skyjedi2005

Supposedly this movie has the most racist charicatures of an African American since Jar Jar in the Phantom Menace.  Seriously people even thought this movie should be banned because people like the reviewer on the top of the page think its a piece for bushies and is anti obama.

DO people even watch the movies they go to see, i mean the critics.

Or do they get so board they take things completely out of context, or their imaginations make stuff up because the films are so crappy.

I mean looking for a political subtext in a 2 hour toy commercial?  really.  These critics are either too politically correct, sensitive or a bunch of whiny babies.  

Transformers is not supossed to be a drama or a musical or poltical propaganda piece.

It is an action flick, too macho according to the reviewer and thinks America is great when it is dumb. 

Seriously this guy would be better off watching and commentating on a micheal moore movie.

I am looking forward to Del Toro's Hobbit films PJ is producing. And any other films he might make he is a director to watch.

Spielberg could still redeem himself if Lincoln and Tintin are awesome films.

Want to see James Camerons Avatar, wish he had done T3 and t4 instead of that decraprio sinking boat movie.

Can't wait for any Movie that Christopher Nolan does especially a sequel to the dark knight.  Eagerly awaiting the hulk sequel and iron man sequel.

Watching the developments on the superman and fantastoc four reboots.

Captain America might be good or really bad, Joe Johnston is hit or miss.  But he can certainly bring a film in on budget and has a wonderful design sense.  Ralph Mcquarrie gets a lot of the credit, but Joe is as important imho to the creation of the old star wars trilogy.

Good god thank someone he had very little to do with the prequels. Doug Chiang and Ryan Church designs are far too modern and set in an earlier timeframe so its makes zero sense.

I am totally against folks recasting the x-men as younger actors prequel, there just copying jj abrams.

Sounds like the studio again wants younger cheaper actors.  A bit like throwing Pierce Brosnan under a bus for the much inferior in my opinion daniel craig as james bourne, i mean bond.

Won't see Spider man IV or V after the dissaster that was III.

And i Just wish Brett Ratners X-3 would be thrown aside and Let Singer give his version of the third movie.

Instead we got a mediocre third x-men and superman instead of a good x-men film.

I am also wondering if the remake of clash of the titans will be as much as a abomination as remakes like planet of the apes, time machine or war of the worlds. 

The New Robocop is totally unesscesarry as is a reboot of conan the barbarian.

If the Arnold Sequel could not have been made they were planing to do for years let it be.  Who will play him now some fake wrestling star like the rock?

I now this is totally off topic as is this whole post.  But that Gi Joe movie is even worse than the transfromers films.  It has stupid excellerator suits, some green colored gas that melts the eiffel tower like its made out of sand, and a wayans brother.  That is almost as bad as a wayans brother almost playing robin in the second batman movie batman returns, awful idea.

And why must every remake Tim Burtons makes ruin the original books or movies they are based on.  Willy Wonka was an absolute disgrace, and Alice in Wonderland looks more like a live action pumkinhead nightmare before christmas movie, alice in wonderland is not supposed to be a trippy horror movie,lol.

Actually they are my opinions and those Fincher movies are all killing movies and not even close to star wars material.  You think you would actually look for people who work in that genre style.

The green mile was so so, only good because it was faithful to the book.

The mist was the biggest peice of b movie garbage based on king i have seen since the telemovies based on his books.  They made up a suicide ending not in the book, and overly played up the anti christian message.

The dude murders his son.  To save him from some tentacle aliens,lol.

Majestic was that the Jim Carrey movie sorry never bought him as a serious actor, he is a comedian not an actor.  Whatever the hell people have to say about the Truman show, overated garbage.

That and he was a lot more funny years ago.

Lets see Darabount make a film based on an original story he writes and creates and then we can talk about how great he is.   As is KING was heavily involved with Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption as far as i have read and heard.

Adapting someone else's stuff may be his forte.  But you really cannot compare him to the George Lucas of yesteryear who created his own secondary universe.

There are not too many writers in book fiction who create such an elaborate imaginary world, except for perhaps J.R.R. Tolkien, Edgar Rice Burroughs, etc.

I liked Minority report despite tom cruise, i liked a.i despite its flaws.  I also Liked Private Ryan.  The more serious types of films are really not the spielberg i like.  I like close encounters, e.t. and jaws, and raiders and last crusade.

1941 awful film, hook awful film, so was amistad, catch me if you can, war of the worlds, indiana jones temple of doom and crystal skull, munich awful film. JPII awful as well.  As far as i'm concerned spielberg in my opinion has as many bad movies as lucas if not more, or like francis coppola or martin scorcese have made so many movie there are plenty of gooseeggs.

Shindler's List is brilliant but i won't watch it more than the 1 time i was sujected to it, i see enough evil in man every day and read so much of it in school it makes me sick to my stomache.

Indiana Jones IV literally destroyed the franchise just like the star wars prequels.  I could care less to how many billions they have made combined.  There are complete and utter shit for the masses.

