zombie84

I don't see why it isn't plausible that in the absence of a queen, a lone alien could instigate an alternate reproductive process where eggs can be created out of hosts. Its like how some reptiles and amphibians can change their genders in a single-gender environment in order to ensure procreation, a cool survival mechanism. According to Alien, the creatures have a lifespan of only a day or two, which is evolutionary suicide unless every specimen can reproduce on the spot, which in the film is exactly what it starts doing from the moment it matures. It also explains why it would be attacking and carrying off people if there was no queen. So, a queen can be used for mass-producing eggs in a colony/hive environment, or single specimens can reproduce using hosts on a one-to-one basis for pure survival reasons.

Based on my Motorhead concert experiences, they don't commonly play that song anymore. Must be trying to distance themselves.

When my friend met Christopher Guest he asked him about Spinal Tap and got told to fuck off. True story.

That sounds pretty awesome. Like SW 1997, I had seen the films a million times on video but seeing it in remastered form on the big screen was like seeing it for the first time. I wish I could repeat both of those experiences. I missed a screening of a 1982 print last month but its not the same. The Final Cut really was a life-changing screening like I've never had, and this is coming from someone who was slightly disapointed when he first saw BR DC three years earlier. As much as the film grows on you, unless you see and hear it on the big screen, you will never never truely truely know the film.

asterisk8 said:Blade Runner- The Final Cut

A brilliant film refined to its utmost. I got to see the Final Cut in theaters, and it was amazing.

 Aside from seeing SW in 1997, the one screening of Blade Runner I saw in 2007 of the Final Cut was the most awesome, awe-inspiring theatrical experience I have ever had. I still remember, the first time there was that bass-thunder in the opening credits, it's the most powerful sound I have heard other than seeing Manowar live, and Manowar are the loudest band in the world. Like Star Wars, this film cannot be seen nor heard until it's seen and heard on the big screen, and the Final Cut is the most technically accomplished incarnation of it. My memory of this screening still lingers.

Please god let there be pics.

Quackula said:

I can't really say much right now since I'm running out the door for work, so yeah this should be brief:

I love my metal. Especially the older death metal from the 80s and early 90s like Death, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Bolt Thrower, etc. I'm quite partial to just about all forms of metal though, and love me plenty of power metal and nwobhm.

It's quite a shame that most established american bands seem to almost exclusively tour europe nowadays.

Zombie, you should check out the upcoming album from Hell (UK). They're an old 80s nwobhm demo band that was pretty influential, but didn't ever get a full length released. They finally got things in order and are releasing an album, I think you'd enjoy it!

here's a youtube of a song from it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJqCnk3YUC4

 Thanks for that, Quack. Good stuff. It's weird to think of how many NWOBHM bands there were out there with really good demos or eps but because they never got signed or never put out an LP no one knows they existed today. There was such a flood of metal music from that counrty in like three years, it's quite amazing.

Apocalypse Now - Theatrical. Brilliant. Redux is interesting in some ways but the pace is terrible and the plantation scene is super boring, the film has no impact.

Alien - Director's Cut, but only barely. Nothing wrong with the theatrical, I just like the added scenes and couple of nips in the DC, find it slightly stronger. Should have cut out the cocoon scene though but its not a deal breaker.

Aliens - The first version of this I saw was the "TV version" and it's still my favourite. It adds the scene where Ripley finds out about her daughter, all the scenes in the sentry guns sequences and the moment at the end where Ripley and Hicks exchange names. All the best footage from the SE, IMO. Otherwise, I find the SE too bloated and prefer the tighter theatrical (but I miss those three deleted sections).

Blade Runner - Final Cut. Every change improved the original and none of them detracted. Definitive version of the film.

Terminator 2 - Theatrical. I like the terminator-John Conner moments in the desert and an extension here and there but otherwise find the SE unnecessarily bloated. The original is stronger. Like Aliens an ideal version for me is in between the two but since there isn't one I watch the theatrical. I miss those desert scenes though.

I think he meant the restored original elements. But you're right about that in a way, the original footage that was cut out or replaced with CG for the SE wasn't restored the way the other footage was, although not all of it would have necessarily needed to be restored.

