Vaderisnothayden

xhonzi said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

And back in the old days I wanted new Star Wars films like most people. I didn't realize Lucas was going to (as I see it) go out of his way to make them bad movies. In retrospect I realize I should have been happy with just 3, but who knew? After the awfulnes of the SE we should have seen the writing on the wall, but before that?

As for ROTJ bashing, that will never fail to bewilder me. ROTJ is a great movie, the equal of the other two, and it has some of the best stuff in the trilogy.

 

 Some of the best of the trilogy and also some of the worst.  I don't need to go into detail here, but if the SE's were the writing on the wall, RotJ was George walking up to the wall, checking it for writability and considering just what he might put on it.

I don't see that. There was nothing seriously wrong in ROTJ and nothing that didn't work as Star Wars. It was a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. Whereas the SE was a blatant betrayal of Star Wars. There's no comparison.

doubleofive said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

doubleofive said:

I think most of the problem is that mono had become and still is such a "bad" word that no one really wants to say "we worked harder on the mono version" (except The Beatles, as of yesterday).  Especially in the 70's when STEREO was such a huge deal.  And by the 80's when people were getting the tapes and LDs no one wanted mono, they wanted STEREO to go with their new sound systems and no one really wanted to go back to the original mono mix and replicate the changes they had made in them.  Then the 90's came and Lucas went back to some of the takes from the mono and put it in the "all new" mix, bringing them to light and legitimacy, but he did not go back and re-cut the entire movie to encompass all of the changes they had made back in 77.

Hold on, he incorporated some of the mono takes when in the 90s? I know the SE uses some mono stuff, but before that there's just the tractor beam line being put into the new mix in 85 but not in 93. I don't know if any of the other mono lines ("blast it Wedge" and the blast doors line) were included in the 85 mix, let alone the 93 mix.

Sorry, he incorporated some of the mono mix into the stereo mix in 85, but never in any version I saw.  The 97 SE has elements from the mono, but not ALL the elements from the mono.  Is it because those were the only good parts, or because he didn't want to really remix the entire soundtrack to incorporate all the changes?

I'm still going to go with the mono being the final draft, but too much work for him to take apart the mono or go back to the sources to recreate all of the changes in stereo/6 channel.

What was put into the 85 mix from the mono apart from tractor beam line?

I know there was some sound effect sweetening in the 85 mix but I don't know if that came from the mono. There was some mono bits in the THX mix even though not the tractor beam line as far as I know.

The mono's intended final draft status doesn't really count much for me. The SE was meant to be the final draft too. I think nobody in 77 or the years immediately after was told they were going to watch a final draft version of the film or a non-final draft version.

And if it was possible to put mono films into stereo video then it would have been possible to make a stereo video out of the mono mix if the final draft status was so important to them, which obviously it wasn't.

Baronlando said:

It's worth remembering that he can't be THAT embarrassed by the original versions, since they are available right now and have been since 2006. In fact, I don't even believe he ever really cared about his "vision", changing it was all about making Star Wars attractive to 8 year olds (and very anal adults) and  zip to do with artistic ambition.

 8 year olds whose brains have been sucked out by mind-flayers.

skyjedi2005 said:

It is interesting that fans feel as sense of ownership of the star wars mythos, in the same way star trek fans feel a sense of ownership over roddenberry's creation.

To Create something like creates a modern mythology and has that much of a social effect on society is absolutely phenomenal, and has a lasting effect.  Wars like Trek is not a passing fad, they both in their own way speak to people.

Obviously Lucas legally owns star wars 100% and could tell the fans to fuck off if he wanted, hell sometimes artists have to do that as much as they need outside input they also need to not have their vision muddied.

Some of the problems star wars has are due to pandering to some of the fans.  The whole Jango Fett/Boba Fett thing for instance, fans wanted to see mandalorians in the films.

Just like fans wanted a fourth Indiana Jones film then after the fact said they perfered it would have ended with three. Fans that initially wanted a 9 film star wars saga say they wish star wars had died in 1983 with what dignity it had left.

