The first time I had a panic attack was when watching Inception in the theater. Totally ruined the last bit of the movie, so I had to watch it again later to appreciate it.
DuracellEnergizer said:
LexX said:
Tatooine could be bigger than Jupiter all we know.
A solid, rocky planet larger than Jupiter? Don't think that's possible -- from a real-world perspective, anyway.
Yeah, it would probably lead to humans evolving into small, child-sized creatures with high pitched voices just to negate the stronger gravity. Either that or large sluglike things that can hardly move.
Just yesterday I realized more than ever before that Star Wars wasn't the saga George had intended, and indeed it wasn't even the original trilogy. It was and should be a single movie experience, and people like myself and many others on this forum who look at it with an eye to interpreting every aspect of the story are missing the point. For all its detail and worldbuilding, it's actually quite dreamlike. You get caught up in the experience and believe it entirely while it's playing, so making it an intellectual exercise does it a disservice. It affects our collective subconscious in a way that few movies can ever hope to do, and something I never experienced upon first viewing, having seen the VHS on small TV.
So yeah, I agree with y'all!
Going into The Desolation of Smaug, I thought for sure that the Legolas/Tauriel bits were going to get the axe in my imaginary one movie edit. But I actually liked Tauriel, they actually invented some good material for her. Her speech about starlight was actually rather enchanting, so that at least should stay in. It goes a long way towards painting the elves as more sympathetic.
Most of the Smaug bits after Bilbo's dialogue with him should get the axe though, that gave me Episode 2 flashbacks. It should be pretty easy to do, after all nothing happens to advance character or plot in that section.
Jaitea said:
My mother died whilst giving birth to me but was brought back by the hospital staff, she died again the next day but was brought back again.
As a child she told me again and again that she talked to Jesus on the second time she died and he told her that she had to return to her body to look after her new-born.
My mother and her side of the family were/are VERY religious
My mother did eventually die with complications connected to my birth 9 years later
As an adult I understand that with her strong belief in Christianity that that's what her mind wanted her to see, her consciousness
This does not effect my non-belief
J
Thank you for sharing this, these experiences are very important to the people who have them and this should not be trivialized. I agree with you that her Christian faith is probably the reason she experienced what she did; everyone sees life through the lens of their beliefs.
But if you want my personal opinion on the matter of what belief system is "true", I don't think any of them have sole claim to the truth. That's not to say that every belief system is therefore valid, quite the opposite. Just imagine how a Christian would feel if they were told by the Buddha during an NDE to return to Earth! People like to think that their minds are as logical as physical reality. I believe that without a constant stream of input from the physical senses, the untrained mind will default to its core beliefs and very little "true" information will enter unchanged by these beliefs. This is probably why there are so many religions, not because spirituality is false, but because the mind usually cannot see beyond itself, even when free of the body.
I don't think anyone's hating on you emanswfan, it's just fun with acronyms time. ;)
Easterhay said:
Anyway, isn't The Clone Wars canon? Which means it's not EU, correct?
Huh? I thought the EU was cannon. Has the cannonicity of things been in any way settled since the last furor?
The mouth movement is kind of awkward, one trick I've used in the past is only changing dialogue off screen, so you could hold on Kirk as he says his altered lines.
I've edited the post, but it is difficult to see unless you're looking up at the monitor from a low angle, then you can tell that there's no information in the Blu-ray highlights. That's why I posted the histograms as well, as they are a better gauge of image information than the monitor.
JEDIT: Since this is on a new page, I'll put the question again:
Which version of the HD broadcast has the highest quality?
Here's an example of the differences between the HD broadcast and the Blu-ray:
1: Broadcast
2: Blu-ray
3: Combination
(Flip between the images to better see the changes)
And here are the histograms with the Broadcast on the left, Blu-ray Center, Combination right:
There's been a lack of updates recently because I'm in the process of upgrading my computer and my editing program. I should be all set before the end of the month though, and the long haul through the movie can commence.
