MaximRecoil

I'm not too concerned about the imperceptible difference between 23.976 FPS and 24 FPS; though it is more of an issue for PAL countries (25 FPS). The Blu-Ray format and associated compatible hardware do support 24 FPS though, don't they?

I'd still like to see high quality analog audio and video formats introduced for these newer high capacity optical discs. You'd think that the music and movie industry would be in favor of such a thing, since making 1:1 copies of analog recordings is impossible; so in order to get the best available quality, you'd have to buy the real thing.

I like Star Wars the best, and I don't have a strong preference between ESB and ROTJ; and I like both of them nearly as much as Star Wars.

Then in order of preference: TPM, ROTS, and AOTC. 

I rate movies based on how much I enjoy them; not on technical merits; which are irrelevant in my opinion.

C3PX said:

I guess for monolingual people, the idea of two different individuals carrying on a conversation, each in their own native tongue, doesn't seem so odd. But for those of us who know two or more languages, the idea is so awkward, words fail to explain it. Imagine seeing an American and a Mexican having a long indepth conversation with one another, the American speaking in plain and fluent English, and the Mexican speaking in plain and fluent Spanish, but yet they seem to be communicating with each other just fine. ???? As far as I know, this only ever happens in the first Star Wars movie and even more so in fanedits of the other ones.

I have always felt that the scene with Han and Greedo talking was a bit ridiculous, and later the same stupid, bizzare, retarded idea was used again in the Han Jabba conversation. Utterly ridiculous. If Han knows Huttese, why the hell would he just not speak in Huttese, or if Greedo know Engish, why not speak it. Speaking multiple languages myself, it is really hard to speak in one language, then suddenly switch to the other. I cannot even imagine having such a conversation as Han has with Greedo. 

This issue was thankfully fixed in Return of the Jedi, where we have Leia speaking to Jabba in Huttese, or with Threepio translating. Fanedits brought the dumb idea back by having Jar Jar speaking in his language, while everyone else spoke to him in English. Makes even less sense, how would so many people know Jar Jar's dumb obscure language? When two aliens are having a conversation in a single language, this subtitle idea works just fine. The idea of having Ackbar explain things in subtitles while everyone else listens and understand him just fine, to me, is creating an even bigger problem than we already had.

There are a lot of people who understand a foreign language better than they can speak said foreign language. For example, my brother's ex-girlfriend (Diana) was born in the Philipines, but was adopted by a couple in the U.S. when she was young. Her biological father was an American serviceman. Diana can understand Tagalog but doesn't speak it very well. Her real mother can understand English (due to being with the Diana's American father), but doesn't speak it very well. So when Diana and her mother talk, Diana speaks English, and her mother speaks Tagalog, and they both understand each other (though occasionally they have to clarify something in the other's preferred speaking language). 

It is easier to get to the point of understanding a language (if you are around it enough) than it is to speak it well enough that someone else can easily understand you. When I call or visit the Chinese restaurant in town, they always understand what I'm saying, but it is very difficult to understand what they are saying in their terribly broken English. I'm sure they would rather reply to me in Chinese if they thought I could understand it.

Using something like Blu-ray discs, and an analog scheme like LaserDisc (but with something better than the composite domain, such as RGB) — if transferred from a 35mm negative, or better yet, a 70mm negative — could the quality of a 35mm film print be matched or bettered?

Something like that combined with a high-end CRT projector (to keep it all analog) like a Sony G90 with a 150 kHz scan rate (well beyond 1080p) would allow commercial theater quality and the look of film right at home, without the hassles (such as switching reels), huge expense, and potential legal red tape of owning actual 35mm film prints. 

It is too bad that some of the best CRT projectors can handle well beyond 1080p, yet the highest quality consumer analog format that can be fed to them is something like LaserDisc or S-VHS. Yes, they display digital 1080p content, but media that's high resolution and completely analog would be really cool. It would probably be indistinguishable from a film print when viewed on an analog display. 

