zombie84

I don't buy any of that. There's plenty to think about in ST, as it deals with time travel, alternate universes, and it plays with the established timeline so you don't know how the future will truely unfold and how character dynamics will play out. TOS didn't have every episode filled with endless pondering, lots of time the main focus was just on action and adventure and humor. A good example are two of the best episodes from season two and the series period, The Trouble with Tribbles and The Doomsday Machine. Great episodes, classic Trek. Theres some interesting ideas in there, but the episodes are really just about characters, the plot, and humor (in the case of tribbles) and action (in the case of doomsday), you aren't going to have a lot to think about after those episodes are over any more than with the new film, its mostly whats there on the surface with a couple interesting ideas for the plot. Its just solid entertainment, and before the 1990s Star Trek series screwed things up a bit people used to remember what the original series was actually like--it varied from episode to episode. And so should the films. In some ways, ST encapsulates all the qualities of the original, because it had time travel and sci-fi ideas like alternate universes, it had some inter-planetary relationships between cultures, some element of mystery, it had humour and some cheesiness, it had tragedy and pathos, it had sexiness, it had space scenes, planet scenes and fighting on the Enterprise, and it had action. Thats pretty much every thing that was in the original series, and it balanced it all to pretty close preportions. It could have used a bit more intellectualism, and the original series actually had more romance than the new film, but I think it captured the spirit of the original astoundingly well.

JJ Abrams Trek was a good movie. Good characters, humor, adventure and some really good special effects, and a decent, easy-to-follow plot. Isn't that what people sort of wanted from Star Wars? Its the reason why I like the originals.

Easterhay said:

zombie84 said:

Easterhay said:

Well the fact is I was misquoted.  How's that for starters?

 You were, and that was unfair to you, but don't side-step my point. "Negativity" in regards to the subject that was in discussion is pretty understandable considering the history of the person in question with regards to these sorts of claims (i.e. that Lucas is known for stretching the truth or just plain making stuff up) and also when considering the specifics of the alleged event in question (i.e. that it seems a little fishy the way it is often reported). Saying that you're tired of people speaking about Lucas in a negative light seems a bit unmotivated and unnecessary since peoples issues here are fairly understandable. It really just seems like you didn't like people picking on Lucas, regardless of the reasons.

 

Well, I don't think Lucas is untouchable at all.  Ergo, he once said Star Wars was a nine part saga and he has recently went back on that and acted as though he never said it.

 

However, saying and doing things that some find disagreeable does not make that person essentially bad.  There is no such thing as a bad person; all people are essentiallly good.  This is my belief. 

 That's great, but no one said Lucas was not essentially good. CO said he's had enough of Lucas' bullshit with regards to spin-doctoring things, which he justified with a list of precedents. Furthermore, as I argued, the circumstances of the alleged psychologist incident does not seem realistic given the context reported. And that was what you objected to. Which is stupid, because he's got a pretty good case to be negative here. Its becoming further evident that, as I said before, you really just don't like seeing Lucas picked on.

It is neither unecessary or unmotivated (how do you work that one out, fella?  How does carping and negativity motivate anyone other than to continue to it all the more, especially when the braying gallery is urging them on?) to complain about negativity?  Some people here are so consumed by their feelings that they will deny Lucas everything, even when it is clear as day that he is not always dishonest or economical with the truth.  After all, w  hat has Anchorhead just done if not lied about what I said just to fuel his own argument?  This is what I mean about being consumed by feelings: someone says something thay find objectionable, so from that point on they object to everything that person says.  It's witless.

 

If someone does something that is perceived to be bad and then does something that is good, is the good deed then ignored in favour of the bad?  Tell me, where's the motivation in that?

 Okay, I don't know what the hell you are even talking about anymore. CO said he had enough of the Lucas bullshit, because he felt this particular example was another instance of it. He was right about the precedents he listed, and he is probably correct about this one too. Thats it. And you objected to this? Why? Some invented stuff about "some people here...will deny Lucas everything". Where the hell does that come from? The objection CO raised was valid and specific and justified by a long list of precedents and reasons why this example fits the M.O. 

