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SS4DarthPayne

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Join date
2-Nov-2005
Last activity
27-Apr-2021
Posts
186

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Post
#1161634
Topic
Star Wars Despecialized Editions - Custom Bluray Set (Released)
Time

Captain_Danielsan said:

Very nice musicallyinspired. Loving your presentation there it’s a beautiful set. Heres my own I made using NJVC’S set and a box tutorial I found here. I included mini comics and trading cards too for a more retro feel from the 70s / 80s. It also has a slipcover on thick glossy paper and a hard outer box.

Huge thanks to harmy, NJVC and everyone here who helped me.

Looks great! Where did you get the comics / cards?

Post
#924851
Topic
Ranking the Star Wars films
Time

TV’s Frink said:

But the PT films are objectively bad on pretty much every level.

Oooooh… I’m assuming this is a serious statement? I would have to disagree here. Films are inherently subjective. With that being said, I do agree that, yes, at a point we can make subjective calls on them. For example, it is my belief that we can objectively call The Godfather a better film than Gigli. I think a statement like that is fine.

But saying the prequels are objectively bad on pretty much every level? I think that’s too strong and too broad of a statement to fly. It’s not clear enough to make that sort of blanket call.

Post
#924641
Topic
Ranking the Star Wars films
Time

Well lads, I may as well offer my opinion. I can’t remember who did it earlier in this thread, but someone rated them via balls, which I liked. So here is mine:

ANH - 94 balls
ESB - 93 balls
ROJ - 87 balls
TFA - 74 balls
AOTC - 66 balls
TPM - 63 balls
ROTS - 55 balls

Explanations:

ANH and ESB are basically a toss-up. I’ll put it this way: I enjoy ANH more, but I recognize ESB is the better film.

ROJ: Man, ROJ gets way underrated here. I honestly think it rocks - on some days I can convince myself that I enjoy it the most out of the originals (again, not say is better, but enjoy more). The amount of dislike has always puzzled me a bit. It had its weak points, but not enough to justify this dislike it gets.

TFA: And on that note, man, TFA gets both… under and overrated? Like, it’s hard to be someone who takes the middle ground on it. I will start with saying that I think people who say it is as good as or better than ROJ are crazy (no offense). That comparison isn’t close to me. But it certainly didn’t suck - it was far, far too derivative (by far the most valid and biggest complaint), but at least it didn’t suck while it was being derivative. My closing thought will be this: In my mind, I consider the Thrawn Trilogy to be the true successor to the original trilogy. And honestly? That disappoints me. I expected more of the film and out of Abrams. So even though it didn’t suck, it is still on the disappointment side for me.

The Prequels:

To start with, I don’t dislike them nearly as much as people here. They were the Star Wars that I grew up with. Everyone who got to grow up with the originals, that’s awesome and I’m jealous, but being a kid and growing up with the prequels was pretty damn awesome too. That nostalgia runs DEEP (like in my blood deep), and it makes me a little sad to see all the vitriol directed at such an integral part of my childhood. Yes, they are flawed, but damn, they’re not as bad as this collective forum would lead you to believe. Blasphemous opinion coming in hot: They are more Star Wars to me than TFA is.

For specifics, yes, I like AOTC the best, sue me. I have a huge soft spot for that movie. TPM had too many of the ‘immature’ moments to be the best prequel, and ROTS… Sigh. ROTS lost me simply because I could not find Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side to be realistic. It just happened too fast for me. That really stings, because that was kind of the draw of the prequel trilogy, to see how Anakin fell.

Well, I’m sure many people will disagree, but that’s both the point and the beauty of the forum, to generate discussion. On a final note, I recently watched Hal9000’s fan edits of the prequels, and let me just say he killed it. ‘Hot take’ number whatever, but I would rate his AOTC fan edit (The Approaching Storm) as an 80 on my scale. I loved it - definitely more than TFA.

Post
#898362
Topic
team negative1 - star wars 1977 - 35mm theatrical version (Released)
Time

Williarob said:

Harmy said:

That would be awesome because of the different language and other alternate audio and subtitle tracks. But how would you handle the frames missing at the reel changes?

Well I can think of several options:

  1. Insert Black frames - which is perfect for the missing frames between Reel 1 & 2 because they are black anyway, but possibly a little jarring everywhere else.
  2. Duplicate a few frames, or use some sort of interpolation technique.
  3. Recreate the missing frames perhaps by using another source, e.g. Upscaled GOUT or the Despecialized Edition with added grain or something to make it look like the other frames in the shot.

