Mavimao

For me, the real problem with Jedi is that, story wise, it only does two things: tie up loose ends in a not so flattering fashion and finish Luke’s story. Everything else is explosions and chases.

The pacing is also weak. The first third of the film is spent saving Han and it’s basically a mini-film in itself that has zero impact over the rest of the story (except to put Han back in the picture). Then it’s a re-tread of 1977 with the rebellion having to face an even bigger Death Star they have to blow up except it’s padded with exposition to explain question after question that Empire had so beautifully set up. And the answers are just kind of…meh. Leia being Luke’s sister is the most egregious. Leia could have been the other one, but did they have to be siblings? I also ponder if making Anakin and Darth Vader the same person was the best solution. Also: perhaps Luke should be pissed at Obi Wan for not telling him the truth about his father and it could have been fuel for his flirt to the dark side (but no, we get a fireside chat instead…)

That said, it does have its positive sides (Luke vs the Emperor and the Death Star final battle) so overall it’s a decent product and a fun film to watch. It just could have done so much more and didn’t.

SpilkaBilka said:

What’s the source of the 5.1 audio for ESB? Is this a reconstruction like HairyHen did for SW or something else?

Pretty much. It’s the audio from the 93 laserdiscs (and a bass channel from the blurays) with all the necessary tweeks (levels, fixing a few missing sound effects, etc)

But keep in mind that the 70mm version, which would have contained the surround sound mix, is different in content so this is not a reconstruction so to speak. It’s more of a “what if the content of the 35mm stereo version was in surround sound?”

130 people just died hours away from where I’m typing this and you write a 682 word manifesto because you feel sad about people not liking a movie as much as you do. Need I remind you that you insulted a beloved member of this forum (who was defending a prequel movie, I might add) saying: “Harmy i love you man for all your hard work…that being said…get back to work on that Return of the Jedi 2.0 and stop bitching and whining about movies that came out over 10 years ago…all you guys need to do this…get the f&$@ over the prequels already…it’s lame and you all sound like a bunch of naggy housewives that haven’t had sex in decades…shut up Frink!”

You type troll-worthy tripe like this and feel “bullied” when we reply with Seinfeld GIFs. If you feel this hurt over people’s opinions on a forum dedicated to a film franchise, I would advise you to prepare yourself for the real world.

fullmetal777 said:

Harmy i love you man for all your hard work…that being said…get back to work on that Return of the Jedi 2.0 and stop bitching and whining about movies that came out over 10 years ago…all you guys need to do this…get the f&$@ over the prequels already…it’s lame and you all sound like a bunch of naggy housewives that haven’t had sex in decades…shut up Frink!

Excellent news about your daughter. Hope the doctor has good things to say about you.

Looks really great, guys! Your hard work is quite impressive.

Just out of curiosity: how far along are you in the restoration?

Octorox said:

In my opinion Anakin from Clone Wars really illustrates how that kind of character can work if done well. He’s still hotheaded and impulsive but there’s a heart and passion there that didn’t exist in the prequels. In Clone Wars you get the sense that Anakin is damaged and misguided but he’s still fundamentally a good person. His passion, for his friends, for his wife, toward his moral convictions, is ultimately his downfall. He doesn’t know how to let go. I think that’s what George was ultimately going for in the prequels but the character wasn’t fully baked and Hayden’s performance only exacerbated the problem.

This. +1

I just saw on the BBC that the Star Wars fan who had little time to live and was able to see a cut of the film has just passed away.

Makes me happy JJ was able to grant his wish.

OmitWandKenopf said:

Harmy said:

So, I got into a discussion on my FB page about which of the prequels is the least terrible and I said that to me Ep3 is probably the most painful to watch - for Episode 1 I still have certain nostalgia, because I saw it as a kid and Ep2 is so bad it’s funny - kind of like Plan 9 From Outer Space. Ep3 is just sad - Anakin’s turn to the dark side is totally unrealistic and lame, the fights are so long and over-choreographed that they are boring and it ruins Darth Vader.

Then someone made the argument that at least Episode III is the only one that has a coherent story. But I disagree. As far as story coherence, I’d say Ep2 is actually the best (well, least terrible). It’s a story that can be retold as a coherent narrative most easily - let me try here:

After an assassination attempt on a galactic senator a young Jedi is tasked with protecting her, while his master follows the trail of the assassins only to discover a conspiracy of galactic proportions and get captured. Meanwhile the senator and her Jedi protector go into hiding and fall in love but when the young Jedi discovers that his master has been captured he flies to his aid and our heroes are rejoined for an epic final battle.

Written out like this, it actually sounds pretty great, too bad it was so poorly executed. But what I’m trying to show there is that there is an actual plot to episode II (change the Jedi in that outline I wrote up there into private investigators and it would make for a pretty good film noir), whereas the other two movies are basically just a series of events.

How can someone who’s done such great work recognized by the entire fandom, have such incredibly stupid opinions? Unbelievable. So much stupid in this thread, in fact all of it probably…

Can’t believe I used to hold similar views a couple years ago. (Not quite as bad, but that’s no excuse is it.)

You know I’m sorta angry cause I was having debates elsewhere, anyway, take ker byyyee!

Dude… Really?

I’m really digging that crude red light saber. It really has character.

Honest Trailers does the Ep. 7 trailer…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pegJQPIzfs4

Jay said:

RicOlie_2 said:

ray_afraid said:

I’m with you about the new forum though… Was this thing really ready to launch?

