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The Bizzle

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21-Aug-2004
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14-Feb-2009
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Post
#153563
Topic
Star Wait - documentary
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/153563/action/topic#153563
Time
True, but in this case, they're right. This documentary is terrible. They tried to paper over it with a fair amount of semi-celebrities in the commentary and on the special features, but the doc itself is ham-handedly edited, and for something that took over 3 years to complete, should be tighter than this thing is. There's really no through-line here, and the way the characters are presented really ISN'T all that flattering, or compelling, or even all that interesting. I'd like to see a fan doc that actually adds a different dimension to the people in line besides the over-obvious "dorkumentary" angle that every documentary plays to the hilt, this one included. It's like even the subjects of these things are more than happy to marginalize themselves as much as possible.

The LiningUp.tv doc already looks to be a lot funnier, shot much better, and full of more interesting people.
Post
#153333
Topic
Watching in order 1-6 is screwing up the original SW for newcomers!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/153333/action/topic#153333
Time
LOL. I didn't misrepresent your argument. I took it how it appeared to me. That's how your argument came across. I apologize if you don't like how the argument was reflected back to you. I'm not trying to slam you or nothing, just trying to express my opinion in response to yours. It's nothing personal, hope you don't get any hurt feelings over it, in spite of your jokey message

All gravy.

Which part of your argument do you feel I maliciously misrepresented?
Post
#153257
Topic
Watching in order 1-6 is screwing up the original SW for newcomers!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/153257/action/topic#153257
Time
No, I read your comment CO. It's just your conclusion here is fallacious:

My whole point is if it was nostalgia it would be #1 for me, but it is #3,


My point is that your nostalgia is what's making it #3. Nostalgia doesn't automatically mean you love it unconditionally. just that because of your childhood memories, you give it more love than it probably deserves. Nothing really WRONG with it, but it helps to understand that up front so there's a proper frame to your argument. The nostalgia is also why you refuse to believe there was ALWAYS this divide amongst film fans and even Star Wars fans more specifically, and it's deeper than simply "Ewoks = Jar Jar" or whatever the line is that you're drawing. There were people back then who HATED ROTJ and ESB after Star Wars came out. The difference is a) you didn't really seek those people out and b) there wasn't, because of lack of internet, as far reaching a segment of the community for you to easily read about. You think it was nicer mostly because you didn't KNOW about those who hated just as people now hate the Prequels and Computer Animation and all things post models and opticals. And along with the growth of the internet has come the gift of massive overstatement. It's one thing to recognize there are some screwed up elements in all the movies, and some really screwed up stuff in the Special Editions. It's another to call it "spitting in the face" as if it carries that much weight. But that sort of overstatement isn't just accepted, it's EXPECTED.

CG has become a scapegoat for superficial bitch sessions about films. It's just how it is. It's unfair, yes, but that's how it's become. I should know better than to be devil's advocate in these cases because I've gone down these roads and hit the logical dead ends these discussions end up slamming into, but it seems so flimsy and superficial to act as if CG is fundamentally any different than opticals and models. They were using the same techniques back in the 80's. They're just using something different to fill in the blue areas now. And it's VERY hard to tell the difference when it's done well. And you'd have a hard time convincing me ILM, WETA, Imageworks and Digital Domain dont' know how to do it well. To decry special effects presence in a Star Wars movie is odd, because as I pointed out in the post that spun off this argument--the story was secondary to a LOT of people when they went to see Star Wars. It was the effects that they went to see. Sometimes people act as if CG is a sentient being made up of nintendo cartridges that's helping write the movie and design the posters, and that seems so willfully simplistic when looking at why a movie works and doesn't work.
Post
#153198
Topic
Watching in order 1-6 is screwing up the original SW for newcomers!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/153198/action/topic#153198
Time
what's happening in a lot of post-"A New Hope" movies is that the effects are either getting in the way of the story, or simply filling a void where the story is weak or absent, so you can't help but twiddle your thumbs and say "gee i wonder how many polygons there are in that computer-generated character" or "i wonder how much money they spent on that effect."

but here's the thing--that's been going on since BEFORE "A New Hope" I'm trying to steer discussion away from the old chestnuts about "story first" and "evil executives" because both of those are hoary old cliches that don't really hold up under scrutiny after awhile. they're nice shorthand stereotypes, but the circumstances vary so much from movie to movie, director to director, exec to exec, that to paint them all with the same faceless, clueless brush is either insulting or ignorant, one of the two.