Spielberg and Lucas once made brilliant and entertaining films with heart, and a soul.  Entertaining Fantasies for the minds eye.  Since then they have destroyed their legacy by either doing too many serious boring films spielberg that tell us how terrible humanity is, or lucas crap all over previous works with retarded over the top humor and cgi.

Spielberg as Auteur filmakers and directors with a singular vision can make the kind of films they want to.  Does not mean i have to pay to see them if i'm not thrilled by the fictional stories, the acting, effects etc.

In my opinion Films in the seventies and eighties were better because they focused more on the characters than the cgi.  There are some exceptions, like some of the comic book movies.  Really though i would be lying if i did'nt betray me bias to science fiction and fantasy films and space opera.

There are a lot of crappy low budget murdering people movies and horror movies that are grabage that hollywood makes regularly.  Does not mean i have to subject myself to them, even though i love action films.

Sometimes Violence makes sense to the story, but hollywood is on a gore porn trend and has made tons of money parading the works of real serial killers and those imagined.

I always found it baffling that people get some sick grattifcation out of watching people being murdered, real or no real you have to wonder they twisted pyches of some of those people.

Just like they have immortalized criminals and mudererors in mob films.

I am not for censorship at all period.  But to me there is a fine line between what is entertainment and what crosses the line.

I'm not even going to waste my time debating my own viewing tastes.  I can spend money on what i like and not on stuff i hate.  If movie series become a self parody like the star wars prequels or indiana jones IV it is time to hang up indys fedora and whip and for the jedi to stow their lightsabers. 

Anything else is just making a movie just for the sake of money if it betrays the legacy and magic of the previous films by not taking the material seriously and going into camp/parody territory.  I mean if they have to copy every other ripoff since they are running out of ideas Spieleberg and ford should have known better.  Who wants a mockery of indiana jones playing as national treasure or worse yet a mummy brendan fraser movie.

Once you don't take the material seriously you end up with a farce like 1980's Flash Gordon.  Rather than the original star wars trilogy that played the material straight even with the humor in its proper place.

Richard Marquand was totally right about that when he talked about Willing Suspension of disbelief. 

Lucas and spielberg themselves if you read the story conference on raiders, despite being an action film and somewhat jokey serial wanted the character to be believable.  Sometime down the road i think Temple of Doom they decided bad jokes anc camp were the way to go.  There were plenty of these awful moments in return of the jedi and the last crusade but there were also enough good parts to just hang im there to see the story unfold.

Spielberg Lucas and Everyone involved Including John Williams in my opinion phoned it in for crystal skull. Nobody looks more wise for turning that turkey of a movie down than Sean Connery.

Spielberg phones in indy IV and suddenly he takes a 2 year hiatus from directing as if the movie was hard to do or something, or took the wind out of his sails.  I've been waiting years and years for Lincoln where is it?

Anyway it will probably be some Liberal garbage retelling of history anyway, why should i bother.

I mean if Lucas and Spielberg are so poltically minded that they ruin their films by taking potshots at the Republicans, they should be politicians.  Or get off their fucking Soapbox and entertain me like they used to.

I am not pro republican either.  But Poltics garbage does not belong in films like star wars and indiana jones.

The originals were not so out there as to ruin their entertainment value.

AND what wonderful movies he produced Transformers 1 and 2.  And he said they were great films.  His taste went bye bye years ago.  If garbage cgi popcorn shit movies now pass where films like jaws, close encounters, e.t. and raiders were on the screen previously.  Remember when he produced a good movie called back to the future,lol.

And he has always been able to distance himself from travesties or remove his name.  Like Seaquest and Earth 2 tv series.  Notice how he never talks about that horrendously bad amazing stories series. Or the dissater that was the twilight zone movie.

Well at least he had the common sense not to do young indy, he gets much props for that.

People like Bay should never be allowed to direct a movie.  Did'nt he work at ILM? 

Special Effects artists are not well known for making films with a story and character development.  You can clearly see the pyro technics and cgi overblown.

I wonder if any of the EU others at Bantam books or del rey could have written better prequels as novels, not novelizations.  But based on the original ideas kurtz and Lucas put together in the late 70's.

Except for the necessary changes that Vader is Anakin Skywalker, they are not seperate characters.  Oh and Luke And Leia are his children,lol.

I wonder what an alternate sequel to star wars would have been like, a revenge story probably.  Luke gets revenge for the murder of his father and His teacher Obi Wan.

This would have really led into a revenge of a jedi story.  Lucas determined sith take revenge not jedi.

If Empire and Jedi were not made as they are the story could have gone anywhere.

They should do an animated film like the cutscene bioware recently released.

It was like slow motion matrix, meets the 300 meets star wars.  It was Epic.

Or have Drew Karpshyn who wrote both knights of the old republic and mass effect write a movie.

Not sure who would be a good choice to direct it if it was live action.

But if bioware can do better star wars stories with video games than Lucas can do with his movies, how pathetic is that?

The great bearded one creator Lucas upstaged by one of his EU writers.

