skyjedi2005

Sluggo said:

I think this hits a snag when one tried to define 'proper restoration'  Does cleaning up the film consitute it as a special edition?  What about getting rid of the garbage mattes?  I'd wager some of us would include this kind of digital work well within the acceptable range of 'proper'.

I mean the Robert Harris definition of a proper restoration which means not just a home video restoration but saving the films for future generations.  And the ability to screen newly struck prints theatrically.

If Lucas hired Harris it would take millions of dollars to restore the originals to their original state, which i understand he does not want to pay for.

Didn't fox pay the 25 million dollars the restoration cost in 1997?

How much of the that was to cover the reshoots and the new cgi and newly mixed soundtracks one can only guess.

I am not against removing the garbage mattes.  They were never meant to be there or seen, and were left in the movie due to the limits of technology.  I was not against removing those little gaffes in raiders for the dvd like the snake reflection off of plexiglass in the well of the souls.

Well yes the gout is okay quality if like me you have a 4:3 Sd tv.

But it is not exactly future proof.  Like an Anamorphic transfer done in High Definition would be.

I mean sure for a guy like me who has a laserdisc player i appreciate the gout for what it is.

But what of those people who can afford an hdtv 16:9 set.  You cannot be telling me lucas was unaware that fans own 16:9 HD sets.

You know what i can't get over are those fans who stick up for Lucas and say star wars was not originally shot or released in anamorphic.  I'm not kidding i've heard it all the time.  When a little google searching proves them wrong.

The funny thing is i used to be a huge Lucas apologist and used to stick up for the guy in reference to the special editions and Episode 1.   But because of Episode II and  III and the gout it is very hard to defend anything anymore really.  And it is not like the dude cares.  He is rich beyond the dreams of avarice and treated like a god living at his ranch.

And I would be lying if i did not admit i still love the original star wars trilogy, the original indiana jones trilogy. The original versions of THX 1138 and American Graffiti.

I have even embraced the lesser projects that are seen as commercial failures like willow and young indy.

Up until the last few years i was a life long Lucas consumer.  Since a kid buying the action figures, the games comics, the novels for star wars.  Saw the special editions of empire and jedi twice in theaters, and clones and sith twice i cannot even remember why now.

massive mutliplayer online role playing game.

Like world of warcraft, final fantasy online, star wars online etc.

Yep that is the cinematic trailer.

Makes me wish this game was a movie.

Same writing staff as Mass Effect as far as i'm aware which includes Drew Karpshyn.  Who wrote the darth bane novels.

No real part III revans story is never finished or told completely.

The follow up the mmo old republic is set hundreds of years later.

Still looks amazing and the story is awesome.  But i don't play mmo's, and the monthly subcription thing i just don't really want to do or cannot afford really.

Plus the bioware part 2 never happened.  So a lot of fans see part 2 as non canon.

I think to get the game out they had obsidian do it.

I have no idea what different direction bioware would have done, or if it would have been essentially the same game.  I have no clue as to if the second game was written by Karpshynn like the first was.  And the second game as released ends on a cliffhanger and part 3 would have picked up on revans story in the unknown regions of sith space.

Is this a good criminal/gangster movie?

How does it compare to American Gangster, the untouchables, the godfather, scarface, goodfellas, casino?

Was Johhny Depp good in the movie?

Have not seen Public Enemies yet but it was a film i was going to see at some point.

Michael Mann the director made good films with Heat and Collateral, but i thought Miami vice was the biggest piece of shit i have ever seen.

Never really got into pc rpgs but there are a damn lot of them.

Where would one start?

I began with the first final fantasy recently and am working my way through the entire series i am currently stuck on VI.  The old games require lots of leveling and random encounters.  I think the original snes version took me over 50 hours.  I would just stick that in my old super nes deck and play it but the battery pack went bye bye.

I am also going to start the dragon warrior/dragon quest series from the beginning because i never played them.

I am a huge fan of j-rpg's and only a select few come stateside translated. 