The ironic part is that if there ever is a new release of the OOT from the original elements, it will actually be the very first restoration of Star Wars. Neither SEs are restorations because their whole point was to change things and create new footage. So we'll have to do a real restoration because of the previous "restoration."

The 1993 master is, at least in LFL's opinion, the best NTSC transfer of the films available to them. I'm sure that would be their answer. It's not the best that the films are potentially capable of looking, it's just the best that the films have looked in the past (because they stopped making new transfers in 1993).

No, there's no validity to that. If people here can find better material just by plunking down $3000 in the black market, just imagine what Lucasfilm has in its own archives.

An ebook is just a digital file. You can view on a PC screen, a tablet or on a handheld device. Kindle I think has a proprietary file format that only allows it to be read/viewed on the corresponding device, though I could be wrong.

The rights don't expire for at least a couple more years if I remember correctly. But to be honest, I wouldn't want to self publish, just because as far as scholastic books go you don't get much credit if you do. I could make more money if I charged people directly, but to me being reputable is more important than making money. If I was writing fiction it would be different. I also wouldn't be able to set the price much lower either, other than maybe six or seven dollars, just because the price you see on Amazon is practically at cost because there are so many hundreds of pages. When the rights expire the only reason I'd leave my publisher is to bring it to a bigger one with better distribution, but I like the company I'm with and they've been pretty good to me. They're a new company and they have lots of room to grow. So hopefully by the time the new edition is out the digital version will be sorted out. Personally, I don't care much for ebooks and don't think it's the way a book ought to be read, but to each their own.

TK-949 said:

I think every Manowar album is embarrassing.

 What? Whatever gave you that impression?

Oh...

In their defense, the above wasn't actually released by them but chosen by their record company. They've actually had Ken Kelly illustrate every single album, single and video cover since 1987 with the best metal artwork this side of Derek Riggs. But they still get gay points for the existance of that photo. We can all be thankful that at least Ross the Boss always wore pants during their brief loincloth phase.

No, all rights are controlled by the publisher. The problem is that setting the book up for sale digitally through an actual retailer like Amazon is not as easy as it sounds--it's not like you just give them a link and then charge whatever you want. There is a whole infrastructure for payment and accounting and in hosting the book on Amazon there are large fees and charges that go along with it, so if you set the price attractively you don't make much money unless you do large volume of sales. Now, that's fine for me because I really don't have to make a penny, but an actual publishing company has overhead that has to be paid for. You could argue, well even if you only make a couple bucks a year that's still a couple bucks in the bank--except you have to do all the labour of converting and reformatting the book for digital distribution, setting up the accounts and then doing all the accounting for sales. So, I think that's one reason why my publisher has been waiting for costs associated with legit online digital sales to come down. The publishing business is a lot harder than people realise.

The best way to do it, financially, would be to just host the file on our website and set up a paypal account, that way you can set the price low and keep 100% of the profit. The only downside to that is that compared to Amazon and the like, you get very small traffic, and I'm not sure if Amazon contractually allows you to host the product privately while its on their site, so I don't know if you could do both. Personally, I'd rather just host it ourselves, just so it exists and all the people that ask about an ebook version have somewhere to go.

Thought I'd see if there are any metalheads lurking around here. As you might see from my long-standing avatar, Iron Maiden hold a special place in my life. I'm especially fond of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and likeminded bands like Motorhead, Saxon, Judas Priest (now, sadly, retiring), Angel Witch, Diamond Head and Holocaust, and also the early German power metal bands like Helloween, Running Wild, Stormwitch and Heavy Load. Other than Maiden, my fav band is probably Manowar, regardless of their cheese, and I'm fond to a lot of the newer European Death Metal and Power Metal scene, even it's gotten a bit bloated in the last five years or so.

Sadly, North America has few offerings for real heavy metal fans; stuff like Deftones, Tool and System of a Down are okay, I guess, but it's pretty sad that the best of the continent like Iced Earth, Dream Theatre, Manowar and 3 Inches of Blood are pretty much still pseudo-underground, despite in most cases being decades established. To the Europeans on this board, let's just say I envy you.

