Ah yes, Lynch! Again as a kid I had no idea at the time but you have prodded my memory that this surfaced on my radar recently - google corroborates
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/David-Lynch-On-Refusing-To-Direct-Return-Of-The-Jedi-16071.html
I'm with you on the Vader unmasking. After seeing the back of his head in Empire and reading he'd fallen into a molten lava pit after his duel with Kenobi, I was expecting an horrific burns victim. Instead we got a kindly old man. I guess this shows that Lucas thought we could identify with someone not disfigured and more easily "forgive" them in the few minutes before the end of the flick.
From what I know, Marquand was back-seat directed by Lucas.
I don't know that Spielberg was up for Jedi ... I do know that Lucas' spat with the unions came (in part) from not crediting anyone at the start of Star Wars. The argument was that he gave himself credit "A Lucasfilm Ltd Production" but no one else until the end-crawl. Utter bunk for an audience, but for people relying on residuals and such, key to getting union rates.(?)
Bingowings said:
If Robocop had not been released first (and the quickly dated CGI hadn't been used) I would rate Robocop 2 as a better film than Robocop.
If does all the things in Robocop better than Robocop does but sadly most of the story had already been told so the story was largely redundant.
Huh? CGI in Robocop? Have we seen the same trilogy?! :)
"Kidnapping Anakin's mom, and basically torturing her seems needlessly sadistic"
Not only that - I can be made to believe the impossible, but not the improbable. The whole kidnapping thing (from my limited memory) seems out of place (including the dreams) and convenient in terms of plot. I mean, everyone thinks she's dead but there she is clinging onto life until Anakin turns up and she decides to die on him. Great timing. Unintelligently contrived like so much else in the prequels.
I really need to stop dredging up these memories I have of watching the prequels. They are just plain bad filmmaking as much as anything else. Technically brilliant but creatively bankrupt.
I think over the years it has been diluted, the childhood wonder has given way to thoughts of "fucking hell, not another milking" - as such, my emotional attachment has become quite severed and with Indy IV basically cutting respect for any more releases of anything. It's trite.
Back in the day I would've wet myself with all the media available today - I was an avid collector - any picture I could see from the movie would get me excited - this was the days before a VCR in every home.
To answer the question "do you like it as much as you did at the beginning, or is it one of those pleasures that have never been topped?" - no, i don't like it as much as I did at the beginning. Something that hasn't caught the cancer of franchising, something like Back To The Future, gives me far more nostalgia today than the fucked up Special Editions.
Would I go and see "untampered" editions of the original Star Wars. No. I just cannot be arsed with that shit anymore. George has proven time and time again that he is a fortunate businessman and little more.
avoidz said:
xhonzi said:
Thanks for posting the interview, mania. But is it just me, or does Kazanjian not really sound like he knows of what he speaks? He looks at the blank space in the matte painting and thinks it's unfinished? Clearly, he must know how matte paintings work/worked? And I thought his comment about the ships' proximity to Jabba's was interesting... can Jabba's be seen in the painting? I looked at the painting for a solid 30 seconds and couldn't find anything looking like a palace...
So we have Lucas saying it was Hamill, Hamill saying it wasn't and then saying it was, and Kazanjian saying it wasn't. Whom do we believe?
I think what Kazanjian is saying about the Milliennium Falcon and X-Wing being so close to Jabba's Palace is they are relatively close, not actually right next to; in the same general vicinity where they might be spotted (since Jabba and at least Boba Fett know what the Falcon looks like).
I don't quite get why Howard doesn't recognize a matte painting with a black space for a live-action plate on it. Maybe he's been looking at too many CG effects over the years and forgotten.
Luke's first appearance in Jabba's Palace and the lightsaber fired from Artoo in the Skiff scene works much better than seeing that cut scene in the cave which is kind of pointless.
The Vader scene, obviously sounding and looking like something concocted from unused Empire and Jedi footage doesn't add anything new, and the dialogue is forgettable.
"The blacked out area on the left looks like it was never finished - whatever it might have been."
I read that as he assumes whatever was going to be inserted into the black area wasn't finished (or was shot but never composited perhaps). I think it's part of the sandstorm thing perhaps, so we'd be seeing the ships after the rescue. He was obviously thinking it was part of the Luke sabre scene (and perhaps it was - who knows!)
There's nothing like polarising people, it's good marketing to shift units!
And remember - he's talking about his day job from almost 30 years ago, not his wet dream.
