Star Wars - Classic or Dud?

The Phantom Menace really wasn't that bad, I don't know what the fuss was about. So what if it didn't have a plot? Wow, were those special effects ever cool, and Ewan McGreggor, phew! Even in bad hair and doing Alec Guiness's accent, he's still a hottie!

Personally I liked it well enough, seen everything except TPM twice, seen TPM once. That's enough for me, really. I'm sympathetic to the view that the vast amount of attention paid to SW is a bad thing but you can just ignore it.

I haven't seen them in ages either though. I have all the tapes, but haven't watched them since I was a kid. There are some great double entendres in them, if I remember. Something along the lines of:

Darth Vader: 'My son is near. I felt him' Emperor: 'It is strange I have not felt him'

Well dodgy. And of course Han Solo says 'Let's blow this thing and go home.'

I don't understand TPM haters though, they get very uppity about it, as if the original series was a feat of fantastic writing and acting, the acting at the very least in TPM is better.

But silly pseudo-technical babble is what makes sci-fi so GRATE!!! I mean, honestly, does anyone here actually know what a tachyon *is*? Yet they seem critically important in every episode of Star Trek ever. Come on...

Taking Sides: American Graffiti (Lucas) vs. Duel (Spielberg)?

*sigh*

Classic.

Childhood sense of wonder = not, particularly, activated by Star Wars. (Dr Who, however....)

Your answer = weird desire to fence stuff off against discussion. See also: Replacements thread.

But is he right or was he on crack? I can think of no occurrence of EITHER idea in SF prior to this, and these days I sometimes KNOW WHAT I'M'TALKING ABOUT!!

However, I think it HIGHLY unlikely that my dad had Ra in mind (or had even heard of him in 1977). He meant movies and (even more) pulp 50s books.

It's funny mark, I remember my dad raving to *me* (after going by himself first, the bastard) about the aliens etc., I think he went to see it at the drive in, something like four times that summer. We always did have a ridiculous amount of sci-fi books around the house, he was a real fan, so I think he'd been waiting for that kind of scene for his entire life - and if *he* thought it was a film revolution, I'm inclined to believe.

http://www.guitarpunk.com/SW-85DV-close.jpg

http://www.guitarpunk.com/VADER-ZO%20with%20Soft.jpg

That means Star Wars is cool, no?

I can see a certain very cool cat playing one of these, but by god would he have to be cool. Something in the vein of goofpunk that is not necessarily goofy; just a band that has no image projection and acts stoopid. I could see the Dwarves playing this back in the day and getting away with it. Or the Dickies.

-- Kim (grimstitc...), June 18th, 2001.

It was called "Lapti Nek" and I can still sing it (phonetically)!!!

I've always thought that it should have stopped there. I don't care for Empire... and everything past that is garbage.

WARNING!! contains the climactic "blunt-smoking" sequence!

I want a picture of that bust surfing on lava.

According the Brtish tabloid The Sun

x-post

the lost Biggs/toshi station/luke in gilligan hat scenes from ANH

no, we're talking about 1977's Star Wars The emoticon is not worth a popcorn kernel left on the theatre floor.

Strange Brew audio cut to Star Wars footage

http://www.peoplevsgeorge.com/

Most certainly a dud in all ways possible.

This new film coming out: uh.

ugly looking animation

In the climax of Episode IV as Vader's TIE fighter zooms up behind Luke's X-Wing fighter, Vader feels out throug the Force and detects the power of his opponent. His first reaction is to shoot R2-D2.

Given that Vader is known to be unconcerned with his enemies carrying blasters or lightsabres as they confront him, isn't this a bit of an overreaction for a piece of hardware as humdrum as an astromech droid? Not if he is an instrument of the Force, and a power capable of reshaping the destinies of kings.

Well, anyway:

“I am amazed at how it continues,” he said on his way into the afternoon screening following a quick photo shoot with members of the cast and crew. “It’s not something I expected to happen, and not something we spend a lot of time thinking about trying to expand. This was created because I wanted to stimulate kids' imaginations, inspire them to be creative and to think outside the box. I’m like the tar baby … I’ve gotten into the toy box and now I can’t get out.”

"I'm like the tar baby"

okay there are enough uses of that term that are unambiguously racist that we don't also need to also jump up and down and act all shrill about the ones that aren't

The 'toy box' thing is the more unsettling (but also more unsurprising) comment anyway.

calista flockhart has never seen star wars.

why do you think Ford was attracted to her?

Wonder if Ford's ever seen Ally McBeal.

wonder if she knows who kevin smith is

The Sgt. Pepper's of movies, with all that implies: A state-of-the-art audio/visual feast that split the world open when it was released, and is unfortunately destined to be commemorated in every year ending in a "7", until the end of time.

http://www.ratemyeverything.net/image/837/0/Owen_Lars_and_Aunt_Beru_Charred.ashx

this looks terrible btw. can't bring myself to start a thread on it

http://i.enewsi.com/g/albums//Entertainment/Fanboys/fanboys-the-movie-star-wars%20(1).jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3061/3001030202_49e31f24d4.jpg

even the Wayans brothers are appalled by this

Apparently, there's never been a thread on this guy:

http://supershadow.com/

Fanboys did finally get a pathetic release at some point, right? Man, even sadder is how that trailer cuts out Veronica Mars...

we had some fun with supershadow on another thread, i forget which.

still,

Bigfoot doesn't realize the Russian Spetsnaz are real, who don't know the United States Shadow Government exists, who don't know the Illuminati are real, who don't know time travelers from the future are actual, who don't realize extraterrestrials are a fact, who don't realize the supernatural immortals exist. Ultimately, who watches the watchers? This is the paradoxical irony of reality that has no explanation.

The unlimited Multiverse is so massively infinite that individual expanding Universes can NEVER collide.

SuperShadow: The number one rated SS.com update of all time in history ever approaches

seems to be taking his cues now from this thread:

TOP SECRET: da troof

http://failblog.org/2009/03/20/baby-name-fail-2/

Ugh, that Fanboys poster. Parody or not, the 40 Year Old Virgin-style poster thing is PLAYED THE FUCK OUT.

http://wildammo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/3576703162_c2c1c59585_b-675x450.jpg
http://wildammo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/3551772099_cbc5f739d3_b-675x450.jpg
http://wildammo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/3493855156_79ae00578c_b-675x450.jpg

from here http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/sets/72157616350171741/

I raved to my dad abt the bar full o'aliens and the mutant jazz, shortly after SW came out ? to prove to him that it was the BEST FILM EVER MADE (as I slightly inexplicably tht: I RAN all the way home after first saw it, so hyped wuz I, abt two-three miles ? I had not, admittedly, seen many films at that age). My dad demurred: and sed (re bar-of-aliens and jazz), "This is a very old idea."
But is he right or was he on crack? I can think of no occurrence of EITHER idea in SF prior to this, and these days I sometimes KNOW WHAT I'M'TALKING ABOUT!!

"Lucas dreaded returning to the writing process, which he has described as painful and tedious. For Star Wars II, he turned to Leigh Brackett. Brackett was a legendary writer of pulp science fiction in the 1940's and 50's, a writer of crime novels, and screenwriter for Howard Hawks-- their pairing seemed like a natural formula for success. In fact, her husband was Edmond Hamilton, also a noted science fiction author, whose story "Kaldar, Planet of Antares," published in Weird Tales magazine in 1933 and reprinted in paperback in 1965, has been thought to have been an influence in the development of the lightsaber since it features one-- Hamilton's version was called a "lightsword." Brackett was brought to Lucas' attention by a friend, who handed him an old science fiction novel and said, "Here is someone who wrote the cantina scene in Star Wars better than you did."

--Michael Kaminski, The Secret History of Star Wars

I raved to my dad abt the bar full o'aliens and the mutant jazz, shortly after SW came out ? to prove to him that it was the BEST FILM EVER MADE (as I slightly inexplicably tht: I RAN all the way home after first saw it, so hyped wuz I, abt two-three miles ? I had not, admittedly, seen many films at that age). My dad demurred: and sed (re bar-of-aliens and jazz), "This is a very old idea."

