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Scruffy

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Members
Join date
29-Nov-2005
Last activity
31-May-2016
Posts
625

Post History

Post
#238168
Topic
What did the Prequel Trilogy need?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/238168/action/topic#238168
Time
I had to look it up to double-check ... but it looks like his parents were essentially gas station owners from Corellia. Much better IMHO than trying to retcon another connection between characters who never met, ("Miss you, I will, Chewbacca."), or continuing Lucas's girlish fantasy of characters secretly being raised apart from their puissant family.

Anyhow ... yeah, Wikipedia's good for real-world stuff, but for in-world Star Wars references, Wookieepedia, Domus Publica, and the Technical Commentaries are better.
Post
#237394
Topic
How George Lucas created the O-OT fanbase...
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/237394/action/topic#237394
Time
SACD/DVD-A is transparent to CD audio for most people in most situations. (Apply the Nyquist theorem to the CD spec and see what happens.) The only real advantages to SACD/DVD-A are longer programs, more channels, and (usually) an effort by the producers to put together a better mix than appears on the CD version. But they have the disadvantage of being expensive and difficult rip -- if not outright impossible at this time.

EDIT: But HDTV is awesome, and clearly superior to NTSC DVD. The sooner we get lots of optical media for it, the better.
Post
#237270
Topic
The music in the prequels.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/237270/action/topic#237270
Time
Oh, no ... BAK and JR have discovered each other. We may never get this thread back on track.

Weezer, what do you think about the Superman March (sans Prelude)? It's contemporary with the real SW Main Title, so it's got fairly similar orchestration. It's full of pomp and bombast. I think it "parallels" the real MT, while being significantly different.
Post
#237131
Topic
The music in the prequels.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/237131/action/topic#237131
Time
To be perfectly honest, I'd want to audition some of the "golden age" scores that influenced Williams's work on ANH. It seems kind of fitting that the prequels -- described by Lucas as "serials" and chronologically before the originals -- should have a more dated sound.

Unfortunately, I was being quite sincere when I called my collection "humble." But I'll see what I can find.
Post
#237061
Topic
I found a book called "Star Wars on Trial" in a Barnes and Noble bookstore.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/237061/action/topic#237061
Time
I haven't read Brin's Salon article in years. I agree with a lot of it, but he

a) unfairly implies that Superman would not submit to scientific scrutiny (see page 1 of Action Comics #1, inter alia),

b) unfairly implies that Darth Vader murdered billions "with the push of a button". The only time we saw billions murdered was when Tarkin destroyed Alderaan.
Post
#237056
Topic
The music in the prequels.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/237056/action/topic#237056
Time
^^^^

Not really. Leitmotif would suggest that it be an arrangement of Anakin's theme or the Force theme, since both Anakin and the Jedi Knights were the stars of the PT. Of the two, I favor the Force theme: Its use in the OT is almost always retrospective or sad, recalling the doomed heroism of the Jedi. An upbeat, brassy version of it in the PT would be set up a nice emotional counterpoint with the more restrained version we hear in, e.g., "Tales of a Jedi Knight." If you want some completely different ideas, I can check out my humble film score collection for a temp track -- but it's really hard to second-guess John Williams.
Post
#236943
Topic
The music in the prequels.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/236943/action/topic#236943
Time
C'mon now, this is the first thread in which he hasn't threatened to s** Mr. L****, isn't it? Let's encourage more of that!

I thought TPM had several memorable themes and underscoring; if I could listen to it without associating it with the movie, I might like it more. AotC had a decent love theme, but I don't own the album. There's a good-enough statement of that theme in the next movie. RotS had lots of good action music and some genuinely creepy stuff -- I'm thinking about the opera, the Night Skies-like scene, and the dirge segueing into the Imperial March (shamefully absent from the CD!).

This is going to sound kind of contradictory, but here's some of the things I didn't really like about the prequel scores:

1. Reuse of themes. I wanted to hear a new main title theme, to differentiate the PT from the OT and to maintain the integrity of the Main Titles as Luke's Theme. Imagine, ten years from now, some kid watches the PT and kind of likes it. Then he puts in Episode IV, hears a completely new, bombastic, exciting score and reads the words, "A New Hope." That could've been awesome.

Some of the music reuse seemed inappropriate. Duel of the Fates playing during Anakin's swoop ride, or the ESB stuff tracked into the Yoda/Palpatine fight.

2. No reuse of themes. Where was the Boba Fett motif? The droid motif? The original Imperial Theme? This was the perfect opportunity to develop those. At least we got to hear neat things happen to Jabba's and Palpatine's themes. How odd that the most stirring march we got out of the whole thing was the Flag Parade!
Post
#236916
Topic
aspect ratio
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/236916/action/topic#236916
Time
DVDs are either 4:3 or 16:9*. The films encoded thereon can be any aspect ratio, depending on the size of the letterbox or column bars. The fan edit forums could probably tell you more.

* Technically, I think they are 1.5:1, i.e. 720 pixels wide and 480 pixels tall. But the only valid display aspect ratios are 4:3 and 16:9.
Post
#236714
Topic
Remember the mass advertising of TPM?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/236714/action/topic#236714
Time
Originally posted by: Force Balancing Act
With TPM and Halo 2, everyone knew about them like it was second coming of Chirst.

I disagree.

Originally posted by: John

Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.


In marketing terms, Christ is relying on grass roots. It is up to the Church to watch for him, and if they let down their vigilance, he will come upon them unexpectedly. Lucas, an anti-Christ in this sense, performed a great deal of top-down marketing -- the theological equivalent of Christ getting a Superbowl commercial announcing the exact time and place of his return. And the really ironic thing is, Lucas had a vigilant Church, but proceeded to do the top-down thing anyway, then his innovations made apostates of us all.

I don't know about Halo 2, because I never saw any advertising for it outside of the usual big box circulars. It was an entire order of magnitude behind what TPM got.
Post
#236632
Topic
What did the Prequel Trilogy need?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/236632/action/topic#236632
Time
As fans, the tip-off than Anakin gets "angry" should be in the first three movies when his hobby is using force choke on high ranking members of the imperial army.


I'd just like to point out that Vader never used his Force choke on any member of the Imperial Army. He seemed generally pleased by the performance of the Army. It was the Navy he hated. And the Imperial officer corps seemed to know this. Other than Ozzel, the wardroom officers of the Executor are seen to cringe and stare at Vader -- even the more junior officers eyeball him behind his back. The Army officers treat him with respect and professionalism; look at how confidently the junior officer briefs Lord Vader on the circumstances of Skywalker's capture in RotJ, the ease with which Veers reports to Vader in ESB. Similarly, the pilot officers in ANH interact with Vader like real professionals. Only the Naval officers act like beaten dogs around Lord Vader.

I'm not sure why Vader had such a distaste for the Naval service. There may have been some residual "brown-shoe" antipathy for the boat-drivers. Or he may have spent the RotS-ANH years primarily among the Army, putting down Jedi cultists and insurgents; or among the starfighter forces, providing precision strikes and close-in protection for Imperial dignitaries -- only dealing with the Navy after he had proved himself worthy of the joint command he seems to exercise. Perhaps Naval officers in the Empire were simply ruder and less competent than their Army counterparts. It certainly seems possible that, in the early Imperial military build-up, one could "purchase" a Naval commission easier than an Army commission -- you just have to bring your own ship!