LeperMessiah117

Twin Peaks The Return isn’t a film, but a “limited series” of 18 episodes. However, given that it is entirely directed by Lynch, written by him and Mark Frost and feature no episodes that could possibly be viewed in a self-contained way, it could easily be consider an 18 hour film split into 18 parts and in fact has been referred to as a film rather than a TV series by some reviewers.

Tarkovsky clearly has a strong visual style that is very striking, I will have to give those films a go quite soon. Another reason to get The Criterion Channel, I’d say.

Twin Peaks is my favorite thing by David Lynch. The first half of the series is so strong, but wanes after it’s 2nd half after Lynch and writer Mark Frost left the show, only to be yanked out of the jaws of defeat when they returned for the finale. The film seems disliked by many but I find it an excellent prequel, especially the fanedit (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me - Teresa Banks and the Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer) that brings it up to a 3 and a half hour running time. And Twin Peaks The Return is a masterpiece. It just is, lol

Eraserhead is a good starting point with David Lynch, it is a good upfront example of his weirdness and typifies his style. Blue Velvet is a classic and is probably the film that cemented him as an essential American filmmaker. A dark and captivating mystery/thriller that also showcases a lighter, less bleak and more hopeful side to his films.

Tarkovsky is definitely a filmmaker who I’ve heard people mention but I’ve never really had exposure to him outside of a trailer for Stalker, which I recall did intrigue me but I have yet view. It seems to me a filmmaker who has multiple Criterion Collection releases probably warrants at least a thorough exploration of their catalogue.

I’d really like a subscription to The Criterion Channel. I really wanna check out alot of these films they offer, especially their foreign films. I have seen too little non-United States produced films aside from ones made in the UK, Japan and South Korea.

ThisIsCreation said:

I think Yellow might be my favourite colour lightsaber, yellow lightsabers make me think of the KOTOR games.

Yellow sabers makes me think of Yun from Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II.

I would go green even though red is my favorite colour. I guess because of the association with Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight who was my childhood hero.

Stardust1138 said:

Just added The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman and my first film by Stanley Kubrick, Barry Lyndon.

Barry Lyndon is so great, the first Criterion I obtained. My very modest collection, all blu-ray, current consists of

Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas
Paths of Glory
Eraserhead
Mulholland Dr.
Blue Velvet
Dr. Strangelove
Barry Lyndon
Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits
The Elephant Man

Return of the Jedi is not the worst film of the original trilogy.

The lightsaber duels as portrayed in the prequel trilogy ruined lightsaber combat.

Rian Johnson should’ve helmed the entire sequel trilogy.

I think this works alot better, nice!

Hmmmm, could be I do have an outdated version, though I obtained it the day the final update turned green… The part I’m referring to is the part right after Bilbo puts on the ring to escape the fighting in Dale transitioning to Thranduil and Dain fighting orcs upon their respective mounts.

Also, I’m not ruling out the possibility that some of these transitions I am only finding abrupt because I have watched the originals.

EDIT: And yes, there was one other scene in the battle where I was going to make a similar complaint about the battle noise, but then I heard the music swell and let it go.

To be clear regarding the river barrel riding sequence, the visual transition isn’t an issue for me. In fact, it was only something I thought of after thinking back on it and generally dismissed it in that such a transition would and could be found in any official studio edit. The only issue I have here is the audio transition with the fading score.

I have finally got around to viewing your fanedit. Excellent overall, however, I have some minor notes for you to consider if you ever wish to update again.

For Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire, you attempted to remove the orcs, but then decided not to hide them. My only suggestion here is if you are no longer hiding the orcs, maybe 1 or 2 addition orc closeups are warranted? One whom may have viewed this edit without reviewing your updates may assume that you meant to remove to orcs entirely but accidentally left in a few seconds of orc footage by mistake. Dispersing a couple more orc shots throughout the scene would leave little doubt.

I can’t recall how it was exactly in the official version, but in Mirkwood the transition between the company’s battle with the spiders and being ambushed by the elves was quite abrupt. I was actually momentarily distracted during that cut having looked off screen for about 5 seconds, going from the fight to the ambush struck me oddly and kinda caught me off balance, lol. If you could manage to maybe throw in an additional shot of the company fleeing the spider’s den the flow of the cut would become alot smoother.

