NeverarGreat

So I’ve gotten through both seasons of Rebels, since I’m a hopeless completionist on anything Star Wars, and was going to write a review of the entire show, but I just got through the final two episodes and had to focus on this:

I realize that there is constant pressure to do visually interesting things with lightsabers, and I didn’t even mind the double-bladed spinning design up until now, but the final showdown at the end of season 2 is completely baffling. Apparently the inquisitors use these lightsabers as…helicopters? Like, to fly around? At first I assumed that the Inquisitors merely used the Force to levitate themselves and they thought that the spinning saber thing was a cool thing to do (it isn’t), but one of the sabers is damaged and breaks in mid flight, dropping the Inquisitor out of the air. I am left with the feeling that I have just witnessed the most blatant attempt at physics BS-ery in Star Wars. I don’t care if it is a kid’s show - THAT SHIT DOESN’T FLY.

All we ever get from the movies is that Obi-wan used to be a Jedi Knight, but there’s so little information in the OT about the Jedi hierarchy that we really have no idea if this implies that he ‘ascended’ to the rank of master later on, hence the robe change, or that he is retired from the whole Jedi Knight business. Jedi Knight could have been an actual position in the Old Republic, which ceased to exist with the Republic. Or Jedi Knights are wholly different than Jedi Masters, like the difference between a soldier and a teacher.

I do believe that Knights and Masters had different robes to match their different roles.

MalàStrana said:

Anchorhead said:
To me, Giacchino’s work is generally a little deeper than Williams and a bit more serious.

This is a bold statement.

FTFY

The problem with weighted averaging such as how Mike combined multiple prints into one, is that it leaves you with merely the ‘average’ quality of the initial prints. I think this is what is resulting in the plastic look of the people in the speeder shot. Say that we have at our disposal a sharp print and a blurry print. If you were trying to resolve a blurry boundary between two objects in the frame into a sharp line, then (assuming we are only gathering data from the same frame of both prints) averaging the values of a blurry print with the values of a sharp print would result in a less than optimal result, and you would be far better off just sticking with the sharp print.

One way I could see working to improve image quality while only using the same frame from multiple prints, assuming that the prints were struck from different internegatives, is to track the position of all the grains in the image. For each blob of grain, the center of the grain is recorded along with its luminosity and color. This process is repeated for each of the identical frames. Grains in similar positions with similar color/luminosity are grouped together, and an average is taken of their positions (instead of their color). Finally a new image is created from the data, using the best guess of the position of each grain in the image. Compare this with merely averaging the color of each pixel and you could potentially regain the sharpness present in previous generations of the film. After all, the blurriness is only introduced through grain forming in inaccurate positions on the film with each new printing.

The above method would not work for Technicolor film, however, since it is not a grain-forming copy but rather a copy made by imbibing a piece of celluloid with actual dyes. This process introduces some blurriness of its own, but it’s probably still the best source to use for sharpness since Tech prints of Star Wars were made from an earlier generation of print than the Kodak or Eastman prints. Perhaps the Tech prints could be used in the aforementioned grain positioning algorithm to ensure more accurate results.

ATMachine said:

Speaking of the ILM art show: one of the challenges offered to the artists was designing concept art to fit a series of ersatz “director’s notes” for a supposed SW film. Matt Rhodes of BioWare took this challenge and ran with it, creating a whole alternate history of the OT.

Among other things: instead of the Bothans, it’s a new alien race specified in the challenge prompts (the Danji) who obtain the plans to the second (?) Death Star; the Rebel attack at Endor involves a giant mobile-asteroid base; Oola survives and escapes from Jabba’s palace; and though Leia, Han, Lando, Chewie, and the droids are all present, Luke Skywalker is not.

Instead, Luke’s place is taken by a blonde female Imperial Royal Guard, who seems to have struck up a romance with Biggs Darklighter – since the mustached Rebel pilot apparently survives into ESB and ROTJ.

This is very intriguingly reminiscent of Ralph McQuarrie’s 1975 drawings featuring a female Luke as the protagonist of SW… or fem-Luke’s fantasy equivalent, the redeemed warrior Sorsha in Willow.

If nothing else, the concepts in the art are so much more interesting than TFA.

Taking this in a different direction, I’m interested in what George’s idea was for the uniform of a Jedi Knight. During ROTJ scripting, he discussed how Knights and masters were not in fact different levels of Jedi but rather were different kinds of Jedi entirely. Yoda was always a guru, Obi-wan was always a warrior. To that end, Luke is seen throughout ROTJ wearing what I assume is the uniform of a Jedi Knight, in various levels of undress:

Perhaps there was thematic significance with Luke slowly shedding this Jedi uniform, as if the defense of his Jedi training was slowly stripped away to reveal the man beneath, for good or ill.