You do a good job of side-stepping the point and then re-directing it in your favour with an irrelevant point. Are you Arawn Fenn's brother?

That's true, but there still is a certain level of "phoniness" to it all. Its not that things are "upper crust", as you said, its the way its presented, it simply suffers from the video game syndrome. In retrospect, TPM actually holds up pretty well, and that's because they built real locations and real sets and shot on film; even though it has total "video game" moments like the Gungan-droid battle, which I never for a second believed was real, most of the film has a visceral reality to it. AOTC, on the other hand, feels like the worlds highest budget video game, and while ROTS is a great improvement they never truely got over that digital hump, ROTS made its 80% of the way there but not quite enough, and probably a lot of its success has to do with the fact that they went with a battered sylization to bridge closer to the OT, rather than the quality of FX and set construction itself.

It reminds me of two films that have a very similar colour pallete, environment, and technological time period. Which is Troy, and Kingdom of Heaven. When you compare the special effects, the costumes and the set design, Troy looks like an extended version of Xena, or some made-for-TV movie while Kingdom of Heaven looks like it could have been a documentary in its level of realism, even though they both were made in almost the exact same year.

Harmy said:

OK, seriously now, Zombie, did you know about this site: http://www.prillaman.net/starwarsdvdreviews.html ?

The guy reviews different SW bootlegs and DVD releases.

 I had no idea this existed. Pretty cool! Is he someone here? He must be.

Anchorhead:

I think I prefer the block text and right-justified titles, but the yellow text intrigues me for "punching up" the main page. I also agree that its a bit too wordy. I'm working on trying to modify it to say the same thing in fewer words so it doesn't overwhelm first-time clickers.

msycamore said:

Great job with the site zombie! I love your dedication.

A few things that I think needs to be done on the site:

The main page text describes that the original films are not longer available, but some of the average persons reading this will maybe say to themselves "what do they talk about, it's available already on the DVD bonus discs." I think you'll need to adress clearly why these aren't up to standards even though it's perfectly clear to us. I've actually heard some younger people who believe that the original films actually looked that way in the cinema. And that is a horrible truth which leads directly to the second suggestion, The Changes. The Lucasfilm changes comparison you link to is incomplete, faulty and sometimes even wrong in its descriptions. In fact, the whole article reeks of Lucasfilm propaganda that help reinforce younger people to think these beautiful films looked like shit.

I know you're planning to put this article directly on your page, when you do, my suggestion is that you write your own descriptions and fill in the blanks. I can help catalogue the changes if you want.

Yeah, I remember thinking they didn't get every change, but if you know offhand already that would be a tremendous help. Its so tedious to go through and catalogue all this stuff. I've been avoiding this article because doing that, plus making my own caps or modifying the existing ones is just so much work, so any help here would be great.

I think there were other unpublished stories that Christopher Tolkien found, some of which he filled in himself. I guess you can't expect unfinished rough drafts to be very good, to be fair, Tolkien sr. would probably be horrified to know that people can read them today. They are more for a historical curiosity, I think.

I always thought the TPM Jabba looked great. Why couldn't they have used that one in the 2004 edition? It looks like him, whereas the 2004 Jabba looks less like Jabba than the 1997 one. His animation is better though, because when Han steps on his tail you can see him get ticked off and he makes a fist, whereas the 1997 Jabba just stood there and took it. But the scene has so many problems, technical and storywise, plus editorially, the whole thing just so clearly doesn't belong in the film. It was fun in 1997 to see because the 1997 release was just sort of a fun bonus in a way, "hey, here's what Star Wars looks like with enhanced effects and new material, cool", but as a permanent part of the film it has no real place. But I guess if you consider the SE as a permanent part of the film the Jabba scene is just the tip of the iceberg so it seems kind of pointless to complain.