A film series set far into the future or far enough into the past shows the most promise because of Little canon limitations and a lot of creative license would be allowed.  The trilogy era, post trilogy era have been mined too much already.  They have gone to the well in the novels one to many times.  Seriously who wants to see 60 year old or 70 year olds as action heroes.

If not for Jaina, The Solo's Grandaughter Allana, and Ben Skywalker their would be no skywalker bloodline future stories.  Its a little late to spoil but Anakin Solo joined with the force, and Jacen was just snuffed out and lost forever.

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.

Maybe if it was Spielberg before he did the absolute terrible films War of the Worlds and Crystal Skull.

After those 2 disasters it would take a lot to get me to see one of his films again.

Fincher no way, the first rule of sith club is not to talk about sith club,lol.

Johnston would at least understand star wars from a design standpoint but i'm not to sure of him.

Jumanji an awful movie.  Rocketeer underated serial adventure.  JP 3 better than 2 but not exactly anything to give high praise to either.

Darabount?

Obviously you did not read his script which is worse than the final film of crystal skull.  Or see that awful movie he made based on that stephen king book starring the punisher,lol.  I consider Shawshank to be a happy accident.  Never again did he make a movie that great.  It is like M Knight the only good film he made was the sixth sense, or michael bay's the rock.

He did good writing on Young Indy perhaps it was the outline given to him by Lucas that dictated the horrible crap in the script.

The one good line in the script is borrowed from Kasden and is just a reversal "Its not the mileage honey its the years" Instead of "Its not the years its the mileage."

If they were going to ape Kasden's writing why not give him the script to write, george could have asked him as a favor.

Sadly i think if i'm not mistaken The Last Crusade writer passed away.  He wrote the last good indy film.  Jeffrey Boam. Temple of doom was awful.  Written by the people who also wrote howard the duck.

Somehow before that the huycks were able to write good lines and dialogue for star wars and american graffiti.  Everything after including Radioland Murders was awful.

The last one made tons of money despite critics hating it.  So far every big blockbuster this summer has been slammed by critics across the board except for star trek, including wolverine, terminator salvation and now of course transformers revenge of the fallen.

I really am not all suprised this is one of the worst films this summer according to top critics on rotten tomatoes hovering somewhere in the 20% range of positive reviews.

The last one was worth a single rental on dvd.  Seriously other than explosions, rock em sock em robots and megan fox, what are people actually expecting here?

I thought the first film was an abomination to the original film and cartoon.  But those who did'nt grow up back then love the new movie, and so don't those who do say "do not expect it to be a live action remake of G1."

Brainless summer american crap, not arthouse cinema and not worth seeing more than once.  Unless you are like 13 and buy the dvd to pause the megan fox parts or watch them over again.

Transformers is an example of what is exactly wrong with the movies at the moment.   An action spectacle with zero story and CGI all around.  Unfortunately George Lucas and Steven Spielberg started this with what were pretty good films.  in the seventies and eighties. 

The destruction of the movies is a byproduct of a certain movie that came out in 1977, which was way better than all these modern pieces of crap.  Which is the problem really.

Star Wars may have lead to a short term film renaisance but in the end lead to the destruction of the movies especially through the prequels and the advent of lazy filmaking and over use of cgi and digital everything.

The only thing i think they did right with these films is get Peter Cullen "the real optimus prime" to do ops voice. 

The previews and avertisements trailers are probably better than the finished movie.   They serve as a highlight of the film and are more than enough.  It would be hard to sit through 2 hours of that crap.  I hate Michael Bay films.  The only good film he ever made was the rock.  And the seems to have been a happy accident. Armageddon was ok.  Pearl Harbor was an abomination words cannot describe.

The romance in his films is written poorly and extremely sappy and laughable.  He must have attended the George Lucas school of writing.

The dialogue and the scripts of all these summer flicks including star trek are very very poorly written in the dialogue department and all have bad jokes.  Not really surprising Orci wrote trek and transformers.  He is like one of the worst screenwriters i have ever known of next to Akiva Goldsmen and David Koepp.

So is TF ROTF 2 hours of product placement like the last movie?  If so when it comes on DVD it belongs in the trash can. 

To enjoy films these days you must shut your brain off.  you are not allowed to think, if you do the suspension of disbelief is ruined and you are taken out of the films you are watching.  We the audience now have to do the work because the filmaker and writers are lazy and expect that.

I hated absolutely every big film this summer.  Even Trek barely got a passing grade from my standpoint.

Transformers on the other hand is based on a cartoon that was an elaborate commercial to sell toys.  And does not pretend to be other than what it is advertised as.  As a dumb action flick i can enjoy it quite a bit.

It is not trying to be something it is not.  like say Terminator Salvation, trying to be serious drama in the framework of an action film.

Transformers comes from the robot anime type of shows Japan had been making for years untold.  It is Anime.  Even though American fans who don't like anime and hate japan culture want it to be something else.

zombie84 said:

I think retrospective commentaries are more honest.

Except when Someone tries to rewrite history, replaces the original films and says the special editions were the way the films were always intended.

When The same person now claims that he always had Vader as Luke's Father. 