This is the disagreement we're not getting anywhere on. See, I see the six movies, where the Jedi clearly show they do not have the power to crush Death Stars with their mind, as evidence that they do not have the power to crush Death Stars with their minds.

So everything that we didn't see people do in the six movies counts as evidence that they couldn't do it? How do you figure?

Since you assume, based on one line of dialogue, that they must have that power, every single example where they don't is therefore not evidence.

There is no "they". Yoda is the one that made the claim. And I'm not "assuming" anything. Like I said before, words mean things.

It is established that Yoda can move objects regardless of size (which would of course, include the Death Star), based on his claim in ESB. There is no evidence that Yoda could not move the Death Star. The fact that he didn't is not evidence that he couldn't. So why didn't he when he said he could? It is questions like those which lead to the conclusion of the character being dumb; which leads to the conclusion of bad writing.

I would posit that the reason we don't see Yoda fail at moving anything is because a 900 year old Jedi Master might already know his reasonable limits, but that no doubt is a baseless rationalization.

So why claim there are no limits if he knows there are? Why are you so determined to reconcile the rest of the series to that single line from Yoda, rather than simply admit the line was bad writing, which ended up making Yoda look dumb for not single-handedly taking down the Empire with this god-like ability of which he boasts?

negative1 said:

Han Solo: Look, Your Worshipfulness, let's get one thing straight. I take orders from just one person: me.
Princess Leia: It's a wonder you're still alive.
[Pushing past Chewbacca]
Princess Leia: Will someone get this big walking carpet out of my way?
Han Solo: No reward is worth this.

• • Wonderful girl. Either I'm going to kill her or I'm beginning to like her."

• • "Look, Your Worshipfulness, let's get one thing straight. I take orders from just one person: me."

• • Han Solo: "Not a bad bit of rescuing, huh? You know, sometimes I amaze even myself."
  • Princess Leia: "That doesn't sound too hard."

 

 

yeah, likes that so much better..

 

 

it was all cheesy even in the originals.

 

later

-1

Why are you comparing the bickering between Solo and Leia, to the corny, sappy, out-of-left field, "romantic" dialog delivered by Hayden "Mr. High School Play" Christensen? The "back and forth" between Solo and Leia was good, and well-delivered; similar to Sam and Diane on Cheers. It wasn't even remotely "cheesy".

The OT has a lot of fondly remembered quotes; while the PT has quotes which are mainly remembered because of how laughably bad they were written and delivered.

Padme: We used to lie out on the sand and let the sun dry us and try to guess the names of the birds singing.

Anakin: I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.

Let's look at the lightsaber thing. Given the concentration it takes under most situations to use the force (Luke pulling his saber from ice, Yoda lifting the ship, Vader hurling debris at Luke) perhaps being on the back of a moving speeder Anakin was unable to spare a moment to concentrate to telekinetically retrieve it. For me, the half-second of thought it took to come up with that consistent in-universe explanation is more satisfying that throwing disbeleif out the windy and saying the writers suck.

We've seen Jedi in precarious situations engaging in light saber duels (such as balancing on those hovering things over the lava in ROTS), so it is not like they have to stop everything they are doing in order to use the force. We also know that their reaction time is extremely fast, to the point that they can see things slightly before they happen (as Anakin's podracing abilities were explained in TPM), which allows them to do seemingly impossible things like blocking blaster bolts with their light sabers (even when blindfolded).

Speaking of podracing, Anakin was able to keep his podracer going on the course while trying to fix it; involving reaching around to the outside blindly and putting something back in place, and fooling with the cockpit controls; and he was just a child at the time, and certainly not a trained Jedi. I guess he can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time.

Considering those abilities, you are going to try to tell me that it makes sense for Anakin to have not retrieved his light saber in AOTC? It is sloppy writing; i.e., a lazy plot device.

Let's look at Yoda. From the abilities he displays in the films, we can infer that Yoda is a Jedi master with impressive telekinetic talent, but his power is limited enough that he can't crush the Death Star, and that when he said 'Size matters not' he was either a:) A 900 year old backwards talking philosopher and what he said wasn't meant to be taken as a literal refrence to unlimited telekinesis, or b:) A literal refrence to the nature of the Force, not to his own individual abilities. I think either of those consistent, in-universe explanations are superior to discoutning huge sections of the films with 'bad writing makes Yoda stupid.'