Personally, I think option 3 can be made to work in such a way that most people wouldn’t even know that’s what we did, but at the same time, it feels like cheating. We vowed to use nothing but the film sources and I think we need to stick with that, so I expect we will just insert black frames.

Whichever option we choose, there will be people who don’t like it, but one of the best things about this forum is that there will be somebody ready to step up and implement the alternative options. They will feel strongly enough that the short black “flash” is not good enough for them personally, and there will be others who agree, and between them they will find their own way to smooth it over, and hopefully they will share that with others.

Perhaps this is why Lucasfilm / Disney can’t be bothered to do it themselves - we (the experts) can’t all agree on what is best - some like grain, some can’t stand it, some like the “invisible CGI” fixes like the digital recomposits of the SE but want other changes removed… There are already so many different versions of the film and none of us can agree on the correct color timing, cropping, or audio tracks… The only solution is for us all to come up with the version of the film we want to see.

Personally, I’m old school. I want it to look as close to watching a 35mm film print at the cinema in 1977 as possible because that is the film that won the Oscars. That is the film that became a phenomenon, and that is the film I want to watch. I think we’re getting closer to that goal.

And I think that between Harmy’s Despecialized Editions, our own 35mm preservations (and we have more coming), Poita’s and everyone else’s projects, and all of the hybrid projects that will inevitably spin off from all of these, we will eventually get there. We will all find our personal Star Wars Nirvana.

Am I making any sense at this point or am I just so tired I’m delirious? It’s 2 AM, I’m going to bed! I gotta get up and go to work tomorrow… “Star Wars Nirvana…” If we find that, what the hell are we gonna do with all that spare time?

All made sense to me. Honestly, any of the ideas seemed fine imo, and I trust you guys to make the right call. I would firmly throw my voice into the camp, though, that would be extremely, extremely grateful if you guys are able to release the next version as GOUT-synced. Holy hell would that be appreciated. I’m no computer slouch, but following some of the above conversations about how it would have to be done on my own were quite out of my league. If it came direct from the source that way, that would alleviate a lot of issues. Obviously I am eternally grateful for whatever you release, but I think it would be a huge boon to the community if it were GOUT-synced. Just my two cents.

Post
#889990
Topic
Merry Christmas!(2015)
Time

Merry Christmas you scruffy nerfherders! First message board I ever joined, and only one I bother to contribute to. Definitely holds a special place in my heart. Just watched Return of the Jedi with my pops… It’s incredible the effect that these movies have had on our culture. What an incredible bridge between generations - a true testament to what that original trilogy means to us. Merry Christmas everyone!

Post
#889429
Topic
The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS **
Time

TavorX said:

SS4DarthPayne said:
FINN: I thought Boyega did a great job acting the character, nothing to fault there. However, I wasn’t super sold on the character himself, if that makes sense. Some of the things he said and how he acted made him seem more like someone from our world, not someone in the Star Wars universe. The ‘cute boyfriend’ line really stood out to me, for example.

I actually brought this up too, either in this thread, or one of the other threads, but yes, “cute boyfriend” took me out of the film for a few seconds there. Another poster pointed out to me that “girlfriend” has been mentioned in another SW film, Attack of the Clones. I had forgotten about it, but at least the actor who played Owen said it in a subdued tone rather than the fanboyish delivery by Boyega. Also, soon after, he said, “Droid, please” which to my ears sounds like internet speak, i.e. “Droid pls”

It really comes across as too Earthy.

Earthy! That’s a great way to put it. Agreed on all accounts - I felt the same about the ‘Droid please’ line

Post
#889424
Topic
The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS **
Time

Well lads, buckle in, as I finally sat down to type out my thoughts now that I saw it for the third time last night. Honestly I doubt anyone cares, but I’ve loved seeing everyone else’s thoughts and reactions, so I figured I’d share mine. To be honest, almost all of my thoughts have been shared by someone or another at one point. Everyone is going to have their own truth about how good the movie is, and my thoughts definitely mirror bits and pieces from many of the members here. Main ideas all in CAPS:

REY: Loved her. I thought Daisy knocked it out of the park in terms of acting, and I liked the character a lot. On my second and third re-watches I was able to appreciate the depth and subtlety to her acting. I think the criticism that she became too good with the Force too soon is valid, to an extent. Personally, I believe she did have some Force training when she was little, as well as that when she had her little battle of the minds with Kylo, it ‘awoke’ something in her. (That second point I am nearly sure of; I just wish they showed it in the movie better).

