SpilkaBilka

Re: music, there's a thread somewhere around here where people were trying to piece together the music Lucas used as temp tracks and music he gave to Williams for inspiration for many scenes.  Lots of interesting stuff.  I'll see if I can find it.

Here it is: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-The-Temp-Track/topic/12014/

Very cool!  What's the source of Red Leader's "I met your father..." lines?  Obviously that wasn't included in the SE.  Is it from Behind the Magic?

RRS-1980 said:

EU and prequels made me realize that STAR WARS sans the Empire loses its identity.

Absolutely.  I agree with this one billion percent.

Erikstormtrooper said:

Getting these games to run was also a great learning experience in building and upgrading a computer.

Oh yeah.  I became a master of editing autoexec.bat and config.sys to get them to run, and to extract every scrap of memory possible.  X-Wing had to run on EMS memory (unlike just about every other DOS game at the time which used XMS).  That was a pain to configure.  I had a bootdisk for every game.

X-Wing!

Being a teenage SW fan in the 90s was awesome.  Some decent EU stuff (Thrawn trilogy), the 1995 Faces/THX release, and some amazing video games.  Then of course there was the excitement of the SE theatrical releases (little did we know at the time...).  And the world wasn't as saturated with SW garbage like it is today.

I was constantly playing X-Wing, Rebel Assault, Dark Forces, Rebel Assault II, TIE Fighter.  X-Wing is actually what got me back into SW.  Ah, those were the days.

Am I the only one who thought Rogue Squadron was just an awful game?  Boring surface battles with mediocre controls, lame story.  Just not fun at all for me.

I thought the snowspeeder level in Shadows of the Empire was a million times better.  I played that over and over.  But I really hated Rogue Squadron.

I'll throw in my 2 cents re: ROTJ:

(So I don't have to type it every sentence, everything I write is of course my opinion.  Nothing is presented as fact).

It's not a good movie.  Not terrible, but certainly not good.  The only enjoyment I derive out of it is 1) from nostalgia- growing up in the 80s and 90s, SW was my favorite, ROTJ was second, and ESB was third.  2) It wraps up the story of the adventures of Luke Skywalker and his pals, characters I love.

There's a lot I could write, but I'm going to leave a lot of stuff out that has already been mentioned by other posters.

My main gripe is I generally don't like the tone of most of the movie (other than the Luke/Vader/Emperor scenes).  There's too much for me to write here, so I'll get back to this point in a later post.

In addition to problems with tone, the movie has 3 scenes that are simply bad.  While a bad scene doesn't make or break a movie, having 3 of them hurts the movie significantly.

1) The droid torture scene.

I think this is just awful.  Cringeworthy.  Boring, bad for pacing, bad dialogue, annoying robot with terrible voice.  Droids are getting tortured... and it's played for laughs?  I don't really get what the scene is trying to achieve.  Threepio and R2 are now owned by Jabba, got it.  Don't need an explanation that Threepio will be an interpreter and Artoo will work on the sail barge.  Whatever they're doing at Jabba's, they're doing because he owns them.  Thank you, I understand.

2) Ben/Luke scene on Dagobah.

Boring, flat.  If you zoom in on the blu-ray, you can actually see Alec Guinness reading directly from his script.  Characters are just sitting on logs (hmm, boring, emotionless characters spouting expository dialogue while sitting.  Brilliant foreshadowing of what was to come in the PT!).

The biggest problem with this scene is how Ben defends his lie about Vader.  He's completely emotionless, as if it his lie was no big deal.  (Reminds me a lot of Lucas in a way, how he unemotionally explains his revisionist history, "Actually, Greedo was always meant to shoot first."  "Star Wars has always been the story of the tragedy of Darth Vader.").

"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."  OK, Ben... other than the Vader/Anakin situation, could you please back up this statement with another example of this?  'Cause it sounds like you're just a lying asshole and full of shit.

What a missed opportunity!  How about having a scene where Ben, distraught, perhaps on the verge of tears, confesses to Luke and says something like, "Luke, I'm sorry I lied to you.   You were so young and I knew the truth would devastate you, so I lied to protect you.  Will you forgive me?"  They could have constructed an emotional scene and have made the audience actually FEEL something.  But they went the completely sterile route.

3) Luke/Leia scene on Endor

Ugh.  Bad dialogue, bad acting.  "I didn't know... but somehow... I've ALWAYS known."  Whuck?

So in addition to many of the negatives people have already mentioned (some I agree with, some I don't), I think those 3 scenes are simply terrible, and hurt the movie greatly.

I don't hate the Ewoks.  I mean, I don't LOVE them, but they're ok.  Well, they're too damn silly, but I guess I don't mind the CONCEPT of them.  They're not good, but the Ewoks themselves do not ruin the movie for me.  In fact I sometimes find myself defending them when people say, "there's no way the Ewoks could defeat the Empire!"  They didn't... nor did they have to.  They simply distracted some troops while experienced rebel commandos blew up a bunker.

