Tack

ATMachine said:

It’s kind of weird that the movie that establishes Vader as Luke’s father (albeit perhaps a clone thereof or something) also features an extreme uptick in him Force-choking officers to death.

I blame George Lucas & Larry Kasdan reacting to the mild-mannered Vader of Leigh Brackett’s draft, where he dismisses officers who fail him with mild reproofs like “Leave me, you incompetent idiot.”

I think I can agree most with your take on it. Perhaps I was a bit unclear in my original post: Vader, while he does raise his voice in a number of instances in the original movie, is given a lot more contextual cause to do so. In his own ranks, he carries the amount of respect and professionalism that you could expect a high-ranking officer to have. If the briefing room scene had been in ESB, Vader would almost certainly have killed Motti. The only times he raises his voice are against Leia and in a moment right after a failed interrogation. I’m not arguing that he was less evil in the original, I’m arguing that I think the evil was portrayed a lot more realistically.

And I have to admit, Brackett’s more mild-mannered Vader appeals to me in a certain sense. Again, my main problem with ESB is the fact that his casual dispatching of his underlings is almost played as a running gag.

At least they didn’t stick with him having a pet gargoyle or ripping Threepio’s heart out.

I feel like ESB did more harm than good for Vader. I came across an article in an old issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland (around 1978) and it had a really interesting point about the code of honor which Vader seems to exhibit in the original Star Wars, and it read quite a bit of character into him that is easy to imagine being a reason for the spike of popularity he achieved between 1977 and 1980. I’ll try and post it if I can find it again. It made some interesting points.

Anyway, in Empire Strikes Back I feel like the nuance of Vader’s characterization was almost entirely lost. The constant killing of his subordinates (to a degree it almost becomes a running gag), the comparatively angry delivery of his lines versus the more soft-spoken delivery of the original, and the fact that his dialogue becomes considerably more blunt. He has his moments of greatness, certainly, but I feel like from the outset of development they were too far gone into making him over-the-top evil rather than the comparatively mysterious and intimidating figure he was in the original film.

I’m actually curious, does anyone else think this?

Ady, hate to be a nuisance (and I know this suggestion might be a bit of a tall order), but I think it would be a welcome change to improving the editing continuity of the Yavin IV scenes.

In , I think it could be beneficial to add the Falcon to the left side of the screen, behind the foliage. Not only would this be a nice visual link to Rogue One with the ships on the tarmac, but also a better connection to the previous shot of the Falcon landing (even as a kid, I was always confused where the Falcon landed). Additionally, this would be a comparatively easy change since it’s a static shot and could feasibly be accomplished with a still image. Just some food for thought. Keep up the good work!

Ronster said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Ronster said:

no you can just see he goes from getting ready to actually acting.

You’re joking, right?

It’s a shame they never got to finish that part off for the special effects, instead they filled it with people looking around.

Wow, seriously? Okay, tell me. What was supposed to go there?

Something like this…

It’s part of the film now… But it would be nice to see what they had for that part. Actually the Shot of the escape pod flying towards camera in the film is from this part that is missing but they moved it to when 3p0 and R2-D2 are in the Pod. I imagine they never had it all sorted like other effects shots missing stuff it was very difficult what they were doing.

Either way what I think the 93 laserdisc has on Extended Soldier footage is that it is more de-saturated and that is what works in it’s favor. In the rest of the footage not so much perhaps.

Ronster, dude, you used to be on to something but you’re reaching so much lately. Those shots are part of the edit, they were chosen deliberately to illustrate the apprehension of the soldiers as the Empire boards their ship, which in turn makes US more anxious to see what these invaders look like.

If you want to suggest fanedit ideas, that’s fine, but these wild presumptions and assertions don’t help anyone.