A LOT of people use the CG effects as they're supposed to, and use them artfully, in movies with good stories, but they get crapped on for it ANYWAY because it's CG. There's more than a bit of unfairness to that, and closed-mindedness as well, especially considering most people can't tell the difference half the time, even if they say they can. I've lost count of the number of "effects experts" online who got shown up by what was what--and the fact we have so many books, videos and magazines detailing the making of a single space-ship or set or whatever sorta points to the fact the viewers really have gotten almost too sophisticated for their own good. People are looking at movies not as fans, but as potential movie-makers themselves, and it's changing how they view things radically. That's one of the bigger problems. It's not that people are rejecting CG when its' bad. It's that people are rejecting it out-of-hand whether it's good or not simply because they've learned how to focus on it. Why? because the whole behind-the-scenes phenomena has gotten so big and has actually dwarfed the movie itself in some cases, people paying attention can't help but to be saturated with it.

Back in 1983, when ROTJ was finished it film run, we were all just SW fans and never argued or insulted each other as many do all over different SW boards, we argued with people that were NOT fans of the SW, and defended the movies to a tilt.


LOL. no. Hell, you can use google groups search and go back to 83 and find the EXACT same back and forth sniping and snipping over Return of the Jedi (and even Empire Strikes Back) on the internet. Yes, there was an internet back then, and people were still pissed about Star Wars. The idea that the Prequels ruined Star Wars for the fans is silly. Fans ruined Star Wars for fans because it ceased being just about movies, it became something filling a central part of their lives, and ANY movie is a poor substitute for something of actual substance.

Star Wars fandom wasn't one big unified front. It just wasn't the huge, sprawling, annoying dysfunctional popularity contest among geeks that it's become now. That really doesn't have as much to do with the Prequels as it does the internet becoming a huge, sprawling, annoying dysfunctional popularity contest among geeks.

So if you're talking about nostalga, I should still love ROTJ?


But you do. You're still giving it way more credit than it deserves. Hell, I rank Phantom Menace over Return of the Jedi. That movie exists solely for the last half hour. Everything before that alternates between confused and boring, save for the speederbike chase. I still like Attack of the Clones the least out of all six, so Jedi's got a leg up on one of them, but most people who make these sort of "OT PURE" arguments end up kneecapping themselves when they give Return of the Jedi way more credit than it really deserves, simply because it was made back then.
Post
#153013
Topic
Watching in order 1-6 is screwing up the original SW for newcomers!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/153013/action/topic#153013
Time
but by the same token, they didn't leave the theatre knowing that almost everything was fake.


yes they did--again, they didn't leave the theater going "oh MAN. that spaceship was cool!" They knew it was ALL fake. They just liked it. now, it's just a different style of fake.

One of the bigger problems with CGI is that everyone wants to show off that they're using it in behind the scenes stuff, promotional docs, all that. The tool is getting as much publicity as the movie is. That didn't necessarily happen back in the 80's--the studio wasn't trying to show off all their toys all that much. They were maxing out old tech and old methodology, not innovating new ones. Once you start re-inventing the wheel as far as effects go, people realized you could appeal to the "Bang for the buck" style of hucksterism and make the effects used part of the marketing. "We made this with a COMPUTER!! BUY A TICKET!!" I guarantee you that if an effects movie was released that didn't go into detail about HOW they made the effects, people would stop being so nitpicky about em. but in todays moviegoing climate, there's no way that happens. you have to have the behind-the-scenes video blogs and the special on the dvd and the hook in the movie magazines.

Which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so much overkill, to the point where you effectively TRAINED the audience to become EXPERT effects spotters. the movie is almost secondary at this point, because people are so used to being the reviewer in their little circle of friends, film has become so democratized that everyone really DOES believe they can do better, that people are waiting to find a seam and log it away. And yeah, there were people who did that in the 80's, too, but they were fewer, and largely marginalized, because people didn't really care. Now that the entertainment industry puts as large a premium on the "Behind the scenes" as they do the movies themselves (check out DVD culture) you have a lot more wizened, savvy and unforgiving viewers with their own skew and prejudices regarding the technical aspects of a movie.