That part seems so natural to the film I forgot it wasn't in the original. I guess Wedge's popularity really shot off in the 90s, whereas in 83 they hadn't realized what a cult character he would become (same with Boba Fett, disposed of as comic fodder earlier in the film).

Easterhay said:

Well the fact is I was misquoted.  How's that for starters?

 You were, and that was unfair to you, but don't side-step my point. "Negativity" in regards to the subject that was in discussion is pretty understandable considering the history of the person in question with regards to these sorts of claims (i.e. that Lucas is known for stretching the truth or just plain making stuff up) and also when considering the specifics of the alleged event in question (i.e. that it seems a little fishy the way it is often reported). Saying that you're tired of people speaking about Lucas in a negative light seems a bit unmotivated and unnecessary since peoples issues here are fairly understandable. It really just seems like you didn't like people picking on Lucas, regardless of the reasons.

So, you are suggesting that people ignore the facts? If the facts paint a picture that might be called "negative", it's hard to just sort of pretend it doesn't exist. Well, you could, I suppose, but that doesn't really serve any constructive purpose.

CO has a good point, it not just "vitrol". Lucas has been notorious with putting out bullshit spins on things. Sometimes its probably just for simplicity's sake, sometimes its deliberate misdirection for promotional means. As far as his claim of consulting a psychologist, I have a feeling the reality is that he simply had a friend in the field of psychology and said, "so, this isn't going to like scar kids is it? It's kind of intense." Maybe he just looked it up in one of his psychology books and found that kids responding to situations like this will resort to denial (i.e., Vader's trying to trick Luke). Because if he actually did go to a real, live pyschologist and the guy said "yeah, this might be too intense for small kids", what was Lucas going to do? Scrap the entire father point? Well maybe, but then if it was REALLY the central element of his masterminded Tragedy of Darth Vader that was his "vision" that he was never going to compromise, the fact that he's Luke father is the entire point of the story's existance. I also find it hard to believe he brought the biggest plot twist for the biggest film of all time to someone outside of his circle.

The reality is probably that Lucas had a justified curiosity if he was taking things a bit too over the top and looked into what psychology had to say, and to his relief he found a convenient way to continue on without guilt. Maybe this entailed going to a real professional or someone in a related field of psychology for advice, but considering this was the biggest secret plot twist in movies at that time I would not think it realistic to go to anyone but a trusted friend. Still, the larger point brought up stands: he WAS showing concern for the children in the audience by looking into the matter, regardless of the extent this entailed. I don't believe he made it all up out of thin air, there is likely to be some truth in it.

Its in 1983's Skywalking and I think Kershner reported this as well. Its appeared in other sources too.

The GOUT was made from an interpositive that was printed in 1985. It looks incredibly grainy, and while the original negative looks grainier than the Lowry-treated 2004 master, only by a bit. If you take a look at other films from around the same time, such as the Directors Cut of Alien and the Theatrical Cut of Blade Runner from the 2003 and 2007 DVDs, those are both taken from interpositives, and have had little or no cleanup done. And they look fantastic. The only time you notice grain is on the optical dupes, which is the way it should be. The Alien IP was newly printed of course, I don't know about Blade Runner but the movie was unpopular and probably hardly got used, but by the grain structure it looks like an original IP to me. And thats the quality that Star Wars should look.

But the Star Wars IPs look really, really bad, especially the first few reels of Star Wars. An interpositive just shouldn't look that bad, especially since it was only run a couple times, since it was created in 1985 for home video.

I have three theories to explain this:

1) It was not derived from the original negatives. If, for instance, the IP was printed off of the existing Internegative, it would have the generational loss you would see in a theatrical print. Which is precisely what the GOUT transfer resembles, in terms of grain and damage. I find this a bit unlikely though, just because it makes no sense to do that.

