skyjedi2005

I'm probably the only one who enjoyed the More lighthearted bantam books years and the old del rey years than the new del rey which started with vector prime in 1999.

Yes we had superweapons of the week and cheesy comic book plots but it was fun while it lasted, before star wars went all dark and edgy and post modern thanks to the emo prequels.

And before the EU had to be comepletely rewritten backwards and forwards to fit the prequel universe. 

Every book now written has to reference those prequel movies and is uncescapable.

Especially when they do a bad retread as the they did with the legacy of the force novels.

They lost me when they killed Mara Jade that was the last straw as far as i'm concerned other than ruining the character of Jacen Solo and making him a carbon copy of Hayden Vader.

Sidious starting the rebelllion is the stupidest thing since he started the seperatist movement and republic army of clones being both sidious and palpatine at the same time.

Lucas level storytelling is now a joke when it was once considered mythic and worthy of the highest praise.

After seeing the prequels and crystal skull it is obvious he can no longer tell a compelling story, the plots are so laughable that even children lose the sense of willing suspension of disbelief.  It has come down to wow what a neat effects sequence by ilm, and thats it.  A sad way for star wars and indiana jones once greatness to die.

I am sort of grudgingly enjoying bits and pieces of the clone wars animated.  The best parts don't come from Lucas.  I wish for star wars and indiana jones  without any Lucas involvement, never will happen.

Lets start  crossing our fingers the live action show is not a load of horseshit like the prequels were.

I would never see Indiana Jones V if it ever gets made, even if there is a possibilty it could be good like going from temple of doom to last crusade.  Lucas and Spielberg are no longer my favorite directors, only favorites of yesteryear when they could make a good movie.

There already is coming out an alternate history of the original trilogy of sorts later this year, a downloadable add on to force unleashed called the sith edition following the alternate ending with starkiller as the apprentice.  He has to hunt down kenobi and skywalker and kill them supposedly.

The trailer had the same bad voice over guy for palpatine as force unleashed.  Billionaire Lucas could not afford mcdiarmid for the game, or james earl jones for vader.  They used Chad vader, and he suprisingly did a good job.  As good as would be expected if it was a fanfilm and not an official lucas product.  Though the Soundtrack was pretty good.

Despite the bad part of the plot, the game felt more ot'ish than the entire prequels did.  The rest of the plot was fairly decent in honest opinion, if a bit of a rehash and cliche.

Mielr i think its more the german foundation who was taked with the restoration released by Kino.

A lot of purists hated the garish color tinting and modern rock and roll score.

At that point at least it was better than the bad usa recut which was silent and the story was completely changed in its meaning in the subtitles.

That being my first exposure to the film its a wonder that at first i thought it was a horrible film.  Without the organ score, the correct speed and a very bad cut up and lousy vhs print was all people had access to.

Was Lang alive to comment on what he thought of Moroders version?

Not sure, my memory fails me sorry.  Was it book II, i don't have it with me at the moment.

I thinks its the black fleet crisis by Michael Kube Mcdowell. Which also dealt pre phantom menace for Luke's search for his mother prior to Lucas creation of Padme?  Did padme exist in 1996?

She was supposed to have been a member of the fallanasi people.

Not that i know of.

I think he or someone else posted audio fix test for return of the jedi on the newsgroups though.

Does that mean he is actually going to do a fixed release?

Wish you could edit in a real mcguffin.  I hate the idea of alien skulls and aliens and suucers being in an indiana jones film.  An artifact dealing with the occult or religious sinificance or a real archeological find would have been ever so much better.

I have no problem with Indy finding hidden cities or lost civilizations as long as they are not sci fi, and relate to mans history as real archeology does and not made up stuff like ghosts and flying saucers.

The villains should have been Nazis the Russians are not really evil enough, and the serial style of the originals should have been followed and no cgi.  Real stunts and location shooting etc.

The 50's bad b movie shit was absolute crap.  Not many good films came out of that period of 50's and 60's sci fi.  Except for maybe Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth stood still.  And they are the wrong genre for indiana jones anyway.

Just like i thought black magic was stupid as i hated temple of doom except for the shanghai scene and the mine cart chase carried over from kasdens raiders script.

Yes the bad voodoo crap was used in 30's serials.  Still laughably bad.