The last such game i beat was blue dragon.  Kind of dissapointing coming from the dude who created final fantasy and gave us Chrono Trigger.

I had this game called oblivion on the xbox 360 that i think was voiced over by Patrick Stewart that game was damn long and hard to play through.

Have yet to play fable 2 beat the first one and special edition so many times i lost count and beat all the side quests.

Mass Effect to me was the ultimate game as a sci fi fanatic, and rpg player it was like awsome.  Played through it as both male and female shepard and good and evil paths.

Though the main character i created of Sheppard i saved and am waiting to boot up on the second game my current stats.

The  original idea that the decisions you made in the first kotor game would inlluence II and III was passed onto the mass effect trilogy.  I love that style of choose your own adventure.  Deciding which characters live and who dies under your command and so on.  Whether you are ruthless or a good guy, just a grey character.

For my part if the originals were restored to their original brilliance and were viable as a theatrical presentation again like the godfather restoration i would leave the prequels and special editions be and be able to enjoy the ones i love.

I'm sorry even if the gout for 1993 was a high quality non anamorphic release from 35mm masters, it was an insult to all the true original trilogy fans to release them in 2006 as bonus material only in such low quality for dvd releases.

Especially since probably most if not the entire trilogy was restored in 1997, i believe the whole thing was restored before the tweaks and added cgi and we are just being lied to and played with in a mean way. Well not necessarily lied to per se but at least only given half truths regarding the restoration done in 97 and 2004.

To actually laugh at the people who love these films and then tell them "well you always can watch them on vhs". 

That is the kind of respect the fans who made Lucas a billionaire get.

There is very little public documentation of the 97 restoration than a few video clips in some documnetaries and maybe a paragraph in  american cinematographer, cinefex and the ilm into the digital realm.

Sources who worked on the restoration probably had to sign a non disclosure agreement.  So even if you could find the people who the work at ilm, pacific title and ycm labs they probably could not tell you anything.

Could you imagine if there was a 100% restored version of the movies before the added cgi scenes, and that it has been sitting in Lucas vault all these years and that we got the gout purposely to make the 2004 look better or have us forced to watch it.

I mean those anamorphic clips in empire of dreams made me dream of what a real dvd release could be, never to happen now because we are forced to watch the awful destoryed versions of the movies because one person hates the originals and it is not his fans.

Lots of bad movie storylines in recent years but some really compelling games like bioshock,

years ago kotor, recently mass effect.  God of war etc.  Shadow of the collossus, twilight princess.

A lot of the final fantasy games, metal gear solid series.

Can anyone think of other games.

Sometimes games can have as impressive production values af films.  The use of music, sound effects and cgi cutscenes.  I thought a good deal of force unleashed was better than the prequels.

Japan animation usual is animated less than American counterparts. 

the budget style of limited animation is well known.

Akira was probably the first feature to try and actually do 24 frames per second.

Disney was known for their painstaking hand rendering of animated films.

A lot of anime is almost manga on the screen.  A lot of it is static sometimes with moving backgrounds and the characters move pretty stilted because of the limits of the technique.  Not all anime is as lush and beautifully created as miyazaki or ghibli films.

Considering that almost all american animation and japan animation as well as the outsourced stuff is really just computer rendered there is almost no difference anymore except in quality and style.

There is now American Anime, borrowing the style of the japan toons.  Being going on for years and years.

Avatar is one of the shows produced that remind people of other such shows, people might be reminded of naruto or dragonball because of the quote "eastern flavor" of the show, but the characters as far as i can remember where not in an exagerrated manga/comic book style as dragon ball was.

Plus there has been anime in the us for a long time except stuff was cut censored or redited so kids probably did not know the origins of the cartoons they watched.

Robotech is a bunch of unrelated shows tied together, the most famous used of course being Macross.

Voltron was an anime as well.

Thundercats and transformers i believe were also animated co productions of us and japan companies.

