skyjedi2005

Amazing Spider-man 2.

Nothing Amazing about it.

Joyless and even more mediocre than the last entry.

Jamie Foxx a good actor hammy and criminally underused, Emma Stone is barely in it. 

Not so special special effects, bad gimmicky 3-D web swinging.  Incompetent to barely there script and direction.

Even the cinematography which thankfully was shot on film   is just okay and not really mind blowing.  Expected more from Mindel.

The score or almost lack of one, very little to no orchestral score, was not very good, what little there was like the opening was adequate.

No real theme under scoring the hero or the villains.  Other than for rhino and that was pretty pathetic.

Worst part was the ending and the way they handled a pivotal moment in the comics and totally botched it.

Such a wasted opportunity if they only spent half the time and energy developing the story as they had the advertising.

2.5 stars.

SkySnake said:

Does anyone have this Japanese Laseridsc of My Neighbor the Totoro?

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/161/

This is suppose to contain the best available version of the original streamline English dub. A dub that has been abandon ever since the Disney dub came out. Needless to say, I would love to sync this to the latest Blu Ray release :)

 It is only in monaural and is on the second audio channel.

The best laserdisc source would be the much rarer US release which does not contain the Japanese soundtrack and is chopped to be in the 4:3 full frame format.

Honestly the best i have ever heard the track was on the Japanese region 2 dvd.  Yeah its not lossless but this is a dual monaural track anyway.  Not even sure if this was ever in true stereo.

The real rare dub Is Kiki's Delivery Service  it was only ever released the one time on laserdisc.  And never again it was never carried over to the first issue Japanese DVD.

The audio on the laserdisc is roughly equal to mono sound on a radio, if memory serves me.  Too bad none of the Jal airlines prints have survived and there is no guarantee the audio on them would be much better.

They would have most likely been on 16mm.

I still think the Revenge of the Sith duel which Spielberg supposedly directed the pre viz on was shit, and i don't mean the shit as in awesome.

The pre viz actually being on the blu ray set deleted scenes disc.  Its as bad as the finished scenes.

Its hard to believe the same Spielberg who directed Lincoln also made crap like Crystal Skull and produced the 4 abysmal Michael Bay Transformers films.

I despise them because they are not The Hobbit.

Even with the rewritten riddles in the dark is not truly a prequel to the lord of the rings

The unfinished wholesale rewriting of the book to completely fit lotr was so out of tone with the original Tolkien never finished it thankfully.

Then again its Jackson's Hobbit Trilogy and Jackson's lord of the rings.

They are a separate universe from Tolkien so i don't get all tied up in fighting the battle of the books vs the movies.

Huge difference between Tolkien Enterprises and the Tolkien estate.

One was owned formerly by the now deceased Saul Zaentz  , the other Tolkien's heirs. 

For Luke to have a Son who is an emo douche like Hayden Skywalker.

Who skulks around with a sullen look on his face.

No mention of the stupid prophecy to bring balance to the force.

No Hayden Christensen, or Ewan Mcgregor Kenobi, no cgi Yoda ghost, no mace Windu, no Darth Maul, no Boba Fett as clone of Jango Fett.

No prequel easter eggs of any kind.

No politics about trade disputes that last an hour long.

No rule of two. 

No Jedi forbidden to love bullshit, or forbidden to marry and have children.

No prequel jedi who are as bad as sith and too stupid to know, who also steal children from their parents and permanently separate them from their family, because of some bullshit about emotion and attachment being of the dark side.

Either it is no different than the usual script rewrites or the tabloids got it wrong, or something is really fucked up with the production of Bond 24.

First the tabloids claimed Purvis and Wade were fired and solely replaced by Logan, now Logan is fired and replaced by them.

I thought no one ever finished the LD capture of the full aperture version of Thunderball because they finally released it on blu ray with none of the cropping, i coulld be wrong i don't own it.

That the characters never really aged until the final novel that was published before Disney pulled the plug.

Crucible is the only novel i can remember where it is even a part of the plot.

All prequelism's to be not mentioned at all, or special edition-ism's  But i know that is impossible.

Yeah for star wars to be what is was pre 97, i think is impossible.

It has been its been 21 years since the last time they made any modern transfer of the original films.

All people know is the cgi ruined versions.  They even show them when they talk about effects of the 70's in Hollywood fluff piece retrospectives.

It does not help that in about 2000 the ruined versions stopped being called special editions.  Yeah you got that right the 2011 edition is advertised as being made in 1977, 1980, 1983.

I would like only the original true versions to be a starting point for the new movies but i know better than to believe that will happen.

Its not like Song of the South is it?

We restored the movie in HD and then we sent it to a vault to never be seen again.

I know its an altogether different thing but what are the chances a pristine oot has existed since the 1990's and Lucas just did not want it out there.

They undertook a multi mission dollar restoration yet they have no good prints or elements, i think there is something wrong with this picture.

I thought Obi Wan served Bail Organa in the wars but according to the prequels he never did.

Ryan McAvoy said:

unamochilla2 said:

New Mark Hamill interview: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28475959

Guess he's going to have that Alec Guinness look for the film. :)

 Lizo did well to keep from geeking-out right there, I like that guy. Wow, wow, wow Mark's words were music to me ears "It's really about the new generation of characters... we're just there to lend our support". So hopefully EpVII will just be a little baton pass to a whole new cast of young heroes!

I am hoping Hamill is just saying that to be kind otherwise i will see VII and not the other 2 films.  It seams like a way to trick original fans into thinking the movies will star the original cast in new adventures only to pull the rug out from under them.

