Monroville

Could you imagine someone remaking STAR WARS as an animated Disney movie?:

You mean this space spice?



how does she do that with her eyes?!? And any chance someone can release a rip of this:

You know we've spent 2 to 3 pages just on how Mark Hamill says Tatooine?

In regards to Sulu's love life, don't forget his fling with Lt. M'Ress.

xhonzi said:

Oh, and RE: Palin.  (here I go, derailing my own thread)

I think it's unfair to call her detractors 'sexist' when I think she was dragged out on the McCain campaign for sexist reasons.  The left had played the race card.  The right then decided to play the gender card.  I like Palin as a politician well enough, but I think you're crazy if you think she was put on the ticket as a genderless polician. 

It was an experiment to see if unpolitical Americans were more embarrassed by imaginary sexism or imaginary racism.

I was embarrassed by my part stooping to that level.  I thought we were supposed to be above the silly superficial level of politics and focus on the issues.  Ah, well...

And that is why Republicans keep on failing...

Unfortunately, politics IS an image game... it can be about ideas, and it SHOULD be about goals and achievements (and how to accomplish them), but most people simply react and do not think many things through (even Harvard grads and PH.D.s, as seen on Fox and other news programs), or are simply biased by their political/superstitious beliefs (as politics as essentially BECOME the new "the boogeyman is gonna getcha!" that the devil was for 1000+ years).

Until Republicans figure out that you need a woman and/or minority who can ALSO communicate true straight-forward conservative philosophy (ie "has a personality"), have the plan to show as to HOW to accomplish said goals AND is willing to sacrifice something of themselves (50% personal paycut; 24 hours of community service per month of term; etc) they are going to be trapped by the Democrats propaganda of them.

Or put in another way: until George (Bush) McFly learns to have balls and stand up for himself against Biff (Clinton), everyone is going to pick on him as an irrelevant wimp.  That is not even to say that Republicans need to match the violence/belligerence of the left (G4 riots, etc), just stand up for themselves and be willing to prove themselves.

In regards to Sarah Palin, I believe she is an intelligent person and a good person; I do not know of her committing adultery or any other direct betrayal of her family or friends, nor do I know of her accepting bribes, looking the other way or starting some secret military operation against a third world country. 

My biggest complaints are she sounds (1) like The Nanny or the lady from FARGO and (2) like a typical programed, robotic politician - forget specifically republican or conservative, she has that same "wound-up by the key in her back" personality that Hillary, Barack, John and the rest have going on.  She is no "far, right-wing nutcase" (sorry leftys), as she simply (and typically) states the generic republican basic beliefs.  Hell, the fact that she has to write "tax cuts" on her hand may show her human nervousness, but can also show her "not ready for prime time" nature... I mean really folks... is there ANY conservative out there who has to write down "tax cuts" on their hand to talk about tax cuts?

Now Bobby Jindal on the other hand...

Oh yeah!  To keep it on topic...

ferris209 said:

Well, I'll try to kick this thread back on topic, seeing as how Avatar passed the 1 Billion mark yesterday and all. I found an interesting review of Avatar by a Conservative who walked away from the movie feeling that it was "a stealth conservative manifesto wrapped up in leftist gobbly gook". I found what he extrapolated interesting.

Have a read!

BTW, this is a joke/prank (the writer isn't really a conservative).  It is a counter-response to the typical conservative reviews of the movie in an attempt to discredit/impugn the conservative points.

ChainsawAsh said:

I really don't understand why the political agenda of a film like Avatar prevents people from liking it.  I love The Dark Knight, and that film had very conservative undertones.  The way I see it, it's there if you want to take it in, but you can ignore it and enjoy the ride if you like.

I also don't understand how environmentalism is "liberal."  It's an issue that affects everyone, and guess what?  If we keep going the way we're going, we ARE going to seriously fuck up our planet.  Just because you don't like that idea doesn't mean you should dislike a movie that says, "Hey, we should probably think a little bit before we do this shit next time.

