I've only recently begun venturing out into this section of the forum and I'm still in the process of reading this thread...
But, am I to understand based on recent posts that someone out there actually IS doing their own capture of a 35mm Star Wars print...?!? I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it....
Thanks, ADYWAN was it.
And I just got done skimming through this. AMAZING! I don't have time to sit and watch the whole thing right now, but what I saw was incredible. I don't know how you did it, much less in two weeks. The only version of ESB (or any of the SW films) I've watched in years is the GOUT. I had gotten quite used to it, honestly. This felt like watching it in HD it was so different!
I did notice that in some scenes (the carbon freeze chamber in particular) that the crushed blacks still reared their ugly head (especially jarring coming from the GOUT to this). And that Vader's saber is still a little pink at times. And that a few SE changes were still in there (Luke grunting as he rolled down the steps during the duel). But over all it is such a HUGE improvement that I really don't mind those things.
And after watching the Puggo Grande & this, it's so refreshing to see Star Wars without all the dvnr smearing!! It makes it that much harder to stomch the fact that we're not getting the originals on Bluray....
I finally got this dl'd from RS thanks to the kind help of another member here, but it seems it requires a password that I don't have. My copy is from rapidshare via a dlc file. It is broken into 42 rar files and one md5 file (whatever that is). Does anyone happen to know the password? Thanks!
chocolate covered bacon.
Leonardo said:
my favourite would be Obi Wan Kenobi, cause Alec Guinness is awesome! :)
+ ∞
good lord, xhonzi, you were one destructive kid!
And toys r us is overrated. This is where I shopped for toys as a kid:
Oh, & the first pic on this page is about the most awesome thing ever.
I really like those ideas, save for having Tatooine be part of it. If you set that on a different planet (that's then decimated in the wars) and have exactly what you describe, except now Owen, Luke & co. have to transplant both to restart their farming lives as well as hide out from the empire.... I love it. I still also like the idea of anakin's wife leabing him as he begins to fall. Perhaps obiwan helps her get away into hiding from anakin?
But I really like the idea of keeping tatioone "the planet farthest from the birght center of the galaxy" to paraphrase Luke. By making it the refuge where Owen, etc. flee to, it eliminates the question of, "why doesn't vader ever go back there?"
But I def. like the idea of Anakin running off to become a Jedi, forsaking his family. Perhaps then when he DOES try to reconcile, it goes badly, his temper flares, & his wife leaves him.
xhonzi said:
I like this a lot. Good jorb.
Thanks! & holy crap, I thought I was the only one who said "good jorb"! (I actually had to remind my wife where it was from when I said just the other day!)
On a slight aside, I had fun on a longer drive with my wife today talking about this (the clone wars) very subject & fleshing out some of my ideas even more. I'm sure not all of these are my own as I've read plenty of other's ideas for better versions of the prequels, but I'd be hard pressed to give credit to the appropriate people.
Anyway, more ideas for my version of the clone wars:
Obi-wan first meets Anakin when responding to a distress call from a spice freighter on which Anakin is the navigator. The pilot of the freighter is wounded or killed & Anakin takes the controls, amazing everyone with his piloting skills evading the attacking ship. Obi-wan realizes that Anakin is using the Force without knowing it & takes him to be trained. Anakin is in his early 20's.
Obi-wan, after much deliberation, agrees that cloning themselves is the only way that the Jedi (& Republic) will defeat the Mandalorians. Anakin is staunchley against it & this begins the rift between them. The resultant horrors of all the clones lead to the emperor's rise to power & creation of the Empire. Anakin's turn is the result of his rapid acrual of extreme power through the force (most Jedi would start from very young, maybe 10) and his inability to cope with it. That, combined with his opposal of Jedi cloning would drive him away from Obi-wan & towards the emperor, who also (at least publicly) opposes cloning.
Owen would be Obi-wan's half brother who's a farmer on a planet that is decimated by the wars. He strongly disagrees with many of Ben's ideals, but also realizes what Luke might mean for the galaxy & thus reluctantly agrees to raise him after relocating to a very remote area where he should be safe from the new Empire. Leia going to the Organa's would be pretty similar to what we actually got. Anakin would, obviously, only know his wife had 1 child. His wife would have also left him before the children were born b/c of his temper and inability to handle the stresses of the war & the new powers he's rapidly attained. Anakin, would, of course, hold Obi-wan responsible for his wife leaving, adding to his turn.
