Before EU went nuts and before I'd seen a lot of preproduction material. I GM'd a great campaign 88 - 90, too :-)
There's stuff in here that turns up in the prequels, too IIRC
When I saw ROTJ at its first run at the cinema (I would've been 12 or 13), the feet burning (or moreso the wrong noise coming out of the power droid/gonk) bugged the hell out of me second only to Chewie's tarzan impression. Fortunately enough awesomeness remains in ROTJ that I could let these things go.
It's space opera, not Star Trek.
When I see pictures of Anakin do I think "Oh look, there's Luke's dad!"
No.
Therefore, complete fail. 0.
Wow, it really has been 10 years.
I remember coming out of the cinema thinking "it wasn't that bad - painfully average, but okay". I thought it would mature over time and somehow become part of Star Wars cannon in my head. Nope.
Ten years later and I just can't believe how trite everything about the TPM really is. It's coloured the OT in ways I dislike, but there it is.
I actually enjoyed AOTC the most, perhaps because my expectations were so low to start with.
ROTS was painful to watch. I hate slapstick. With a passion.
In the ten years since 1999 I've watched TPM four times (1xcinema 2xDVD 1xIMAX), AOTC four times (1xcinema 2xDVD 1xIMAX) and ROTS three times (1xcinema 2xDVD). I don't see those numbers changing now, ever. At least not on purpose.
In the 15 years 1977 - 1992 I watched the OT innumerable times on VHS, too many to count.
I like to think I just outgrew the franchise (this may be true) but even my kids prefer the OT to the PT (mind you they are into Transformers and High School Musical so ....)
The PT could never hope to be the phenomena that gripped the world back in '77 and '78. 20+ years is a long time to keep your fans waiting.
I don't have any pictures but I heard (or read) that some of the ships and explosions behind Luke in ROTJ are made from chewing gum.
Vaderisnothayden said:C3PX said:miker71 said:It was quite pleasing to see stuff from the original WEG Star Wars sourcebooks (Original, Rebel, Imperial) turn up in the prequels, much more pleasing than Chewie and Yoda being mates and the Boba/Jango/clone/stormtrooper thing.
You found the Yoda/Chewie relationship and the Boba/Jango/Clone/Stormtrooper thing pleasing?
Ditto on that expression of surprise.
Darn the internet and it's lack of tone.
Much more pleasing because Yoda and Chewie being mates and all that sucked ass!! Whereas when the wookie battle (which did suck overall) revealed the wheeled juggernaut things I was taken right back to around 1987 and the Star Wars Imperial Sourcebook. Same with the swoops and stuff, I was kind of like "wow, someone read the WEG source books, or they were officially syndicated as canon" type thing. Well I thought it was gratifying anyway that this stuff would kick around for 15 years and get included in a film (even if the majority of it was based on early concept drawings for other vehicles in the OT). I do thank god that we didn't see any Kenner mini rigs though.
The West End Games Roleplay game played a big part in keeping my interest in Star Wars going circa 1987. It was quite pleasing to see stuff from the original WEG Star Wars sourcebooks (Original, Rebel, Imperial) turn up in the prequels, much more pleasing than Chewie and Yoda being mates and the Boba/Jango/clone/stormtrooper thing. I think in the early nineties when Sansweet joined Lucasfilm then WEG started embracing EU and I lost all interest.
1987 - http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Sourcebook
1996(?) - Steve Sansweet joins Lucasfilm and canon goes to a crock of shit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Sansweet
The Star Wars prequels have been released?!
I guess it really does beat working in his father's stationery store.
The battledroids should not talk with comedy voices, they should have far less personality IMO.
Why do they even need to talk, when they are being controlled remotely?
I dunno, perhaps just make them talk mono-tone, kind of like classic cylons ....
If the Phantom Menace had been edited by Marcia Lucas back in the seventies with a budget of $10mil then, yes, there's a good chance it would stand on its own two feet and provide enough momentum to put Attack of the Clones into pre-production.
The correlation between George+Marcia=good movies and George-Marcia=bad movies is getting more difficult for me to ignore.
Give me a muppet performance over an overengineered CGI model any day of the week.
As the saying goes "Great art is not finished, it is abandoned" and "art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth."
Both true statements for the OT. Completely false for the PT. That is why the PT lacks soul in my opinion. It's a film made in a jelly mould factory, not a film from a passionate heart. I do not want to belittle the skilled craftspeople behind the PT because technically there is some redemption. But to get a wooden performance from A-list actors, I don't know how Lucas managed that. Actually, I do. When an actor can "see" and "feel" a set the performance is more behavioural and less about acting to nothing. Great actors, don't act, they behave like. It must be tough spending long days in front of a greenscreen in a smelly old Rolls Royce factory.
My kids are just not into Star Wars, though they have seen them all on DVD and Sith at the cinema (they are 9 and 7).
Son (9) into transformers, all the classic cartoons and the new movie etc. He didn't get this from me, I've never particularly liked transformers.
Daughter (7) into Bratz and High School Musical.
They watch Ghostbusters II on DVD a lot which I find really odd. And they both like Scooby Doo (the old classics and the live action movies).
Star Wars doesn't really get a look-in, and now the prequels have turned the franchise to shit I'm not going to push it on them.
I was 6 or 7, saw Star Wars in what must have been a Canon cinema in the UK. Year of release so it must've been 1977/78 (forget how long it used to take for prints to get to the UK back then). It was like nothing I had ever seen before, it was amazing. Both my brother and I wet our beds that night!
I remember then seeing Empire and when the title crawl came up with "Episode V" there was a collective "huh?!" from the audience because A New Hope didn't exist in the public psyche, the first film was called Star Wars and that was it.
I also remember seeing the double-bill (which we arrived 5 or 6 minutes late for) and I was really disappointed that each film had been shortened to about 90 minutes or less.
see you auntie said:Poor Ben Burtt, when I hear his name I no longer think of the voice of R2-D2 or the inventor of the lightsaber hum, but the dejected guy in the editing room inventing 'split screen two different takes' editing.
Seconded. I applaud Lucas for taking the risk to let Burtt edit, but, also, perhaps every other experienced editor knew to avoid the prequel shows.
I get the impression that Burtt was "button presser" for Lucas.
I'm not sure of the source of conjecture, but was it also rumoured that "Obi-Wan" could actually be OB-1 as some kind of clone serial number? Perhaps Ben being the original. I'm not sure. It's never made much sense to me what "Obi-Wan" means - or if it really is a case of changing his name to go into hiding (but, um, wouldn't his surname be a big giveaway?!), or if it's just some Jedi thing. Not sure, could be I imagined the whole thing myself in a moment of denial of the PT.
Negative, negative. It didn't go in; just impacted on the surface.