zombie84

Yes, if/when I get a crack at a full-out second edition, large parts of it will be quite different, probably about 15% of the entire text will be rewritten, and there will be a lot of nips and tucks and quite a bit of additional facts that have come about in the last 4 years. There was talk about adding an afterword on all the post-prequel mythology, but that was with the assumption that the live-action series would already be in production by now, so there might not be enough material to warrant this now. But ultimately this is all up to the control of my publisher anyway.

The dialogue with Red Leader in ANH is not necessarily "inconsistent"--in fact, I wish they left it intact, since it could be plausible and makes the conversation flow a helluva lot better and make more sense--but it raises some questions.

The dialogue in the SE goes something like this:

Red Leader: Are you sure you can handle this?

Biggs: Sir, Luke Skywalker is the best bush pilot in the outer rims.

Red Leader: You'll do alright.

Kind of a weird about-face without any real motivation. The real version went like this:

Red Leader: Are you sure you can handle this?

Biggs: Sir, Luke Skywalker is the best bush pilot in the outer rims.

Red Leader: Skywalker? I knew your father when I was a boy, he was a great pilot. You'll do alright.

Of course, since we see Anakin in his youth, a close relationship of some kind between Red Leader and him would seem weird to casually throw out there unless you were going to reference it in the prequels. I am pretty sure RL says "when I was a boy" and given his age this would mean three things, both sort of implausible: 1) He knew him on Tatooine, when Anakin was a slave boy; 2) he knew him as an adolecant elsewhere in the galaxy, when he was training to be a Jedi Knight; 3) He fought with him in the Clone Wars. I guess these aren't so implausible, but it's just a really weird sort of personal connection to make. Probably the third option makes the most sense, after all RL is a military pilot and there would have been many soldiers and pilots Anakin interacted with at that time, but I think Lucas just didn't want to have to commit himself to any sort of character relationships in 1997, because if you have a reference like that that draws attention to itself, then you better show it in the prequels that take place at the time period referenced. Anyway, the dialogue would made sense in light of the prequels because people would just make their own projections, but it clearly is referring to a person who is the "Father Skywalker" Ben spoke of and not the Jedi student Darth Vader, who would not have been old enough to be a pilot or fighter when RL was a boy.

I wonder then, given the pretty big red shift, does this date to 1980, or was it a print that repertoire cinema had or a private collector had that dates maybe to the mid-80s instead? Print pinkness is a sign of aging and shouldn't be there if it is 1980. I just assumed it was some weird video transfer thing that happened, but you may be on to something.

Thanks, None. :)

Harmy: I think someone should write to LOC and actually ask them about the matter. Hell, maybe I will, I guess I am technically a "member of the press" to some obscure degree. How does one go about doing this?

Yeah, I'm not saying Fett didn't have his niche by 1983, but it was nothing like what happened in the early 1990s, the fact that Lucas sort of tossed him aside is a good indicator that it clearly was not a pressing concern. While by 1984, Boba Fett had been resurrected from the Sarlac in the Star Wars comic series, by 1996, Boba Fett had his very own comic series. Looking at merch is a good way to guage popularity, and in 1980 there were a few Fett things but by 1995 he was the poster boy for Star Wars Chic where his status was cemented, I mean it almost seemed like his image was more popular that Darth Vader, which is amazing considering he's barely even in the films. Lucas tried to win some major cool points with the fans when he revealed at this time that Fett would be in the prequels.

Boba Fett wasn't cool when he killed him in 1983. His cult status came about in the 1990s, at which time Lucas decided to make him the central figure of the entire Clone War plot.

Because in AOTC she gets caught and killed, while by 2000 she had her own comic series and was too popular to casually kill off at the beginning of the next film.

.

If they can put Hayden's face on Shaw's body, they can put McGregor's face on Guiness' body. And then CG his lips to match the dialogue. Seriously, wouldn't be as hard you'd think. They have hundreds of hours of footage of McGregor and CG models of him already.

