thecolorsblend

Can't say I agree with the guys leftwing extremist politics but I will praise him for pointing out the moral complexities of all the Star Wars movies. If there's one praise people have of Star Wars that never EVER made any sense to me, it was that "it's a good old fashioned good guys vs. bad guys/white cowboy hat vs. black cowboy hat romp" shit. That's true (on the surface at least) of ANH. Even so, it makes me wonder what ESB those idiots watched.

The prequels take the moral ambiguity to a new level. The Jedi, who spend most of the three movies lying through their teeth even about what time of day it is, are hardly innocent bystanders. Plus, although he uses horrifying means to get there and horrifying means to maintain, Palpatine just wants peace and order for the galaxy.

It might've been Harry Knowles but someone said that the prequels have the better story but the original trilogy has better characters. I tend to agree with that. Then again, the prequels only really work in the context of all six movies while the original trilogy works as a complete story unto itself. Hell, ANH works as a complete story unto itself.

So hmm.

Harmy said:

I wasn't talking about STAR WARS at all, I was talking about fan edits and editors in general. And even so, I said fanediting was a bit different, but still, the editor of the film "never recruited and directed the actors,liased with the art,special effects and production crews and consulted and collaborated with the musical composer or concieved of the ideas and scenarios that are encapsulated in the scripts."

And that's what I was answering to and saying, that editing is a whole separate art from these things you mentioned before. And I do see your point about a fan editor not having the same right to re-edit a film, as its original creator - that's also why a fan editor can't release his/her creation as any kind of official release, while the original creator can.

And the rest of my post still stands.

Do editors even in Hollywood operate completely independently of the director? To my knowledge, there's still interaction with the director. The editors may give, they may take, they may be allowed to assemble their own cut of scenes or even the entire film for the director's review and approval or whatever else but I honestly don't think a Hollywood editor is free to just do whatever the hell he wants.

"Point," thecolorsblend put in dryly. "Maybe I'll give the Zahn books another try."

I think you could argue in favor of Lucas at least reshooting the original trilogy (to perfectly capture his "original vision") if it'd motivate him to release the unaltered trilogy. That's a compromise I could live with, esp as likely nobody would give two craps about the reshot/rebooted/whatever new "original" trilogy.

Oh, to dream...

So Lucas is trying to convince us that a CGI Yoda who just sits around and has one walking shot was impossible to do in the same movie that has a CGI Jar Jar?

Harmy said:

Yeah, on BD that wipe is back to how it was in theatres.

Also, the simple reason faneditors get away with what GL doesn't is that they don't make anyone watch their edit, you can choose to watch it if you want but if you want to watch the film the way its creators made it, you can, I fail to see how there can be any argument there.

Hey, not trying to pick a fight here. But fan editors take a director's vision, carve it up and usually make at best a lateral change in terms of improvement overall. I'm not saying there aren't good concepts out there. I heard about one fan edit that did a Godfather Saga thing with the movies by intercutting the six films among each other. Maybe these editors do genuinely improve the material in some cases. Maybe the director in question truly lacked in the "vision" department. All the same, I just don't think they have any moral right to alter that vision, irrespective of their talents, their legit improvements, the availability of the real cuts or anything else. That, and I think their creative energies would probably be better served in developing their own creations rather than cutting up someone else's.

Not really hip to any of Zahn's work. To me, Star Wars is a style, a mode of filmmaking/writing/whatever. Tough to put it into words but character development is not usually belabored any Star Wars movie. That's not saying it isn't there, just that it isn't the point of the venture.

Zahn isn't hip to that philosophy, I guess. And whatever, it's his thing. It's not like he's the only "offender" in that category. I'm just not much interested in his SW books.

In fact, I'm not much into most EU stuff. And even the stuff I do like isn't really canon to me. It's a suggestion or an alternate universe thing but not one comma of it is binding in my opinion. But since I'm on the subject...

Daley's Han Solo trilogy- It's just FUN.
Crispin's Han Solo trilogy- The stuff with Bria feels a little too paint-by-numbers but otherwise it's a solid series.
Shadows of the Empire- The most Star Wars-feeling book so far. Feels mostly of a piece with ESB and ROTJ.
Cloak of Deception- Offers some good background into the political situation we see in TPM. It's not for everybody but it's okay.
Legacy- I've only read about 10 or 12 issues but I like concept of the thing.
Cartoon Network Clone Wars- It might've been more enjoyable if the crew could've gotten past their collective boner for ESB but it's not bad to watch once in a while.