I also hate the briefing scene.  Bingowings covered that pretty well.  "Hey, anyone else want to be a general?"  "Hey Luke!  We don't mind you at all barging into our super important meeting!"

Re: what AntcuFaalb said a few posts back, where, I'm paraphrasing, he said something like he looks forward to seeing Salacious B. Crumb more than he does Vader killing the Emperor.  In some ways, I actually agree with this, in the sense that the whole Vader redemption is, IMO, kind of ridiculous and silly.  Luke thinks he can be redeemed because there's still good in him.  Why, exactly, does he think that?  That's never answered.  In addition, Vader is a boring weakling throughout the movie.

So those are some reasons why I don't like ROTJ.  I'll get back to tone later.

SW - a perfect 10/10

ESB - 9/10

ROTJ - 4.5/10

Awesome, thanks for uploading these.

How exactly does the Miami version differ from the regular version?  (I have both the regular and Miami version of the PAL building Empire, but haven't had time to watch them yet).

DuracellEnergizer said:

 

I'd like to see an entire series devoted to alternate SW Universes, myself. This could open the door to such a thing.

 

Same.  There are so many possibilities.  What I'd really like to see is something that uses SW77 as canon- and nothing else.  Ie, Vader is not Luke's father, Leia is not his sister, etc.  That's the universe I think about a lot.

I need to read Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

That does suck.  Haven't really played any of their games in years, but from the early to mid 90s... LucasArts was the best.  So many amazing titles.

So I guess 1313 is dead?

Well then I'm SUPER proud to have started the stormtrooper white crotch debate in the first place. :)  In all seriousness, I'm glad to see that this was always there and does not need to be corrected, and it will therefore no longer bother me.

But crotches of the OT beware... you cannot hide...

Thanks for uploading that comparison.  What were they thinking with the blu-ray?

Ha.  Amazing that the blu-ray completely drowns out one of the best musical cues in the entire OT (and one of my favorite musical cues of all time)- the one right after Red Leader says, "I'm gonna cut across the axis and try and draw their fire."

Awesome, thanks for posting.  I love reading this stuff.  For some reason I'm just so fascinated by the differences in these audio mixes.

One difference I didn't see listed is the sound effect when R2 hits the ground after getting blasted by the Jawas.  I think the effect is slightly different/longer in the mono mix.

I never thought a blu-ray burner was something I'd ever get, but with Harmy's v2.5 release coming out soon, I'm considering getting one.

So I just wanted to see if there are any pioneers here who have taken this step, and if they have any advice.  What's a good burner to get, and what features should I look for?  I have a laptop, so I'm guessing an external unit would be best?

It's primary purpose would probably be to just burn Harmy's Despecialized Editions for friends and family.

What's the best brand of disc?  Verbatim seems to be the gold standard for DVD, but is that also true for blu-ray?

Is the technology for burning blu-rays at home still in its infancy and it's not worth upgrading quite yet?  Are prices still coming down?

Feel free to add any ideas, tips, tricks, etc. re: blu-ray burning.

mr_chiz said:

Yes, almost all the content is out there but I for one would be very happy to see it collected in one place and in the best quality yet.

I agree with this 100%.

Hey Harmy, I had a question about the shot where the Falcon takes off from Mos Eisley.  As pictured, part of that stormtrooper's armor stands out to me as very unnaturally white.  I noticed this was in 2.0 as well.  I don't have the GOUT or 1.0 on hand at the moment to check if it's there as well.

I'm guessing the crew just forgot to put dirt/dust on that part of the armor, but something about it just looks so odd to me, that I wondered if it was some kind of weird coloring error or something that Lucasfilm made along the way.

And yes, I realize I'm posting a picture of a stormtrooper with his crotch circled. :)

Just looked at the 2.0 vs 2.1 comparison.  Amazing improvements everywhere, Harmy!  Thank you so much for putting in so much great work.

One thing I noticed though- in a couple frames of 2.1, it looks like small amounts of the left and right side of the screen are cut off.  Maybe this is due to different framing/resizing you've done, or maybe it's something unique to how you captured the frames for the comparison.

I noticed this in frames 1-42-20-10 and 1-42-28-22.  When you switch between 2.0 and 2.1 you can see a black stripe appear on the right side of the screen, cutting off edges of the X-Wings.  On the left side of the screen, a black stripe cuts through some stars in 1-42-20-10, and Yavin in 1-42-28-22.

CatBus said:

SpilkaBilka said:

CatBus said:

Space Kaijuu said:

Will the Blu-Ray version of 2.1 have the 1985 laserdisc remix?

We are trying to package this up for Harmy ATM.  I'm hopeful.

Awesome, glad to hear it.  How's that going?  Been away the last few days, haven't been keeping up with this or the 1985 thread.  Thanks so much for your efforts, and I'm sorry I have absolutely no skills to contribute to this!  :)

This is done now, and I've sent Harmy a link.  DTS-MA lossless stereo FWIW.