The bar-of-aliens idea was also used in the French sci-fi comic Valérian and Laureline before Star Wars came out, can't remember in which book though. Considering that the Millennium Falcon looks very similar to the spaceship Valérian and Laureline have in the comic, it seems quite likely that it might've served as an inspiration to Star Wars. The Wiki page for Valérian and Laureline has this to say about the similarities between V&L and SW:

Several commentators, such as Kim Thompson of The Comics Journal,[28] film critic Jean-Philippe Guerand[29] and the newspaper Libération,[30] have noted certain similarities between the Valérian albums and the Star Wars film series. Both series are noted for the “lived-in” look given to their various settings and for the diverse alien creatures they feature. Particular instances of similarities between the two series, which the above have cited, include:

* The design of Valérian and Laureline's XB982 astroship and the Millennium Falcon spaceship that appears in Episodes IV-VI of Star Wars.
* A scene in Empire of a Thousand Planets (L'Empire des Mille Planètes) where Valérian is encased in a liquid plastic and a scene in The Empire Strikes Back where the character Han Solo is encased in a substance called carbonite.
* The slave-girl costume worn by Laureline in World Without Stars and the costume worn by the character Leia Organa in the scenes where she is enslaved by Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi
* A scene in Empire of a Thousand Planets where one of the Authorities removes his helmet to reveal his burned and scarred face underneath and a scene in Return of the Jedi where the character Darth Vader removes his helmet to reveal the burned face of Anakin Skywalker.
* The alien Shingouz and the character Watto seen in The Phantom Menace.

Mézières' response upon seeing Star Wars was that he was “dazzled, jealous... and furious!”.[31] As a riposte, Mézières produced an illustration for Pilote magazine in 1983 depicting the Star Wars characters Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa meeting Valérian and Laureline in a bar surrounded by a bestiary of alien creatures typical of that seen in both series. “Fancy meeting you here!” says Leia. “Oh, we've been hanging around here for a long time!” retorts Laureline.[32] Mézières has since been informed that Doug Chiang, design director on The Phantom Menace, kept a set of Valérian albums in his library.[14]

lol i might be going to this http://www.starwarsinconcert.com/

i went to see this with my brother this summer in the UK, kind of reluctantly, but i have to say it was unalloyed GOOD TIMES

Haha, I AM going to that.

Damn, thought this was the epic thread with the Shakey Mo "utility data" C&P error and all the attendent hilarity. THAT was an afternoon well wasted!

Never say I don't do anything for you etc.:

the crimes of george lucas ('90s on)

lol i might be going to this http://www.starwarsinconcert.com/

I saw an ad for that on a bus yesterday and boggled. Guess you can always find new ways to bilk fanboys.

I saw an ad for that on a bus yesterday and boggled.

I seriously thought you said 'blogged' at first.

he was going to but he sneezed

re Star Wars In Concert, I actually wish I'd got to this when it was playing in the UK. About the only thing that has not been sullied by the prequels and Lucas's revisionism is the music from the originals, and the music composed for the prequels was great in parts too. I'd imagine hearing it played by a full orchestra with suitable visual accompaniment would be pretty spectacular (oh yeah, as stevie confirms a few x-posts back).

/lol i might be going to this http://www.starwarsinconcert.com//

I saw an ad for that on a bus yesterday and boggled. Guess you can always find new ways to bilk fanboys.
--Nuyorican oatmeal (jaymc)

Yeah because who likes to go see a full symphony orchestra play awesome movie scores with a giant movie screen?

you can always find new ways to trick people into doing things they enjoy!

was totally tricked into eating a cheeseburger tonight.

ROBBLE ROBBLE TRICK ROBBLE ROBBLE

http://behnnie.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/hamburglar.jpeg

xxxxxxxxpost - There it is, thank you Ned! Let me express my gratitude by sending you some Bob Seger MP3s...

About the only thing that has not been sullied by the prequels and Lucas's revisionism is the music from the originals,

Except that he changed the Ewok song in the end of RotJ to some generic soundtrack music! That was one of the worst changes in the "special editions", the Ewok song kicked ass! If this "Star Wars in Concert" has a choir performing that song, I'd totally pay for the ticket.

totally.

cannot remember whether or not the 'jub jub' song was performed.

lucas should've left 'lap ti nek' in rtj too.

oh dear, Tuomas, you are right of course. iirc the padded out "new" ending song for rotj allowed for more scenes of celebrations on other cgi planets? so bland I cannot bring it to mind, whereas I have been humming that ewok song since reading yr post.

Yeah, I got it stuck in my head too after I mentioned it, whereas I can barely remember what the new ending was like. I think you're right that there was some bland scenes about celebration on other planets. I can't imagine why Lucas wanted to change such a catchy song, and a scene every kid who ever saw it remembers.

Btw, what's "Lap Ti Nek"?

the song sung by the group in jabba's palace

Was that what the Max Rebo Band played before it got replaced by that horrific ersatz "soul" number? Man, Lucas sure knew how to fuck up the music in Jedi in a way that my faulty memory must have blanked out. Poor Max Rebo.

When I introduced my kid to ROTJ last year, he ate the Special Edition musical number up. I'm pretty sure that that scene is entirely responsible for me teaching him how to press Rewind on the remote.

Monte Williams has a nice write-up about the Star Wars series in popmatters. He makes a good point for the Phantom Menace actually being the best of the prequels, and points out flaws in the remaining two that show just how much Lucas mangled the overarching mythology.

Palpatine is a cunning conniver, and some of his speeches to the malleable Anakin Skywalker are creepy in their cold persuasiveness. But while the first stirrings of Anakin‘s turn to the dark side are convincing, things escalate too quickly; he essentially kills “younglings” as his opening chore for Palpatine.

Admittedly, it’s a powerful scene. When the young child Jedi asks Anakin, “What are we going to do?” and then steps backward, eyes widening in horrible understanding, it‘s easily the most chilling and terrible moment in the six-film saga. But does it ring true? Darth Vader later attempts to bring Luke to the dark side in Return of the Jedi; had he succeeded, would Luke have so quickly killed kids, just because it was asked of him? I do not believe that he would have. For that matter, I do not believe that Anakin would have; his turn to the dark side, the axis on which all six films tilt, feels false.

Now that we know that Vader murdered children, it’s clear that his redemption in Return of the Jedi comes too easily; he killed kids and oversaw the destruction of the Jedi, and yet Luke and the ghosts of Yoda and Obi-Wan are so quickly chummy with him. I am reminded of an amusing recap of The Rock‘s long-ago Wrestlemania feud with Hulk Hogan, in which Scott Keith provided imaginary dialogue for the wrestlers when they suddenly became buddies after their match: “Hogan and Rock make nice-nice, as presumably Hogan is all ‘Sorry about the attempted murder, brother’ and Rock is all, ‘It‘s cool, I didn‘t sell the injury anyway.’”

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/116083-what-if-were-all-mythtaken-about-star-wars/

An alternative cut should have for Force ghosts of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon beating Anakin with sticks. That's some Lucas CGI editing dickery that I could get behind.

for = the

i cannot help but read that stupid article in simpsons comic book guy voice in my head

"Consider Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, pretty much unanimously held aloft as the most triumphant entry in the entire Star Wars series. Here you have a movie which admittedly boasts wildly imaginative creatures, vehicles and set designs, but which offers not a single memorable line of dialogue."

wow

but which offers not a single memorable line of dialogue

BULLSHIT.

"I love you."
"I know."

that's two lines for you

"ROWR"

Vader: "Obi Wan never told you what happened to your <SPOILER>"
Luke: "He told me enough! He told me <SPOILER>"
Vader: "No. <MASSIVE SPOILER>"

Adventure? Excitement? Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless!

L: I'm not afraid
Y: You will be!

"That boy is our last hope"

"What about Leia you fucking tard?"

LOL, Fuzzball

L: I'm not afraid
Y: You will be!

This is the best part of any of these movies.

I thought they smelled bad on the outside.

best bits of the film where no-one is talking

- AT-AT tumble
- Yoda moving the X-Wing out of and across the swamp
- shot of the bald dude with those coms devices on his ears staring towards camera
- Vader's silent rage as the MF jumps to hyperspace at the end

-Luke looks out at twin suns
-lights going over Yoda after he says "There is another"

with with Star Wars and strangulation anyway?

what's with

Trouble with your droid?