To me Last Crusade is a mixed bag.  Good moments of character devlopment and humorous banter between indy and his dad, but lots of bad jokes and cringe worthy lines and humor.  

I hated the racist charicature Sallah was portrayed as and that Marcus was a bumbling fool and a retard.

Raiders is the only perfect Indiana Jones film, even the lesser sequels of doom and crusade though are not pure phoned in quick cash grab pieces.

Don't get me wrong their are character moments i liked quite a bit in kingdom of the crystal skull, just the overal movie really did'nt work.   I liked That Indy had a son and though shia did a reasonably good job.  I liked Marions return and the wedding scene at the end.  I liked the kind of banter between indy and mutt which sort of was a redo of last crusade.  I liked that they used indys age as a part of the plot.  Did not like the unreal non existance of any real peril and the toned down violence.  Indy never uses his gun or whip really, there is zero tension and suspense in the fistfights either.

They had good actors in the movie as co-stars too, and all whose talents were mostly wasted just like the actors in the star wars prequels.

I think Lucas has done the bumbling retard enough, In Last Crusade Marcus Brody, in phantom menace jar jar binks and in crystal skull Ox.

Yeah now all he needs is to find someone who can lend him 16mm prints of empire strikes back and return of the jedi, just a small task.  Lol.  Just kidding.  Not really easy seeing as they are on everyones want list for films including the scope versions in super8mm.

Me i wish i could score a derann films print of return of the jedi, sadly way beyond my means.

As far as i know the video qualiy has to suffer from a bitrate starvation and look like shit to fit a full PCM track on it, supposedly even if you strip out all the extras and other audios already on the dvd it still won't mux right, from what i've heard anyway.

Single layer dvd's and dual layers are short on space.  Notice how for the first time since laserdisc movies are getting robust audio on blu ray.

If you did a high quality encode on blu media you could most likely use the HD video broadcasts and the gout footage upscaled and include all the audio tracks lossless. Create a perfect hybrid by cleaning up and color correcting the whole thing.  So far no on has done this as the work would be ludicrous in the extreme.

At what bitrate can the human ear not notice a noticeable difference?

I have read that people cannot notice a difference audibly from a 2.0 dolby track and a PCM track, their mind knows the difference and they can check the bitrate numbers but how much can they actually hear?

I mean can the human ear really appreciate a 7.1 Lossless HD audio that is thousands of kbps.

The reason it was called Blue Harvest is it was a fake title actually used during filming revenge aka return of the jedi.

They pretended they were shooting a low budget horror picture called BLUE HARVEST: Horror Beyond Imagination.

Ironically enough an episode of the ewoks cartoon was also called blue harvest.

It was also a pretty elaborate was to trick people as they even had call sheets with fake names for the actors.

Until people found out that they were filming a star wars movie which just happened to be a sequel to empire strikes back one of the most sucessful films in film history at that point in time.

Thats fine man just asking,lol.

The digital tracks on the laserdiscs i'm sure were a revelation in the late eighties when these suckers first came out.

Still a very nice set.  I only hate the subtitles and wish i could remove them.

Though i have the same problem with my episode 1 laserdisc. 

I wish the subs were a selective thing encoded on the laserdisc and not burned in.

Some were like that they had Laserdisc closed captioning or subtitles but you needed a seperate decoder unlike dvd.  You could not just decode them with the chip in your television set like you could cc broadcasts or vhs tapes.

The japanese also had something on their laserdiscs called LD-G.

The return of the jedi novelization does a better job of stating why vader does not disobey his master.

I think it was because the time was not right.  That he believed under the emperor and his teaching Luke would flourish into a sith apprentice though not stated at the time.  And then when Luke was mentally prepared he would help vader kill the emperor and vader would be the new emporor and luke his chief right hand man and supreme commander of the elite imperial forces.  I don't think as written in 1983 Vader expected his master to betray him and have luke Kill him, he never fathomed the emperor knew of his treachery.

When now in the EU the very nature of the sith is treachery, and there are under the cult of bane only two Sith Lords at any given time.

I mean Dooku did not see it coming either when Sidious ordered Anakin to murder Dooku.Tyrannus in cold blood.   He never intended Maul to be a permanent Apprentice as far as i'm aware.  Too Much of an animal and beast who could never really rise to the greatness the true masters of the sith could achieve.  He was more of a slave to his passions than in control of them.  He was only a lackey for palpatine sidious when sidious wanted an equel or someone who could one day succeed him.

