skyjedi2005

The culture has pretty much already came to the consensus the prequels sucked, and that the original trilogy is a classic. And there is nothing Lucas can say to change that. 

He can talk about how the prequels made him a billionaire if he wanted to but that does not make them great films.

The bayformers films made tons and are garbage, by Lucas own way of judging things those must be great films too.

Unless how much a film grosses is somehow more important than storytelling and character.

That is the same excuse he gave for destroying Indiana Jones "its all fiction. none of it is real" His new excuse for destroying star wars.

Oh the kids loved it.  They loved other crap movies too.

I won't be buying blockbusting.  And let the man with an ego the size of several universes blame the ruin of star wars on his fans and not himself.

The Eu tries to fill in those plot holes and discontinuities.  But the average filmgoer is not going to watch all the films, read all the comics and play the videogames to decipher the plot.

They also would not have read those prequels to the phantom menace novels that described the sith, or the politics of the trade federation, or palpaptine's setting up Chancellor Valorum so he could become chancellor and then emperor.

The sith history is still being written for instance in the unreleased as of yet old republic mmo, or the recently released third novel in the darth bane trilogy.  These days for star wars to make sense you have to almost digest 100% of the EU and LFL products.  Imagine not telling the clone wars in the movies so they could milk it for all its worth.

The prequels are a boring 6 hour skeleton plot, with poorly developed cardboard and cartoon characters, and scripts that should have had a least a few more drafts and less yes men. It also has too much greenscreen and cgi and makes the movie feel sterile and inhuman and not a real craftman's work of art which the oot was.

To expect one to read tie in books to make a movie make sense is just about the most lazy form of filmaking i have ever heard of.  If you can even call those video sequels films that were not shot on film.

The last hulk was based more on the ultimate line than the original too.  But seeing as ang lee's was not faithful either that film was seen as decent because it had that guy from fight club,lol.

Maybe he should have stated as his opinion that Politics is pretentious Bullshit and not the purpose of art.  I too hate when politics ruin a film.  Even if it was awful to begin with like star wars episode III. or a great film despite like Dark Knight.  Ruined Indiana Jones IV too.

The idea that Democrats equals communists 100% or Republicans Fascists is something no intelligent adult could believe it does not equate with balanced thinking.

V said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

But I was pissed off about Samuel L Jackson being Nick Fury. I think it's racist to change the race of a character, at least if the character is well-established, important and popular.

 

No, its racist to say that every comic book character should only be played by actors of the same race.  Skin color doesn't matter, talent does.  I think Denzel Washington would be an outstanding Two-Face, but people like you would never get past that he's not the same color as the character from the comics. 

Vaderisnothayden said:

And why are they not using the classic character that was important for so long instead of some recent invention?

 

They did. 

 

And he was terrible.  The Ultimate version of Nick Fury is not only black, but is modeled after Jackson.  They couldn't have chosen a better candidate. 

Billy Dee Williams played Harvey Dent in Batman 1989, but then someone had the poor taste to cast a hammed up version played by Tommy Lee Jones.  One thing i thought Burton did right.  Having a wayans brother as robin would have been horrible though, and that was one of his less brilliant ideas. Totally would have fit those shusucker films though.

I don't think that is Sam Jackson being Nick Fury though, sam jackson plays sam jackson and was absolutely horrible in jackie brown, the star wars prequels, snakes on a plane, both xxx movies and jumper.  Only good performance in Pulp Fiction. Also awful in shaft.  Whats supposed to set his military character as fury apart from the character he played in xxx?

Vaderisnothayden said:

Octorox said:

skyjedi2005 said:

I have not seen the film yet though the films message will be judged by me if its applicability or pure allegory.  I dislike pure allegory usually in fantasy fiction.

As for a sci fi film actually having some plot, meaning and feeling and a message that should have been what Star Trek should have been instead of a remake of starship troopers/star wars.  This to me has the chance of being the second good sci film of the year the other was District 9. Star Trek was nothing but sights and sounds lacking any subtance, lens flares and shaky cam, pure eye candy aka junk.  Good action film it may have been Star Trek it was not.

Star Trek has really always more about the characters than the science fiction, and while there has definitely been much more cerebral Star Trek, I think Abrams captured the series' essence perfectly. Like the original Star Wars it's NOT all flash and effects, It also has great characters and a solid story. By your logic Star Wars was also junk. I'm sure the next Star Trek film will have a message but for the first one it would have been too much to have a message, reset the continuity, introduce the characters, do the origin story, liven up the action and "sexiness" of the series all at the same time. Now that all that stuff is out of the way, the next one can have more of a message.