But to me the old transformers show despite being written by Americans and mostly animated by americans was based on a japanese toyline, and betrays the anime influence at least to me.

in the 80's movie the anime style is even more pronounced.  I wonder just how much of the movie was animated by the japanese.

I also believe some of the rank bass production of the return of the king was made in japan, there is a slight japanese feel to some of the animation.  If i remember the credits claimed american, french and japan animators.

The same company who did thundercats who probably outsourced a good deal of the animation to the japanese.

Now a lot of anime is no longer even made in japan.  Even they outsource.  I believe Singapore is where a lot of the stuff goes.

Many industrys have been hurt by the wordwide recession, but anime which was already in trouble has a but been crippled here in the us, and is not doing too much better in japan where they also have had a huge economic downturn.

If not for Miyazakis last film being the highest grossing film in japan history this era would be pretty bleak for japan animation.

If you guys think the worst of jar jar is in episode 1 you have probably never seen the clone wars episode bombad jedi, i hoped dookus goons would finish him off.  But bumbling inspector gadget like he saves the day while pretending to ba a jedi.

My guess that it is jar jar in the celebration scene at the end of return of the jedi saying "wessa free!"

Means he survived both trilogies.

He is not even killed off in the EU though they killed Chewbacca.

I was hoping the newly annointed darth vader in revenge of the sith would cut down jar jar with a red lightsaber, jar jar just happens to be at the jedi temple when anakin kills the younglings.

Jar Jar as a carbonite trophy is the best idea ever.  Vader adds it to his collection and used boba fett to capture jar jar.  I'm sure fett would just as soon shoot jar jar point blank in the face than listen to his annoying voice.

I guess we should be grateful Lucas did not replace luke with jar jar in the originals.  Can you imagine a bad edit that has jar jar trained to use the force by Obi Wan in star wars.  The originals are now jar jars adventures,lol.  Then lucas says " that was my original vision".

An even more horrible idea replace the duck in howard the duck with jar jar.

okay i sort of lied a bit.  I have watched the very beginning on the laserdisc but usually can't get into the movie and turn it off, tpm.

I will say i watched the dvd recut at least once, and did an audio comparsion of the 2 on my low end setup,lol.

Never watched clones on dvd.  Not once.  Seen sith half the way through with my nephew til he got bored and we turned the tv off, he has sat through the original trilogy and loved them a lot.

The prequels bore him to no end.

Too bad his favorite is the 2004 set, ouch.   The gout is too low quality, oh well.

He loves the clone wars cartoon though,lol.

I don't have any children of my own so being the cool uncle is the most fun.  I had a lot of fun playing the lego star wars games with him.  Though the podrace glitch  that puts anakin on a dying loop while funny, makes you lose all your points.  In the end out of frustration i wanted to smash something, but i did not,lol.

My sister was confused and baffled on seeing the 2004 cut of return of the jedi. she noticed something was different and could only say i don't remember that young actor from the prequels in the ghost scene.  I pointed out it was hayden and was new addition of gl.

Putting Hayden and Jar Jar into return of the jedi was a mistake.

Great book, i still think it was a huge mistake on Lucas part to sell Pixar.

Pixar is so superior to the new lucasfilm animation based in singapore, there is just no comparison.

It is also funny because Lucas determined he was not doing animated fims, but the prequels despite the live action have lots of animation in cgi.

I had hoped the story of lucasarts book would be as good, too bad it was not.

That book turned out mostly to be a picture book.

Droidmaker is so well researched  the author deserves thanks and admiration.

The only other book i think that tops droidmaker is rinzler's making of star wars book, or comes close is the old ilm special effects tome.  You know that book that is oversize and cost like a hundred bucks.

To me the ultimate book for fans is the star wars chronicles.  Too bad through all the years i have not been able to find a copy at a reasonable price.

Ady having Jar Jar on Alderaan during the death star destroying it was priceless, even if not included in his a new hope edit.

I sent Axia some discs of the 97 versions so unless he is still looking for other versions, the issue is settled.

