canofhumdingers

Don’t think anyone mentioned it yet, but for video games with a cool story (and fantastic gameplay!), X-Wing Alliance is right up there with the Jedi Knight games in my book. You’re a pilot in a family who owns a little space station and gets involved with the rebellion just after the battle of Hoth. Oh man I have so many good memories of that game. And it also had a VERY OT feel with not a hint of prequel crap despite coming out the same year as TPM.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_X-Wing_Alliance

Yeah, that guy in the briefing room has been referred to as “fake wedge” for as long as I can remember.

I was really hoping they’d have a new, unique logo for TLJ. SW, ESB, and ROTJ each had very unique and distinctive logos that still felt cohesive when seen together. TFA’s logo, while not entirely new (see the “Star Wars trilogy” logo on things like the faces set), still felt like it continued that trend. This is just the TFA logo in a new color. Oh well, maybe they’ve still got a new logo design waiting to be revealed?

Huh, I always called it the tan-TEEV four.

For those who didn’t watch, they pronounce it TAN-ti-vee four, where the middle syllable is a short “i” sound.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Re: Maz, I feel like we learn she’s a force mystic, but we don’t really get to see it concretely in TFA. I think that’s okay for now, but I hope we see more concrete evidence of her relationship with the Force in VIII.

I think we saw enough of it to get the idea. I don’t particularly want to see anything “concrete” dealing with a mystic… it would kinda hurt the mysticalness of it all, no? But I’m not against seeing more from Maz. Especially if we get to find out how the heck she got Luke’s old saber from cloud city!

suspiciouscoffee said:

I thought he said “Band of fanatics.” Although, I’d love to be wrong on that.

That’s entirely possible. But I swear I heard “Bendu” and I like it so much I’m totally sticking with it!

To me, the Disney films have done a great job bringing back the mythic and mystical elements of the OT. It was the prequels that stomped all over that.

But in TFA we have Maz Kanata who is no Jedi, but is more of a force mystic. You’ve got that awesome speech by Han (it’s true… All of it.). You’ve got the Knights of Ren, whatever they are. And Rey goes on a hero’s quest to find Luke.

In Rogue One you’ve got the holy city Jedha. You’ve got monks who worship the Jedi and the force. You’ve got tarkin (I think it was, certainly one of the imperials) mention “Saw Guerrera and his Bendu fanatics”. You’ve got the kyber crystals.

To me, the mythic and mystical aspects of Star Wars to hand in hand. And, quite frankly, under Disney the new films are delivering in spades.

Double post

Ah, I love it! I agree with all the last few posts have said about Darth’s hallway assault on the rebels and I’m glad others feel the same I do about it. It was magnificent in all the right ways.

And yes it felt very consistent with what we see from him in the OT. I was really fun to see him totally let loose in a full on assault. The closest we got to that in the OT was him pressing Luke out onto the gantry in ESB. But his goal there was not to kill Luke but to turn him to the Darkside. That whole duel in ESB is a brilliantly choreographed mind-game.

But you ways got the sense Darth Vader was a total bruiser and it was a treat to finally see that fully realized.

There are three common Wilhelm screams. When Jyn pulled the stormtrooper off the platform is not one of them (to the best of my knowledge).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_scream

JEDIT:
The three most famous takes:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H3AdDk_i14I

I’d have to do some more digging to remember all the when’s and why’s, but no they never received the requested copy of Star Wars for the National Film Registry. Lucasfilm offered them a copy of the 1997 SE, which they politely declined.

The copyright deposit prints are, as CHEWBAKAspelledwrong pointed out, are an entirely different thing altogether and have nothing to do with the NFR. When a studio applies for/receives a copyright on a movie they are asked to submit a copy of said movie to the LOC copyright depository. This copy is then used as the primary reference in court should any copyright lawsuits be filed over that media. The LOC has original 35mm prints of all three OT films, as well as 35mm prints of the 1997SE.

Star Wars is an original 1977 print with the original crawl, shows normal wear and tear from being a standard release print shown in cinema before being sent to the LOC and is somewhat pink faded. ESB looks pretty clean damage-wise from what I saw, but it is severely red faded just like every regular release print of ESB we’ve seen. ROTJ looks brand new, like it was struck yesterday and appears to have gone straight to the LOC without being sent to cinemas first. All three SE prints look brand spanking new and were almost certainly sent straight to the LOC as soon as they were struck.

Fleegle79 said:

There is a 4K version out there as the library of congress made a copy. Lucas films just stopped them from showing it so far.

This is incredibly innacurate. The LOC can legally publicly screen anything in their collection without permission from any other entity. They choose not to do anything that might rile lucasfilm for fear of damaging a very good working relationship with the company. With a few notable exceptions that we obviously care about, lucasfilm is actually one of the more generous an accommodating studios that the LOC works with.

The scan the LOC has done is a 2k scan of the copyright deposit print that they made for archival purposes (their goal is to scan every piece of film they have for future preservation). It is NOT a commercial scan and it WOULD NOT be used for any sort of home video release.

