hairy_hen

I've seen it but I couldn't really get into it either.

I think it's because I have little patience for what I term 'embarassment humour'.  By this I mean anything that derives its laughs from people acting stupidly in social situations and causing the 'straights' to react badly to them in response.  It can also be when everyone is equally dumb, and you just cringe watching them do anything at all.  This seems, for whatever reason, to be a very popular form of comedy, but I actively dislike it and prefer to avoid things that follow this kind of pattern.

Far preferable to me is flat-out absurdity and clever nonsense.  Monty Python's Flying Circus is still my favourite comedy show of all time, and of any recent show I've seen, 30 Rock is the one I enjoy most for this reason.

This thread is currently about . . . MY ASS!!!!11!

Which, to keep following the rules of the thread, is made of pumpkins.  :p

lol, I was going to say I prefer Weird Al's version, but Frink beat me to it.  :p

I'm inclined to dislike things, as a rule.

There are so many forms of entertainment that achieve great popularity and acclaim that do absolutely nothing for me.  I continually react with indifference or outright contempt, and resist attempts to get me to agree with the established opinion.

Part of it is that I detest overly graphic violence, of which there is a proliferation in popular entertainment, and that limits my options considerably.  My imagination and 'empathy' towards what is happening are far too strong to allow such things to pass without unacceptable discomfort--I imagine what it would be like if it happened to me, and that makes it horrible and not fun.  I do recognise that there needs to be a distinction between the horror of real violence and the sort of 'clean' killing that takes place in many movies, but unfortunately I think that point is lost on many people--they become so desensitised that even the most ghastly images and acts cease to have any effect on them at all.

But my general dislike of things goes well beyond that.  I can't really explain a lot of it, but there's just some kind of disconnect between what other people like and what actually affects me in a positive way.  Take Seinfeld, for example: a tremendously successful tv show, but one which ultimately does very little for me.  I'll watch it if other people want to, and I'll laugh at all the funny parts, but I feel no real connection with it, and would actively prefer not to watch it if possible.  I feel the same way about nearly all popular music.  I don't like being bombarded with too many new things either, because I already know I'll react this way to most of them.

But then there are certain things that get to me in a huge way, and I admire and revere them beyond rational justification.  Star Wars of course is the obvious example for movies, no matter what Lucas has done recently.  The Lord of the Rings is such an excellent book series that I am still in awe of it (though the casual destruction of so many nuances of character and sense of place left me with little but cold disdain for the Jackson films).  I absolutely adore Metallica's first four albums, and music by Vivaldi and Bach speaks to me in a way that nothing else can even approximate.  Firefly is the best tv show I've ever seen, and the Legend of Zelda video games give me immense enjoyment.  There are many other things I like too; these are just some of the highest on the list.

For the most part I'm at loss to explain just why I like these things so much, other than that they're just that damn good.  In recent years I've become more adept at analysing works of art on a technical level and uncovering what makes them work or not work, but there is a huge subjective component to it all that no measure of logic can adequately describe.  I have no real conclusion to relate, so I'll end on that note.

I really hope nobody thought the 'bigger dick' thing was meant to be taken literally.  It's a figure of speech, a deliberate exaggeration for the sake of pointing out what is psychologically unsound about having a warlike point of view.  But if I have to explain the joke . . .

Also, despite referencing Carlin, I wasn't talking only about America--the basic description applies equally to every group in history that has ever thought itself superior to another while simultaneously fearing it, and used platitudes as an excuse to invade or otherwise subjugate their enemies.  Terrorists, communists, Nazis, crusaders, European imperialists, 'Manifest Destiny', the Inquisition--the list goes on and on, and the difference is only a matter of degree.  It's quite true that attitudes and tolerances of 'civilised' cultures have improved quite a lot recently, and I'm all manner of grateful for that, don't mistake me.  But that's often a moot point because our weapons have simultaneously become that much more deadly, so from an objective point of view getting worked up over nationalistic notions doesn't distinguish one from one's enemies in any meaningful way.