Any likeminded fellows around here?

digitalfreaknyc said:

zombie84 said:

doubleofive said:

asterisk8 said:

Is The Secret History of Star Wars available as an ebook?

No, but I click the button to "tell the publisher you want this on Kindle" every time I see it! ;-)

 I've been pushing the idea of an ebook on my publisher for a while now. I'm working on a second edition of the printed version which hopefully will be available by this christmas, and I'm hoping there will be a digital copy of this available.

 

Will it be updated or revised?

 Quite heavily, yes.

doubleofive said:

asterisk8 said:

Is The Secret History of Star Wars available as an ebook?

No, but I click the button to "tell the publisher you want this on Kindle" every time I see it! ;-)

 I've been pushing the idea of an ebook on my publisher for a while now. I'm working on a second edition of the printed version which hopefully will be available by this christmas, and I'm hoping there will be a digital copy of this available.

Oh, well there are a lot of things going on there just because of the capture and correction. The saturation is not quite as intense as it should be, and the shade it a bit off. But it's much closer to the bootleg than to the trailer. But you can see there is (what should be, anyway) blue colouring throughout most of the image, exactly the way the bootleg is.

I haven't seen Puggo's latest sample, but keep in mind he is timing it himself to some degree, so if he thinks there should be no blue he might be inclined to deliberately lessen it. On the theatrical bootleg, Hoth has a blue tint throughout that is about halfway between the GOUT and the SE, and which basically is consistent with a re-saturated GOUT. It's also to some degree in later and earlier home video releases than the GOUT. Do you have a cap from Puggo so I can see what you are referring to specifically?

For sure Spence, I will listen to all of your extras, you have earned it. I guess on a personal level I prefer something in between your version and the official one, but I sort of expected that. You've done a great job at re-interpreting ROTJ as best as can be done. I love the boldness with which you cast aside plot points and character traits, even if sometimes I felt it worked against you. ROTJ needed an edit as bold as this, so congrats to an effort that has some serious balls, for better or worse.

Finally got to see this.

This marks the second SW fan edit I've gone to the trouble of downloading, so that's quite a feat. I don't know if you want feedback of any kind...but I'm going to give it anyway, dammit! :p

Okay, I'll say straight up, I have never been particularly fond of Jedi the way I am with the other two films in the trilogy, of course it is still the OT and I love it. However, watching Jedi was often a bit of a chore, so this was a terrific second chance at making it fresh again. I can say without question you succeeded.

Overall--this is the most ambitious fan edit I've seen in terms of re-interpreting a film, and overall I would say it is quite a success. The film, overall, works, although I have some big reservations.

First, on a technical level, I did notice some major synch issues with the sound. This affected pretty much every scene in which cuts had been made. Usually it was only slight, but you might want to go through and do a total audio re-adjust, because it's throughout the entire film. And of course, there is that one shot of Lando in the sarlac that looks like it doesn't even have the right audio. Not sure what's up with that. Also, in the transition away from Vader in the first scene, you can hear the music from R2 and 3P0 approaching Jabba just as it fades out, so you might want to swap in the raw music score and hide the transition better. Otherwise, I thought it was a pretty polished edit, and the composites you did on the throne room were unexpectedly high in production value. Good job!

Now, as for the actual content, I really do think I honestly need a second viewing of this to totally absorb it, just because it's such a departure from what I'm used to. It's very ambitious in terms of changing things, and sometimes when stuff wasn't the way I was used to in major ways it jarred me but that's my fault and not the edit, so I need a second viewing to totally absorb it as it's own entity. Of course, there are a lot of things I would do differently. Mainly, a lot of little beats that I would keep. I think the main section this has to do with is the first half of the film, on Tatooine. It all feels a bit rushed and choppy on first impression; some stuff, like 3P0 encountering the gamorean guard and Bib Fortuna, or Luke choking the guards and mind tricking Bib, I felt could have helped the pace settle a bit, just so one scene or location didn't immediately fly to the next as quickly as possible (prequel syndrome). I would have also moved the Emperor's arrival to between Luke leaving Tatooine and the start of the briefing, just because that jump seems so rushed and the end of that intense action scene really needed a slow, talking scene to let the film breathe, the way the Dagobah scene originally facilitated. The film feels a bit rushed, but I like the choices you made in the second half, it just feels like there was no build-up to the Death Star attack like in the original and I think drawing out that first section might have helped. On a technical level, the only edit that didn't work was Luke sensing his friends in danger; I don't know if you can do more there, but it's the only part of the edit that feels unprofessional and it pulled me out. I feel like there is more that can be done to make that work, as it is a nice idea.