And I don't see the "This is what humans do!" line as a Bush commentary at all.  That is what humans do.  Look at what we did to the Native Americans, or Alexander's conquests, or the Nazis, or any other part of human history.

By the way, I'm not trying to attack you personally in any way.  I'm just throwing my two cents in the pile.

Weeell, I think it is all in the execution of the politics.

In THE DARK KNIGHT, generic conservatism (or how Hollywood/Liberals tend to perceive conservatives as) isn't exactly trumpeted as the status quo 100% solution; in fact, when Batman starts to beat the Joker up in the police station, the Joker laughs at his attempts to get him to talk; Batman realizes he can't beat the answers out of him.  When the Joker DOES answer him (the locations of Harvey and Rachel), he twists the answers knowing/suspecting Batman would go after the woman.  In order to defeat the Joker, Batman has to think on his feet and not play by the book (which we learned from DIE HARD a decade earlier).

AVATAR is quite a bit different: NONE of the pro-liberals are depicted as capable of being wrong or shown having to change their tack to solve an issue/problem, while the conservative villians are depicted as equally shoe-horned and cornered into a stereotype, without any ability to think outside of their own playbook.

Even from a logical point of view (outside of politics), AVATAR is extremely stupid:

(1) why doesn't Michelle Rodriguez' character get put into jail as soon as she landed back at the base after blatantly disobeying a direct order from Quattrich (especially considering one of the chief henchmen was in the chopper with her)?  Considering that she is the one who busts out Jake and the rest out of jail means that if she was imprisoned BEFORE them, there would be no rescue and no third act.

(2) if the macguffinite is in the floating mountains, why drill under the Na'vi when they could lift the already floating unobtainium mountains into orbit and get what they (the humans) wanted without bothering the Na'vi?

(3) if the Avatar brain waves could penetrate the distortion from the unobtainium, why didn't the humans use similarly designed machines using the same frequency/wavelength as radars and targeting systems?  For that matter, why design and spend the money on Avatars when they could have created machines to control/disrupt the Na'vi and other animals by influencing their minds by sending out signals along the same brainwave patterns?  I'm sure the humans did plenty of DISTRICT 9ish experiments (and thus would know about the organic USB ports) and would exploit the results appropriate to their simplistic, moustache-twirling characters.

(4) if the humans have "close to lightspeed" travel (as it takes 5 years to travel 5 light years), why are humans 300 years into the future still use bullets and missiles?  More so, why do the humans create a makeshift bomb when it's already established that the military/blackwater mercs have professional munitions already?  Even so, if the unobtainium is as powerful as suggested, why wasn't the unobtainium used in the bomb?

(5) where are the colonists?  Where are the other countries other than the USA?  Where is the professional military from multiple countries?  If the entirety of the Earth's environment was wrecked to the degree that the entire human race was on the verge of extinction, wouldn't one think that there would be a full-fledged migration to Pandora, with oxygen being spewed out of terra-forming plants, as opposed to black smoke?

To me, for any movie to hold my attention, you have to take your own story seriously enough that at the least you do not violate the rules you set up in your own story.  Once characters start to act stupid for the sake of progressing a plot point or a political/philosophical point of view, I give up on the film as either propaganda or pap.  You cannot be "taken seriously with a serious message" and still be a popcorn "check your brain at the door and just enjoy it" movie at the same time (SHOOT 'EM UP, I'm looking at you!). 

Either you are GLORY, 2012 or (once in a blue moon) DIE HARD, which you can just enjoy as a typical action movie OR find some really interesting and intelligent social commentary. 

Quick question: do you have an HD version of the Richard Lester SUPERMAN 2 (being that the only version that exists on blu-ray is the Richard Donner unfinished cut)?

Bingowings said:

Cleopatra said:

I think Leia's line is less of a "I've known all this time" and more of a "I've always felt closer to you" line.  And in all honesty, it's not that odd.  I remember several news stories from the past few years about brothers and sisters who were separated at birth and ended up getting married!  It wasn't until blood testing was done that they learned the truth.  So maybe familial bonds really do attract people, even if they don't understand why the attraction exists.

