asterisk8

zombie84 said:

Personally, I don't care much for ebooks and don't think it's the way a book ought to be read, but to each their own.

I know how you feel. I love the aesthetics of physical books, I have over 300. The cover design, the choice of paper and typeface, the heft of it, there's nothing that can replace the feeling of a reading a well-worn book.  But I tend to read 2 or more at a time and I'm often on the go, so I quickly learned to really like my Kindle. I particularly like that you can scroll down to any word in the text and instantly get a definition, highlight and clip passages, or make notes.

I'm going to wait for the second edition of Secret History, but ebook or not, I'll definitely be buying it!

I'd appreciate a link to the latest version as well. I watched the Imperial Edition DVD last week and loved it. Great work, fellas!

twooffour said:

Screw the piano

You'd be surprised what a ballerina can do.

twooffour said:

No, but seen a bit of (or rather, THE bit of) Mulholland Drive. Also Femme Fatale with Rebecca Romjin.

There's still a lot of lesbian and sexual stuff in it, and I fail to classify it as anything else than fanservice, sorry. But maybe I'm just this superficial.

Yeah, you have to see the movie to put the sex in context. Suffice to say Natalie Portman's arc is about repression. I can also vouch for there being a lot of bisexual activity going on off-stage in dance companies, too. It's practically mandatory.

Sure, it gets asses in theater seats, but it actually makes sense in the context of the film.

Have you seen Roman Polanski's Repulsion? They're similar.

zombie84 said:

doubleofive said:

 

asterisk8 said:

Is The Secret History of Star Wars available as an ebook?

No, but I click the button to "tell the publisher you want this on Kindle" every time I see it! ;-)

 

 I've been pushing the idea of an ebook on my publisher for a while now. I'm working on a second edition of the printed version which hopefully will be available by this christmas, and I'm hoping there will be a digital copy of this available.

Should be an easy sell. They can charge $10 for a book they don't have to spend any money to manufacture.

dark_jedi said:

What movie is that, the pic from post #20? I am looking forward to seeing here in Black Swan.

I thought Black Swan was really good. Saw it twice in the theater actually, with different groups who had very different reactions to it. You don't necessarily need to like or know ballet, but I dated a dancer for years so I can easily see why Aronofsky equated ballet with torture. These women destroy themselves for art.

About this "Friday chick", that's what you get when you put yourself out there. If no one warned her that the public has a mean streak, then she was poorly managed. The only thing "good" about that song is it follows the MOST common I-VI-IV-V chord progression in Western music.

IMGBurn kicks ass. Highly recommended by people who recommend stuff.

dark_jedi said:

Yes and all those are fair points, but changes are changes, I NEVER specifically said you were a "hypocrite" now did I? no I did not, and GL can do with his movies whatever the hell he wants, he owns them, not us, and as far as the OT goes, we are not even talking about that, everyone already knows, and have known, that these are not going to happen(hence all the damn projects I am doing) fact is fact, and yes, some people in his thread like the SE's as well as his(Ady's vision) but some of those people in that thread bitch up a storm and call for GL's head because of the changes he made(remember they are his films) but then turn around and praise Ady as the SW GOD because of ALL the changes he is making, now THIS is what I find rather amusing, and at least some in the thread understood where I was coming from.

I am not knocking Ady or his vision of things, that is his baby, it is the people that I mentioned that want GL's head, but then praise someone else for doing radical changes.

*edit- I didn't really start getting riled up until someone accused me of calling everyone in the thread a hypocrite, which I did not.

Fair enough. When you put it like that, I can't really disagree with any of it. Plus, I was feeling damn argumentative after the week I've had. Nothing a few Red Stripes didn't fix. But that's on me, so apologies all around.

I thought the chase through the skies of Coruscant was pretty sweet when I saw it for the first time in IMAX. I could debate its absolute nonsense now, but at the time I remember being completely entranced by it. Probably my favorite part of my least-favorite Star Wars film.

dark_jedi said:

NOW this is a post, FINALLY LOL, you grew a pair

I've always had a pair. Big and hairy and dusty with Gold Bond. I just don't swing them around in everyone's face like you.

You want to debate the difference between adywan's changes and GL's? Fine. The difference is that adywan's changes were for him. He was making the version that he wanted to make and watch himself and for his kids, and then at some point he decided to share them with everyone else. Lucas decided to make changes and shove them down everyone's collective throat, and the pretend that his original version never existed. That's a big difference. That's what pissed fans like me off, was that Lucas made his half-assed special editions the new standard. That's the reason that this site exists for us to argue about semantics.

The other difference, that matters to me at least, is that adywan's changes bring greater continuity without drawing too much attention to themselves (some less or more than others). My biggest problem with the Special Editions was the computer-generated creatures shoehorned in. They are obvious because they are unnatural-looking. Jabba in ANH, Jedi Rocks in ROTJ. They looked bad when the SEs came out, and they look worse now. The original 1977 optical effects look better in 2011 than the CGI from 1997 and 2004. I don't think any of adywan's changes look as bad as the best CG creature in the Special Editions. And whether you believe it or not, if they did look as bad, I would be the first to say it. I'm a big fan of adywan because he hasn't yet disappointed me. That's just how it is.