"A" is out, because there was nothing philosophical about it. Luke thought it was too big to lift, and Yoda corrected him by saying that size doesn't matter; and then proceeds to lift it. The dialog here is about as matter-of-fact as you can get. 

As far as "B" goes; what would be the point of telling Luke that size doesn't matter, if, in the context of the scene (i.e., using the force to lift things), it actually did matter? Yoda telling him that size doesn't matter, but secrectly having an irrelevant context in mind when he said it, makes no sense.  That would be like going to a car lot and telling the salesman that price doesn't matter. Then when he shows you an expensive car that you can't afford, you say: "Well what I meant was, price doesn't matter in the context of the nature of money; in other words, there is enough money in the world to buy any car on the lot."

By using the 'bad writing' argument, any evidence to the contrary is automatically discounted. Yoda said 'size matters not' and that's taken literally, so the fact at no point in the movies does this claim appear to be true is completely discounted as 'bad writing'.

No, that is not correct. Any evidence to the contrary is not automatically discounted. However, you may just find that there is no evidence to the contrary to be found. An example of evidence to the contrary would be something like a scene with Yoda trying to move an object and failing because it was too large, and some dialog to explain the inconsistency (for example: "I guess I wasn't as strong in the force as I thought I was"); so we know it is not just a case of the writer forgetting things which had been previously established. All you have provided are baseless rationalizations; which are not evidence.

You state yourself obviously individual Jedi have limits. Because they have these limits, there is no reason to assume they are stupid. Given the difference between what you claim the Force should be able to do and what they actually do with it, it makes much more sense to chalk that difference up to their individual power limits than it does to their stupidity. Since it is obvious from the films that Jedi have limits, the writing did not imply the Jedi had unlimited power.

You keep going off track. I never claimed that the writing implied that the Jedi had unlimited power. The writing specifically claimed that Yoda could move any object, regardless of size, with telekinesis. That's not even remotely the same as saying that the Jedi in general had unlimited power in general, because Yoda does not = Jedi in general, and the ability to move any object, regardless of size, with telekinesis does not = unlimited power in general.

Even if we assume the Force is a source for unlimited telekinetic power, knowing that Jedi have a limited ability to access this answers the questions about why they don't do certain thing much easier than assuming they're all dumb. I know my toaster is attached to a power grid that powers most of the San Juoaquin Valley, and yet I don't think my toaster is stupid because it doesn't heat my entire house. I understand it's obvious limits.

See above. We're talking about Yoda here with regard to the ability to move any object, regardless of size, with telekinesis. When I have discussed other Jedi, it has been with regard to their inconsistencies in other areas.

Yoda made a claim and then lifted a ship. He did not demonstrate the ability to use unlimited telekinetic power. At no point did he back up the claim "Size matters not" with quantifiable evidence of unlimited power. That he had unlimited telekinesis is an extraordinary claim, and I don't see any extraordinary proof in the films.

Extraordinary claim relative to what? This is a fictional universe defined by the writer. The idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, applies to the real world, not to fictional worlds. A writer can make any claim he wants to; as he is the creator of that fictional universe. However, when there are inconsistencies, you may end up with plot holes, or at the least, characters which come across as stupid.

And in the context of the scene, his lifting of the ship was evidence of Yoda's claim, since lifting the ship was the task at hand, the task which Luke suggested was too difficult because of the size of the ship. He could have said something more vague to Luke, like, "You underestimate the power of the force," but he didn't. He made a very specific claim, i.e., "Size matters not." Words mean things.