Thank Christ we're a self-regulated community with the ability to drive away idiots that have no reason or business to be here. Now I can stop ignoring this thread for fear that it might kill my brain cells with its stupidity.

Looks amazing.

You know, I tried to colour correct this to see what it ought to really look like and that pink/orange tint is always there. The clue is the BG backdrop, which has white snow. But even when you dial the red out until that starts looking white, the walkers are still orange/red. Then I went and looked at HD versions of the original release trailers: looks exactly the same, mild orange/pink lighting hue. Not surprisingly, the clips on the THX WOW disc also have this colouring. In all cases, there is dirt galore as well, just like on this. High-def trailers are a really good source for original lighting, since they have most of the vibrancy in them; usually they aren't the final answer print, of course, but rather the on-set photography, but it doesn't look to have changed a lot. A lot of the asteroid chase looks like the Falcon was comped with a noticeable green shift. The other thing I am noticing is that the Luke-Vader confrontation on the Bespin shaft is quite blue in a lot of places. Maybe not as much as the SE, but if the green and blue Death Star can turn grey in Star Wars on the GOUT, this isn't unbelievable. Would be interested in seeing a shot of the "I am your father" angle from this bootleg.

"The Space-Empires Strikes Back", nice. Curious, is "Space empire" used within the film?

"The space-Emperor commands you to make contact"

"There's a good bet the space-Empire knows we're here"

"I do not want the space-Empire's prize damaged."

Sorry, I guess I am finding this more amusing than it actually is. Puggo, great to hear this is done, can't wait to see it!

Nope, just SW, and now Empire.

This occurred to me: I assume this is a 35mm print of the 1980 original. Right? Right. Okay, so--where did it come from?

Was it one of the existing ones they had laying around? If so, it would pre-date the 1990s, and that means it's printed on the older triacetate stocks and not newer polyester stocks. That means by the time ESB goes public domain in like sixty or seventy years and they open up that vault to use a fucking release print as the base for a new negative because the original negative disintegrated thirty years prior, they will probably find a nice pile of film that turned red decades ago, even with temperature controls.

If it's not a vintage print but a newly printed one...what the hell did they print it from? The 1985 interpositives? I imagine the IPs themselves must be pretty rough looking by now. Even the 1993 DE, with its colour-corrected telecine, you can see how pink its turning and how faded the colours are, and its pretty dirty and grainy too.

Gah. Its incredible how badly preserved these films are. Utterly incredible.

Or you could do both dictionary and slang uses and get a double-ban:

"The acting in the prequels was so bad that bitch Lassie could have played the part of Anakin better than that bitch Hayden."

"The acting in the prequels was so bad that bitch Lassie could have played the part of Padme better."

I hope they remembered to check it was the original.

Flashforward 70 years: "Lucas may have destroyed all prints of the originals, but we still have this! Empire Strikes Back Special Edition!...Fuck..."

Luca$ is teh lair!

^^Luca$

What can you do though? Lucas owns the legal copyrights. There is no legal recourse. You can try to change United States law to force a copyright holder who lawfully purchased said rights and who is also one of the main artists behind the films themselves to have their films wrenched away from them--but considering those things, this is not likely to go over well and would possibly require ammending copyright law and the US constitution. Not going to happen easily, and not going to happen period with all the more pressing matters the US has on its hands right now. The only real recourse people have is publically pressuring Lucasfilm to do so, if not for commercial profit then at least for their reputation. If you have any ideas, I can assure you we are all ears. But as you have not been here very long, let me assure you: we've looked at this situation from all angles. We simply have no rights in the matter.

I think Herbie and the Emperor used to be available online. Guess not anymore.