I had the g'kar and i sent him my only copies.

I am not sure if i remember correctly but i think i also sent him my duplicate copy of the dark jedi set.

Seeing as i have a laserdisc player and the lasers, at the moment that is the best way to watch the 97 versions.

All the preservations have lacked in the audio, having to compress it down to ac3 at a low bitrate.  I cannot access the 5.1 on the discs because i have no rf audio out, but the digital pcm is really pretty awesome.

If only in stereo. Still beats dolby 2.0 on dvd any day.

If someone even had a print in their collection with the magnetic six track 70mm baby boom, hoping that the magnetic elements had not warped or degraded or gone to vinegar due to time.  How would you capture the audio?

I have heard of people buying prints or trailers of movies with a dts track and being unsucessful with getting the audio off of them.  Apparenly you need very highly expensive theater equipment that can read the dts discs.

I have never seen a preservation of the 1997 dts mixes for star wars and probably never will.

They probably made very few dts 70mm prints.

The most common is the dolby.  Similar to what ended up on the 97 special edition laserdiscs, and the newly made mix on the 2004 dvd.

Are there any Lucas dvd out there with dts?  As far as i am aware there are none.

Spielberg is one of the people that championed dts, but since 1977 lucas has always been attached to dolby.  Not sure if they have some deal or agreement or if he just prefers his films in that audio format.

I love t2 and i think Cameron at least back then new how to use a good balance of cgi and the real.

Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park are movie i love a lot.

I just think the other sequels are a pointless waste of time.

Jurassic needs no sequels, and if the terminator films required sequels they should have only been by james cameron.  If not then don't make bad movies based off of good movies and hire hack directors.

Terminator 2 is a perfect film.  It has a preachy subtext maybe, but is hopeful as well.  And it has good character moments, though some chease ball humor too.

It also works as a summer blockbuster.

I don't think i will ever see t3 or t4 more than once, see that is the measure of things.  i could watch the first 2 hundreds of times just like the old star wars movies or indiana jones, or the first back to the future movie and never get sick of them.

I also never get sick of seeing the first 2 spider man flicks or x-men flicks, or watching the lord of the rings trilogy.

The rest of the stuff is like a watch once and rent once thing fo me.

Just like i never get sick of watching the old connery bond films but can't stand the last  one they made.

I also love the first superman film and first 2 rocky films but cannot stand the rest.

I have lost count the number of times i have seen the 1980's transformers movie cheasy as it is.  I watched the first bay movie once on dvd and don't even own a copy.

I will admit i own multiple versions of the prequels on vhs tape, laserdisc, vcd,  and dvd but i never have watched them even once. 

I bought them in the days when money was not as hard to come by as it is now, i cannot in good conscience spend the money on the crystal skull dvd.  The only indiana jones film i don't own.

I have the vhs, the dvd and laserdisc of the originals.  The same with the star wars trlogy which i also have on ced, and beta.

Star Trek VI is the last movie i will ever consider rebuying or purchasing on dvd or blu ray, the jj movie can rot for all i care.

I have the next  gen films but i never watch them and won't be buying them again if i ever get a blu ray player and HD tv set.

Avatar the last airbender is so incredibly superior to the clone wars that i am suprised filoni had anything to do with airbender.

Most of season 1 of clone wars was okay but the ending with this Cad Bane boba fett ripoff with a bad accent totally changed my opinion on tuning in for season 2.

It was nice to read matt lanter saying he and his costar were trying to match Han Solo and Princess Leia of the originals than the prequels.

Still clone wars might be a slight improvement over the prequels, but in my opinion Lucas has way too much of a hand in things and way too much control.  I liked the genddy series because he stepped backed and allowed them to do their own thing, funny how that dvd is now permanently out of print because genndy did something Kershner did better star wars than george lucas, which is not allowed.

I really hope Mr Lucas daughter turns out a better writer than he is, because if not the future of clone wars is indeed very grim.