This being the ancient Jedi uniform, one could conjecture about why it is so militaristic and dark compared to the robes of Obi-wan and Yoda. It seems to me that GL’s idea of the Jedi Knight circa 1983 was that a Knight was very much a military position within the Republic, and perhaps the uniforms were dark so as to lend an air of mystery and invisibility to them. To me, the costume is more like the common conception of a Ninja rather than the common conception of samurai clad in kimono, and it is a severe break from Obi-wan’s and Yoda’s attire. If Obi-wan was a samurai serving the Republic, then Luke is a Jedi-for-hire, with no master save himself. It’s interesting that only after abandoning violence does his costume reveal a color other than black.

LuckyGungan2001 said:

I want it to be set hundreds of years after XI, showing the results of the first nine films on the galaxy. A few references to past films, but not going overboard (I.E. having the main characters be Luke’s great great great great grandson). But if the film could be avoided entirely, I’d like that too (like that’d ever happen).

They should be about the ramifications of Leia feeding a sugary snack to Wicket. Due to this event, Wicket developed a sweet tooth which developed into a major addiction, and the abundance of carbohydrates in his diet, along with a favorable mutation, led to the development of a race of large-brained Ewoks who slowly took over the New Republic government and led to a thousand generations of peace and prosperity. The events and people involved in the galactic civil war are now lost to history, but Ewok history remains.

Tobar said:

MalàStrana said:

30 years younger shouldn’t be that noticeable.

30 years older certainly is however:

Oh hai nightmares!

DuracellEnergizer said:

NeverarGreat said:

I want the entire galaxy to be one giant weapon, one which can fire in opposite directions at once.

I deliberately avoided putting a picture of Ric in that post, for I had absolute faith that someone would complete the circle.

DuracellEnergizer said:

NeverarGreat said:

As if anyone ever watched Star Wars and Empire then said ‘yeah, I’m fine with this cliffhanger ending forever’

I would’ve preferred that over Death Star 2: Electric Boogaloo, Palpatine’s Saturday morning cartoon method of proselytization, the Empire’s finest troops succumbing like bitches to stone age teddy bears, and Vader’s “get-out-of-jail-free card” redemption.

Well that’s what retconning is for: http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/STAR-WARS-EPISODE-VII-JEDI-DAWN/id/15757

Summary version: In ROTJ, Palpatine (who is safe on Coruscant) is using an unstable clone of himself and some disposable troops to lure the rebels into a trap on Endor. The second Death Star is a second chance for the engineers and officers who failed to build an impervious Death Star the first time, and if it fails, all of these engineers will pay the ultimate price for their failure.

The rebels, realizing this scheme, assemble a hastily promoted B-team. It consists of an irresponsible commander who abandoned his troops after the Hoth debacle, a smuggler who planned on leaving the movement, and an ex-princess who shirked her duties to save her boyfriend with a man who sold out the rebels to the Empire. Along with this ‘elite’ commando unit, they send a few modified civilian space cruisers, outdated medical frigates, and lightly armed blockade runners in addition to some miscellaneous fighter squadrons. While the B-team is engaged on Endor, the Rebels launch their main attack force against Coruscant. When Palpatine is threatened by this attack, he recalls his starfleet from Endor.

I want the entire galaxy to be one giant weapon, one which can fire in opposite directions at once.

As if anyone ever watched Star Wars and Empire then said ‘yeah, I’m fine with this cliffhanger ending forever’

darklordoftech said:

Good to hear that the Rebels creators said no to Ysalamiri. As someone on this website said, the Ysalamiri were like if the Bible had religion-cancelling cats that prevented Jesus from walking on water.

Self-serving context: http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/What-do-you-LIKE-about-the-EU/id/10207/page/44#966807

TV’s Frink said:

NeverarGreat said:

ray_afraid said:

TV’s Frink said:

I just meant you can shoot someone in the head and it’s PG-13, but show a penis for one second and it’s NC-17.

You can simulate shooting someone in the head. It isn’t real. The penis is.
Not saying I agree with the ratings boards, but I don’t like the idea that simulated violence = the real thing.

jedit- THE PENIS IS REAL! NEVER FORGET!

Watchmen is R for (among other things) nudity, yet much of the nudity is CGI.

