart? I go into the politics thread and I see all this republican biased talk and people labeling Democrats as socialists/communists? For those of you who are more framiliar with the politcal statistics of the people on this site, could you give me an idea of the ratio of democrats, republicans, and other parties please? Also if you don't mind, tell me what party you lean towards the most (or hate the least)? I'm Democrat, and so far from what I've read it seems like this board is %80-%90 hardcore republican and the other 10-20% are moderates with only a sliver of strong democrats.

skyjedi2005 said:

The quote by Lucas was:

“I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them,”

 

 

It should be revised like this to refer to what he actually stands for in reference to the original star wars trilogy.

“I am very deliberate in rewriting our national heritage, and I am very adamant that the films that you watched when you were young and the films that you watched throughout your life are destroyed, so that your children can never see them".

 

Looks like he is even more gone that i thought. link here: http://www.obsessedwithfilm.com/movie-news/george-lucas-on-indiana-jones-v.php

Do you know where Lucas was at the time when he made that statement?

I didn't and it sounds like little or no one else did. I don't know why, sounded like a good ploy to get back at GL for all he's done to us. I know some people were suggesting that they would have us mail our DVDs to one person who would put them all in a big box with a letter to GL stating we didn't want these included. I still might do that and in the letter tell him in his upcoming Blu-ray DVD set he better have the OOTs restored and properly transfer in there or I'm gonna buy a plane ticket to San Fransico and personallly come to his house and kick his ass.

C3PX said:

skyjedi2005 said:

The quote by Lucas was:

“I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them,”

HA! If we read this quote carefully, we can realize that Lucas is not a hypocrite at all. "I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them."

Notice he doesn't use "we", "us", "you", or "everyone" in this sentence. He only uses the terms "I" and "my". So, he doesn't care about the films you watched when you were young (such as Star Wars) or the films you watched throughout your life, and he doesn't care if your children get to see them or not. Star Wars does not fit into Lucas' equation because he didn't watch it when he was a child or throughout his life time, he merely made it. Besides, his kid's can watch the OOT in fantastic quality anytime they want, their daddy's got connections.

So, I just proved the irrelevence of this Lucas quote.

 

 

 

Everyone knows I am joking around right? Good, just checking.

Good, by the time I got to the bottom, I was ready to tell you something I was gonna regret.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeYgju2qopM&feature=related

Can somebody repost GL's statement about his contempt for the colorization of black and white films? What were the films that he was defending and why does it seem like no one talks about it anymore. If you know a website that contains this, I would like to see it also.

That's what I thought, thanks. I didn't think I had the '95 VHS releases but when I went in my basement like a week ago I found them sitting in a stash of junk. I don't know where they came from, but I'll check em' out.

Coincedentally, I just happened to be surfing through youtube last night and I stumbled upon the Charlie Rose interview with GL and watched the whole thing. Here is the Charlie Rose interview with George Lucas from 9-9-04:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep5oBO70xxU

I don't recall Lucas stating that qoute exactly as CO put above but he does mention that he needed more money to make the films he wanted on his own and the prequels were an opportunity to help him gain that finacial ability. I thought the interview was good, but Charlie drags out questions too long and doesn't keep much structure. He's not one of my favorite interviewers. GL seems like a smart guy, which makes me think maybe he has multiple personalities. One minuet he's smart and the next minuet he wants to put Jar Jar in every scene of Star Wars. I think one of you got it right. He's not really interested in the story of star wars but rather the process of playing with filmaking technology.

C3PX said:

Quite an imagination.

Anyway, I hope none of it comes true. Sounds like any true film fan's worst nightmare. Movie theaters in turmoil, lots of remakes, iTunes becomes the prefered method of movie going to people everywhere.

If such a dark and gloomy future does become a reality, I highly doubt anybody would be rooting for the remake of three overly crappy movies from the late nineties/early zeros. And I certianly doubt they would be the savior's of the movie going experience.

I can honestly and wholeheartedly say the only thing I wish Lucas had done differently would have been to leave the episode numbers out of the original trilogy. Starting with episode IV makes it hard to forget there are three missing pieces. If they were just simply Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi sans the episode numbers, people might be able to simply forget about the prequels and let Star Wars live out its existence as an above average trilogy of movies from the 70s and 80s that stand perfectly fine on their own. No more beating of dead horses.  