That the story was always about the downfall and redemption of anakin skywalker and a six movie saga.

The same guy who told the media there would be a sequel trilogy and now says they made it up even though they have his direct words in print.

I would rather Lucas be honest and tell us he made it all up a he went rather than playing this omniscient god like creator who had it all in mind from the beginning,lol.  Give me a break.

Honesty is never allowed unless you want to join those banned from the Ranch.  People who have worked with him and may work with him in the future have to dance around the issue and act businesslike, or if they are his employees they cannot badmouth their boss and remain on the payroll.

Hollywood types who are gods in their own minds and have legendary egos and tons of fanboy worship,and exert power over everyone around them.  You are not going to get an honest take on the making of one of their films.

I saw the new cgi shot on tv and was pissed.  It lasts for a second and even i noticed the change the first time i saw it.

This aired on cable television on standard definition and high definition.  1080i ?

I have seen comparisons of the non cleaned up theatrical raiders in HD versus the Lowry.  The lowry one has none of the flaws, but the new cgi shot,lol.

Which was not on even the latest dvd's.  Methinks this is the version to be on blu ray.

Whats next the arab guy with a sword swings and misses before Indy shoots him.   Indy's gun replaced with a walkie talkie, or better yet a cgi whip.

The Mass Effect thing is a joke really when you consider that all the glitches and the new level are included at no extra cost in the PC version.

I already paid for the game and they just happened to leave off a story side quest and playable content for points in the game on purpose to charge you money for what you already paid 60 dollars for.

That and the rediculous microsoft points system and what they charge for a gold membership you can count me out.  I finished the regular game and am more than satisfied.  Not gonna bite the bait.

Their next major scheme is the OLD Republic MMO then they can charge people a monthly fee instead of making a real Kotor III.  Again not taking the bait.

Ever since EA took over i've been a bit uneasy i hope the second game comes out without a hitch or more screwing with the fans.

Unless you know of some collector hoarding a copy of the 70mm of empire you will never see it again.

Very few had the luxury or good fortune to see it.  And now thanks to Lucas you never will.

Because even if some film archive has a copy and wants to screen it they cannot by some strange Law that forces them to show the 1997 special edition.

I would not be in the least bit surprised if the original magnetic elments are completely deteriorated on the soundtracks in Lucas vault, or that he hunted down and had the remaining prints destroyed.

The 70mm of the special edition apparently was just a blow up and not specail in the least except for having a new six channel dts mix.  Neither are on dvd and are also lost to time.

I wonder what the difference between that and the 5.1 ac3 on the special edition laserdiscs.

I remember the bass rumbled your seat in the theater.

I remember very clearly an immersive 3D sound environment where you fealt like you were actually in the middle of the dogfight as Luke attacks the death star.

Then you get the 2004 redone audio and none of the above are to be heard.  really no mix at all.  The sound levels on the sound effects are off the scale and the music dialed way down in swapped surround channels.  The dialogue is also almost muffled.  Ben Burtt's new mix, is a giant stinking turd.

Other than a while back noticing some youtube user put up a preservation of steven Spielberg duel in the condensed super8mm version, or puggo's transfers.  There are not many preservations of these things.  They should be preserved because they are film history.  The only others i have seen are from movies that apparently public domain.

So no Raiders has never had a transfer done because this reel is incredibly rare, not as rare as the digest for star trek II the wrath of khan.  But these 2 appear to be some of the rarer marketing films.  No one has preserved the marketing films for star wars and empire strikes back that were in german i believe.

Return of the Jedi unfortunetely came out at a time when super8mm was apparenly dead and vhs had come to take over in the home, although jedi would not make it to video for many years 1986 i believe.

Hard to imagine really in a time when three to sixth months seperates the theater version of a movie and its dvd release.

There is a much romored unauthorized cut down of return of the jedi.  I read about it i think once on a forum.  cut down to an hour and basically the scope version of the film.  No differences in audio and the takes used in the film.  Does not appear to have been the 70mm version which had the different threepio dialogue.  Basically the same line about lando and chewy but a different take.

Movies i have seen rather regularly on ebay which i think would be interesting to sci fi fans are Close Encounters of the third kind, and planet of the apes digests.

The thing is you never really know if they are sound and color and not black and white and silent when it comes to the earlier releases of films like the errol flynn swashbucklers or Ray Harryhausen stop motion features.  Jason and the Argonauts and the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad pop up rather regularly but there is no information on sound or silent usually they are silent with subtitles.

The cut downs are not always that interesting or much better.  I have in my collection the super 8 of flash gordon mars attacks the world, the worst version possible.  Much worse than the serial or hearst tv version.  Thrown together in a heartbeat  to capitilize on the mercury radio release of war of the worlds.

A lot of the so called digest reels out there in 16mm or 8mm are just airline prints and condensed tv version of films or movie serials.

I have read that there are some interesting James Bond releases, most of which appear to be produced quite illegaly.  Then you have authorized versions released by derann films co in the uk.

They used to have Thunderball complete, and a cutdown of the horrible never say never again.

