It's pretty sad if anybody starts Star Wars with the prequels. You get your view of Star wars totally corrupted that way.
A box set of 6? Screw that. That's more pushing the movies as a "saga" of 6, one big six part movie and all that guff. Sell them as two trilogies like they're being sold now. Or sell them individually, so people can pick and choose. People should be able to buy the OT without buying all that Annie crap and the Mustardfart scene and jumping jackrabbit Yoda and baby Boba and all that traumatic shit.
At one point there in that article Sansweet says there will be a complete set of Star wars movies with deleted footage and lots of extras and "anything anyone could want" and then he says he says that with "trepidation" because fans want everything and then he goes "Why the Holiday Special wasn't on there, you ruined my life!" Is that a dig at us OOT fans who'd want the OOT on there? Because I want the OOT and I'd rather have that than a whole lot of bloody extras. No point in having extras without having the actual films. Does the OOT not count in "anything anyone could want"?
I'm certainly not buying a Star Wars set of movies that doesn't include the OOT.
bkev said:Well... the queen was was kind of a bit sudden, but it worked.
Worked? We saw two different queens and they looked nothing alike while supposedly being the same person and meanwhile there's a handmaiden who looks totally like the original queen. Surely anybody would know something was up. Contrary to myth, Portman and Keira Knightley do not look alike.
Lucas probably didn't have that much to do with the story of Farts Unleashed. I know he had some input, OKed some things, suggested somethings, but I think the main story came from other people.
The big question is how much Farts Unleashed is considered canon and by who. There was talk about it being tied in with Star Wars canon in some of the press for it, but most Star Wars video/computer games are part of the Lucasfilm/Holocron sort of Star wars canon. They take continuity into consideration and are taken into consideration in EU continuity.
Then there's the Lucas view of canon. I don't know if Lucas really has any formal idea of canon, just his own collection of stuff he's worked on and considers as existing in his universe, whereas he sees the EU as existing as a separate universe (I'm not sure how literally), though he takes bits from it to include in his universe at times (like Aayla Secura and Quinlan Vos).
Now, maybe all this talk of canon means Farts Unleashed is part of Lucas's canon not just Lucasfilm's, but as I've said, he doesn't seem to have a formal idea of canon, so I don't know. I read that the Art Of book for Farts Unleashed was supposed to have an interview in which Lucas talks about its relation to canon, but I couldn't find it in the book. I'd have to say, I'd be surprised to even see Lucas use the word "canon", because, from looking at lots of quotes from him relevant to canon, I'd say that's not his style. I'd be surprised if there was any such interview. If anybody knows about any such interview or has a link to it, I'd appreciate the info.
There's rumors that the main character from Farts will appear in the live action show (or at least that the actor will). If so, this could be an indication that Lucas is indeed taking Farts seriously as part of HIS Star Wars universe (his canon). Unless he just uses the character without really tying Farts Unleashed into the show, like how he used jedis Aayla Secura and Quinlan Vos in ROTS without really tying in with the comics they came from. (And it's speculated he's using Quinlan again in the live action show.)
All this talk of canon is about whether or not Farts is being taken seriously on a level the EU generally isn't. That's significant for how we should view it. Personally, I think it'd be pretty far out to include a video game in the central star wars "canon" that previously has included only films (though now it includes the tv shows as well).
Oh, possibly significant bit -when discussing what's his canon (though he didn't use that word) in 2008, the year Farts was released, he mentioned only the tv shows and the movies, no mention of Farts. Either he forgot it, he was simplifying, or he doesn't take it seriously after all.
Yeah, they first appear in the comic strip. The impression you get from watching the OT is that aliens weren't much involved in the rebellion until the end. But of course the modern eu and the prequels change that.
Well, in the original novelization Jabba was origibally called "Jabba the hut" with one t. But it was changed in later editions.
Akwat Kbrana said:Sadly, most EU is farfetched and over-the-top. I really stopped caring after Salvatore wrecked everything with the utter stupidity that is NJO...
If you think he wrecked the EU, you don't want to see what he did in the Forgotten Realms. Vomit. Drizzt DoUrden, a character who makes Annie Skywalker and Jar Jar look good. But in all fairness, the NJO was planned by people other than him. He just carried out their dirty work, offing Chewie for them and starting the ball rolling.
