TheBoost

shanerjedi said:

TheBoost said:

I just watched "Labrynth" and the sequence where the puppet-monsters took off their heads. It was effects by ILM using men in black velvelt suits and old school double exposures and optical matting, but it got me  thinking about Yoda.

Imagine for a moment, if in AOTC, instead of a CGI Yoda, we had a fully realized puppet capable of all sorts of amazing things the original puppet was not capable of, because ILM would digitally erase puppeteers from the frame!

Actually, that was a British fx house. ILM just did the matte paintings for the film.

 I stand corrected. Regardless, that technique with digital technology instead of opitcal used to remove the puppeteers could still be used to enhance puppeteering, instead of try to replace it.

I just watched "Labrynth" and the sequence where the puppet-monsters took off their heads. It was effects by ILM using men in black velvelt suits and old school double exposures and optical matting, but it got me  thinking about Yoda.

Imagine for a moment, if in AOTC, instead of a CGI Yoda, we had a fully realized puppet capable of all sorts of amazing things the original puppet was not capable of, because ILM would digitally erase puppeteers from the frame!

Yoda could be simultaneously manipulated from below, above, and boths sides, allowing an unimaginable range of movement and expression for a puppet, while keeping that intrinsic heart and reality a puppet carries.

If only.

Bingowings said:

ROTJ and TPM have already blown the idea of Tatooine being a nowhere place.

There's a difference between the plot of a movie taking characters to an out of the way location, and that location being given major prominence in galactic history.

skye1083 said:

TheBoost said:

 But the palace is what tells us the most about Jabba. All we know about him is that he's a crime boss at least high enough up the totem pole to have a bounty on Solo's head, and Han doesn't necessarily seem like a big time operator. That's all we know prior to ROTJ's opening.

I don't see where the argument that the palace is somehow inappropriate comes from, since 90% of what we learn about Jabba's character is from the palace he lives in.

I see your point, but if he wasn't that big of an operator, why would Han be more worried about paying Jabba back than getting caught by the Empire? If all he had to do was avoid Tatooine, he should have just stayed with the Rebellion that's willing to protect him from the stray bounty hunters.

Since I do see him as having influence beyond Tatooine, a sleazy little strip club in the middle of no where seems odd. You could go to Mos Eisley for that. I don't want CGI just for CGI. I do think that showing more money at least would make taking him out seem more impressive. 

My point is not about Jabba's role in the galaxy or how big an operator he is. It's that his palace is his #1 defining feature.

"We need to change Jabba's palace since it doesn't fit his character" is what confuses me. Jabba's palace IS his character. He doesn't have soliliquey to explain himself. He has no love interest or character arc. What impression we get of Jabba is almost completely based on his palace. Changing the location changes the character.

"We need to change Luke's actions, dialog, motivations, and relationships since they don't fit his character" would be just as confusing to me.

skye1083 said:

 For an intergalactic crime boss, Jabba's palace seems a little too understated.

 But the palace is what tells us the most about Jabba. All we know about him is that he's a crime boss at least high enough up the totem pole to have a bounty on Solo's head, and Han doesn't necessarily seem like a big time operator. That's all we know prior to ROTJ's opening.

I don't see wher the argument that the palace is somehow innapropriate comes from, since 90% of what we learn about Jabba's character is from the palace he lives in.

I just read Dacre Stoker (Bram's great grand nephew) book "Dracula: The Undead," which bills itself as a 'sequal' to the original Dracula. I think Stoker had less to do with it than his co-writer, Ian Holt, a man whose only credit was one direct to DVD slasher film. Holt basically says in the afterword "I waited for some Stoker naive enough to attach his name to my crummy novel."

Dacre writes that he wants to redeem Dracula, since his family lost all influence over the books and films in the 1930s. To do so he and Holt wrote the biggest mockery of that novel ever made.

(Warming, spoilers abound)

He frames the entire "Dracula" story as having actually happened, but Bram Stoker's book was a fictionalized account, which lets him toss out everything in the original novel that doesn't suit his story. Dracula feeds a baby to his wives? Didn't happen. Dracula goes out in the sun? Didn't happen. Dracula lays out his plan of evil pretty clearly? Didn't happen.