You can't please everyone at once.  Some fans love all six films equally even return of the jedi a much bashed film, as the fan bashing on that is almost as bad as the phantom menace.

Star Wars is a modern classic. As such, it belongs to the people, not just to Mr Lucas, whatever the legality of it. And Lucas should respect that. It is an outrage that something beloved of millions should be destroyed to satisfy the whims of one man. As for having one's artistic vision muddled, I think Lucas's vision of Star wars is quite plenty muddled as is, without any help from us. And I couldn't care less about Lucas's vision of Star Wars, or at least the vision of the Lucas of the 90s and onwards. It looks to me like his Star Wars "vision" is utterly invalid and crap.

Who knew Indy 4 was going to be second rate? Well, I guess we should have had some idea, seeing as this was coming from Lucas in the post-prequel era. Plus he'd already screwed up Indy with that awful Young Indy show. I liked the idea of seeing Harry Ford back in the hat. As it is, Indy 4 is still much more Indy than the PT is Star Wars and and much better.

And back in the old days I wanted new Star Wars films like most people. I didn't realize Lucas was going to (as I see it) go out of his way to make them bad movies. In retrospect I realize I should have been happy with just 3, but who knew? After the awfulnes of the SE we should have seen the writing on the wall, but before that?

As for ROTJ bashing, that will never fail to bewilder me. ROTJ is a great movie, the equal of the other two, and it has some of the best stuff in the trilogy.

EyeShotFirst said:

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you'll be able to project it on a 20' by 40' screen with perfect quality. I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's to go back and reinvent a movie."

Chilling quote, isn't it? To me, it's like a fucking declaration of war against fans of the originals.

Well, George, if the SE is only edition available I will not buy it and I will not watch it. If I can't watch the original I will not watch Star Wars. Nor buy Star Wars things -no funding the empire from me, thank you very much.

If Lucas had made prequel films that were true to the spirit of Star Wars, they'd be much better received. The prequel trilogy was always meant to be a bit different in tone, but the one he put out was a whole damn different galaxy away in tone and mentality and that should have been avoided (and could easily have been avoided). A bit more effort to fit in with the story of the originals would have been no harm either.

It's also evident that Lucas must have changed some things from his original backstory. Some of the lame things that look like new inventions may actually go way back, but I'd guess there's still plenty stuff that was changed or newly invented. And if some of the crappy things go way back, well that's where he should have applied a bit of editorial stringency and cut the shit. In the OT he kept out some things he'd invented back then that were best left out (such a midichlorians) and it would have been good if he'd done the same with the prequels. As in no Annie builds 3PO (yes that probably does go way back -see the expanding the universe chapter of The Making of Star Wars). The originals showed some judgement, while the prequels didn't. Surely it would not have been that hard to apply some judgement in the making of the prequels?

The originals had honesty, sincerity, genuineness of feeling and imagination. The first prequel had hints of that mixed in with the shit and shallowness but was overall an artificial film that was overly sweetened up and didn't believe in itself. The later two prequels were horrific examples of shallowness, lack of emotional depth, soullessness, artificiality, stilted crap and general bullshit, with terrible judgement. It would have been fucking EASY to avoid making the films like that. Just as it would have been fucking easy to keep the podraces and cartoon characters out of TPM and make the central character less lame and limited.

And lame and limited as lil Annie was in TPM, he was light years worse in AOTC and ROTS. That has to be hands down the most horrific destruction of a great character ever. In ROTJ we meet non-evil Anakin and you strongly get the impression that there's really something to the guy. He could NEVER have been the shallow spiteful wimp Anakin of AOTC and ROTS. Him having something to him was crucial to both ROTJ and the trilogy as a whole. And Vader too could never in a thousand universes have been the Hayden version of Anakin. The total break between the prequel and OT versions of Anakin/Vader is a massive break that could easily have been avoided. Clearly Lucas entirely reenvisioned the character, with seemingly no concern for what the OT had established. That reenvisioning makes it entirely impossible to take the two trilogies together as the one big six-part movie Lucas wants us to them as.