The truth is, while it’s great that the LOC has copyright deposit prints of all three original films, none of them are pristine (well, ROTJ is pretty close, but Star Wars is pretty pink, and ESB is blood red). Star Wars was a release print that was only sent to the LOC well after initial release (likely sometime in 1978) and it shows all the wear and tear from being projected many many times. And ultimately, some of the work being done by this community will generate far better results than the scans the LOC has done/is doing. They aren’t using multiple prints. They aren’t doing any cleanup. They are just doing raw scans of each print, with basic color correction in the case of faded prints with the sole intent of making a digital backup copy of what they have. It’s not a restoration in any sense of the word.

She was also tortured by her own father…

Anchorhead said:

I agree with pointing out the lack of consistency in criticizing elements of the movies. I’ve been a vocal critic of the silliness of Imperial Walkers for decades. However, I appreciate the visual. It makes for an imposing presence and it’s cool for the audience. I thought they were interesting visually in 1980 and I think they’re interesting visually now.

To be clear, if you can do this;

You wouldn’t be bothering with this;

I’ve not been following this thread too closely (so tired of all the bickering, first with TFA, and now Rogue One). So apologies if I’m missing the point. But in ESB, the walkers were sent to take out the shield generator. We saw in R1 what happens when a ship flies into a planetary shield… And (I can’t believe I’m saying this) we saw in The Phantom Menace that walking slowly through an energy shield works. So maybe the imperial navy had every intention of sending a star destroyer down into the atmosphere on Hoth…?

As for the logicalness of walkers, they actually make a lot of sense in forrests or really steep and jagged/loose terrain. The original AT-ATs were inspired by an actual military research project.

I’ve yet to post my opinion on the film itself so I guess now’s as good a time as any. I really enjoyed it. I think it’s biggest flaw is weak and bland main characters (Jyn and Cassian), but I wasn’t too surprised as weak/uninteresting main characters is a common issue with Gareth Edwards’ movies. But I really loved most everything else. The locations were awesome. Loved the additional mysticism they gave back to the force (a trend started with TFA). Loved the final battle. Loved everything about Darth Vader (the castle! Finally!). He’s not a perfect replica of himself in the OT, but he was close enough. And I think his snarky remark and his final fight were totally in character and jived perfectly with what we knew of him from the OT. Loved how this movie ties into the opening of ANH. I actually feel like it gives those opening scenes even more weight, no small feat! So far disney’s batting a thousand with Star Wars in my book. Now if they’d freaking do the right thing with the OOT, all would be right in the world again.

While I can certainly understand collectors being skittish and extremely hesitant to come forward or share their prints, why would they be fundamentally against scanning them? I get not wanting to share the scan, but isn’t one of the major points of collecting to preserve said object? And isn’t scanning the print one of the best ways to preserve it, considering all film has a finite shelf life, no matter how well taken care of it might be?

SilverWook said:

IIRC, Vader’s home does exist as some old pre ROTJ concept art.

Yes, Vader’s castle makes its first appearance in Leigh Brackett’s original screenplay for ESB. They also made at least two pieces of concept art for it during ESB preproduction. They’re actually really cool and I’ve wanted to see Vader’s castle in official media since I first say the concept art back in the 90’s. I think it was in The Art of The Empire Strikes Back.

I’m happy to say, the interpretation of the castle on display in Rogue One did not disappoint!!

I always found Shakespeare truly difficult to follow when reading it, but exponentially easier to comprehend when I watched a performance (live or filmed).

Wow! I’m only looking at this on an iPad, but that last version looks insanely good!

Stupid airport wifi is too slow to handle the reel4 preview, but what little I did see was spectacular! This is easily the most exciting project around these parts, IMO. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic and incredibly grateful for the work being done on SW and Jedi too. But both of those films seem to be pretty well off in terms of being preserved. Whereas with ESB, I was genuinely concerned about its future. Even the copyright deposit print at the LOC is brick red. Very exciting to see the original theatrical version (not a recreation!) won’t become a lost film after all!

Wow, crazy. And thanks a lot CUSI Department… I really won’t ever be able to unsee it. Haha.

Geez. But you know, if you actually did want to see it that many times (or even see it in IMAX 6 or 7 times), that’s actually a pretty good deal…

But that’s a LOT of time watching the same movie for a month or two straight…

Yeah my cinemark has more 2-D XD shows than 3-D. And that goes for all movies, not just Rogue One. I guess 3-D must not be very popular here, which is fine by me!

I just bought mine directly from the theater website (cinemark in my case). Even sitting here ready to go on the dot, the seats I wanted sold before I could get through the process. And the site was running slow and freezing up. But I got my tickets. One row closer than I really wanted, but it should still be fine.

Gonna see it in cinemark “XD” (their in house competitor for liemax). It’s a very nice theater with reclining leather chairs, a giant screen, and good sound. It’s my favorite nearby theater and their presentation has been consistently good (especially compared to the local AMC, which has visible projector hotspots and often physical damage to the actual screen…)

If I like it, and have the opportunity I might try to see it in 15/70 or IMAX laser afterward. But I’m not as fussed as I was about seeing TFA in IMAX 15/70. That was a much bigger “event” film for me being the first true Star Wars sequel since '83 as well as having a scene shot with actual IMAX equipment.

But anyway, yay! Tickets for opening night! Hope I like it as much as I think I will!

Looks like tickets go on sale in the US on November 28 at 12:01AM EST.

I’m already on the list but I can’t believe this hasn’t been posted yet…