xhonzi

Cake?

May 17th: The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition - 400 Microsoft Points

Deal of the Week coming up on XBLA.  If you didn't get it before, here's your chance to save 50%.

June 2nd: Snoopy Flying Ace - 800 Microsoft Points

And I have to say I'm pretty excited about this one.  Crimson Skies FTW!

I thought he could only travel across water in a boat?

Now that I've asked the question, I'm trying to think of Act breaks for ANH.

Act 1 ends when Luke goes to bed the night he gets the droids?  This is before Obi-Wan and Han have been introduced... so I'm tempted to say it can't be then.  By that logic, it seems that the break has to be after they leave Tatooine?  All of the Characters are introduced and it seems that it's a short trip to Alderaan to end Luke's story.  Obviously that won't help Princess Leia much...

Act 2 would then contain the destruction of Alderaan, the capture of the Millennium Falcon and all aboard, the rescue of Leia and the near death of almost all in the trash compactor, and ends, more or less with the death of Ben.

Not sure if the TIE attack is the end of 2 or the start of 3.

Act 3 is pretty short.  But it involves the threat of the Death Star taking out the whole Rebellion and the battle at the end leading to the ultimate conclusion.

Does that sound about right? 

One of the amazing things about the first movie to me, which I elaborated on here a bit, http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/A-New-Hope-Trading-on-Promises-or-Trailer-for-the-SW-Universe/topic/11379/ , is that ANH introduces the SW galaxy and conflict at large, but the narrative of the movie somehow convincingly focuses on the threat of the Death Star... so that when the movie ends and the only real resolution it offers is that the DS threat has been conquered...  It's really an excellent example, and perhaps the definition, of a movie having the 3 Act structure internally while also serving as a macro Act 1 in a trilogy.  It's really quite well done.

I got the beta after similar frustrations to 3PX's.  I played a match and was thrown off by the controls having been switched around.  It seems like they're making some good changes... but 'simplicity' is one of the things that has made Halo as popular as it is... so I'll be curious to see if all of these changes don't backfire on them.

The building mystery of "why they were all on the same plane" would be interesting if we didn't learn the answer to that question 5.5 years ago.

Though I would like to know what's in the box that Christian left for Claire.

It was also nice to see MIB's charade with the Losties finally come to a close.  That's been a long time in coming.

AND THE KWON's ARE DEAD... aren't they?

And why didn't MIB melt in the water?  I thought he was the wicked witch of the west or something.

Why do I look so much like VFP in that picture?

I think you will now find that it is you who is mistaken.  About a great many things.

Bah!

What did I lose?

http://www.sillof.com/

Check this guy out.  He does good work.  I've seen a lot of his stuff in other places, but it's nice to see it all together and to see more of it than I've seen before.

That's funny.  Maybe they're brothers and they just don't know it.

TheBoost said:

I find these to be immersuarbly helpful as I craft my own Prequel storylines in concious imitation of the flow of the OT films.

 I needed to see what they looked like so I could visualize PT rewrites and a few other projects I work on.  In my head.

It seems to have gone away?  Maybe something to do with Frink's signature?

I hadn't heard of that!  Wow, I might have to see if I can snag that and give it a watch through.  Sounds like an interesting exercise!

Well written.  Do you mind if I copy it?

My name is xhonzi, author of The Secret History of Star Wars.

Hmm... Maybe I should just write my own...

This is a little exercise I've been wanting to start here: Think of movies you love, or movies you've seen recently and see if you can identify the act breaks!  Maybe this isn't your idea of fun, but it is mine! (though I actually suck at it).  For even more fun, see if you can identify how trilogies can form macro Acts.

I started the question for the OT over here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Original-Trilogy-Times-Chart/post/412779/#TopicPost412779

Here were my observations from the timing chart.

1. I always divided the OT movies in two parts.
 a. Tatooine and Death Star
 b. Hoth and Cloud City
 c. Tatooine and Endor
And it's not quite that simple.  At the very least ESB is more in thirds than halves.  Still, each movie has about 5-7 set pieces or environs.  It's more than I would have thought, but still relatively simple.

2. How similar ANH and RotJ are in reverse.  ANH starts with three different perspectives (Luke, Leia and Vader) and ends with a single unified narrative.  RotJ starts with a single unified narrative and then splits into a three way split at the end.

3. Luke and Han are introduced relatively late in ANH.  They're reintroduced immediately in ESB and have late intros again in RotJ.  But it is ESB what keeps introducing new characters throughout almost the entire runtime.  ANH and RotJ mostly lay their cards on the table in the first act and let them play out through the second and third.

4. The movies are almost all the same length, though they did get longer by a minute or two each time.

Speaking of acts:  Looking at this (or not) can you call the act breaks in the films?

In the vein of "Obvious Things I Just Realized":

Gunray is Raygun backwardsish.

MY HEAD ASPLODE!

Nice!  I really like Christian Bale, but even I am beginning to admit that he is in everything, all of the sudden.  Why not one more?

You can call me out on it next time.  I meant my first post in that thread (easy to find!) not my my first post on OT.com (impossible to find!)... since that was 5 years ago and is lost to all humanity (except for maybe Frink).

Farlander said:

YOU'RE NUTS!

I know. But still, pay more attention while reading messages.

Ah, perhaps you are saying that it is 'Jair Crawford' that is, in truth, 'NUTS'.  You're simply discussing with him that a 451236 viewing still leaves one of these 'surprises' on the floor.

PS. As an addition to my reply to TV Frink, I think there's no way to watch SW to keep both "I am your father" and Anakin's turn to the Dark Side a surprise.

You're right.  With the way Lucas decided to do Episode 3, there is no way to maintain a 'surprise' for both events.  But one event was clearly intended as a surprise and the other was clearly not intended as a surprise.  (See the teaser poster for Episode 1 if you don't know what I mean (see the teaser posters for Episode 3 if you still don't know what I mean))

I think we're on the same page here.  You're still nuts, though.  ;)

Erm... I meant to post a link in that post.  Here it is:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/New-Forum-for-Prequel-Rewrites/topic/11468/

Not the greatest picture, but Dennis Quaid's performance in Pandorum really impressed me.  I think he shares that "Corellian" quality with Harrison Ford.  Whatever that is.

And a part of me would like to see Mark Hamill involved with any future Star Wars movie projects.  Even if (maybe even 'especially if') he's not playing old Luke Skywalker.  I think it would be a nice connection.

Farlander said:

You refer to the order of viewing the movies, but let me ask, have you ever watched them in the order 451236? In that order, for a first time viewer, you can experience just about ALL the surprises. You get the "I am your father" surprise without spoiling the "Henceforth you shall be known as Darth Vader" surprise.

Well, I think that Episode V kind of spoils the "Henceforth" sequence,

You think that Empire Strikes Back spoils Revenge of the Sith?  YOU'RE NUTS!

With all due respect.