miker71

"when and where did the "make the kids happy" mentality start?"

Ewoks.

Except as a 12 year old kid, they were nothing more than another alien species to me, plausibly living in the trees.

To Lucas they were a plush merchandising opportunity to girls, and there are also quotes on record about Leia's costume changes done to promote dolls to girls etc.

Merchandising works well with excellent movies, it's barely perceptible. It's a symbiotic relationship with the "art".

When a movie (or brand) is rubbish, the merchandising just seems tacky.

I dunno, I'm not a kid anymore and I prefer Adam Curtis documentaries to anything Lucasfilm has done in the last 25 years or so.

Star Wars is like an old flame - I truly loved it back in the day, now I just let it get on and do its thing, it's not for me today.

"Good! Our first catch of the day!" - but is somehow charmingly B-movie and rather fleeting compared to endless bad dialogue in the PT spoken not by supporting characters but the entire frickin cast.

Anyway, back OT to the OT.

"Whoa! That got him!"

"I just can't believe he's gone ...." painfully boring moment before TIE Fighter attack FTW.

"Master Luke you're standing on the ...." - for the benefit of the stupid people in the audience.

It's mediocre but charming. It's bad but not distracting. Ok, apart from Chewie's tarzan impression, that drove me nuts ... why bring tarzan into the Star Wars universe for a cheap laugh?! Why?!

[OT] is this originaltrilogy.com or a prequel tastemaker site?! [/OT]

the prequels definitely have tacky moments, too many to mention.

I liked the intent to restore the original degraded negatives and clean up messy matte lines and such. I loved going to the cinema to see Star Wars movies again.

I like the bits of the SE that I don't notice compared to my memories of the OT.

I can't think of anything where the prequels have affected the culture to the extent the OT has (e.g. R2-D2 mailbox, Tom Tom SatNav voices, Trash Compactor book-ends, etc etc).

Yes, the prequels have influenced the Fox media (Simpsons, South Park etc) and generated a ton of short-lived merchandise, but that alone does not qualify as pop culture in my book - just narrow self-serving revenue generation, little "culture".

In the real world there's just no enthusiasm for the prequels amongst everyday people. The opposite was true with the OT and it's really hard to describe to people who weren't even born back then.

So Boba Fett is the new Rocketeer. It could work. It could be horrific. It could be creating buzz for Rocketeer II
http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2011/06/29/johnson-interested-in-rocketeer-sequel/

I guess it all really depends how well Captain America does.
"You're only as good as your last movie."

the score and the production design. everything "technical" was pretty brilliant but anything requiring the humanity and judgement of good direction sucked.

i always remember that hamill narrated making of, when he goes on about luke turning off his targeting computer because technology won't save us. i guess that sentiment was utterly lost on lucas whilst making the prequels, which makes their existence all the more tragic/ironic in my mind.

I think Robocop II has got better with age. Even Robocop III is a flick I'd rather watch than any of the prequels.

bkev said:

timdiggerm said:

I do want to point out that the last bit of Jedi Rocks is not bad at all. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BogbtlJs1rI&feature=player_detailpage#t=66s">The part with no words</a>.

Oh, if only they'd used that... it's actually good!

please do not speak of what replaced Lapti Nek. it's death by a thousand cuts, and i'd rather remember how it was meant to be seen back in the day.

HotRod said:

You don't see a "Nerf Herder" either but that's ok I suppose?

 

As for carpets, nope we don't see them, but being a Princess, I'm sure Leia had a few shag piles in her palace! ;)

 

See what I did there??!?!

 

 

Darth Id said:

What's most astounding is that he takes great, funny snide remarks delivered with peerless spirit (otherwise known as great humor), such as "You're brave than I thought," and thinks it's "dumb humor" because he mistakes it for crass innuendo, due to the incessant proximity of his mind to the gutter.

On the other hand, the bit where Han is pushing on Leia's hindquarters as she grimaces and manipulates a giant rod, I do think was intentionally suggestive, albeit too subtle for a kid to ever wonder, "wait what's going on?"

S_Matt said:

This one's usually quoted as being the best of the series (and I personally think it is) but I still think that the adulation for it is a wee bit out of proportion to the actual merits of the film. There is an element of hyperbole to statements concerning the quality of this film.

I like Empire the most but one can't ignore the fact that it was the previous film that invented *everything* about the look and feel of the Star Wars universe. Star Wars exists without Empire. Empire could not exist without Star Wars.

Discuss.

CP3S said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

miker71 said:

It's not sad, it's business.

What's sad is that the world as an adult is not as you imagine it to be as a 7 year old boy.

Not sure I understand your point.  Many of us believe that Lucas not releasing the OT in decent form is a bad business decision, and is purely being done out of some sort of personal thing.  And as a 7-year-old boy, I don't think I would have cared if a theatrical version of a movie was being released or not.

