skyjedi2005

So is Green another one of your sock's fink, or does this person only want to appear to be one ?

I am sure to be fair, seeing the video George Lucas raped our childhood on youtube, or the South Park episode of Indiana Jones getting raped would piss anyone off. If it was their dad being savaged by the critics.

People in Lucasfilm have gotten real quiet on the issue of the oot being systematically erased by George Lucas from history, even in the face of the documentary the people vs george.

Easterhay said:

 The Phantom Menace upholds the tradition of good stories well told.

ROFLMAO!!!

The special edition changes really make me wonder if Lucas just got incredibly Lucky.  They make me wonder if he ever understood editing, pacing or storytelling at all.

I mean really "alert my stardestroyer to prepare for my arrival" and then you have to show it,lol.

FanFiltration said:

"Casino Royale" (with  Director & Producer Commentary)

I love this film...

 

They really should get the same director who also directed Goldeneye, back.

Martin Campbell.

Easterhay said:

zombie84 said:

Hmm, reusing the same ideas, themes, situations and images from previous movies in later sequels to said movies while also taking them in new and different directions. How novel. Know what they call that in the real world?

A franchise.

 

Hmmm.  I've read your stuff, including the big deal you make of the numerous rewrites Lucas made before settling on a final screenplay (because we all know everyone uses their first drafts all the time.  Ho, and indeed, hum.) and I see you're still making a meal of Lucas using recurring themes in the films to create a kind of symmetry and to show how two people can go on the same journey and make decisions that take them in opposite directions.

Tell me, how many other franchises have done this?  Y'know, telling a story in two halves, thirty years apart, and yet still ensuring mahoosive worldwide success? 

It is interesting Luke and Anakin pretty much being archetypal heroes who take virtually the same path in the beginning, but Lucas really botched things with clones and sith.

In other words an interesting premise, executed rather poorly.  With another writer polishing the script and another director, or directors maybe this concept would have been used in a manner that created real drama and interest, instead of a joke.

Imagine if clones and sith were like the reversal of empire strikes back, and you see Anakin stating out with good intentions then slowly seduced by power, and the desire for power to do good, before he is corrupted.

Orinoco_Womble said:

I had a look last night at the DVD versions.  I gotta say I am HUGELY impressed and absolutely grateful to DJ and everyone else involved in this project.  Many, many, many thanks guys, I sooooo much appreciate all of your hard work.  This looks so much better and the sound is just awesome!

... kinda makes me dislike old Georgy just that little bit more now :/

I agree with you.  The V3 is the best version of Star Wars '77 on DVD i have at the moment.

Unless Lucas relents and releases a restored version on whatever format exists at said future time, this is the only star wars i will need to watch.

Why not save the actual films, oh wait that is a lost cause since Lucas owns the copyright.

bkev said:

Indiana Jones has been updated actually! Check it out here. The new transfer doesn't have the CG addon, either. I would say it objectively looks far better (new screens on the left.)

It also looks like the grain and original color timing are back in the new scan,the other transfer looks overly dark.

Which begs the question why did the Indy trilogy get new scans, but not star wars trilogy 2004.

Did Paramount or Spielberg do it.  I think Lucas would have thought the old master is good enough since it was in 1080P.

 I could never defeat darth vader in the lightsaber duel on death star 2, the difficulty probably was set to hard.

Boba Fett was nearly impossible too in the sand skiff scene above the Sarlacc.

The first death star trench run, too easy in comparison to even rebel assault on normal mode.

This is the good sega star wars game the 32x game not so much,lol.

Tobar said:

PvGL blog post (the comment there saddens me)

There's also a more recent post about the changes to THX-1138.

The bad ps2 quality cartoon added cgi ruined THX 1138.

Are the only films Lucas does not want to tinker with on DVD only his shitty films, like More American Graffiti, or Box office bombs like howard the duck or willow, tucker the man and his dream etc.

I mean he did not add CGI to the Ewok movies, yet he did alter the cartoons of droids and ewoks, he altered young indy too.

The Indiana Jones trilogy better get new transfers for blu ray with no color changes, no dvnr and no digital altering of the picture, but Lucash will probably just dump the old HD transfers onto disc like he is doing with star wars.

zombie84 said:

I'm also sick of people repeating this "fact": the 2006 DVD sold poorly so people must not want them.

Where do people get this from? What sales numbers are they looking at?

The amazon.com archives for Star Wars 2006 DVD only go back to April 1st, 2007--after the fall and christmas releases, after the new years releases and starting into the summer releases, basically an eternity after its September 2006 releases when it had been long forgotten. And its sales rank is #600 for DVD. That's remarkably strong considering amazon has literally hundreds of thousands of DVDs, with over a dozen major studio releases every single week and over a dozen smaller releases each week (do the math: approx. 25 weeks after its september releases x 24=600 releases. So, Star Wars was among the highest sellers at the time it was released).

I think it comes from Lucas who said the originals sold poorly on Vhs in comparison to E.T.

The 1997 special edition vhs sold better according to him so i guess that means no one wants the old versions.

TV's Frink said:

 

zombie84 said:
Technically, he already did that with TPM. I actually miss the theatrical version of Episode I and wish I could watch it instead of the home video version with its extra-bloated CG scenes.

How much extra is on the TPM DVD? I don't remember much different other than a quick city shot on Coruscant and maybe a bit of extra podrace....certainly nothing that made me miss the theatrical.