Lando has so many cool lines...

Lando: "I'm sorry, but I've got problems of my own."
Han: "Oh, you're a real hero..."

Also some of the worst pick up lines...

Lando (to Leia): "you truly belong with us here above the clouds"

...I guess that they don't have Colt 45 in the SW universe.

Lando's not a system he's a man.

This is no cave.

Never tell me the odds.

okay just this one since i'm already here

It's not my fault

^^^ I love that line, since it's said by both Han and Lando at different points in Empire.

the Han one is better. Ford just runs the whole show.

THEN I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL!

he is clumsy as he is stupid

ooh and of course,
"Apology accepted, Captain Needa."

could go on all night with vadar..

Asteroids do not concern me, Admiral. I want that ship, not excuses.

I'm realizing I can just about quote the entire movie, so I'm gonna stop now, except:

"My hands are dirty."
"My hands are dirty too. What are you afraid of?"

the dialog is so much better in this movie than either Star Wars or ROTJ!

astroids line has the bonus of featuring the hologram of the one captain flickering out as he dies

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087597/quotes

Centauri: Alex, I want you to know that it was for the greatest good that I brought you back. Of course... it never hurts to be rich.
[dies]

One thing I occasionally have to remember about SW is that great stories are still told with it, you just can't have Lucas involved. At all, preferably.

Three stand out bits of narrative for me are the two KotOR games, and Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars series. Shit, with the latter, you even have some folks taking characters & concepts & plot bits from what one could say is the nadir of the film series and making something compelling and worthwhile with them.

I don't have much to say about the novels or the comics, b/c other than Tim Zahn's initial trilogy in the early 90s, I haven't read any of them, with the exception of the "zombies on an abandoned star destroyer" of _Death Troopers_. That had its moments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pywDWwgmkjY

heh

loooollll

hahahahahhah

Have you guys seen the Red Letter Media 70 minute long Phantom Menace review? Even more Star Lols..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI

I remember going to see star wars at the Odeon on Oxford street (Manchester) when it was released, I was upset at the strangling of rebel scum man by Darth at the beginning being so young an all, but was so absolutely engrossed by it all i forgot and just wanted to be a part of it. Afterwards, we went into Debenhams, I saw a lightsabre and completely freaked out and demanded one, my parents, not having much money said we'd spent up on the cinema and I'd have to wait. This was not acceptable to a me, so i decided to throw a massive tantrum and roll about the floor crying demanding just one lightsabre. I didn't get one, i just got picked up and took home.

i guess i'm saying, the "original" star wars classic.

oh and my behaviour as a child, dud. sorry parents for embarrassing you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmTpOQrqoO0

Mock trailer for Empire Strikes Back as a 50s b-movie. Cleverly done.

That is really great.

BEAUTIFUL.

Brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrqx_rDHMpY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIbJoF9otUI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CVYOCMpJRY

The introduction to the Millenium Falcon is a pan-right that finishes its move upwards, a reverent use of camera angles. The Falcon, as the central embodiment of spirit (if Star Wars has a mytho-religious form it is this spacecraft), is framed uniquely throughout the film inside a shape 2.33:1, the projection ratio of the Panavision system. In its reverse we see both Ben and Luke pass through these background frames as if they are entering a new portal, a different state of the film. The Troopers that arrive to arrest the heroes are likewise framed within these frames (he even creates deeper, smaller frames behind them in the same ratio) they seem to shoot at the ship from a subtly crafted film-within-a-film. The Falcon's name suggests it is older than its owner and organic passengers, and its shape is unique: a saucer (a throwback to the 50's UFO cycles) with a front fork (resembling wings swept forwards) and a cockpit placed bilaterally right, the cone/tube form that began the film with Artoo and has since extruded endlessly (escape pod, restraining bolt, sabre etc.), now it combines with the saucer to form what might be labeled eternal. Lucas suggests by combining forms properly one can make a ship (shape) that has an essence, it is by no means beautiful but it is eternal. Perhaps impossible to destroy. The Empire Strikes Back might be subtitled The Search for the Millenium Falcon. The Falcon is the only ship in the Star Wars canon that is named after a being that flies.

http://www.mstrmnd.com/log/1332

Really wish he had paid a little more attention to formatting/placement of the images with the txt as he did in the Shining one. It makes this a much more difficult read! Still, quite worth the effort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMeSw00n3Ac
This is amazing

Two minutes to render a simple wireframe construction for a frame of film . . . yikes. Amazing what this dude was able to do given those kinds of limitations.

So cool to watch him draw piece-by-piece the Death Star trench!

A work of art, on the level of the Whitney family.

That vid reiterates that the design of the original trilogy is pretty much flawless down to the smallest detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jz0G-RrDs

2011 Blu-Ray box set will have oh yes! deleted scenes.
Here's the *new intro* to Jedi!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdJ0E7HbTKc

saw the beginning of rotj last night, this is a well-deleted scene

special edition fucks up jabba's deal the worst i think, totally different vibe + terrible

lol @ "Luuuke...Luuuke". you can certainly see why it was deleted but i appreciate why there was all that fanboy shrieking at the showing all the same.
odds on this bit will be going back in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POD8-_VVtf8

"you should wear girls clothes all the time" lol

Woah that lightsaber scene is badass!

Hope they include those ANH scenes where Luke is hanging out w his asshole friends.

LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE
LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE
LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE

LUUUUUUUUUUUUKE (YEAAAAAAAAAAH!)

i didn't get why people cheered when they cut to luke

was it cause hey luke is on the screen?

sup

http://media.miaminewtimes.com/elena-kagan-helped-2-live-crew-and-blacks-so-confirm-her-already.5024949.1.jpg

http://media.miaminewtimes.com/elena-kagan-helped-2-live-crew-and-blacks-so-confirm-her-already.5024949.1.jpg

er.. nevermind

get your iron game up, 'rap'

eh i like the mystery/wtf of the droids trying to just roll up on jabba out of nowhere, even though it's just shades of ep.4

mm i was thinking that. although luke's sudden mystical bullshit when he first meets Jabba is hillarious, so this bit maybe kinda takes the silly edge off it.

BluRay box Special Bonus Feature: Holiday Special 1978 amirite?

next they should ship a condensed version of all six movies that comes in at under a half hour total for those ppl who havent seen any of them yet but still are curious enough to want to get a sense of why theyre a big deal without actually having to watch any of them in full

luuuuuuuuuuuuuke
luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuke
luuuuuuuuuuuuuuke

i feel a meme coming on.

a hard memes gonna fall

No deleted scenes of Jabba taking a shit on Salacious Crumb.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/14/Salacious_Crumb_%28DB%29.jpg

Can't top

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_C7Ojr4OIXWQ/SE54WzqGVlI/AAAAAAAAAPk/gtklyW5E5U8/s400/swb251lt.jpg

i didn't get why people cheered when they cut to luke

was it cause hey luke is on the screen?

― zorn_bond.mp3, Sunday, August 15, 2010 4:19 PM (2 hours ago)

My guess it was the green lightsaber (he lost the blue one Obi gave him after the Vader fight in ESB). It looked like he was just finishing building it?

The scene looked like he was giving his bionic dick a handjob.

~o u wish~

I thought the scene was supposed to play on the resemblance between Luke and Palpatine to foreshadow the eventual fight </star wars nerd>

I can see that now that you mention it, but that requires a level of reading that seems to go beyond the immediate fanboy cheering?

I dunno. Interesting point, though. Corey's point about the green saber is a good one!

I thought the scene was supposed to play on the resemblance between Luke and Palpatine

I thought it was Palapatine at first.

yeah i definitely had a moment of "why is palpatine messing with vader's saber"

well you know..this film is all about whether or not luke will succumb to the dark syde or will he triumph 4 the light....so it's a very prophetic scene...props to george!!

...for ending the series.

I think you pretty much would have had to have grown up in the Home Video Era, when you had the opportunity to watch the original trilogy over and over, and then into the expanded universe of the video games and books to get excited about something like this.

I did!

That said, I visited my parents last night and we watched a chunk of ROTJ playing on one of the cable channels. My dad kept making okay-to-pretty-good Obi Wan imitations throughout (e.g. during the Jabba-Luke scene).