Let us assume, given the single most impressive feat of telekinisis evident in the films- Yoda stopping the metal thing Dooku dropped on Obi and Anakin. That effort made it impossible for Yoda to stop a fleeing Dooku, and apparently took a great deal of concentration and perhaps some physical strain judging from his expression. Is that the upper limit of the most powerful Jedi in the films? It's possible. He certainly never does anything like crush the Death Star. Non-existence of evidence is not evidence of non-existence, but given Yoda's character, goals, and apparent wisdom, him not using this power if he had it seems unlikely.

The problem here is you are trying to rationalize everything, which means you've discounted the possibility of something far more simple to explain inconsistencies; i.e., bad writing.

Also, in this scene, Yoda wasn't simply dealing with the weight of the metal thing, but he had to counteract Dooku's use of the force (that stuff didn't break/fall due to natural causes). The same thing applies in ROTS when the emperor was throwing those senate seats (or whatever they were) at him.

As to why Yoda didn't throw whole droid armies around, perhaps theres a fundamental difference between lifting something with the Force and Force pushing things in combat. I don't know, I'm not a Jedi.

Or, a more obvious explanation is that the character was written with too much power which makes it next to impossible to invent dangerous situations which he could not easily overcome by using that power.

And that's still not begging the question. I never assumed the Jedi can't be morons, just that given a choice between all Jedi being morons, or beleiveing that the way you describe a Jedi's power being inaccurate, it seems more likely that your claim that Jedi should demonstrate unlimited telekinetic power is innacurate.

You're discounting the possibility of bad writing; i.e., you're assuming that the writing is fine (and that is the question); and using that assumption as your basis for trying to rationalize the inconsistencies; hence, you are begging the question.

This could have been fixed with some writing changes. For example, don't have Yoda claim that size doesn't matter if the writer actually intends for size to matter. Don't keep using the whole "dropping the light saber" thing as a plot device when it is already established that even rookie Jedi can will the things back into their hands at a moment's notice; etc. When you are writing super powered characters you need to give them certain limitations and be very creative with the dangerous situations that you construct for them. Otherwise, you end up with characters that look stupid.

This is just a point of discussion for me. I love the movies (the OOT in particular) regardless of their flaws.

C3PX said:

If by "nameless guy in the force unleashed" you mean the main character, he actually has a whole first and last name as well as a code name. But yeah, that game takes force powers to a ridiculous point. In one part of the game he crupples up an AT-ST into a ball like a piece of paper. Somebody mentioned that the Force Unleashed was not cannon, just a fun stylized game, but I believe Lucas himself said that the game is canonical, as he had a great deal of creative input into it.

 That's what I'm talking about. When you write characters so they are overpowered, you dig a hole for yourself. You can either show them being smart, in which case, they can never be in any real danger because they are so powerful, which makes for a dull story. Or, you can put them into dangerous situations, but then it just makes them look dumb by not using their powers to easily overcome the danger. Good writing strikes a balance across the board, between power levels and situations that the characters may encounter.

Is it easier to answer "B" to all of those questions than it is to think that Yoda's "size matters not" was not a statement of scientific fact that meant "capable of generating infinite numbers of kilowatts the Force is" but might have been a deeper statement regarding an aspect of the nature of an ill-defined pseudo-magical mystical force.

He was replying to a specific suggestion by Luke that the ship was too big to move. In this case, the specific aspect of the force that allows for telekinesis is not "ill-defined" with respect to the size of the objects that can be moved; because he clearly states that the size of the object does not matter.

I never implied Yoda didn't mean what he said, it just don't think he meant it as a literal claim of unlimited telekinetic power. Or at the very least, perhaps size does not matter to the Force, but individual Jedi have limits, most apparently far less than Yoda.

Obviously individual Jedi have limits, as evidenced by Luke's failure to fully lift the ship. However, Yoda made the claim and then demonstrated the claim; which establishes that size doesn't matter to Yoda's use of the force. There were many opportunities for Yoda to do some heavy, decisive moving in the PT and he didn't bother. Why not send the droid armies flying? Even if he had to do it in X-Wing sized sections of weight, that's likely a few hundred droids at a time.

