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MattMahdi

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Members
Join date
1-Aug-2007
Last activity
16-Apr-2024
Posts
354

Post History

Post
#743237
Topic
Preserving the...<em>cringe</em>...Star Wars Holiday Special (Released)
Time

A few days ago IGN published its Rebel Base episode "How Christmas Nearly Ruined Star Wars". (Although dialogue refers to it as "How Christmas Nearly Destroyed Star Wars".)

It treats Life Day as Christmas. Nothing new there. I think that Star Wars Galaxies cemented that relationship, although it didn't invent the association.

The presenters state that they don't want to get sued by Disney, so they're not going to show any clips, but instead they show sped-up Paint renditions of stills from the Special. The Boba Fett screen is particularly good.

So it's twelve minutes of your life you might never get back. But if you've invested many times that watching the Special itself, then you could do worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uxmnUlnflE

Post
#741518
Topic
Preserving the...<em>cringe</em>...Star Wars Holiday Special (Released)
Time

The language, sadly, can be a bit much at times.

But HelloGreedo published "Star Wars Holiday Special - Review and Discussion" back in 2013. A good twelve and a half minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvYl9cPibjk

Quote: "I watch the Holiday Special once a year, every year. Why? Who knows."

Post
#736320
Topic
Preserving the...<em>cringe</em>...Star Wars Holiday Special (Released)
Time

Google News suggested that I read today's The Hollywood Reporter article reprinting their original review from 1978:

If the prospect of a two-hour Star Wars Holiday Special conjured up visions of "May the force be with you" repeated ad nauseam in your head, this show on CBS was a welcome surprise.

Note those words: "welcome surprise".

The article itself is at:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/star-wars-holiday-special-read-749584

Post
#736255
Topic
Preserving the...<em>cringe</em>...Star Wars Holiday Special (Released)
Time

As P. T. Barnum stated, a _____ and his _____ are soon _____. (Swiped from the introduction to Bored of the Rings.)

Michael Stackpole told a story where the person at the next table in a restaurant wanted his autograph because he was in some way associated with Star Wars. Didn't have a clue who Michael was, or what he'd written, but heard the words "Star Wars" and so wanted the autograph just BECAUSE.

Whoever did bid that high needs to be shown the Special. That'll set them to rights.

Post
#727250
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

Video Collector said:

P5, I am really not okay with this. As a custom cover designer I generally frown upon people cannibalizing my work.

Feel free to make such modifications for yourself, but please refrain from distributing them.

Not much I can really do about it if you persist, but I just wanted to let my feelings on the matter be known.

It is a neat image. Is there a place where your originals are displayed?

Actually, the intended question is this: do you mind if people use your custom covers unmodified? Because if you're willing then I'd love to see some of your work. I'll be doing my own conversion of the episodes to DVD just because it feels somehow more real.

Post
#722659
Topic
Info: Recommended Editions of Disney Animated (and Partially Animated) Features
Time

SilverWook said:

Widescreen VHS was a thing for a while before DVD arrived. (Using the same transfers made for Laserdisc.) Stores like Suncoast had special section for them.

I'd forgotten that. I remember a moment when I walked into Suncoast to buy the widescreen VHS of the director's cut of "Blade Runner".

He told me he wouldn't even think of buying it. He had a friend with a laserdisc player, and he could get better quality by recording straight from that.

I did leave with the tape, but I was amazed at his sales pitch.

Post
#710042
Topic
Star Wars OT &amp; 1997 Special Edition - Various Projects Info (Released)
Time

I promised myself I'd sit down and watch these, as soon as I could do so *properly*, but it's been a long couple of weeks and so I finally decided to just watch "Star Wars" whether I had the time or not.

Gorgeous. Clear and breathtaking.

But especially fascinating is the gallery showing the color improvements and the corrections they made to the image. Almost every time I could remember seeing a particular glitch, tape mark, or other imperfection before and had just assumed that it was *supposed* to be that way.

To have the film cleaned up this way is amazing.

So I can only offer my thanks. Certainly wish I could do more.

...now I only need to make time for the SE.

Post
#700685
Topic
Preserving the...<em>cringe</em>...Star Wars Holiday Special (Released)
Time

I can buy the Wookiees on a spiritual quest with their snow globes. I have a hard time believing the others separately (some got there at different times) doing the same thing.

I can imagine a situation a la The Restaurant at the End of the Universe where Marvin isn't taking an elevator to the celebration. The Millennium Falcon parked with some other ships at the site that said "This way to join the Wookiee celebration".

But, as you say, it is a holiday special. And an horrific one at that. Mayhaps that's why we love it enough to generate over 700 posts.

Post
#682728
Topic
Star Wars Holiday Special - WHIO 1st Gen VHS Preservation (Released)
Time

The Terminator said:

I got the free trial version of newsgroups/usenet that manually needs to be renewed to allow charges. Should I bump up to the paid version right away? Is that why they keep throttling my download and stopping me at 33%?

Mimo is an *option*, albeit one that GigaNews pushes pretty hard. Others can recommend better programs.

I just can't imagine why it stops at 33% -- that doesn't sound like much sense on their part. Is it possible to view a list of the multiple RAR files and download them individually? Then you could use something like 7zip to combine the files. (See previous note about others' recommendations of better programs.)