Also I've read things about the prequels that sound to me like Lucas pretty much deliberately making them bad movies. For example, in an interview he talks about how he wants to make the AOTC romance in such a way that men and "cynical" (read "intelligent", I think) people won't like it. Or something like that. There's also a quote from McCallum about how they knew as far back as 1990 that the first two prequels were going to be "hard" (I think that was his word, maybe it was "difficult") with anybody who had any connection to the original films (by which I think he meant anybody who was a fan of them) and anybody over 18. Or something like that. It sounds to me like "We set out to make films that would be at odds with the original trilogy and which we knew people would hate". And then there's this thing about making the prequels like old serials, which seems to me (after reading Kaminski's book) like it was taken as a license to make shallow films that lacked emotional depth. There's also the example of Palpatine's ROTS makeup being done to echo old horror movies. Jeez, why not make it to echo ROTJ instead, for god's sake? That makeup was horrible and now it seems to me that pretension about homaging old films was behind the awfulness of it. It seems to like Lucas had a whole collection of reasons for doing what I'd call deliberately going out of his to make the prequels bad movies. It didn't need to be that way.

So no, it was in no way inevitable that the prequels be awful movies the way they were. That was something that took effort.

SilverWook said:

My earliest U.S. LD copy dates from 1983. Pan and scan, and time compressed.

Unless you lived in a large city at the time, it was less likely you had a 70mm theatre nearby. Installing Dolby stereo gear for 35mm was probably an expensive proposition for small theatre chains, and they wouldn't jump in unless they thought it would pull in more crowds. Just like now we are starting to see IMAX, 3D, and digital projection in smaller towns.

The overwhelming reason at the time to do the mono mix is, nobody was sure Dolby Stereo was going to catch on. (Just like some early widescreen movies were shot twice to have a version able to be projected on older screens.) It's hard to believe these days, where even the dollar theater has Dolby Digital, but there were a couple other sound systems tried out that never made beyond use in one movie or two.

Seen any movies in Sound 360 or Megasound lately? ;)

All three SW sound mixes are valid, the mono just had the benefit of being tweaked a bit more.

The 80's saw a lot of mono films "electronically re-channeled for stereo" on home video. Even early stereo tv broadcasting put a fake stereo effect on older shows and even some then current ones.

Unless you lived in a large city at the time, it was less likely you had a 70mm theatre nearby. Installing Dolby stereo gear for 35mm was probably an expensive proposition for small theatre chains, and they wouldn't jump in unless they thought it would pull in more crowds. Just like now we are starting to see IMAX, 3D, and digital projection in smaller towns.

A lot of Americans lived in big cities.

The 80's saw a lot of mono films "electronically re-channeled for stereo" on home video.

Which is what I would have expected them to do with Star Wars if the mono being definitive was so important.

doubleofive said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

Gaffer Tape said:

But in this case, in terms of mono, there is some subjectivity to it.  Although the majority of the country would see it in mono, the mono mix was the last of the original three to be completed, so I would think there is some validity to a claim that one of the original stereo mixes is more the "original" version than the mono.  Granted, I would still like to hear the mono version at some point in my life.

But, geez, when you get right down to it, there are just far too many sound mixes for Star Wars.  It makes my head spin.

I don't know if I trust anymore the claims that the mono was completed after the release date. But even if it was showing from the start with the stereo, I don't know if I respect its having a preeminent status over the other two mixes. Just the fact that the other two mixes were valid mixes getting exposure around the same time and not being promoted as "These are the less definitive mixes" says to me that in real terms they're about equal in standing. Plus if the mono's status was so damn important wouldn't they have put it on vhs instead of the stereo? They did put the tractor beam line into the 85 vhs (but not onto the 82 vhs), but I don't know if they bothered to put the blast doors line in and for the "definitive" laserdisc collection they supposedly "forgot" to put in the tractor beam line, which sounds terribly like mono lines weren't a high priority. To me it just looks like the mono's special definive status doesn't count for a lot. I view them as roughly about equal in status. Same goes for the 35mm and 70mm for ESB.