I would argue that the films give us very little clear understanding of the nature of the Force. Why does an energy field generated by all living things grant telekinesis? Why is Watto immune to the Jedi mind trick just because he's greedy? Why does doing evil turn your eyes yellow? What is the nature of the 'haunted' cave on Dagobah? How can you move fast enough to block a blaster bolt but get caught with a little rope thing from Boba Fett?

That's irrelevant, because the aspects of the force in question here, are the ones that are defined (through dialog and/or example) well enough for this discussion.

But, if my options are either every Jedi in either trilogy are hopelessly stupid (including Yoda, who made the claim you're hanging this all on) or that the understanding of the Force you propose is somehow incorrect, Occam's razor points me fairly clearly to one of these options.

You're missing the point. Yes the examples imply stupidy on the part of the Jedi, and the writing is to blame for it. Write it so the power isn't unlimited, and write scenarios that can realistically pose danger despite the powers-as-defined.

(ps. I wasn't 'begging a question'. At the very worst I might be accused of suggesting a false delimma.)

There was no false dilemma. You were begging the question. You were assuming that the Jedi couldn't have been [written as] morons (which is the question), thus Yoda must not have meant his statement literally. You can't assume (beg) the question in order to establish the conclusion. You need to give actual evidence of your claim that Yoda was not being literal, because without that, it is simply a case of bad writing; and bad writing tends to make characters look like idiots by default.

Do Jedi not use their powers "efficiently," or do we as fans not have a clearly defined explanation on how their powers work and what the use of them requires?

We have an explanation. It is an energy field created by all living things and so on and so forth (I don't remember the exact quote), which implies a huge amount of energy that "force users" are tapping into, given the number of living things in the Star Wars universe. Additionally, Yoda lifted a space ship and said that the size didn't matter. On top of that, we have plenty of examples of how the force is used, such as the "force push" introduced in the PT, and the light saber retrieval. Both of those things are done routinely with no evidence of physical effort or strain in most cases.

We can think that the Force is an unlimited and effortless superpower despite the fact that at NO POINT IN THE MOVIES does it appear to be this.

Most of the stuff they do with the force appears to be effortless. Yoda tells Luke that it is unlimited, and then proceeds to lift a space ship; and he wasn't exactly grunting and straining while doing so either.

If it is indeed unlimited and effortless as you suggest, (apparently based entirely on one line),

The movie suggests this, through dialog and examples. In fact, for the dialog, it wasn't simply suggested, it was flat-out stated.

then we have to assume all the Jedi are complete morons. 

Yes, and it is the fault of the writer(s) of course.

This option has the advantage of making us feel both smarter than Lucas ("I wouldn't have written it that badly.") and smarter than Jedi ("I'd use the force better than stupid Yoda.")

Say what? Who cares if they are smarter than George Lucas (much less his fictional characters)? He's obviously above average in intelligence, but then, so is half the world's population. He's not exactly Einstein or Archimedes however.

Or we can assume these Jedi Masters actually know how to use the Force but that there are some practical limits to the Force, both in quanitifiable means (how heavy an object you can move) and practical means (why not make your lightsaber instantly fly back to you, why not use the force when flying a starfighter), even if the exact and specific limits are unclear.

So your argument is that the force and the use thereof is essentially random and neither examples of its use/nature nor direct statements regarding its use/nature can be trusted? If that's the case, then that's dodgy writing too.

BTW, the "exact and specific limits" are not unclear; at least not with regard to the size of an object that can be moved with telekinesis. The size doesn't matter, as stated by Yoda in ESB. I know you think Yoda was just making stuff up, but there is no evidence of this. Making a claim along the lines of: "Well if Yoda really meant what he clearly said, then that would mean the Jedi were morons," is not evidence that Yoda didn't mean what he said; it is simply "begging the question" on your part.

Let's look at two possible scenarios.

1- Size does indeed not matter in any quantifiable sense to Jedi, and they have nigh unlimited power capable of easily slinging the Death Star around. All through the Star Wars saga Jedi refuse to use these powers because apparently, they are stupid.