I was just reexamining Harmy's Despecialized edition however, and realized that his version had highlight detail that simply doesn't exist in the Blu-ray. Looking through my screenshots, I found that the HD broadcast actually has comparable highlight detail to that of the DVD, but with slightly higher quality. The broadcast does not however have as much shadow detail as the Blu-ray. So it seems that I will need both the Blu-ray and the HD broadcast in order to save as much detail as possible.
Does anyone know what the best source for this broadcast is? I used to have the Wookiegroomer Presents version, but I deleted it some time ago. Is this the best version?
When I first watched this I was totally lost when the Shatner bit came on, probably because I don't know what it's from (Airplane 2, I now know), but you could smooth the transition by showing Kramer on the "computer screen" right before Shatner comes on, as if the officer was just receiving a transmission, some line like "...you'll work the relay" (taken from the control room scene of Airplane!), as if he's relaying orders to subordinates.
SilverWook said:
NeverarGreat said:
Getting a lot better! I'd vote for less Airplane! material, and it would be neat if you could find a way to sort out where Shatner's crew is as opposed to the Airplane control tower crew. Since it's night in the Airplane sequence, I'd vote for having Shatner be in the destroyed tower (cut the line about only having a bridge) and having the Airplane flight controllers be somewhere else (no guy jumping out of the window). Both crews are funny on their own, but it's like they're both hanging out in the same place, which is so confusing that it kills the humor for me in places.
If you look carefully at the tower, the windows are dark. They obviously have the solar shields deployed. That's why it looks dark outside. ;)
Shatner is clearly broadcasting from the basement of the tower.
Then perhaps there could be a pan down the tower when Shatner's part arrives, I don't know. Here's a frame cobbled together from several shots of the tower as there's no good shot of it un-destroyed, which you can use to show where the action is taking place:
Some dialogue between the teams in the tower would be funny, as they realize that neither of them are alone.
JEDIT: ^I see you already tried that.
JEDIT 2: How do you insert an image that expands to its full resolution when "view image" is selected?
Getting a lot better! I'd vote for less Airplane! material, and it would be neat if you could find a way to sort out where Shatner's crew is as opposed to the Airplane control tower crew. Since it's night in the Airplane sequence, I'd vote for having Shatner be in the destroyed tower (cut the line about only having a bridge) and having the Airplane flight controllers be somewhere else (no guy jumping out of the window). Both crews are funny on their own, but it's like they're both hanging out in the same place, which is so confusing that it kills the humor for me in places.
Couldn't help it.
I'm so ashamed.
Erikstormtrooper said:
I just had a weird thought (a tad off topic) while thinking about the parallels between Episode I and SW (Ep IV).
Amidala is the MacGuffin of Episode I. She is the Death Star plans.
But she's clearly never going to sign it, so when the data's analyzed a weakness will not be found. :)
Bingowings said:
Harmy said:
I don't know, I never expected the prequels to be about anything else but it didn't need to be the sole focus - it may have been better as Obi-Wan's story, with the fall of Anakin as just a smaller part of that story.
It seems daft to me to make any of the OT characters the main focus for the PT.
Not only do we already know their fate (thus making the story redundant) it also adds nothing new of real value.
It would have made more sense to invent brand new characters have them the main focus and have the known story happen in the background with a few twists.
But that's the thing. With 20/20 hindsight we can say that focusing on known characters was a mistake, but as Harmy says, it was expected that the story was going to be about Obi-wan and Anakin. That's the risk that you take when building backstory for characters that have been ingrained in the public consciousness for twenty years. You're not going to please everyone.
@Bingowings: I don't think Luke's "I'm never coming back" line should be twisted to be ironic. He's simply never intending to return as he has no reason to. If later he has a reason, he will come back. The problem with returning to Tatooine for me is that it limits creative decisions for ROTJ.