The transition between Barrels Out of Bond and A Warm Welcome lends itself a bit to the obviousness of cut footage. Partially in the somewhat quick cut from the company trying to keep afloat on raging waters to drifting on calm in the next shot. Not much can be done about that I imagine, given you can only work with so much footage available to you. But the thing I noticed most of all is the music transition with the orchestral track seeming to ramp up into something, yet fading away as the next chapter begins. You probably been over this yourself, but again, if you can find a way to smooth this transition, the editing seam here might be made invisible to those who may have never seen the originals.

The battle sequence around the 3:27:10-25 mark is oddly quiet. Quiet as in, there is a huge battle raging in the scene, yet the only sound we hear is of things in the shots that are obvious. This may be how the sound was in the official version, but the shots feel off because of this. I feel that these shots (and maybe a few others shots in the chapter overall, to a lesser degree) would benefit having additional battle sounds (the clang of steel, orc shrieks, etc) added to the sound mix to add to the fullness of the battle.

To restate, I thought the edit was overall excellent. If you somehow patched up some of these seams (some of which you may have already attempted to do previously) I would say that this edit could conceivable be found in an official studio home video release. Also overall, I to prefer this edit to the previous Hobbit edit I have seen, so great work!

Anakin Starkiller said:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nose

Also:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nose/Legends

I think Poe’s recklessness was established well enough in The Last Jedi.

Anakin Starkiller said:

The canon page for breasts shows Anakin’s male breasts, so it doesn’t even have to be a woman. Just any remotely humanoid being.

Yes… true. It honestly never occurs to me that men have breasts. lol

jedi_bendu said:

LeperMessiah117 said:

I like how it has an “appearances” section.

Breasts first appeared in 1977 in the film Star Wars

I’m not exactly understanding the criteria here for what counts as a breast appearance.

StarkillerAG said:

My guess would probably be the article on breasts:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Breast/Legends

It’s clearly just an excuse for horny nerds to post revealing pictures of Star Wars girls.

I like how it has an “appearances” section.

I recently obtained last year’s Arrow blu-ray release of Oldboy, which is one of my all-time favorite films. Knowing that the film has a new transfer approved by director Park Chan-wook and features a large selection of supplementary materials both old and new, I bought it on impulse. Of course, 2 days after receiving it, a 4K UHD release was announced and that annoyed me pretty well. But whatever, I can get over that.

What really gets me is that, while the new transfer is the most beautiful the film has ever looked, the “newly translated English subtitles” are actually inferior to the previous Tartan blu-ray release, which I also own. The grammar is a bit odd in places and there are a few lines that I know are just straight-up wrong. Even in the documentary on disk 2, they specifically talk about a line of spoken dialogue in the film that is a 100% different line than is present in the subtitles of the main feature. I don’t get how something like this can happen to, essentially, the definitive collector’s edition of one of the most revered films to come out of Asian cinema.

Of course, with foreign-language films, there’s bound to be some bits that don’t translate all that well, but this translation still could’ve been a whole lot better than it ended up being. At least the transfer and features are great, so I still don’t regret adding it to my collection. Now I just wanna rip the superior transfer from the blu-ray and hardcode some more accurate subtitles into the video file to get a more ‘true to the original vision’ version of the film.

I’d like to add on to The Twin Snakes by saying that I much prefer the original release. What I honestly dislike about The Twin Snakes is that they have Snake do shit in cutscenes that he didn’t do (and honestly wouldn’t do) in the original title. For example, during mission briefing when I believe Snake mentions something about spy movies (I think) and he does this cringy finger-gun gesture that comes off as so cheesy (but not in the classic Kojima way). But what I REALLY dislike is when after Snake saves Kenneth Baker and he holds his gun to Baker’s head just because he forgot Meryl’s codec frequency. It’s so weird and wrong.

It should be noted that The Twin Snakes is NOT a Hideo Kojima game, he only served as producer I believe. A rule for me when it comes to the Metal Gear franchise is if it isn’t directed by Kojima, skip it.

I’d very, very interested to see what your edit, when a new one becomes available, can accomplish. I actually have some nostalgia for the film, Blair Witch 2 being a ‘pseudo-sequel’ to one of my favorite horror films, and it features some great ideas. I think it’s very possible to save this movie in the editing room and I cannot believe the theatrical cut was what they went with in the end, that they thought that cut of the film was acceptable in any way. The early 2000’s was a weird time for film.

