skyjedi2005

Well considering the long out of print dragon box in japan is the way the remastered series should look, and not the funi one.  I don't have funimation but they changed the colors and cropped the image.

Now this re-animation stinks to me as a toriyama fan as much as the live action movie.  They will probably add in a bunch of useless cgi like oshii did on ghost in the shell and he also destroyed the colors of the original.

He basically pulled a Lucas.  Since the original Blu RAY of Ghost in the Shell is not restored, and is out of print.  and The 2.0 has gone back to the oneg and been cleaned up.  Why they can't be on dvd and blu ray in the same quality is anybodys guess.

To me the definitive dragon ball is the original unflopped manga by Toriyama and uncensored.  None of this Z shit. And the anime is totally ludicrous and he had little involvement on the anime later on as far as i can understand.  His last project was the animated version of Blue Dragon which was cut and censored and butchered by only being dubbed in english and released that way and not available and uncut in japanese.

I mean could'nt they just have kept the same cast as the Xbox game that was a dual language release, no instead they did a kiddie dub and ruined what was already a kiddie series to begin with.

To me the single biggest affront Funimation has ever done to American Anime fans is Not hold on to Burchard as Ryoko in Tenchi OVA 3.  Though considering ova 3 animation style was crap and the storyline left a lot to be desired, i guess having the original english ryoko would have been like putting whip cream on a turd pie.

American Graffiti was also broadcast in Europe for the first time a while back in HD, but good luck finding it anyware on the net.  Also HDNET released it in 1080i.

The original non lowry, non cgi raiders is also out there somewhere in HD.

The version of graffiti is the lowry cleanup and added cgi shot one though. 

The betterlooking copy of Raiders is also cleaned up by lowry but has an additional cgi shot.

THX 1138 should not have any dvnr applied to it. It was shot documentary style and in techiscope and is supposed to have a heavy amount of grain.  American Graffiti is also supposed to have that look.

The indiana jones films also were supposed to have a fine amount of grain.  It was desided by Douglas Slocombe the cinematographer, Spielberg and Lucas.  Supposed to remind us of the old movie serials.

Star Wars on the other hand while shot like lucas wanted as documentary camera style, was designed to have less  grain than those other pictures and finer detail in the visuals which is why they used the vistavision process for the optical plates.  Also the film was shot with a fairy tale, fantasy look.  Brighter colors and warmer tones than Lucas other movies.  Supposed to be expensive Hollywood type pictures shot on soundstages.  The Hollywood LUCAS immerged on star wars, although he makes his films outside of hollywood because he thinks he is an independant completely.  Although without Fox funding Star Wars it would have never been made.

Though the videogame coloring appeared with the Phantom Menace.  The same oversaturated and blown out palette was Used on Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and Indiana Jones KOTCS.

Too bad they ruined phantom menace and crystal skull.   2 movies completely shot on film that were altered in post production to look like they were shot with HD Video.  Although perhaps the digital intermediate process is also at fault here.  No longer actually physically editing the film on a kem or movieola and on a digital avid machine.  Also the 2k not as good as the actual film.  and then reprinting back to film removes the quality of the image.  IF the digital intermediate was more like 4k maybe the ruination would not happen?

Well at least the grain structure on indy IV was not destroyed to make the film look more clean. 

That was done on Episode 1 for the dvd release.

Am i wrong or was the original german dub in monaural sound, because i believe it was.  The original german text crawl was there also i believe instead of the english one.

I also believe that the Dvd has the mix created for the special edition as released in 2004, and 1997?. 

The original mix and title crawl was changed in 1997.  Someone right on these boards a few years back was going to preserve the old vhs and laserdisc versions of the german releases of the trilogy, or at least use them as a source for preservation, and restoration.

Now i am not german myself, but the foreign dubs have always been a curiosity to me.   I am not sure if the 2006 gout in germany of star wars, or rather Krieg Der Sterne had the old dub mix from the seventies.

I will not pay for Lucas to further destroy his movies.  The Indy Pictures are as much Spielbergs as they are his and he was probably not even asked about the added cgi.

THX 1138 destroyed on dvd by added cgi

Star Wars trilogy destroyed on dvd by added cgi and botced colors and sound, and non anamrphic bonus discs of the originals in 16 year old laserdisc transfers.

