walking_carpet

Wishing all fellow oot fans happy life day!  ; p

the head looks to small compared to the face

the one in bob iger's selfie looks more like him

comedy is the one genre im not really into but i like a good christmas comedy

Scrooged (1988) - first time in 20+ years.  Though some lines are great (' yeah...and make sure her nipples don't show'), and Bill Murray is awesome in the closing scenes, overall hasnt aged as well. 

man, karen allen is so adorable in this.

Bad Santa (2004) - still hysterical.

on a side note - why do i get the feeling The Interview is not gonna be mentioned in this thread anytime soon?  ;P

Koryo Songhay said:

 

Who out of the Big 3 will do diplomacy? The naive farmboy, the blue collar Han or Leia when it's necessary? Discovering new cells, involving different rebel groups and managing their relationships is very important for the Rebeelion.

 none of the above.  Lando's the guy that can rub elbows with the best of 'em and broker deals ;P

anyway, this is one of my biggest concerns with the ST - whats leia up to?  i think there are some opportunities for some interesting storylines and moments with Luke now being her twin. 

I'd like to see the diplomat leia - but then also the spunky princess who wasnt afraid to get down and dirty.  She is not young and won't be in much action, but it would be great if she tells a few people off and still doesnt take crap after all these years. 

But does carrie still have it?

i keep hearing "this is about the new generation, you need to forget about the big 3!!  each trilogy has a new generation!!!!!"  but there's a huge flaw in that reasoning:  you had a bunch of characters that died in the PT - so of course they weren't gonna be in the OT!  and the ones that were - vader, yoda, ben, palpatine, had either significant time or were critical roles to the story.  So i cant go for this idea of the big 3 being cameos.  Sounds like for Han and Luke, that won't be the case.  But i want leia to be a part of this as well.

Tobar said:

walking_carpet said:

DOS flirted with mediocrity...and was saved by...Barrel Sequence

 

 ok ok..it was saved by the barrel sequence...until legolas starting stepping on the dwarve's heads :P

except for azog and the wargs, i think most of the cgi has been excellent. 

but on that topic - one thing i heard is that the reason why PJ used more CGI instead of 'bigatures' is that in HFR 3d, you can't really use them as well?  did anyone else hear that? I dont recall if the EE documentaries mention it.

if so, its  a shame because HFR does not work.  I have said it elsewhere: other than making 3d easier on the eyes, HFR is a step backwards and requires too many downstream compromises. 

arrgh, why couldnt IMAX (real IMAX) catch on instead of 3d and HFR!?

like most people, i thought the overall mistake was deciding to make 3 movies in the middle of the production!! 

i dont care if you have the combined talent of john ford, kurosawa, bergman, spielberg, miyasaki, coppola - no one can do that. I have said elsewhere that PJ is the craziest filmmaker of all time (watch his early movies) so although shocking, it wasnt out of character. 

For me - AUJ was great, if somewhat sluggish, but DOS flirted with mediocrity with a couple of critical storytelling mistakes and was saved by Smaug, Barrel Sequence (and really, is orlando bloom really that popular!? and WTF is wrong with his eyes!?!?!?).

GlastoEls said:

Just to finish off this thread, here's the review of the day from the British Film Institute themselves:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/8-things-we-learned-star-wars-day?utm_content=bufferca05d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitterbfi&utm_campaign=buffer

Some quotes:

The special editions remain as controversial as ever.

Yet, with the 1997 special ditions of the Star Wars trilogy the only versions in official circulation, a big-screen viewing makes the dated anniversary additions stick out like a sore thumb. And didn’t the audience know it (the loudest boos saved for Hayden Christensen’s spectral appearance at the end of Return of the Jedi). Director George Lucas clearly meant to impose closer ties to his prequels retrospectively, but if you’ve just broken a leg, it’s hard to see the logic in breaking the other one in the name of symmetry.

 sounds good.   but i just thought of something else..what about the 'NOOOOO' ?  surely there was some negative feedback for that, right?  among mainstream audiences, its the most notorious change.

adywan said:

GlastoEls said:

Disney does not want what just happened.

