SilverWook

I hope someone here gets it.

Pleasant dreams. :P

Anchorhead said:

ImperialFighter said:

It seems that George put a year or so into planning what comes next...

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/29034/lucas-put-a-year-into-the-next-star-wars

 

From the article:

Lucas ...having set out 'guidelines' for the new film.

When Disney gives someone $4 billion for their product, they take over deciding how that product is handled.  All this blather about Lucas being very involved, consulting, talking to the director and writer, etc, etc is just damage control for the TFNers, who have already decided their world has come to an end. 

But does anyone at Disney care what what the TFN crowd really thinks? The fanbase is much bigger than them or even us. And Disney has to court the rest of the movie going public to get a massive hit, if they ever want to recoup that four billion investment. Having the creator involved to some degree is simply a good business idea, not to merely placate the fanboys.

Not the exact same item, but you can see how it was used...

bluefrog said:

I am very curious as to if anyone would know what these are and if there is any value to them. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

This is the back^

The back again.

As others have said, it was part of a toy aisle display. I can't recall which stores had them at this point. I do know they were attached at the very top of the shelves to create a long billboard effect.

Shouldn't this be in the memorabilia section? Whoosh!

vacuum said:

tomorrowland was supposed to be a look into the future, not space fantasy garbage.

Yeah, but even Walt stuck things in there that might have been better suited to other areas of the park.

http://www.20kride.com/photos_other_dl.html

And Star Tours has been in there since 1987.

Are you implying SW is garbage?

ATMachine said:

SilverWook said:

And it's too bad nobody thought of this before they cut up the real MF prop and left to rot outside at Elstree, but the blueprints are probably still around.

The Making of ROTJ actually says that the crew burned the pieces of the full-size MF in a celebration at some point during filming.

I'd like to see photos of that, sad as it may make me to see them. Maybe it's the true origin of the old Lando dies blowing up the DS rumor? ;)

The old SW fan club gave away pieces of the full size Falcon in the 80's, so clearly a few easy to handle pieces were saved.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SONG-OF-THE-SOUTH-1946-IB-TECH-35MM-PRINT-STUNNING-COLOR-VG-TO-EXC-COND-/190924961774?pt=US_Film&hash=item2c7403b7ee

The packaging I saw said Blu Ray/DVD combo. What's on the DVD is the mystery here.

Can't wait to see what you do with this guy...

As it's Australian actor Bruce Spence under that makeup, (best known as the gyrocopter pilot in the Mad Max movies) maybe all those guys on Utapau are Aussies?

Funny, I was watching Young Frankenstein the other night, and in the extras Mel Brooks mentions they never would have made the film had they been forced to use color. It was a deal breaker. Seeing color stills of Peter Boyle in makeup is very strange. It was designed to photograph best in black and white.

I have no issue with colorization today so long as the original is included in equal quality. (This wasn't always the case.) The colorized versions of the early Harryhausen films, (with creative input from the master himself) were watchable, but it doesn't look like any of the color processes used in the 50's either. Other old movies do not have the benefit of a living artist to supervise the process of course.

Black and white cinematography had it's own separate Academy Award category until the mid 1960's, IIRC.

In any case, feel free to start a thread on BW vs. color elsewhere, as this is getting off track. :)

They came out today, saw them at Barnes and Noble, for the same price as the non combo sets.

Is someone going to take one for the team, and find out if they just recycled the older DVD versions? ;)

ImperialFighter said:

Given the amount of 'repeats' the BBC has been so fond of giving us over the years (some welcome, some not), I still find it incredible that there was a time where they routinely and short-sightedly erased some of their output in the past.

And it's especially a tragedy that a lot of the earliest classic 'Doctor Who' episodes were lost due to this mis-management.

So while I'm keeping my expectations in check, I'm extremely pleased that *some* of these lost episodes seem to have been finally located somehow.  What a great boost for the upcoming 50th Anniversary hoopla.  Looks like it's now going to be another couple of days or so for the full reveal of exactly what...but fingers crossed for some complete story arcs, whatever the number found -

Latest BBC confirmation - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24448063

Press conference delayed a little - http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/doctor-who-lost-episodes-update-2347529

Sadly, nobody foresaw any value in old B&W tv shows when color came in. And even then, a popular "children's show" was probably thought of even less when it came to preserving the video master.

There was actually a bias towards syndication of B&W shows where later seasons went to color, in the U.S. anyway. I never saw a single black and white episode of Lost in Space until the late 80's. (And I had to stay up late on weekends when a local channel actually began showing them in order.) Never saw a single first season episode of I Dream of Jeannie or Bewitched until the 90's, when Nickelodeon started the all retro tv format in the evenings.

  I'm old enough to recall some black and white cartoons vanishing from the airwaves in the mid '70's. I only recently figured out what one of them was, as I had no memory of the show's title. Turned out to be a early 60's anime where very little of the English versions survive. Thank goodness Speed Racer was in color!

Studios and networks here have made similar short sighted blunders. A lot of early television history is gone. A good chunk of Johnny Carson's early years on The Tonight Show were erased to save a few bucks on videotape. Soap Operas and game shows haven't fared well, either.

Wasn't there some sort of issue with actor's compensation for repeats on the BBC back in the day? I remember one of the BBC compilation VHS tapes of orphaned episodes mentioning it...

