SpilkaBilka

doubleofive said:

SilverWook said:
The impression I got is the Resistance is a covert army fighting the New Order on behalf of the Republic, they don’t publicly sanction the Resistance, but are probably funding them secretly. It’s the worst kept secret of the Cold War era the galaxy is in a the beginning of the film. The New Order is the splintered remains of the old Empire regrouped and reformed under the leadership of this Snoke guy.

Some quotes from “Before The Awakening”:

“Have you heard of the Resistance, Poe?” “Rumors, mostly.” “Such as?” “Such as there’s a splinter of the Republic military that…that feels the Republic isn’t taking certain threats as seriously as they maybe ought to be taking them. Specifically the threat posed by the First Order.” “That’s a very diplomatic way to put it, but not an entirely inaccurate one.”

Republic space and First Order space were separated by a buffer zone of neutral systems, and the peace that had been negotiated—a peace that many, including Poe, believed existed in name only—meant that military action taken by one side upon the other was considered an overt act of war.

This explanation is completely satisfactory for me. Why wasn’t it included in the movie?

Harmy said:

OK, here it is:
https://youtu.be/Oiqlkz81744

Great little review, Harmy. I felt pretty much the same way about everything you mentioned.

hairy_hen said:

The visual effects looked kind of stupid. This isn’t just a matter of their being models or CGI, since apparently both were used, but more to do with the way they moved and how they related to the camera. If you’ve ever watched Mike Verta’s video on the motion of the spaceships and the starfield backgrounds in the original film, you’ll know what I’m talking about. This just felt wrong, because I could never suspend my disbelief and feel like I was looking at anything that could have been really happening.

I agree with you on a lot of this, for at least SOME of the movie.

I felt like the spaceship movement was decent (though kind of over the top, but what do you expect in a modern movie) in the beginning (Finn/Po, Rey/Finn, Resistance attacking First Order on Maz’s planet). They kept it at least somewhat restrained.

HOWEVER, I think the dogfighting and everything at the Death Star battle (I refuse to dignify it by calling it “Starkiller”), is complete shit and I pretty much hated it. Really terrible use of effects.

Haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere, but did anyone notice in Rey’s vision, at one point you can hear Luke screaming- I think it’s either him screaming “Noooo!” after Vader says “search your feelings, you know it to be true” in ESB, or it was him screaming in pain as the Emperor electrocutes him in ROTJ.

Anyway, pretty sure they used a Luke scream from the OT in that scene.

My thoughts:

Saw it Friday night. I left the theater LOVING it (though it does have MANY faults). For me, there are two telling things about how much I liked this movie:

1. As soon as it ended, I wanted to see it again.
2. I CANNOT WAIT for the next episode.

Sure as hell wasn’t thinking those things after seeing Phantom Menace for the first time!

There is A LOT to process, and it will take several viewings, and the passage of time to fully process how good the movie is and where it falls in the SW lore. The fact that I’m even thinking to myself, “hmm, this might be my 3rd favorite SW movie” is saying a lot.

However, this is just my initial impression after 1 viewing… I’m sure my thoughts on many things will change on many of these things!

From the opening scene, up to the scene where the rathtars get released… could not have been more perfect. Absolutely loved just about everything about it. Energy. Emotion. Excitement. THIS IS STAR WARS.

I could watch an entire movie about BB-8.

There’s actually TOO MUCH GOOD STUFF for me to write about, so I will actually skip to the stuff I didn’t really care for, because I need to get it off my chest:

• I did not understand the politics of the galaxy at all, or understand the scale of the conflict. Republic, Resistance, First Order? I know we don’t want the boring political dialog from the prequels, but I feel like a basic understanding of the conflict could’ve easily been accomplished. Not sure what JJ was thinking here. Not a huge deal though, but when you’re thinking to yourself “what the hell is this conflict about?”, it’s not a good thing.

• Another Death Star, seriously? I know, relatively speaking, it wasn’t that important to the plot. But I absolutely detest this and cannot believe they included it. Also hated the weapon itself. Seeing it suck away a sun is just terrible, embarrassingly stupid scifi to me. It was like the complete opposite of Star Wars. Hated everything about it.

• The rathtars scene should’ve been cut from the movie.