Boos for Greedo. Muttering at Jedi Rocks. But the ENTIRE theatre yelling and jeering Hayden SO loudly...

 Oh, i wish someone could have recorded that

 The horrendous re-cut that mixes vader going to a star destroyer (alert my star destroyer, blah, blah, blah)  in ESB is horrible too.  did the crowd boo at that?  people always say ESB had the least changes,  but that one is one of the worst

no frills entry level Pioneer CLD S104 - got the floor model from United Audio Centers  in 1995  for $150 :D  2 years before DVD came and made it extinct :D

no double-side, no AC-3, but for years i badly wanted a laserdisc :D  my dad knew a few people that had one and it was just miles ahead of VHS.   better quality, widescreen, no need to rewind, you can skip chapters.  true, you cant record, but whats worth recording anyways ;)

bad timing? not really. On a CRT tv that didnt have component outputs and progressive scan, DVDs at the time didnt look that much better.  only advantage was that dvds were a lot cheaper....and didnt rot ;P  only bought a handful of discs and mostly rented.

man...those were the days.

although at the time I thought it made for a cool novelty, Laserdiscs should have been more popular than just a 1% market penetration.   I think i read somewhere that most consumers of laserdiscs were people that used to have BETA and switched over when Beta went away.  I guess the idea of home theatre was just ahead of its time.  and now with flat-screens, 1080p, digital media, everything came into sync for DVD, then blu-ray adoption.

Fang Zei said:

walking_carpet said:

hearing about stuff like this makes me more resigned that they will only show the SE versions of the OT next year when promoting TFA.

and since the rumors are leaning towards the Empire still running the show in this GFFA, they probably should do another version of ROTJ that removes the planet celebration montage...since apparently nothing was really accomplished.

 

i dunno...just sell us the damn OOT

When you say "show the SE" I'm assuming you're referring to a theatrical re-release?

To be fair, I never expected them to do a wide theatrical re-release of an OOT restoration, not in a million years. That would be great, don't get me wrong, but my hopes were never set that high. A wide re-release would be the SE version. It just lends itself to 3D conversion way more than the unaltereds. Like I said in another thread, that shot of cg Sni Snootles has been calling out for the 3D treatment since 1997! The irony is that we just last year got a 3D theatrical re-release of The Wizard of Oz, a movie that's not only way older than the original Star Wars but also almost completely unaltered!

I once had this idea that they could simultaneously re-release the SE in theaters in 3D at the multiplexes and make the bulk of their $$$$ that way, but also put out the restored OOT at the repertoire movie houses. Again, this was just a nice thought I had, something I knew (and still know) will probably never happen. Doing something like that would place both versions on equal footing, and we've seen in other examples that the most recent version of a movie tends to take priority. Disney might be in charge now, but George put his good friend Kathleen Kennedy in charge of Lucasfilm. I doubt she would want to totally reverse his policies and bury the SE while bringing back the originals. Spielberg did exactly that with E.T., but he's the director. I don't see George endorsing such a move with Star Wars.

So yeah, I don't think they'll put the restored unaltereds back in theaters. I'd love to be wrong, though.

 no i wasnt expecting them to re-release the OOT in theatres.  THat would be a great nice-to-have.

my concern is if they use the OT to promote TFA, they won't release OOT at all and instead release the SE into theatres and hype it as 'the original trilogy you know and love!!!"

ToscheStation said:

StarThoughts said: and the “virgin birth” is not only pulled by the hair in TPM, but doesn't pay off in ROTS in any meaningful way.

 More importantly it doesn't pay off or have any impact on the story in the OT whatsoever.

 its funny when the backlash first started against the virgin birth, lucas and all the apologists tried to downplay it by claiming 'every religion has at least one story of a virgin birth!!'

what hilarious is that it actually made it even more stupid!! 

This was The Emperor's new Clothes moment for me and made me realize that lucas has no understanding of myths beyond only the most superficial level.  He got caught up in his own hype as a 'mythmaker' and said to himself 'i need to make this mythical!!  let me see..oh! yeah of course! i'll contrive a virgin birth!!!!!  and then i'll make a prophecy!"