At some point, I switched from thinking about SW like once a week to thinking about _Dune_. This might be an improvement.

When I was 11 my friend and I made two movies that took place chronologically after ROTJ, replete with fireworks blowing up things built of cardboard, newspaper and spray-painted duct tape. I wish I still had the VHSs.

I wish I could see that annoying youtube guy talk for 97 minutes about why your movies sucked.

Just kidding, I wish I could see those movies! I love movies made by kids.

We also made an alien movie (The Invasion ¬___¬), a volcano movie (Mount Oriole) a Jurassic Park ripoff (Pleisiosaur and a war movie (Friend or Foe). They were awesome.

I won't be buying any Special Edition nonsense (might rent it though).

loooooooool i would pay money to see pleisiosaur

basically this cut scenes are mad gay

I just want all the cut stuff from ESB.

And this doesn't cut it: http://www.starwarsholidayspecial.com/swcs/

yeah, i'd love to see deleted scenes from the original trilogy, even though the prequels destroyed most of my love for the star wars series.

i think fans go nuts for these deleted scenes because they seem like a form of magic - they should be impossible, like enhancing the photo in bladerunner. how can you get new, unseen stuff from something that was done and dusted so long ago? it's like alchemy - maybe if we find a secret book and say the right incantations we can get harrison ford in his 20s to do a whole nother movie again, all about han solo this time or whatever

(also why "star wars universe" novels are so popular i guess - and the neat thing about them is that harrison ford can be in his 20s forever)

(i just suddenly imagined the horrifying prospect of "thx-1138" universe novels)

yeah, totally. also, since i grew up with these movies and watched them endlessly on vhs as a kid, i know them backwards... deleted scenes like these are like revisiting the hom eyou grew up in and discovering a room you never knew was there.

I grew up on the VHSes too, in fact I read the novelizations before I saw the movies... I remember the special editions being released in theaters, also repeatedly rewatching Jedi cause that was the most mentally satisfying to a ten year old.

the han solo adventures (written in the early 80s) are the only star wars books that feel like the original trilogy.

Harrison Ford was never in his 20s! EVER!

It would be a bad world where I'd normalised myself to LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE, but I appreciate that if my love for this whole enterprise hadn't been killed by the prequels it would've been hella neat to see Luke building his lightsaber.

the "luuuuuuuke" thing doesn't seem any cheesier to me than like 5000 other things in star wars.

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/080516/Harrison-Ford/Conversation_l.jpg

maybe?

http://www.asitecalledfred.com/elsewhere/images/2003/oct3/ford.jpg

(also why "star wars universe" novels are so popular i guess - and the neat thing about them is that harrison ford can be in his 20s forever)

Just to get all nerdier than thou, Han and Leia in the "Star Wars universe" novels are now GRANDPARENTS. Although in an impressively dark turn, the writers killed off 2 of their 3 children.

wasn't Chewie killed too? A piece of Death Star debris landed on his head?

every time i see this thread title, I get the star wars theme stuck in my head:

d-d-d-duuuuuuud duuuuuud dud-dud-duuuuuud duuuuuud
dud duuuuuuuud dud dud dud dud dud dud duuuuuuuuuuud!

isn't that ET?

Even better, Alfred: A fucking MOON landed on him, sucked down to a planet's surface by some secret gravity weapon.

same shit different dud xpost

Tracer is that still from The Conversation?

BTW, Jon Stewart conducted a live interview w/Lucas at the just-concluded Star Wars Celebration, and Hasbro made him an action figure:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qlq9dkr6Gik/TGj4Yo93KPI/AAAAAAAAP24/ozIrNOML4q0/s1600/STEWART-TROOPER-HASBRO.jpg

corey indeed it is!

They should make Colbert Palpatine.

By this logic would the Fox News team be the Rebels?

I have been dying all evening. This is just absolutely goddamn brilliant:

http://www.starwarsuncut.com/

Just started watching this after Ned posted on Twitter. It's demented, insane, and awesomely brilliant. MIND = BLOWN

RE: Cut scenes.

Also hopefully Lucas hasn't seen fit to insert tons of digital shit flying everywhere in the backgrounds of these cut scenes, just clean them up and make them look nice and remastered...

xpost -- That's a perfect summary!

I like how you can pretty well divide most of the creators of the scenes into subgroups -- parents with young kids who may or may not be fans, pet owners, pre-teen/teen geek bro clubs, animators fleshing out demo reels, college stoners and/or anime club members, random weirdos. And more besides!

I watched that for about 5 minutes until it became clear you have to've fully memorized the film to love it.

btw the original trilogy was on basic cable a few weekends ago and I couldn't take more than 30 seconds of Mark Hamill's screeching.

"Congratulations on pulling off an amazing show. Don't tell anyone ... but when 'Star Wars' first came out, I didn't know where it was going either. The trick is to pretend you've planned the whole thing out in advance. Throw in some father issues and references to other stories -- let's call them homages -- and you've got a series."

George Lucas' letter to Lost showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2010/05/lost-gets-a-letter-from-george-lucas.html

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kyj548G5kw1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg

Irvin Kershner RIP :(

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=29588

aw no. truly he belongs with them among the clouds...

RIP Grant McCune, chief modelmaker on the original film and co-winner of the Best Visual Effects award with John Dykstra:

http://www.deadline.com/2010/12/r-i-p-grant-mccune/

(Should say, Best Visual Effects Oscar)

;_;

:-(

So I received the original trilogy again for Christmas, which would now make the fifth version of those films I've owned, but I'm thrilled because the bonus disc is the ORIGINAL THEATRICAL VERSIONS without all of Lucas's crapping up. Previously the only way to watch those versions, for me, was to dig out a VCR somewhere. Thrilled to have those on DVD now.

I recently had the experience of watching Empire with my 28 year old friend who had never seen it before. He'd only watched Star Wars for the first time a few days previously. He was mildly enthusiastic, I'd say he rated it about 6/10 by his reaction. He thought there was too much white plastic in it though.

it helps to have the whole world
excited about it all at once

Jon, I'm assuming you've got the same recent DVD reissue that I bought last year (ie. special editions + originals). I was super pleased too, until I played them and realised that Lucas hates fans of the original versions so much that they are not in anamorphic widescreen, so assuming you've got a widescreen TV (ie. like 90% of people these days) they will look shite. His spite truly knows no bounds.

Ugh, seriously? Damn it. Yeah, that sounds like exactly the ones I got. Now I'm understanding why I hadn't heard about these before now.

I was just about to post the same thing abt those theatrical versions. It's beyond words, really.

God I hate George Lucas so much.

hopefully when these come out on blu ray they will be done right, but I doubt it

I have those jon. They do look like crap but I still think they're worth it. Supposedly they were ripped directly from a 90s laserdisc release which is the reason for the poor quality

It's enough to bring one to tears. HOWEVER, if your dvd player has a zoom function (ideally incremental zoom) you may be able to defeat their cuntery:

1. Go to display settings and set the players output to "16:9 original" rather than "16:9 widescreen" (or whatever yr players setting for this is).

2. Play the disc. The film will be in a box in the middle of screen, but with careful use of the incremental zoom you can restore it to its correct 2.35:1 glory.

It's far from ideal, and means you'll have to reset the players output settings once you're done, but you can at least watch the films.

Little pro tip for Christmas there.

San Te - yeah, def look like a LD transfer, the quality is much poorer than the remastered Special Eds, which (shonky fx and meddling aside) look absolutely superb.

Thanks Bill, I'll try just that!

These original ones will never see the Blu-Ray transfer they deserve. I mean, its 2010 and we only recently got (really, really shitty) DVD transfers! Besides, it'll be like 2018 before he gets off his ass with Blu-Ray versions of any of the SW films because he has to fuck them all up with 3D first.

this thread always gets so depressing so quickly. CURSE YOU LUCAS

I'd forgotten about the vaunted 3D retrofit for them, what a disgrace.

In my wildest fantasies, Criterion would strike a deal with Lucas to reissue the theatrical originals on blu-ray with the transfers and extras they deserve, like they did with THX 1138. Then he could sell his ever more bastardised versions however he wanted and Criterion would get the biggest selling discs in their history. But it can never happen.