I posted a link to such a case in defense of the whole scenario which for an eleventh hour quick fix actually works rather well with what we already know from ESB but consider a similar famous cinematic situation.

When Marty McFly gets face sucked by his mother in Back To The Future she instantly pulls back (even though she was very keen up until that point).

She instinctively knows something is wrong with that situation and she isn't a Jedi.

If Leia "somehow always knew" Luke was her brother her lipsmackin' routine in ESB becomes rather laughable (and not in a good way).

Whether Leia and Luke fooled around (to whatever extent) between blowing up the Death Star (including with maybe the incident with "splinter of the mind's eye") to what we see in EMPIRE, I would think  that Leia would be rather too stunned to say anything.

Up until JEDI, Luke was a potential love interest, so this would be a pretty big revelation.

Would there be any way to take Leia's quiet moment and extend it to reflect her being "sucker-punched in the gut" and just not having anything to say?  As it stands, it's kind of a throw-away scene to the degree that Luke makes the revelation and Leia says "yeah., I kinda figured that", shrugs shoulders and the movie continues on...

ChainsawAsh said:

Didn't see that, Monroville.  However, I feel like that would take away from the redemption of Anakin, since he wouldn't be the one that kills Palpatine.

Alternatively, what if the rebels try to go in and blow up the Death Star as planned, but can't get through, or it doesn't work, so [someone] comes up with the idea to ram the Executor into it, thus destroying it?

That would probably require too much footage that simply doesn't exist, though ...

I wouldn't have the Executor hit the Emperor's tower, but have it land just short (crash somewhere into the dish between the edge and the E.T. in the center).

I think the biggest bugaboo is the rebels getting out of the trench to charge an exploding AT-AT and getting themselves killed from the shockwave and debris (though the explosion is still cool - and yeah, I always figured the crash damaged the armor around the neck - still would like to see some shooting form the roof windows to add some life to the model).

I have no idea how this can make any sense - I understand keeping the "snowspeeder shooting the AT-AT to pieces" scene, but what about the "C'mon!" and the troops get out of the trenches with the snowspeeders overhead?  Could that shot be replaced by rebels simply cheering in the trenches (and staying under cover) with snowspeeders flying overhead?

ChainsawAsh said:

What if the Executor crash takes out the superlaser, allowing the Falcon et al to get through to the core?

- if the "Executor rams the super laser dish " scene is created [and the Emperor's tower is put in the dead center of the SL dish], you could create a scene where the Emperor sees the Executor heading full speed for the dish/his tower.  He orders the DS2 to fire, but the Executor is too close; the beams form a cage, as the pinpoint is above the Executor, which flies between the multiple beams going above it.  The Emperor's eyes get bigger as it approaches, covered in fire (ala FLASH GORDON), but it rams the inside of the dish just before hitting the Emperor's tower.

Didn't I just post this 5 posts above?

adywan said:

vaderios said:

Or you can show Ming and his friends trying to shoot imperial troops that are deploying from the crashed walker like i suggested in an old mockup. and then the speeder comes and blasts the cr@p out the walker it will make more sense(?)

After looking at the scene again there is no possible way that the troops could have got out of the Walker in time. Not only would there be injures and others would be disorientated, but there is just no time between the Walker crashing and the speeders blowing it up for anything like this to happen.

First: your edit, I understand.

Second: remember that we are still seeing a bit of elapsed time... the snowspeeder doesn't blow up the AT-AT literally 3 seconds after it falls over, not to mention I'm thinking along the lines of a Huey helicopter crashing in Vietnam; any survivors are going to get the hell out ASAP, and I imagine that the snowtroopers are strapped in, being that (despite being armored) the AT-AT is getting pinged by laser fire.