The roles for the big 3 but especially for Hamill and Ford better be substantial not walk on cameos like Nimoy Spock.

I thought this was set between Star Wars and Empire Strikes back.  What is with the Return of the Jedi design.

Skiff guard outfits and helmets, han looks like he did in return of the jedi, and even the spaceship the sand ship skiff/barge from Jedi instead of hovering over tatooine sand its flying.

Even the little window on the building is from the deathstar II.

Chewie looks more like lumpy from the holiday special but with eyeliner.

I know it is just a couple of pages, hopefully not final pages, but still the cover looks so Star Wars '77 and then the interior is a joke.

God i hope the idea that Orci might direct the new movie is a really late and extremely trollish April fool's joke.

Although firing Orci as the writer might not work if they bring in someone else who is just as bad.  They did it with the last 2 bayformers movies Roberto Orci did not write those and they still were awful.

Not that Orci and Kurtzmen invented bad trek writing there has been bad writing alongside good writing since the original series, the movies TNG and its spinoffs not all is universally good writing just because Abrams had no hand in it.

ilovewaterslides said:

RU.08 said:

(notice nowhere on the product info page does it ever say it is for scanning prints)

 Yeah, because in the U.S it's actually illegal to own a 35mm copy of a copyrighted movie.

 There is still an international convention protecting motion pictures i thought.   They don't enforce it anymore? 

I heard that although it is illegal that in the United States they simply no longer enforce the law.  Not that i am wealthy enough to own the equipment and or films and would be willing to test the waters to see if the NSA and FBI would not come after me.

DrCrowTStarwars said:

Yeah the way Warner Brothers treats B5 is a disgrace.  It didn't become as big as Star Trek after five years so they just gave up on it and now the show is slowly dying.  It's why I am backing up my Dvds so that if they ever go i will still have the show somewhere.  Finding the DvDs is becoming hard,that is one reason I would not hold it against anyone if they torrented the show. It's a shame because i think it was remastered B5 would find new viewers.

 I can buy episodes or seasons on my on demand service but won't bother they are incorrectly framed widescreen versions and not the original framing.

Plus they are stuck in SD and not HD.  Cheaply done video effects and all edited on video.  Even if they could do an HD version all the effects would need to be upscaled or replaced.  Or they could just do a fake HD version like farscape and claim the film negatives are lost.

Vozlov said:

The largest problem with Anakin building C3PO is the fact that in the OT we see multiple droids that are the same make as C3PO.

Which means that either Anakin Skywalker designed an entire type of droid that would be the pinnacle of protocol droids for decades, or that he was exaggerating when he said he built it, and in fact only put it together from spare parts of other protocol droids. That were conveniently lying around Tatooine and that were the pinnacle of protocol droids for decades.

Either way it makes absolutely no sense at all. The way in which Vader doesn't regard him once in the slightest in the OT only compounds the ever increasing validity to the argument that Lucas can't write.

If you watch the series in numerical order there are numerous problems with the story. The largest problems however would be in regards to narrative, and the fact that the series biggest plot turns hold absolutely no weight to them at all. This is most apparent in ESB, with the discovery of Yoda and Vaders revelation to Luke.

 I think Lucas was or at least thought he was being creative.  Anakin becomes less human and more machine when he becomes Vader, and Threepio is more human than Vader. It  is a kind of irony but like Lucas idea of making the Emperor Anakin's father it further shrinks the universe.

The cgi opening up of cloud city to make it more lively was his idea, wow.

How are they going to do practical effects when the practical effects unit folded along time ago inside ILM.  Even the former ILM guy they sold the unit to went bankrupt and closed his doors.

I liked that it was an expanded universe.  The characters continued on beyond the movies and they sometimes but not that much unfortunately, went in a divergent direction from Lucas.

Then the prequels happened and they started to prequelise everything even the stories with Luke, Han and Leia.

Even Timothy Zahn's later stories even at a minimum had prequel parasites attached.

The backdrop reminds me a lot more of episode I than Star Wars '77.

More Mos espa than mos eisley.

The released blu ray set sales records so no i don't think the oot means anything to the average joe who thinks they already bought the movies that were made in the seventies and eighties.

Disney and Fox have to work out the video and distribution rights.

So no i don't think this has any chance of happening.

Anyway even if new sets were releases it would simply be the same 2011 blu ray with the Disney  logo on it.

I like Phil Tippet's body of work not just on the star wars trilogy but even he is not above criticism.  He has been critical of Lucas have you seen Starship Troopers II which Tippet directed?

The making of on the original dvd was awesome though.  It shows Lucas saying crazy stuff about how the movies entire success relied on Jar Jar.

What i find hilarious is that episode VII originally would have opened around  the 10th anniversary of Revenge of the Sith.

But was moved to Dec which had nothing to do with crapping all over the prequels or the may release but more to do with the second avengers movie.

Rinzler  was writing a making of book for episode I that Disney cancelled,  and since Lucas is not involved with  episode VII i doubt he will be writing a making of book on that either. I hope Disney hires Rinzler to write that book but i doubt it will happen.

The original plans for the prequels/sequels is an area i find interesting but will remain a mystery. We only know what little Rinzler revealed in the making of return of the jedi. From Lucasfilm officially and from firsthand production materials and sources. 

As for Episode I it was like watching a children's film made by the Walt Disney company.  Along with the character Jar Jar, a character obviously borrowing elements from both Goofy and Donald Duck.