 I can do without the message.

Then you don't understand that Roddenberry Trek on the original series was allegory disguised as science fiction to get by the censors.  Because it was goofy sci fi that the suits did not watch they could talk about the vietnam war, or racism.

Roddenberry like George Lucas before the prequels could be subversive with their ideas without being heavy handed and preachy.  The prequels on the other hand were pretty much heavy and without subtext  about Lucas political beliefs and bias and so were very boring and poorly executed.

The problem is when the messages and personal politics of the writer or artist don't further the story but hijack it, or the story itself is just a forum for spewing their dumb politics bullshit like getting up on some soapbox.  At least people should be entertained and if you want to enlighten someone get them immersed in the world and characters of your secondary universe that if done properly will be applicable to any viewers own experiences.

I can't remember if it was george lucas who said it, but i think he said " all film is propaganda.  All film is teaching something whether the filmaker is conscious of it, good or bad"  I think he said hollywood had a negative effect on the world. 

But the same guy 20 or more years said "film as art is bullshit", and he also said "a special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing". But how can one reconsile that with the lucas who made the prequels and had greedo shoot first. The guy who said the success of episode 1 was all centered on a cgi character, named Jar Jar binks.

Lucas basically thinks the 1080 master is good for all time right?

This is the same man who belongs to a film preservation board,lol.

The chances he will undue to the damage done to the original negative on the 1997 special edition are most likely zero percent.

A real restoration as Robert Harris has said should not cause further damage to the original negative and the film must be viable for future theatrical releases.  Damaging the o-neg for a video release is stupidity.

The entire special edition was pointless.  The restoration was necessary, but the changes and bad added cartoon cgi added nothing and actually take away from the experience. Things i'm for are reducing or removing the garbage mattes or blue screen bleed or fringing.

The blu ray looks darker than the dvd and they are from the same master, very weird.  I will say the blu looks more film like, and the white color of roger moore's skin in this screen cap looks blown out.

About the wrong colors and blu tint in some of the films, Lowry also messed up the colors on the wrath of khan restoration.  The uniforms look orange instead of red.  Some scenes have an awful blu tint that was not their before.

Really a shame since the film in terms of clarity has never looked better, just like their work on star wars.

Darth Editous said:

I've not been following this thread, but on the back of the cover it seems to say "before the DTS" - what does DTS mean in this context?

DE

The special edition release had a dts soundtrack, i never saw it in dts but it had a dts release according to imdb.

I like the addition of Scarlett Johanssen but man Mickey Rourke is awful imho in the trailer, and towards the end Robert Downey pretty much looks like he is phoning it in.  And he really never played Stark in the first film really just a charicature of a Republican imho. I am a big fan of the comics and i never pictured this actor while reading them.

First one was a great action flick but did not really storywise do anything that has not been done before, although the cgi was the main selling point just like star trek 2009.  Dark Knight was a much better film despite Batman pulling a George Bush.

Who wants to see Episode 1 in 3-D?

Jar Jar binks in 3-D but no oot restored, thanks george!

C3PX said:

ChainsawAsh said:

the first Terminator was a huge ripoff of (I believe) a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episode...

It borrowed and expanded on ideas found in two different episodes of The Outer Limits. I've seen both episodes, and can say definitively that Terminator is not a huge rip off of either of them.

Cameron has a long history of being accused of ripping people off. His TV series, Dark Angel is often considered a rip off of a series of James Patterson books.

That is funny because i thought Dark Angel was basically a ripoff of the good guy terminator idea except Max was female and a genetically engineered super soldier.

I remember my bro remarking on how the female terminator in sarah connor chronicles cameron was a ripoff of dark angel,lol.

If someone could hook you up with a copy of puggo grande i think you would love it.

Sadly my computer which i burn dvds on has shit the bed and it has been a really bad year and i have no money, so i really cannot be of help.

If only force powers of mind control were real then we could get Lucas to release a restored oot.  They only work on the week minded though, not the cgi minded, or " mind tricks don't-a work on me only money".

My Christmas movie tradition used to be a marathon the usa network showed of the oot in pan and scan.  That was of course until i had them in my collection in widescreen.  Now Lucas apparently at some point in time stopped allowing the old versions to be shown and they were replaced with first the 97 versions and then the 2004 on tv airings.

I also remember a airing of the oot on sci fi network once with Billy Dee Williams and another time With Carrie Fisher.

I could not stand the Kelsey Grammar version,  of a Christmas Carol but i enjoyed the Patrick Stewart one though kind of laughed because it was Captain Picard as Scrooge, or Frasier as scrooge. Lol.