There is not a thing that cannot be destroyed to fit the prequels anymore.   They ruined the EU novels, the games etc.

To me i almost put the cut off point for star wars in 1996, before the laughably bad shadows of the empire and the special editions, and before the ruination of star wars in 1999.  1999 was also the year of vector prime when they destroyed the star wars EU in the first book by Killing Chewbacca.

There has been some good star wars fiction since then. I liked Shatter point, and revenge of the sith by stover, and dark lord.

In fact a lot of the tie in writers for the EU write so much better than Lucas it is almost a shame they were writing for the EU universe that does not exist as far as Lucas is concerned.

To this day i don't understand how a self described terrible writer allowed himself to write the 3 screenplays to the prequels.  The same guy who says he hates character and plot and likes to do purely visual films.

The strength of the prequels was in the visuals, but the non devloped characters and non existant plot made me not care in the end.  Six Hours of explosions, lasersword duels and cgi do not a good human story make.

I don't hate the prequels i just wish the characters were more fully developed than cardboard cutout archetypes.

They tried adding a soul to the visuals by having willaims compose some wonderful music.  But Even he this time could not save the films. 

I wish the effects were secondary to the human story.  But Lucas made the focus on what he considers his strongest abilties. I can only blame him for not hiring a different director for both attack of the clones and revenge of the sith and some other writers to help flesh out the skeleton plot.

To me you have only half a movie with the prequels, you have the effects music and sound effects, but the actors are either under used or ill used.  The human story of the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker the greatest jedi of his generation takes a back seat to the action.

Lucas had some truly great and epic ideas to use.  A lot of them were under used or underplayed or left in tne background or up to the tie in fiction writers to flesh out. 

He talked about the story of faust and miltons paradise lost on the 60 minutes interview, and when i saw revenge of the sith i missed the echo of these great literary works.  Because the turn was botched and made zero logical sense.  

I also wish a female writer could have helped Lucas on clones and sith to flesh out the character of padme, in clones and sith her character is ruined as much as anakins is.  I much prefer the phantom menace which at last focused on the characters.  What happened in 2 and 3, did lucas forget or something?

Are yoiu by any chance using the deleted scene in the arena in attack of the clones not on the dvd?

Very low quality.  No foley work, almost like an animatic.  Sam Jacksons on set dialogue trying to sound exerted by the combat and such was a bit much imho.  But they probably would have done adr if they used the scene.

I'm surprised there are not more home brew attempts at using the deleted scenes and finishing the audio, music and making added cgi.

A lot of the scenes were giving somwhat finished on the phantom menace dvd and the attack of the clones dvd.  The sith stuff is very rough and not even polished up at all.

The rebellion scene with George's daughter looks like it was shot in the space of single afternoon using a single take.

With some better writing and more shot takes that scene could have been pretty good.

I'm surprised there is not a deleted magic type effort for all three prequel films so many deleted scenes were shot, inserts trims etc that never made the dvd or were ever used in any documentary.

One of my favorite shots from the illustrated phantom menace script was the lightsaber duel between maul and qui gon on the nubian's ship just as qui gon was boarding.

I also wish Obi Wan's sneaking around on the bug planet had been finished because it kind of reminds one of the first star wars and him sneaking on the death star.

I have seen this before with other threads.

Is there a reason?

DarkFather said:

 

In the legacy comics you get a Cade Skywalker the son of Kol.  Who looks like a reject of a rock band and is a death stick junky who stands on the razors edge of the dark side.

 

Oh boy.

Well they wanted to do Edgy.  Not whiny and creapy and annoying like Anakin.  Or Gee Golly Gosh goody tooshoes luke skywalker, a bit unbeliavable for modern audiences and readers.

They have done dark brooding Luke in the EU, which is ok i guess.  I just hope they don't start having him have whiny tirades like anakin skywalker or the redone anakin as jacen solo's character destroyed in the books.

