I suppose. But why not just include multiple audio tracks and make everyone happy?
You haven’t truly experienced a silent film unless you’ve experienced it in 7.1 Dolby surround.
“Empire” and “Jedi” had nothing parodistic; their absurd earnestness and the bombastic banality of their direction (by Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand, respectively) are a perfect match for the oppressive, hectoring John Williams scores that accompanied them. If there was nostalgic, faux-naïve whimsy in Lucas’s inaugural installment of “Star Wars,” it was gone from “Empire” and “Jedi,” replaced by a hegemonic bellow for devotion and belief.” - Brody
But now the cockpit is nonsensical
It was always a bit strange, but this just further shows how much the Falcon was designed as a freighter, not a fighter. Any attempt to make it ‘meaner’ just makes it more absurd.
Continuing to work on the animation; I’ll post a rough cut of the title sequence (probably without the titles themselves) once I have it.
Meanwhile, this week I received my CD of the operatic adaptation of The Fall of Gondolin, which just came out. There’s no particular connection to the edit, other than that both use elements of the original Tolkien text, but it’s just so gosh-darn amazing that I had to share it here. Seriously, I think it’s criminal that this isn’t the Tolkien adaptation everyone’s flipping their lid over, rather than the Amazon series.
That’s fascinating.
BiggsFan44 said:
Good perspective. Just to clarify, I’m also talking about the idea of certain pieces of the canon not respecting other pieces even though they are supposed to be 9 parts of one story, which is slightly different from recasting etc.
On the topic of Trek, it’s funny that you mention scale, since now that I know that the saucer set in First Contact was not full size it bugs me, even though you can’t tell in the film that it is only 70 percent of the full size.But Star Wars has been disrespecting its own canon from day one. In the first film Luke, who had an obvious crush on Princess Leia, was the son of a war hero who’d been killed by Darth Vader. In the next film Lucas suddenly decided Vader was actually Luke’s father. Then he decided that Leia was Luke’s sister, the Emperor was a different bloke to the one we’d seen in Empire, and Luke had supposedly been ‘hidden’ at the family homestead and with Dad’s old surname intact no less! I haven’t even started on the prequels yet!
“Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”
“Uh, well, ‘remember’ is such a strong word…”
I’m really not being clear, apparently.
That’s not the kind of disrespect I’m talking about. Lucas retconning his work doesn’t mean that he disagrees with those works, it just means he thought up a new story element.
For example, George does not feel about ANH the way JJ feels about the PT, I’m sure.
I recall that George really disliked Star Wars (1977) and embarked on a forty-year quest to ‘fix’ them to his liking.
NeverarGreat said:
-Every character in these movies is more compelling than any character in the prequels.Do you really believe that?
Well maybe not Ric Olié. 😉
More seriously, it’s not that the Ewok movie characters are more realistically portrayed or well acted (they aren’t), but rather that there is some ineffable sense of energy and earnestness in their writing and direction that has been wrung out of the prequel characters. Just look at the behind the scenes materials for Episode 2 for the sort of energy that all but disappeared when George was done editing.
I think that feeling of earnestness is the essential component in a Star Wars movie, which is why the sequel trilogy has worked so much better than the prequel trilogy in my opinion.
Intermittent rain. Florence is coming for us.
Just had a hunt for some, found some german versions with german audio. 720p 16:9, is this what you have?
Edit: They are pillarboxed, but they do seem Highish quality.
Edit2: On closer inspection, they look to come from the same SD masters as the DVD and dont have much more detail.
Is the detail an improvement on the DVD or just a different encode, so to speak?
Haha, I know at this point I should assume most Star Wars fans don’t like the prequels, but since we usually just talk about the sequels, Nev, I’m kind of surprised how much you hate the prequels! I love your brief descriptions of them though, especially for ROTS.
I wouldn’t take the blurbs too seriously, as I don’t really hate any of the movies. The closest I get to that is with AOTC, and it still has Across the Stars to redeem it.
Neverar, I think you missed a couple.
You think it’s weird to consider the Ewok Movies over the Disney Standalone films? 😉
I legitimately forgot they existed while making the list, since I view them as existing on a different axis from all the rest. Solo and Rogue One are good movies and on that metric they would be among the Sequel trilogy movies in rank, but on the other hand they don’t feel at all similar to Episodes 1-8 and on that metric they would rank below the rest. So what to do? Anyway, here’s an attempt, but I’m not justifying them with numbers:
Seriously, arguing over the merits of which of the films post ROTJ are more mediocre than the other is such a waste of energy.