Well people keep on making different versions of the Batman franchise and nobody seems to be getting sick of that. The Dark Knight has reached #1 on the imdb top 250. I think that is a stretch and won't last, but I do think it was a very good movie. I think there is potential for the PT to be on par with the OT. We just need a very good director like Chris Nolan. You gotta remember, Hollywood is slowly running out of good and original ideas, in twenty years the amount of good ideas for movies will be depleted way further. They will probably be finacially much weaker and will be dieing to to revive a franchise that insures them success. The Star Wars franchise is such an easy blockbuster.   

Here's my perdiction of what is going to happen to the Star Wars franchise in the next 20 years. GL is giong to continue to milk the franchise with his clone wars animated series and release shitty DVDs without the OOT. He will die (probably of overeating) sometime in the mid to late part of the next decade (not that I hope he will, nor do I wish harm on him, well... maybe a little.) Does anybody know who GL has in his will to pass the rights of SW on to after he dies? I'm hoping the person who he does pass the rights on to will be willing to finally restore the OOT and give it a beautiful DVD release. I'm hoping this person will also allow someone the rights to remake the PT with a realer, darker tone, that fits in better with the OT like the same way Chris Nolan is remaking the Batman franchise after the much loathed Joel Schumacher films. I have a feeling that actually might happen, but not until the 2020's decade. By then, I have a perdiction movie theaters will be in turmoil. By then, movies will have media releases at the same time as theater releases, most people will prefer to watch movies on the internet or rent and buy the movie on whatever media we use by then. Most theaters will not be making enough money to sustain. But a dark remake that gives justice to the PT just might reinvigorate the movie theater experience. You think we make a lot of remakes and sequels now? You haven't seen nothing yet, just wait and see how many we have in 20 years. After that, GL's PT might be looked on the same way people look at Joel Schumacher's movies compared to Chris Nolan's. Which would be pretty insulting to GL after his death, which makes me think perhaps that guy is obstinate enough to put in his will that nobody can restore and release the OOT or remake his PT. I don't think anyone would dare to remake the OT, you just can't beat the original cast, it can't be outdone.

Fang Zei said:

On a somewhat related note, I just got around to watching all three of those interviews for the very first time last night. But the thing that struck me even more than what GL says in the interviews is the realization that this was the "one last time" vhs release and it only took, what, two measly years for them to cave and put it out on dvd (anamorphic or not) after they'd released the SE in 04?

Where did you find the whole interview, and what are the two others that you speak of? Oh and we all know Lucas is full of shit. I'd be willing to bet, Lucas said after finishing Last Crusade that he wouldn't be making anymore Indy films, and I'd be willing to bet in a few years he gets bored and decides to make episodes 7, 8, and 9. I'm looking forward to seeing him try to talk his way out of that one. After all, on various occasions he has said on national televison and in major publicity that he would not be making anymore star wars movies (or in his case, lack of).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMo9Lqp3yIc&feature=related

I didn't know the movie had bloopers. I thought GL took one take on every shot and moved on to the next part no matter how atrocious it was because he said, "we can fix that on the computer!"

Okay, thanks guys

negative1 said:

i don't mind the fact that LUCAS changed the ghost of anakin,

in some ways it makes sense after watching the PT..........i guess

it's jarring to those (at times), if you're used to watching the

original.........i've only seen jedi once in the theaters when it

came out, and the SE once in theater also....and the original

about 4 times on laserdisc............so the impact isn't that much to me..

 

later

-1

Negative1, I think it is time for you to go to a different forum. Go to the official site forums, they would love to hear comments from people like you. First of all, instead of constantly telling us you've only seen the movies a few times, just go watch the damn things so you don't have to keep reminding us. You said you liked the CGI look of the PT and liked ROTS better than ROTJ, and now you said you don't mind that Lucas changed the ghost of Anakin to Hayden Craptensen. Get out!!!!!