Everyone thinks they're the heroes and the good guys.  Somebody has to be wrong.  Could it be . . . everybody?

I am wary and distrustful of anything to do with flags or nationalism in any form.  Most of it is a bunch of hyper-masculine prick-waving, designed to keep a somnambulant public from questioning their masters, tossing about largely empty and ill-defined notions like 'freedom' while playing up arrogance and cultural superiority as justification for all kinds of horrible things.

George Carlin nailed it when he reduced this to what it's really about by describing the Bigger Dick Foreign Policy Theory, which is best summed up as, "What?  They have bigger dicks?  Bomb them!"  And as a corollary, "My god has a bigger dick than your god!"

You don't have to be an Angry Feminist Stereotype (tm) to see the illogical and ridiculous truth of this.

I also am being ignored by JT34.  The only time I ever had anything resembling an interaction with him is that he questioned my ability to accurately recreate the Star Wars 70mm soundtrack, apparently without bothering to read the thread, which contains numerous in-depth posts on the subject.  He made some mistaken remark about an inconsequential sound effect having been added to the 1993 mix that wasn't there originally, which I investigated and politely refuted since it is actually present in every mix.

Apparently, that's enough to get me ignored.  For someone who rambles incessantly about old film soundtracks, you'd think he'd be more interested in my work, but whatever . . .

I was already familiar with him from avsforum, spamming post after post about JBL sound systems and other such rot.

For me, just a small amount of information in the RotJ novelisation (also present in the script, but cut from the final film) pretty much kills the entire prequel story and exposes it as nonsensical.

Ben tells Luke, "When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant."

Just think about that for a second.  Anakin Skywalker didn't know his wife was pregnant.  That one sentence negates everything that happens in the entire movie of RotS.  No visions of her dying in childbirth, no trying to make people live forever, no faux-Faustian deal with the devil.  Just straight up selfishness and going to the dark side completely for his own reasons.

He goes on to say that Anakin's wife went to live on Alderaan but gave Leia to the Organa family to conceal her identity.  She thereafter died of unknown causes, presumably around three or four years later.

You could argue that this doesn't really "count" since it was cut from the film itself, but I quite liked the RotJ novel and always considered this information as gospel when I was growing up.  Also, viewed this way, the story as presented in RotJ makes perfect sense, since this was the backstory they had in mind while making it.  That the prequels contradicted it so thoroughly was pretty much the last straw as far as hoping the whole thing would make any sense, and the only way to resolve this is to declare that the entirety of Episodes 1, 2, and 3 are essentially very expensive but badly-conceived fan fiction, which have nothing to do with the true story in any way.  (Except in this case, the 'fan' who made them was actually the original creator, but that's what it's come to now.)

Therefore to maintain integrity it is best to shun them and pretend they don't exist.

Most of the time, any difference between Dolby and DTS on home video will have absolutely nothing to do with the codecs themselves.  They will nearly always result from differences in the mixes used, or the average volume level at which the tracks are encoded.  Dolby also forcibly engages dynamic range compression when downmixing 5.1 tracks to a lesser number of speakers, which creates a startling reduction in peak volume that makes it seem inferior when compared to DTS, which does not do this.  Taken side by side on a full 5.1 setup, identical mixes encoded into Dolby and DTS formats will display nearly no difference whatsoever, aside from whatever minor improvements may result from using higher bitrates.

With both companies offering high resolution lossless options on Bluray, there is virtually no distinction between them aside from the technical issues of how the audio is actually stored and encoded and so forth.

It is the height of foolishness to judge the codecs based on inadequate criteria, and without taking other factors into consideration.  Yet the pointless debate goes ever on . . .

lol.  I've been spoiled rotten by having a digital receiver--mainly because I love being able to transmit Dolby AC3 and DTS signals to it directly via s/pdif.  Goodbye, forced dynamic range compression, hello 5.1 sound!

For music I suppose your connection type depends what component of the system has the best digital-to-analog conversion, and whether you want to use something like Dolby Prologic II music mode or standard stereo.