American Graffiti a single shot in the opening changed by cgi still to me the movie is ruined, another reason to own the laserdisc.

If george wants to ruin his classic films i suggest he also release the original theatrical and home video versions on dvd in the same quality as the cgi tinkering editions.

If Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg can do this then certainly Lucas can.

But Salvatore proved he was a better author than George Lucas in His novelization of attack of the clones.  The book was many million of miles away from being stellar, but he clealry understood the human element better than george.  George only knows how to do dumb action movies.  Without his ex wife Marcia, without Kasden, Kershner, or Kurtz, or the Huycks he could not write his way out of a wet paper bag in the middle of a blizzard.

Lucas largely wrote the Story for Crystal Skulls, a movie that is as ludicrous as an episode of Chuck Jones road runner and wild e coyote, except that stuff was funny and crystal numbskulls ruined Indiana Jones.

I mean maybe Lucas should be doing cartoons for the kiddies.  Clone wars 2008 for instance is right up his alley for Childish banter and throw away dialogue and relentless action without a point.  Except that it is a commercial to sell videogames and action figures. 

Since Episode 1 he ceased doing star wars movies and started doing cartoons. Jar Jar was straight out of a film like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, except that was supposed to be a genre parody and Phantom Menace was supposed to be taken seriously as the beginning of the saga.

Anakin Skywalker's humanity a plot point essential to the story of the prequels was largely left out of the films.    You get a better sense of his character from the novelizations from Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore, and Matthew Stover.  Even Haden Blackman in the republic comics breathed some essential humanity into his character, hell even the novelization of the awfull 2008 film of clone wars did. 

Lucas without good writers and artists is nothing but an idea man and about half his ideas have been bad ones.

I don't care what Lucas thinks the prequels are as much EU as everything other writers have written since Return of the Jedi.  I don't even consider the special editions as EU, they certainly are not canon either.  They are a bizarre blending of the two. 

The prequels being EU in my estimation are not even the best of the EU.  That goes to Tim Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy.

Well at least the star wars expanded universe is not as bad as the Indiana Jones Expanded Universe. Look at everything that has been done since after Last Crusade was made, lol.

While the dialogue in the superbowl trailer is not as bad as i thought the film would be the acting is horrible.  Lets hope that is not the selected takes, and they did more for the finished film.  My god the dialogue whilenot horrible is as cheasetastic as the prequels of star wars.  They had two options either write better dialogue and a better script or get good actors who can deliver these impossible to read lines.

Harrison Ford could pull it off in Star Wars.  He said " George you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can't say it"  Christopher Pine is no Harrison Ford,  he is not even the caliber of a Hayden Christensen.  He's an unknown element in this movie.  Though he is not as bad as spocklar who i thought would work because i admired his acting on Heroes playing the villain, but he is awful.  And that dude playing scotty is the worst of the lot.  God knows how bad Sulu will sound and Chekov as we have not heard any dialogue from them yet.  Mckoy is middle of the road not great but not awful.  The villain voice work sounds completely phoned in and not compelling or terrifying at all.

Even Bruce Greenfield who i thought was awsome as Thomas Vale on the UPN series Nowhere Man sounds tired and uninterested.  I don't blame him try acting against a greenscreen with nothing there.  Thanks to the George Lucas style of directing films in the modern era are mostly souless.

I thought that in reviving Trek they would do away with the bad comic book villains, the cheaseball acting and technobable and give us a realized future.  At least that is what JJ promised to deliver.

He promised no Galaxy Quest camp.

If Raiders is the version they showed on tv with the added cgi shot, consider me not interested in the Blu Ray.

They can add all the crappy new cgi they want to crystal Numbskulls, but leave the original trilogy alone.

If the star wars movies being released on blu ray are the prequels i am not buying them again i already have those shitty films in standard def dvd. 

If the 2004 cut of the star wars trilogy ever comes out on blu ray i might as well buy it since their is no way in hell Lucas will ever pay to restore the original versions and the gout is the best we can hope for.

I'd rather have the films in some form, rather than no form.  Even though i cannot stand the special editions.  Those scenes that have not had cgi added to them will never look better than in 1080p unless you have a pristine 35mm anamorphic print and the projection equipment.

I wish the audio glitches, the lightsabers would be fixed, and the colors corrected and the garbage mattes removed.  Han should shoot first.  All the new cgi should be replaced with cgi that augments the original effects and not cartooney shit just thrown in there.