So does that establishing shot need a trooper walking by the camera in ESB Revisited? No. Adywan can reason that it gives more "activity" to the scene, but I agree that it's no different in spirit than several of GL's changes. The difference is in execution. And that difference exists, but you can ignore it if it makes it easier for you to feel like you're right.

I'm off to grab some beers. Have a good one.

Teaming up? Sure, big guy. We're all in league against you.

I'll say it one last time, I don't care if you hate adywan's edit or any edit. I love it, I've never denied it. I also love Puggo's restorations (which I just watched the other day) yours and ABC's Imperial Edition of ESB, and DarthEditous' Ep IV hybrid (which was the the first SW fanedit I ever watched). My problem was with the comparison you made between those who didn't like the Special Edition changes and those who do like faneditors' changes. It's a bad comparison and I called you out on it. You got all bent out of shape and started crying about why I singled you out instead of Jeyl, and you don't pay attention to threads on this board but you've spent more time and effort here than me by your own admission. You just basically turned into a little baby because I took the time to disagree with you. I had no idea that only dark_jedi is allowed to be all "brutal honesty" over everything.

You're a hypocrite and a baby if you can't take what you apparently give out here all the time. Is that sugarless enough for you?

You're right. The adult thing to do would be to ignore you completely, but I'm bored.

Dude, your horse is so high I'd like his dealer's number.

I also don't have to measure e-dicks with you to give my opinion or post on this board. You say you're an adult, but you don't act like it.

A thread about little ol' me? I'm honored.

LOL says the kid who downloads fanedits he doesn't like. You've got serious anger management issues, kiddo.

Kid, if you can't take criticism, don't criticize. ("not all but most" is just weak qualification anyway, pointless).

I made my point clear. I don't care if you like or don't like the changes, but you made a lousy argument comparing people who do like these changes to people who don't like GL's changes. They're two different situations. I singled you out because Jeyl said he didn't like the change and left it at that. You went a step further and made a weak comparison. Simple as that.

dark_jedi said:

You know this is a funny thing, when George Lucas did the SE's everyone complained about what he added(not all, but most) but it is OK for someone else to add things that are not supposed to be there, this is considered cool, go figure

You're not the first person to point that out, dark_jedi. It's a tired argument, because we're talking about two entirely different scenarios here.

In the first, we have the director going back to his original work and changing and adding things and then essentially promoting his revisions as replacements. The fan backlash was because Lucas had, and continues to have, no respect for the original versions of his trilogy. You have to look at the negative fan reaction in that context. If LFL hadn't failed to fix simple things like pink light sabers and transparent speeders, I don't think a ronto crossing the frame for 2 seconds would've seemed that egregious.

In the second, we have a subculture of Star Wars fans who've taken inspiration from the original films and attempted to balance out the changes made in the special editions -- either by minimizing them, or supplementing them by fixing obvious things that weren't fixed.

Statements like "everyone" complained about the SE but is fine with adywan's changes is false, because we're not necessarily talking about the same people complaining once but not again. I think it's more likely that those most outspoken against the SE changes are also not fans of a lot adywan's changes either. Whereas I think the majority of people here fall somewhere in the middle. They want changes that make sense, changes that enhance the continuity and believability of the films, changes that draw you into that world more.

The final difference, to return to the ronto example, is that the most hated changes in the SE tend to be the computer-generated creatures, because they just do not age as well as models. Adywan added a real trooper crossing the frame, not a glossy CG creature that stands out as clearly coming from a different age of film making.

Let me be clear: I'm not arguing that you don't have a right to dislike a change. But I take issue with supporting that opinion by effectively calling people here hypocrites (my word not yours, but the intent of your post suggests it).

EDIT: ray_afraid came in and said essentially the same thing that I did in a lot fewer words. Oh well. :-)

Every night I kneel by my bedside, clasp my hands and close my eyes tight, and pray to the ghost of George Lucas '77 that the XØ Project will be released one day.

doubleofive said:

 

asterisk8 said:

xytan4 said:

So they're both standard definition?

As many have noted, including myself, the DVD-9 on a large flat screen is unbelievably crisp. You have to see it to believe it. You could easily fool someone into believing it's HD.

Plus, the dual-layer disc has a few minor last-minute fixes that are not present in the single-layer. You really should grab the DVD-9.

He is, *8, he is. ;-)

 

Whoops! I missed the whole last page of the discussion.

xytan4 said:

So they're both standard definition?

As many have noted, including myself, the DVD-9 on a large flat screen is unbelievably crisp. You have to see it to believe it. You could easily fool someone into believing it's HD.

Plus, the dual-layer disc has a few minor last-minute fixes that are not present in the single-layer. You really should grab the DVD-9.

doubleofive said:

 

digitalfreaknyc said:

Will it be updated or revised?

He's going to replace all of his own quotes with ones that contradict the original ones, so that we have SHoSW canon wars.

*runs off to register originalsecrethistoryofstarwars.com*

 

Classic!

TV's Frink said:

asterisk8 said:

Yeah it would have to be around 8.5 GB. Anything under 7 gigs can't rightfully be called "high bitrate".

Well, if it was a 60 minute edit...

Drats, foiled again!

Excellent! I'd love to read this on my Kindle.