It only happened because of the fairly frequent outages that were happening. If we didn’t have that problem, I’m sure Jay would have waited a while before making the update (and it probably would have been just an update, with no change of servers).

Even the migration gave the old hosting service one last opportunity to screw up; I haven’t had FTP access for days and can’t retrieve the old avatars until they fix it. It’s just the latest (and now the last, thankfully) hassle in a long list of problems over the previous year and a half, and frankly, since this all comes out of my own pocket, I got sick of paying them for such bad service.

The old software couldn’t run on the new server without major modifications. I decided to spend that time getting the new software, which was still very early, in better shape so it would at least be usable at launch. It’s been a marathon and I haven’t done much in my spare time since April besides write code and test. I’m not complaining; I was happy to do it.

Anchorhead said it best in the bug topic (before I locked it); we’re in the same boat we were 8 years ago when I launched the old software. Tons of complaints, lots of “essential” features missing, lots of people expressing their subjective opinions (quite loudly and rudely), the sky is falling, how could you do this to us, children are dying, etc.

Last I checked, we all made it through just fine. We will this time, too. Everyone just needs to take a breath and relax. I was pretty pissed yesterday as the complaints starting rolling in, but I’m over it now. Anyone who finds the site “horrible” and “unusable” (not my words) can either chill out and wait it out, or you can take a little break and come back in a month or two, after which I’m sure a lot of the biggest issues will be worked out.

Just keep in mind that if we were still on the old hosting service, we probably would’ve ended up with a week-long outage starting right before before Ep. VII dropped.

I am really sorry about the complainers in the thread. It started off with people trying to give constructive criticism, knowing that you were going to fix things, but it soon fell into people bitching and moaning and being plain rude. We’re on a free forum for Christssake. This isn’t a product they purchased and turned defective. It’s a community-run internet forum that they pay jack-shit for.

The entitlement and baby mentality really irks me sometimes.

Hey! You deserve it! And thanks for the scans… Amazing how bright and saturated that IB print is.

Kylo Ren is taking this Darth Vader worshiping a little overboard...

(Oops, wrong thread)

AntcuFaalb said:

Mavimao said:

AntcuFaalb said:

Mavimao said:

I sometimes miss the days before the internet, when we could enjoy films for what they were. Nowadays, it's all "I hate the trailer. It doesn't have this. It doesn't have that. It's not like the Star Wars in MY head".

Do you mean the days before the internet or the days before the World Wide Web?

People were bickering about the then-forthcoming Revenge of the Jedi online on Usenet in 1982.

 The World Wide Web, of course. (I can't imagine your average Joe using Usenet in 1982)

I agree with you. I was just being a pain-in-the-ass.

 No worries, I'm the same way :P

AntcuFaalb said:

Mavimao said:

I sometimes miss the days before the internet, when we could enjoy films for what they were. Nowadays, it's all "I hate the trailer. It doesn't have this. It doesn't have that. It's not like the Star Wars in MY head". 

Do you mean the days before the internet or the days before the World Wide Web?

People were bickering about the then-forthcoming Revenge of the Jedi online on Usenet in 1982.

 The World Wide Web, of course. (I can't imagine your average Joe using Usenet in 1982)

To clarify what I was saying: I just feel like people can become a bit too passionate about things - Star Wars especially - and everyone wants it to be a certain way and if it isn't exactly how it is in their heads then it's obviously crap. 

I'm not expecting transcendence with the new Star Wars film (that train left after Empire), but if I get something along the lines of the first Clone Wars cartoon or some of the better Star Wars video games then I'll be satisfied. 

So far the story looks satisfying (Darth Vader cult, remnants of old Empire, Luke as hermit) and while I'm sure I will be unsatisfied with certain details, I am looking forward to seeing what modern filmmakers will do with the franchise (especially Rian Johnson)

I sometimes miss the days before the internet, when we could enjoy films for what they were. Nowadays, it's all "I hate the trailer. It doesn't have this. It doesn't have that. It's not like the Star Wars in MY head". 

Booked for Wednesday night at 7:15pm. WOOOOT!

Harmy said:

Well, most people complain that the colors are too unnatural, which only goes to show the absurdity of this whole color argument :D

 Well, the film was edited with black and white film, so THAT palette should be considered as well!!!! (/sarcasm)

liamdistal said:

Yes, I've tried playing it back on several different bluray players that are compatible. I'm just not sure if I'm missing a step. I'm used to using a PC for this kind of thing but I only have a burner on my Macbook. 

 Hmm... Theoretically, it should work. An ISO is a sector by sector copy of the disk... I've never burned an AVCHD so I can't help you there. 

Tobar said:

Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars

 I personally never thought there was any way to redeem the storyline in the prequels until I watched this prior to watching ROTS. It occurred to me that the prequels could have actually had been good if it were in better hands. Watching the clone wars, suddenly the love story worked, the angst of Anakin worked, Yoda fighting worked and on and on... 

Goes to show how one person can make or break a story. 

liamdistal said:

Sorry, maybe this is redundant. But I'm using a Mac and trying to burn the .iso via disk utility and whenever I burn it it comes out as a data disc. Does anyone have any experience or suggestions on how to correct this?

 Just to make sure you know what you're burning...

The ISO is an AVCHD disk, so it's different from a normal DVD video disk and will only work in compatible Blu-ray players. 

Glad the surgery went well, Poita, and I wish you a speedy recovery!