How many times have we seen a Jedi drop or otherwise lose his light saber and not instantly retrieve it with telekinesis? That should be an extremely simple task, and indeed it is one that is often seen done, yet there are examples when they either don't do it at all, or wait a long time to do it. For example, when Anakin drops his light saber in AOTC (while he's on top of the flying car), he doesn't pull it back at all; and he was in a situation where he really needed it. He wouldn't have gotten it back if it hadn't have been for Obi-Wan miraculously catching it.

So yes, apparently they are stupid, which is what I was getting at in the first place. That's the problem when a writer makes his character too powerful; it makes them look stupid when they are in dangerous situations and don't use their powers effectively or at all. Since you need dangerous situations for a story of this type, you need to place limitations on their powers in order for the dangerous situations to even seem plausible; i.e., not make the character look like an idiot.

There are plenty of other examples too. Why didn't Obi-Wan use the force to nudge Jango Fett's ship; or at the very least, the missiles that were tracking him; into an asteroid during AOTC? Even if you want to speculate that the series established a limitation on the size of objects that can be moved with the force (which it actually didn't establish at all; quite the opposite in fact), we know that a small fighter craft, and especially, smaller missiles, can be moved by a Jedi.  

Well, I think your confusing the philisophical 'size matters not' Yoda says with a quantifiable statement of power.

What is "philosophical" about it? Yoda's claim that the size doesn't matter was a direct reply to Luke's suggestion that the size of the ship did matter. What if Luke then pointed to an object larger and heavier than the ship and asked him to lift it. Would Yoda have said that he couldn't because it was too big? That would have made him look rather foolish considering what he'd just said about the size not mattering.

There are clearly limits on what the Force can move (I'm only talking the movies here).

According to Yoda there are no limits. Additionally, there are no scenes that I know of where Yoda tries to move something and fails because the object is too big. Where are these "clear limits" established?

Given utter peace and quiet the greatest Jedi master (Yoda) managed to quite slowly pick up a spacefighter.  That's the single most impressive example of the power in either trilogy.

There is nothing which establishes that peace and quiet are prerequisites, and there is nothing to establish that Yoda was moving the ship as fast as he could. There are various reasons that he could have been moving it slowly, e.g., for effect (letting the effect soak into Luke); not wanting to damage the craft; or simply because he wasn't in a hurry.

And that is not necessarily the most impressive display of the power in either trilogy. Dooku broke some structures from the building in AOTC, and I would guess that their load bearing capacity exceeded the weight of an X-Wing fighter.

There's no reason to beleive he could 'crush' the Death Star

He claimed that size doesn't matter in reply to Luke's suggestion that the ship was too big to move. He did not say that size doesn't matter, as long as it is no bigger than an X-Wing fighter.

Does anyone think they made the Jedi (particularly ones like Yoda) too powerful, to the point that it makes them look stupid every time they are in a "dangerous" situation?

The same thing has happened in many stories involving overly powerful beings. For example; Superman. If Superman stories were written in such a way that his powers were consistent, and he used them according to common sense, he'd be unstoppable. Kryptonite? He'd never allow himself to get close enough to it for it to be a problem; which wouldn't be difficult for someone who can think/react/move at; near; or beyond light speed (depending on the version of Superman). A single punch from him at such speeds would unleash unimaginable amounts of energy, and if he flew his entire body into a target at such speeds, it would unleash somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.3 quintillion ft. lbs. of energy.

So we have Jedi with telekinetic powers. We know that Yoda can easily lift an X-Wing which has to weigh several tons at least, and even says that size doesn't matter. Well, with a power like that (being able to move any object regardless of size), that = "game over" for anyone who opposes them; or at least, anyone who is not also a "force user".

So there is a "Death Star" ... so what? Yoda could fling it anywhere he wanted to; or better yet, crush it. The only match for Yoda's established "irresistable force" is an "immovable object", and the Death Star was certainly not an immovable object. So your ship is being attacked by another ship? Simply use "the force" to send it hurling into an asteroid; or of course, just crush it. A droid army? Fling them into outerspace; or of course, crush them all onto a large ball of twisted scrap metal.