If anything, I would add the small arms fire coming from the AT-AT body slant windows and show the door opening with some troopers trying to get out and get knocked down/thrown from the explosion.  Even if bodies aren't added (thrown from the explosion), just showing the side door opening with a glimpse of the troopers inside would give a bit of scope to show that the AT-AT isn't a mere model.  Again, it would be quick and a relatively small addition, but it would be similar to the small but cool addition of the DS in ANH:R firing right before blowing up.

adywan said:

Well this is how i have seen it since 1980:

The AT-At's have armour and not shielding. The neck is not a weak spot normally but when it crashes to the floor the neck fractures and therefore creates a weak spot which the speeders exploit. If the neck was permanently a weak spot then they would have just aimed for that all along.I have no problem with the AT-AT exploding so i won't be changing that

i decided against adding any ground snowtroopers because surely they would have picked off luke as he was about to destroy the Walker or as he was escaping. I was thinking of adding some deploying from the walkers towards the end though but i don't think we could get hold of any snowtroopers for the shoot

Storywise it wouldn't be that far-fetched either way, as troopers would be deployed when they got close enough to the trenches, which themselves weren't too far away from the hanger bays (not to mention that the Nazis the Empire was based on frequently had companies of troops accompany their tank divisions).

Regarding Luke, it could be that they don't notice him (as they are ahead of him) and/or they are getting picked off by snowspeeders, who are strafing them.

The real problem is actually creating the shot FX wise.  Even so, if it is FX wise possible, I think it would be a good addition to add snowtroopers at least getting out of the fallen AT-AT, as most sane people would not stay inside a burning tank while in the middle of a battle. 

A good place to possibly show snowtroopers rapelling down the sides of the AT-ATs could be when you see the 3 strafing the rebel trench lines (with the newly added AT-ATs going down from the cable lines) or any of the AT-AT scenes "after" Luke does his thing (even if it is just "dots" moving along around the mid-ground to background fallen AT-ATs, something to show that the troopers are getting out).

______________________

Hell, for that matter, another possibility could be that you see small arms fire coming from the windows on the top of the back of the fallen AT-AT and we briefly see the side door starting to open (the impression being that the side door was damaged from the fall) and are just about to escape when the snowspeeder destroys them.  That way you would not have to actually show snowtroopers outside, but would create the illusion that there are snowtroopers inside the AT-AT before and during its explosion.

It could be similar to the "DS in the middle of firing- then explodes" shot from ANH:R (side door starts to open and maybe one snowtrooper is starting to get out as the snowspeeder blows it up - maybe take the spinning TIE pilot from the asteroid scene or one of the "flying orcs" from TTT attack on Helms Deep to signify the snowtrooper being flung off from the explosion).

Nicholas J. Michalak said:

I'd like for the scale between the ships and the Death Star to be more apparent.  This is mainly because the DS2 is larger than the first Death Star, and if this scale is anywhere remotely accurate, the crashing of the Executor into the DS2 would be nearly inconsequential to the overall structure.

The problem is, they put the Death Star next to a moon which makes it appear quite small.  And that's just a moon.  Next to a full size planet, it would look terribly puny.  Maybe put the Death Star larger in more of the background space battle shots to make it more ominious as if it's overshadowing everything.

-NJM

I concur, as well as change the scale of Endor/the moon of Endor (?) to be smaller as compared to the DS2 (ie all shots of it in the sky the DS2 is twice as large; all shots in orbit it is 1/4th the size of Endor/the moon of Endor).

Of course, this would be bad for M.O.E. when it blows up, unless a scene is added showing the rebels trying to escape and the Emperor orders the DS2 to go after them, thus moving it away from Endor/MOE.

Also keep in mind that if "Endor" is a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn (or Yavin), then MOE could be Earth or Mars sized.  Still, I agree that if the DS2 is twice as big as DS1, this needs to be identified in some way on screen to visually depict this (show SDs coming out of hanger bays in the equatorial trench?).