Who better than the jedis chosen, the one to bring balance to the force.  Corrupt him and the Jedis hope is extinguished.  The only thing the emperor and Vader never foresaw where padmes and anakin's twins.  The last threat to palpatines power.  Luke the only one able to re-ignite the jedi inside darth vader from a small spark.

Which is kind of laughable considering that palpatine knew Anakin was banging Padme every night, why would'nt there be children,lol.

And nobody else knew or suspected.  Obi Wan was the only one who knew and kept it a secret, being like a father to Anakin since he was a small boy forgiving him his faults.

It is entirely ironic that out of Padme and Anakin's sin of forbidden love that the galaxies hope was born, proving the jedi's view of attachment as being wrong.  Indeed it was Lukes attachment to Anakin that saved him when he was a sith lord named darth vader, attachment to the ideal that he was a good man inside. Or had the potential of goodness anyway.

In the novelization of revenge of the sith the new prophecy was that love would destroy the sith not directly said but that is what i got out of it, Vader finally in his last moments excepts and loves his son and with his last energy kills the emporor at the expense of his own life doing away with the sith.  The prophecy was then achieved but not as the jedi thought it would be.

I always wondered did the good in luke and leia come from Padme? Or the love of the foster parents.   I mean their is little good shown in Anakin in the prequels as a confused and horny emo teenager, so i guess Its the foster parents,lol.

I mean good and evil as an hereditary thing rather than a moral choice.

Too bad star wars is still under copyright.  If it was public domain the fans could undertake a donate money approach and have a new telecine done from a print like the one in the national achives of film, in the library of congress.

Or a company that does not want to spend the money or resources could have a donate money thing set up like Robert Harris has done for the 70mm roadshow version of the Alamo.

All Lucasfilm would have to do is give Harris access to the film and other misc items needed for a restoration and then he could get the public and film fans to pay for it since a billionaire like lucas won't do so even though he is supposedly a member of a foundation for the preservation of motion pictures and a member of the board,lol.

It seems to me an artists rights are in conflict with the historical preservation of these classic films.  Why can't Lucas do both? He makes his fans happy and gets to continue to tinker with the films to his hearts delight.

Sounds to me a logical alternative, and everybody wins in that scenario.  He gets to put his directors finished cut out there, and the originals are saved from the destruction of time as the negatives rot in the LFL archives.

I mean it seems to reason that he would have had a new negative made from the restoration in 1997 before the cgi was done, which would be able to be used in making a new home video release of the originals and make the films viable for theatrical exhibition.

Chainsaw Ash mentioned the esb theatrical 35mm audio i believe this is on the 1985-86? CAV release which was analog only.

I have the laserdisc which does not have laser rot though my companion piece to it star wars does.

I think this is also a dark jedi preservation from years back on dvd-r, except the audio was what downsampled to dolby digital 2.0 at i cannot remember what setting.

The CAV transfers were two of my faves.  Only limited by the fact that they were full frame.

Star Wars was a solid transfer and the color was pretty good and the picture sharper than the clv widescreen release.

I always wondered why the letterbox releases where so soft and grainy compared to the full frame presentations.

Another thing i wondered was the THX faces tapes in full frame on VHS never released on laserdisc a different transfer than the definitive collection or just cropped and zoomed in.

This was available on hong kong laserdisc with burned in subtitles and full screen.  I stilll suspect it to be a bootleg dubbed from the VHS tapes.

How did the final capture of the mono mix audio come out Puggo?

Are you going to use that or use the restored mono mix, or both?

What about the 35mm strereo mix that was on the 1985 CAV release laserdisc that requires patching because of the side changes?

How come you are not doing PCM audio?

So this project wll actually be released and finished unlike the X0, which sadly turned out to be the biggest vaporware in star wars fandom probably ever, except for the sequel trilogy episodes 7-9 Lucas said he would make and then decided not to.

Their site has not been updated since what 2006, now going on to 2010 with not a single frame of footage finished or released.

I know they had real jobs and families and they said they were not operating on any time table but they started the project as far as i know before the 2004 set was released, since then in 2006 the gout was released.

By time it is released dvd will be obsolete, since their won't be a blu ray X0 transfer what was the point?