2) The duplicate stock was very bad. In 1985, there was a batch of Kodak stocks that was excessively grainy, and it was replaced the next year with an improved version. Aliens was shot on this, which is why that films looks really grainy, and Cameron is currently de-graining it for the Blu Ray release because he says he was never happy with how grainy it was (I disapprove, but that's another case). Now, negative raw stock is totally different from duplicate stock. I don't know if Kodak's duplicate stocks that year were affected by the issue. The stock Aliens was shot on was a low-light special stock, and low light = graininess, so its no surprise that grain would be a problem. I have a feeling that the duplicate stocks would not be afflicted by this issue, but just throwing it out there that 1985 was a bad year for unusual grain for what it is worth. The duplicate stock of Star Wars might not be so bad as to have the problem of the Aliens stock, but it would definitely be grainier than an interpositive printed today because the granularity of all stocks in the 70s and 80s was poorer.

3) The negative was really dirty. Some of the grain is dirt on the negative (white specs), and the 1985 IP probably was never cleaned so by 1993 affter being run a half dozen times it had picked up some dirt.

The other factors may be that previous releases, being not from the master directly, do not show the grain because the transfers are softer. The noise reduction on them might also have been better.

I would say that possibly a combination of most of these factors is at fault. You can see in the Senator theatre photos, and also other sources such as the 70mm cells which are at least the same generation as an IP and probably one generation higher, that the films were never THAT grainy. The Senator example is a theatrical print, which has gone from negative to interpositive back to internegative and then the print itself, and yet it looks about 50% of the GOUT levels. It might look worse when you see it in motion, but only a bit. This print was back when the negative was in a better state, but it still passed through an IP and IN, and also the grain of the print itself. So, the problem is the specific 1985 IP. It must just be much grainier than the previous one.

Which would point to problem #2 as the main culprit. You can see negative dirt on the GOUT, but you can see some on the Technicolor print, so that can't be the problem either. There's print dirt and dust on the IP itself, but thats not what is making the image look like shit, it's just making the problem already there worse. The problem also seems to inexplicably get better as the film progresses, as the first two or three reels are really bad and then it gets better; I don't know how to explain that, maybe the negative of those reels was just much dirtier so the image just looks grainier.

I'm kind of rambling now, but the situation is a bit confusing.

The bittersweet ending of ROTJ would have been celebratory, but with the wiseness of life experience. you win the battle, but you remember that it wasn't free. LOTR sort of ends on a similar bittersweet note, and its very poignant.

But a big part to remember is that the ending described there probably fed into a sequel trilogy. So its not the end-end. You want to have some elation to cap off the trilogy, but things have to be complicated still, because there's a whole 'nother trilogy to actually complete everything. So, Luke walks off like Clint--great! We'll see him as an old man in the next film. Wouldn't that have been great, to have Luke walk into the night now as a Jedi, having earned his maturity, and then we see how that moulded him twenty years later as he tries to figure out how to continue the Jedi way for a new generation, now with some grey in his hair.

I think that sort of ending makes more sense in the context that its the end of a trilogy but not the end of the storyline and not the end of the characters.

I wasn't around for its release, but ROTJ was the one film I never really got attached to as a kid. I always watched ANH and ESB to death, and maybe once in a while I might watch ROTJ. In fact, when I was 8 or 9, I taped over the first 30 minutes with Superdave Osbourne, if you can believe that, so I couldn't even remember hpw it began until I bought it in 1995 for the faces release. It didn't surprise me one bit when I read reviews for the 1997 SE and they were saying how it was always critically bashed. I saw ANH 4 times in 1997, but I only saw ROTJ once, so clearly the film never did it for me. I never thought anything of it when I came on the internet and found that other people found it so-so. I think I appreciate it more as I aged, to be honest, because I've become more and more attached to the characters and its fun to just see them as an ensemble.

Easterhay said:

Your correction is pedantic in the extreme.  It's a fan-edit,  Adywan is a fan, and he's constructing his own personalised version of the film; I've seen his Facebook page and the work he's done.  It's a fan-edit.

 It's not pedantic, you just seem to have not clicked the link that he posted. Adywan did a less-well-know restoration of ESB to its original theatrical version, which was released in May of this year. Try to find it, it's really good.