What DID happen though was a romance and consensual sexual relationship with Mina. The book never bothers to elucidate how this happened, but I got the feeling the author was trying to say, "y'know, like in the Coppola movie."

The fact the book ends with details of exactly how the characters are doing well after the Dracula adventure, and lays out that Mina's child was born a year to the day after Dracula died is another case of "Didn't happen."

Instead Seward is a morphine addict (stolen from Coppola), Holmwood is a recluse, and Harker spends his time drunk and banging hookers because he can't deal with the fact his half-vampire wife had sex with Dracula before they were married (and if anyone doesn't see the 'twist' ending coming in regards to their son, I will be seriously surprised).

Speaking of twists, when Dracula finally reveals himself, I was shocked. Not by the revealtion, but by the fact the book acted like it had made a revelation. The plot point was so painfully obvious it hadn't occured to me that anything was supposed to be a surprise.

And having vampire 'venom' (a term used in "Twilight" but not "Dracula") isn't a bad thing. In fact the 'dark gift' (a term from Anne Rice, not Stoker) basically makes you a superhero. In a plot point straining credulity, Mina Harker manages to get her hands on a Japanese katana to battle the evil lady-vampire, and later for no obviously explaiend reason Dracula (the righteous soldier of God who only feeds on animals, rapists, and murderers, a fact only told to the reader in the final chapter and totally out of character from he original novel) battles the evil lesbian-vampiress in another swordfight straight out of an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Dracula is clearly the good guy, and the heroes are morons for having tried to stop him. He only ever came to London to stop Jack the Ripper, and Lucy only died becasue of a bad blood transfusion. He's the perfect hero in every regard, and anything in the original novel that suggests otherwise 'didn't happen.'

And again like Coppola, this book HATES the Victorian era. I'm not saying the Victorian era was an ideal time, but the idea that a character in a book set in that time couldn't possibly be admirable unless they battled the ideals of their age is laughable. Mina is now a female journalist who writes under a man's name, and Jonathon was a crusader against child labor. In a 180 from the book, Mina always hated being a ideal Victorian woman, and consequently in the climactic scene randomly puts on a slutty dress to show the audience that she's a real liberated woman and worthy of their admiration.

There's also lots and lots of elicit sex, mostly lesbianism. While Stoker's novel assuredly tocuhes on lots of sexual imagery, this novel borders on soft-core porn.

It's also filled with lots of refrences to real historical events, some of which strain suspension of disbeleif (Seward was along for the ride on the first ever Paris-London plane flight).

Basically, nothing as Dracula as a good guy hasn't been done (Fred Saberhagen did in 35 years ago in "The Dracule Tape"). Nothing in tying in historical figures is new (Kim Newman's "Anno Dracula" series and Phillip Farmer's various "Wold Newton" works do it and do it better). And the basic feeling of the entire work derives more from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" than it does from a real Stoker.

If people read this as the 'real' sequal to Dracula, Dacre Stoker has done more to harm the reputaion of that amazing work of literature than all of the bad Dracula movies ever made combined.

Gaffer Tape said:

Well, yes, it's certainly not a character study, but if you establish the precedent that a character can make a choice between good and evil, and that they are not simply stuck on one side of the line or the other, it implies that the characters themselves are not inherently one or the other.  You say Vader is non-relativistically evil, but Luke constantly says, "There is good in him."  And it turns out he is right, which means that Vader has both good and evil traits.  True, there is not really any good example to show this.  We don't see any struggle until the very end, so I'm not arguing that it did a good or deep job from a relativist angle, but the concepts certainly existed.

 Perhaps we're not in sync as to the use of the term 'moral relativity.'

I'm referrinig to the philisophical conceit that good/evil are not universal truths, that situation, culture, and tradition are part of what is categorized as 'good' or 'bad'. I'm referring to the idea that morallity is subjective.