• Didn’t really care for Maz and her outpost at all- except for the lightsaber/Rey vision stuff. Maz was kind of a pointless character and her CGI took me out of the movie completely- not that her CGI was bad, or anything, just that my mind kept telling me “YOU ARE LOOKING AT A COMPUTER-GENERATED ALIEN.” Maybe I’ll get used to it.

• A lot of people seem to love it, but I thought the stormtrooper yelling “TRAITOR!” and challenging Finn to a duel was stupid and pointless, and IMO, was just an excuse to have a lightsaber fight. Why didn’t he just shoot Finn?

• There wasn’t much time to BREATHE in this movie. I was really hoping for more of the pacing of ANH. There wasn’t much time to reflect on things. Again, lots to process. Perhaps the movie will “slow down” after multiple viewings.

Again, the good outweighed the bad considerably. Just needed to get some complaints off my chest.

Agreed, 100%.

Has anyone ever tried this?

I’m thinking like 10 to 20 minutes each. It would be a totally different approach. In my mind they would almost be kind of artsy. I wonder if this is possible, or if they would just look like long trailers.

EDIT: Or hell, even edit all 3 into one 10-20 min movie.

What’s the Wizard of Oz joke in Jedi?

What’s the source of the 5.1 audio for ESB? Is this a reconstruction like HairyHen did for SW or something else?

You’re the man! Thanks so much for doing this. Just a week ago I was looking for the article on audio differences (http://www.savestarwars.info/theatricalaudioresources.html). I thought it was lost forever.

Hi Harmy,

Haven't been following the thread much.  Any updates on when the blu ray version of your preservation may appear?  Thanks, and keep up the great work!

DuracellEnergizer said:

Terminator 3 was lame, but not as lame as Terminator: Salvation. Instead of seing all those awesome glimpses of the War with the Machines from the first two films expanded to fill a feature length movie, we get watered-down tripe starring Christian Bale's ego.

As a Terminator movie, I think Salvation fails badly.  But, if you forget about the franchise, and think of it as just a big blockbuster action movie, it's actually pretty decent, and way above average (though that's not saying much when you look at the movies that you compare it to) IMO.

I thought Bale was ok in it, not good but not bad.  Though I never understood why they cast such a big name for his role, since his part was actually pretty generic and unimportant.

I hated T3 at first, but after a few viewings it's gotten a little better.  There are a couple good parts mixed in with the bad (great ending), so I agree with the overall "meh."  T2 is my favorite.

I only bring up T3, because to me, it's basically a spoof of T2.  And to a much lesser degree, that's how I view Last Crusade: as practically a spoof of Raiders.  Sure, Raiders had humor, but Crusade just had WAY too much.  The tone was off- it just doesn't appeal to me because it isn't as gritty.

It is a good movie in its own right, but IMO it doesn't even come close to Raiders.

Raiders - 10 (yep, a perfect movie IMO)

Doom - 4.5? (though I must say it is the greatest horror movie for 12 year olds ever made)

Crusade - 6.5

What are your thoughts on Terminator 3?

I think the cartoon is genuinely very good, and I enjoy watching it every now and then.

The special itself though, is so bad it's... bad.  It's TOO bad to be "so bad it's good."  I sat down to watch the whole thing a few years ago, and actually had to quit with about 15 minutes left, I just couldn't take it. I can't enjoy it ironically, or on any level (except the cartoon).

A few months ago I sat down to watch it with Rifftrax, but could only stomach the first 10 min or so.

SW - 10

ESB - 9

ROTJ - 5 (maybe a 4.5...)

TPM - 3

AOTC - 2

ROTS - 2

Ok, so this is very strange, and very random, but I just had to post it...

I was watching the 1995 Faces VHS of ESB last night (I have an old TV/VCR I'm getting rid of- wanted to give it one last hurrah).  I noticed something really strange when Luke falls onto the antenna thingy at the bottom of Cloud City.

Right after he lands, there's a weird sound, and honestly, it kinda sounds like a robotic voice (Vader?) saying "THE HAND."  Then, you see the shot of Luke's hand (or is it just debris?) falling.

I know, it sounds crazy, but I absolutely can't un-hear it now.  I know it's supposed to be the sound of the metal antenna bending or whatever, and not Vader saying "the hand," but man, it sounds weird, doesn't it?