Star Wars Episode 1,2 and 3  the old matte paintings, models and puppets would have worked better with of course better scripts and directing.

Terminator Salvation The old technician from the old films was involved but not enough animatronics and too much cgi.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  Way too many cgi enhancements of the live action photography to miss.  Drew me out of the movie.

Star Trek 2009 effects in the film were done well enough but the Enterprise should have been a model not a cgi picture.

Something tells me if Jaws were made today the shark would be cgi and a character in the film, like the awful deep blue sea.

The movies should always be shot on film.  Much thanks and appreciation to steven spielberg and jj abrams.

George Lucas not so much.  Episode 1 while not the greatest movie looked great on film in the cinemas.  The Next movies were done in video HD.  And the clone troppers were all cg rendered, and the spaceships later on.  In phantom menace they actually built models and miniatures.

To me the best compromise is a unity of the 2 techniques rather than cgi taking over and subverting its rightful place as just another tool filmakers can use.

Lord of the Rings was Cgi heavy but had real location shooting, large scale miniatures, and tried and true methods of filmaking as well as newest of the new.

Too bad even the masterful infodroid cannot remove the overpowering cgi in those scenes. 

Too much moving and the lighting looks fake.

The older movies had a more realistic built practical sets and so on.

This time just because they had cgi i think Spielberg went a bit overboard.

Some of the moments of this film i must admit after rewatching it are very very good.  The cgi ruins the movie and the rediculous alien ship.

I think the relationship between Indy and mutt and marion was very good and well done.  People see it as hokey i see it as typical lucas/spielberg.  There films are usually about family relationships, father son relationships in particular star wars and indiana jones.

I must say i enjoy the film a whole lot better on dvd than i did i theaters.  Man i must be getting old and cynical or something, this was a fun movie to watch, if not exactly without jarring flaws.

I have a radical idea for the prequels.

Create a time machine and go back in time and stop them from being made.

Then nobody can claim their childhood was raped.

And on a more serious note.

Any edit that attempts to make the prequels fit the original unmolested star wars trilogy i am totally for.  like minimizing the cgi and color correcting the films to match the originals.   Get rid of the bad acting and dialogue.

Don't know how much of a movie you would have left is you tried to match the quality of star wars 77 or empire strikes back.  Even attempting fixes to bring it up to return of the jedi standard is pretty much impossible as i have seen from many fanedits.  I do look Forward to adywans redo of the prequels.  I just think the super duper special editions on top of lucas special editions is a bit much.

Im still waiting on an edit that restores the original versions of the movies in better than gout quality, plenty of special edition fanedits not enough love for the real deal.

Restoring the colors to the 2004 would be almost impossible with how bad the colors are.  Adywan did the best he possibly could but he cannot add back color defintion that has been crushed.  Blue tint ruined the movies  As well as the crushed blacks.  Saturation levels bumped way up to make the films appear more shiny and bright like the prequels.

Nice Color correction on Mauls saber i forgot that it was pink on the dvd thanks to dvnr and edge enhancement, it was red in the theaters.

You have to be kidding me.  Were they forbidden to show the original footage or has Lucas tracked down and destroyed all remaining copies or has some legal clause that stipulates only the special edition can be shown.

I cannot publicly comment on Lucas, but any other director who is not as popular and a fan favorite as he is did this and they would be seen as a complete and total wanker and douchebag.

Janskeet said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Lucas tried to confiscate all the copies of this documentry and splices in him saying he intends Greedo to shoot first but technology at this time won't let him.

LOL.   Almost like that digitally enhanced wedding tape seen in the south park free hat episode.

Still i think that was pretty uncalled for making a joke out of Lucas failed marriage, just like having him rape indiana jones in front of a howard the duck and willow pinball machines.

He inserts a cgi version of himself that better suits his original intentions at the time of the interview.

He says to the dude interviewing him.  "Yeah i'm developing this sci fi thing called star wars and it stars this guy jar jar.  I already intend to have cgi all over the movies even though it has not been invented yet"