Easterhay said:

The reason, though, that the prequels look so differently to the originals is that we're seeing The Republic in its prime - well in TPM we are; watch AOTC and see the scuff marks all over the floor in The Jedi Temple; see how refugees now have to travel from planet to planet to find work - this is the beginning of the recession.  Come ROTS and Palpatine is ploughing all the money into the war effort.  So, naturally, we start to move towards the look and feel of A New Hope, were martial law is crushing the people and everything has a delapidated look to it.

 I'd say that's reading in to the films meaning that isn't apparent by the films themselves.

TPM looks slick and shiny, AOTC looks slick and shiny and so does ROTS. It looks slick and shiny because CG looks that way naturally, and also because digital cameras render things that way. If you use CG to the extent that Lucas did and then use a digital camera to capture it, its just partly inevitable. Thats why films like 300 and Sin City have similar qualities, except there it was supposed to be a deliberately unrealistic stylization, rather than the failure to emulate reality using the most sophisticated technology possible.

Cool news, been away all weekend at my parents cottage. Will respond to this in time.

While I was vacationing I did find the time to write a desperately needed editorial though:

http://savestarwars.com/righttoculturalheritage.html

I'm guessing it is the 1997 print but you never know. A 1980 print would be watchable, but it would look like shit. Hard to say if there were newer prints made. The senator theatre had a charity screening around 1992 or so, and according to a guy who was friends with the projectionist, they physically looked brand new, which corresponded to how nice they looked on the screen. I would certainly say its not impossible. I wonder if Negative-1's print is from this batch because it sure isn't a 1980 print, unless it was never played and came fresh from a cold storage vault.

Does anyone have access to the 100th Congressional record where George Lucas spoke before the hearing on the colorization of black and white films? As I live in Canada, obtaining transcripts of foreign governmental material is not as easy as I thought it might be. As far as I can tell, he spoke before the 100th congress of 1987-88, which was passed in 1989. I'm preparing some articles on film preservation and the law and these would be absolutely great to have.

I found this index and abstract from the annual CIS publication of 1989 in my university library, but I would have to order the documents from the US:

H521-90 Film Integrity Act of 1987

June 21, 1988. 100-2

iii+164p. GPO $4.75

S/N 552-070-06355-2

CIS/MF/4 

Item 1020-A; 1020-B

Y4.J89/1:100/107.

MC89-18539. LC 89-602465

Committe Serial No. 107. Hearing before the Subcom on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice to consider issues and proposals related to alteration or colorization of motion pictures, focusing on H.R. 2400 (text, p.3-5), the Film Integrity Act of 1987, to prohibit the alteration or colorization of a motion picture without the written consent of the principle director and principle screenwriter of the work. Supplementary material (p.161-164) includes correspondence.

I know some quotes from this appeared on the main OT.com page a few years ago. Does anyone here have some of this material?

You be crazy.

This message has been approved by zombie84.

:p

If Lucas had retired in 1977, there's no guarantee he wouldn't be doing the exact same thing now with regards to suppressing the originals. In fact, I think a main part of that reason is because he hasn't been able to move beyond Star Wars, it's become his whole existance and so he obsesses over perfecting in his 60s a film he made in his 30s. Retiring in 1977 might have just exaggerated this. All he would have had is THX, Graffiti and Star Wars and he'd probably have tweaked all three to even greater levels than their respective Special Editions currently exist as.

The cure is really the scenario where Lucas followed through on his promise to make other kinds of films. When he started  saying that again in 2005 I thought maybe he was serious this time and it would be the antidote to the Star Wars Spell that has enslaved him, but sadly he was too afraid to try it. It's too bad, because I think Lucas' real talents don't get seen very often, like Coppola said "Star Wars robbed America of one of its most challenging filmmakers." I think the current loss of the Star Wars That Once Was is equally sad as loss of the George Lucas That Never Was.