Darth Lars said:Favourite movie: Return of the Jedi.
Cool! ROTJ used to be my favorite. Nowadays, I like them all (the OOT) about equal. They all have their strong points.
My favorite part of Star wars is the OOT. I don't understand people who have something else as their favorite part of Star Wars instead of the OOT. The OOT is what it's all about.
I also like the old Marvel comics. Way more Star Wars in spirit than the Dark Horse comics. It's not all rabbits.
Favorite character: Han and Leia. The actors do such a great job with those two.
Favorite EU character: Qui Gon (since the PT is EU) and Shira Brie.
EyeShotFirst said:skyjedi2005 said:If it was actually shot on film had minimal cgi, good character writing and scripts i would watch it. Especially if it tried to emulate the style of the true star wars trilogy and not that shitty add on series.
I will watch the pilot and if it isn't up to my standards I will not get worked up. Of course several TV shows have shitty pilots. I just don't believe in Lucas anymore.
Sounds wise. I think the chances of him making something worthy of the name "Star Wars" is nil. I mean, the recent cartoon was watchable, but Star Wars it was not. Nor was there much in way of emotional depth. It was tolerable mainly because it wasn't meant to be much and therefore you hold it to a less high standard than a live action film.
I've seen this live action show compared to Firefly and Battlestar Galactica and Deadwood and Sopranos and I think that's pretentious striking poses, because no way do I think they can come out with something like that. So the show will be pretentious as WELL as dumb.
skyjedi2005 said:If it was actually shot on film had minimal cgi, good character writing and scripts i would watch it. Especially if it tried to emulate the style of the true star wars trilogy and not that shitty add on series.
If Lucas was going to learn from his mistakes he wouldn't be making the stupid live action show. Yeah, we haven't seen it yet, but when has a Lucas work had any depth since the 80s? It's going to be Daniel Logan as Boba Fett and will likely be full of silly crap and prequelish nonsense, all with pretensions of being Battlestar Galactica. I'm utterly dreading what he's going to do in it. Lucas should show some mercy and quit working on Star wars and go and make Red Tails or something.
neebis said:skyjedi2005 said:It seems to me an artists rights are in conflict with the historical preservation of these classic films. Why can't Lucas do both?
Oh, the irony...
With Martin Scorsese and other filmmakers, Lucas also continues to lead the fight for film preservation. "It's amazing," he says, "that you have to fight the studios to get them to preserve their films. . . . Parts of 'Dr. Strangelove' are gone; some of the music is lost. Kubrick is having to photograph individual frames to create a new fine-grain negative. That's madness, tragic madness."
from The Home Audience Is Listening - Technology: George Lucas' THX sound system
ROTFL!!!!
Knightmessenger said:What can be done? Don't buy any new releases of Star Wars unless they contain the originals.
Well, that's an obvious one for me. I felt zero motivation to buy the 2004 set and never did. I did buy the GOUT, though, multiple copies to do my bit for its sales (and just in case a copy busts or something). Yeah it was a slap in the face, but it was still the OOT on dvd. It works fine for me. I couldn't care less if it's not anamorphic. My only concern is about the OOT appearing on future formats, because dvds stop working after 10-15 years so sometime a future format version will be needed.
Bingowings said:I mentioned this in my first post on the ROTJ Wishlist Thread.
George made three films where two droids were meant to be characters we cared about and two where the torture of humans was suitably horrific (within the set audience parameters naturally) and in ROTJ he dropped in a comedy droid torture scene.
COMEDY droid torture scene? How was it comedy?
C3PX said:generalfrevious said:Hate to say it, but I was never bothered by tortured droids (they're just metal after all)
I don't think anyone was bother by the droids being tortured in a "holy hell! how can they show this kind of thing to little kids! This is awful!"
but in more of a, "Whoa, they are torturing droids. this is seriously lame..." kind of way.