Not sure if I would have Anakin already be married or fall in love during the wars/his training. I kind of like the idea of him being thrown together with the female lead to fall in love under severely stressful situations, only to have it not really work out. But they would only realize that after they were married. (I'm envisioning something like what Bogart and Bergman describe of Paris in Casablanca).
The emperor would not be a Jedi or Sith, but merely a person naturally gifted in the Force (like the Skywalkers) who tries to train himself. His lack of formal training is what results in his darkside turn. His appearance is due to using the force to extend his life (he'd be extremely old). And also being so deep in the dark side has physically afflicted/deformed his body.
Whew, sorry for the block of text. I enjoyed brainstroming this stuff in the car & wanted to write it down before I forgot. I figured someone here might enjoy reading it too, so I thought I'd post it instead of just writing it down for myself.
Bingowings said:
I thought it was clones vs clones.
Obi-Wan's old name sounded so much like (as in Artoo) a phonetic transcription of a registry code, that maybe OB1 was a clone too.
I thought could have resulted in the official outlawing of clone technology to mass produce slaves and armies resulting in droids taking their place (like the Butlerian Jihad in reverse)
This is very similar to what I thought it was (& still prefer to think of it as...). I discovered Star Wars in the early 90's & didn't really give the Clone Wars much thought at first. Eventually, when I did (probably around the time I first heard rumors of the prequels being made), I looked up anything I could find about the Clone Wars.
Things I found were pretty sparse (The Thrawn Trilogy actually provided some background, IIRC). But What I did find allowed me to conclude the following:
The Clone Wars started when a group called the Mandalorians (from whom Boba Fett got & *heavily* modified his armor) decided to take over the Galaxy. Being one race from one planet, they didn't have armies large enough for the conquest so they set about cloning themselves. They eventually layed waste to the republic & in a last ditch effort to stop them, the Jedi agreed to clone themselves. This, of course, created a rift amongst the Jedi. The Jedi & their clones (& the Republic's armies) finally defeated the Mandalorians.
But there was an unforseen problem. The rapid growth, among other things, caused clones to be mentally unstable & go nuts. Not a good thing when you've got force weilding Jedi clones running amok. Thus, the second Clone War was the real Jedi fighting the cloned Jedi. This also resulted in public opinion turning against them leading to the downfall of the Jedi. Around this time would also be the rise of the emperor, Empire, & Darth Vader, all using the Jedi's struggles to their own benefit.
So that's the basic story for the Clone Wars as I imagined it (&, again, still prefer to). I do specifically remember some book or magazine speculating that Obi-wan was really OB1, which refered to "Old Ben 1", the first clone of Jedi Ben Kenobi. Not an idea I particularly love, but an interesting idea. It's been a while, but I do seem to remember clones being an integral part of the Thrawn trilogy with a clone of Luke and that crazy old Jedi, Jorus something-or-other possibly being a clone (hence why he was so nuts). I also remember something like Bingowings mentioned about the resultant outlawing of clones & then rise of droids as servants (this also tied into R2 & 3PO not being welcomed in the cantina - they were a rather recent addition to the culture & were looked down upon as stealing jobs from living beings).
I was born in the early 80's & kind of missed out on the first round of Star Wars. I didn't discover it until the early 90's I was about 10 yrs old and my friend showed me ROTJ. I didn't understand a lot of it (not knowing it was the second sequel) but was hooked.
Anyway, non-film related memories would have to be another friend showing me a small grainy picture in an action figure magazine previewing NEW(!) Star Wars toys being made that would be released in 1995. I have many memories of collecting those toys. One in particular was trying to find the newly released speeder bike. My mom checked everywhere over the phone & finally found a Service Merchandise halfway across town that had one instock. That was an exciting drive...
Thinking about that stuff kinda makes me miss the days before the internet when news & rumors were so much more difficult to come by & you could actually walk down the toy aisle & be surprised by new figures you had no idea were coming out!