No matter Vader's personal journey from good to bad to good again, the lines of good and bad are still very sharply defined and objective. "Star Wars" never asks us to see the destruction of Alderaan as a 'good' thing from Vader's point of view, nor is torture and casual murder that Vader does somehow justified from his religious views ("The Sith Antidiscrimination League"). These are all universally seen as 'bad.' Vader himself would probably see them as 'bad' and just not care, given that he's down with the Dark Side.

The closest the OT comes to moral relativism is Obi's line about "from a certain point of view" and even that is (I think) just meant to be his justification for his own lying.  In the PT Palpy tosses out some vaguely moral-relativistic concepts, but again I think that's meant to be seen as just him lying to Anakin, as Palpy's ultimate goal is simply revenge and 'unlimited power.'

Gaffer Tape said:

Moral relativism entered Star Wars in The Empire Strikes Back, and it's been there ever since.  Yes, the original Star Wars was very black and white, but as soon as you reveal that the hero's father was a good Jedi who became evil, and that it's possible for him to be good again, you have moral relativism.

 I disagree sir.

Anakin had once been good, but as Vader he was pretty non-relativistically evil. There was never any exploration as to how Vader saw himself, justified his actions, nor redeeming qualities of Vader presented.

In ROTJ he chose to die doing a good deed, but his 'evilness' was never in question until that moment. That's a changing character, but the good/evil dichotomy is still fairly cut and dry.

Darth Solo said:

Whilst still on the subject of the original trilogy. I have never understood how the OTs got a PG rating in the first place. What with all the killing and the odd decapitation here and there. All it needed was angels OB1 dialogue to totally mistify me with the cert. given.

 For one thing, the OT pre-dated the "PG-13" rating.

Really, SW has 'damn' and 'hell' but that's it as far as language goes. It also is the only film with blood (the arm decapitation).

ESB is thematically a bit dark, but surely not "R" worthy, and the torture happens off camera.

"ROTJ" has Luke kill everyone with his lightsaber of not-making-injuries, and no one dies except one ewok and an A-Wing pilot.

My wife and I are having epic battles over whether our six month old is going to be pro wreslter Samoa Joe or a bumblebee.

It might tear apart our marriage.

shanerjedi said:

Darth Venal said:

doubleofive said:

Does anyone think that Vader's entrance in the Hoth battle is weak?  He comes out of nowhere.

Why the hell should Vader need an "entrance" in that scene? He's already taking part in the sequence of events, it's not like he's a surprise appearance. Sheesh, who comes up with these ideas?

 

As for the "he needs a better entrance" idea, he already has an entrance and it's called the first of the movie. That's what an ENTRANCE is. And nothing will surpass his first appearance in ANH anyway. But his coming into the base on Hoth is actually bad ass with those snowtroopers and he stalks in like he's in a rush. It's cool as is.

 

 No no no.

What Vader needs is a GOOD entrance. I reccomend that the camera shoots one of Hoth's ice-walls, which then explodes outward. As the dust settles, we see an extreme closeup of Vader's glove, which ignites his lightsaber,  as the camera tracks backwards, several more explosions happen until finally we see a long shot of Vader, when suddenly two pillars of flame erupt out of the ground behind him before he starts walking forward. As he takes his first step, six previously unseen Imperial Officers flank him, and they all suddenly die from Force Choking, collapsing in front of him like a macabre red-carpet.

That would be a good entrance.

shanerjedi said:

Here's the dialogue for The Lost 20 scene I was talking about yesterday:

Obi-Wan stares at the bust of Count Dooku.

Jocasta Nu: He has a powerful face doesn't he? He was one of the most brilliant jedi I have had the privilege of knowing.

Obi-Wan: I never understood why he quit. Only twenty jedi have ever left the order.

Jocasta Nu: The Lost 20. Count Dooku was the most recent and the most painful. No one likes to talk about it. His leaving was a great loss to the order.

Obi-Wan: What happened?

Jocasta Nu: Well, Count Dooku was always a bit out of step with the decisions of the council. Much like your old Master, Qui-Gon Jinn.

Obi-Wan: really?