How about a non restored anamorphic versions of the oot in HD, how much would that cost Lucas?

How much would a true restoration cost, millions probably i am guessing since there are optical elements in 65mm 8 perf vistavision, plus the 35mm live action photography.

These vistavison plates in the seventies were reduction printed to 4 perf 35mm.  But a true restoration would need to go back to the original plates that are without that extra step of generation loss. 

Other VistaVision films are now being scanned in at 6 to 8 k.  The 65mm optical effects on Blade Runner were scanned at what 8K.

Go back and scan in the 70mm magnetic six tracks for all 3 original films.  And the original mono mix for star wars.  I don't believe that Lucas would have thrown these away.

Well this year like last year will have a plethora of expensively made cgi blockbusters that are crap and mildly entertaining for 2 hours if even certainly not memorable or worth a second viewing.  Too bad trek is looking to be one of them.

Here is the list i think so far:

Underworld Prequel

Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen

GI Joe Rise of Cobra

X-men origins Wolverine

Watchmen (might turn out to be this years dark knight or Ironman we shall see)

Street Fighter Chun LI

Dragonball

Terminator IV Revolution

Star Trek XI

Last year was:

Indiana Jones IV (Nominated for a Golden Raspberry for worst sequel or prequel for 2008)

For a movie that was such shit to be the 3rd highest grossing movie of all time before adjusting for inflation is silly to me.  It is behind the Dark Knight and Titanic.  Last i heard indy 4 made close to 800 million dollars worldwide.

Clone Wars 2008

Iron Man

Batman the Dark Knight

The Incredible Hulk Reboot

Hellboy II the Golden Army

The day the Earth Stood Still Remake

Indiana Jones IV was the single biggest piece of crap i have seen in Cinemas since the prequels.   But the Clone Wars 2008 movie was even worse.  Seriously Crystal Numbskulls is Spielbergs Worst film since 1941 or Temple of Doom.

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg should retire as they cannot make good films anymore, i gave Speilberg another chance after War of the Worlds but after Indy IV i will never pay to see a single film he ever makes again and the same for Lucas.

2 of my Fave youtube pieces on the subject

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPzDjaA03ts&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ETYG0nmAo&feature=related

I know this bottom one is star wars related but is still relevent because of Lucas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzDIClx-_pY

I wonder if ESHBG was talking about that youtube video " Lord of the rings by George Lucas"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv4Potdpjhw

The book started out well enough but then as i got further into it it became apparent to me it was laughably bad, certainly worse than even the legacy novels.  The villain come from the russ manning newspaper strip.  Blackhole.  This is as laughably bad as Lumiya being brought back into canon in the legacy novels at least as the EU goes.

The storyline is as bad as some of the Marvel Star Wars comics were originally.  But this is worse it shows an incredible lack of imagination, and it feels rushed.  As a fan of Matt Stovers other star wars novels i am incredibly dissapointed, this was typical work for hire stuff well below his standards.

On top of that the stupid prequel tie ins and mentions in the book were incredibly annoying, and also that the villain escapes and lived in the end of the book to be the next villain in the fate of the jedi series, which is almost inevitable.

There were a couple of amusing points like the holo novel mentioned "Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge" an obvious reference to the original title for Return of the Jedi, Revenge of the Jedi.  As well as Brian Daleys Han Solo's Revenge.  Stover Dedicated the book to Brian Daley who is dead of course, and the living author Alan Dean Foster who Wrote Both Star Wars From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, and Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

In Other words they are not even remotely trying anymore.  Star Wars as a franchise is now nothing more than a  cash cow.  The future of star wars is dead as a doornail, unless the original theatrical versions of the movies are put back on the pedestal they belong on and the prequels and special editions, and bad tie in merchandise moved to the trash bin.  Star Wars as it is now is a fucking joke, a self parody like Indiana Jones IV.  Anything that was good about it or magical is gone.  I Still am holding out that last shred of hope that del rey can redeem themselves with the first of the new books by Aaron Allston.  But my expectations are pretty much in the shitter for anything Star Wars since 1999.

I went back and watched the video sample from before and i love it.  I can't wait to see this!

And that sample was before any cleaning or a new gate to capture the full anamorphic image.