What?

I’ve never seen Watchmen. Why is there CGI nudity?

Dr Manhattan in his blue energy form is completely nude for a few scenes.

ray_afraid said:

TV’s Frink said:

I just meant you can shoot someone in the head and it’s PG-13, but show a penis for one second and it’s NC-17.

You can simulate shooting someone in the head. It isn’t real. The penis is.
Not saying I agree with the ratings boards, but I don’t like the idea that simulated violence = the real thing.

jedit- THE PENIS IS REAL! NEVER FORGET!

Watchmen is R for (among other things) nudity, yet much of the nudity is CGI.

So thought experiment: If everyone in nude scenes wore bodysuits but highly realistic CGI made them appear fully nude, would the rating remain the same?

Of course.

I really want to see the Star Wars movie that corresponds to that last poster.

I think that the ending of ROTS was quite original. I expected for Anakin to become evil because of the visceral power of the Dark Side, or because he wished to save his wife, or because he hated the Jedi for being incompetent fools. Any one of these, or a combination thereof, would have been a predictable ending to the trilogy.

What we got was Anakin choosing to protect the life of Palpatine against an attempted murder, with the stated purpose of allowing for the justice system to decide Palpatine’s fate, and the unstated purpose of using the trial to discover if Palpatine actually has the knowledge to save Padme’s life. Immediately upon doing this, he abandons his plan to turn Palpatine in, apparently deciding that he himself must be evil now and a disciple of the most evil man in the galaxy, with his only stipulation that Palpatine save Padme. Nevermind that he has slaughtered a whole tribe of sentient beings and killed countless beings in the Clone Wars; now that he’s party to a murder in self defense, he decides that there are no backsies and is all-in with this evil thing. Then Palpatine admits that he doesn’t know how to save Padme, and Anakin doesn’t do the obvious thing and arrest the chancellor then and there. Instead he murders children, and after Padme is dead decides there’s nothing left to do than to become Palpatine’s lackey for 20-odd years. No reason for his turn rings true, not even his mad lust for power at the end since he believes Palpatine, for all his deception, is still his closest friend. In the end, Anakin turned not because he was evil, but because he was confused and stupid.

That’s an ending that I didn’t see coming, that’s for sure.

^^^There’s something about the depth of field in those last two photos that makes the people look like toys. Very strange.

Of course, and I wasn’t intending to Ronster it up here. 😉 Life’s too short to dwell on the prequels.

So I’ve just gone back and watched the edit from start to finish, and I quite like many of the choices. There are a bit more dialogue deletions than I would like, and some abrupt scene transitions. For example, I think including the droid factory scene (sans R2 and 3PO) would help ease the awkward moment where it looks like Anakin and Padme just waltz into the compound apparently expecting to talk Obi-wan out of prison. In any case, it’s a very fine edit in the spirit of the original.

As to the balcony kiss, I think it may work just fine if set at twilight, lengthened slightly, and placed directly after the meadow romp to imply that they spent a long and pleasant afternoon outside. I wouldn’t mind seeing the dinner scene go, even if we lose the setup to ‘aggressive negotiations’. There’s really no other information conveyed in that scene anyway.

Indeed, it would certainly work better as a moonlit stroll, but day for night is difficult under the best of conditions and I’d say it’s impossible to make natural under bright sunlit backgrounds unless you rotoscope the backgrounds.

Day for night doesn’t work very well if there’s bright sunlight illuminating the background, so the best bet with this scene is probably to set it during the twilight hours. Here’s a quick mockup to show how that could look, with the open sky graded to approximate the previous dinner scene: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/183078/picture:0 There’s some artifacting and it would need to be shot by shot to account for changes in luminosity, but it could theoretically work.

none said:

Tape Recording of Star Wars In The Theater From 1977 With My Mother by William Forsche

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxBafn2t5v4

I love these sorts of things. It’s one thing to tell about how special this film was to people, but for those of us who weren’t around then, this makes it real.

Wazzles said:

towne32 said:

Yeah, a couple shots in Jedi are still screwy as well. And the colors in the ANH duel are really inconsistent still.

That duel is at least watchable in the 2011 version.

You may change your mind if you were to go through it shot by shot. In a few shots, Ben’s saber is actually purple.
My preference, at least for ANH, is 1997 over 2011 because of the colors, though many of the scenes are still too green even in the 97 version. At least most of the gradients exist in the 97 edition, something I assure you isn’t the case for much of reel 6 in the 2011 version.