 

There is enough added to slow down the pace of the film, there was a reason those scenes were left on the cutting room floor, the same way Jabba the Hutt was for Star Wars, but for some reason Lucas say fit to add that in 1997, but not the biggs on tatooine scenes.

You know what i am 32 and i never saw the first release of star wars in theaters in 77, i still find that version to be infinitely superior to the 2004 edition.

I won't see the 3-D versions as a form of protest, and i won't be buying the blu ray.

No money for Lucas until the originals get the respect they are due.

I wish around where i lived there were illicit showings of the original versions in 35mm.

TheBoost said:

skyjedi2005 said:

Speaking of EU i will be reading Fate of the Jedi Conviction tomorrow

 I don't keep on the EU releases, I just grab anything that says "Star Wars" when it shows up on the library's New Release table.

Interestingly my library doesn't have this book yet, at any branch.

The book has only been out for like 3 days.

I finished it and it was neither the worst Star Wars novel i have ever read, nor was it very good, extremely mediocre, many parts felt overly summarized, and the character interactions felt weak and contrived, and it was more boring prequel -esque political nonsense.

Allstons Last and possibly worst entry. Golden's next with Ascension which will also probably be horrible, and then at least Denning can do the action stuff and not be boring if over the top to a ridiculous degree, the last book is called Apocalypse.

Sue Rostoni had made it plain Lucas won't let any of the mains die, so why even bother reading the series if there is no real danger or peril.

In fact the last time i felt the characters to be in any real peril was in the empire strikes back.

A real jumping off point would be to kill all the original characters off or jump the story well beyond their years to the future.

Seems to me they are just filling in the details  for the legacy era comics.

With little or no imagination in the details, a thin and boring skeleton plot.

The EU and Lucas universe are said to be totally different, in EU boba fett is a mandalorian, in Lucas universe he is just a clone of a random bounty hunter who stole a mandalorian's armor.

Is the making of temple of doom seeded at all, the last time i checked myspleen it was dead.

bkev said:

Cool World. I couldn't make it all the way through - what an inconsistent tone! The character animation was pretty poor too. However, the backgrounds were fantastic. Two out of four balls from what I saw.

Probably the worst way to be introduced to Bakshi, except for Lord of the Rings.  Either one will sour the experience.  Then you will not bother to see his other quirky films.

digitalfreaknyc said:

Jambe,

i still have a TON of indy stuff that I haven't gotten out there.  I mean, literally hours upon hours of stuff.  Most of it is from Last Crusade and Crystal Skull but there is some Temple of Doom stuff.  Very little Raiders (if any) that I can recall.  For some reason, it doesn't seem like a lot was done for it...or archived.

There was very little released on raiders but there is tons of stuff in the Lucasfilm archives and it is ridiculous they squeezed four films into a small book.

When Star Wars gets a whole book for each film.

Rinzler should have done a good book on Raiders as big as Making of Star Wars.

The fact they wasted page space on Crystal Skull is beyond me, different series of films, different era and style of moviemaking.

Would be like squeezing the making of the prequels and the original star wars trilogy into a single book.

Now back to the topic at hand, i think Lucas destribes his inspiration for the series in the making of temple of doom documentary and even spielberg talks about all those old movie serials.

Nice article and you were able to write it without the kind of fanboy rage i would have channeled when writing it, if only it was just a movie, to my generation star wars was a defining moment in childhood.

The Prequel generation does not have that kind of love or dedication that oot fans did.  Which started even before there was vhs.

 All fans had in the beginning were super8mm versions, the vinyl story of album, or the comic books or novelization to re-enjoy the film.

TV's Frink said:

What does the 1997 version have to do with the Theatrical Edition?

Try the other thread.  The one with 1997 in the title.

Sorry but that has nothing to do with Blu ray, it has to do with the other broadcast versions derived special edition v2 which never was released, but i guess i could move it there.

Does anyone have the original presskit, or pressbook ?

That would be interesting to see scanned.

Wondering if there were any making of articles in the film magazines of the time like American Cinematographer, most likely not, but would be nice to find out.

The only article in know of is in the george lucas interviews book.

How goes your attempt to reconstruct the 1997 version in HD, or are you waiting for the blu ray release as the base ?

I have a super vhs player and all it does is take a bad image and smear it with noise reduction to make a less sharper image, the composite and rca outputs are shit, and the only way you get an even decent image is with the s video which causes the smear problem and you cannot turn off the noise reduction or get a pure signal.

Maybe the professional decks are better but mine which is consumer grade and bought from cruchfield is complete and utter junk not worth the over hundred dollars it cost.  I used to have an analog deck that had 6 heads and that had a better signal for the analog video tape format of vhs.

Had the gout been released in the early years of DVD as the Definitive Collection set just on DVD, maybe it would have been excepted and even welcome.

Fans waited from the advent of DVD for that set to come out though, and in that time anamorphic dvd became mainstream, and so did restored and cleanud up versions of movies with all sorts of bonus features and 5.1 sound.

The fact the films were released in 2006 with no new transfer, non anamorphic, only stereo dolby 2.0 not even PCM, and not in 5.1 or restored meant it was a joke of release.

The fact that by 2000. 2001 they were already doing restored versions of films in HD 1080i makes the 1993 transfer in 2006 even more laughable, since by then they had 2k scans as the baseline i think and 1080P as the final release not less than 480P resolution,  the master for gout was interlaced too.

Somehow they made the dvd progressive from a non progressive source, but not fake upscaled letterbox to anamorphic that would be too hard.