I don't see how it was lame. We had R2 D2 and C3PO treated as people with feelings from the beginning. People with feelings can be tortured and you can care when it happens. The scene worked quite well and added to the intensity of the film. I certainly don't see it as comical or lame.
xhonzi said:A couple weeks ago, LucasArts announced at Comic-Con that they were releasing addtional content for The Force Unleashed. Story wise, the content takes place after the uncanonical "Dark" ending to the game where the player has killed Darth Vader and become the Emperor's new right hand man. Because this story doesn't fit into the canon, they have branded it under the "Star Wars Infinities" label.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Infinities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_comic_books#Infinities_Era_.28Not_within_timeline.29
Infinities was first coined, as far as I understand, in Star Wars Inifinities: A New Hope but has continued to be used in other comics and now a video game.
This has me thinking: Why not the Star Wars Prequels Infinites?
We should all write Del Ray(or Tor or LucasBooks or who ever has the contract or makes the decisions these days...) and have them hire Tim Zahn or somebody to write a Star Wars Infinities Prequel Series. Give him the latitude to write it any way he wants.
I would assemble a small committee for him consisting of Lawrence Kasdan, Tom Veitch, and me (!) to help him. Kasdan for what I hope is obvious reasons, Tom Veitch because he was one of the original EU thinkers and referenced some idea of the Clone Wars a lot in his 1st Dark Empire series (try to forget DE2 and Empire's End) and me so that at least I can be happy with the result.
Heck, if they're good enough, and we wait for ol' George Lucas to pass on to the big star destroyer in the sky... they could even make them into movies...
The prequels already ARE infinities. There's your prequels infinities right there. I mean, did it strike you as plausible that that wimp Annie could become Darth Vader? It was just an experimental infinities story, not the real backstory of Star Wars.
Make the films faithful to Lucas's backstory as it was when he finished the original trilogy, and faithful to the original spirit of star wars. So Anakin would probably be teens or adult when he's discovered (by Kenobi!) and in his 30s or 40s when he turns dark. I bet the battle droid nonsense was invented by Lucas in the 90s to make his films more kid-friendly (ie toothless, like Han shooting second), so dump that. The Jedi would have been less of a bunch of idiots had Lucas made the films faithful to the original spirit of Star Wars. There should be minimum use of cgi, because ILM can't seem to get CGI right (judging by the prequels and the SE).
People in the films should be generally less pretentious and false. I get that the prequels are set in a more decadent era, but they really overdo making people come off fake. Yoda should be Kenobi's master and mentor. It should be Kenobi's decision to train Anakin. Fighting in the clone wars should basically be a good thing, not a sign that the jedi are corrupt (because that's the impression we got in ANH and I bet the corrupt thing was invented later). Anakin should be a good guy who went bad, not a wanker who became even more of a wanker. My god, please no Yoda imitating a fly. Do Palpatine like he was done in ROTJ, not like the horrible ROTS overacting. Have some emotional depth in the films, please.
Boba Fett should not appear. At least not while he's just out of diapers. Get Marcia to help out, because she seems to be a good influence. Chewie shouldn't appear and be best buds with Yoda. Anakin shouldn't build C3PO. The death star shouldn't be part of it. Vader shouldn't be with Tarkin at the end. Maybe make Owen Kenobi's brother. Cut the silliness and dumb comedy. Vader shouldn't go "Noooo!" like a strangled chicken when he's just been reconstructed. No idiotic drawn-out fight scenes that have no feeling and bad acting and overdone thinderous music and overdone cgi backgrounds. If there's a Mace Windu, don't make him such a pain. Don't have Yoda be a pompous ass who goes in for macho posing -keep him faithful to the ROTJ/ESB portrayal. And use a fucking puppet -one that looks something like the old one -why is that so fucking hard?
No need for Jabba to appear and if he has to appear, don't make come off like a stoned cartoon. No podrace torture, thank you very much. No cartoon characters. Greedo or his dad doesn't have to appear. The Star wars universe is not one tiny neighbourhood -everybody doesn't have to know everybody. Anakin doesn't have to be an immaculate conception, for fuck's sake and cut the prophecy bull or that nonsense about how Anakin is the most powerful person in the force, ever. I'll bet you none of that was in the original story. Now Lucas has to retcon about Anakin's force power being crippled when he goes all bionic in ROTS to explain why Vader doesn't measure up to Palpatine's force power.
I'm just splitting stuff up into paragraphs randomly here, so it isn't one long block of text. Really, I could go on for ever on this topic. There's so much wrong with the prequels. For god's sake, don't cast Hayden Christensen as Anakin. Ok, that'll do for now.