Most of the rest of the EU is overloaded with technobabble and character names filled with apostrophes.

walking_carpet said:

zombie84 said:

I think he actually wanted Williams to use either classical pieces a la 2001, or Korngold's music from stuff like Captain Blood. And then Williams said he could do something like that but original and better and he came back with the SW score. I'm probably mixing up the details but that's sort of how that happened.

for the 1995 vhs releases, he told leonard maltin that he writes his screenplays to music.  he wrote this on one of the CD releases as well.  But the PT footage of him writing doesn't have any music playing in the background. not to mention it sort of conflicts his 'non-linear 3 dimensional editing' philosophy.

was this yet another lie? or another exaggeration - like how we all listen to our ipods when working, but thats not the same thing as 'writing to music'.

I'd always assumed that any time we see Lucas writing in one of those documentaries, it's staged. The crew need a few shots of him scribbling stuff so that's what he does.

I think a lot of that content is similar to the point of being redundant. But, and just to prove that I'm a teamplayer and willing to compromise with Lucas, here's my preferred ultimate set.

Star Wars:
1977 (Theatrical, sans "Episode IV- A New Hope") (Mono & Stereo Mixes)
2011 (Blu-Ray)

The Empire Strikes Back:
1980 (Theatrical; Stereo mix)
2011 (Blu-Ray)

Return of the Jedi:
1983 (Theatrical; Stereo mix)
2011 (Blu-Ray)

The Phantom Menace:
1999 (Theatrical)
2011 (Blu-Ray)

Attack of the Clones:
2002 (Theatrical)
2002 (IMAX... because, hey, why the hell not?)
2011 (Blu-Ray)

Revenge of the Sith:
2005 (Theatrical)
2011 (Blu-Ray)

Of course we'll all probably use the unwanted cuts/movies as doorstops but this kind of release allows everyone to save face. Sell this thing as a complete set with no standalones and nobody will know for certain if people are want the originals or if they prefer the updates.

Sound is just as important as anything in Star Wars so I think it's important to include the original sound mixes where possible... yes, including the mono version of ANH. As far as the OT goes, I don't see how remixing the sound for 5.1 (or whatever) is any less offensive than throwing in a bunch of bullshit CGI effects. Both revise history in their own ways. I want what was most commonly seen and heard on opening day for each movie.

Doesn't that contradict what Rob Coleman has said about having to convince Lucas to use a digital Yoda in Ep II anyway? I swear to think around the time it came out, he was on the record several times saying he personally persuaded Lucas to do a CG Yoda.

That kind of makes you wonder how else Lucas was planning to pull off a lightsaber duel with the character that he wrote into the script but hey...

georgec said:

Bombed was a poor word choice, I'll admit that. It made a decent profit, but I thought expectations were higher. If it was just meant as a launchpad for the show, then it did its job.

All I remember is people complaining about Jabba's gay cousin or something like that.

*sigh*

Remember when I said I didn't give two craps about the TV show? Truman Capote The Hutt and similar stupid stuff is partly why.

georgec said:

Mike O said:

Let's not forget that the 2008 Clone Wars movie was a complete bomb, critically and commercially (35mil domestic). And that was a brand new piece of work meant to segue into the tv series.

The Clone Wars movie bombed?? I don't think so. Wikipedia puts the budget at $8.5 million and Box Office Mojo puts the domestic numbers at $35 million. By any standard, that's a success. In any case, the theatrical release was meant to launch the TV show and, this is my personal conspiracy theory, permit George to recupe all or most of his expenses earlier along in the process. In relation to both of those things, I'd say the movie was very successful. Any amount of money the movie made was going to be gravy because profitability had already been built into other layers of the TV show's distribution models.

And, for whatever it's worth, this is coming from someone who couldn't care less about Clone Wars and has only seen the movie.

EDIT- As for how profitable TPM 3D is going to be, I never bet against Star Wars in a theatrical setting.

There's eight pages or stuff to dig through here and I haven't gone through every single post. Even so, there's really only one thing that needs to be said.

Whether you love or hate the GOUT, it's still more than I ever personally thought we'd get from Lucasfilm so thank the OT.com members that we have it. I can't think of anybody else from the fan community who deserves any credit for it. Period.

