SilverWook

Easterhay said:

Well...I could argue it! Midichlorians sets up nicely for the reveal in ROTS and that famously "Faustian" scene at the opera. Poo and farting either make you laugh or they don't. Lucas didn't invent them; people have been laughing at scatalogical humour since time immemoriam. What's so pathetic is that there was such a backlash from certain people (I won't even grace their number by calling them a demographic) about such things. I mean, really, how much time can one person have on their hands?

I do laugh at such things in certain contexts. Problem is, there wasn't any poop or farts in the OT, (at least not yet!) so it feels really out of place in the prequels.

Lucas even unwittingly undermined the ending of Episode III by having Obi Wan deliver baby Luke riding on the back of the same kind of creature that farted on Jar Jar in TPM. Not what you want the viewer flashing back to at such a emotional moment.

Tyrphanax said:

Tobar was telling me earlier that Rick was an advocate for the OOT and would bug Lucas about it, which I did not know and can't really substantiate, but if it's true, I take back all the bad things I've said about him.

I would suspect there are many OOT advocates within Lucasfilm, but who would want to risk getting fired over it?

Easterhay said:

And yet didn't McCallum try to discourage Lucas from a totally CGI Jar Jar in TPM purely for monetary reasons?

IIRC, in the behind the scenes footage on the DVD, they mentioned having spent a huge amount trying to make a Jar Jar suit work, before ILM said they could pull it off digitally.

Ahmed Best still wore most of the suit to interact with the cast, and for benefit of the FX crew to blend the CGI elements in later.

Davnes007 said:

How come nobody in the Star Wars universe uses cell phones?

Someone once asked me why Leia didn't just send the DS plans via email. >_<

The original vintage docs are required viewing. The best of them, "From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga" sadly was not included on the Blu Ray.

The other three were included, but really old video masters were used, and they don't look their best.

Did Carrie Fisher drop some hints at Celebration VI last August?

http://blogs.evtrib.com/nerdvana/events/star-wars-celebration-vi-day-3-the-maker/79186/

(Bottom of page)

Rick apparently was exactly what George wanted in a producer, so you can't fault him for doing his job.

Since Dr. No was remixed for 5.1 on the UE DVD and Blu Ray, wouldn't they need to have all the original music tracks to do that?

Whoa! That's a mental image of George I didn't need! ;)

I am thankful that there will be more Star Wars to look forward to.

thecolorsblend said:

Baronlando said:

From what I've heard, sales of any blu ray that isn't a new release have been shockingly low, and not getting significantly better. I don't see how  that can continue for too long but I'd like to be wrong. Supposedly even always-reliable titles like Wizard of Oz and Godfather fell way, way below projections. 

Good! It's way too late in the game for BluRay to wither on the vine but I don't think most people were ready for an upgrade. A lot of them were probably perfectly content with DVD. I sure was.

There is also the erroneous belief in some corners, that any film not made in this century can ever possibly look good or benefit from HD.

Baronlando said:

From what I've heard, sales of any blu ray that isn't a new release have been shockingly low, and not getting significantly better. I don't see how  that can continue for too long but I'd like to be wrong. Supposedly even always-reliable titles like Wizard of Oz and Godfather fell way, way below projections. 

Oz is out of print right now, and Warners is going to milk it for the 75th anniversary next year. Maybe somebody will find some lost footage by then.

Brooks said:

Bluray will gradually become more common.  I think the biggest threat to its success now isn't dvd but streaming video.  Having access to a movie whenever you want it (like on netflix for example, as annoying as netflix has become) makes owning the movie seem unnecessary for a lot of people.  Something hollywood should think about when pricing blurays.

I still believe its unlikely we'll see the fox fanfare unless it's part of a deal to get the rights to the original trilogies earlier than 2020.

Not everybody has access to a super fast connection, and some providers are setting bandwith caps on their customers.

Those automated DVD rental machines seem pretty popular in my area. Even though South Park proclaimed Blockbuster "dead", there are still two stores holding on in my town, and a Mom & Pop video store is still around after 20 years.