In Star Wars (1977) there is no evidence of this unlimited telekinetic power that Yoda established in ESB. Jedi could use the force to guide their movements with precision, even without the benefit of eyesight; they could sense disturbances in the force, and could do "Jedi mind tricks" on weak-minded individuals; which is a good example of a smart limitation on a power by Lucas; because in unlimited form, the Jedi mind trick would have been a "game over" power as well.  

What we ended up with were Jedi more powerful than Superman (not even Superman can move any object regardless of its size), but still needing a clone army to fight battle droids, or having dozens of Jedi overwhelmed by battle droids in an arena, etc., which is ridiculous.

The recent TV show "Heroes" suffers from a similar problem. There are characters that can manipulate time and space; a power that also = "game over" by default.

AxiaEuxine said:

They are Lucas' movies. Love em or leave em. Ive been force to listen to people complain about HIS property since 1997 and I'm sick to death of it. If you want the originals so bad watch them on an old VHS without stereo. (First day of release only had mono mixes) The quality of the playback on those old VCRs and the contiuing degrading quality of your VHS tapes should be pretty close to the quality you experienced in a theater in 77.

You are comparing VHS (degraded VHS no less) to a fresh 35mm film print in 1977?? Yes, I read your later post where you figured that chalking up such an absurd statement to "hyperbole" made for a pretty good save; but that is like saying that black is pretty close to white and then claiming it was just "hyperbole" when called on it.

VHS roughly translates to 320x240 while a quality 35mm film print easily exceeds 1080p (with the original negatives far exceeding 1080p, to the point that you can get a proper 4K or higher scan from them).

They arent' your movies, they are Lucas'. Don't like it? Stop complaining about and move on to something you do like. I love the SE and Im sick to death of all the jaded haters.

You dont have to watch, you don't have to buy it. I've never understood the Special Edition hatred, they added far more to the movies then they took away.

You've obviously missed the point. Your statements here would make sense if Lucas had not tried to replace and suppress the originals. In this respect, you obviously do not understand nor take part in typical human nature. People naturally prefer originals to knockoffs and hacks, and people naturally see value in preserving significant aspects of history. People also naturally tend to get attached to things they like and don't appreciate changes.

Do you remember the "New Coke" fiasco from the mid '80s? Do you have a favorite song? Have you ever heard the results of when, years later, they get the same artist back into the studio to rerecord the song? It doesn't sound right, and those versions end up in the discount bargain bin while the real songs continue to sell and get airplay. Why do you suppose that is?

How do you think people would like it if AC/DC rerecorded their "Back in Black" album and then had the original album pulled from the shelves and the airwaves? And, they did it during the cassette era so that the original album never saw a CD release, and we were stuck with their own knockoff if we wanted decent sound quality?

I could give endless examples here but I have an idea that you (like George Lucas) simply don't "get it". 

Well, Jar Jar would not have existed in '77; though I suppose he could have been a guy in a rubber suit. A lot of the visuals from TPM would have been impossible or highly impractical in '77, such as showing all the air traffic on Coruscant, and the huge droid army. Even a single battle droid of that style would've had to have been stop motion in order to be shown walking, like the metal Terminator skeleton at the end of Terminator (1984).

So visually it would have been a lot different. I think its level of success would have depended on how they presented the fight with Darth Maul. If it was a brief affair done in the amateurish '77 Obi-Wan vs. Darth Vader style, then I think the movie would have been doomed, because the story didn't have the "perfect storm" of elements that made Star Wars so great. If they'd hired a good fight/fencing choreographer, and made it look the same as it ended up looking in '99, then I think the movie would have been quite a success (it would have been expensive to rotoscope each frame of such an extensive light saber battle though, and they were faced with a limited budget and time constraints in '77), but still nowhere near the "this changes everything" success of Star Wars; due to the ho-hum story elements.

skyjedi2005 said:

Yes the fact that there are film prints floating around does not prove it was shot on film.  I never claimed it was.  But a special that supposedly cost a million dollars in 1978 you would think it was shot on film.