It's not so much that CG is bad (largely, most people can't even tell the difference. they think they can, but they usually screw up along the way) but that it's put itself out there as the scapegoat for grumpy nostalgia due to aggressively marketing itself as something more than a simple tool in the toolbox.
Post
#152991
Topic
Watching in order 1-6 is screwing up the original SW for newcomers!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/152991/action/topic#152991
Time
yeaaaahhhhhhno. Plenty of people walk out of great movies going "the effects were GREAT" doesn't mean the movie didn't do it's job. you'd have to be sorta mentally impaired or something to leave a great effects movie going "I wonder how they strapped that camera to the spaceship to get those shots like that. I wonder how many spaceships they blew up to make that documentary!"

A lot of people only went to Star Wars in 77 BECAUSE it had great effects, and that's it. It was fascinating at the time for people to see something that far ahead of the curve as far as visuals went. I guarantee you people left the theater going "GREAT special effects."
Post
#152981
Topic
ROTS Extras: CGI TPM Yoda
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/152981/action/topic#152981
Time
LOL. Yeah, I'm sure my monitor and my projector are both calibrated just fine. Seriously, it becomes REALLY evident when you see footage from AOTC or ROTS bumped DIRECTLY against footage from TPM. It's not like you're watching it through a purple gel or something, it's not like Prince has taken over your TV, but all the same, there's a ruddiness to the skin tone that shouldn't be there, and a sort of very, VERY faint lavender overcast to the whole movie.

It looks VERY different, and I don't think it's just because it was shot on film and the other two prequels were shot on video.

I also don't mind that a lot of the sets and props reside on a hard drive, because whether a movie works or not with those tools, is totally different from me going on a nostalgia trip in a museum. One is different than the other.
Post
#152950
Topic
ROTS Extras: CGI TPM Yoda
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/152950/action/topic#152950
Time
I'd buy TPM SE not even for the fact they're swapping out that shitpoor Yoda Puppet with the bug eyes and the bulb nose, but for the hope they'll finally do a re-transfer that color-times the film to get that weird purple tinge out of every shot, and rids the DVD of the excessive Edge Enhancement that currently makes the disc a little hard to watch on a big screen or projection display. I know I can't be the only one that sees frames of TPM up against all the other Star Wars movies and notices every shot seems to have this purplish cast to it.

One of the earlier posts just said that it was there in some old empire trailer. Anyway, I just watched my SEs again. It's definitely the Emperor...


But...if the scream was originally intended to be Luke's, and was in an old trailer for Empire (which I'm doubtful of, but I do know theatrically, that scream did show up in some mixes for ESB) then how can it be "The Emperor's" scream if it was created and implemented for Luke to use almost 3 years before anyone knew the Emperor was gonna get thrown down a shaft?



Post
#152140
Topic
Episode 3: Fan Editing Ideas Discussion
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/152140/action/topic#152140
Time
Originally posted by: ADigitalMan
EP III deletions/modifications:
- New Crawl (Darth Editous is once again helping out on this one so many thanks still go to him).

Could you post it? Not a slam, but your titles on your other prequel edits and your crawls were very un-star wars. it read (and still reads) like fanfic.


- Palpatines's cheesy "Yes"

the one after Obi-Wan takes out the Super Battle Droids? That shit is funny. He's selling it like crazy right there.

- Artoo crashing into wall

And every theatrical viewing I saw (3) that shot got one of the biggest, if not the biggest, laugh out of the audience. What's so wrong with that shot? It's the punchline to Anakin's setup, and fits in with the "loose wiring" joke earlier.

- Anakin debating with Mace over killing/saving Palpatine.

What's the reasoning for taking that out? It's almost necessary the way both your edit and the actual movie itself is laid out.

- Added bones cracking during the Padme force choke.


that doesn't make any sense. that would paralyze her and leave her unable to speak. She couldn't push. Hearing Anakin snap her vertebrae is a) too much and b) creating a plot inconsistency in an edit where you're trying to remove them.

- "You underestimate my power."


This is a good edit. If I may also suggest, chopping out "I should have known the Jedi were plotting to take over!" "Anakin, Palpatine is Evil!" "From my point of view the Jedi are evil" "Well you are lost then!" I find the scene would play much better, dramatically, if you went straight from 'I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you." into that nice two-shot where they're just sort of swirling around each other right before they start fighting again. You can finesse the music there a lot easier as well. And, for added effect, it makes Anakin more ruthless and almost terminator-like. He's not so much talking as just trying to kill. Maybe, if you're feeling really tricky, moving the "This is the end for you, my master" to before "I have Failed You." but that would necessitate some tricky sound editing.

Deleted stuff added back in
- Shaak Ti's death and escaping from Greivous (sans animatics and trimmed to remove redundancy with bridge scene)


I'm guessing you're going to go straight from them cutting the hole to them crawling up that shaft, and then to them coming out of the elevator? That'd be nice.