FINN: I thought Boyega did a great job acting the character, nothing to fault there. However, I wasn’t super sold on the character himself, if that makes sense. Some of the things he said and how he acted made him seem more like someone from our world, not someone in the Star Wars universe. The ‘cute boyfriend’ line really stood out to me, for example.

KYLO REN: Fantastic. Adam Driver is an incredible actor, and one of the characters I was extremely skeptical about turned into one of the movie’s strengths. He seemed like a Darth Vader wannabe, and that’s exactly what he was, yet somehow he wasn’t a crappy character, and actually conveyed intimidation. A couple of things there: I think his effortless and effective use of the Force helped with this (I loved that). I also noticed they really always emphasized his heavy footsteps, which added to the feeling of foreboding. Lastly, I saw someone mention on Reddit once (unrelated to SW) how hard it is to act with a mask on (honestly harder than with your normal face), and Driver absolutely nailed the subtle movements and small touches.

BB-8: Another character that I was immensely skeptical of, but turned out to be one of the movie’s strengths. Honestly, everything about BB-8 was great. The subtle movements were spot-on. I had thought the character might be gimmicky, but on the whole, he was very earnest, and was a solid plus to the movie.

POE: Love Oscar Isaac, and think he did well with the time he had here. Honestly, he wasn’t in it that much so there’s not much else to say. I did like the humorous ‘who talks first’ exchange with Kylo, that was the perfect level of humor for a SW movie in my opinion.

PHASMA: Barely in it, her hype was built up too high for some reason. It definitely seems to be a Boba Fett scenario to me. Plotwise, I feel a Captain as important as her would die before taking down the shields, so that annoyed me somewhat, and if she turns out to be a thorn in the Resistance’s side in the future, I’m also going to be annoyed that they didn’t take the chance to kill her.

HAN SOLO: Harrison killed it, and as others have said, he was ‘Han Solo’ and not ‘Harrison Ford acting.’

PRINCESS LEIA: Not much to say here. I personally wish she had more to do and say, but if she wasn’t up to the acting task, so be it.

LUKE SKYWALKER: Definitely wish he was in the movie more. I still think that’s a mistake, but with that being said, I recognize this is a trilogy of movies to tell a story, so his role may simply be more geared towards the next couple of movies. In terms of him disappearing and hiding, I really don’t like that. I don’t think that is how Luke Skywalker would act. In terms of his physical appearance, I absolutely loved it. Just loved it. A great look for him.

THE MUSIC: I was really counting on Williams’ score to be a strength of the movie, and I was honestly let down. I think the lack of a ‘flagship’ song hurt (which was one thing I personally did like about the prequels). After my first viewing, I was definitely disappointed. However, after my multiple views and listening to the soundtrack on a nice sound system at home, I have softened my views. As someone else said somewhere here, it had more of a ‘serial adventure’ type of vibe, rather than an epic vibe. I like epic, so again, for me personally, I was a bit sad. I can acknowledge its effectiveness though. It did what it needed to do, but didn’t contribute much else above and beyond in my opinion. Rey’s theme was the definite strength in my eyes.

HAN SOLO’S DEATH: Sigh. There’s a lot to say here. Undeniable fact: Everyone in the movie theater knew it was coming during that scene. I feel like that is pretty objective. Now, whether that is a bad thing is up for debate (I’m torn). Now, into the subjective realm: there is a lot of talk that it was a disrespectful death or could have been handled better. I can definitely see this, but at the same time, I think my recent generation who has been exposed to Game of Thrones realizes that death in real-life isn’t glamorous. It’s sudden and brutal. So from that angle, I can understand the decision. However, Star Wars is not Game of Thrones, and it is not real life. So maybe the character did deserve better, like going out by sacrificing himself or via some other heroic, noble deed. I think my final conclusion is that it could have been done better, but I’m hard-pressed to say what exactly I wish happened.

SNOKE: A huge weakness. I’m not happy about him and honestly his existence. The look was done poorly, the CGI was unnecessary, and the fact that he was just a clone of Emperor Palpatine was blah. This is a feeling that actually got stronger on my re-watches. A large weakness in the movie.

MAZ: On my re-watches, I also realized she was a weakness. I’m actually struggling to figure it out exactly, but she was just a generally boring character. She just kind of… existed, again if that makes sense. It seemed like she was only there to usher the plot along. And her castle being a ripoff of the cantina was also blah.