That cost a million dollars?? If that's the case, then they definitely should have shot it on film. That's a feature film budget for the time, albeit a low budget. For example, Rocky (1976) cost 1.1 million.

Star Wars was everywhere when I was a kid (I was born in '75 and I am talking about the early '80s). Kids my age or a little older talked about it all the time. My neighbor who was 3 years older than me had a Darth Vader poster in his room which fascinated me to no end. Darth Vader was the coolest looking "being" I'd ever seen.

I went to summer camp in '82 and the kids were constantly playing "Star Wars", and I always got to be Darth Vader, using a stick for a light saber (or "life saver" as some of us thought it was).

Around this time my neighbor (the one with the Darth Vader poster) gave me some Star Wars toys, including the awesome (and expensive) Millenium Falcon model, Lukes land speeder, an X-Wing and a TIE Fighter. I also got Boba Fett, Hammerhead, Greedo (I think), Luke Skywalker (in his orange flight suit), and Storm Trooper action figures. Unfortunately, he didn't want to part with his Darth Vader action figure; either that or he'd lost it—either way, I didn't get it. 

So from my earliest memories I was around all this hype surrounding Star Wars, and the whole thing fascinated me, especially Darth Vader, but I'd never seen any of the movies.

The first time I got to see Star Wars was in or around '84 on TV. I think it was the first time it was broadcast on TV (correct me if I'm wrong), but either way, it was a huge event for me. I finally got to see those toys, posters, and things I'd heard come to life, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

Sometime around '85 or '86, my younger sister and I spent the day at our grandfather's house and he had a VCR (we didn't get one at home until '88) and he let us rent a couple of movies. I rented Star Wars and Return of the Jedi, which was awesome.

After we got a VCR, I rented those movies quite a few times, but I never rented ESB because for some reason, I thought I'd already seen it. One day I decided to rent it "again" and soon realized that I'd never seen it; so that was a nice surprise.

Years later when I saw the SE on video, I thought it was an interesting novelty; until I learned that the OOT was being replaced (rather than supplemented), at which point, I was furious. I lost respect for George Lucas at that point. It is hard to respect someone who is a vandal, revisionist, and just plain doesn't think correctly relative to normal human nature. People naturally place value on "original" as opposed to knockoffs or hacks, and people naturally tend to want to preserve significant aspects of history. George Lucas is aberrant in this respect; i.e., his head isn't screwed on right. On top of that, he is an established hypocrite, given his stance on the colorization of old B&W movies:

"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." - George Lucas expressing concern over the Colorization of black & white films

SilverWook said:

The HS exists on videotape, not film. There is no "print".

At least Howard has a decent chance of being released in the US, as it's out in Europe.

Jaxxon was a smuggler/mercenary much like Han. Not a Jedi. And the fact Lucas allegedly hates Jaxxon makes me happy! ;)

It wasn't shot on film? What did they use, U-matic? If it was shot on video, there is no way they could make it look good on a big screen anyway, even if they had the original tapes to work from. Video from the '70s wasn't even equal to standard NTSC broadcast quality. It is a few years too old to have been shot on Betacam, which is NTSC broadcast quality, but still nowhere near the level needed to show in a theater.

Maybe it was shot on film (there are obviously film elements to it at least, i.e., stock footage from the movie), but film prints were never made; but rather, only telecined broadcast tapes were made to send to the TV stations? If that is the case, what happened to the original film negatives? 

Quote

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Darth played by... (possible spolier?)

Newsgroups: net.movies.sw
From: s...@gatech.UUCP - Find messages by this author
Date: Thu, 9-Jun-83 13:00:21 EDT
Local: Thurs,Jun 9 1983 1:00 pm
Subject: Darth played by... (possible spolier?)

Based on careful observation and an interview on NPR, we believe
that the person in the Darth costume (when Luke removes his
helmet just before he dies) is James Earl Jones. Note the
voice and check out the eyes.
--
"The soapbox of Gene Spafford"

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