Yes, I didn't mean to imply this was a fan edit. I meant that I'm not really interested in fan edits, but other types of projects such as these preservations/restorations highly interest me.
Puggo, thanks for all the hard work you've put into these film transfers! I just got my hands on Puggo Grande (thanks to the help of another board member here). I've only had a chance to skim it, but it is so AWESOME! I can't wait to sit down & watch it all the way through!
And this ESB project has me on the edge of my seat! I'm not really one for fan edits but projects like this & the work DarkJedi is doing have gotten me to broaden my horizons and venture outside the general star wars discussion...
So much of the technical chatter is so far above my head that I can't fathom how you guys do this stuff, but it's still intensely interesting. And the final products speak for themselves!
doubleofive said:
To be fair, he cut open a door release, he didn't slice open a hole in it.fishmanlee said:
but he used it to cut into the AT-AT to put the bomb in it
You beat me to it.
none said:
Lightsabers have been shown in several spots in the movies to be able to cut through anything.
So why does Luke go all the way up to the belly of the Snow walker when he could have just as easily cut through a thin point on the walker foot, the curved ankle hinge or lateral strut: (or whatever they're called)
Luke had several seconds while the foot was planted before it began the next step.
(insert blow up Yavin IV response)
Well, at that point in the films it really hadn't been established that they could cut through anything. But I have an explanation that I like for my own personal version of Star Wars:
While lightsabers ARE capable of cutting through many things, it isn't necessarily that easy to do. Much like how there are historical accounts of samurai who could cut through multiple (as many as 4 or 5) human bodies (through the mid section, spine and all) with one strike. That doesn't mean anyone who picks up a katana can do that. You must be extremely skilled and have a tremendous amount of practice with proper cutting techniques. In other words, just because the sword is capable doesn't mean the person weilding it is. So I like to think lightsabers are much the same as a katana. The sword itself is capable of incredible things, but only if the person weilding it has extreme amounts of training and skill.
And to get back to your original question... Since, by that battle, Luke had recieved relatively little training in his short time with Ben, he wasn't capable of cutting through giant pieces of metal, even if it was possible.
I've been here forever, but rarely venture to the preservations/edits section. I've been happy (well, as much as one can) with the GOUT, but this looks like a must have. I'm totally incompetent when it comes to torrents, burning dvds, and especially usenet groups.
Would anyone be kind enough to help me figure out how to obtain this set once released? (I'm also still interested in getting the PUggo Grande, but never got a response in that thread).
TV's Frink said:
The "no comment" was covered some number of pages back in the thread. Can't be bothered to look for it, however.
Gee, thanks for clearing that up....
20th Century Mark said:
the "no comment" quote makes me wonder, is there a future release of the OOT? I would say yes. First you have to buy the upcoming box set to get all the deleted scenes and good stuff, then they will release another set down the road with the OOT. Typical Lucas.
Did I miss something? What "no comment" quote?
My better half and I quote Star Wars (and other favorite movies) so much it's difficult to think of one specific instance.
But I have a good one, I think. One time I was giving some flight instruction to a friend in a small twin engine plane. On takeoff, as he added power, he said "Punch it, Chewie!" To which I immediately (almost robotically) responded with an imitation wookiee growl. I have to confess that I've since "borrowed" it from him and use it periodically myself now.
SilverWook said:
The owner of the Derann print has been through this with Puggo. The aforementioned problem is the maximum reel size his workprinter can take is 400 feet. The Derann is spread across four 600 ft. reels. Short of physically cutting up the print, and potentially destroying it's value, this is likely an insurmountable problem. Unless somebody knows how to make a reel with a slightly smaller hub or something!
Ironically, the ROTJ Super 8 that was on Ebay a few months ago was spread across six 400 ft. reels.
A problem yes, but surely not insurmountable? If the workprinter itself cannot accomdate a 600ft real, perhaps someone with an engineering mind could jerry-rig some sort of multiple reel addition to take up the slack? I'm not very familiar with workprinters or transfering film or anything like that, but surely there's a way to modify the thing to accomodate an extra 200ft of film. I assume the problem arises from the diameter of the 600ft reel being too large to fit in the mounting on the workprinter? If that's the case, there's got to be a way to modify it.