Plinkett hit it right on the head that the only reason we think Anakin is something special is because the other characters simply say so over and over again.  And lucas  had to overblow his importance because he was completely incompetant in developing anakin's character. 

there is no payoff or impact in OT because it wasnt an idea and Lucas had no time machine.  We should actually be grateful he didnt physically force and demand Ewan Mcgregor to redub Alec Guinesses lines in the OT to make references to this stupid plot device. 

but bewarned:  if you're looking at the ST as a return to form, keep your expectations in check and count on Lucas demanding that the virgin birth is referenced ad nauseam.  I keep hearing 'lucas is not involved anymore.  he doesnt have control anymore'.  but how do we really know this?  True, he is concentrating his efforts on ruining CHicago's LakeFront with his vanity museam.  But How do we know Kathleen Kennedy isnt serving as Lucas' stooge? The sales contract called for Disney to take his 'treatments', how much can they deviate?  if the production team finds an idea absolutely stupid, can they ditch it?

sheeeeit.  im ranting and repeating myself again.  need to stop.

[sigh]  just sell us the damn OOT.

so, mark confirmed that there is a practical ball droid - but is it practical in that shot in the teaser?  Kind of like how they have a 'hero' version of props but then make a whole bunch of replicas for different action sequences and shots.

its funny, when i first heard confirmation that there is at least 1 practical model made of the droid, it reminded me of when i first heard that kenny baker was only in the very last scene in AOTC :(

Harmy said:

And that's only from a print, I imagine an IP or the composite used in the original negative (if still usable) could yield far better results!

 for all the crap that the 'vaseline blob' gets, that shot actually doesnt look that bad at all and is not nearly as embarrassing as the other junk that was grafted on - like robot at the entrance of mos eisley that smacks down the little floating droid.

hearing about stuff like this makes me more resigned that they will only show the SE versions of the OT next year when promoting TFA.

and since the rumors are leaning towards the Empire still running the show in this GFFA, they probably should do another version of ROTJ that removes the planet celebration montage...since apparently nothing was really accomplished.

i dunno...just sell us the damn OOT

chyron8472 said:

 

 [sigh] still the greatest poster ever made.  everything you could every want to know about what this flick did in 1977 and how it captured the imagination of an entire generation - this poster has it. Just perfect.  especially how the droids are in the corner looking at luke and leia. 

just perfect.

now all we got are crap giant head posters and blu ray covers.

anyway, back on topic.  'pparently they are really hitting us over the head with the whole 'we're using pratical models and sets'  now bob iger is getting into the act talking about the amusment parks they are making based on the ST.

DuracellEnergizer said:

 

Aliens

I don't think I've seen the special edition, but it likely wouldn't matter as I didn't like the movie either of the two times I watched it, so neither.

 Alright sweethearts, you heard the man! he doesnt like Aliens! ;P

anyway for me:

Apocalypse Now: Theatrical.  HOWEVER, In my dream alternate universe, a really cool cut of AN would be almost exactly like theatrical except 3 things:

1) have willard would discover the plantation all by himself - lance, chef, chief are all dead from that same attack that killed chief and he is last one left. The sequence would placed immediately after willard narrates that he felt kurtz was really close by. After the scene, the only thing left are the 2 scenes right before he arrives at the compound.  THe whole plantation sequence would be even more surreal and dream like -as if it was filmed and edited by terrence malick!!!!

2)Once he is taken inside to meet kurtz for the first time - the narration stops.  Even in theatrical, I felt there shouldnt have been anymore narration after this and took away from what should have been a surreal final act.

3)There would be a post credit scene of the compound being bombed - man that looked so cool.

Alien: Theatrical.  Cinema's greatest hybrid of sci-fi and horror.  That 3rd act is still unbelievably intense after almost 40 years .  And this movie is soooooo sublime in its design and photography - even the gritty grimy locations! I love the intro credits, with the pacing and the haunting Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack in the background  - filmmaking 101  :D 

Hoeever, The director's cut does have one very interesting shot when we catch a very quick glimpse of the Alien watching Brett from above the chains.