Well put, Puggo. I've been scratching my head on that one. If the OUT was released on DVD/BD tomorrow, I'd run out and buy it first chance I got. As it stands, the only SW DVDs I've ever purchased were the GOUT, and I waited until I got them used for less than $10 a piece.

The effort to restore the remaining non-SE elements would cost relatively little (not to mention it has been offered to be done free of charge), and there is evidence those elements have already been restored anyway. It would be just as easy for those to be placed into the new Blu-ray set as all the other worthless crap that is on them. The only reason it isn't is that stubborn, "they don't exist anymore attitude".

It isn't business, it is a defiant stance that may very well be costing business (though, admittedly, very minor). But it most definitely isn't business. All this fan animosity that has developed over the last decade, this rift in fandom, the "Han shot first 'debate'" would all for the most part go away (or be no more volatile than the "Kirk or Picard" thing in Trekkie fandom) if the unaltered trilogy were included. 

 

It's not sad, it's business.

What's sad is that the world as an adult is not as you imagine it to be as a 7 year old boy.

"I've seen people say on here that, when editing ROTS, they want to preserve the Vader-is-Anakin reveal. Why?"

My take: (and obviously echoing others) to maintain the element of surprise/doubt. Back in the day in the three years between ESB and ROTJ there was rampant speculation on the playground about whether Vader was lying in order to manipulate Luke, and even outlandish talk in Star Wars weekly that Boba Fett was Luke's father and that's why he fired a warning shot rather than a headshot which of course we are all sure he was capable of. It really didn't sink in as for real until the reemphasis in ROTJ by Yoda, Ben, and Vader himself.

Personally I don't have much time for the PT, though would definitely seek out Adywan edits.

the legend goes that Star Wars came about because Lucas could not secure the rights for Flash Gordon.

a lesson there for anyone who wants to make a living as a content creator methinks.

it's a good job Lucas sacked his first editor or it would very much have been typical for the time from what I hear.

xhonzi said:

^By "filler" don't you mean "the rest of the movie"?

1994 i was 23 and just about to get my first taste of making movies in London (just look me up on IMDb after you guess my name).

Perfect location and age and ego to demand I direct the prequels my way (old school cos digital was big risk back then) at one of the big London sound stages.

I'd let George do the story and assuming he came up with The Phantom Menace, I'd story edit like crazy and open with an older class Star Destroyer launching a pod down onto Tatooine - it lands and Darth Maul emerges.

(filler goes here)

I'd let George keep the space battle in at the end, and we'd find out that 10 year old Anakin was indeed a natural and competant pilot, being mentored in a two seater Y-wing that is shiny and brand new. It's OB-1 Kenobi in the co-pilot's seat. OB-1 is a clone of Ben Kenobi whom Anakin will not meet in person until the next episode which Lucas tells me will be called Attack of the Clones.

"Entrance into the TIE/Ln Fighter is via a large hatch on the rear of the Pod. It appears to be an engine fairing, but is not. Drawings of the TIE/Ln from SW-IV: ANH indicate this as the primary ingress/egress point. The hinge detail is even finely done in this model kit - note the tiny M4 Sherman Bogie Truck in the photo below. This kind of detail is commensurate with the same methods the original model makers used in building the studio models. It is great to see it replicated by Fine Molds in this release too."

http://www.guntruck.com/TIEFighterReview.html

From what I remember back in the day, it was the toy that started the top hatch craze.

As a kid I always thought they'd get in from underneath.

In the later comics the top hatch is used when ejecting too.

Frankly, I don't really care and popular opinion and more toys have the hatch on top unlike the original plan (which might have been hinged to put in the rod when bluescreening?)

Darf Vardar would have to answer me this question first:

"Why would I want to go?"

Adventure, meh, excitement, meh, a Jedi craves not these things.

You won't find (m)any critics at the Academy Awards. It's industry awards, for the industry, to promote its products.

I remember Star Wars being slagged off by critics. Some were haters, sure, but not all of them.

I'm not convinced it is proof that would stand up in a court of law (note: IANAL)

What was the source of Fractalsponge's mesh?

It is always a bummer if someone sweats the details then is not given attribution - but ultimately I'm pretty sure that the Imperial Star Destroyers and their likenesses could be argued to be the intellectual property of LFL. However that is a separate issue from being credited for the work, no matter who ends up owning the IP. I dunno.

Let go of the hate. Consume you it will. 

I did find this on IMDb trivia-

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086190/trivia?tr0745453

When Steven Spielberg saw Paul Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange (1977) he was deeply impressed. He called Verhoeven to tell him he wanted to get him an American project. Years later Verhoeven heard that Spielberg wanted to bring him up to direct Return of the Jedi. To be sure of his talent, Spielberg organized a viewing of his latest feature film Spetters (1980). Spielberg was shocked by the extremely sexual content and never called him again. Verhoeven later said that he thought Spielberg was afraid the Jedis would break their celibacy under his direction.