People will probably still want to buy their all time favorite film to watch over and over.

Non CX encoded analog audio at that. Would they have had to get Criterion's permission to do this?

Although a certain infamous magazine article in the 90's is often cited as the beginnings of ROTJ bashing, there were negative reviews back in 1983.

SF author Norman Spinrad wrote a piece for Starlog that caused a lot of angry letters to be written. It might have even caused more of a fuss than than David Gerrold's review of ESB three years prior.

And I never could find Laserdiscs at Kmart. ;)

Lucasfilm didn't even bother quadruple dipping the OT on DVD last year.

Blu Ray has taken up about half the racks at the places I shop at. Players hit the $99 mark last holiday season which puts them in impulse buy territory. Even my local supermarket sells Blu Rays now.

Easterhay said:

They might not have released a 3D TPM on Blu-ray because 3D has turned out to be such a dead duck.  Even Blu-ray hasn't been as much of a hit with the masses as DVD was. 

Then why are the studios finally releasing 1950's classics like Dial "M" for Murder and Creature From the Black Lagoon in their original stereoscopic glory? It costs money to restore these things.

I would think they would hold off on TPM until the rest of the prequels have had their theatrical 3D runs.

Belated Happy Life Day! Even if you're not a Wookiee. ;)

That maternity robot almost seems inspired by the creepy artificial "mothers" used in Rhesus monkey torture experiments in the 1950's.

Frink redeemed the Pod Race announcers a tad. But there's just no saving Mr. Potatohead pod racer guy. ;)

I believe Warner's just dumped Twice Upon a Time and didn't give it a proper theatrical release. (A fate that befell a couple other non Disney animated films that decade.) Aside from a Los Angeles screening for which I got a mailed invitation from the original SW/LFL fan club, I don't think it ever played anywhere else.

IIRC, none of the other Ladd Company produced films Warner's distributed at the time were big hits, save for the first Police Academy. :/

Dark Side Rising...

Not everybody "gets" or likes Star Wars either, and that's okay...

...except when it's someone in your family of course. ;)

What do you guys make of this?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/James-Bond-007-Casino-Royale-Blu-ray-1954-COMPLETE-YOUR-BOX-SET-COLLECTION-Rare-/181030227890?pt=US_DVD_HD_DVD_Blu_ray&hash=item2a263e0fb2

Provided it's not an upscaled VHS rip, if someone had access to a kinescope copy, how good could it possibly look?

Disney's POTC films and Tron Legacy are good examples of all credits at the end.

The opening title and crawl are too iconic for Disney to mess with. I'm keeping my fingers crossed some sort of distribution deal is cut to allow the Fox fanfare and logo to remain. A silent Disney logo like the first POTC film had might precede it though.

zombie84 said:

I never really got the Bond series. They are okay movies, I like some of them and have seen almost all of them, but I would put them in the same category as Michael Bay films, some of which I also enjoy in the same sort of dumb, comic-book sort of way. I just never got why people go ga-ga over Bond while condemning similarly stupid films to hell. Half the Bond films aren't worth watching, and of the other half that are, only half of that are really good, so that's like.....6 out of 22? Casino Royale looked like a really good film but when I finally saw it I found it to be only better-than-average. I dunno, Bond has just never excited me. Decent films, worth watching, just nothing special. I look forward to seeing Skyfall since it's supposed to be great, but I'm really only expecting something above-average, and I will definitely be waiting for home video. I only see one or two films a month, including repertoire cinemas, and my money has better places to go.

End unpopular Bond rant.

I think as with Star Wars in 1977, you simply had to be there. Bond was daring and new in the 60's. It pushed boundaries for sex and violence in an era when movie censors still often ruled with an iron fist.

Decades of imitators and spoofs have eroded the cultural impact of the early films a little. Lots of people would laugh at a sinister villain like Blofeld because of Austin Powers today.

I first saw Dr. No on tv circa 1976, and as a little kid it was really exciting. It was all shiny new stuff to me. I fear seeing Ursula Andress coming out of the water triggered early puberty though. ;)