And when all's said and done, I'm not inclined to lend a lot of weight to Lucas coming along later and tinkering with something and saying the later version is the definitive version.

The other question as regards versions of ANH kicking around way back, is whether or not some sort of workprint with the deleted scenes ever got publicly shown way back. We don't have verification that such a thing happened, but we also have no proof that it didn't, along with lots of claims that it did. Let's just pretend for moment that it did happen, what would be the conditions in which it might have happened? Would it have been meant to be an official form of the film, like the different mixes, or would it have been sort of "We're running out of prints, let's send out the workprint" or a case of "Whoops, wasn't that the workprint we just sent out"? Did they deliberately intend to release the workprint as an official version with standing on a level with the different mixes? How widespread could it have been, compared to the two stereo mixes? Some of you must have a much better notion than me about these questions and of how such a thing might have happened and how it might have been intended.

And what's this about most people seeing the movie in mono? How widespread would the two stereo mixes have been then?

I think most of the problem is that mono had become and still is such a "bad" word that no one really wants to say "we worked harder on the mono version" (except The Beatles, as of yesterday).  Especially in the 70's when STEREO was such a huge deal.  And by the 80's when people were getting the tapes and LDs no one wanted mono, they wanted STEREO to go with their new sound systems and no one really wanted to go back to the original mono mix and replicate the changes they had made in them.  Then the 90's came and Lucas went back to some of the takes from the mono and put it in the "all new" mix, bringing them to light and legitimacy, but he did not go back and re-cut the entire movie to encompass all of the changes they had made back in 77.

Hold on, he incorporated some of the mono takes when in the 90s? I know the SE uses some mono stuff, but before that there's just the tractor beam line being put into the new mix in 85 but not in 93. I don't know if any of the other mono lines ("blast it Wedge" and the blast doors line) were included in the 85 mix, let alone the 93 mix.

He was there as early as 1990. The Young Indy stuff was crap.

When did Rick McCallum join?

generalfrevious said:

RIP Star Wars Original Trilogy
May 25th, 1977- December 31, 2006
Holy Grails are never found, Utopias are never realized, the "death" of the Original Star Wars trilogy is proof that noting is stable or permanent. Lucas was the ultimate killer of this great mythology, replacing it with an untrue propoganda about Darth Vader and CGI
"Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny"-Yoda

That last line is certainly true of the modern state of Star Wars. After the SE and PT, I don't think it's possible for major Star Wars stuff to come out that's not tainted by the SE/PT mentality, unless they conspicuously reject the SE and PT, which isn't going to happen.

Gaffer Tape said:

But in this case, in terms of mono, there is some subjectivity to it.  Although the majority of the country would see it in mono, the mono mix was the last of the original three to be completed, so I would think there is some validity to a claim that one of the original stereo mixes is more the "original" version than the mono.  Granted, I would still like to hear the mono version at some point in my life.

But, geez, when you get right down to it, there are just far too many sound mixes for Star Wars.  It makes my head spin.

I don't know if I trust anymore the claims that the mono was completed after the release date. But even if it was showing from the start with the stereo, I don't know if I respect its having a preeminent status over the other two mixes. Just the fact that the other two mixes were valid mixes getting exposure around the same time and not being promoted as "These are the less definitive mixes" says to me that in real terms they're all about equal in standing (by real terms I don't mean in what Lucas wanted, I mean looked at aside from that, taken as what they are). Plus if the mono's status was so damn important wouldn't they have put it on vhs instead of the stereo? They did put the tractor beam line into the 85 vhs (but not onto the 82 vhs), but I don't know if they bothered to put the blast doors line in and for the "definitive" laserdisc collection they supposedly "forgot" to put in the tractor beam line, which sounds terribly like the mono lines weren't a high priority. To me it just looks like the mono's special "definitive" status didn't count for a lot even to Lucas and co. I view the mono and other versions as roughly about equal in status. Same goes for the 35mm and 70mm for ESB.

And when all's said and done, I'm not inclined to lend a lot of weight to Lucas coming along later and tinkering with something and saying the later version is the definitive version.