Cannot wait to see the real star wars crawl from 1977 in good quality, and not a digital recreation.   People are still split on whether the gout was the real thing as seen in empire of dreams, though there has been no consensus on that.  Also the mono mix from a better source than the tv broadcast, is also much appreciated and welcomed.

One of the major things about this project and why it is so awesome is because it will be much better than the non anamorphic widescreen 1977 xvid moth3r posted years ago.  And like the zoomed in on the center frame pan and scan 77 fan dvd will have the mono mix, just not the low crap bitrate.

The first time i heard the mono mix was in a fan made dvd from Moth3r pal project.  The only other dvd i have with the mono mix is star wars by editdroid.  Nobody has ever put out a disc authored with the belbecus restored mono mix, because it now falls under this sites updated rules that it has to be a fanedit or a preservation of a vhs or laserdisc for the video.  And everybody wants to use the gout as their videotrack so they go to the help section of the site and make their own dvd.

That really is not suprising seeing how it was shot on kodachrome and not eastman safety pre lpp which is the worst.

Kodachrome: A reversal (direct positive) process. 1936 to present. Never used for 35mm movies, only 16mm and 8mm. Virtually fade proof. Most commonly used for amateur films for direct projection. I haven't seen any release prints made on Kodachrome since the 1970’s. Identified by being completely black around the perforations, with white (or similar light color) markings. Print stock comes in 2 types, ordinary Kodachrome, marked "Kodachrome Safety", which has a brownish (sulfite) soundtrack, and "Eastman Rev Color Safety Film", which has a grey silver soundtrack, similar to Technicolor. Kodachrome is high in contrast, and the contrast increases in printing, causing the shadows to be quite dark.  For longevity of color, this is the next best thing to Technicolor.  There are reports of the first production of Kodachrome having fading problems, but this was fixed around 1938.

Found this on some film site.

Not sure if avisynth can restore those old 8mm star wars films, when the color on almost every one has red shift, and starting to look pinkish.  Some supposedly had more stable color than others, only if kept in a cool and dry environment.  Almost none of them sold on ebay were stored properly.

On the 8mm film forum someone claimed that the Ken Films Part 2 of Star Wars he had was non faded, but seeing as he converted his refrigerator/freezer to store the film using dissicant gel packs to avoid moisture ruining the film inside its container.  If that film was stored in someones garage for twenty years and not stored properly you would definitely see red shift.  Since he bought it from derran film services they properly store the films they sell.  And accordingly i don't know if this is true but the 4 reel Derann Print of Star Wars was printed on polyester film.  Supposedly unfaded though i never have personally seen a print of this fine 8mm scope version of the film.

If anybody ever wants to do transfers of the trailers the 16mm and 8mm variants being more rare and hard to come by now than the 35mm, it is hard to find them not severly faded.  The only trailer i ever saw for star wars that was unfaded was the 1976 teaser, and it was the rare printed I.B. Technicolor.   All the eastman prints from the national screen service are severly faded.  I kid you knot, a guy is selling a 35mm nss copy now for 250 dollars and it has red shift,lol.  The only thing is unlike most it has no scratches or projector weave.  Because it probably was never used even though the roll was opened.  Maybe used only once.

The 2 trailers i own, i have not checked in a while but empire strikes back 1982 re-release trailer i have had severe red shift and only 60% of its color left.  Still kinda cool though it has a clip of luke and vaders duel in cloud city.

The Return of the Jedi Trailer from 1983 i own leads me to believe it is LPP without looking at its markings because it is unfaded and only has minor scratches.  I can't find star wars or empire strikes back trailers that are not severly faded.  Has anyone on these boards ever come across any?

The trailer i wish i owned was the revenge of the jedi scope teaser trailer that has luke with the blue saber on the skiff above the pitt of carkoon, and like a few frames of the sandstorm deleted scene.

I loaned out my 2004 set to my soon to be sister in law's nieces.  I am not even going to ask for it back it is garbage.  I have my gout and that is probably the best i will ever see the movies i grew up with.

I have them also in fanamorphic for when i buy an HDTV 16:9 set.  There is no increase in reolution however with them being upscaled to anamorphic.  When there is no further information in the picture source.  From an outdated telecined source d2 master tape that is 16 years old, you can't expect much better than laserdisc resolution and 4:3 Letterbox. 