Also also, since the Executor (as pointed out in the image above) is so small, especially compared to the DS2, maybe it could crash into the superlaser dish - thus even for it's relatively small size the impact would be in a critical place.   That or develop a subplot where the "fully operational battle station" never needed the MOE shield device, which was a macguffin to draw the rebels out, and the Executor drops into the "under construction" part of the DS2, which in turns opens up the DS2 shields and allows fighters to go inside.

- if the "Executor rams the super laser dish " scene is created [and the Emperor's tower is put in the dead center of the SL dish], you could create a scene where the Emperor sees the Executor heading full speed for the dish/his tower.  He orders the DS2 to fire, but the Executor is too close; the beams form a cage, as the pinpoint is above the Executor, which flies between the multiple beams going above it.  The Emperor's eyes get bigger as it approaches, covered in fire (ala FLASH GORDON), but it rams the inside of the dish just before hitting the Emperor's tower.

- of course, there is nothing saying that each of the individual "outer rim" dish lasers could not fire independently on separate targets (ie they can converge into one, big super laser, or each of the lasers could act as 12  "ship killer" weapons, firing on 12 separate targets at once).  Modified shots of the ion cannon in EMPIRE could be used to create the effect (ie the modified "ion cannon (minus the pointy laser gun part)" shown firing long, green pulses, with a smaller version in the background to the side, as the main battle rages in the background.

- on another side note, I agree with showing the B-wings in action, to depict just how much firepower they have (as well as to showcase the new fighter) - show them raking across an SD hull or even punching holes through one.  The larger Calimari ships could have gattling lasers - the Rebels have to have SOMETHING to "keep them in the fight" without getting wiped out within seconds...

- you know, here's another idea.  Who has to say that when the rebels sabotage the shield generator on MOE that it has to blow up?  What if the DS2 had fully functional shields and never needed the MOE shield... rebels disarm it, but DS2 still has full shields up.  Executor (whether Piett turns and purposefully rams DS2, or Executor just takes too much damage from ramming fire ships and the like) plows into the beam weapon dish, inadvertently taking it out.  When Lando tells everyone he is entering the DS2 and heading to the reactor, Han and co. reactivate the MOE shield generator, which protects the planet from the DS2 explosion.

Can me crazy, but I would still love to see the DS2 rake its beam through the rebel and imperial fleet, with the Emperor laughing like a madman at the sheer carnage he is creating; Piett realizes the Emperor is targeting them all (in his mad attempt to destroy the rebels) and again, not that he "becomes the good guy and sides with the rebels" but is loyal to "Rome" not the emperor (who is threatening to destroy "Rome"), thus him ordering the fleet to attack the DS2, which leads to him making the sacrifice so rebel and TIE pilots both go in to destroy the reactor (with TIEs maybe leading the way, since they have a map/GPS of the DS2 internals).

Turn the Emperor into a Nero or Caligula, where the underlings realize the guy is just plain mad and needs to be stopped, which would lead to the Endor/MOE "imperial officer reluctantly shaking hands with rebel general ala Frtiz Lang's METROPOLIS."  I could buy a more benevolent Emperor/leader being elected/selected (ie Caligula being replaced by Claudius, or Constantine making Christianity the official religion of Rome after hundreds of years of persecution, or even better still, something akin to the end of FLASH GORDON - General Dodonna or Mon Motha is made the new leader of the "new republic") and the Empire retaining its physical integrity and changing in mindset from the top-down, as opposed to believing that just because the Emperor died that the entire empire is going to be toppled...

Just saying....

A-Man: you beat me to it!  I just saw those Boivin links on AintItCool.com.

You all have to check out the "Mandalorian Dance" and "Jazz with a general problem".. really made my day.  >:)

Okay, Ady, this is for you:

Googled "TIE ugly Star Wars" and this is what I got:

           

Here is the link:  catastrophic Star Wars costumes

and something else you might find as cool:

re:

Maybe someone has already done this, but would it be possible to create some form of a list to "weed out" the excess/repeat tracks from each of the CDs?  You have some great stuff here, but I'm sure most of the music is repeated from disc to disc (with a few original pieces here and there)...