Though it may be considered a blasphemy by certain extreme audio snobs, I'm pretty much convinced that digital sound is not inherently inferior to analog as is often maintained.  Most of the perceived shortcomings can be explained through other factors, such as poor quality mastering or mixing, too much unnecessary processing (noise reduction eating up detail, etc), the loudness war robbing the sound of any impact or variation, things along those lines.

But when handled properly, digital sound can be extremely satisfying.  Take 7FN's Star Wars LP transfers for example--a high quality preservation of a great sounding source made in 24/96 (having a high resolution at the start is very important), then converted to 16/44.1 for use on cd's.  The sound didn't suddenly become inferior just because it was digital and not on vinyl anymore--the good condition of the records and the great sounding mix ensures that it retains its excellence in any format.  Or look at anything that Steve Hoffman has mastered--he is able to derive a sound that is actually superior to the LP versions, because he uses the original master tapes, which have the least generation loss, and a dynamic range and EQ that the LP format could not handle, but which digital formats can represent with ease.  And of course, any well-mastered present day recordings (yes, they do exist) are going to sound great.

No, the problem with digital has nothing to do with the qualities of the format itself, but the multitude of tools and possibilities that are available to people who don't have the sense or good taste to know when to use them and when to leave things alone.  There has always been crappy sound and crappy engineering, but present day trends unfortunately exaggerate it.

I realise that was only partially on topic, but I reckon it's something that ought to be said.  ;)

That makes a lot of sense, and is supported by the text itself through implication:

When C'baoth destroys the ysalamiri on Wayland, Luke is still able to 'sense' their deaths just before the Force actually returns.

Also, the predatory vornskrs are said to have an instinctual ability to use the Force for hunting, and all of them immediately attack Luke, even on Myrkr where the Force supposedly doesn't exist at all.  But all that's really going on is that Luke is blocked from perceiving it, while the vornskrs themselves remain unimpeded--aside from being unable to detect the ysalamiri themselves, whose ability evolved as a natural defence or camoflage.  Since a Jedi's connection to the Force would be much stronger than any animal, the effect on them is correspondingly greater.

Oh, those.  There was that weird screeching in the left channel when the Falcon attacks the Avenger, and then the music jump cut/repetition at the beginning of the carbon freeze scene.  You sent me the Avenger scene from the Faces laserdisc for the first one, and the second is fixable with a small splice from the GOUT.

The Faces soundtrack was phase-inverted compared to the Definitive Collection soundtrack from Belbucus, but flipping that back to match was a simple task.  If you like I can send you my fixes for both of those if you can't find them.

There were some audio errors in Belbucus' first upload of the Star Wars '93 pcm, which apparently he corrected in the second upload.  They were of shorter duration than either of the glitches in Empire, and I would never have known about them if they hadn't been mentioned here.  I don't have the corrected version of that.

Mielr: I started listening closely to that scene because you pointed it out.  ;)  There is definitely a music dropout in the left channel just before Luke cuts off Vader's hand, which is fairly jarring once heard.  Then I went to the 35mm mix and found that this same dropout is also present there, but for some reason it is much less noticeable.  At the same time, I found that the balance of the 35mm version was superior in that scene, because the lightsaber sounds in the 1993 mix are too loud.  They don't drown out the music, but compared to the original mix they push it out of its prominence somewhat.

So not only will the 5.1 make the dropout less audible, but the scene's epic music will come through more clearly.  It's a win-win.

dark_jedi: Do you mean the 35mm stereo mix of Empire?  The early version you made that I listened to had a noticeable gap in the sound when the door slams shut behind Luke as he enters the carbon freeze chamber.  I don't remember offhand if there was an LD side break there, but if so then missing frames would be the likely culprit.  There was also some hissing during the silence before the start of the main title music, and the very beginning of the file had a bit of something else on the laserdisc before the movie started.  I seem to remember you saying you'd fixed those things, but I haven't heard a corrected file.

<fawltytowers>

Strange creatures, women.  I knew one once . . . I must have been rather keen on her because I took her to see . . . India!