I realize my knowledge of all this is very limited and that people have probably already explored ideas greater than mine, but surely there's a way it could be done!
A lot of the wierd names in Star Wars have more roots in real languages than is first apparent to those of us who only speak english. I remember seeing some of the odd names for planets in the prequels while they were being made, only to be surprised to find out (often by accident) that they were ACTUAL names of real places (often very remote) on earth. Though they were usually spelled slightly different than their earthly counterparts.
For example, the planet Utapau from ROTS is one letter away from the U-Tapao airport in Thailand...
And Mustafar is probably from the arabic name Mustafa, an epithet of Muhammad that means "the chosen one." (source)
Yeah, like I said, I'm sure these would be out of my price range (for now). But I'd be more than willing to fork over a few grand per film if I had the money. I figured they'd be quite hard to come by also. Maybe by the time I found one for sale I could actually pay for it... It's a pipedream, I know, but it sure is a nice one...
It'd be really nice if we could get the right people together (namely, someone who owns the full length 8mm and someone like Puggo) and actually do a full transfer of all three films from 8mm. That actually sounds more feasible than ever tracking down & buying all three prints.
Any chance the people you interviewed for that article would be willing to put their print up for telecine, Zombie? (It sounded like at least one of the guys had the full length 8mm of Star Wars unless I misread it).
And, btw, thanks for all the efforts with savestarwars & thesecrethistory! It is SO greatly appreciated!
Holy moly... I had no idea there were full length 8mm scope prints of the original trilogy.... Hello new collection holy grail!
So, does anyone have any idea just how rare or expensive these might be? I'm sure they're currently outside my budget, but it's something to work for! Bluray? Schmuray! Who needs that when I can have my own PRINT!
doubleofive said:
The original helmet is probably based on the RotS helmet, which was made perfectly symmetrically, which kind of ruined some of the charm on a subconscious level.
No, the figure's helmet is definately based on the OT. The whole figure is meant to be the ANH version, and does a very good job of it I might add. It's interesting b/c when pics of the prototype were released, the helmet was perfect. Then, sometime during production, something changed and what you see is what we got. The facemask was still spot on, but the helmet was off. But not unsalvageable, as you see.
And, yes, he comes with two fisted hands, two gripping hands (for the lightsaber), and one open right hand with fingers outstreched. He also comes with a lit lightsaber and an unlit one that can hang on the belt.
Anchorhead said:
These same types of discussions come up on the Indiana Jones board from time to time. My thoughts are the same for both - I find it absolutely hilarious that there are various classifications of canon. It's all make-believe. There isn't official make-believe - it's all fucking make-believe.
I'm with Frink on this one. It's not something I give one iota of credence to. I read what I like - ignore what I don't. What George decides is real or not is of zero concern to me - other than the fact that the more he approves of something, the more I see it as a complete waste of time i.e - everything after 1980.
I'll decide what's worth bothering with - not someone who has decided their make-believe is the official make-believe. A fucking website devoted to levels of official make-believe? - and people allow themselves to be governed by it? That's pure fucking genius on the part of Lucas.
He actually has followers who wait - and abide by - his decisions of what's real fake vs fake fake. A tip of the hat to you, George. You are one savvy son of a bitch.
Well said, Anchorhead. You made me laugh with that last paragraph. But it's so true! I (like many seem to) have my own personal version of the Star Wars universe consisting of the things i've watched or read that I liked & "felt like Star Wars". If I take a chance on something & it doesn't jive with my world, I toss it.
Oh, & what Indy board? I've browsed theraider.net occasionally but am unaware of any others.
Moth3r said:
Re Post 1782:
I'd heard the name Robert Harris before, but I didn't really know much about the person. Those few paragraphs from the guy have earned him a hell of a lot of respect from me.
Robert's name gets bandied about far too much by fans who really don't know what they're talking about or are just parroting what they've heard others say. But if you actually read what he says & writes (he does a sporadic column called "Yellow Layer Failure" on thedigitalbits.com), he is absolutely THE most respectable man in Hollywood. He totally GETS film history and significance (which he should, considering his job is to restore and preserve it!) and has a great gift for being able to eloquently say what so many in Hollywood really need to hear. It also helps that he actively communicates with average people like us through the hometheaterforum.