PLOT: Speaking of ripoffs and the plot, I think we arrive to the main weakness: the plot. As has been well-documented, it was a straight rip-off/clone of A New Hope. I have seen people trying to argue against that, and honestly, don’t listen to them. It was. That’s all there is to it. I’m honestly fine borrowing elements from the originals, but truthfully, I think it went a bit overboard. Abandoned child, desert planet, secret in a droid, big planet destroyer, LITERALLY A TRENCH leading to the final run to destroy the weapon, etc. This one makes me sad. I expected more from JJ here.

STARKILLER BASE: And how we get to a huge part of the plot weakness, the existence of the Starkiller Base. That was pretty poor. I really don’t know how to justify that. The closest I’ve seen here, and it’s a fair point, is thinking about nukes in our world, and how much they have dominated history since they’ve been developed. I can acknowledge that, but still think it was a poor decision in terms of movie-making to include it.

POLITICS: I think they went too far the opposite direction of the prequels, by not including enough political explanations. The whole Republic and Resistance and First Order thing needed to be explained more. The explanation floating around (from the Visual Dictionary I think) is perfectly fine; they should have included that somehow.

R2-D2 and C-3PO: R2 suddenly waking up at the end was iffy, but I suspect it’s because Rey was there (first time she was at that base). The whole map as a missing puzzle piece that apparently no one knew where it was from also was iffy to me. As I saw someone mentioning here, C-3PO’s color did seem off; he wasn’t as shiny. However, his purpose in life of cockblocking Han Solo was reaffirmed, and was excellently done.

THE LIGHTSABER FIGHT: I can’t understand the criticism of this scene. It was great, honestly the best of the movie. People saying that Kylo shouldn’t have been beaten is just silly to me. He took a shot from a Wookie bowcaster. Finn was a trained soldier who knew how to fight. Rey was shown as very competent with a staff on Jakku, and was starting to get her Force feet under her. The interaction with the environment was great, and just the raw, primal instincts were captured well. And when Rey caught the lightsaber… that legitimately gave me chills.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Wow, sorry I rambled on. That was a lot. Since I was pointing out specific nitpicks, I probably came across more negatively than I actually feel. It was a good movie, don’t let any Debbie Downers tell you it was bad. In fact, it was honestly quite enjoyable. With that all being said, I drank a bit too much of the Kool-Aid, and I was expecting at least a bit more from JJ. I think the most telling facet of all of this, though, is that I’m genuinely excited for Episode VIII. I really do want to see what happens, and I care about the characters.

Post
#889072
Topic
The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS **
Time

towne32 said:

hydrospanner said:

woofermazing said:

I think you guys are mistaken about Rey being hidden from Ren. I think it’s more likely that Ren is the one who dumped her on Jakku. Ren was Lukes star pupil and likely successor to lead the new Jedi order. Then baby Skywalker is born and is a force prodigy. Ren is pissy about being cast aside and hooks up with Snoke. He’s ordered to wipe out the Jedi order and bring the Skywalker child to Snoke. He decides to kill her instead because he doesn’t want to be second fiddle again but can’t follow through, so instead ditches her on a random planet. She doesn’t remember any of this yet.

Kylo Rens reaction to hearing about the Jakku escape and fear when she starts to realize her force powers make no sense unless they have history, and his inferiority complex makes no sense unless he’s been cast aside before in favor of Rey. It also would completely ruin Luke’s character for me if he abandoned Rey to the same life he had been stuck in, and then gave up fighting for good.

I really like this as a possible explanation.

There’s also the novelization. When the lightsaber whizzes by Kylo and into Rey’s hand, he thinks “It is you”.

This… this is a really great idea. And wow, if the novelization says that, then that’s worth noting. Unfortunately, I only ordered the paper copy, not the eBook, so I won’t be getting it until January I think

Post
#882798
Topic
Where/How will you see TFA?
Time

Thursday Night Screening @ 10.15PM: This will be at the only ‘IMAX’ nearby, which is unfortunately one of the so-called LieMax theaters. With that being said, it’s still the biggest screen around, so it is what it is. It will be in 3-D, which… I have actually warmed up to recently. I’m at the point where I don’t mind having to see it in 3-D. With spoilers, the internet, etc., there was no way I wasn’t going on Thursday. Unfortunately, this theater doesn’t do reserved seating, so I’ll probably have to wait in line for a while.

Friday Night Screening: I’ll go to this one with a big group of friends. This theater has reserved seating, so I F5’d the page as soon as they went up for sale, and got us in the dead center of the theater behind an aisle, so no one will be directly in front of us to potentially block our view. This is in 2-D, and is the 2nd biggest screen around.