Baronlando said:
This is really not that complicated. They don't have to split the atom to do this. They will not lose money on it. They will not need much effort to do it. They do it all the time, I just came from Burbank where every day the labs are churning out this exact work for tons of movies you've never heard of. It's not a big deal. Sansweet and the junior sansweets are painting it as some unreasonable thing when it's just not.
Exactly.
I'd rather watch "Paths of Glory" in HD if I am able rather than SD because although it is a good film in any resolution it becomes a greater film when the subtleties of detail can be appreciated in their original form.
If a classic B&W Kubrick movie from 1957 can get the "treatment" there is zero excuse for a classic flick from 1977 not to receive it other than stubbornness and feigning faux scarceness.
Honestly, it just wears what little respect I had for Lucasfilm down to zilch knowing that they just don't care enough to preserve and release the OT in unaltered and highest quality possible. It's a pity, because Lucas was once my inspiration for making my own movies, but I end up lampooning him.
Anyway, I moved on and so has my wallet.
This is a fairly accurate idea of what I was expecting:
Obi-Wan: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force.
Slaughtering younglings, was a "hunt"? I mean that bit of Obi-Wan dialogue sets certain expectations, some of which were changed in Empire and only partially demonstrated in the prequels.
after Clones I was on the fence about how good Sith would be. i was certainly into the trailer (i think all the prequel trailers set you up to expect a good movie).
however - the opening space battle felt soul-less and less dynamic than stuff in the OT (or, say, Starship Troopers) and i was facepalming by the time artoo was igniting fuel with his jets. the yoda/chewie relationship was getting too much etc.
i thought we'd see a lot more around hunting down the jedi, by vader personally rather than the directive 66 montage. the rise - and revenge - of the sith at a more personal level rather than clones doing the dirty work.
the backstory around how yoda arrived at dagobah is disappointing to say the least - was i watching ET for a moment there?!
i didn't think padme would die (though by that point in the movie it seems obvious) because leia has memories of her. there could've been a whole other emotional subplot around a mother giving up her babies and killing herself or whatever, but no.
the more i think about III the more i wonder how anyone can consider it top of the pile.
[ I think ] this is the howl I remember from the OT, but who knows what my original memories are anymore :(
http://webspace.webring.com/people/pr/rushyoda/kraytdragon.wav
as a kid I never knew it was supposed be Kenobi vocalising, it kind of worked unconsciously that he was somehow scaring them away.
out of context that original sound is also pretty hokey - possibly in a good way. with the music on top this new effect might be ok. might.
Asteroid-Man said:
As much as I dislike this new howl, you guys didn't actually like the original howl did you?
I used to do my best to vocalise the original howl as a child (and later as, uh a teenager to freak people out) - the whistling "ooooh" with the croaky roar on the end, what was particularly wrong with it?
The new sound, out of context, certainly sounds pants. I love "back lot" moviemaking (like filming the dagobah monster in George's swimming pool) but this does just sound idiotic - another one to make Marcia weep.
apparently in production for 2011 release, so timeframe makes sense
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458291/
[edit: forget it, i see it was 9 months ago, doh]
JediTray said:
I say good riddance. It would be nice to know the real reason why he is leaving, but that'll never happen. Too bad it's not in protest over the GOUT!
http://www.starwars.com/fans/media/sansweet/index.html
The only thing he did that I rate highly is the book Star Wars: From Concept to Screen to Collectible in 1992.
I remember when I heard he joined LFL thinking "good luck to him - his dream come true" - but in retrospect as someone so obsessed with Star Wars, is it any surprise he was just a star struck "yes" man.
After Indy IV, I have moved on, nothing to see here, no more second chances from me.
There's nothing to forgive - I still have that thrill of seeing Empire and Jedi in the cinema on first UK release and being old enough to appreciate it. (I did see Star Wars in the cinema too when it first came to the UK, but all I remember about that is wetting the bed! Followed by a very worn out VHS recording of its first broadcast on ITV some years later).
They are George's flicks - he can do what the hell he wants with them. He knows that scarcity creates value.
I'm not convinced
TV's Frink said:
I remember reading the first Jedi Academy book. Thought it was terrible.
Beginning of the end. I think I read them out of lack of anything else around at the time. I guess they sold enough of them to fans like me to open the floodgates to market saturation.
I really believed the prequels would put an end to all the drivel and raise the bar high. Hindsight, eh.
The only other EU books I remember reading aside from Daley and Zahn were the Jedi Academy ones, which look to be from 1994
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jedi_Academy_trilogy
However shortly after that series Star Wars went "Dragonlance" - ie, utter saturation of the market with complete drivel. Cinematic foreshadowing of what was to come .... !