…
So here is my updated ranking of all the things that could remotely be considered Star Wars films, after finally watching the Clone Wars movie today:
I agree with a lot of what you both said. Especially what Collipso’s thoughts on Cassian. He is the standout from Rogue One.
Rey is incredibly likable and charismatic but often times is uninteresting and just boring. I liked Rey a lot better in the Last Jedi though. She lacked any physical challenges but did have an identity struggle that proved to be really interesting.
Here’s a good way of showing what I mean…
When Rey lifts the rocks for the Resistance to escape, I feel nothing. She lifts them, oh well. I never saw her struggle with any force powers before hand so I was not surprised or elated in any way to see her succeed to lift the rocks.
Buutttttt, when her and Finn reunite, you see them hug, and then we get the close up of Rey smiling, I do feel something! It’s because it shows her finally learning where she belongs, and feeling at peace with being a “nobody”. She doesn’t have to feel like that anymore because she is somebody regardless of her parents.
Therein lies my stance on Rey. Any combat victories or feats of the force on her part feel empty and unearned. But the emotion of her trying to find where she belongs is compelling and relatable.
This is exactly how I feel as well. Well put.
That could work.
It’s really shaping up nicely.
I don’t know if you’ve already done a version like this, but would it work better if we don’t see the bit where Poe slides into the trench? Maybe just keep the beginning of the shot where Finn’s speeder slides across the ground, then cut right to the blast traveling down the beam to keep Finn’s wreck and the blast in the same emotional moment.
That would be a hard transition. When the Ram fires, the downed ship has completely stopped, there needs to be a scene to “fill the gap” between the crash and the firing.
I’ve watched that section a few times, and even before the camera zooms out to Poe, the speeder is still moving a bit. It would feel odd even if you time it right before the zoom out to the blast … it will feel off.
I’d have to see it in practice, but even cutting after Poe’s speeder hits the trench (before Poe says ‘Go, go quick!’) might keep the two moments connected. It might also be a music thing - in the original, there was a stretch without music where Finn runs to Rose and they have a conversation, but here there’s an inexplicable lack of music for only a brief moment before starting up again. Perhaps to bridge this musical gap, cut straight from Finn’s ship getting knocked out of the way to a flipped shot of Rose’s downed speeder with Rose unconscious and the blast traveling down the beam.
It’s really shaping up nicely.
I don’t know if you’ve already done a version like this, but would it work better if we don’t see the bit where Poe slides into the trench? Maybe just keep the beginning of the shot where Finn’s speeder slides across the ground, then cut right to the blast traveling down the beam to keep Finn’s wreck and the blast in the same emotional moment.
The one near us allows members to check out up to two movies at a time, and they have a huge selection from across space and time. It’s like having DVD rental from Netflix again, but free. It’s wonderful.
Just some random observations from the movies:
-Logray is clearly strong with the Force, raising some interesting implications with the Ewok’s effectiveness against the Empire.
-The beasts crashing through the forest is a trial run for a certain scene in TPM.
-Wilford Brimley says ‘power oscillator’ at some point, which I like to think inspired ‘thermal oscillator’ in TFA.
-George is already obsessed with the final scene of ET based on how he handles the spaceship launch.
-Every character in these movies is more compelling than any character in the prequels.
We recently Rented these two movies from Alamo Drafthouse and I thought I’d give my thoughts on them. Before watching them, I was expecting something only slightly better than the Holiday Special, and the first part of Caravan of Courage confirmed some of these fears, but they ended up being decent kids movies which I would have loved fifteen or twenty years ago.
Caravan of Courage is definitely slow and hamstrung by a low budget, but it still works as a fantasy adventure, though perhaps not really in the Star Wars universe. I was surprisingly engaged by the characters, especially Mace.
The Battle for Endor opens with a genuinely shocking series of events, considering the kid-friendly nature of the movies. The editing is snappy and it really moves. They clearly had more money and apart from the fantasy elements that could have been taken out of Flash Gordon or a Power Rangers episode it feels like a small-scale companion to Return of the Jedi.
New changes are good to better match with TLJ, please leave in V2 for SKB.
I remember Dom arguing that placing a Snoke scene after the Oscillator sabotage would throw off the pacing of the end of the movie. At the time I thought the benefit to the story would outweigh this negative, but having viewed Restructured V2 quite a few times this year I have come around to Dom’s way of thinking on this. It really stops the movie in its tracks to manufacture a threat which we know won’t materialize, when the focus should be on the fallout from Han’s death on our other main characters.