Jocasta Nu: Oh yes. They were alike in many ways. Very individual thinkers and idealists. he was always striving to become a more powerful jedi. he wanted to be the best. With a lightsaber, in the old style of fencing, he had no match. His knowledge of the force was....unique. In the end, I think he left because he lost faith in the republic. He believed that politics were corrupt, and he felt the jedi betrayed themselves by serving the politicians. He always had very high expectations of government. He disappeared for nine or ten years, then just showed up recently as the head of the separatist movement.

Obi-Wan: It's very interesting. I'm not sure I completely understand.

Jocasta Nu: Well I'm sure you didn't call me over here for a history lesson. Are you having a problem, Master Kenobi?

 

 Man, that seen would have added layers of depth, meaning, and interest to the film. No wonder Lucas cut it.

I'm thinking of doing an all Lovecraft Halloween weekend.

There are two direct-to-DVD adaptions of "The Shadow over Innsmouth" (named "Dagon" and "Cthulhu.")

The silent film version of "Call of Cthulhu"

"Re-Animator"

"In the Mouth of Madness" is kind of a Lovecraft pastiche, so I might go with it too.

What else am I missing?

Ghost said:

 I also hate how the whole thing takes place in one little area. I wish there was a way to change the story around and make it more epic.  Not just on a Sail Barge.

 

 It's an escape from the sail barge. What more do you want? Random starfighters, a herd of rancors, dueling sarlacs and a one armed Wampa back for revenge with its own rival sail barge?

Thinkin' about the original "Star Wars," there's no reason to assume that there ARE any aliens in the Empire or the Rebellion. For all we know it's the Human Empire, the government for human beings, one of many governments in the galaxy far far away, and not of any particular concern to aliens, who all have their own governments with their own problems.

Zack Stevens, the golden voice of Heavy Metal, once of Savatage, TSO, and now of Circle II Circle. If God could sing, that's what he'd sound lile.

Outside of popular music, I have to go with the golden baritone of Mr. Chuck Wagner, the original star of Broadways "Jekyll and Hyde" and "Beauty and the Beast," and most importantly,

HE WAS GOING TO BE HAN SOLO IN STAR WARS THE MUSICAL!!!

http://chuckwagner.com/sounds/starwars/HansYourMan.mp3

Warbler said:

I've been meaning to watch Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera. 

 Brilliant beyond measure.

Needs a fan-edit though. At the last second the studio was too afraid of presenting a sympathetic monster, so they had The Arab say "Oh, by the way, the Phantom is an evil homicidal maniac escaped from Devil's Island, not a tortured genius shunned by humanity and pushed into evil"  That moment seriously dampens the pathos Chaney's brialliance had built up for the Phantom.

JasonN said:

TV's Frink said:

I think TheBoost is using The Phantom Editor's edit as his base film, meaning he would have to reinsert the meadow and Naboo Queen scenes that The Phantom Editor took out.

Ah, I see (hopefully he'll take out the part where Anakin and Padme bitch at each other in front of the Queen).
-_^

 Probably. I just really, really dig on the "Democracy" line.

TV's Frink said:

He doesn't want anyone to know he is late for the meeting.

 Maybe we need added dialog of him muttering to himself "Calm down. No one will even notice. Be cool."

I'll try and get this ball rolling with:

STAR WARS 1940s.

LUKE: William Holden

HAN: Lloyd Bridges

LEIA: Linda Stirling

TARKIN: Claude Rains

VADER: Boris Karloff

OBI-WAN: Walter Huston

C3-PO: Bob Hope

R2-D2:voice of Bing Crosby

thoughts?

Nanner Split said:

One of my favorite silent films (actually, one of my favorite films, period) is Nosferatu, which was also my introduction to film dyeing. I was completely unaware that such a thing was done, but I thought it added a great deal to the feel of the film.

 That movie is just brilliant, and despite being near 100 years old, scary as all hell.

Who would play who is Star Wars was remade today?

What if it was made in the 70s, but as a blacksploitation film?

What if the OT had been produced in the early 90s? The 1950s? The 1930s?

What if the PT had been made immediately following the OT? Who would play who?