I know this is referring to the '06 DVDs, but what does the "G" stand for and how did you come up with that as the official name of the '06 DVDs? I assume the OUT stands for Original, Unaltered, Trilogy, but what does the "G" stand for?

Hunter6 said:

I think George Lucas has gone mad (He is insane) and has gone to the darkside.

The Madness of King George Lucas

 

1. The color corrections of the '04 DVDs may look good to someone who is .....

INSANE!!!!

2. all the strange changes in the '97 SE and the '04 DVDs seem like the work of a .....

MADMAN!!!!

3. The Jedi Rocks scene from the '97 SE and the '04 DVDs shows that George Lucas is really .....

CRAZY!!!!

4. the '97 SE, the '04 DVDs and The PT proofs that George Lucas has a mind fill with .....

MADNESS!!!!

5. The GOUT DVDs is a work of .....

EVIL!!!!

6. The past 11 years of Star Wars (1997-2008) and George Lucas attacks on the OOT has shown that George Lucas is a .....

INSANE MONSTER!!!!

 

ROFLMAO!, Hunter, I want to thank you for making my day. I'm sick of being polite to GL. I'm going to make a thread were we can vent our anger. But don't go in there without a flame suit on, things could get a bit out of control.

Akwat Kbrana said:

It's difficult to say. The good parts of Ep. I are better than those of II-III, but the bad parts of Ep. I are worse than those of II-III. The overall plot is more mature, but the execution is less.

Overall, I have to say no. The bad parts are so bad that I cannot overlook them, thus relegating TPM to the position of my absolute least favourite SW movie. But I do see what you mean, and it's definitely a hard question to answer. Which of these three excrament sandwiches do you prefer? Ultimately, I'd rather have a sandwich that wasn't made of excrament in the first place. ;)

What parts of the movie did you think were the bad parts? My guess would be when Jake Lloyd opens his mouth, Jar Jar Binks goofing off, and Gungans, am I correct?

Ah, who could forget the beloved love scenes in the PT. I can't decide whether I love them or hate them just because I don't know whether all the laughs I've had from them have been more entertaining to me than seeing actual good performances and dialog. I guess I'm going to have to say I like them better the way they are for all the laughs and jokes they have given me over the years.

Hayden Christensen, what did George ever see in this kid? Possibly the worst miscasting in cinema history! I think GL picked him just for his looks. I don't have anything personal against Hayden, but I just don't think he has the personality to be a good actor.

GL totally focused on the wrong things to show in a love story. He took the direction of a love story you'd think would be ideal if you were a first grader. He focused on the scenes like "the first kiss" and the exchanges of how beautiful they think they are. I thought we were going to see a little more subtlety in a galaxy far far away. I was expecting to see a love story that was more like what we saw with Robert De Nero and Amy Brenneman in Heat and this was back when I was 14 and I had very little knowledge on cinema at the time. GL likes to say that he made the PT the way he wanted the same reason why he would want to paint his house green even if everyone said it should be red. But if you ask me GL is nothing more than a typical man corrupted by money and and power. He developed an ego and thought he knows better than anyone else.

First of all, TPM I think was kind of the first movie to be the pioneer in integrating CGI in all aspects of filmaking. Before then, most movie productions used CGI in one area of the making of the movie but didn't really incorperate it into all aspects. So even if it wasn't a great movie it was stilll the first movie that intergrated CGI work into every aspect of cinema (which may or may not have been a good thing). But without CGI, we could not have gotten action sequences like in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films or Chris Nolan's Batman films without the help of CGI, because trying to do action sequences like that with all stuntmen, physical gags, and real life sets and models would've been too dangerous, difficult, and expensive. Frankly, I find that some of the greatest action sequences commited to cinema have been the ones that were limited to the boundries of stuntwork and physical gags in the real world, like the action sequneces in Die Hard, Heat, they're smart, engaging, beleivable, and not over the top, like we often see with CGI action work. But without the advancements in CGI it would be impossible to bring comic books to real life movies as engaging as we have seen a lot of over this decade.

Second, I find this movie to have a very epic feel, something I don't feel like episode 2 or 3 pulled off as well. I think part of the reason of that was John Williams score. I thought it was great in this, on par with the OT. His score was not as good in episodes 2 and 3. His score sounded too simple, forced and condesending. It was trying to provoke too much emotion in places where there was too little. Of course he didn't have the greatest material to work with.