Oh, screw Farts Unleashed.
xhonzi said:There does seem to be a fear of showing any kind of death in RotJ. It should be WAR, indeed.
There's tons of death shown in ROTJ. People being swallowed by the sarlacc, eaten by rancor, strangled, killed in speeder bike crashes, shot, ewoks getting killed (complete with one ewok getting all bothered over another's death), Vader dying, Yoda dying.
How to do ROTJ: Exactly as it was done. Except maybe leave out Leia holding hands with Wicket, because that just shouted "Here's a little cute teddy bear". Great film, no need to make more changes.
And that is why Return feels, to me, out of place in the trilogy (and why I wanted to walk out of the theater in 83). It's a full-on children's film. Star Wars was a serious science fiction\outer space adventure. Return isn't even remotely serious. It's comedy & cute stuffed animal marketing tie-ins.
ROTJ is plenty serious. How anybody can watch all the stuff that goes on with Vader and Luke and the Emperor and say it's not serious I don't know. ROTJ is not a full-on children's film. Like Star Wars, it's a children's film designed to appeal to adults. Or at least to adults who aren't allergic to ewoks. ROTJ is certainly not comedy overall. I don't know where you get that idea from. It had comical elements, but then so did Star Wars. ROTJ is darker than Star Wars. And the cute teddy bears were a savage little bunch of fuckers who were quite happy to eat Han and Luke and Chewie. It was only in the merchandise and the spinoffs that they became totally safe cuddly teddy bears. In ROTJ, the ewoks are red in tooth and claw.
In Star Wars, Luke's aunt & uncle are killed (complete with close up of the burned bodies), his mentor is killed, the princess is tortured & her family killed, and Luke's best friend is killed. Star Wars isn't a children's film. Lucas moved away from the seriousness almost as soon as the franchise got going. Even Empire shows signs of the comedy\cute feel that was fully realized in Return.
In ROTJ, the princess is sexually assaulted (or at least it's implied) and kills her assaulter. Her assaulter even has a huge phallic tail. (And she kills him with a chain -kinky or no?) Luke fights his father and comes close to killing him. Luke's father and mentor die.
The first film was intended as a kids' film, just one that could appeal to adults. Return of the Jedi is the same, except for those people who can't stand ewoks, and those people are certainly not all adults. Empire Strikes Back and ROTJ have plenty of seriousness. I'd say the stuff with Luke on the Death Star (starting with his capture on Endor and continuing on down to Vader's death and the funeral pyre) is some of the most serious stuff in Star Wars.
Btw, Lucas calling Star Wars for kids isn't just a recent thing. He does it back in the 1977 Rolling Stone interview.
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Deckard2 said:ROTJ feels like all of the main actors are winking at the camera and not really taking the movie seriously.
It definitely feels that way to me, and it's not at all surprising. If the story is no longer serious, why would the actors have even bothered with trying to continue playing the characters seriously?
I don't get that at all. There are humorous bits, but there's plenty of that in the first film. Star Wars (the saga, not the film) was never supposed to be deadly serious, and thank god for that. I don't see that ROTJ is any more "winking at the camera" than the other two films. The serious parts of ROTJ are very much serious.
For me - if a science fiction story starts out like this;
...then there's no way it can successfully morph into this:
As a 15-year-old who sat in the theater in 1977 (at least once a week) and was very moved by Star Wars, the series' transition to children's bed time story was a transition I wasn't able to make.
But it didn't morph from that to that. The ewoks in the movie weren't unthreatening plush toys. They were nasty little fuckers with spears and fangs who nearly ate Luke, Han and Chewie.
And Leia's costume in Jabba's palace certainly wasn't something for an exclusively kids' film. Contrast that with how covered up she was in Star wars.
Star Wars always had elements of children's bed time story, from the first film, but it never became purely that, in any of the films.
skyjedi2005 said:He knows kids don't want to see the hero die.
And that is why Return feels, to me, out of place in the trilogy (and why I wanted to walk out of the theater in 83). It's a full-on children's film. Star Wars was a serious science fiction\outer space adventure. Return isn't even remotely serious. It's comedy & cute stuffed animal marketing tie-ins.