Probably there best release was Return of the Jedi in terms of the print used.  Printed onto mylar stock in cinemascope and in super8mm.  Only the sound was a mono presentation of the stereo mix.  They claimed you could redub it into stereo but that would defeat the whole point of preserving the print.  They do that a lot when they have an english film in a foreign dub or a mono preserntation they dub it from a dvd.

In the case of star wars that audio would be inaccurate to say the least even if it was the gout.

As for the raiders digest the stock usually is eastman and faded to red.  And for years it has been easier to find the german language version and not the american one.  I bet its "foolscreen though"

A lot of so called widscreen releases on super8 are not even anamorphic.  There was a star wars issue by Cineavision that was basically cropped widescreen or letterbox.  Usually they call such releases adapted scope,lol.

You know it would be great if Lucas would pay for the 70mm presentations of the star wars trilogy on dvd with the original six track audio, though he never will.  I wish star wars was in other hands.  Then we could get a restored release with the vistavision opticals scanned at a high resolution for blu ray alongside the 35mm footage.

vote_for_palpatine said:

CO, you're not the only one who feels that way about Gump. I never got what people loved about that movie.

The thing that sold the movie was the soundtrack.  Wall to wall music as a montage over the dramatic scenes.

Oldies of hippie era rock and roll sold the movie.

Kind of like all the emotion and feeling in American Graffiti is through the music.  That guy who directed gump is a friend of lucas, i wonder if graffiti came to mind when they were making it?

I thought Tom Hanks did a great job acting in that movie, but the writing and story really lack punch without the music.

zombie84 said:

ChainsawAsh said:

But things that are done digitally are limited to the highest resolution that was worked with.  If I'm not mistaken, AOTC and ROTS were shot with 1080p digital cameras, so they'll never be able to look better than Blu-Ray.  Though I could be mistaken, as most/all digitally-shot films today are at least shot at 2K, and I don't think George is *that* big of an idiot.

 

 At the time AOTC and ROTS were made, there were no 2K cameras on the marketplace. So the "original (digital) negative" of Episodes II and III is 1080p resolution.  Very, very sadly. So what you see in the theatre, even IMAX, is basically just a projected Blu-Ray in some sense.

Not sad to me.   Crappy movies shot on crappy HD video instead of on film.

At least the originals were not shot so crappy if they were no one would be fans.  The original films had real handcrafted artistry, models, puppets and glass matte paintings as well as specific photographic processes used, lenses and film stock chosen by the director/cinematographer to give the films their unique look.

Once you get to Episode II digital artists who probably did some shots in movies suddenly were doing all the shots but the live action.

All we are left with is some incredibly expensive video game cutscenes.  But without the interactivity of a game or a games sometimes awesome story.

At least Phantom Menace theatrical cut can be restored for blu ray for those who want it, i can't get by the first twenty minutes on my laserdisc the film is just awful.

But as terrible as episode 1 was you had a artist like Doug Chiang actually doing real paintings for the pre production art and not computer mock ups like Ryan Church.  It was shot on film.  It had real models shot and miniatures built, sets etc.  And Yoda was a puppet, not as good as the one used on the originals but a far cry from the bad cgi yoda in II and III that looked like a cartoon frog on speed when fighting.

At lot more effort was put into the screenplay even though the film does not show this.  Phantom took as long as the original star wars to write.

It was like once they got to clones and sith they were operating on auto pilot.  All the effort went into the set up chapter.  Other than the art department and cgi artists busy, the movies came together incredibly lazy.

All the prequels amounted to were a back story, but a back story where not much actually happens until the end of sith.  The entire thing is at least more than 5 hours of pure cgi filler and inane talking scenes, interparsed with frantic action.  But nothing really happens on the screen terrible moving or interesting.  In fact the galaxy goes to hell in a handbasket and anakin goes bad just to set up the original trilogy.

So Lucas original outline which was nothing more probably than a couple paragraphs, is really puffed up in the movies but not really developed.  Anakin is not developed as a character like Luke was in the original trilogy, what happened to Lucas?

It is really a shame what a good character director and writing team could have done with this concept, which is not a bad idea.  Lucas is sometimes a good generator of ideas.  It is just the pathetically inept way in which the concept was handled.  In a very obvious we go from point A to point B, and we don't even need the set up these 1 film and 2 videos provide.  Kenobi's speech in his house in star wars covers the material well enough.

Hmm lets see how to make certain movie series perfect.

I think i know the answer for star wars and indiana jones keep Spilberg and Lucas as far away from the director's chair as possible.

Whatever taste Spielberg used to have he has lost.  Hint he thinks Shia Lebouf is a wonderful actor and michael bay made fantastic transformers films.  He also cried watching star wars episode III according to reports.  Not as weepy as the fans who saw both star wars and indiana jones ruined in a 9 year period,lol.

I mean is is all possible that because Lucas next film is being directed by someone else and written by Someone else it might actually be good?  Not that people are going to be lining up around the block to see a tuskegee airmen movie.  I wonder if the Lucas team will take as many liberties with history as they did on the young indiana jones chronicles, or Lucas himself by erasing the past and replacing it in the form of the star wars trilogy.