Oh that would be awesome if it could happen.

If he had a shred of humility or regard for the fans of the orginal films then it could be done. After all, Lucasfilm oversaw the restoration of THX 1138 that Criterion used for the blu and clearly resources are not an issue. I just don't think that GL has it in him to do something which is not *entirely* on his own terms, or is being driven by an aesthetic agenda other than his own.

maybe I didn't have the Criterion edition, but the THX113 DVD I watched recently had a bunch of extra CGI garbage in it

and like really painfully unnecessary, clumsy, and poorly integrated CGI ("what this scene needs is a fancy train going by in the background! also cars in the sky!")

""what this scene needs is a fancy train going by in the background!"

i read somewhere THX was shot in the BART tunnels...

Yeah I thought that too. But I haven't seen the Criterion so I can't speak to the CGI. I think the last time I watched THX was on an old vhs copy

Oh god you are right Shakey Mo, of course. The Crit blu of THX is Lucas's 2004 Director's Cut, so it *does* have gussied up backgrounds etc. I didn't buy it and hadn't seen the original for aeons so wasn't even aware. HART = BRAKED.

it wasn't already?

Damn that's just depressing as all hell.

wtf is wrong with him.

I raved to my dad abt the bar full o'aliens and the mutant jazz, shortly after SW came out — to prove to him that it was the BEST FILM EVER MADE (as I slightly inexplicably tht: I RAN all the way home after first saw it, so hyped wuz I, abt two-three miles — I had not, admittedly, seen many films at that age). My dad demurred: and sed (re bar-of-aliens and jazz), "This is a very old idea."

But is he right or was he on crack? I can think of no occurrence of EITHER idea in SF prior to this, and these days I sometimes KNOW WHAT I'M'TALKING ABOUT!!

― mark s, Tuesday, 19 June 2001

xp for jon

It's like GL has now climbed into my peaceful slumbers; I'm there in the boardroom as Criterion and GL hash out the deal for the original Star Wars theatrical cuts to be reissued, it's all looking good, the HD masters have been struck and all that remains is for the production process to begin. At this point GL brings out a Tec-9 and offs the entire Criterion board. Then he methodically works from office to office for the rest of the staff. Then he triggers a remote detonation of their production facility. Finally, he takes the masters into the car park and destroys them with an airhammer. All this, captured on hi-def video and released by Lucasfilm in covers proclaiming "On blu-ray at last, the original theatrical cuts".

The Interior Life of George Lucas: A Speculative History

I mean, does he seriously hate the world? Is this like an "I'll show them" fuck you that he just can't let go of? WTF did we ever do to him except buy every damn toy and dvd/vhs rerelease he ever put out.

Makes me wish I'd been more discerning as a child and just passed his damn trilogy by altogether.

Man, the new version of Mos Eisley in the first movie... so depressing. Gotta have something beeping, farting or growling in every frame. Also it's a booming metropolis instead of a shithole space truckstop.

Specially since the CGI in that scene looks seriously dated now, in a way that rubber alien costumes never will.

Nearly bought the DVD reissue with original versions on yesterday; glad now I didn't. What an insufferable cunt George Lucas is.

Red Letter Media dudes just put up their Episode III review, tore it to shreds as usual.

yessssssssssssssssss! now that is the kind of thing i needed to wile away the midday while doing laundry!

Aha, excellent.

highlight is part 3 where he dissects how and why lucas' direction is so boring

On a related note, my nephew is show here sporting the christmas gift his drunk loudmouth geek uncle sent to him.

You can kinda see the inflatable jetpack, too.

shown here, rather

how much weird serial killer shit is in the ep3 one? would prefer to wade through as little of that garbage as possible

through part 1 it's pretty minimal.

Red Letter Media dudes just put up their Episode III review, tore it to shreds as usual.

yes yes yes YES! THX!

"Sitting on a couch. Sitting on a couch. Sitting on a couch...."

Kinda thought they'd start with the one that people might actually want to see again in 3D:

Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox announced today that the 3D theatrical launch of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace now has an official release date -- February 10, 2012! Set against the thrilling and exotic backdrop of a "galaxy far, far away," Star Wars is perfectly suited to the immersive 3D theatrical experience, and Episode I delivers some of the Saga's most stunning and spectacular sequences -- from the Naboo invasion to the Tatooine Podraces to the climactic lightsaber battle between Darth Maul and the Jedi.

Supervised by Industrial Light & Magic, the meticulous conversion is being done with utmost respect for the source material, and with a keen eye for both technological considerations and artistic intentions.

I might actually consider paying to see this if the 3D is done as well as it was in Avatar tbh.

I'm not sure how well you can "go back" and add that to existing films though, without it looking like shit.

would someone please by Lucas a RealDoll so he won't have enough excess energy to keep doing this

if you buy lucas a realdoll he will digitally replace carrie fisher with it.

if only someone would drive a spike through George Lucas's skulll

let it be said that Shakey shot first

if only someone would drive a spike through George Lucas's skulll

last time that happened, we got the meadow picnic in Pt II, so I do not advocate this

George Lucas: the Phineas Gage of cinema

I only like his pre-trepanation films

these are finally out on blu ray this year and they aren't including the fucking original versions again. ridiculous!

Happy Star Wars Day!

Is it really? Must dig my Jedi robes out of the wardrobe

http://maythe4th.starwars.com

Yep, May the fourth be with you. Geddit?

*looks around, realises what she's done, runs away shamed faced*

LOL @ that After Effects'd promo. Also if you are a Star Wars fan you can view pretty much all the vintage Making Of specials you could ever want on youtube....

mmmmmmmmmm delicious
http://www.dvdtown.com/news/all-you-ever-need-to-know-and-more-about-star-wars-on-blu-ray/8679

never forget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C9JX6VRjn0&feature=player_embedded

jar jar is such an ill-conceived character that if he was real i would kind of feel sorry for him

If?

I BELIEVE

JAR JAR/PALIN 2012

now I am tempted to run Palin speeches through the Jar-Jar Binks translator

they'd make more sense probably

I 100% support this Palin-to-Gungan translation project.

BTW blu-ray box set cover art is kinda uhhhhhhhhh, like, is this some Tatooine version of "Footprints?"

http://www.blu-raydefinition.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/starwarscompletesaga-300x338.jpg

Also, Lucasfilm, Y U NO PROVIDE DIGITAL COPIES FOR IPAD?????

If?

― Captain Hyrax (Phil D.), Wednesday, May 4, 2011 7:55 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

Hahaha, I thought you were Lorax for a sec and I thought "of course"

yeah no digital copies and no copies of the original non-special editions makes this annoying, but I will still buy it. been watching recorded hi def versions off cable for a while now of the first three and it would be nice to not have to skip through commercials every ten minutes.

would love to watch all that extra material, kill me now

yeah and DVD quality versions of the original 'Making Of' docs from 77, 80 and 83, kill me now also i guess!

this will make fans of *just* the original trilogy (ie 95% of us)'s flesh creep a bit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEZa3dekjxs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kJkhEcQ44k&feature=player_embedded

i rewatched the un-messed-with empire the other day. one of the great romcoms.

Actually I'm disappointed that the movies won't have an isolated-score audio option. They claimed for the DVD releases that there wasn't sufficient disc space, but that shouldn't be the issue here. Lucas always claims he thinks of these as silent films plus Williams's scores - so let us watch them that way!

actually you can do this yourself with the right home theater setup

(we discovered this after watching a good 1/3 of "Planet Terror" with our receiver on a setting that stripped out all of the dialogue, which we thought was intentional due to the nature of the movie for waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07IhWD2Lr2A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRLjxjS72Gg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRLjxjS72Gg

OMG so much better than the prequels

INTERNET HAS BROUGHT STAR WARS BACK FROM THE DEAD

that trombone thing = honest real life LOLZ

http://www.izismile.com/img/img3/20100831/640/star_wars_photos_640_26.jpg

http://www.izismile.com/img/img3/20100831/640/star_wars_photos_640_27.jpg

http://www.izismile.com/img/img3/20100831/640/star_wars_photos_640_90.jpg

http://izismile.com/2010/08/31/star_wars_photos_that_are_seldom_seen_113_pics.html

Is Carrie Fisher brandishing a can of Stella Artois in the 2nd picture?