I think this is a bit of a private matter between you and Mr. Ritchie…

I don’t know if this has been posted anywhere on the site, but I just found this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k-hH_E3FDo

It basically disproves the idea that there was an optical wipe from the probe droid shot to the overhead shot of the tauntaun. I wonder if this channel has a source for the whole film like this.

pittrek said:

I have absolutely no proof for this so feel free to ignore this post, but the bootleg version I used to watch on my VCR in the early 90’s was a bit different. During the chasm jump Luke first missed, then Leia kissed him, then he tried again, this time he made it and Leia kissed him again, “for luck”. I remember thinking it’s funny what a young guy can do when he’s “properly motivated”. The second difference was during the meeting before the Death Star attack. After the wamp rats comment Luke and the pilot next to him shook hands and introduced themselves. And I’m pretty sure the guy introduced himself as “Wedge”, and I was pretty confused that there are 2 different pilots named Wedge. The third and last change I remember was the third Biggs scene right before they go inside the ships. I was very confused when back in 1997 I found online a list of SE changes and this scene was listed there - to me, it was always a part of the movie. I actually had a feeling that it originally was a bit longer.

The tape doesn’t exist anymore, I replaced it with the first official VHS tapes when they were released here and later with the SE tapes, so I have absolutely no proof that these are something else than messed up memories, but if you want a rumour list, here are mine.

The first two are just totally bogus, I’m sorry to say. We’ve seen quite a bit of the shooting of the chasm cross and there is no indication that the scene was too significantly different than how it is today.

And while Jack Klaff as Wedge did have a line cut out that was in the script, at no point did he and Luke have a formal introduction. Even in the radio drama or other such tie-in media where the expansions were based on either drafts of the script or early cuts. Not to mention it would introduce an awkward pause in the rhythm of the briefing scene that, even for how choppy the earlier scripts, seems to be incongruous. I just have no reason to believe it exists.

And the Biggs scene… Aside from the unlikeliness of it all, it’s the only one that I could conceivably believe could have snuck into the film at some point. One thing I did notice about the cut on the BD deleted scenes is that there’s a transition wipe right where the advance forward happens in the Special Edition version. It’s possible that the technician wipe was actually part of an earlier cut and simply resurrected when the scene was reintroduced in the special edition. However, it’s also likely you were influenced by the tie-in media where the scene includes a much longer conversation between Luke, Biggs and Red Leader than even what was originally shot.

Ronster said:

Handman said:

Where are you getting your information? Sorry, but it’s completely wrong.

Ronster in a nutshell.

I am actually 100% correct, I will post a video later on about the splices that the soundmix was created for. Go and try it for yourself a have fun.

Well only if you are bothered about the sound and video in unison that is.

Is there any truth to the Canadian version including the bigg’s scenes on tattooine or is this one of those rumours?

There are many such rumors. The main ones are-

• Leia spitting on Vader during their meeting on the Tantive. Novelization detail, one of the most bizarre ones too.
• Luke missing the first time during their chasm swing. This is from the novelization entirely. It’s not in the script or the comic adaptation.
• Any one of the Biggs scenes being present, either the Tattooine or Massassi ones. It got bad enough that some official publications claimed the later scene was present in the 1977 cut and cut out for the rerelease. At this point, totally unsubstantiated. The Biggs scenes were out of the film way before any significant post-production happened. They are in just about every piece of tie-in media, so it’s not hard to see why people would remember them being in the film.
• Vader’s TIE exploding during the ending. I can imagine why this one happened, since I imagine most everyone back then would have expected this to happen.

‘The Lost Cut’ is a general term used for the assembly cut created by John Jympson. It is about as rough as it comes.

What I think you’re describing is a later cut either scored by John Williams or screened for Lucas’ friends and the FOX executives. Watching some footage and pictures of Williams’ scoring does show that there a few effects shots which were revised before release and the presence of some tracks (‘Land of the Sand People’ on the original album) indicates that several scenes were still much longer when the scoring process began.

By all accounts the early Tattooine scenes were scrapped before the later stages of post-productions, and until evidence of otherwise comes to light I’m inclined to think those scenes were scrapped very early in post-production.