In Star Wars, Luke's aunt & uncle are killed (complete with close up of the burned bodies), his mentor is killed, the princess is tortured & her family killed, and Luke's best friend is killed. Star Wars isn't a children's film. Lucas moved away from the seriousness almost as soon as the franchise got going. Even Empire shows signs of the comedy\cute feel that was fully realized in Return.
Show me one younger character of importance who dies in the first film. There's none. Biggs is a minor character. Kenobi dies in the film but Yoda dies in ROTJ. Owen and Beru die but Anakin dies in ROTJ. There's NOTHING like Han dying in the first film. The film had a purely happy ending, just like a kids' story. Whereas ROTJ's ending is more bittersweet, because of the focus on Vader's funeral pyre.
cap said:1) Why don’t the rebels evacuate the base just in case? A skeleton crew would have to remain behind to coordinate the attack on the Death Star, but they can do that from a ship, and everybody else can be getting the hell out of Dodge at light speed, leaving the Death Star nothing to destroy but an empty base.
2) The Death Star spends 30 minutes orbiting the planet to get a shot at the moon. Wouldn’t it be a lot faster to just blast the planet? Judging by the debris and shock wave resulting from the destruction of Alderaan (in the SE and later editions), the explosion almost certainly would take out the moon. Even if it doesn’t, it would leave the Death Star with an open shot at the moon. At the very least, the moon would be rendered uninhabitable and the base useless; people and ships might have a chance to get away, but they should be gone already anyway, especially if you give them an extra 30 minutes to evacuate while you circle the planet.
And talk about an “effective demonstration”! It would say, “If you harbor Rebels in your system, you’re dead, no questions asked, so you better be vigilant about not letting Rebels use your system.”
You're looking for logic in Star wars. Logic and star wars don't go together.
The only way to watch the "saga" is watch 1, 2 and 3 only, 1 being Star Wars, 2 being ESB and 3 being ROTJ. The other films aren't star wars so when you watch them (if you want to undergo that torture) isn't relevant to the question of how to watch Star Wars.
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C3PX said:ChainsawAsh said:VINH, I think everyone keeps challenging you this way is because you keep acting as if your opinion is gospel and anyone that disagrees with you is an idiot, which makes you look like a dick.
And all art is subjective - I really don't see how anyone could think otherwise.
Nail. Head. BAM! On all points, including art being subjective (though I agree with TheBoost, it is a more indepth conversation than just that).
Ok, maybe we should discuss how you often like act like you think you're more intelligent than anyone else and sometimes treat those who disagree with you like they're idiots. If you go pointing fingers you can expect your own faults to be pointed out. And that stuff has bugged me a lot, despite the good points you often make.
ChainsawAsh said:VINH, I think everyone keeps challenging you this way is because you keep acting as if your opinion is gospel and anyone that disagrees with you is an idiot, which makes you look like a dick.
And all art is subjective - I really don't see how anyone could think otherwise.
People don't like me because I believe in my opinions? Because we're all supposed to have no confidence in our opinions? Or hypocritically pretend we have no confidence in our opinions, just to avoid offending anyone? I have no problem with people having confidence in their opinions, but I do take offense at anybody acting like it's wrong for me to have confidence in mine.
As it stands, a lot of people here act like they think their opinions are god's truth, so I don't see why I should get stick for being confident in my opinions.
I do not act like people who disagree with me are idiots, unless they give me some sort of trouble, in which case I may lose patience. However, some posters act like I'M an idiot, and quite without provocation too.
I don't think the trouble I get is because I supposedly act like my opinion is gospel and act like other people are idiots. Because I have posted stuff that had nothing to do with putting my opinion versus the opinions of anybody else here and I still got rotten treatment. I once started a thread to point out a fault in the prequels. My aim was to encourage everyone to enjoy themselves having a little fun at the expense of the prequels. People lined up to mock me and one poster in particular got highly insulting. My crime? To dare to think differently from them. I know why I get shit. It's because I dare to confidently express opinions that are based on different thinking from the majority's. People who think differently are supposed to be all timid and doubtful about it and maybe apologize. Intolerance for difference is one of humanity's defining traits, as is dislike of that which a person does not understand.