Princess Leia toasting the victory over the Empire with a can of Stella is something that should have been in the movie, imo.

love this one:

http://www.izismile.com/img/img3/20100831/640/star_wars_photos_640_10.jpg

LOL Star Wars Holiday Special

http://www.izismile.com/img/img3/20100831/640/star_wars_photos_640_103.jpg

decided to rewatch both trilogies in their wholes and one thing that's totally unexpected with the millenial star wars is how much *less* ADD than the original sequels. i'm near infuriated with how little the cinematographers want to just let a shot simmer - it seems everything is being cut, everything is tightened, everything needs to progress now now now.

key scene being the fact that i seem to have entirely forgotten the fact that luke's parents even died - i had all along thought he joined obi-wan on an impulse to get off the farm and finally had a (free) venue for doing so, as well as circumstances following the cantina scene that were basically "go with them or get arrested/shot".

so when the scene actually arrives in which luke's farm is razed, i was both surprised that this even had happened in the story and disappointed the shot literally lasts for about 10 seconds. it does so little to make the audience care - it's just a plot-point, accentuated by the fact that seriously every scene is progressed by the "wash over" lucas borrowed from kurosawa. i mean there's so much missed opportunity with the cinematography that i'm having a hard time recollecting any real iconic *shots* aside from the opening scene of new hope. it grows even nuttier when this iconic shot:
http://kharminspage.com/pics/sw5vader.jpg
literally isn't even part of the movie. rewatch ESB if you think i'm fibbing.

the newer trilogy at least takes some amount of care into establishing a care for cinematography. even that dreaded scene with anakin and portman in the grasses makes due with near terrence malick like employment of swaying grasses, as well as some scenes like vader's becoming being established perfectly. you don't see this so much in the original trilogy, where everything seems to be seemingly only functional.

I know I could probably research this elsewhere, but hopefully someone here can help me out more quickly.

What's the easiest way to see the original 3 in their original state without the new crap they added? Is there a certain DVD I need to buy? Or do I have to go back to VHS to find an unsullied version?

I want to make my daughter watch these but I've been delaying because it seemed like the whole versioning issue was too much of a hassle to deal with. I don't want to just Netflix it and get some horrible crap.

jeez, i dunno, kelpo. there are, imo, tons of iconic images in star wars. for instance the long shot of luke looking out across the desert before he leaves tatooine. it has a depth of sentimental pathos that the 2nd trilogy shoots for occasionally but never really achieves.

http://heavyarmor.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/sunset-luke.jpg

and obi-wan's death, and the framing of han's conversation w greedo, and the death star itself, lots of such stuff. not sure that a more measured, less strictly functional pace would = more memorable imagery.

i like this pick for the celtics - could back rondo up or could develop into a decent 2 if he works on his defense - crazy wingspan on him

lol wrong thread

I think it's kind of unfair to judge Star Wars by looking for iconic images, since our memories of it are largely shaped by all of this extra-cinematic stuff: the toys, the advertising art, TV shows, games, etc. So we do this kind of "here's looking at you kid" thing in our memory but then of course if you go back and judge the movie by those standards it's not going to measure up.

lol wrong thread

There's always room for more utility data.

the thing with said "iconic" shots is that they gain such titles out of context and not care. it makes me sweat how much better scenes could be with just a little more simmer and less sha-zam. i salivate for a close-up of vaders face, his mask breathing into the audiences faces, his cold reflective gaze admitting little truth about him. or a shot of his cape as it smooths over faces of dead and fallen rebel soldiers. or having the cinematographer crouch a little whenever filming him to accentuate his height, his presence. it just seems like so much of the movie was filmed 6ft up and 4ft away - like you're an awkward person standing in the room, saying nothing but observing everything. but maybe there's advantage in this?

but contenderizer, i agree with what you've said regarding the 2 suns shot - it's beautiful. but at the same, it feels to me like the only time something like that even occurred... it's given special treatment, with an increase in score volume. but it's that i'm more focused on the fact that the moments in between are given such little concern aside from merely presenting the audience with the scenario.

i'm ditching the word "iconic" - i'm soon realized i'm heading into bad territory with that one.

wk, my understanding is that the OG trilogy in unsullied form only exists on VHS. There are currently some extensive and highly-polished fan edits out there, though (*coughmyspleencough*), if you're willing to go the bootleg route.

In terms of story or cultural impact, Star Wars on the whole has had less impact on me than, like, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Which is to say: not much since my age went double digits. The phenomenon, though, is pretty fascinating on the level being discussed here. Largely fascinating insofar as the cultural impact and iconography seem to have been largely fabricated outside the confines of the films themselves. I mean, it's pretty clear that Lucas values refinement of an image over maintaining the integrity of a cultural artifact, and I think it's interesting to consider what that's all about (beyond "Lucas = hack LULZ").

even that dreaded scene with anakin and portman in the grasses makes due with near terrence malick like employment of swaying grasses,

what the

it makes me sweat how much better scenes could be with just a little more simmer and less sha-zam. i salivate for a close-up of vaders face, his mask breathing into the audiences faces, his cold reflective gaze admitting little truth about him. or a shot of his cape as it smooths over faces of dead and fallen rebel soldiers. or having the cinematographer crouch a little whenever filming him to accentuate his height, his presence. it just seems like so much of the movie was filmed 6ft up and 4ft away - like you're an awkward person standing in the room, saying nothing but observing everything. but maybe there's advantage in this?

OTM and a good question. maybe there is an advantage of a sort, in that the movie has a weird, dry, mechanical quality that fixes it in time. though it heralded the end of arty/auteurist new hollywood and the emergence of the producer-driven teen blockbuster era, it seems very much a product of the 70s. it's nerdy, clunky and idealistic in a way that's very familiar to me as a product of late 70s sci-fi culture. the dreams of the era were vast, but unpolished.

i remember loving the fact that it never took time to establish its world, that it simply dropped you in and whipped you from place to place, character to character and event to event as though you were already familiar with the larger map of its universe. the fact that you weren't gave it this dizzying, headlong, immersive rush, especially on the first viewing. everything was so detailed and the implication of scale never quit. whatever you were looking at, you were always certain that there was more off camera, and that it would be fascinating, too, if only you could see it.

Yeah my mom bought me all three original trilogy DVDs because they promised the "original theatrical versions" on the bonus disc. And they were there, if you like watching the worst quality video EVER. I mean, these honestly looked like third generation dubbed VHS versions, they took up maybe 1/4th of the center of my HD screen. So so worthless.

i remember loving the fact that it never took time to establish its world, that it simply dropped you in and whipped you from place to place, character to character and event to event as though you were already familiar with the larger map of its universe. the fact that you weren't gave it this dizzying, headlong, immersive rush, especially on the first viewing. everything was so detailed and the implication of scale never quit. whatever you were looking at, you were always certain that there was more off camera, and that it would be fascinating, too, if only you could see it.

this for me is like a golden rule of sci-fi/fantasy in general, prose as well as film: don't tell me anything about the universe, just give me context clues.

i salivate for a close-up of vaders face, his mask breathing into the audiences faces, his cold reflective gaze admitting little truth about him.

there's a shot like this after han's lowered into the carbonite. said gaze is juxtaposed w/ leia watching in agony.

wk, my understanding is that the OG trilogy in unsullied form only exists on VHS

that sucks. guess I'll have to look around and see what I can find online.

this site has a good series of articles detailing all of the changes. no way will I ever watch CG Jabba

http://www.dvdactive.com/editorial/articles/star-wars-the-changes-part-one.html

on certain websites you can find torrents of rips of the original trilogy's laserdiscs unsullied by the CG foolishness. they're pretty pristine quality as well.

Yeah - LD rips are the way to go.