I think you might be remembering incorrectly, as I believe I suggested the opposite (although it’s possible I argued that a specific clip test of the idea had poor pacing). I was one of the people pushing hardest for the weapon to turn on the Resistance base during the climax. “A threat which we know won’t materialize” is a very strange and, in my opinion, misguided way to look at it. Without that threat, basically half the tension of the climax is completely erased. Seeing the Resistance fighters continue the attack to blow up the base without any pressing need to was easily the weirdest part of the V1 Restructured, and the number one thing that to me made it obvious it was a fan edit.
Granted, I have not yet watched V2, so I can’t say for sure how well the idea works in practice.
I think your issue was with the Snoke scene and particularly the musical choice at that point, not with the broader idea of the base charging again.
Do you think that would take away from Rey’s agency in that moment? Speaking of the saber, a lot of people have been speculating that Rey will likely build a new lightsaber using the pieces.
It’s a frustrating thing, the whole throne room finale. The will she/won’t she join Kylo was the most interesting thing for a lot of people going into this movie, due to how it actually makes some sense and was heavily implied in the trailer. But when the moment happens and it’s really just a trick for her to go for the lightsaber, I can’t help but feel like the movie is giving the finger to that whole concept. It’s fine if Rey doesn’t have any intention of joining Kylo, but it’s more interesting for her character if it’s a genuine temptation.
Specifically about her agency, I think it’s well established that she will fight to the death against someone like Snoke. This is something that he explicitly says; it is why she must die. The fact that she ultimately runs away after the hyperspace collision means that she’s already decided against joining Kylo, and her closing the door of the Falcon in the final scene would serve just as well for her ultimate rejection of his offer. In short, Rey’s alliance is known after the throne room scene in the original film, making it a suitable end to the movie. But by delaying this moment, it gives more meaning to the last 20 minutes.
You do bring up the issue of the saber though, which is a big issue. The only thing I can think of right now is to have a flashback to the throne room during the Kylo/Luke duel. When Luke says ‘I will not be the last Jedi’, have their grapple for the saber and it breaking, then cut to Rey concentrating on lifting the rocks. Who knows if that has any chance of working though.
Placing the Luke/Yoda scene there is an interesting idea, though I wonder if it would affect the pacing any?
It’s a strange scene which begins on the Force theme while being quite nihilistic. I think it would thematically work right after Kylo talks of tearing everything down, as everything is in tatters.
So you would cut them crash landing into the base and next time we see them, they are already inside, so we just assume they made it back to the Resistance in between scenes?
Yep. It’s a strange bit since it manufactures some drama that doesn’t follow from the previous scene. We assume that Finn and Rose got away in the confusion without being followed, but here they are chased by TIEs and they recklessly endanger many lives by crashing into their own base. There’s nothing really lost by cutting this part in my opinion, and it will help to speed the end of the movie.
I do like V2B with regards to the extra shot of Kylo, that’s much better.
What I was thinking for cutting to the base when Finn says ‘Rose!’ was that she would get shot down and then it would cut to all of the shots of the Resistance base with the various bits of radio chatter, with Finn’s ‘Rose’ among them.
One more idea for the pile:
After the Praetorean guard fight, move up Holdo’s sacrifice so that the collision happens as Rey moves to take Kylo’s hand and presumably join him. There is no scuffle over the lightsaber, and it doesn’t split in half (this would mean removing the broken lightsaber shot from the end of the movie as well, dependent on Ep 9’s treatment of the subject).
After the collision and Finn/Rose escaping the wreckage with their deleted scene of going where they belong, then cut to Luke and Yoda. Their conversation happens in the shadow of Rey’s decision to presumably join Kylo and destroy everything, and the scenes together much more strongly imply a new direction for the trilogy. Then when Luke arrives to face Kylo and defeat him through his trickery, it is implied that he is more clearly fighting for Rey than before.
Another edit I’d like to try is to cut Finn and Rose arriving at the base. Cut from the foxes racing through the closing door to the Resistance fighters setting up their CRT screens.
I like this version a lot, but there’s still a few rough spots. After Rose gets shot down, we hear Finn call her name and then almost immediately cut to a shot of him looking grim. It feels very strange not to have a reaction shot from him before that moment.
Maybe you could cut straight from Rose getting shot down to a wide shot of the weapon beginning to fire and the interior of the base (where they might hear Finn shouting for Rose over the speakers), and only after that returning to Finn’s look of grim determination.
The other rough place is that we immediately go from the weapon charging its blast and the aftermath of the explosion. Obviously it would be difficult to use much in between that, but there might be enough footage to imply that Finn got to Rose and revived her for a moment to show that she wasn’t dead. It’s unfortunate that to show the blast you’d also need to show the kiss, but maybe that would play better in this sequence of events.
I’ll have to think about this some more. I had completely forgotten about the end of that line, but you’re right, it was good.