If somebody feels I'm a dick (as you put it), whether for being confident in my views or being confident in thinking that differs from the majority or based on some bizarre misconception that I treat people like idiots without provocation, that feeling they have that I'm a dick is based on their misunderstanding of me, their misunderstanding of someone who thinks differently from them, and it should not be held against me.
ChainsawAsh said:And all art is subjective - I really don't see how anyone could think otherwise.
Art is far from being all subjective, but I'm not going to debate about it, because such debates tend to prove especially pointless.
TheBoost said:If Glass was the best actor on the show (debatable), he was still a minor, supporting character. Christopher Lee can act the pants off anyone else in the PT, but Dooku isnt the focus of the show.
I would debate Christopher Lee being able to act the pants off anyone else in the PT. I find his acting overrated. Liam Neeson is a far superior actor.
Glass was the best actor on the show, therefore the intelligent thing to do would be to give him more screen time, not keep in him in the background and then, come the movie, give him hardly any screen time and then kill him off.
C3PX said:I like the term Bootquel. Though I think Superman Returns would also fit rather nicely into this category. There were four Superman movies starring Christopher Reeves. Rather than being a full out reboot, then fairly recent Superman movie akwardly picks up as a new third film, following the continuity of the first two films, but disregarding the third and the fourth. Best I can tell, this was only done out of sheer laziness in not wanting to retell Superman's origins and not as part of an effort to avoid alienating the faithful fans of the originals.
The newest Incredible Hulk film might also fit in there to some degree. The film Hulk from the early-mid-00's sucked so badly, that instead of making a sequel, they decided to reboot the thing all over again just a mere few years after the first reboot. Instead of retelling the origin, they let it work as a semi-sequel. Retelling the whole origin story in the opening credits, and starting the character off on the lamb and hiding out in South America. Interesting, South America is where we last saw him in the completely unwatchable Hulk. I am guessing they did this so if you happened to somehow like the first film, you could call this one a sequel, and if you didn't like the first one, you could consider this one the first one. Fortunately, the new film seems pretty awful itself, so none of this really matters.
But I am thinking the bootquel might be a broader category than you realize. I think you have coined a very useful term. It is about time we broadened our vocabulary of words explaining some of the crazy new trends Hollywood has discovered in milking old ideas to their fullest potential before, god forbid, actually having to think up something original.
I like the term Bootquel. Though I think Superman Returns would also fit rather nicely into this category. There were four Superman movies starring Christopher Reeves. Rather than being a full out reboot, then fairly recent Superman movie akwardly picks up as a new third film, following the continuity of the first two films, but disregarding the third and the fourth. Best I can tell, this was only done out of sheer laziness in not wanting to retell Superman's origins and not as part of an effort to avoid alienating the faithful fans of the originals.
Thank you for explaining where that Superman film fit in. I'd wondered. Though to me it's an entirely different canon, because that's a different Superman. Different actor hence different universe. I tried watching that new Superman film and I gave up. It was pathetic. I also thought Frank Langella was badly miscast, though not as horribly miscast as he was in Frost/Nixon.
The newest Incredible Hulk film might also fit in there to some degree. The film Hulk from the early-mid-00's sucked so badly, that instead of making a sequel, they decided to reboot the thing all over again just a mere few years after the first reboot. Instead of retelling the origin, they let it work as a semi-sequel. Retelling the whole origin story in the opening credits, and starting the character off on the lamb and hiding out in South America. Interesting, South America is where we last saw him in the completely unwatchable Hulk. I am guessing they did this so if you happened to somehow like the first film, you could call this one a sequel, and if you didn't like the first one, you could consider this one the first one. Fortunately, the new film seems pretty awful itself, so none of this really matters.
Both Hulk films had good actors, but they were seriously bad news despite that. But the new one had an appearance by Débora Nascimento as Martina (the woman he meets in Brazil), who I definitely enjoyed seeing on the screen. The best part of the movie by a long run.
TheBoost said:I coined a newterm.
Bootqual.
This category, which so far contains only the new "Star Trek" is when a total franchise re-boot disguises itself as a prequal in an effort to not alienate the faithful.
I would have been less alienated if they HAD made it a total reboot, instead of claiming it's in some way part of the same universe as the real Trek. I don't want Sylar-Spock and teen-show-style Kirk and the other fake characters to be in the same universe as the real Trek.