I don't think modern celebs do coke anymore because it's so cheap the plebs are doing it now.
Interesting article - makes me wonder how much of her on-screen acting is drugs enhanced.
I also remember an interview where the older Carrie was asked if she had any relationships whilst filming the Star Wars movies and her reply was something like "I had plenty to choose from" - pretty loaded depending what you read into it.
kenkraly2007 said:
Will the color of the star wars films episodes 4-6 be fixed for the blu-ray release? That is the big question. I tend to think they will be but I want to get some opinion from the star wars fans on here. Some fans say they won't be however some fans say they will be. I understand people are upset with the colors. What if they will be fixed? So what's your take on this?
No.
If it's fixed they'll have nothing to sell you when the colours do get fixed for the 3D release. (I do not know if the colours will get fixed for the 3D release, and I'm obviously talking about the domestic 3D release several years from now).
wow, yes. whilst i cringed a bit at the ysalami things that could stop the force working and the whole problem thrawn had with his eyes and skin (previously I'd read that the Empire was racist which is why in ROTJ we have a rebel briefing room full of aliens).
the stories - whilst not memorable (errr, I mean 20 years later and i've totally forgotten the storyline except it was something to do with discovering a fleet of dreadnaughts) - i felt was more star wars-y than the dark horse comics that subsequently got released. the dark horse stuff seemed good but up-its-own arse in terms of tone and contrived "darkness" for the sake of being "dark" - it's a tough balance, but for me star wars has a whimsical quality (which when out of balance we get the horrid prequels) which dark horse didn't understand in my eyes. but yes, zahn "got it".
zombie84 said:
I always get a kick out of hearing complaints about 3D. It reminds me of the newspaper articles from when sound and then colour was invented. Literally, its almost verbatim the same sort of phrasing. Of course, a lot of early sound films had terrible, tinny audio, and some early colour films had poor, gimmicky colour effects. Done right, and done enough times, and you don't think about it as a gimmick because you aren't paying attention to it anymore. As far as 3D goes, most films try to draw attention to the effect, because that is why you are paying the premium price to see it. A lot of early sound and colour films had similar marketing philosophy. Then after a while, everyone was doing it, audiences got used to it, and then peope stopped trying to outdo each other in gimmicks and audiences simultaneously stopped paying conscious attention to it.
Ironically, the situation is now reversed--because people are used to colour and sound, if you do part of movie silent or in black and white, it is seen as being self-consciously stylistic, or maybe even gimmicky or pretentious. I have this sneaking suspicion that this will apply to 2D films ("flat pictures"?) at some point in the distant but not too distant future.
Sound and colour do not require wearing glasses with polarised lenses. Once that can be overcome, I basically agree that 3D has a chance to become de facto rather than de jour.
Bingowings said:
I'm starting to think that he only makes these films to make Marcia cry.
that's the most plausible explanation i've ever heard.
skyjedi2005 said:
I started to wonder recently if Hayden is just an awful actor or if it was simply a case of bad scripts, poor direction, too much cgi, and they miscast him as Anakin.
What actor would have made an Anakin in his twenties or thirties believable and relevant to the character referenced in the oot?
I mean assuming you had a good script and a competent director. Someone who knows to use CGI correctly in a means of telling a story and not in an end to itself.
I think Hayden was possibly cast because visually he looks a little like a younger version of the Vader we see in Jedi (it's the slightly lazy eye).
As to who could have made a better Anakin Skywalker ... how about Chris Evans? He basically plays himself in the movies I've seen him in - cocky, fallible, the "loveable rogue".
I don't hate them but I do strongly dislike them.
Mostly because they were a wasted opportunity. You can argue that you can never beat expectations that have been brewing for over a decade, but you could at least make a movie that made fans hairs on the back of their neck stand on end. Or, you could cash out and deliver a soul-less meandering special effect with no depth.
I watched them in chapter order (one a day, I - VI) earlier in the year after I got hold of 1080P versions.
Firstly, after watching on DVD, seeing them in 1080P was like watching them freshly once more.
The prequels are pretty poor, not visually or technically but because they are just so dull and lifeless in terms of character dynamics. And things like R2's rocket boosters and '3PO's head swap and Palpatine melting just make me cringe and weep just thinking about it.
I've seen RoTS three times (once at the cinema, once on DVD, once at 1080P mkv)
I've seen Star Wars countless times, beginning from when I was able to tape it off TV. It's not like the OT is without problems - but what problems do exist are overshadowed by the fucking excellent bits.