If OT.com is going to be picked on, they need credit for the pressure brought to bear on Lucasfilm for getting the GOUT out there.

georgec said:

Maybe there's a reason people respect Peter Jackson's work on LOTR that doesn't have to do with an industry-wide conspiracy against Georgie? More Lucasbot desperate rationalization...it just can't be possible that George is not a good writer or director.

The LOTR trilogy is the perfect example of balanced filmmaking - great source material, great script, great performances, great cinematography, great direction...

Comparing the PT to LOTR is absurd. Jackson went through painstaking effort to ground as much of Middle Earth in real locations as possible. When CGI is used, it blends into the surroundings so as not to exist solely for the sake of spectacle.

Most importantly, the characters feel so real and relatable. There is real emotion amidst the grand scale of the trilogy's settings. Every character goes through transformations, growth, grief, inner struggle, etc.

In other words, the LOTR trilogy is the antithesis to the PT, which I regard as the most disappointing movies of the last two decades.

 

As imperfect as they may be at times, I'd rather watch the prequels than the boring as piss LOTR. Any time. This isn't to say Lucas isn't being a bit of a baby or that he couldn't make all this go away in a second just by releasing the OUT.

Harmy said:

thecolorsblend said:

-- OT
GOUT. It's just the best option that I've got ready access to. Besides, I've got little or no use for fan edits and such nonsense. 

-- PT
2001/2002/2005 DVD's. The choices are limited here. 

The choices are only limited if you allow yourself to be limited by blindly condemning fan efforts. For example this:

The Phantom Menace -Theatrical Version - NTSC DVD- ADYWAN

It was created by a fan, yes, but it is a perfect theatrical presentation on DVD including the original DD 5.1 from Laserdics, which is said to be vastly superior to the DVD mix. Even the PQ is better, because it is sourced from HD broadcast and colour corrected to be closer to theatrical colours than the official DVD.

My Despecialized Editions (links in my sig) are similar to this, although some of the less obvious changes (only those that you probably wouldn't ever notice) are left in.

Oh, and ROTS is the theatrical cut on BD.

There's a distinction to be made between a "fan edit" which changes a bunch of stuff that maybe not everyone thinks needed to be changed and a "fan preservation" that mostly attempt to protect the theatrical cuts in the best quality possible. One of those is an agenda I can readily get behind. The other is something that Lucas gets criticized for up one side and down the other but, somehow, fan editors get a free pass on.

And hey, some fan edits can look amazing. Many of them are (intentionally or not) an indictment of how poorly executed a lot of official LFL releases are. The Darth Editous ANH comes to mind here. I just have problems with anybody tampering with a filmmaker's vision irrespective of their motive.

And yes, the cut of ROTS on DVD (I don't know about the BRD set because I refuse to buy it) is mostly the theatrical version... but dammit, a wipe was altered. It's a small thing but there it is.

-- OT
GOUT. It's just the best option that I've got ready access to. Besides, I've got little or no use for fan edits and such nonsense. If other people like them, whatever, but I personally believe "fan editors" should invest their creative energies in their own projects rather than (often badly) hacking someone else's.

I guess I'll spin certain scenes from the 2004 edition once in a while (mostly the Bespin stuff in ESB) but the most credibility I can afford them is a curiosity. GOUT remains definitive in my book... sad as that may be.

-- PT
2001/2002/2005 DVD's. The choices are limited here. Technically, the original theatrical cuts have never been released on DVD (although ROTS is pretty close). I'd love to have them in good quality but that seems even less likely than getting the OT as there's no outcry among any segment of the fanbase for these.

My ESB disc has that some issue when I watch it on my regular 4:3 TV.

Oddly, they're not noticeable when I watch it on my widescreen computer monitor.

I loved the prequels so the stuff I didn't like would be the shorter list.

As zombie said, a lot of plot points set up for resolution in ROTS aren't really dealt with. The Sifo Dyas thing, vanishing/immortal Jedi and probably a few others. The theory is that Lucas was already overburdened with plot points and stuff so he just left those things out. I see no reason to doubt that either but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

One thing I did like was the spectacle and the scope of the visuals, particularly in Episode I. I've always loved the podrace, the arrival on Coruscant, all of Theed and Naboo, etc. Amazing visuals, imo.