They won't get even the resolution the gout has coming from the master tape, and he very idea of working with ancient 70's tech like laserdisc in the era of blu ray is sad, just to restore a watchable copy of star wars.

I only know of 2 companies who won't put out the real theatrical films in their catalogs, Lucasfilm and Disney.  Forcing people to hold onto their laserdiscs to watch films that should have already been on dvd, and the fact that disney is somewhat doing this now on blu ray but skipped the dvd era is a joke.  Never mind Lucas companies shoddy dvd star wars transfers and non acceptance of the blu ray standard.

The one set of films i would get a blu ray player for star wars are non existant.

This is not a slight at any of the fine laserdisc transfers going on here only that Lucas Should be doing the work not the fans, it is kind of backward if you ask me.

And i don't mean working from a laserdisc master either.  Criterion is beginning to release some of Lucas idol Kurosawas works on blu ray, why cannot he spend the money and have a similar thing done for star wars from newly struck elements and new telecine and scan of the oot?

Bingowings said:

Spielberg NO!!!

Remember Always.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8180911.stm

I don't remember always though i do remember 1941, Temple of Doom, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Hook, war of the worlds.  Lol he has made quite a few bad movies as well as the good ones in my honest opinion.

And that as director.  As a producer he oversaw to of the biggest turds in film history both Transformers films.

Lol " Harvey - the tale of a man who claims his best friend is a giant invisible rabbit."

About as plausible as surviving a nuclear blast in a refridgerator or Mayan temples turning into alien spaceships and trans dimensional beings returning to "the space between spaces" lol.  Worst movie dialogue ever. 

I know Lucas hates the movies in their original form, but what about putting them out there in good quality for  the fans in  a modern animorphic transfer?

I do not understand this bs artistic stance that the originals no longer exist and we therefore got them in laserdisc Master dumps in 2006.

I also don't understand his treatment of the fans who made him the billionaire he is today.

He owes the fans at least a good transfer of the original versions of the films, maybe not legally but you could argue morally.

Why does he torment the fans who loved star wars so much that at first they were willing to forgive the prequels and the special editions, until he announced his intentions to bury the originals forever indirectly.

It is Lucas loss and a tarnishment of his legacy he does not have the original versions of the films that made him a household name on Blu RAY.

I'm at the point that i should say screw it, let lucas be left behind there are plenty of other worthy films on dvd and blu ray getting transfers to keep film fanatics happy.

Not sure he has not done an alien film since 1979, and i've always argued that the second one by Cameron was better when i was younger now i am not too sure.  I think i like them equally.

The first Aliens production is a story unto itself.  You want to talk about development problems.

H.R. Giger and the original writer and producer were supposedly let go.

Did we get the Alien film we should have? Probably not but that is why its "Ridley Scott's Alien".

Not that i'm saying Scott is George Lucas but remember when Lucas returned to star wars and indiana jones nearly twenty years later, the results were less than spectacular in my own humble opinion.

I hope Scott does not somehow have to tie this into the current shit franchise that completely destroyed a pretty neat dark horse comic and made it into 2 stupid movies AVP.

Alien 3 and 4 are so bad i pretend they don't exist like i do with T3 and T4.

 I don't like the gimmicky movement of either having a single dominating color like muting colors in films or desaturation any more than i like the artificilially brightened and bumped up ten zillion notches blown out colors in films.

I hated the blue and green tint in the lord of the rings, that was the only thing i hated about the films.

I also hated the way Indiana Jones Crystal Skull looked with what a green or yellowish grey through the whole film purposely to give it a comic book look.

Then you have films with almost no lighting to speak of. 

And films with lense flares like star trek that ruin a movie and could induce a seizure in certain people.

Then you have films with severaly poor audio mixes where the dialogue sound effects and music are all on different volumes and really don't mix together at all and really only the point is to make the films sound louder as if louder was better somehow.

C3PX said:

Remember back when we had actors like Charlton Heston? Who'd refuse to do sequels on principle, feeling that ultimately they could never be quite as good as their predecessor. 

This is why he had such a small role in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. He didn't want to do the film at all, but since they couldn't do it without him, he offered to do it if they would kill off his character in the first ten minutes. They agreed, and later asked him if they could modify the first ten minutes thing in order to have him killed in the climax, but still write it in such a way that he still only has about ten minutes or so screen time, which obviously he agreed to. He also suggested they blow up the planet at the end of the film, and was happy when they decided to go with that, because he thought that would mean there couldn't be any more sequels at all... :D

Anyway, too bad more actors don't take this kind of approach and pride to their acting careers. Instead, they have no problem doing the same thing over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over... so long as they keep getting paid for it.