There is a lot of evidence that the search for Artoo was much longer, including the presence of a graphic for the Landspeeder readout in the Visual Dictionary and there being some high quality color screencaps available for the original 1998 Lost Cut article despite the same article claiming the cut itself to be black and white. The same goes for some other shots that are clearly screen captures; Luke and Han congratulating each other after the battle, Luke deciding to leave the restraining bolt off of Threepio, miscellaneous shots from the climax, etc. These are the kind of things that would be present in these later cuts; smaller trims that to some might not even be noticeable, perhaps even with post-production elements mixed in like ADR dialogue or some rudimentary sound mixing.

That is both gorgeous and seamless!

Sheepish said:

V

And you wagered…

yotsuya said:

And don’t forget that one of our OT members made an audio recording of a 70 mm showing. Few of the audio changes claimed are actually from the 70 mm version.

Basically none of the dialogue changes on the Wiki page. Two alternate dialogue takes, a few mixing differences and some changed around sound effects.

From what I can tell from the tape recording;

• Luke’s lightsaber has a very audible deactivation sound as he runs out of the Wampa cave.
• The Battle of Hoth uses a few different sound effects, including TIE laser sounds for the Snowspeeders.
• Threepio’s ‘and’ before ‘Do take good care of yourself’ is clearly audible.
• I might not be right about this, but it seems like there’s a low rumble effect for the space shots of Artoo during his conversations with Luke. I don’t recall other mixes having that.
• Perhaps some extra (or louder) explosions during the Asteroid field chase.
• There’s a neat ambient effect during the Emperor hologram that I’m not sure is quite replicated in other versions.
• Different, louder TIE sound effect in the shot before Needa’s death.
• Probably due to the increased range over the stereo mixes (but maybe betrayed by the nature of the tape), Threepio’s lines throughout a lot of the third act are far more prominent, though still contain the atmospheric effects present in the stereo mix.
• Aside from the length differences, both of Lando’s lines in the final scene are different takes.

Most of the alternative dialogue we know about seems to come from a never-released mono mix.

If you want my two cents, this is doable; not simple, but doable.

First of all, there’s very little out there to suggest the differences in optical transitions or compositing have any truth to them. I have a feeling since we were working from word of mouth for so long that some misremembered facts just kept creeping in. So, don’t take everything on the wiki seriously; it’s based on much older info and a lot of it has been disproved in recent years. In my mind, we should only consider the changes that we have definitive proof of (the missing Falcon dish and the static Emperor).

That being said, I do think the alternate edit of the Bacta Tank scene is probably true. The edit would have been very easy to make, since they cut the shot right after the original optical transition ended. And something about how quick that cut is makes me think that it was a last minute decision. A portion of the complete original shot is in color in the 1979 Harrison Ford-narrated trailer, and the full shot is on the BD extras, though unfortunately in black and white.

The sound mix will probably be the comparatively easy part of it, especially with a form of direct reference. The only difficult part would be trying to incorporate the alternate take of ‘Princess, we’ll find Han, I promise’, since to my knowledge the only other place that appears is the Story-Of album.

http://fd.noneinc.com/Theater_Performance/1980-ESB_TP-1.html

See for yourself. The night scenes are a very nice blue on this particular print but there’s a definite reddish hue to the day scenes, Hoth interiors, etc.

I think the pink that’s coming out in some of the day scenes is actually accurate to what we know about ESB, in particular the 1980 VHS bootleg (which is overly pink, but gives a good hint as to how much blue there is) and some scans.

I personally think the progress on this grade looks very nice. All signs point to Empire in its original form having a very muted palette in comparison to Star Wars, which I think the blu-ray wrecked by turning up the brightness too much, but is looking very nice here.

Good work as always, Dre!

This is more of a proof-of-concept than any kind of project, and it’s a bit rough around the edges, but this is my take on improving the blu-ray extended version of the Med Bay scene, using the theatrical edit, the rough cut on the blu-ray, and the Luke close-up footage from the Making of ESB eBook.

I wanted to find a way to smooth over some of the problems present on the blu-ray scene, namely a bizarre jump cut during Luke’s “Just another system…” line. I wanted to make use of the close-up footage, which I think contains a much better performance from Hamill than the medium shots from the blu-ray footage, without over-relying on them like some edits on YouTube I’d seen. It also allowed me to bring Luke more into the discussion once Han enters the scene.