From what i have read Lucas is a nightmare to have as your producer creative consultant if you are the director.  He back seat directed indiana jones IV and spielberg and him though the best of friends butted heads over the direction of the movie.  Spielberg wanted the old school gritty real looking stuff and Lucas wanted cartoon cgi fakery.

Plus both Ford and Spielberg were initially right and should have stuck to their belief that aliens in indiana jones was a bad idea, just like that the film should be shot old school.  Inevitably they both caved to Lucas just to get the damn thing shot and over with.  I personally would have had no new indiana jones film if aliens was the best idea they could come up with.  It shows an incredible lack of imagination and is laughable to even consider an archeologist believing in aliens.  They are supposed to be men of science and fact, and they study human civilization.  Aliens  have zero to do with either.

Lets get indy high on drugs so he sees non existent aleins or better yet lets include ghosts,lol.

But remember Empire Strikes Back is the only mainstream movie Kershner has made that was any good.  People attack Lucas for making bad movies but don't put it in the proper context when you realize Kersh also directed the turds that are Robocop II and Never Say Never Again.

Also people praise Gary Kurtz but other than being involved with The dark Crystal and Return to OZ after leaving Lucasfilm what has he done?

He did produce that horrible science fiction slipstream which only was cool because it had Mark Hamill as a bounty hunter named Will Tasker.

All directors have their share of bad movies.

Steven Spielberg is often praised but he has made some awful films as well, so has Coppola and Scorcese.

And nothing Lucas friends have done could touch the greatness of star wars imho.  Not even the collaboration by lucas and spielberg raiders of the lost ark.

Not even the Godfather has had the impact on generations of people that the original star wars trilogy has.

Or could it be because star wars was the first of the original trilogy that was destroyed to make the super unspecial edition.

Don't worry anchorhead will never buy the blu ray for star wars if it ever is released because it will be the 2004 edition, or perhaps the 3D version with further changes.  Who knows Lucas never will consider the films finished and will continue to tweak them until he passes from this world.

To me if time is so short and precious why is he wasting time recutting his old film's instead of shooting new ones.   And i mean new original films not rehashes of the star wars or indiana jones series.

How long until we are tormented by Special editions of the indiana jones trilogy.  If he can replace a single shot without telling anyone and replace it with cgi what is stopping him from doing what he did to star wars trilogy from 1997-2004.

Lucas as far as i'm concerned can do as many personal fanedits of crystal skull because i hate that movie, or do that to the prequels.  But he has ruined the only good movies he ever made.

The funny thing is these bizarre edits Lucas does for his own personal gratfication are sold in stores to the general public and have replaced the real movies.

ATown8814 said:

Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are two stand-alone films, but with the same main character.

Just like The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are two stand-alone films with two entirely different purposes.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has its moments at the beginning and the ending, but the midsection bogs the whole thing down.

Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi make up the Star Wars films. Nothing else after 1983.

Guess you have not seen the holiday special tv movie that came out in 1978.  That should also be of selective repressed/erased memory.  There was awful star wars long before the prequels.

One of the worst characters in temple of doom has the least screen time. Dan Akroyd's performance/cameo with a bad accent. Before Indy boards Lao Che airlines,lol.

I guess Spielberg did'nt think it was enough to have him in one bad film of his 1941.

If you include Crystal Skull and Howard the Duck, 1941, War of the Worlds, the star wars prequels.  Look at all the turkeys lucas and spielberg has made between them.

And now you have Spielberg producing bad movies like transformers 1 and 2.

Once upon a time he executive produced a good film called back to the future,lol.  I guess those days are behind us now.

Not to mention that was the only good film Bob Z ever made and would be the last good film he would make.

Castaway was decent but annoying in quite a few places.  That snow train movie was awful, and beowulf was an absolute abomination to its source material, and on top of that the film sucked.  Back to the Future II and III were mediocre if not exactly awful.

I too have a betamax copy of the making of star wars and empire strikes back on a single long playing tape.  Not sure if that makes it less as good than if they were on seperate releases.

As far as i know the tape is virtually in unplayed condition.   Cannot determine the condition of the tapes tracking without a player.  All too often the tapes are stored improperly or have tape rot.

Even with storing my vhs rental tape of star wars properly and it had been resealed airtight for years it still has tape rot.  I mean a vhs tape from what 1982.  Surprised if it works at all.

Then my CAV 1985 fullscreen laserdisc copy appears to be from the same master and is also a rotter,lol.

I thought babyhum's releases were captured but never released?

He had intended to but then he never released them.

I know the dr.gonzo releases came out earlier unless a v2 was put out with the babyhum transfers.  I used to have the dr gonzo ones, and form what i have seen of the editdroid the quality is a bit better if on less discs which means they were more compressed.  You would think more space used would mean better quality.  The only noticeable difference is that the audio has been transfered as ac3 to save space on the dvd.  I usually prefer a true preservation of the laserdisc audio in pcm. Even though the making ofs are usually mono sound only with the possibility of 2 channel reproduction and compatability.