Even today some actors know better.  Look at Sean Connery and John Rhys Davies they both turned down Indiana Jones IV and look very smart for doing so.  The film turned out to be a turkey, but still made almost 800 million. It is a crazy world indeed.

When was the last big payday Harrison Ford had? I can understand why he took the job, but it couldn't  really have furthered his craft or reputation as an actor amongst actors.

I mean he has made good acting performances in films that have made like ten cents compared to star wars and indiana jones.

And He has had flop after flop.  A quick and easy winner, and money maker that was money almost gauranteed in the  bank that required little work like Indy IV is understandable.  I mean nobody really liked Hollywood Homicide and Firewall.

The jack ryan films and the fugitive were money makers to a lesser degree than popcorn films.

If only Connery was so able to see into the future which i doubt, he would not have done League of Unextraodinary crap movie, or really he should have said never again will i play bond.

Who cares unless it has the real versions of the original trilogy, you know the theatrical releases from 77, 80, and 83 that we got in non anamorphic bootleg quality bonus discs a couple years ago, means that is the best they will do and not restore them for dvd much less for blu ray.

I also highly doubt the 97 versions will be included either.

It will be the 2004 set with the botched colors and sound, unfixed to continue the deliberate creative decision they made.

If the true films are on not on there but the old docos are and even if there are deleted scenes i won't buy it, the only set i would ever purchase is the original 3 films restored.  No 97, no 2004 and especially no  shitty prequel films.

The evidence shows that they have just re-released botched dvds time and time again.  I doubt the 2004 willl even be given any repect either, probably bare bones dumps of the HD masters shown on tv and no new blu ray scan of the negatives.

It will be shown even less care and planning that was done for the indiana jones IV and Clone Wars Blu Rays.

You see fans have to make their own releases that fix the colors and the audio, or remove the retarded cartoon cgi.  Would Lucas ever relent?  i don't think in any way ever if hell froze over.

In any case it would still have the bizarre color cast and the bad things caused by the lowry automatic algorithm that removes details as noise like ruining lightsabers or making the garbage mattes stick out like a sore thumb.

I don't know how people could be so clueless.  The emporer appears via hologram in the oot, though the actor was changed for return of the jedi.  The fact that it was the same voice and actor who worked in jedi as palpatine.  Sidious is obviously his sith name, though the fact that the senator and emporer share the same last name and are played by the same actor?  I mean come on people this is laughable.

It is even more laughable that the Sido-dyas subplot was dropped.  As he was the dude who ordered the clone army and also happened to be sidious.

Then in the movie it was changed to a dead jedi named syfo.  And in the EU it is explained i think that dooku tricked him into ordering the clone army and killed him or something, can't quite remember exactly.

Anyway another EU patch on lucas plot inconsistencies and lack of continuity.

The lack of continuity to the oot is so large a whole you could fly a death star through it as fans have said before.

The sith often have dual personas or personalities.  One is false or the person they were.

Palpatine is obviously sidious public face or mask if you will when dealing with the republic or later the empire.  Only Vader if anything has any idea who he really is and still does not know his real background.

Vader is obviously Anakin's sith name, though Anakin is the personage and name he abandoned.

It is only now a laughable joke though, and compteley made up of fail.  You don't have a good man who fell from grace when there never was any grace to fall from as exhibited by the lousy Lucas prequels.

The forbidden sith practices could have prolonged palpatines life for several centuries if not a thousand years, and do we really know that he was born on naboo.  Was he an orphan and taken in and raised to adulthood like Maul?

Was Darth Plagueis real or just another lie of palpatine/sidious?

How can anyone blame jake for destroying star wars, Lucas was the destroyer of his own creation that he gave to the world. 

He also destroyed indiana jones.

Only took about nine years to destroy both franchises credibility while at the same time becoming a billionaire from the profits off a bunch of horrible films.  He had 5 chances to deliver.  Even films he did not direct like the animated clone wars and indiana jones are so modern lucas he may have well as have directed them.

Then again what have spielberg and lucas had there hands in in film lately that has not been destroyed?