What if the PT had been made first, in 1977?

Lets get some fun fantasy cast lists.

Here's my plans for my upcoming PT edits. These are very humble attempts just for my own satisfaction.

PHANTOM MENACE:
Just taking the Phantom Edit, and putting the real scroll at the beginning. Cutting the times people identify "Darth Sidious" and "Darth Maul"  by name. This is hardly an edit at all.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES
Adding the scroll to "Attack of the Phantom." Reinserting the meadow scene (but not the giant tick riding). I think that's the only scene where those kids actually have chemistry. I might add the scene where Amidala talks to the Queen ("When we stop belieiving democracy can work is when we lose it" is a great line). Also removing the name "Darth Sidious" the two times it is used. Dooku remains "Lord Tyrranus" in the final scene.

REVENGE OF THE SITH
I acutally dug this movie, but I'm going through and cutting lots of what i see as just filler. No content of note, but shots of ships landing, shots of ships taking off, lots of awkward expository dialoge ("Look Buzz droids!"), Yoda leaving Kashyyyk, Obi-Wan docking with the Blockade Runner, and lots of bad-ass posing (Palpy ignites his lightsaber, poses, jumps, poses, kills three jedi, and poses some more). Also removing all refrences to the name "Darth Sidious."  All these small cuts might cut as much as 10 minutes from the runtime.

The only actual "re-editing" except those cuts (none very large) will be resturcting the Windu/Palpy fight and Anakin's arrival. Seriously, Palptine falls down, Anakin RUNS AROUND THE CORNER then starts walking at a medium pace. It kills me. Also adding in the "Birth of the Rebellion" scenes, just cuz I have a crush on Mon Mothma.

As a lad I always figured that humans just outbred outher species, and were the most populous race in the galaxy. perhaps colonization was a uniquely human trait, and most other species were fine living on their own planet, so less representation of aliens was just a fact based on populations.

I mean... moisture farming!?! What sane species would live in a place they're so ill adapted to!?

Gaffer Tape said:

TheBoost said:

Dying old b/w films was an awesome process that people today don't respect (the opening of Wizard of Oz is supposed to be sepia toned, but on some versions they've taken it to straight b/w). Chaney's Phantom of the Opera had some green and red scenes, and the flag in "Battleship Potempkin" was sometimes painstakingly handcolored red, frame by frame... imagine how awesome that must have seemed back then.

Thanks for confirming that for me.  That's what I thought.  I wouldn't say that people today don't respect film dyeing.  I think it's just something they either don't understand or have no knowledge of.  However, it's not like the art is lost forever.  Its spiritual successors live on in the forms of gels, lens filters, and post production color correction.

 I mean 'don't respect' because many of these old films have been preserved in pure b/w (also without the original scores, which is a shame as well). So yes, I guess I mean 'no knowledge of.'

These old silent films weren't these sped up, scratchy poorly contrasted b/w movies with silly piano music, they were epic, moving pictures that had all the majesty and were as impressive by their own standards as the biggest blockbuster today.

xhonzi said:

Wait!

Are there any aliens in the Rebellion until Jedi?  I was talking to my friend about the role of "humans" in SciFi.  I offered the opinion that in 90% of SciFi, humans are shown to be technologically inferior, but somehow morally superior.  He responded that in his experience, 90% of SciFi showed humans to be technologically superior.  We both used Star Wars as our argument.  He pointed out that humans run the Empire- humans run the rebellion.  Aliens hang out at bars, are co-pilots, or are criminals.  I pointed out that the Empire is run by humans and for humans, but that the Rebellion was "indiscriminate" and "equal work for equal pay."  But then he pointed out that the Rebellion on Yavin is almost all middle aged white human males, and that Hoth is only a little better (if you count the female radio operator and all of the tauntauns).

So... was this a budget limitation?  Or were aliens intentionally left out of the Rebellion till RotJ.

 I'd lean more towards budget limitiations, and simple expediency.

In Star Wars, unless being an alien was a important point (scary bars, Jawas, cool co-pilot) human was the de facto species just for simplicities sake.