I do wish I could remember her name.  She's still got my wallet.

</fawltytowers>

Anyway, as far as the GOUT's watchability goes, I've seen bits of it projected onto a hundred-inch screen, and its quality is scene-dependent.  Some of it manages to look fairly good, others are nearly horrific.  That's not taking into account the aspect ratio, which will depend on how the equipment handles 4:3 material by default--it may appear with black bars on all four sides, or it may be horizontally stretched.  Neither provides a satisfying viewing experience, obviously, and not all equipment can zoom it to the right level, or can do so with acceptable results.  Making a custom version resized to 16:9 is pretty much a requirement for viewing on a large screen.  G-force's scripts do this as well as many other improvements such as anti-aliasing and eliminating the image shake, and are highly recommended for that reason.

RotJ's 5.1 is nearly complete; there is only one edit left to finish.  I hadn't anticipated doing it, but I decided to replace a short section of the 1993 mix (Luke defeats Vader) with the 35mm stereo, because I prefer the way it sounds with the music carrying the scene as it does in the original mix.  The LFE channel is all done, so after I make the final edit I'll send it off to Satanika for upmixing as before, and it'll be good to go.

Definitely looking forward to this set . . .  ;)

I love the Thrawn trilogy, it's definitely my favourite, but Brian Daley's Han Solo novels are a close second.  It's actually quite refreshing to have stories set in a different part of the galaxy with different concerns, run by an equally oppressive but differently motivated group (the Corporate Sector Authority).  Daley really captures Solo's character, and he's pretty much unmatched in that regard.

The 2009 Jonathan Creek special had a hilarious segment with people watching 3D porn.  Just their expressions, and the way they dodged at the end, conveyed everything the viewer needed to know.

Actually, the prequel re-release will end up being like 3D porn anyway, because so much of them could be replaced with Lucas yankin' it in front of a green screen (shouting 'meesa!' at the end) and they would pretty much be the same movies.

Doesn't Lucas have all the neck he ever needs?!

:p

I just can't bring myself to get involved in a comment war about the original versions.  Those are always so sadly predictable and maddeningly stupid, it's not even worth the emotional energy I would spend getting worked up about it.  Bah.

It's funny, because I'm of entirely the opposite opinion now, but when I was young I actually couldn't get into the Zahn books that much.

Looking back, I think I didn't really understand much about character and narrative structure, and why they were important to making a story hold together.  I was mostly interested in the sci-fi action and technology and things like that.  I had been deeply upset by ESB the first time I saw it, because it seemed too dark and disturbing after the fun of the first one, and for a while I actually thought RotJ was the best of all three!  It is perhaps no surprise that I was at first drawn to things like the ridiculous Kevin J. Anderson books, while finding Zahn's work to be too slow moving and dull, and I only ever skimmed over them and never read them all the way through.

I didn't try to read them again for a long while--but disgusted with the New Jedi Order series, I decided to give the Thrawn trilogy another shot.  This time I was able to see all their merits that had previously gone over my head.  I distinctly remember being astonished and delighted by the excellence of the characterisation, the momentum and intricate twists of the plot, and of course Zahn's unparalleled brilliance with creating science fiction technologies and putting them to all sorts of exciting uses, which somehow as a child I had missed completely despite it being a great interest.  And having outgrown my need to see the good guys always outmatch their foes, the notion of something like the ysalamiri that could remove Luke's advantage lent certain scenes that much more excitement.

(For the record, ysalamiri and midichlorians are not conceptually similar at all.  Zahn himself has said outright that he greatly dislikes the midichlorian idea, preferring a more mystical and mysterious view of the Force, and the ysalamiri in this regard are not so different from the various magical creatures that appear in fantasy stories.)