I double-checked on Harmy's v1.0 with VLC.  It happens around 1:51:40 to 1:51:41.  On my laptop speakers, I can hear it best with tracks 2 and 3.

ps. No mind altering substances were consumed at the time of viewing!

There's a lookalike of an ROTJ crony in TPM.

Harmy isn't nerd royalty... he's a nerd deity.

I'm sure this has been mentioned already, but I've always found Wedge's "they're heading for the medical frigate!" line to be slightly comical.

You could insert this line in an absurd way in a number of inappropriate scenes.  First one I thought of was changing the line when they're inside the Death Star- "copy gold leader, I'm already on my way out" to "copy gold leader, I'm heading for the medical frigate" (or, "I'm already heading for the medical frigate").

ben_danger said:

Do the ewoks have to defeat the stormtroopers? or could they just momentarily distract them for the rebels to break free and fight their way to the bunker?

Haven't read the whole thread, so maybe this has been mentioned, but I saw this comment and I just had an idea, though I don't know how this could ever be pulled off in an edit...

ben_danger is right- the Ewoks DON'T have to defeat the stormtroopers or "win" in any way whatsoever.  All they have to do is briefly distract the stormtroopers until the rebels can get to the bunker.

The Ewoks are completely outclassed by the Empire- they're small animals with primitive weaponry.  Essentially, they launch a SUICIDE attack against the Imperials.  They KNOW they will suffer massive casualties, but it's necessary in order to achieve that initial distraction so that the rebels can win the day.

If the movie could somehow convey to the audience that the Ewoks know they are going to make this hopeless suicide attack... I think that would make them much more interesting characters, and add more tension.  Like, there could be a solemn scene the night before the battle where the Ewok leaders have a discussion, and 3P0 translates and explains how the Ewoks are willing to sacrifice most of their tribe to defeat the Empire.  I'm also picturing a scene where after the Ewoks have done their job (the distraction), they basically get surrounded by stormtroopers and are utterly annihilated.  You'd feel sympathy for them, and understand that they made a selfless sacrifice against hopeless odds.

Or who knows, maybe this is even more melodramatic and too serious and worse than what's in the film...

NeverarGreat has had some success removing music in this thread:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Isolating-Music-and-Voices-in-Star-Wars/topic/16032/

Here's a sample of music removal he did:

http://vimeo.com/78306721

password: leia

Not sure if you've seen this thread, but there might be some helpful information here:  http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-Prequel-Edit-Problem/topic/15331/

Check out the video from this post: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-Prequel-Edit-Problem/post/637425/#TopicPost637425

http://vimeo.com/65440004

Obviously it does sound weird in places, but it's something.

TServo2049 said:

livserge said:

Anyone here notice any strange audio glitches with the 1985 Laserdisc track on the 2.5?  Like very faint repetitions of sound in some scenes?  Like the scene with Luke & Ben on the Falcon.  When Ben replies "That's good, you've taken your first step into a larger world."  After he says world, you then hear the word again very faintly.  Like world--orld.  There's other examples too but that one really sticks out for me.  Just wonder if anyone else noticed.

If I had to guess, this is probably an artifact called "print-through" that occurs on magnetic tape.

I have heard print-through in many older movies/TV shows/records/etc. - it's most prominent in quiet parts, and especially noticeable through headphones. And once you hear it, you can never un-hear it...:)

I definitely hear something going on with the "first step into a larger world."  Like the very end of the "d" in "world" is repeated- or, it's at least some kind of "click" in the sound that's being repeated.

This reminds me of something I heard back in the 90s, but wasn't sure if it was my imagination or not.  Pretty sure it was on the 1995 THX widescreen VHS (therefore, the 1993 mix), though it could've been from the 1990 VHS (the 1985 mix).  When R2-D2 is opening the escape pod, 3PO says, "you're not permitted in there, it's restricted," I could've sworn I could hear the "it's restricted" line repeat very faintly in the background, so it was like "You're not permitted in there, it's restricted it's restricted."  Though I just checked the 1985 and 1993 mixes in Harmy's 2.5, and I don't hear it.

The only thing unique to the mono mix that made it into the 1985 mix was the tractor beam line though, right?