- Rebel Alliance scenes


If you want to turn the middle of the movie into a TPM style quicksand, sure ALL of them or just one or two. I think you could get away with the meeting in Palpatine's office pretty easily, but the first two meetings are VERY dry and with all the exposition already in the middle of the movie, it's going to be VERY drawn out.

All the other edits you listed are either decent or won't really change anything either way, so it should be an equally unobtrusive viewing experience. The ones above are just some suggestions.
Post
#151648
Topic
Your favorite Hollywood excuse for 2005's crappy box office returns
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/151648/action/topic#151648
Time
A) the boxoffice returns aren't actually crappy.

this year, to date: 7.08 billion
same timeframe last year: 7.6 billion

Keep in mind, last year had Shrek 2, Passion of the Christ and Spider-Man 2 all on top of each other. No one at the beginning of 2004 thought that year was going to be THAT huge. And this year isn't all that disappointing, either.

Oh and not to be too presumptious, but sage?

they're tired of inner-city morons

Farenheit 9/11 pissed off too many people


crippled gay-black police captain who's always yelling at his idiot white cops who don't play by the rules, latina tough-girl who weighs 75lbs soaking wet who can kick any man's a## with her bare hands, conservative bashing,


So, not to put too fine a point on it, but a big budget remake of "Birth of a Nation" wouldn't be all that displeasurable to you?
Post
#151536
Topic
Star Trek is Gay
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/151536/action/topic#151536
Time
the ending is open to interpretation for some, yes, but Clarke offers a pretty definite interpretation of that ending and it makes a boatload of sense. I was pretty much already there before I read the book, and it ended up reinforcing a lot of my interpretations of that end sequence.

At the least, the novel is a great piece of sci-fi writing on it's own, and you should at least get some enjoyment out of that.
Post
#151522
Topic
Gay Fuel
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/151522/action/topic#151522
Time
Originally posted by: ADigitalMan
Everybody's just a little bit gay, don't you think? Just a little bit?


I believe so, and here's why. Follow me.

Gay = Homosexual

Homo = One

Masturbation = Sex with yourself.

Now, the purest form of the term "homosexual" would be having sex with yourself, which is masturbation, which involves you with your hand on a penis, manipulating that penis until that penis ejaculates, and sometimes, even ejaculating ON YOURSELF depending on whether you can't get to a napkin or a sock or a toilet in time. Plus most guys admit to trying to autofellate themselves--which is an act where you attempt to put a penis in your mouth.

is there anything GAYER than masturbation, then, using that logic?

fun stuff to throw at your local homophobe to watch their brains short-circuit.

Post
#151520
Topic
Star Trek is Gay
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/151520/action/topic#151520
Time
Warbler: the novel, "2001: A Space Oddysey" is a really good read, easy to understand, and actually helps you connect the dots while watching the movie. It's a literary oddity because the movie was based on an Arthur C. Clarke short story, and then the full novel was finished AFTER the movie was done. So it's sort of an adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation, if you follow me Find it at your library, and I think your enjoyment of 2001 will increase tenfold.

I enjoy watching Empire Strikes Back more, obviously, as it's a movie that's meant to appeal to popular tastes, but there's no denying 2001 is a much more expertly made film, in almost every single aspect. At least to me. That said, I don't put it in nearly as much as I do Empire.
Post
#151434
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/151434/action/topic#151434
Time
Cool, thanks for clearin that up man

[edit] after further reading, it appears the American 1990 widescreen laserdiscs for Empire and Jedi are the exact same transfers as the Japanese Collections, but Star Wars was completely re-done because of the shrinking ratio problem that came when porting the Japanese over to the American in it's first run.

So in theory, the US Empire and Jedi widescreen Laserdiscs, pre-1992, should be the EXACT same transfers as the Japanese Collection ones. According to Davis DVD, that is. Japanese is 3 CAV discs, though, and US was 2 CLV discs
Post
#151430
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/151430/action/topic#151430
Time
Really? I'm reading the Davis DVD breakdown of every home video release of Star Wars in every format and it says the widescreen transfers that came BEFORE the the Defnitive Collection were the same as the Japanese Special Collection. In Jedi's case, it's why widescreen versions of Jedi, both the VHS and the american laserdisc, were still upshifted before the definitive fixed it.

I'm pretty sure I'm misreading it somewhere, but I'm hoping you can clarify a little better.