Some Laserdiscs were released as anamorphic Star Wars was not one of them.  It also was never released on the japanese imuse format that was playable on the X-0 or X-9 players.  You know the first hdtv video discs that were 1080i and less than stellar.  Most tv broadcasts in HD 1080i are better looking.

Hey is you want to throw around logic and semantics, there is no logical reason for Lucas changing the prequels in the 90's from the concept he had in the seventies, and not taking the care to rewatch the old trilogy for continuities sake.

Unless he is willing to make it plain that in the early nineties he pretty much rebooted the star wars universe to fit his newer and evolving convoluted vision. 

He elected to add unessary things to the original films he was unhappy with instead of just remake them entirely.  If he remade them the films we all grew up with in the seventies and eighties would not be constanly crapped upon.

The prequels should have meshed with the original films.  If they did we would not need a ruined original trilogy that is not so special edition except for lucas, and or the films having to be recut and lines redubbed and ridiculous excuses for bad prequel continuity in the EU. 

The EU authors made a valiant effort to close the gap in continuity that is so big you could fly a death star through it,lol.   Too bad they failed.

The plot,  the script, and the way the movies were made should have conformed to the original trilogy.  If they were made that way fans would not have to make fanedits that try to fix the problems Lucas introduced and it is not a couple of things either, there are people that find hundreds of mistakes and dicontinuities while i can probably only spot a few in each film.

At the end of the day though most people can forgive continuity that is in flux and changing if the story is good, and the acting credible. This whole prequel trilogy hinged on making anakin's turn believable.  They botched it miserably.

I never liked Darth as a whiny emo goth teen punk, who has echos of the columbine murderors.  We are supposed to feel attached to a douchebag asswhole who chokes his wife to death and  and before that cuts little kids into pieces with his laser sword.   This serial killer is the hero children are supposed to look up to and is creepily the hero of the entire saga now.  I'll take a real archetypical hero like Luke Skywalker over Hayden Skywalker anyday.

one answer the gout, that is the state of the original trilogy.  Non Anamorphic transfers taken from an old 1993 laserdisc master tape. Washed out and not restored, scratches, dirt and bad dvnr.

Even Episode 1 that had a previous non anamorphic laserdisc master lying around got a new telecine in anamorphic for its dvd debut.  Despite the fact that it has some edge enhancement problems and a little of the dvnr gone wrong it was released in anamorphic widescreen at true dvd resolution.  Laserdiscs are interlaced and not the same resolution as a dvd, so they somehow made the master de-interlaced for the dvd.

Are you guys ready for the old dvd triple dip.

Lucasfilm is releasing 2, 4 episode compilations and later a full boxset of the first season of clone wars. 

Instead of just putting out a complete boxset of all the currently aired episodes, or just waiting to put the rest in the same boxset. 

If you can get clone wars for free streamed on Lucasfilm.com and also by less reputable methods while would you pay like 40 bucks for a boxset?

I mean the commentaries on the official site are all awful, In Every one Filoni is a total fanboy who worships at the altar of the almighty lucas,lol.

I may get the set eventually.  Still have not seen the Episode where Jeniffer Hale aka Bastilla Shan, voices Aayla Secura. 

Another Lucasfilm Bioware connection.

Also i read that one of the upcoming Episodes was scripted by Katie Lucas.  That is right you guessed it Lucas daughter.  Apparently she has been on the writing staff as an intern for 2 and a half years and now is a permanent member of the writing staff, and is working on star wars.  Clone Wars.  Still could she direct a star wars movie in the future?

I hope her writing skills are better than her dear old dad's on the prequels and indiana jones IV.  He did some good writing with a lot of help on the original star wars trilogy, so i guess the other half can be forgiven.  Too bad all we got to remind us of the past greatness of star wars and george was the gout in 2006.

sorry wrong thread.

I find it Ironic that we are less than a year away from the 30th anniversary of Star Trek the motion picture, and the JJ abrams brand of trek is coming out in may of the same year.

So another Trek actor passes, and right after the 25th anniversary of the wrath of khan.  Now everytime kirk goes "khannnnnnnn!" in the movie in will think of him. 

I am interested in that making of empire strikes back book from del rey. too bad it does not come out til 2010.

The only thing good to come out of star wars lately to me is the Making of Star Wars book.  That was based on Charlie Lippincott's interviews he conducted for his unpublished and unwritten making of book, but he compiled all the relevant material.  He should at least be named as a co author next to rinzler.