Wow, great link wk. It's this change - when Luke decides to jump into the depths following his confrontation with Vader on Cloud City - that just killed me. I mean I lol'd.

http://www.dvdactive.com/misc/chris/sounds/articles/starwars/tesb/screamold.mp3 (original)
http://www.dvdactive.com/misc/chris/sounds/articles/starwars/tesb/screamnew.mp3 (2004 changed, thankfully edited out in the latest DVD releases out of realization of the sheer insanity it took to think it necessary in the first place)

^article drives home the tragedy that *some* of the smaller changes aren't terrible and would have been pefectly acceptable if lucas had been willing to also preserve the original versions.

maybe it's because i hate the new films so much, but replacing sebastian shaw with hayden christensen in the last scene of 'jedi' stands out to me as the single worst change. i mean, i'm not even that big a star wars fan but that's just wrong on so many levels.

totally.

this for me is like a golden rule of sci-fi/fantasy in general, prose as well as film: don't tell me anything about the universe, just give me context clues.

so OTM. I hate exposition.

why doesn't Yoda ever show his fuckin feet

A few weeks ago a friend of mine who had never seen Star Wars wanted to get a copy of the VHS tapes and was looking on ebay or something. I said don't even bother, and the only reason i wouldn't advise just going to a thrift store and buying all three for $5 is that at any given time any house in America probably has at least one copy of the OG trilogy on VHS. I went into the shared living room of my house and found two copies of every movie.

Who was this and Hello!
http://www.izismile.com/img/img3/20100831/640/star_wars_photos_640_43.jpg

Aren't/weren't the originals available as bonus discs to the special edition DVDs? The transfers came straight from laser disc, okay, so the quality wasn't all that; but the movies were exactly as the ones that initially aired in the theaters, no?

That lady is part of the ensemble around Biggs Darklighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aziOgYTGNmU

not_goodwin, that's actress and onetime Prince Andrew girlfriend Koo Stark, who appeared in some deleted scenes on Tatooine in the beginning of the movie. Her scenes made it into the novelization, comics and radio drama, but were left on the cutting room floor.

xp

I'm pretty sure he released the original unaltered trilogy as bonus discs to some special edition dvds. So they are in fact on dvd, but I'm not sure which of the many dvd releases they actually are.

Yeah, I did a little searching last night. Some of the special edition DVDs have an extra disc with the original cuts, but they're apparently an old, non-anamorphic transfer. But they're only way you can get the originals on DVD.

these I guess...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EN71DG/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Episode-IV-Widescreen/dp/B000FQJAIW/ref=pd_cp_d_2

yes someone said above they look terrible; I haven't seen them because of that. but they apparently look like they are from fourth generaton vhs. it's weird that Lucas would put something out that looks so shitty when he's so controlling of everything; maybe he was just trying to make the SEs look great by comparison.

solo artist:

http://www.dangerousminds.net/images/uploads/afiles/soloatist1hhgjfhj_thumb.jpg

it's weird that Lucas would put something out that looks so shitty when he's so controlling of everything

he deliberately put out a shitty product because he hates it

Rambled about this upthread a bit, but I think he also did it as a "fuck you" to the vocal section of fans who prefer the original cuts: after a few years of internet griping about their unavailability he deigns to include them on another cash-gouging DVD reissue, in crummy quality, and these same fans then have the temerity to complain about it! "You asked for it, I gave it to you and you're still not happy? There's no pleasing some people!" is pretty much the extent of it.

On one level I almost admire his bloody-minded dismissal of anyone's opinion but his own, but on another he makes me physically sick.

With all that said, the dvd transfers are not that bad, certainly watchable if you defeat the non-anomorphic idiocy, and a sight better than the previous VHS editions. But when you see how good they gussied up the special eds it's clear that the originals were deliberately neglected.

It's hard for me to understand how this guy who was one of the most vibrant, innovative directors of the '70s hasn't even come up with one significant new property in the last thirty years. What happened to him? I mean, at least Coppola will occasionally make a mediocre movie now and then. Lucas isn't doing anything other than milking his old properties for more cash. Why? Does he just not like movies at all?

no, he doesn't

the most vibrant, innovative directors of the '70s

not really sure making a prototype for dazed and confused and then having his corny space opera rescued by more competent professionals really qualifies him for this title

although i've never seen THX

It's hard for me to understand how this guy who was one of the most vibrant, innovative directors of the '70s

Irvin Kershner, yes.

Rather amazing that the series' only claim to greatness -- the only reason it has any resonance -- rests on one movie (The Empire Strikes Back) directed by someone not its creator.

That's a load of bullshit but whatever.

Alfred totally OTM imho

THX 113 is okay - promising at first, mind-numbingly stupid by the end

That's a load of bullshit but whatever.

The first Star Wars is fun, Return of the Jedi is as anonymous and terrible as any Bond film released in that era. What else remains?

Willow!

The Battle for Endor is so much better than ROTJ, no joke.

Howard the Duck!

i love the throne room stuff in RotJ. that's as good as comic book movies get for me.

JUST ONCE
LET ME LOOK AT YOU
WITH
MY OWN
EYES

but you'll die

NOTHING
CAN STOP THAT NOW

but... for some reason you look different than I remember you

I was forever spoiled by reading the novelisation of ROTJ a month before the film opened. The details about Palpatine, small biographies of members of Jabba's court, the drawn-out evolution of Vader's feelings for Luke -- all in there and all missing in the movie, which left the sensation and teasers for action figures.

*lovable alien scampers by*

THX is not a great movie, but there is a lot of wildly innovative shit in it. But American Graffiti is really the movie that makes me the most curious. He made this deeply personal film (as far as I can tell), and then he went on to never make anything like that again. Why not?

If you don't like A New Hope but do like Empire, you are a savage. Obviously Empire is better but come on.

oh man alfred do you want me to mail you my copy of the short story collection TALES FROM JABBA'S PALACE

since you're apparently a giant nerd

I forgot about Willow, but ... why isn't he making more movies like Willow?

At the very least it was better than any of the prequels.

SW dominated my world in 1980-1983, but mostly because the long wait between the movies meant I constructed my own hierarchies and mythologies with the action figures I was just beginning to buy and appreciate.

i love the throne room stuff in RotJ. that's as good as comic book movies get for me.

Everything in Jedi that doesn't involve Endor is great if you ask me.

I'm totally with Pauline Kael: when Han's released from carbon freeze, the way Marquand paces and stages it it's like he was locked accidentally in the garage.

Lando isn't given fuck all to do except shout at a Cheech Marin co-pilot

Han and Leia have zero chemistry; the way they're directed it's like they just met.

i'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere in this thread already but there's this great 300-page PDF called the secret history of star wars that everyone who's already wasted any of their life thinking about star wars should read -- really detailed and scrupulously sourced making-of document whose author is as reverential to The Text and appreciative of lucas' imagination as the next star wars fan but still makes him out to be a pathologically lying android from whom the first two movies were repeatedly rescued. i read the whole thing in one long hooky play.

^^^ pretty great

i love mcdiarmid's over-the-top Evil Old Man croak so much, especially his plosives. now you will witness the FIRE-POWAH of this FULLY AHRMED and OP-AH-RATIONAL BATTLE STATION.

didn't he aim for a spittoon with the last line?

he was like a Democratic senator from Georgia of the 1850's.

all the awkward lucas verbiage he has to cram into his sadistic zings: OH, I'M AFRAID THE SHIELD GENERATOR WILL BE QUITE OPERATIONAL WHEN YOUR FRIENDS ARRIVE

^^^ best intonation.

i try it in the shower sometimes

about your lightsaber?

i see you have constructed a new one

i like the first scene too. "we shall double our efforts!"

see, the Death Star commander's nameis Jerjerrod, which you wouldn't know unless you read the novelisation, and he's as cool a hack as Piett.

is it getting hot in here or is it just me

Piett Jerjerrod

hmmm

he deliberately put out a shitty product because he hates it

― winoa ryder sexes creatures of the night (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, June 27, 2011 2:29 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

bill a's already said it, but i don't think lucas hates the original films anywhere near so much as he hates the fans who won't accept the shitty product he's decided to "improve" them into.

i did actually know jerjerrod's name because it was mentioned in some EXPANDED UNIVERSE novel or something so don't step to me

no I think he genuinely hates the original product. He does not understand how anyone could prefer them to his new, improved version.

xp

I mean he hates it so much he completely butchered it and refused to allow its distribution, spent years agonizing over whether the technology was good enough to "fix" it etc. dude HATES it

"grand moff tarkin" is still my favorite though. i thought anthony lane's attack on lucas' phonetic sense was totally unfair. multixp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty2q-VusiH0&feature=related

Rather amazing that the series' only claim to greatness -- the only reason it has any resonance -- rests on one movie (The Empire Strikes Back) directed by someone not its creator.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 27, 2011 4:15 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, but no. the original ("episode IV", lol) is a far greater and more resonant film than you're giving it credit for. i suspect that if lucas had died immediately after making it, the phrase "star wars" would still loom large in the american pop imagination. empire upped the ante in a number of ways, is arguably a better film overall, but star wars was match, fuse and bomb all in one.

yeah i mean "aesthetic greatness" blah blah but i can tell you my mom and dad and millions of other 10 to 30 year olds saw star wars 900 times in the theater that year with no hope and/or expectation of a sequel.

one thing that always blows my mind about the original is how good the spaceships look. the frankensteined battleship models haven't dated a tenth as much as the 90s cgi in the special editions.

no I think he genuinely hates the original product. He does not understand how anyone could prefer them to his new, improved version.