Awesome, you are the best.  Thank you so much for doing this.  And thank you to Molly and those who contributed to get this done.

CatBus said:

Space Kaijuu said:

Will the Blu-Ray version of 2.1 have the 1985 laserdisc remix?

We are trying to package this up for Harmy ATM.  I'm hopeful.

Awesome, glad to hear it.  How's that going?  Been away the last few days, haven't been keeping up with this or the 1985 thread.  Thanks so much for your efforts, and I'm sorry I have absolutely no skills to contribute to this!  :)

Darth Mallwalker, thank you so much for uploading, and of course thank you Molly for syncing this in the first place.

I don't currently have access to a newsgroup server so I can't download it at the moment.

But the upload is the finished, GOUT-sync'd file right?  So I could probably just ask Harmy to download it from alt.binaries.starwars, assuming he had newsgroup access?

Thanks for bumping this, hadn't seen it before.  I'm the guy in Harmy's thread interested in getting the 1985 mix included in Harmy's v2.1 release.  Haven't been around in a couple days because work just got really crazy.

I could use some help...

1) Is Molly's synch around anywhere?  I can't find it.  Do you still happen to have it, Molly?

2) I downloaded (and am currently seeding on myspleen) the EditDroid version of SW which has the 1985 mix.  I figured it would be easiest to just extract the audio from this.  In the Harmy thread, analog suggested some programs that do this easily, but unfortunately the free versions will only rip a few minutes' worth and the programs cost $40+.  VLC seems to have a way to do this... but I've tried a few times and can't figure it out.

3) I also have downloaded (and likewise am currently seeding) the raw 1985 rips from the Star Wars Laserdisc Audio archive on myspleen (I haven't downloaded the whole archive- I just selected the 1985 files in my torrent client).  It's split into multiple files (from the multiple laserdisc sides), and I was going to try to stitch these together, but I haven't had time.  (Also, I've never done it before, and wouldn't really know how to GOUT-sync it either).

So, I'm going to try to work on this over the weekend and get it to Harmy before he releases 2.1, but if any of you audio guys could lend a hand I would really appreciate it.  I figure there's got to be a simple way to extract the audio from the VIDEO_TS folder of the EditDroid without having to pay $40.  Thanks all.

analog said:

If you could leave that seeding it would help greatly. Speed is quite slow.

I'm perfectly happy with the lossless tracks that'll be included (I wonder if it's from this source), but can see the value in having this '85 one in there for good measure.

If I can get this downloaded somehow, I'd be glad to attempt a sync.

That would be great if you could give it a shot, thanks!  I'll see what I can do too (thanks yoda-sama for recommending Audacity).  It will be a learning experience. :) I just finished downloading and I will continue to seed.

I'm also downloading the EditDroid version of ANH from myspleen, which as Treadwell mentioned, contains the 1985 mix, and is apparently GOUT-sync'd.  I was thinking it might be easier to just extract the audio from this (though I don't know how to do that either!  If anyone knows how, please let me know).  I'll keep seeding when it's done in a few hours.

I too am totally happy with the audio tracks that are going to be included- but I'm also a sucker for completeness, and I think it would be awesome to be able to watch SW, and with just the press of a button, be able to switch between all 5 audio mixes that were made for the film (1977 5.1, 1977 stereo, 1977 mono, 1985 home, 1993 home).  But I can be OCD with that stuff, so...

If anyone else has some know-how and is interested in helping get the 1985 mix GOUT-sync'd and ready, I'd really appreciate it.  Thanks!

Harmy said:

Well, if someone can upload it for me somewhere, I'll be happy to include it.

I'm currently downloading the files for the 1985 home stereo mix from the Star Wars Laser Disc Audio Archive torrent on the spleen.  Should be done in about 10 hours.

The mix is split into multiple files (from the multiple laserdisc sides).  Would these files be useful at all to you, Harmy?  I hate to ask you to do more work, but I don't have the slightest idea how to stitch these files together, much less GOUT-sync them.

Harmy said:

OK, guys, last chance for any v2.1 suggestions you may have.

Are you going to include the 1985 home stereo mix?  (I believe it would be ripped from a 1989 laserdisc, which I think is floating around here, but I have no idea if it's been GOUT-sync'd).

I don't know if it's supposed to look like this, but here's something weird I've noticed: at 53:11 into the movie, when the Falcon is taking off from Mos Eisley, there's a shot of some stormtroopers.  The trooper on the far left side of the screen has something weird going on with his outfit.  His armor is dirty everywhere, except around the tops of his legs, which are unnaturally bright white.  It looks very odd to me.

At 41:19, in the detention center after the shot with the interrogation droid, the bottom-left side of the screen seems to brighten/flicker in an unusual way.

Re: Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels... there's a show called "Bring Back Star Wars" that came out 4 or 5 years ago.  Basically, this guy tries to put together a reunion of Star Wars actors.  It's true, apparently Baker and Daniels despise each other.  The whole show is on youtube, definitely worth a watch.

Awesome!  Some great images, especially this one: