walking_carpet

Cobra Kai said:

  I was born a few months after Star Wars was released in 77, so i missed all of the mania.

 :(

well, at least you have memories of ESB in 1980 - mania was still at a peak.  by the time of ROTJ in 1983, it started to taper a little bit - we had atari, pac-man, E.T. and other stuff and Star Wars was like a pop culture elder statesman but still ungodly huge.

TheBoost said:

My lad got a General Grievous mask for Christmas. Recently he's really gotten into it.

Having never seen ROTS, he calls the mask "Bad Guy" and alternates between it and his Darth Vader mask.

My boy (2 1/2) also really digs the cartoon from The Holiday Special.

 I know grevious was in the original animated clone wars - is he in the CGI clone wars show?  if so, is that how he knows of him?

has he watched any PT movies? i remember you saying he does like the OT

timdiggerm said:

Yeah, he might be thinking of when they used the Trade Federation theme to introduce the clone troopers in AOTC. Terrible decision, I thought.

that was the 'escape from naboo' music that was used in AOTC.  no, im referring to the temple raid in ROTS;  trade federation march was not correct term.  its the same music that plays on the DVD menu with the arena - thats the next best description i can give it. I think it was also used to start the battle of kashyyk.

and it sucked!  people complain that yoda's theme and the corsucant night-chase was shoved into the droid factory sequence in AOTC, but this was even worse. 

great music examples in PT:

the music in AOTC starting with dooku arriving on coruscant to meet sidious all the way to the iris out is awesome (the jedi temple part had such a sense of eerie calm).  Order 66 would have been really interesting if the CGI wasnt so garish and if it had no sound effects, just music.  and I wish the scene with anakin and padme looking at each other across the city wasn't so faint because that music was chilling on the OST. kinda reminded me of the original friday the 13th, when brenda was in the shower room half-wondering if she was alone or being watched.

 but there are also pieces that i didn't like - which is something I cant say for the OOT.  and when you have a lousy scene, it compounds it.  The music selections and editing were also poor.

most glaring example is the trade federation march when anakin raids the temple in ROTS. WTF!?

I did't like the mustafar theme and the music for the sequence starting with anakin arriving on mustafar -->obiwan, bail and yoda returning to coruscant --> emperor abolishes the republic -->and ending with anakin killing Gunray.  that music just really misfired for me and that whole portion I have a problem with ( I never liked how coruscant looks in broad daylight and the scene with yoda taking down the clonetroopers looks so cartoonish).

Still baffling that the SW theme itself is hardly played in PT :(

The OT, all the music is great - even ROTJ had great emperors theme and endor themes.  Only mark i have is ESB plays those 9 notes of The Imperial March too many times.  really too bad because the middle part of that theme is great if you heard the soundtrack. 

as for williams overall - i love the piece of battle hymns when Nixon is at the lincoln memorial and all the protestors wake up and realize its him. 

 just awesome.

boxofficemojo is saying 7.8 million for weekend estimates.  $3.5 million for saturday estimates.  looks like the friday -> saturday numbers are up across all films (poor ghost rider still got beat by Vow and safe house), but I am a little surprised by this and skeptical.  I was thinking 7.8 million for weekend and presidents day total. 

TV's Frink said:

Seriously, Luca$ is nearly as played out as the raping of the childhood.

 from what ive seen, its not even close. and the 'childhood rape' 99% of the time is a strawman used by sycophants and apologists. If hoth-nudist just posted luca$ every single hour of every single day, it would take him 120 years to catch up to raped childhood references.

if I posted the word 'apologists' at that same pace, it would take me 200 years ;P

there is one thing that maybe a better comparison, but im not going to go there either. 

Paramecium302 said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

Im right there with ya GF. I dont really think Luca$ is a trickster, just an overrated, talentless shmo that got lucky and made lots of shrewd business decisions.  Personally I dont hold Luca$ in the same light as I did from 77'-99'.  I used to think the world of him.  For the past 13 years Ive learned the UOT to be a collaborative effort, but with Luca$ name on it.  Originally George just wanted to make a Flash Gordon film, when that was rejected, he cobbled a bunch of space characters/ideas around on paper, and with TONS of collaborative help and editing and direction from REAL creative minds, we got ANH in 77.  Years ago at TF.N we had a forum called the "bashers sanctuary", which was created at the time of TPM, for obvious reasons.  Its shut down now, but I do recall there being many articles posted on Luca$'s original unedited scripts for the OT.  They were as circus-bad as the writing for the prequals.  I find it a blessing that Luca$ had executives telling him what he can't do and honest colleagues standing up to his silly ideas.  All in all I dont think Luca$ a trickster, but I do think he has held a grudge against all the people REALLY responsible for making the UOT spectacular, and has gone to great lengths to change and distort the UOT in order to avoid paying royalties and to thumb his nose at them.

You must admit though, without George having the initial idea, and the talent as a director, those "REAL" creative minds would have nothing from which to be creative with. You can take a lot away from Lucas, but you can't take that away.

 maybe so.  the idea of making a fantasy film that takes you for a ride sparked and inspired a lot of creative talents - far beyond what lucas wanted to do.  but disagree with your line about his talent as a director.  the creative minds had to overcome his ineptitude as a director.  kind goes with my bottom line - lucas maybe the reason star wars exists, but he is absolutely not the reason why it was great.

as far as the idea that lucas modified the OOT into the SE in order to avoid paying royalties - what was the truth of that? i read somewhere that it would not have worked that way.  The nose-thumbing seems more likely.

evan1975 said:

walking_carpet said:

[sigh] based on the charts, looks like I'll be one of only a handfull of people to see the new studio ghibli movie in my theatre- for the sixth time in a row (still cant believe spirited away wasn't a huge hit)

Is it dubbed?  If it's subbed, I'll go see it.

 afaik, its dubbed.  they used american cast to dub it.  don't think it was necessary - the original dub had an english cast that was pretty good.  why re-dub it twice?

if dub is not successful, no chance for a sub.  Its true, subs are better (GRave of the Fireflies being the greatest example).  But i have been pretty pleased with the ghibli dubs like Spirited Away.

ouch - last night was a 78% drop from last friday!

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3372&p=.htm

damn - that extra presidents day is gonna be a life saver now.

interesting that ghost rider didn;t get the top stop - people really like this Vow movie.

[sigh] based on the charts, looks like I'll be one of only a handfull of people to see the new studio ghibli movie in my theatre- for the sixth time in a row (still cant believe spirited away wasn't a huge hit)

-----------------------------------------------------

just out of curiosity, I looked up green hornet cuz zombie kept mentioning it and it had a big but not colossal 48% weekend drop.

batman and robin had a 63%

2 movies that I knew had monster drops were Hulk and green Lantern but even those were just 65%!

[sigh] the once proud saga formerly known as star wars.

DominicCobb said: 

And @walking carpet, I was born a long time after 82, but I still grew up on the OOT, and I love far more than anything else that's Star Wars.

 not doubting how much you or anyone else loves star wars.  just unfortunate to miss the glory years. 

SilverWook said:

Don't be afraid. It's just Mark Hamill as the greatest villain the Flash tv series ever had. It probably lead to him doing the Joker.

 hmm...well in that case, i guess its a good thing. 

cant believe he is now 60.  john williams turned 80 and ford will be 70 this year. 

ill see your Bah! and raise you a Pshaw!

i think once the OOT problem is settled, we need to shift our efforts to educate the young'uns on the glory years. there are too many fans born after 1982! (if you were born in 1981, still enough time to enjoy the phenomenon)

worse thing that could happen is the post PT kids think star wars was like a 70s Twilight or Avatar or Angry Birds.  I shudder at the thought.

hairy_hen said:

Hey, I wasn't born until 1984 either.  Too young to have seen them in the theatres, unfortunately, but old enough to have watched them at home many times before the SE's came along.  Too young to have seen GL's transgressions for what they really were until I grew up, but old enough to have a strong memory of what was to fall back on once the disillusionment set in.  Both old and young enough to love the real Star Wars for all time.

 most heartbreaking thing is the lack of the OOT. 

second most heartbreaking thing are all the fans that love Star Wars but cruelly missed that magical time in 1977-1983, only to hear about it secondhand.  

 never to know...to feel...to embrace and soak it all in.  (sob)

all you have for a frame of reference is the buildup to TPM and maybe the month the SEs came out in 1997.  a mere pittance (sob)

overall, even the PT had pretty good main villians.  Its the heroes and sub-villains in the PT that sucked.

Best:

1- OT Vader

2- stormtroopers

3 - Palpatine/Sidious

4 - Tarkin

5 - Dooku

6 - ROTJ jabba

7 - grevious

8- Rancor

9- AOTC coliseam monsters

10-tusken raiders

11-wampa

12 - the rolling droids

worst:

battledroids (spare me the whole 'they were supposed to be lame')

nute gunray

TPM sea monsters

geonosians

jango fett (well..he maybe ok..but the whole 'jango was used to make the clones' sucked)

buzz droids

overhyped:

darth maul

overrated:

boba fett

poorly executed:

dark side anakin

zombie84 said:

 in my 27 years on planet earth.

 !!

um...so if I did the math correctly, you...weren't here from 1977-1983!?

[tears welling, lower lip quivering] please tell me that was typo.  its inconceivable that you missed the glory years!!

SilverWook said:

There's only one true Trickster...

 I'm afraid to ask...

yet, I find that image so compelling..as ashamed I am to say it.

have a 20 year plan to destroy the OOT? dont think so. doing things to spite the fans is just an added luxury to satisfy his life-long childish urges.

very mindful of how enormous the star wars franchise was and carefully planning to consolidate power and cultivate as large and sycophantic fan base as he possibly could in order to maximize box office and licensing revenue? absolutely. 

But this also only came about a few years after ROTJ when none of his other movies were hits (except indiana jones) and he was forced into giving marcia her fair share of the revenue.

TheBoost said:

walking_carpet said:

oh, man, I dunno...it would have been really difficult to picture luke still thinking vader had good in him at the start of jedi. 

maybe....maybe the forgiveness angle could have been pulled off at the end of jedi.  But not the benefit of the doubt part.  Unless there was more footage of yoda and ben talking ot luke.

 

 But doesn't Luke still have a lot to forgive even with Dad-Vader? His dad murdered his mentor, tortured all his pals, cut off his hand, and is a really bad guy.

If Luke only forgives him because it's his dad, that seems selfish. But (it seems to me) he forgives Dad-Vader because he senses there is still good in him, regardless that it's his dad.

hmmm...i guess there's 3 parts - closure, forgiveness and then absolving someone.  I first came to the concept of closure - which I assume is simply moving on -  during the horrible columbine shootings and pending execution of timothy mcveigh.  If you guys remember, this was a big theme in the media.

i don't think theres any absolving - not after episode III (which is why i strongly disapprove of hayden ghost).  so back to forgiveness -theres one element im not sure you mentioned - does vader still threaten luke with taking leia away and turning her into the sith?  because thats what set him off and made him take a firm stance.

if thats still in place, i think maybe luke offers closure but still not sure about forgiveness because his twin was under clear danger.   it would take an unbelievable script and direction to pull that off.  Are there any movies like this? probably not, cuz its too inconceivable.  and Star Wars was already considered out of the box narratively speaking.  i think dead man walking had this theme but i dont recall if the dad of the girl forgave sean penn's character.

man, i shoulda became a box office financial analyst.  so fascinating!

valentines day is a bigger movie day than I thought.  plenty of movies that made maybe 100 to 200% more from monday to tuesday.

TPM3D, however, fell to 6th place and had by far the lowest increase: 21%

http://boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/?sortdate=2012-02-14&p=.htm

[guffaws] guess maybe next time AOTC3D will have a bigger tuesday-wednesday increase for valentines day cuz its more romantic.

zombie's right,  this is looking more and more like a green hornet one and done (even thats a stretch).  Presidents day may be its last opportunity for a spike.

yep.  although the screening I went to had a pretty good crowd.

I guess everyone back then was expecting it to be like SW 1997.  I didn't think it would be like that, but I thought it should have made more than it did. 

Gone with the wind also came out around this time but it was limited time release, so probably doesn't count.  I missed that - but i did see the Godfather 25th anniversary :D

in any event, TPM3D made $20 milion overseas in 59 countries.  so maybe that'll help finance AOTC3D. 

but it got beat big time by Journey 2!!  ruh roh!!!

http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3370&p=.htm

great weekend? maybe good, but great?

if that was a 'great weekend' I wonder what they would call SW 1997 release opening weekend? armageddon?

kinda reminds me back in 2002, when AOTC lost badly to spider-man, the talking point was 'Well, this is a 25 year old franchise so its hard to keep up". And apologists around the world parroted this talking point.

so in 1999, TPM was #1 and apologists insist it had nothing to do with the legacy of the OT and it was the 'new generation'.  but just a mere 3 years later, star wars was this old, creaky decrepit franchise heading for the sunset!?  bwaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaaaa

TheBoost said:

I'll agree Padme and Annie talking about dictatorship in the grass is one of my favorite scenes in the whole PT. But it doesn't make up for "I hate sand" "Yoousa in bad doo doo" "Dont do it Anakin, I have the high ground" "Nooooooooooooooooo" or a slew of other cringe worthy scenes.

 sadly this scene is tainted by that stupid cow thingy that anakin 'surfed'.  one of 2 things that likely cost ILM the oscar.

the other problem I had with this scene is that it starts off sounding like 2 4th graders talking civics.  and its too 'wink' 'wink' 'nudge' 'nudge' (like when queen jamilla says "the day we believe democracy doesn;t work is the day we lose it").

I remember one fan had a great idea for a rewrite of this scene.  Was 10 years ago and never able to find it again, but it was something like this:

padme - sounds awful lot like a dictatorship

anakin - well if it works

anakin - we need someone like Qui-Gon

padme - qui-gon!?

anakin - yeah

padme is laughing - ok, i know you loved qui-gon, but you were just a kid back then- he was controversial and did a lot of things that weren't by the book.

anakin - doesn't matter, he got things done. thats all that counts.

it would have given us some insight how anakin and padme view things and how they feel about qui-gon.  we all thought it was a good idea - sure beats 'annie, annie, are you ok?'

of course this would have kinda contradicted the scene in ROTS were padme asks anakin to use his unsual friendship to influence palpatine and anakin yells at her saying she needs to make a senate motion like everyone else ;P

ROTS did have some clever political bits that were perfectly timed, despite all the idiocy of the PT.  and padme, of all people - a character that was nothing more than a uterus, had ironically the most clever line in the PT when she fretted "so this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause"

OT was abundant with wit.  PT...not hardly :(

wow...i dunno...thats the one aspect that really took star wars to another level - from a electrifying, enchanting and engrossing fantasy to an all-time great saga.  not unlike the beatles with beatlemania and then coming out with revolver and rubber soul.

oh, man, I dunno...it would have been really difficult to picture luke still thinking vader had good in him at the start of jedi. 

maybe....maybe the forgiveness angle could have been pulled off at the end of jedi.  But not the benefit of the doubt part.  Unless there was more footage of yoda and ben talking ot luke.

sadly, lucas would not have been able to pull this off.

hmm...maybe this would be the premise of the third trilogy - forgiveness, truth and reconciliation! have it take place say 500 years after ROTJ.  The skywalker family (still need these guys to make star wars) has grown and dissapated in the years since but something (plot device) causes them to come together and come to terms with the revelation that their most famous ancestor was a mass murderer.  luke redeemed him in OT...but there is still the aftermath and fallout.

lemme guess...there is already an EU story like this? :(

SilverWook said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDH60Spj-l8&feature=related

 whoo-hoo!

hmm, true. without that, the box office is closer to $18 million.

still hard to predict next week. 99% of sales have been for 3d only.  word of mouth regarding the 3d has been 'meh'.  anyone that absolutely wanted to see this would have already done so.  anyone still waiting probably wanted to hear about the 3d first.  I would assume a huge drop-off for next week. However, someone mentioned that on TFN there are posters claiming to have seen it twice? if thats the case, I gaurantee they are certain to see it at least one more time next weekend, and that may make up for it.

and thats not even taking into account presidents day (which couldn't have come at a better time for TPM).  Man, I wish box office mojo still had its forum - was able to get a lot of insight and predictions.

on a personal note, I can't get over how hilarious that TPM3D commercial is.  Everytime that guy says "hurry up qui-gon, you don't want to be late for the celebration" I want to actually ROTFLMAO.  I have this terrible urge to take a snip of just that one piece and make it into a ringtone.   bwaaaaahahahahahaahahahahaaa