NeverarGreat

I was just watching through ROTJ the other day, and I was trying to imagine Star Wars without it. It's not possible. Not for me. Imagine, if you will, Star Wars without a battle between capital ships, without the construction of a lightsaber, without ever really meeting the Emperor, without C-3PO translating a non-robot language (yes, this is the only movie where he is genuinely useful!).

Bingowings said:

ANH Message : No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals.(Ben gives up his life so the Falcon can leave. Artoo carries the plans to the rebels, the one man fighter finds the small exhaust port and destroys the metal moon and it's planet smashing weapon, Han changes his mind and saves Luke.).

ESB message : Fear is the mindkiller. Fear motivates almost every major action in the piece. It leads the characters into peril and overcoming it leads them back to safety.

ROTJ message : There is probably no more terrible instance of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man — with human flesh.

I agree with your ANH analysis, and fear does play a big part in ESB. But really, the "father is mortal" message of ROTJ doesn't take into account most of the actions in the movie.

The rebels underestimate the Empire's new battle station, the Imperials underestimate the Ewoks, both Jabba and the Emperor underestimate Luke's power, and Vader underestimates his own good side. This theme seems to be played again and again.

Absolutely agree about Vertigo being far better than The Birds. I actually didn't think much of Hitchcock until I saw Vertigo.

Based on your reviews, I just saw Zardoz. I can't say it was the strangest movie I've ever seen. That honor may go to The American Astronaut. But it was still really interesting, conceptually.

By the Way, The American Astronaut is both the worst thing ever and the best, then the worst, and the best, in that order.

VII Faster Then A Ray of Light

VIII Faster Than A Ray of Light

IX Faster Than A Ray of Lighiiiayiiiayiiiayiiiiiiight!

VII I Get Knocked Down

VIII But I Get Up Again

IX You're Never Gonna Keep Me Down

Which Star Wars movie has the best message? In my opinion, the central messages are thus:

The first one has the message that if you use your innate talents, you can singlehandedly defeat Empires. "Use the Force, Luke."

Empire states that in order to do something, you must commit yourself completely to its completion, forsaking even your friends, instead of simply "giving it a shot". "Do. Or do not. There is no try."

Jedi communicates the idea that a you are great not only because of what you have done and what you are, but because of what others have allowed you to do, and to be. "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

So to me, the message of the first movie is rather unrealistic. It is Luke alone who destroys the Death Star, and this point is made by having everyone abandon him in his final test, except for Obi-wan, though it is implied that in the end, Luke uses the Force without Obi-wan's help. Empire as well has the message that to accomplish your dreams, you must abandon your friends and strike out on your own. It is Jedi that provides the message that all people, no matter how humble or broken, can help in toppling empires, and it is this message that I think is the most important of all.

So on the basis of message, Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars film.

imperialscum said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

2)  make final assault on Imperial city instead of DSII

I am afraid that would make it dumb, cheap and very "ordinary".

Wasn't one of the reasons they didn't do the Imperial Capital world was because it would have been too expensive?

I think the Death Star 2 would have worked much better if it was demonstrably more powerful than the first one and more difficult to destroy. You know, like the people building it learned their lesson from the first one, and made it so that only a direct, large scale assault could take it down. I'm thinking something along the lines of Dodana's first plan for destroying the original Death Star by ramming capital ships into it.

Alternately, They could have Luke decide to sneak onboard the Death Star and make his way to whatever room constituted a "bridge", where he would meet Darth Vader, who was promoted after Tarkin's Death. It turns out that Vader was serious in his plot against the Emperor, and now he is finally in position to end the Emperor's reign of terror. He takes control of the Death Star and sets it on course for the Imperial Capital planet, and Luke must decide whether to kill Vader, attempt to turn him from the Dark Side, or simply allow Vader to annihilate an entire planet in order to destroy the Emperor.

Star Wars: JJ Abrams Edition:

Episode VII: I Worked Really Hard On This

Episode VIII: Just Give It Another Chance

Episode IX: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I SACRIFICED?!