V.I.N.Cent said:

‘What We Want And How To Make It’ - article by doubleofive

https://starwarsviscomp.wordpress.com/2020/08/21/what-we-want

#ReleaseTheOriginalTrilogy
 

^ Well worth taking the time out to give this article by doubleofive a good read, and then his other posts below it from the link above.

The thought of a Star Wars Original Trilogy Criterion boxset… man, what a wonderful fantasy of impossible things that would never happen because it’s too good of an idea.

Please link me, if you would be so kind

My Despecialized Blu-rays if I wanna just enjoy the original trilogy and HAL’s Custom Special Editions if I feel like incorporating other films or more into the marathon. My letterbox VHS tapes from the old '92 Star Wars Trilogy boxset was my go-to before that. Bought that set after the Blu-ray Saga collection came out, having gotten fed up with the continuing additional changes with each release.

If you haven’t listened to Porcupine Tree, maybe try their penultimate album, Fear of a Blank Planet. It’s a modern prog masterpiece. Not exactly obscure, per se, but I feel Porcupine Tree have not achieved a legendary status like the bands you named above.

Also, give Opeth a try if you haven’t. Specifically Damnation and their latest 4 albums IF you do not like death metal. Most of their discography is of death metal/prog style, but the style of their previous 4 albums have been in style a love-letter to '70s prog rock. Again, probably not so obscure to those heavily invested in the modern progressive rock/metal movement, but they are worth mentioning. (If you don’t mind the death metal sound, their LP Blackwater Park is truly a masterpiece and I’d say easily one of the best albums of the past 20 years.)

Hopefully somebody else on here can give a more exhaustive answer. I, myself, am hoping to dive deeper into prog music, but I don’t know much outside of the few bands I listen to excessively (I.E., Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson, Opeth, Devin Townsend, Gojira, Mastodon, Pink Floyd) and I do mean excessively.

Rodney-2187 said:

I hope this in the into:

"Ten years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the Imperial underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem… if no one else can help… and if you can find them… maybe you can hire… The Bad Batch.

I think it wouldn’t be a bad thing to do the show in a similar way, lol

I’m actually decently excited. This, I think, could be a good way to cover the early days of the Galactic Empire’s rise to power in the galaxy. It’d be very interesting to see things like the clone trooper’s final days in service to the Empire to their eventual replacement by standard stormtroopers, how the Empire dealt with systems that rebelled against imperial rule early on and maybe even get to see some of Darth Vader and the Inquisitorius, all through the eyes of a squad of “defective” clone troopers who, due to their defects, may or may not have obeyed when order 66 was issued. I think it may have the potential to be quite an interesting series IF they do not drag it on for too long. Maybe 3 seasons at most?

I’m choosing optimism and hoping for the best.

Rodney-2187 said:

There’s a thread on essential Clone Wars episodes. Here’s a link to my post. I tried to narrow it down as much as I could, but I really want add a few more episodes.

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Essential-Star-Wars-Animated-Series-Episodes-for-Movie-Marathon-Inclusion/id/74792/page/1#1343085

I have yet to view Lightsaber Lost. I’ve really come to enjoy Ahsoka’s character, so I’d be very interested to check that one out.

You basically nailed the essentials, but even non-essentials can add a bit to the over-arcing storyline, so I try to add them to the list, just as long as they’re not COMPLETELY dumb or pointless in my eyes (and there are more than a few that are so dumb, I can only exclaim, “why?!”).

Rodney-2187 said:

There no such thing as too much Star Wars. Please share!

I included all of The Clone Wars in my list, but I suppose not every episode is essential to the overall story, even though they do add some depth to the characters. There are some episodes however I consider to be as essential as anything could be. Just my opinion.

That is an amazing list! Great job!

Thanks, and yeah, everybody I know who watches Clones Wars has no problem watching from beginning to end. My uncle, for example, likes to claim that every episode is top-tier Star Wars. But for me, I cannot stand the Jar-Jar episodes (whata shock!!) and the episodes that add practically nothing to the plot really stifle my excitement to keep watching, because I know there will be more bad episodes to come as I make my way through the series.

But I agree, there are MANY episodes and story arcs that add so much great textures to the Star Wars universe. I desire to really nail down a solid list of episodes I can get behind in terms of my own fandom to the series. I don’t wanna sit there groaning every few episodes if I don’t have to, I already have to deal with enough of my own groaning watching the prequel trilogy, lol.