I think the description of Zahn as someone who really gets Star Wars is spot on.  He has a definite understanding of what it's all about and what makes it work, and his stories reflect that in a way that very few others have been able to achieve.  His additions to the world have a unique sensibility all their own that blends deftly into the original material, without changing it or trying to foist some kind of contradictory alternate intrepretation.  Best of all for those who despise the prequels, the Thrawn trilogy draws only from the original films and nothing else, and even contains hints of a vastly different clone wars backstory--the Old Republic military (which had always existed) engaged in fierce battles with unknown "clonemasters" trying to take over the galaxy, as well as several renegade Dark Jedi with their own agendas.  Unfortunately, he wasn't allowed to put in much detail about these ideas, but what there is sounds infinitely more interesting than anything Lucas has ever done lately!

I'm very glad I gave Zahn a second chance, because his works provided all I could have ever dreamed of in Star Wars sequels.  The trilogy is undisputably the best, but the Hand of Thrawn set is very good also, particularly for the scenes on Nirauan with Luke and Mara Jade.  A few years ago I managed to persuade my dad to read the Zahn books, and while initially sceptical he ended up enjoying them a great deal as well.

lol.  Well, I suppose I was exaggerating a bit, although not entirely.  Hope she enjoys Empire!  ;)

They probably assumed that droids wouldn't have the initiative or foresight to lock a door on them in the first place, or be able to get through one in their way.  I get the impression independent thought among droids was heavily discouraged, hence memory erasures and so forth.

In addition to the stormtroopers being somewhat reminiscent of Nazis, I've heard that the Emperor was at the time of the first film conceived as being like Nixon, flouting the law with impunity and drawing greater power unto himself.  Which as was said would have resonated more with 70's audiences, what with Watergate and Vietnam still weighing heavily on the public consciousness.  Nowadays the shock of that sort of thing has worn off, with mindless patriotism making a big comeback.  I always thought the rebels would have had a fairly tough time of it trying to establish a new government, since the 'silent majority' probably supported the Empire and didn't pay too much attention to whispers of the horrors being perpetrated.  Things like Alderaan would certainly have been kept secret or written off as rebel terrorism by the official news sources.

(Of course the announced intention of the Death Star was for rule by terror to prevent the growth of the Rebel Alliance, but with its subsequent destruction a few days after its first use, the official announcement of such a policy would have had to be drastically altered.)

Man, your girlfriend is lame.

Seriously, I could never be with anybody who didn't think Star Wars was one of the best things ever.  When I was 17 I had a thing for a girl in the year above me, and after working up the nerve to call her I was horrified to discover that she had never seen Star Wars and never wanted to, deriding it as some silly kids' movie.  My interest in her faded very quickly after that conversation, I can assure you!  But I'm very lucky to now have an excellent girlfriend who shares my enthusiasm.  It sounds trivial, I suppose, but it's such an important part of my life that to have it belittled or merely tolerated would just be insulting, and I couldn't stand for such a thing.  lol

If she found the original film boring, chances are you'd be doing her a favour to just stick with the original trilogy and not bother with the prequels, since the snooze factor of those is amped up considerably.  Be glad you didn't start with them, or you'd never get her to agree to watch the real films at all.

How about the "these movies don't exist" cut?

It's perfect, because it has two equally applicable meanings: one that the original versions of the original films don't exist, and the other that we wish the prequels had never been made.  See, it all works out!

Also, Pixar's version of 3D is very tasteful and restrained, limited solely to presenting a wider and more immersive environment.  There is absolutely no gimmicky throwing things in your face or anything of that nature, and you hardly notice the effect at all after a while, it just becomes a natural part of the image.

The same can't be said about many other 3D movies, unfortunately, which is why I usually avoid them.  That, and having to wear those goramn glasses over my real glasses is uncomfortable, so I only go to 3D for movies I'm really interested in.  The prequels and special editions don't even remotely qualify for that, although I'll admit to having a little bit of morbid curiosity.  But I'd still rather watch the GOUT with all its flaws than give in to any of the revisionist rubbish, no matter how shiny the presentation.

005 is right.  They're going to throw huge amounts of money at pointlessly making them all 3D, yet somehow they can't afford to restore the originals?  Why that lying piece of $#&@!

What an excremental waste.