Star Wars: Disney Edition:

Episode VII: The Magic Jedi Kingdom

Episode VIII: Return to Netherworld

Episode IX: It's A Small Galaxy After All

Well, our species is called Homo sapiens sapiens, which means "Thinking man that thinks", so to answer your question, no, we don't think.

I guess that's what happens when you privatize cultural heritage.

That last sample where the Destroyer crashes into the Death Star is really nice. I did a double take when I saw that effect, because it actually looks way more realistic than the DVD. I think that the brightness of the DVD is so low that you can see fire effect rippling unrealistically quickly out of the Death Star, but here it just looks like a mushroom cloud, and just looks much more realistic.

If we're choosing the title based on the acronym, then it should be called Supreme Emperor Xizor.

I agree wholeheartedly with Anchorhead's post about our generation being socially immature. The internet is the blessing, and the curse, that our generation has been given.

On the subject of nostalgia, I believe that this forum wouldn't exist if the original Star Wars movies were available in high quality. There's something about not being able to instantly access our nostalgia that rubs our generation the wrong way, and many of us stay here because of nostalgia withheld. If the OUT ever becomes available, it may be the death of this place.

Finally, about Anchorhead's comment about writing a book at 18:

After, and even during high school I felt the opposite way about the accomplishments in my life. I felt like I had not even scratched the surface of all that there was. My life was in upheaval, and I was revising every deeply held belief I ever held. In such a situation, how can someone express themselves if they don't even know who they are? What good is the word of a kid who knows nothing of the real world? This outlook is rather unfortunate, because before that I had written a novel in my spare time, not ever planning to publish it, for it wasn't worthy of publishing. But that wasn't the point. It is in actually doing something that power lies, and that's something that our generation has forgotten to some degree.

So yeah, feel that nostalgia for this revived thread!

,.,,,.,,.

^Did somebody lose some punctuation? Because I found this lying around...

I just picked this up today, the first comic I've ever actually bought.

There's a lot of political discussion and a lot of characters and names all at once, but the underlying story is clear and has heart at this point.

One small thing that threw me: The lightsabers look like the ones from the film. I would have expected the artists to use the prototype lightsabers, the ones with flashbulb reflectors as hilts, that they were going to use on the film before the hilts were nixed. Would have been a neat throwback.

emanswfan said:

C3PO and R2D2:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/40310

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/40312

The R2 shot seems to have issues that look similar to the lightsabers in your prequel work. To me, the lightsabers in the prequel examples look flattened in the higher range of luminosity. In the R2 shot above, the lightning looks much brighter and "fatter" than the photo of the Senator print. Granted that they are different frames, but pulling the blue saturation down may be more effective than increasing the brightness in situations such as this.

imperialscum said:

timdiggerm said:

imperialscum said:

KilroyMcFadden said:

RLM wasn't jumping on the prequel hate bandwagon.

That's exactly what it did.

Isn't that an unanswerable question of motivation?

Well no. They did. Whether intentionally or not is an unanswerable question of motivation.

RLM already made four deconstruction videos concerning the Next Generation Star Trek movies, so they weren't jumping on the "hate bandwagon". They had been doing that for a while. They clearly made the Star Trek videos because they were Star Trek fans who were dissatisfied with the feature film adaptations of the show. If a serious fan voices their dissatisfaction, to me that is not jumping on the bandwagon, that is voicing one's own opinion.

If RLM had no interest in Star Wars, for example if they clearly weren't Star Wars fans and were simply leeching off of a sentiment which was popular at the moment, then they would be "jumping on the prequel hate bandwagon." Listening to Mike's Episode 4 commentary gives me the impression that he is a big Star Wars fan, going so far as to call it a "perfect movie". I believe their gripes with the prequels have genuine belief behind them, as Mike at least is a Star Wars fan.