This guy has a more realistic assessment:

"Here's another interpretation: Lucas, afflicted with Sequel Syndrome, decided he'd take the most iconic images and sequences from the first trilogy and retread them. In some cases, as in Queen Amidala's assertion that she will not let her people suffer and die while the Senate discusses the invasion "in a committee", it's quite powerful; in others, such as many of the examples you list here, it just doesn't quite work. As for examples such as Luke kneeling while watching Leia kneel in the recording, that's a complete stretch of the imagination, especially since she never actually kneeled; at most, she leaned forward to shut off the recorder."

Some of the observations the writer makes in that article are likely intentional and work to enhance the dramatic depth of the series; others are hamfisted and pointless harkening back to the originals, retreading the same ground for the sake of fans like any franchise does, or perhaps out of sheer lack of imagination and the desire to give them more of what they want. Other observations are sheer ridiculousness and are really reaching to make his "mirror" observations more far-reaching than it actually is. It's really just a few instances of Lucas retreading his old scenes and trying to make some sort of profound statement about "destiny" and "fate" and other such terms thrown about in the films.

This guy sums it up perfectly:

"I buy that there's mirroring, but Lucas - who was undone long ago by his smug hubris - just wanted to convey some hokey sense of fate or destiny by drawing similarities, like the ones you point out, between the trilogies."

And even in the instances where Lucas might dramatically succeed by drawing trilogy parallels, at the end of the day the argument goes no further than what this guy writes:

"He might have indeed done all you said above, but it was done in a shoddy manner with cringy dialog. No matter how hard you try, you can't theorize yourself out of that." 

Whenever I say "the original Star Wars", I mean Episode IV, not Star Wars in the 1977 un-SE version. Fox, I can only imagine under the orders of Lucasfilm the copyright holder, does not circulate any prints of the films. If you see them in repertoire theatres like this they are rogue prints. Lucasfilm sanctions use of the 2004 video master, but only at very special events of its own chosing and sponsorship, and on rare occassions. I think they want to strangle the availability so that when they do a re-release (i.e. in 3d) it is a limited, rare event that creates value. Cruel, but a smart move for financial exploitation (and isn't that all it comes down to these days).

Hmm, reusing the same ideas, themes, situations and images from previous movies in later sequels to said movies while also taking them in new and different directions. How novel. Know what they call that in the real world?

A franchise.

Thank god, I knew I wasn't fuckin crazy for saying the SE sabers were recomps, lol.

The camera move on the chasm matte is a good find. And Msycamore, I have never noticed those colour inconsistencies (but maybe because the only time I watch the 2004 SE is to take frame grabs to show how shitty it is). I'm loving the continued finds. Just when you think there couldn't be more differences, bam, right in the face.

005: I'm not sure I agree with you that the sabers are always recomps of the same elements. If you look at the caps I reposted--they clearly are NOT the same shape as you say. I know that's only one frame, but its the telltale clue that something about the whole element has been changed. Nothing about them is similar. But you are probably correct when you say the flicker is the same. Here is my rationale to reconcile this: the ANH sabers were largely in-camera. Unlike ESB and ROTJ, the sabers in the first film used reflective blue-screen-like material to produce the glow in-camera. In post, they realised it wasn't enough so they added the coloured feather-glow. So, the glowing cores aren't an effect--they are right on the original raw camera negative. So when you start layering on other elements and re-rotoscoping them, you still have the same flickering cores, because that was actually photographed in real life. My  2 cents.

Yeah, it's not fault finding, its just the realistic expectation. Maybe some stuff will be fixed like the lightsabers, but overall what we saw in 2004 there is no reason to doubt will be seen again in 2011. You don't need to throw a hissy fit over this, wow. It would be foolish to give Lucasfilm the unwarranted benefit of the doubt considering the previous decade of home video releases.

I'm loving those ESB caps.

This confirms, preliminarily, two suspicions I had prior: that Hoth had more blue in it than we would at times like to admit, and that the ATAT sequence had a pink tint to some of the elements; you can see this last one in the THX WOW footage. Very promising. It also gives further clarification to an issue that was raised in the SE Changes thread with that Luke-Vader ESB cap (i.e., home video lightsabers were fatter due to white level clipping)