They "filmed" this movie with actual "film," which I think helped blend the CGI work in with the real life work making it look more natrual.

I thought Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor made a good duo on screen. A lot better than Obi Wan and Anakin in episodes 2 and 3. I though Liam Neeson's acting was good and Ewan worked well as Neeson's sidekick. I found Liam Neison to be on par with with Alec Guiness in terms of bringing life and spirit to the movie, although I would still say Alec was better. There was actually some good lines of dialog and I found there to be a heart and some intelligence in the dialog and screenplay. The way GL seemed to handle provoking emotion and heart into the actors in the next two films seemed more like he was working with a checklist. Anakin shows he has desires for Padme here: check. Anakin makes an angry face here: check. Anakin shows he is confused here: check. Anaking says he doesn't like sand: check. Anakin says I love you: check. Anakin shows he's torn: check. They have a first kssing scene: check. Anakin shows he's frustrated: check. Palpatine shows a maschivious face: check. And so on...

Seeing Ewan and Liam work together at kicking ass with lightsabers was fun and something we hadn't seen quite anything like before. In episodes 2 and 3 it seem like the action was less engaging and just became tired and tedious.

Sure Jar Jare Binks was rediculous and annoying, but I thought he worked for the picture. I think Lucas deserves more credit than what he has gotten for Jar Jar, he was a risky move and GL had the balls to push him all the way through the film. He kind of plays the side kick role Chewbaca played in star wars or c3po or r2d2 played and adds a good contrast to the film between Qui Gone and Obi Wan. And it's not like the characters were oblivious to the stupidity of him or characters like him like they were in episodes 2 and 3.

I just found even though some of his ideas for the film were radical, at least he tried some originality and I think some things worked. In episodes 2 and 3 it just seemd like he was just going through the book of cliche plot devices to bridge his story from the PT to the OT. TPM almost seems like the movie Disney would make if they bought the rights to Star Wars, so as a Disney Star Wars movie I would give it a 10/10, but since I prefer a realer, darker, gritter, tone like the OT, I would give it 6/10, which is above what I would give episodes 2 and 3, obviously.

Something I notice is PT lovers seem to dislike (or like the least) TPM the most of the PT and their excuse is usually Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd's wooden performance. But I think smarter film veiwers (like us OT fans) find TPM to actually be the smartest of the PT and the best. Because Jar Jar and Jake Lloyd were just two characters who were not the center of the story. For all the reasons I stated above the film is smarter than the next two. And I prefer Jake Lloyd's performance to awful Hayden Christensen and Hayden was the center character of the next two films.

Blackjack said:

Janskeet said:

That has to be the greatest abomination in cinema history.

 

 

nothing else needed to be said.

 

Yeah, I wish I wouldn't have said "just kidding" after that because I wasn't, I just didn't want to aggravate the people here who want to keep our ranting professional.

For those of you who are Blade Runner Fans, I would like to stir up more discussion about the Blade Runner '07 DVDs. Perhaps I should make a thread on it in the Off Topic forum, I'm sure there are probably already some there.

Wow, this thread turned out to be a hit ;-).

Negative1, I don't mean to be a dick, but you didn't answer my question. I have seen all the '04 DVD versions (or lack of). I am aware that the '04 DVDs is what created the existence of this website. I bought the '04 DVD set (like the rest of us suckers who did) back in '05. Before buying them, I already knew what to expect when watching them because I read a lot of forums and reviews of the set prior to purchase. I bought them anyways because of the commentary and bonus material included with the set. I plan on searching the internet for fan edits and sets on the that would appeal to people like me. Could you Help me out? I know my title of this thread kind of insinuates that it is my first veiwing.