I have yet to read the unofficial Secret History of Star Wars book, but i don't have the money at the moment. 

My Library does not have a copy.  And they purchase only from the big publising houses, and would not consider buying an amateur work, i would not call it that but they would.

I mean they stopped buying the science fiction books altogether, and now only purchase the best selling regular fiction and non fiction.

Then no longer even buy star wars or star trek, or even the literary sci fi and fantasy anymore.

The best unofficial Book on Star Wars and Lucas in general is Skywalking but is outdated being written in 1983.  Does the Secret history of star wars fill in those missing years?

I have very little to look forward to with Star Wars because the gout is shit quality and non anamorphic and have no hope of ever seeing the films in a dvd level quality.  I already had the Laserdiscs so that release was the biggest slap in the face ever, and a total ripoff since i already had the 2004 set.

 One fan on Amazon.com called it the con of the century,lol.

It is actually inferior to the laserdiscs since they feature PCM sound, and the dvd's have dolby digital 2.0,lol.

Yeah the image quality is better than the laserdisc but has had sharpening applied to it and looks like garbage.  I'll take the soft image of the laserdisc anyday over the dvd that makes the flaws of the original d2 telecine so transparent.  It is no wonder that the film prints, the IP, and negatives were in such horrible shape.  Color shifting and scratches and dirt everywhere, that in 1997 a restoration was necessary.  What was not necessary were all the new and retarded cgi effects and cartoon characters added.

A lot of the 1997 i can forgive mostly because in the theater the colors were at least right, the sound mixed properly.  And the scenes that were not changed look better than they ever had up to that point. But the 2004 was just an abomination in so many ways.

As far as im concerned the star wars i grew up with as well as the Indiana Jones i grew up with died a long time ago.  I can bitch and whine until i am blue in the face about the direction Lucas took Star Wars and Indiana Jones in, i disagree and hate the currrent state of things but i won't lose sleep at night about it.  Star Wars is not my life, It is a pretty awesome film trilogy made from 1977-1983 that i have loved since i was a small child, but that is it.  I have no control to stop George from destroying the best films he ever made and replacing them with absolute horseshit.  I mean by his own "certain point of view" he is improving the films so who am i to disagree.

I am waiting for my reserved copy at my library.

I hope it returns to the pre new jedi order star wars EU magic i recall from the Bantam days, before star wars had to be realsitic and dark and all the characters despite the films trio have to die.

I want escapist fantasy out of star wars.  If i want reality i can turn on the six o'clock news and watch the Iraq war footage or the troubles in the gaza strip.

The thing that was great about star wars is it came out in the very jaded seventies following on the heels of the vietnam war and people got to experience fun and adventure for 2 hours and forgot about the worlds troubles and their own.

Well the prequels and the special editions are not so bad.  As long as you don't mind watching 12 hours of video game footage, that destroys the original star wars trilogy and put it on the fast track to being a fucking joke rather than two stellar and one really good but kinda flawed film. 

The novelists took weak material and made it a little bit better.  It is almost universally agreed that the novelizations of the prequel trilogy were better than the films.  Still not being good literature or good books but any stretch of the imagination.  Their is a reason tie in fiction gets a bad reputation when people could choose to read real literary science fiction or fantasy, they choose something that is a bit of cheat.  Something based on a television show or a movie.

Everybody has their own opinion.  I just don't see the prequels as being anything but the blockbuster, of the week, month or year they were released if even.  30 years from now i don't think they will be remembered as classic films.  While the original trilogy still will be in its original form, even if fans can't watch it how they want to see it.

That prequels come out of a more detached and jaded modern sensibility and therefore do not mesh well with the original films.  Lucas own politics, philosophy and belief systems may have also changed between the making of return of the jedi and the phantom menace which led to this disconnect in continuity between the films.

As well as his philosophy of how movies should be made, edited and what place visual effects have in them.

I don't think the evoke the same fanaticism and devotion the original trilogy did or quite spark the imagination of millions of young people in the same way.  They are bubblegum pop films without any redeeming value, they are like junk food.  And once the visual effects have been surpassed which was their only strong suit not the characters or stories, they will be forgotten and swept under the rug.