Now personally I think that perhaps half of their attacks on the prequels are valid, the rest being cheap shots, irrelevant filler, and overdramatized nitpicking, but it's a fun ride if you take your mind off the hook for a while. I for one don't think that the videos are a cynical cash grab.

emanswfan said:

Much more revised version of the Opening battle (now the full scene).  This has better skin tones (though it could need a bit more saturation), now uses the real 35mm film scan for grain (just like the last two clips), further gets rid of the cartoony colors (look at the buzz droids now), and tried to enhance the detail without oversharpening.  This is pretty close to what is the final version, apart from some work to still do on the lasers and lightsabers.  I would again recommend watching in 1080p to see the grain and fine detail work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MgAjzSXP30

I was just watching this, and for the first minute I realized that this movie had become much more accurate because of the silence of space.

;)

emanswfan said:

I've always felt this scene was too dark with little shadow detail.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/40092

I'd say that every scene in the movie is too dark. You've done a good job removing the green haze and brightening the image, but it looks like Luke's shirt is still too red, and R2 may be a bit too blue.

JEDIT: Looking at it again, I notice that the shadows seem to be more crushed than in the blu-ray.

Mrebo said:

Sometimes to get to sleep I put on RLM's prequel reviews. So cathartic.  Or recently, What If the Prequels Were Good (that actually is quite good and worth considering for PT rewriters). If there was a willing artist, an animated or even still-image alternative prequel with good voice work would be awesome.

I really liked his version of Episode 1, but his ideas about Episode 2 don't address many of the problems of the original, such as the involved political discussions or the Jedi-heavy plot. Yoda doesn't need to be there either.

The screenshot of Luke and Beru looks absolutely right, better than anything I have yet accomplished, colorwise. I would be interested in seeing these same color settings used on other scenes. You say that color correction is per scene, however it's my experience with ANH that practically the entire movie suffers from the same damaged highlights and oversaturated blues, suggesting that a single correction would go a long way to solving these problems, and only minor scene by scene color correction would be necessary to make each scene exact. In any case, incredible work!

What tools do you use for the color correction, if you don't mind me asking?

In the course of removing the blue cast of the DVD for my color correction, I've uncovered startling evidence that suggests that Luke didn't even make the throw. There was actually a second "thrower", and the cord from the final movie seems to be added digitally. You can see here the evidence for the original line:

Remember: Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.

If you have an awkward friend who has a crazy scientific or conspiracy theory, then it is almost guaranteed to be correct, especially if they are ridiculed or ostracized by the establishment for said theory.

Every newspaper is the same unless you yourself read it.

You will always find the keys to an old truck above the sun visor.

The more obscure your hobby, the more relevant it will be.

The more dangerous your opponent is, the more likely it is that he will want to be captured.

Lightning arcs out of electrical equipment right before it explodes.

If a multinational military intelligence coalition has been assembled, the black guy is from America.

Many computers no longer have mice at all, as everyone can access anything using only the keyboard.

If someone coughs, not only are they sick, but they are either dangerously contagious or they are trying to hide a secretly debilitating illness from you.

If you are wrestling with a complex scientific problem, the answer will be revealed to you through a mundane remark or observation when you least expect it.

If you see him fall but you don't see him hit the ground, he is not dead.

If you are in a sword or knife fight, there is a good chance that someone will get a superficial cut to their cheek.

If you are involved in a lightsaber battle, odds are good that it takes place in the prequels.

The quality and history of the sword is more important than your skill using it.

The effects of the vacuum of space upon you never obey the same laws twice.

Your spacesuit makes you move slowly, even when you're not in space.

The engines of your spacecraft are always on, even when flying at a constant rate of speed.

If you are taught by an old master, you will be his final student.

timdiggerm said:

Let's not forget that the Senator photos are taken casually with a DSLR from a weird angle with no real prep to ensure accuracy.

I don't think that the point of this project is accuracy. I believe that both Frank and I simply like the Senator print a lot, despite, and perhaps because of the fact that it may have faded a bit to green while retaining many subtle details of the original. My work is more artistic in intent, so while I will analyze sources mathematically from time to time, what looks good will trump math any day of the week. We all have a different idea of what Star Wars should look like, that's why there are so many versions. I'd rather there be more versions out there than less.