The changes GL made to the movies are the kind of changes you might think would be good ideas as a child, but the older you get the more you realize that the original versions are really good as they are. Sure there's always subtle things here and there, but the fact that the films are now all over 25 years old, it is well beyond the time of tampering without including the original versions in a DVD set. After over 25 years people have become nestalgic of the original versions and it is a crime to our poeple to try to make them forget it. I know back in the early '80s they made a few minor changes to the movies like the episode and title of the movie in the opening scroll and included dialog in ANH. But those changes were so minor those were the kind that you could get away with even from the hardcore fans. This was back when the films were much younger and people didn't have the nastagia like now. Watching the films now after gaining more knowledge of filmaking, I can totally see the screenplay and editing is much smarter and more interesting than the prequels. It is almost like a group of people with much higher IQs made the OT vs the prequels.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the '04 DVD fiasco is what made Ridley Scott become very cautious about his '07 Blade Runner DVD collection. I think Ridley Scott would've included at least one theatrical version along with his final cut in his '07 Blade Runner DVD set, but he decided to include all versions ever made because he saw the upheavle that GL created with his '04 DVD debacle and didn't want to take the risk of letting down his fans. I'm actually not pleased the with the color and sound correction he made to the movies on his '07 DVD set. I actually prefer the '97 Directors Cut DVD over his '07 set because the colors look better on my old TV. One thing I notice is he was able to pack 3 different versions of Blade Runner on one disc without compressing or otherwise comprimising resolution becasue the versions were all the same except for a few things so every version you watch is the same print and only little differences in the version is what is modified in the print. So he was able to store 3 differnet version without actually having to print it 3 times which otherwise would've made them need to store them on 3 discs. I hope that made sense to you. I'm not a well educated in the profession of DVD printing so I don't know all the technical language you use to describe that.

I really hope GL has learned from the '04 DVD debacle and from Ridley Scott's '07 blade runner DVD collection that he will include all versions on his next Blu-Ray DVD set. He shouldn't have re-released the '04 set back in '05 and he shouldn't have done that crappy half-assed attempt to shut up the fans without comprimising his ego '06 re-release. Now there is an oversaturation of crappy Star Wars DVDs on the market and Blu-ray has just become the new definitive standard media for movies to come. He should've got his head out of his rear back in '04, learned his mistakes from the '04 release skipped the '05 and '06 releases and got to work on the Blu-Ray release restoring the original versions along with his precious SE and had it done and out on the market for Star Wars 30th aniversary. '07 turned out to be a dead year for Star Wars because he oversaturated the market with crappy Star Wars DVDs the 3 years prior.

That has to be the greatest abomination in cinema history. Okay, just kidding, but I don't know how people can take those changes seriously. As for the the sound and image restoration, while the picture looks better, it was over done on color enhancment and there are some obvious glaring errors (like Luke's green lightsaber, imperfections magnified etc.). I didn't notice this but apparently they screwed up the sound, the stuff plays on opposite speakers of what it is suspose to and the sound transfer seems unbalanced or lousy in some scenes. I don't really mind watching the ANH '04 DVD (although I do have to remind myself all the time that there is a better version), because they didn't really modify or take out anything from the original, they just restored it and added more junk on top of the SE junk. The scene that I get a kick out of the most has to be the Han runs into Jabba scene in docking bay 94. It always makes me laugh. For one thing, the dialog is atrocious. It is almost exactly the same as the greedo scene, it is completely unnesecarry. It looks completely fake and embarassing, makes Jabba look like a wuss, not to mention continuitly incorrect on his image compared to ROTJ and pulls me out of the story. I find the scene also spoils Jabba's intro in ROTJ. The great thing about ROTJ and IMO is it is the movie that finally reveals the two bad ass foreboding enemies we've been hearing about in the first two films, Jabba and the Empreor, and IMO it doesn't disappoint. By introducing Jabba in ANH it blows the suspense of his entrance in ROTJ and doesn't make him seem as menacing. I'm glad I saw the OT before the SE and '04 DVDs.

Do you think GL was once a great filmaker and has just become this ignorant that changes like this are acceptable? Or do you think he has always been this way and the fact that he was working on a tight budget with a lot limitations forced him to make comprises that actually made his films turn out better? I know this has been an ongoing discussion for years that hasn't really been resolved but I think the truth is he was once a good filmaker and has changed over the years. I hope that is the truth because I hate the idea that the man who made the PT and the SE changes is the same man who made my favorite films.