You mean like these?:

(is that grill canadian?)

Yes, but like I mentioned in the first post, it's going to be awhile.  I'm going to have to learn AfterEffects and Vegas from scratch, and plan on doing some "easier" edits that won't require anywhere NEAR the FX I want to do for this.

re: chestburster scream:

I agree with you there, Bingo... I can see editing out the second mouth opening, maybe slightly slowing down the first mouth opening to accompany a different (slightly longer) scream.

Ripplin said:

You'd probably need to register, which is why I didn't bother before, but here it is: http://theshizz.org/forum/index.php?/topic/31621-cosplay-post-the-best-and-the-worst/ (I said I made it, but I'm just a contributor. Was thinking of somewhere else.)

 

Thanks Rip... that really made my day!

And to keep it STAR WARS related:

Well at least it's not another "Leia in a slave girl outfit" poser...

Ripplin said:

Good stuff, Frinky. I made a cosplay thread at another forum and he (King Nintendo) was an early entry.

Any links?

Rogue Leader said:

He's correct, most TIEs in this era don't have hyperdrive. More advanced model such as the TIE Avenger (which Vader's TIE Advanced fighter is the prototype for) and the TIE Defender which saw a limited run due to cost of production.

But they build another Death Star instead?  That crazy Emperor ... >:)

Dear CompMovieGuy and SoulAssassin:

I understand where both you guys are coming from.

CMG: you are doing all the hard work on the actual edit, so like with Ady's EMPIRE:R, all us fans can do is just wait patiently and watch other movies until you post something, if anything at all.  I would not put this away, as even if RAD is released it probably won't look nearly as good as what you have (compare the HOWARD THE DUCK 720p HDTV release provided by Dark Jedi to the current dvd release).

SA: I'm with you to the degree that it would be nice if there was an eventual TP page to RS or MU links, and it is quite frustrating when you see some people (not necessarily CMG) who post threads about edits they are doing along with the statement that they have no intent to post it for others to see.  If you're going to do something just for yourself, there is no point in telling other people about it.  In other words (I guess this goes for everybody, including myself):

Having recently watched this on blu-ray, I frankly don't have too many problems with the theatrical cut, for what it is.  Maybe a bit slow, but they were trying for the 2001 vibe.

Regardless, to me the biggest problem is that there is no real strong secondary story - I understand it is supposed to be about Spock coming back into the fold and coming to terms with his human side, as well as Decker and Ilia, but what the movie needed was a strong secondary conflict (ie. Decker acting more like his father and/or his crew helping him commit mutiny and taking over the Enterprise or something to that effect; V'ger wants to test the Enterprise, so reintegrates one of the K'tinga's - but to have a K'tinga hunt the Enterprise within the cloud as V'ger watched "after" ST2:TWOK would seem redundant and copied now). 

I can understand the Borg angle, and frankly was kind of hoping at one point in ST:TNG that Q would have some part in destroying the Borg in BOBW part 2, as he would reveal that the Q was the evolved V'ger, with their mission not just to protect humanity but to test them.  Maybe the machine world (Ix?) that found Voyager found other probes, and the Borg are simply a different tact taken to "merge with the creator" of another alien probe from a different part of the galaxy.  Maybe the machine world's primary existence is like a flower, waiting to be pollinated with probes from alien races, whereupon it would send out a seed to merge with that race (?).

In the end, there was not enough character conflict, change and build-up, as the primary (and seemingly sole) focus of the movie was how the characters reacted to a cloud threatening Earth.  Regardless, there is some fantastic imagery, and to see STAR TREK on the big screen for the first time (at 8 years old) left some pretty damn good childhood memories...

I think it looks fantastic... I can see where Asterix and co. are saying in regards to slowing the pulsing of the red lights, but even so "without" any further modifications it is a much better establishing shot.

And I agree with Imp Fighter: it looks like the carbonite chamber can fit inside that bubble now.