I am as guilty as others for liking and being entertained by some films that are only mind numbingly bad entertainments full of cgi, like Stargate and ID4.  But i would not pretend them to be classic films by any stretch of the imagination.  The prequels get even worse scrutiny because they dare to call themselves "star wars" films.  It takes more than cardboard cutout characters sci fi and fantasy tropes, and dudes wearing cloaks and kiminos and wielding laser swords to be a star wars film.

But bespite criticisms of the prequels at the end of the day the world of film is still a much more interesting place because of George Lucas.  Films like Lord of The Rings by Peter Jackson would not exist if not for Lucas pioneering the key digital effects technologies utilised in making modern movies and films.

Before the existence of these new technologies a book like tolkiens was unfilmable.

Just like movies like the Watchmen film that is upcoming would have been unfilmable because they either could not do the effects traditionally or it would have been cost prohibitive or looked fake.  Like a guy in a blue rubber suit or makeup instead of a digital character that lives and breathes on the screen.

Still you can have breathtaking digital creations on screen and without a solid script and story it all falls apart.

If Howard the Duck was made today for instance and instead of a man in a rubber suit you had a digital character like Jar Jar it would still suck because the concept sucked and so did the script.

I hope "get your ass up here, big boy"  is only indicative of comic book cheese and is not the level of dialogue associated with the film.  After the cringe worthy dialogue in Transformers consider me worried.

Besides the trailer with scotty " i like this ship it is exciting"  With the bad parody of Jimmy Doohan as spoken by Pegg.

Well at least Pine is not going to do Shatner Parody, I hope.

Why do the Romulans and Klingons in some of the Star Trek films speak English they are Aliens, it should be alien dialogue with Translated text.

Only bad sci fi has the aliens speak English, even on Earth not everyone speaks English as their language.

It is like that halo game where the aliens speak English, and i lol at that.  We have hundreds of distinct languages on earth but aliens from a faraway galaxy speak the same tongue as Americans.

The IDW Star Trek comics don't always have the best art, Star Wars comics by Dark Horse are better by far.

Still even with Dark Horse the cover art is always stunning and then the comics art is crap in comparison.  They spend big money to have an artist with a big name paint the covers or draw them, and then they rush the interior art so they can get the book out on time.

You know what is a major failing these days not just for dvd cover art but comic cover art as well when they do cheap photoshop jobs digitally in a computer.  I like the illustrative arts. Sure you can't always have a Dave Dorman, Drew Struzan, or Hugh Fleming.  But The masters of the genre were Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, anyone who evokes that high level of illustration i like their work.  Al Williamson at his best came close to Raymond, this was imho during his days Pencilling Secret Agent Corrigan (better known as X-9) and Star Wars.

The New Trek comic is hardly the worst art i have ever seen come out of a star trek comic book and neither is it the best.  It is middle of the road at least to me.  Who knows what the panels look liked before they were digitally inked and colored.  I think they look overly bright and garish like a christmas tree, which is the same thing i thought about the movies video game colors.

These Romulan characters are worlds away from the type as Played by Mark Leonard in that famous episode of the original series.  They are closer to how the next generation got them wrong on the tng television show, or the worst design ever Nemesis.  Romulans are supposed to be identical to Vulcans except they are savage and emotional and warriors.  Vulcans are ambassadors and peacemakers, very  monk like quiet and reflective, they are centered and Logical.

The irony is that if you want to make a star wars reference the Romulans are like the Sith, and the Vulcans are like the jedi.

Only 4 of the star wars films have ever been on LP.

The original trilogy had double albums for star wars and empire strikes back and a single record for return of the jedi.

The Phantom Menace got a limited LP release but not in the united states.  As a picture disc.  Not sure but i think it had the same amount of tracks as the first sony cd release.  Which would de a double LP.

The real question to me would be what would the benefit of getting something that was recorded digitally then transfered to analog form, the first 3 films were recorded on analog format so of course they would sound better than the cd's on a high end LP playback system for home audio.

Someone did raw LP rips of the first three star wars official soundtrack releases in wav format lossless and released them on demonoid.  The torrents are now since gone.  I had them on my pc unfortunetely i lost them when my pc crashed.

If i remember correctly it was 20th Century Mark who did those LP rips.  I hope i'm remembering correctly.

Would be nice to somehow get a hold of him and see if he still has the files,lol.