Not sure if editdroid used the older release of from star wars  jedi that was not remastered and you could buy seperately and it had a mono analog audiotrack.  The remaster came only in a boxset of the japan release of the clv re-issues of the defintive collection with a digital monaural audio track.

The funny thing is i have read i think on laserdisc database that the same master was used but the newer one looks better does not suffer from laser rot and has digital audio. They probably applied a light pass on dnr at the mastering stage for the quote "remaster".

These programs supposedly were all shot on 16mm film and the three making ofs from earlier on usually come on faded prints.  Though from star wars to jedi could be found and purchased at one point on 16mm LPPnon fading stock and the print i once saw on sale had great color reproduction that makes the laserdiscs a joke.

Good luck on finding a copy now though and trying to get a transfer done.  No telecine place will touch commercially copywritten releases.

For those like me in the united states who cannot get cinema 16 because it is in pal land here is an alternative.

http://www.amazon.com/Reel-Talent-First-Legendary-Directors/dp/B000QGEB26/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1245524977&sr=1-6

This has three Lucas student films.

Though i believe the cinema 16 edition has an exlusive lucas audio commentary, or maybe i am thinking of another edition?

I also highly recommend this book which has a couple reprinted articles/interviews on the making of thx and graffiti.

http://www.amazon.com/George-Lucas-Interviews-Conversations-Filmmakers/dp/1578061253/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245525169&sr=8-4

Also the most throughly researched book out there is Pollack Dale's unauthorized biography of Lucas Skywalking.  At least on the Lucas who made the original star wars and not the lucas who made the prequels.  That is a whole seperate chapter.  And as far as i know no one has had the stones to make an unbiased unauthorized look at those years of lucas career.

Cinema of george lucas and creative impulse barely scratch the surface and as they are appoved by Lucas a lot is deliberately left out including criticism of any kind of the post return of the jedi george lucas.

The making of books of the prequels and the prequels star wars chronicle book also cover the making of the films but don't delve into the mind of lucas the man, lucas the filmaker.

I don't hate george.  I just wish they could sometimes write a scathing review of something when it deserves it instead of sparing his fealings.   The criticisms friends and family gave george during the making of the original star wars trilogy ultimately made them better films. 

When honesty was replaced with corporate yes men his films suffered.  They were created outside of any one elses influence.  George is a purely brilliant visual filmaker and even the prequels show that.  But he is not the best writer, and he is not a character director.

I would still like to have diminished and half hearted prequels then none at all, but a lot of people would disagree with me.  Just like i genuinely enjoyed them and the fourth indiana jones film but not without cringing every time the worst parts are on the screen.  I find it hard to sit down and enjoy those four movies when certain parts take you out of the movie.

That is not to say i have not seen the same problems if in a lesser fashion on temple of doom, last crusade, or return of the jedi.  Same in some places on willow.  Or more american graffiti.  Howard the duck however and the star wars holiday special are just an abomination, as is the radioland murders.

To me star wars, empire strikes back and raiders of the lost ark are almost perfect films.

Unlike some people i also love American Graffiti and the non butchered version of THX 1138.  I wish Lucas made more films like that instead of continually doing star wars and indiana jones.

There has never been a true commentary made.  It takes fan projects like Garret Gilchrists fandmade commentary on the classic edition, or jambe's making of with commnetary to really appreciate the good audio interviews.

We got bits and pieces on that star wars cd rom, and on the definitive laserdisc.  Some of the audio commentaries are used more than once or appear to be sourced from seperately taped interviews at different times.

Anything Lucas has said since the 1990's i don't give much credibility to.

The last time Lucas appeared to be truthful on the making of the films was during the making ofs and from star wars to jedi.

There was no lie at the time about the six saga story of darth vader, that vader was always luke's father and leia the sister, as far as i know i have not seen the making ofs in some years so i could be wrong.

The fact that they could not get Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill for the commentary would be dissapointing if you did not know they repeat the same stories verbatim and so does carrie fisher.

These days they don't have much interesting to say about the films.

I would have liked a director's commentary over the original films if they were restored.

I would actually prefer a commentary on star wars 77 by Gary Kurtz than Lucas because he would actually talk about how the film was actually made.

Kershner on Empire to be able to talk loosely on the making of empire without Lucas looking over his shoulder.

And a commentary by Kasden on empire and jedi.  I would also like a richard marquand commentary but sadly he is dead.  Which did'nt stop lucas from altering a film he did not direct.

A star wars mega set would be great if the extras were put together like the lord of the rings extended editions.  Seperate commentaries for all the different people who made the films.

Lucas on the other hand likes to talk about the detail they put into jango's suit in the attack of the clones commentary,lol. 

When he used to say the sets and the effects were less important than the plot.

Something tells me people will wait years and these blu rays will be direct dumps of the previous masters as broadcast in HD on cable.

Bare bones most likely too with the fucked up colors and sound and the matte lines and garbage mattes and lightsabers unfixed.