@darth_ender: I could buy the idea that Tatooine had some sort of business which was encouraged by the Republic, which was then forgotten by the Empire and led to the nothing planet of the OT. But if we're comparing PT to OT, perhaps we should actually look at Tatooine as it appears in the original 77 film instead of the "sunny blue sky Tatooine" blu-ray. Tatooine originally was intended to be unpleasant in every way, and not just to Luke. I don't think there was any intent to have Tatooine be anything other than a frontier town until George got rose colored glasses for his revisions. It's just that the movie is rather inconsistent in terms of its universe, leading for example to an Imperial officer telling Tarkin that a ship "blasted its way out of Mos Eisley", as if Tarkin would be familiar with a little nothing village on Tatooine of all places. If the movie were more consistent, the officer would probably say that the ship blasted its way off Tatooine.
I'm saying that if JJ fails to make a good Star Wars movie, and the next guy fails as well, people may come to see the property as "cursed" or simply think that the balance that was struck in the OT is trickier to get right than is assumed. None of us (as far as I am aware of) has ever made a Star Wars movie, so it seems kind of presumptuous to say "I could make a better movie than that!" Maybe, but then again perhaps the prequels could never have been great despite what we imagine, and people may simply accept that after every new movie is a letdown.
Of course Episode 7 will probably be a worthy contender with the OT and in that case I will happily stand corrected.
The most interesting thing about these sequels for me will probably be years after they are released, and people are evaluating the George Lucas Star Wars versus the Lucas-less Star Wars. It will be interesting to see whether people look at the prequels with a more forgiving eye based on what JJ did to the franchise, or if they will wish JJ had done the prequels. In short, how easy will it be to capture the fun adventure spirit of Star Wars? I have no idea, and that's pretty exciting in any case.
As is usually the case with these things, Tatooine was going downhill when Lucas decided to put Jabba's palace there, instead of on an interesting or exotic planet like a rich gangster would want. That always bugged me. Why not have our heroes go to some surreal underwater fortress that was actually dangerous and difficult to escape from, instead of a place that Luke and the droids simply walk into without any trouble?
As for the idea that Tatooine was turned into a dump when the Empire took control, it doesn't square with what we know. I could buy that there used to be more going on there twenty or thirty years ago, as evidenced by all of the derelict equipment just sitting there in the desert waiting to be picked up by Jawas, but none of those trashed droids were in service in the prequels, so it's anyone's guess how they wound up in the desert.
It's looking much better, but the green is still getting blown out leading to a loss of highlight detail.
I really can't tell which of the three is better, I think there's much greater difference in skin tones between the Tauntan Luke and the convalescing Luke than there is between the comparison images below.
The infirmary is looking very natural in either case, excellent balance I'd say.
JEDIT: It looks very much like the deleted scene:
Be careful with clipping your colors kk, the blue levels are fine but the red and green are both too high. Here's a comparison based on one of your previous screenshots:
The top one is your screen, the middle is the DVD, lower is my guesstimate based on some production stills culled from the web (shown on right). But other than keeping an eye on the histogram levels, I'd say aim for keeping the whites (such as snow and highlights) at a neutral white.
The music really adds life to the beginning of the race, good work!
I've always wanted to see that race with just a single circuit. It would have music in the beginning, but actually disappearing towards the end, because in the final stretch the podracers increase in speed and everything gets faster and more intense (reference intended ;)) It tends to bother me that in movies when someone is driving a car they will turn their head for five seconds at a time to look at another person instead of concentrating on the road. There should be none of this in the race (such as when Anakin has engine trouble) as they're supposed to be going hundreds of miles an hour. Also, it would seem like Anakin's pod would be more fragile than the others, so it's totally unbelievable when the two are hooked together at the end. It could perhaps be recut to look like Anakin skillfully clipped Sebulba's pod with his own, neatly severing a coupling and paying back the Dug's sabotage.
Just some thoughts, probably useless as this is already a done deal. Eh.
Watching old Flash Gordon episodes and found this fun little reference:
It has the same sound effect and everything! Nice one George.