The other question as regards versions of ANH kicking around way back, is whether or not some sort of workprint with the deleted scenes ever got publicly shown way back. We don't have verification that such a thing happened, but we also have no proof that it didn't, along with lots of claims that it did. Let's just pretend for moment that it did happen, what would be the conditions in which it might have happened? Would it have been meant to be an official form of the film, like the different mixes, or would it have been sort of "We're running out of prints, let's send out the workprint" or a case of "Whoops, wasn't that the workprint we just sent out"? Did they deliberately intend to release the workprint as an official version with standing on a level with the different mixes? How widespread could it have been, compared to the two stereo mixes? Some of you must have a much better notion than me about these questions and of how such a thing might have happened and how it might have been intended.

And what's this about most people seeing the movie in mono? How widespread would the two stereo mixes have been then?

But were there any US lasediscs before 85? Or UK?

ChainsawAsh said:

Oh yeah, I forgot that the ".44 Magnum" thing came from the mono mix ... I'm willing to overlook it for the other aspects that are (in my opinion) vastly superior.  I may look into fixing the blaster sound for my Star Wars edit - it's definitely evolved beyond the point of staying faithful to the mono mix.

And I knew that the six-track mix was for 70mm screenings, I just didn't know if it was considered more or less complete and "final" than the stereo or mono mixes.

Vaderisnothayden said:

 

Also, it's my impression that there weren't any pre-85 laserdiscs and that 85 was the start of ANH on laserdisc.

This isn't true - the 1977 theatrical stereo is available on one non-time-compressed and several time-compressed laserdiscs.  The 1980 theatrical Empire mix is also available on laserdisc (Dark_Jedi recently ripped it and is working on synchronizing it to the GOUT).  I have no idea if the Jedi 1983 theatrical mix is available on laserdisc.  Or if it was remixed in 1985.  Or 1993 for that matter ...

But when did these discs come out and are we talking official discs here?

C3PX said:

G E Predator said:

What's so bad about having two sets?  You got one to keep in the box and sell as a collectible, and the other is yours to play with or display on a shelf in your room.  I'd say it's a win-win thing.

Heh, looks like someone opted not to read beyond the first post.

 

xhonzi said:

C3PX, have you met my wife?

 

Hehe, no, but all women are the same to some degree or another. For some reason they never understand why things like a plush head crab, a Mr. Potato Head who dresses like Darth Vader, or an unnecessarily massive Millenium Falcon are absolute necessities.

Let's not get into all-women-are-the-same type stuff. People are always assuming various traits are common to a whole gender, and then you find people it's not true of. Heck I know of some women who'd probably feel the need for a giant Falcon themselves. They come in all variations, like men. And I hate it when people make generalizations about men.

I've got reason from some research to think it wasn't in any well-known source in the 90s EU. The question would then be, was the whole Jabba-and-Hutts-rule-Tatooine-and-environs something that appeared in the 80s in anything? Like in Bantha Tracks or the Droids show.

Yeah. I feel for you. You bought the paperback. I wanted to buy the paperback but then I heard about the bonus material and I decided I'd better get the ten-ton hardback. I think it's a dirty trick sticking valuable stuff in the hardback only. That section about expanding the universe has a whole lot of 1977 monologue pieces from Lucas in which he gives bits of 1977 Star Wars backstory for use by expanded universe writers. Han, 3PO, Leia, rebellion, rise of the empire, etc.

I'm still in shock that in 77 Lucas had threepio rebuilt by a boy working for a junk dealer and eventuallly given new coverings, later to join Alderaanian service. The thing to be careful about when judging the prequels is that some stuff that looks like it's recent bullshit can turn out to go way back. Still there's a lot of stuff that looks very clearly like it's a 90s development. And if the prequels really were all that faithful to Lucas's backstory then maybe the backstory was crap that was best kept off the screen. But I think no matter how faithful the story elements in the prequels might be to the original backstory, the spirit of how they were done out in the prequels must be seriously at odds with how Lucas envisioned the backstory back in the old days. And no way was Anakin originally envisioned as being like the Hayden Christensen version.