You will end up with quality slighly better than the television broadcasts because of less compression and probably a lot less artifacting.  But who will pay for and wait years for something when they can already get it free albeit illegally.

If it was not for that one changed shot in the raiders broadcast i believe the HD versions of INDY could be nearly perfect.  No sound issues or color problems.  All they have to do is dial down the dnr.

Even the non changed shots in HD for THX 1138 and American Graffiti looked beautiful.  The fine grain in evidence which is harder to see on the dvd.  But on star wars even in the HD broadcast to me looks like they applied too much dnr in some shots. Although the grain has not been completely smoothed away.  It is no gout sitaution of dnr, but the colors on the gout were mostly correct.

Nobody and no theater in their right mind projects a film from a dvd on the big screen.  This is where Lucas is just totally off base.

Blu Ray does not come close to film resolution. Much less dvd.

Adopting HD video while wise in terms of cost especially when you are financing your own films the art is actually taking a step back.  The star wars film made in the seventies resolves so much more image physically than episode III its not even funny.

The negatives are rotting in a vault someplace because he has now convinced himself analog is evil and digital is better.  When those master prints and negatives are the only archival source of the movies.  He can claim all he wants that a old HD scan done years ago is archival, but i am not buying it.

Only recently has the state of the art gotten there.  And they for years did not have the tech or the power available to fully capture vistavison photography.

Years ago Lucas said i believe in a book where interviewed by ebert that the 70mm prints of the originals with the six track mag track were the definitive presentation of the films.  Even talking about how the best prints were the technicolor ones and they would be good for all time.  He claimed the films were preserved.  Only years later when the 20th anniversary was on the horizon for star wars did they find the negatives were not handled or stored properly and the stock used eastman kodak was completely faded.

As for the Indy blu rays if raiders is the same as the Hd broadcast with the single added cgi shot i'm not buying it even years down the line when i have an HDTV and blu ray player.  Especially if the masters look like utter shit because of the heavy dnr applied by Lowry, you can count me out unless a proper restoration and new scan is carried out.  Any half assing it like Paramount recently did with star trek and no money for Lucas ever until he does right by the films.

Most importantly that carries over to the original star wars trilogy needing a godfather level restoration.  Only something like that and only the original versions will i ever buy.

There are also consequently no film prints of the 2004 versions and i don't believe the cgi on the special edition or the 2oo4 are even film level resolution.  The original effects don't stick out like a sore thumb because they were not rendered digital video done on a computer they were real special effects shot physically and optically composited.

They are probably not on dvd because the last scans done were done for dvd.

Lucas has to pay money to have the negatives rescanned at a higher resolution than 1080, which is what the dvds were done at for star wars and indy.

Sure they were able to have HD broadcasts but the current masters are not at blu ray quality.

But is not this the same george lucas that made the nonsensical assertion years ago that dvd was as good as film?

Because Lucas says it must be true.  If any other individual said it you would doubt their sanity, expecially a director who has worked with film.

4k is the lowest exceptable point when scanning 35mm film and much higher resolution scans are being done today.  So a 1080 master downcompressed to 480i certianly does not past muster when compared against even a theatrical print much less a first or second generation master or the negative itself.

I shot first already quoted it as his sig but i will copy lucas claim here for all to see and read just how much of an ass it makes him sound.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you'll be able to project it on a 20' by 40' screen with perfect quality. I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's to go back and reinvent a movie."

I wonder if the negative backlash Lucas received over the Phantom Menace effected how clones and sith turned out.  If so that is rather sad.

The prequels problem is that almost all of it is filler and no story up until the very end of revenge of the sith.

There are a lot of action sequences and cgi padding it out and and confusing politics.  No clear heroes and villains, basically it betrayed the basic concept of the originals being so clear cut black and white and right and wrong.  While at the end of sith we are served up a dish of postmodern bullshit moral relativism and making the jedi more like the sith , lots more shades of grey to the prequels.

Plus for Anakin to fall from grace, there has to be grace to fall from.  He has to start out as a good man and be slowly seduced to evil.  Biggest failing of the prequels.  Anakin's slow turn became a turn on a dime, and the reasoning made zero sense.

He starts out a jerk and an asshole in Episode II, and becomes more in III leading to more murders.  Though it started with non pre meditated killing of sand people in anger, to his first real murder dooku to killing younglings.

He is never shown as kind and loving.  Caring of his fellow man, or even caring unselfishly for his wife.  Every single thing he does is out of selfish motivations.  A clear and easy way to see he never followed the jedi creed and obi wan and the counsel just pretended not to notice because he was some kind of messiah so the rules did'nt apply to him.

So in the end Return of the Jedi and the original trilogy is ruined because there never was any good in anakin for luke to redeem, lazy poor and pathetic writing.  For the life of me i don't know why Lucas or one of his employees could not sit down watch the original movies and take some notes. 

The story of the original trilogy hinged on Luke betting it all that there was still good in his father and the redemption.

The prequels hinged on making anakin sympathetic and his turn believable.

Now both ends that tie the two trilogies together are made undone by lazy ass writing on episode III.