Aliens: Special Edition.  Only weakness is the very first LV426 shot feels clunky.  One thing I really like is the fade to ripley - how it shows her cigarette was just burning the whole time and she was just completely lost in her thoughts. 

Blade Runner: Director's cut.  BUT Havent seen final cut yet. 

Terminator 2: Special Edition.  I like the kyle reese scene. Yeah, the smile scene is cheesy and i was deeply hurt by john conner making fun of kids that like to play nintendo.  But the extended scene with john and sarah arguing about whther to kill the t800 is great.

final note: Apocalypse Now, Aliens and Aliens look and sound so gorgeous on blu ray and it helps alot (although ive heard Aliens color has changed??).

Terminator 2 looks good on blu ray but sometimes looks smooth DNR. 

Going to rent blade runner final cut now as I'm sure it looks awesome on blu ray.

THere are great supplementals as well. The Alien anthology that I got from amazon.uk 4 years ago very cheap is second only to LOTR when it comes to supplementals.  Its awesome.  The Alien 3 documentary is more riveting than the movie. 

For AN, i was so happy to have heart of darkness.  Poor francis totally taken out of context when he says "Martin sheen cant be dead unless I say he is dead!"  But other stuff is great too!  The interview with sheen is great.  The roger Ebert interview was great.   I love the interview Coppola does with John Milius and every 5 minutes he interrupts him and keeps asking 'so what did George do at this point?" "Is this when you started with george?" "when did george get involved" He is desperately trying to lead the conversation and perpetuate the myth that AN was Lucas' vision first & foremost and AN must still be regarded as one of lucas' movies.  Milius is having none of it; stating "no, george didnt do anything.  I was still writing.  It was my idea.  He was only going to shoot and only after I finished writing. Thats all he was going to do" ;P  Only thing I could have wanted more was more background on when harvey Keital was involved.

SilverWook said:

Tobar said:

SilverWook said:

I highly doubt they will ever be mentioned by name again in future films.

 Saving for potential use on TFA release day. ;)

 I fully expected that. ;)

But I'm pretty sure Lucasfilm and Disney know it's a stinkbomb that's easy to avoid, just like Jar Jar.

 i forgot which thread it was but someone relayed a story regarding a video game conference that developers were having with lucas and were forewarned 1)never to say no  and 2)not to propose alternatives to how the force works

or something like that.  the meeting was apparently comical and frightening.

If that was the case and lucas is still tied to this as a 'consultant', I would almost count on midichlorians being mentioned.  In fact, I can totally picture lucas demanding that a scene is included - complete with a cartoon midichlorian ala Jurassic Park - that fully explains to Boyega's and Daisy's characters the biological concepts of the force.

bkev said:

Anchorhead said:

FanFiltration said:

Are the radio dramas for the OT cannon?

 It's ALL make-believe.  No company gets to decide what's real fake vs fake fake. They claim they can only because some people turn their power over to them.

Watch what you want to watch.  I can promise you it's every bit as "real" as whatever Lucas thought he could decide for other people.

I wish more people I talked to thought about these things felt this way. Well said, Anchorhead - as always.

 Only EU I came to know was 2003 clone wars, SPlinter, Heir, KOTOR and Shadows of Empire.  Of these, KOTOR and clone wars were great, Heir was good and Shadows sucked.  Shadows should have been my first clue how bad it was going to get. Splinter---well....oh boy, lets just say in order to make this 'comfortably canon'...you need to make the luke leia storylines in ESB and ROTJ not canon BWAAAHAHAHAAAA.

for me - my own personal canon  is the OOT...and Robot Chicken Star Wars!! BWAAAAAAAHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAAA

But to me what underscores Anchorhead's point are that 1)of course Lucas didnt have set stories for the movies 2)The so-called 'official story group', that apparently provides a good house-keeping seal for all future works, have gone on record: although they made EU 'non-canon' they will not rule out using characters and concepts that originated from the EU if they they it makes for a good story.

now i'll wait for someone to edit my post to read "they will not rule out using characters and concepts that originated from the EU if they they it makes for a good toy to sell."