Some of the more aggressive cynics I've seen weigh in on this elsewhere are dining on crow tonight. ;)

ww12345 said:

Spaced Ranger said:

ww12345 said:

... "old school" cinematographers shot like that. ... I always over-frame shots, knowing that I can crop it in the darkroom to the image that I really wanted. ... a lot of cinematographers who came over from still photography (a la Stanley Kubrick) knew and practiced these methods.

George Lucas never had that background -- he began on motion pictures. What he framed was what he wanted (or the best he could get). Interesting that you mentioned Kubrick. I read where he was on the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey with a square camera viewfinder composing the shots for his cinematographer! How's that technique for a Cinerama extravaganza.  :)

Yeah, I know George Lucas never had that background - I was referring to the various TV cinematographers (like that example from Star Trek TOS) who I would imagine would have some background in traditional photography... Personally, I think that Lucas just got lucky with his framing and various techniques, especially in American Graffiti and Star Wars.

I think the experienced veteran Cinematographers George worked with probably helped too. ;)

THX11384EB said:

 

I am curious if whoever(AntcuFaalb?) is doing the LD capping would need a copy of the Japanese LD? I have it, and would like to help out any way I can.

I captured my copy for msycamore when I did the others, and it's essentially the same master, warts and all.

I think some Disney park purists will be outraged at the transformation of Tomorrowland into SW land. There has been some gnashing of teeth in recent years with Pixar based attractions going in, even though it brought the much loved submarine voyage back from a slow rusty death. (The Disneyworld subs were not so lucky.) At least some of the ugly eyesores from the botched 90's makeover will finally get the boot.

And it's too bad nobody thought of this before they cut up the real MF prop and left to rot outside at Elstree, but the blueprints are probably still around.

We have to have some sort of OT.com meetup when this is all up and running. :)

I found the relevant segment of the doc, and it does make sense now. George already had the sister angle, but hadn't thought of Vader using it to tempt Luke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjGe-xNhv4A

Does the book say if the duel was shot before the scene with Luke and Leia in the Ewok village, or the big revelation with Ben? I'd guess those last two were shot with as little crew as possible. Less potential loose lips.

IIRC, all the Endor locations in Northern California were the last scenes shot, so obviously they had it figured out by then.

Lucas said on camera in the doc he had written something really vague in the script, essentially "Vader says something that provokes Luke", because he hadn't figured it out yet. Is it any wonder the details get muddled over time?

I recall the Daniels story from an old Starlog interview. ;)

Does the book shed light on when the sister angle was actually decided upon? From Star Wars to Jedi:The Making of a Saga suggests they made it up on the set as they were shooting the duel, to give Luke the needed motivation to go nuts on Vader.

Of course, this is the one vintage documentary that gets left off the Blu Ray to make room for all those parodies. ;)

darth_ender said:

That's true, I hadn't considered the sanitizing edits for TV.  These should certainly be preserved as well.  Captain Khajiit at FE.org says that he has the skills to preserve it, but like most of us, he lacks the time.  He would prefer to use better source material than the LD for most parts, and I can see why.  It'd be like a Despecialized-style preservation.  I myself would probably prefer to use the lower quality of the LD.  I feel fades, trims, and even the "Edited for Television" should all be preserved.  I don't know about the network announcer.  Perhaps he should but I don't know that it's necessary.  Probably if it included commercials, I'd say yes, but since we don't have the commercials, I don't think it's needed.  Just my two cents.

I can't see how using a better full frame source, (if one could even be found) is going to make cutting to the ABC footage less jarring.

The old LD is a good match, and the pan and scan is mostly the same, although a couple shots of tactical displays are different.

Heilemann said:

ATMachine said:

Never hurts to ram the idea into people's heads some more. ;)

I disagree. I'm not trying to poop on anyone's cereal, this is the internet, so believe me when I'm not trying to be all shouty and mean. But by this point, it's pretty obvious that every single detail wasn't laid out in The Journal of the Whills in 1975. If anything, Rinzler's work with The Making Of books has shined a great big light on the process of making the movies, including the creation of the stories themselves.

No, he didn't write all nine movies in 1975, but he *did* lay out a *lot* of details including an overarching story that he has remained true to. When you go back into the Making of books in particular, it's noteworthy just how many of the then abandoned concepts that Lucas went back to and put into the prequels.

So Lucas mythologized his creation of the Star Wars story, so what? For how long does he have to have his nose rubbed in that? After all, wasn't that part of the magic back in the day, dreaming of all twelve, nine or six movies? Of course it was. Half of the joy of Star Wars was Lucas and Lucasfilm and the mythology of those companies and Lucas as a person.

Remember that Lucas himself signed off on these books. They're not some kind of 'exposé'; they're the official story of the making of, approved by Lucas, published by LucasBooks.

This is the official story.

<3

What drove some of us old fans crazy, was Lucas claiming in recent years he was misquoted on the nine episode saga and other things, when the source of those quotes was an officially sanctioned paperback book.

Nobody would have thought less of him for admitting he changed his mind. It's part of the creative process. Even Kubrick made up some things as he went along. :)

To the best of my knowledge, most of the edits made for broadcast were to mute profanity.

Besides the Seti Eel scene, the shot of the eel falling out of Chekov's ear is slightly trimmed as well.

IIRC, there was one accidental pause early on, either from the random times the family VCR picked up a stray remote signal from the neighbors, or operator error. It doesn't affect any of the extended footage.

Should the network announcer over the end credits be preserved as well?

Dead Naked Stormtroopers would be an awesome name for a band!