Like I said, angry. :D ;)

(Well, actually, I said "pissed off".)

Well I still care about the OOT. And will continue to care. Lucas's bullshit certainly makes me tired of present-day Star Wars, but it shouldn't affect how I feel about the original. Indy 4 wasn't as bad as a lot of people seem to think it was, but it was certainly a bit castrated and prequelized. It just doesn't rank with the classic Indy trilogy.

Screw 3d. I'm sick of all the hype. And screw Avatar. And why would anybody want to see the OT on 3d if it wasn't the OOT?

A) Wasn't the 70mm basically the same as the stereo?

B) Wasn't there stereo showing on opening day, not just 70mm?

Looking here  http://www.in70mm.com/news/2003/star_wars/index.htm it seems there were only 8 engagements of 70mm at first, so the film did not start out exclusively in 70mm and presumably also started in 35mm. They say it's mistaken to think that the film started exclusively in 70mm and only went to 35mm weeks later. But they also seem to think it's not true that the opening was exclusively dolby stereo (70mm and 35mm), which implies they think the mono was part of opening too. I don't know where they get that, because what I've heard is that the mono was still being worked on (recorded) on opening day and wasn't released until sometime in the summer. I think it was zombie84 who spoke of anecdotal evidence of Lucas still recording the mono when the film opened. if they could be wrong about that, could they be wrong about the other thing? Surely if there were only 8 70mm opening engagements then there had to be more to the opening than 70mm.

Also, it's my impression that there weren't any pre-85 laserdiscs and that 85 was the start of ANH on laserdisc.

Well now it sounds like you're pissed off. ;)

none said:

(ANH) Deluxe Edition Bonus Material

The Complete Alex Tavoularis Storyboards .... PG 310

The Complete Ivor Beddoes Storyboards .... PG 325

Selected Joe Johnston Storyboards .... PG 333

George Lucas Expands His Universe .... PG 350

Star Wars Progression .... PG 354

 George Lucas Expands His Universe .... PG 350

-particuarly invaluable stuff. It shows that Anakin building 3PO was probably planned back in 1977, for example.

C3PX said:

 I just don't see how it is even possible for a writer to delude himself out of truly understanding what he himself actually wrote about.

It's easily possible. People don't always know the deeper reasons why they do things and that is all the more the case with a creative work like art that heavily involves the deeper recesses of the mind. Art is not solely of the conscious mind. People in the arts often don't know what they're doing, though they may think they know. But allegory isn't something you do unconsciously. It's something you do consciously and deliberately and I don't think Tolkien consciously and deliberately wrote his works as allegory.

I just don't feel it is always possible to know exactly what the author wrote about unless he specifically explained it himself.

And you may still not know even if they explain it, because they may not consciously understand it properly.

I read some stuff on imdb which people on this site advised me to take with a pinch of salt (seeing as it's imdb). But then I read the same thing in a book from 1999 put out by a respectable publisher and I found myself wondering if I now had reason to take it more seriously.

The book is the George Lucas Companion by Howard Maxford, published by Batsford. What's said is A) that in some prints on opening day (for ANH, obviously not called that then in 1977) the scene in which Chewie scares the mouse droid was absent. And B) That the Beru actress Shelagh Fraser was dubbed in all but the original print.

I've heard of the mouse droid thing as an unconfirmed rumor. I didn't know it had any more standing than that (beyond being mentioned in imdb). But if it was so unconfirmed would the writer be including it in his book?

(I think there's some other book out there that claims the Luke missing the grappling hook scene was real, but I got the impression that was a less respectable book than this one.)

As for Beru, I've heard that she was dubbed in all sound mixes and was never heard in releases of Star Wars to the public. But this piece of information about her being dubbed in all but the original print is presented as evidence of Lucas making changes before the SE, implying the original actress's voice did reach the public at some time, like in the opening releases or something. But I would assume that would require another sound mix we haven't heard of. Can anybody sort this out?