One thing I dug was the visual transformation that took place over the series of the films. The production design, costumes, etc, all slowly transitioned over from more organic, individualized, hand-crafted types of production to the more machined, pre-fab type of look.

No, I mean ridiculous nonsense like Boba Fett having Temeura Morrison's voice, ROTJ's end celebration including Coruscant and Naboo, CG X-Wings and TIE's into the ANH dog fight and other such flagrant idiocy. A lot of this seems done to better tie in with the prequels. I love the prequels but there's simply no point in altering the original trilogy. None.

Harmy said:

No offence, but I think this is all bullsh*t, I don't like the prequels and I hate the idea of adjusting the OT to match with them. If the prequels were never made or were made with more thought of matching the originals (which is the way it should have been not vice versa) we could think that Vader became evil by choice, out of lust for power, not because he was lame. And we could think that he never knew that this woman he once raped had a son (or, as we sadly later learn, twins). But then, when he chases Luke in the Death Star trench and he feels that "the force is strong with this one," which must have been pretty rare in the dejedied galaxy, and later hears that this boy's name is Skywalker he can surely add two and two together. But I think the theory that he'd known all along and even knew where Luke and Ben were is totally off the track and can only be thought of because of the inconsistencies the f*cking prequels created...

I understand the board I'm on and everything so I won't argue the merits of the prequels (which I dig... a lot) but this line always bugged me. Any truly creative endeavor a person undertakes will likely grow, expand and change during the process. Zombie84 has made, in my opinion, an irrefutable case that Lucas never had the saga planned out anywhere near as much as he claims. So when he began developing the prequels, his entire conceptualization of Star Wars changed.

Can any of you honestly say you've written something, made a video or done something that requires even a modicum of creative thought that didn't grow and change and head in directions you didn't necessarily have planned out in advance? At least a little bit? Any creative writing I've ever done usually became something more/better/different/other than I thought it would; ditto when I've come back to old ideas.

And again, I'm not arguing the merits of the prequels on this board. I'm also not arguing the OT should've been changed to match them (because the originals are far superior). This is about the creative process and how it works, not the end results of what Lucas has made.

skyjedi2005 said:

thecolorsblend said:

Well, obviously the originals are better. I disagree that the SE was a great idea though. The OOT is a product of the time in which it was made. No amount of computer upgrades can change the fact that ANH came out in 1977 and was made on a shoe-string budget.

The SE was never a good idea. Go on, remaster it, restore and remix the soundtrack but don't change the content of the films. The people who worked on the films, including Lucas himself, deserve more respect than that, in my opinion.

But if it has to be done, the originals should be not only preserved but also considered the official and definitive cuts, with the SE's regarded as... well, whatever one wants to think.

If that was the case then the prequels would have had to be conformed from the get go to the oot, and not the other way around.

 As it is there are still so many things that still need to be fixed to make the old trilogy agree with the prequels.  

I mean the discontinuities and age difference in the characters between the trilogies is so bad, why not just reshoot the whole original trilogy.

No matter how bad Lucas (or anyone) wants it, the existing films will never perfectly match up with each other. His ideas for the prequels evolved over the years. I'm okay with that. What I can't figure out is why he isn't okay with that.

Well, obviously the originals are better. I disagree that the SE was a great idea though. The OOT is a product of the time in which it was made. No amount of computer upgrades can change the fact that ANH came out in 1977 and was made on a shoe-string budget.

The SE was never a good idea. Go on, remaster it, restore and remix the soundtrack but don't change the content of the films. The people who worked on the films, including Lucas himself, deserve more respect than that, in my opinion.

But if it has to be done, the originals should be not only preserved but also considered the official and definitive cuts, with the SE's regarded as... well, whatever one wants to think.

Wasn't Burtt still on LFL's payroll when ANH 2004 was mixed? I would've assumed he'd be responsible, at least partly. As for the sound effects overpowering other elements of the soundtrack, yeah, that also sounds like something Burtt would do.

I get that, it's just annoying to hear about something for so long while being completely unable to watch it, that's all I'm saying.

I realize the crew needed to build up awareness and interest in this doc early to ensure a warm reception (given their target, I'd venture any other policy would be insane) but after, what, a year? Two years? I'm honestly kind of sick of knowing there's this kickass doc out there... that I can't fucking see because it's not likely to be in theaters and probably won't be on DVD anytime soon.

Just ranting here. Not bashing on the director as it sounds like he's given his all for this bad boy but still...