My other main qualm is that I really missed a lot of the Han Solo humour and felt his character had been severely neutered. Almost every deleted bit with him I felt took away a lot of his character, and it also makes his importance diminished because he has less screentime; he's a central character, 50% of ESB and the whole motivation for the first act, but he's off to the side here and doesn't feel like he does much or has much character. Stuff like, "hey, it's me" and his reaction to the shield generator exploding seems like totally unnecessary deletions that lessen the impact and likeability of him. Other stuff like him hoping Leia is alright seemed to me like served no purpose  other than diminishing the importance of their relationship, which is pretty underplayed here.

I thought maybe you would get rid of the sister subplot, but I liked the way you handled it. I also thought I would miss a lot of the Ewok traps, but the Ewok portrayal was perfect. I also really liked the re-ordering of the scenes for the last act, it really made a lot of sense and made the final act a lot more dramatic.

The one thing I really hated, however, was the music in Vader's goodbye to Luke. It was horrible and so overwrought and melodramatic and killed what is the most beautiful scene in the entire film. If you ever revisit this edit, please change it to the beautiful and quiet original, because I think I would prefer Hayden at the end of the film instead. I also thought the fast-paced lightsaber duel with bombastic music all as one section ruined all the tension of the duel--that duel had so much character pyschology going on it, but it's mostly lost. I greatly prefer the original order and edit of this section. All the new music here makes it too much of an action scene and not a character conflict.

Having said all that, I hope this doesn't seem like I dislike this,  because you have done a fantastic job. This was a super ambitious edit, and whenever you do that you are going to do some things people don't like; I hope you like your edit and it's great that you shared it. I was very suspicious of the whole Stardestroyer plot point, but you nailed it well, although I feel like the establishing shot needed a bit more to better emphasize it. At a lean 90 minutes, there is almost an hour missing, but aside from a good 20-30 minutes at Jabba's, it's often hard to tell where stuff was taken out, and that's mighty impressive. I thought I'd miss the Force ghosts too, but in truth I forgot about them! The ending was well done too, although I probably prefer the original SE version but with Shaw. Again, the stuff with the Ewoks was superb. I really like the whole Luke-Leia Ewok village edit, and the shortened 3P0 monologue was so seemless I practically didn't notice the snip. I forgot about no Boba Fett until the film was over, and the new edit with Luke and Jabba all is first class and works better than the real film, even if I might have kept the rancor in for excitement's sake. Very nice, sir.

So, sorry if it seems like I have a lot of complaints, most of the editing here is very, very good, enough to stand as a legitimate professional film. My overall impression is that it's a very concentrated edit that get's rid of most of the bad elements in the original, but introduces a couple of significant new ones in that its swiftness makes it seems choppy and rushed at times, aside from Han's lessened characterisation and a few odd miscellaneous cuts. Like I said, I think to be totally fair I need to see it again. And it's significant that I do actually want to see it again. It's been a long time since I felt that way about Jedi, so that is saying something. It's a very ambitious edit, and in my books it's at least 85% good. Very well done.

Beard, flannel shirt, black rimmed glasses...

Young George Lucas was such a hipster.

"Seriously guys, I'm totally an experimental artist. I don't do the whole commercial thing."

Also, Anchorhead: Yeah, I have to admit I have always had a crush on Marcia. She was and is very cute. Aside from her physical features, I think her fiery temperment "no bullshit" independent personality was the groundwork for both Marion and Princess Leia. The most important person in Lucas' life was a beautiful but take-no-prisoners professional that one-upped her male counterparts. It's no suprise that all the women in his films at the time mimic her personality and in some sense her physical features. Karen Allen bears a vague resemblance to her and isn't so far removed in spirit at least.

Yes.