There was this one with George C Scott i think i used to watch.  Patton as Scrooge. versus Captain Picard and Frasier.

What if George Lucas directed Avatar, replace the blue skinned people with a planet of gungans and the audience would burn the theater to the ground,lol.

JasonN said:

ferris209 said:

Alright, just finished watching the entire 70 minute presentation. Yeah, some of the humor is odd and could be left out, but it does help to lift the spirits in parts. Such as in the end, when he is regaling how great ANH was compared to the stagnant TPM, I couldn't help but feel very depressed and saddened that a part of my childhood had been shit on. Then that pizza roll popped up and kind of reminded me that "eh, it's just a movie in the end and no real vital part of your life". So, yeah, the humor is appropriate at times.

Which is why I thank god that I first saw the Star Wars trilogy when I was in middle school and that it wasn't the great cinematic part of my childhood experience (that honor belongs to The Dark Crystal and other works by Jim Henson).

If i remember correctly Gary Kurtz was a producer on the Dark Crystal, he did not produce return of the jedi only star wars and empire strikes back.

Also is the rumor true that Lucas originally wanted Henson to be Yoda, or that Henson did dark crystal because he could not get the rights to lord of the rings which were tied up at the time.  It is also rumored both Lucas and Spielberg at one point wanted to direct Lord of the Rings, instead Lucas had Ron Howard direct Willow.

I am glad George Lucas did not direct the lord of the rings trilogy and Peter Jackson directed them because he would have destroyed Lord of the Rings the same way he has destroyed both star wars and indiana jones.

I mean they may as well do a special edition of the dark crystal and replace the puppets with cgi and stick Jar Jar and Yoda in there somewhere,lol.

Just kidding it was a way of reminding that the special editions of star wars are garbage and so are the prequels.  Man i so much wish i could forget they ever happened, it would be nice for my memories to be intact and not crapped upon.

I thought Mark Hamill said Arkham Asylum was the last time he would do the joker voice over and suddenly the trailer for the second game has his voice, hmmm.

Did they already do a dubbing session while he was there during the making of the first game or do i detect a little white lie.

Or maybe they convinced him since they realized the guy they replaced him with on the new animated series sucks.

I liked confused matthew's reviews better because they were true and funny.  While i also agree with this review the voice of the commentator is painfully awful like getting your teeth drilled, or nails on a chalkboard.

Don't know if he intonation of voice was supposed to be as inspired as Mr Lucas was in the making of he showed clips from,lol.  As in bored and tired and wanting another payday.

"I've Said it before and i'll say it again.  I did not have sexual relations with that woman".  Just kidding i loled at your title post though reminded me of a certain persons finger wagging at the American people.

I have not seen the film yet though the films message will be judged by me if its applicability or pure allegory.  I dislike pure allegory usually in fantasy fiction.

As for a sci fi film actually having some plot, meaning and feeling and a message that should have been what Star Trek should have been instead of a remake of starship troopers/star wars.  This to me has the chance of being the second good sci film of the year the other was District 9. Star Trek was nothing but sights and sounds lacking any subtance, lens flares and shaky cam, pure eye candy aka junk.  Good action film it may have been Star Trek it was not.

My bro took our Xbox to his new home, so i need to buy a second unit.  I would not shell out that kind of cash unless i wanted to play mass effect 2 in jan 2010.

So in my situation it is not because of the failure rate of the Xbox 360.

Though my bros friend has 2 or 3 of them 2 of which rrod,lol.

Maybe I am in the minority here, but I thought the visuals and music were mostly okay to fine in episode III despite some over the top sillyness.

But the script was pure awful and so was the execution in directing the actors for all three prequel films. But Episodes II and III were far worse at least episode 1 focused somewhat on character development and was shot on film and had real models along with the painfully out of place in star wars cgi and cartoon characters not at all in step with the mentality of the oot.

The editing was Crap the cinematography was nothing to write home about the effects looked cheap not in cost but in being a cheat.

The music unmemorable except for Anakin's Theme in Episode 1, Duel of the Fates, Across the stars and battle of the heroes. 

If Jedi was a step down from star wars and empire in quality the prequels are are mere shadow of even the worst moments of jedi.

The swashbuckling adventure Lucas somewhat hinted at bringing back in Episodes II and III was nowhere to be found.  Instead you got a 4 hour video game that was non interactive, and were bored to tears by the politics, and there were no likeable characters i hated the jedi and sith and republic and empire and seperatists they all came of as false and not real characters.