I’ve always been fascinated by this scene ever since I saw snippets in Empire of Dreams and the original theatrical trailer. I now just have to wonder how the ‘bacta mask’ shot fit into the scene originally, or if it exists out there in any good form.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14Qlhbpi_oRAlb_UijiTIta6hPbgkZXVH/view?usp=sharing

SilverWook said:

Interesting, as Lucas did spend some time in Japan in the early 70’s and fans have speculated about the anime influence on Star Wars ever since. I certainly saw elements of Star Wars in Space Battleship Yamato when it reached American tv’s as Star Blazers.

You know, it’s funny I ran across this comment. I kind of thought while watching this how much it resembled the structure of a Yamato movie.

Specifically ‘Arrivederci’ and ‘Final’ with their multiple climaxes and especially with Holdo’s sacrifice, Leia’s speeches, etc. Even the Rose/Finn subplot reminded me of something that would be in those movies.

That’s not meant to be a negative by the way, I really enjoyed this one. Most of my issues are in the first half. After a certain amount of time I was basically totally on board.

I actually liked the Monte Carlo planet. Never did I feel like it went too camp.

I do have one thing though… Snoke stated that it was him who’d been infiltrating Rey’s mind on the planet. Did I misinterpret that? Was he bluffing? The film makes so much more sense if it was actually Ben.

Warbler said:

When you say “which he says he regards”, are you talking about your father or Ken Burns?

Ken Burns. He said as much.

Having met the man, and given the unparalleled opportunity to watch selections from his newest Vietnam effort with him present, I can say that it will be an experience to any who watch it. I was not around for that era yet I was experiencing an odd kind of recognition. Even the forty minutes he screened to the audience was a profound emotional experience. I can’t imagine how incredible the full version is going to be.

Also, the guy himself is just nice as can be. My dad got into a legitimate conversation with him on the blu-ray restoration of Civil War (which he says he regards as his favorite film second to Vietnam), and it was clear he was just as big a nerd as the rest of us.

Lord Haseo said:

Either that or scour the Earth for a more competent writer and just have JJ direct.

That would be a decent solution. I can admit JJ’s writing is nothing that gets me too excited exactly. However, I think he’s the kind of director where the script makes or breaks the final product. It is fair to mention that both the Trek films he directed also had two terrible Hollywood writers. Although '09 was better… So maybe their work is just on a spectrum.

Then again they also wrote ‘The Legend of Zorro’ and ‘Transformers’ so I don’t know what to believe.

Looking through this thread is just affirming one thing I’ve consistently noticed… The content creators are the best people on this site.

1. Star Wars
2. The Empire Strikes Back
3. Rogue One
4. The Force Awakens
5. Return of the Jedi
6. The Phantom Menace
7. Revenge of the Sith
8. Attack of the Clones

I suddenly forgot how belligerent you can get when posting in internet forums.

Deal of the year today.

Ended up finding the Mondo vinyl edition of the ‘Wrath of Khan’ soundtrack for 6 bucks. Specifically, the version where the discs resemble the Mutara Nebula.

I’m gonna enjoy listening to this one.

yotsuya said:

I do not have a copy of the ABC version to directly compare to, but my understanding is that it was extended to fit 3 hour time block and it included the extra scenes as in the Director’s cut DVD, and nothing was missing. I did see it several times at conventions and at one point I had a copy of it.

I have not done a scene by scene comparison, but just looking at it quickly. the original B&W/Color version of The Cage and the restored full color show very little differences. The DVD release has the original in 29.790 fps and the restored version in 23.976 fps. In places the hybrid runs faster and in others the restored runs faster. There are also noticeable frame drops in the hybrid during the B&W sequences.

There are some small bits of dialogue missing, which survive in some recordings of the full 16mm print from Roddenberry. It’s all in sections where edits were made in the Menagerie, which makes it understandable why they were excluded in that initial hybrid cut and never restored. I think the rest of it concerns soundtrack changes; music from ‘The Man Trap’ is looped into many sections, again casualties of The Menagerie.