Ryan McAvoy said:

That article has a link to Boyega's Instagram account. 

I like this guy. He also posted this...

...with the caption "On set reads". So maybe JJ gave everybody the set so they knew what the OT was all about?

Good stuff.  now all he needs to do is sending an instagram of a copy of SkyWalking, Secret History of Star Wars and...

Harmy's despecialized editions!! 

talk about sending a message :D

ImperialFighter said:

 I liked the look of the Stormtrooper shots for sure, and 'roller'-droid (or 'Ball-E' as walking_carpet coined it!)

 ha ha,

as much as I would love to take credit for it, I saw someone on chud.com call it Ball-E.  its the perfect name for it (i wonder what the resal name will be?)

Although i have said that 1977-1983 cannot be recreated again, I feel that the ST needs to introduce a new type of weapon that can spark imaginations the way the lightsaber did.

i think its time to see the Light-Whip. 

Of course, it must have at least one scene of harrison wielding it! ;P

Bingowings said:

Mavimao said:

I personally think that having a new droid rather than rehashing/shoehorning R2D2 and C3PO like in the prequels is a smart idea. 

The problem with Artoo and Threepio in the PT wasn't that they were there, it was that the story was written and directed by someone who either never had the knack of writing and directing or lost it.

I don't think there is a single element of those films that felt like it wasn't just shoe-horned in rather than acting naturally.

Part of the compact with the audience is that the droids are the thread pulled through all the numbered episodes so I personally would rather Artoo was in the thick of the action than Rictoo (well he does roll ;-D ).

 +1 

that was supposed to be one of the charms of star wars - thru all the characters, storylines, trials and tribulations - r2d2 and c3pO would be the constant.  Or at least...thats what we were told :(

Of course we all know what happened, and I actually remember Lucas in the EPisode II commentary stating that he had difficulty finding something for r2 to do!! :O  Overall though, it was really C-3PO that was blatantly out of place and shoe-horned in.  At least R2 had his moments in the opening of Episode III.

Even if it was all along PR sham to advertise more charm and character to the once proud saga formerly known as Star Wars, I hope the producers of the ST actually do recognize the importance of the Droids and work them (not shoe-horn) into the story.  THere is room for both Ball-E and R2/3PO

and really, with all this talk of 'passing the torch' of the OT characters to the ST characters is there really a reason for the droids to pass the proverbial torch?  unless there is a sub-plot in the ST about how they are becoming obsolete ;P 

maybe thats why lucas wanted michael arndt!!  to write something about the droids thats similar to the storyline of andy outgrowing the toys in toy story 3!!!  :D

Baronlando said:

http://youtu.be/v93Jh6JNBng

 I give this a gold star

 hall of fame.

only improvement I can think of is having the socer ball droid make high-pitched squeling voices that lucas likes and also having a thousand x-wings.

on another note, i've read that its possible the planet is not tattooine because there is only one sun?  you guys think thats the case or they just haven't digitally added a second sun yet?

timdiggerm said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

ImperialFighter said:

The other day I actually paused the teaser at the very last moment of the shot showing the back of the legs of the new Stormtroopers as they are about to disembark down the ramp - turns out that it indeed seems that it's just the colour of the lighting inside the transport they're waiting in that is reflecting the hue on their armour...as the precise moment I paused the end of the shot shows the legs of the Stormtroopers turning to gleaming white after all at that point, as the ramp door opens wider.  It's just that the shot ends abruptly at this point, too quickly for our eyes to catch this last frame.  So I'm satisfied that the blueish/teal look of those particular shots is just due to the colour of the lighting reflecting off their armour after all, rather than due to deliberate colour-meddling.

 This frame...

...incase anybody was wondering. Nice spot, thanks.

This is a very, very good point.

cool.  good eye on this and nice catch.

wtched trailer again and i guess the enhanced designs that were rumored for the stormtroopers is also true.

those dang young whipper-snapper millenials are at it again!  taking inspiration from their iPads, curved LED Tvs and Wii-Us ;P