Tuesday Night Screening: With the family. It’s a cheap Tuesday night, so I bought us all tickets to go as long as we are all in town

Post
#881358
Topic
Episode VII: The Force Awakens - Discussion * <strong>SPOILER THREAD</strong> *
Time

Spoilerboard for 2.4 is up: http://spoilerboard.blogspot.com/2015/11/spoilerboard-update-v24-abc-tv-promo.html. With more and more out there, I am sticking to just looking over Act I stuff.

Regarding that trooper, I’d say we definitely have to wait to see it in context. Honestly, that’s what I’ve been saying since almost the start, and I’m still sticking too it. In different contexts, the same things could look great, or be absolutely awful.

To assess myself, I’d still say I’m quite on the hype-train. My big conern still remains Luke’s lightsaber that is supposedly driving the story. There had better be a good reason it is so important, or otherwise, I guess everything will feel hollow? Empty? Like I don’t think I could be completely satisfied if it’s something minor that doesn’t really make sense. It would almost feel like cheating to get a story out of it if it’s not worthy, if that makes sense.

I also have minor concerns about how much they seem to be mirroring A New Hope. Now, this can’t really be a terrible thing. If it is a very close imitation, yeah, I’d be a little disappointed, but at least it wouldn’t be bad or noticeably sub-par. Also, as someone pointed out, from what we’ve seen so far, we have a desert planet, a forest planet, and a snow planet… Basically the whole original trilogy rolled up into one, which I thought was interesting.

Post
#879745
Topic
Episode VII: The Force Awakens - Discussion * <strong>SPOILER THREAD</strong> *
Time

I went to Spectre last night in IMAX (one of the huge, ‘real’ IMAX theaters, not one of the Liemax ones), and wow, seeing the new trailer on a screen that big… That was just an experience. I never got to see the originals in theaters, and I was young-ish for the prequels, so just getting to experience the feeling of actually be immersed was pretty goose-bump inducing.

It does make me sad though, because I will be back home for the holidays when I see TFA, and the ‘IMAX’ theater near my hometown is just one of the fake ones that was retrofitted. Man, I would give almost anything to be able to see it on a real IMAX.

Other thoughts: I liked the new Japanese trailer a lot, better than the third US one in fact. Interesting note, I downloaded it from Youtube, and when I clicked the mp4 file to open it, I must have double clicked it, because it opened two copies about a second off from each other. Thus, the first time I watched it, it had this epic dialogue echo going on, which to be honest, was pretty awesome. Now that I watch it with the ‘normal’ audio, I can’t un-think about my accidentally brewed version.

Other than that, I’m still pretty disappointed in the posters. For all of the talk/work JJ has done in regards to going back to Star Wars’ roots, all of the posters are just… not that good (although I don’t know if that’s his call). Even that IMAX one, while definitely better, doesn’t quite do it for me. The faces posters are also just meh.

Regarding the plot: I’ve said it before, but more than anything I want to wait and see before judging. With that being said, more quick hits: I’m still iffy about Kylo Ren’s voice, the Starkiller concept could go poorly, and we better get a very good reason as to why Luke’s lightsaber is the thing propelling everything forward. I’m very concerned about that last one… On the good side, I am growing very confident in the acting. I think the new actors are going to crush it, and I can’t wait to see how they do.

So in conclusion, I’m still on the hype train, and getting more and more excited by the day.

Post
#794416
Topic
Episode VII: The Force Awakens - Discussion * <strong>SPOILER THREAD</strong> *
Time

Quick hits:

-I enjoyed the trailer quite a bit. I'm liking it more and more on my subsequent re-watches.

-I don't think the poster (the main one) is that horrible, but I definitely think it could have been better.

-I'm still on board the hype train, I got tickets for Thursday night at IMAX, and more tickets for Friday with a group of friends. I'm curious as to what the insanity levels will be (my IMAX theater doesn't do assigned seating)

-If, if, the Starkiller turns out to be a Death Star knockoff, that would be disappointing. But, before assuming it is, I think we need to actually see the movie before judging it

-I think that's my biggest takeaway: I'm going to suspend judgment either way until I actually see it. With that being said, I'm still super excited

-I'm not quite on board with Kyle Ren's voice in the trailer. It just wasn't quite right for me

-I also think people need to remember what constitutes Star Wars is different to different people. I think people here on this board generally have a narrow definition of what Star Wars is, which is fine, but also remember that that's not the case for a lot of people

-I'm pretty sure the body that Rey is crying over is Finn, not Han or Chewie