― winoa ryder sexes creatures of the night (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, June 27, 2011 4:46 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

you may be right. i'm not basing this on anything i've heard from the horse's ass, err, mouth, no wait, ass was right in the first place.

"cultural phenomenon" if nothing else.

Look, I owned all the action figures, ok? And also got this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wXJPShVMT8

the frankensteined battleship models haven't dated a tenth as much as the 90s cgi in the special editions.

yup, this. and the things that look fake now (such as the unmoving monster masks in the cantina scene), looked just as fake then, were part of the film's charm. especially in contrast to the almost astoundingly convincing technology and set-dressing details: the battleships, the jawa's sandcrawler, owen & beru's house/compound, the death star, etc.

i dont like to think about what my parents spent on star wars shit for me.

Well, to his credit, he had the idea to make The Future look dirty. I mean, even as a kid I noticed the mud and sand on the stormtrooper's otherwise impeccable white helmets.

or the slime on C-3Po's head after Jabba smacks him.

i've seen star wars' design called things like "antiseptic", usually in praise of something with lots of leaky pipes like alien, but yeah, actually everything is really scuffed and used and lived-in, as dilapidated as you can get and keep buck rogers as your lodestone.

It's believable that The Future would look like 1976.

was the millennium falcon the first time any movie treated a spaceship like a kludgy jalopy?

yeah, the used, lived in, repaired and rebuilt funkiness of lucas' future was a huge part of what made it so involving and convincing. it helped imply that the universe was larger than it seemed onscreen, that things had a specific history, even if we didn't know anything about it. also made the utterly immaculate, spit polished surfaces of the death star's interiors and vader's costume that much more menacing.

my mom could not believe her eyes when i took a lighter to one plastic edge of my brand-new (and no doubt stupidly expensive) m. falcon "playset". "it needs carbon scoring," i explained.

yeah Darth Vader was like Steve Rubell sending bellbottoms to the cleaners

how the hell did you own a Falcon in 1990-whatever?

i don't know how to tell you this but they kept making the toys

the best part of that toy was that it included secret smuggling compartments in the floor: little snap-in panels, right next to the ROTATING board for holographic monster chess.

also i was an only child so my long-suffering father had to play at least two games of

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/e/e0/Swccglogolg.png

http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/Images/JakeKessler/imperialcommand.gif

oh look Jerjerrod's in that one

http://image71.webshots.com/171/4/20/76/2107420760014208215gxOZKv_ph.jpg

how the hell did you own a Falcon in 1990-whatever?

Kenner launched a new line of the toys in the early '90s, IIRC to tie-in with the THX video/laser disc remasters.

when I read comic books the stores would sell battered used versions of the Falcon, SLAVE-1, etc for ridiculous prices.

i love mcdiarmid's over-the-top Evil Old Man croak so much, especially his plosives. now you will witness the FIRE-POWAH of this FULLY AHRMED and OP-AH-RATIONAL BATTLE STATION.

― my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Monday, June 27, 2011 11:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

My fave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGwDwx10wB4

Such an arsehole!

how the hell did you own a Falcon in 1990-whatever?

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 27, 2011 8:06 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

the theatrical rerelease in 96 or 97 was pretty huge

does anyone remember a millenium falcon toy that came out sometime in maybe... 1994-1996? it was about big as a kickball and highly detailed... it had a little lid that came off and revealed a bunch of miniscule star wars doods inside, as well as a bunch of rooms (that were kinda lacking in the movies: what else did we ever see but the cockpit?)

that was mine.

we saw the room where they played chess, the awesome ww2 gun turret, the tryst closet ("my hands are dirty"), and i think that's it.

^^That was one of the items from the Kenner reboot, which had all sorts of neat-o bells and whistles.

(x-post)

i also had a darth vader mask with a VOICE MODULATOR and a button you could press to play a breathing clip.

it wasn't a very good voice modulator.

one thing that always blows my mind about the original is how good the spaceships look. the frankensteined battleship models haven't dated a tenth as much as the 90s cgi in the special editions.

― my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Monday, June 27, 2011 7:54 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah totally. part of it is that space is the ideal setting for models, which is something i realized watching the starship troopers dvd years ago and noticing that the spaceship scenes looked so much better than the cgi stuff in the movie.

space is the ideal setting for models

^ good point

BFI book on "Star Wars" is a fun read - read it a few weeks ago. Gets into the entire Rebellion = dirty, raggedy, homey /Empire = pristine, sleek, neurotic thing then comes to the conclusion that Lucas IS (embodies) both The Rebellion and The Empire as a filmmaker. It's one of my fave BFI's now.

more cheerleading and heckling of the new trilogy and the CGI'd up 90s editions and whatnot here!
the crimes of george lucas ('90s on)
just in case anyone hasn't seen it.

Utility data forever.

haha still so funny.

Merchandising will continue until morale improves, apparently.

http://fastcache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2011/06/r2d2operation.jpg

Ever wonder what makes an astromech droid tick? The latest version of Hasbro’s classic Operation game has been given a Star Wars makeover, but instead of poking around inside an alien life form like Yoda or Chewbacca, you use your amateur surgeon skills on R2-D2. The game hasn’t popped up on any of the official Hasbro websites just yet, so details on exactly what maladies are plaguing Artoo are still unknown. But here’s to hoping you don’t actually have to deal with C-3PO as a nurse. Available in September for $26.99, but you can pre-order it now from Toywiz.

We got an Incredible Hulk version of Operation and one of his ailments was "Toxic Gas". I guess R2 probably wouldn't have that problem, but kee-rist.

C-3PO_O

was the millennium falcon the first time any movie treated a spaceship like a kludgy jalopy?

I think I've mentioned it before in this thread, but the idea of clunky spaceships and "lived space", as well as some other things in SW (for example, the bar full of aliens in Episode IV) may have been inspired by the French comic book series Valérian et Laureline. The spaceship the titular characters use in the comic might've inspired the Millennium Falcon, they look quite similar:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BUODDPpFRtQ/RwAVUJnD7HI/AAAAAAAAABM/wHYk3EBXR-A/s400/Valerian_Astroship.jpg

Hmm, let's try that again:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oKNtyYC2ZoA/TR3qgQTfpuI/AAAAAAAAAzc/Wpv4wan4vmA/s400/Valerian_Astroship.jpg

Valerian and Laureline also had specific stories that resemble the plots of Dark City and Babylon 5 (Ambassador of the Shadows and On the False Earths, published in 1975 and 1977), though the similarity may be coincidental.

John Carpenter's Dark Star did the grungy space thing before Star Wars too

It looks like the first Valerian book got reprinted in the last year or so.

http://www.amazon.com/City-Shifting-Waters-Valerian-Vol/dp/1849180385/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309359456&sr=8-1

xp no skin pics on the walls of the falcon though

gawd that was such a great thing about the original star wars too... this depiction of a "worn down" future (and, yeah, don't try to catch me on the "long, long time ago" detail). everything was dusty, kinda clunked out.... so much of that was lacking in the prequels. there's not one ship in that film that isn't polished & waxed, factory-new.

the fact that the jedis wear monkish robes make things seem even more awkward, something i think the redlettermedia dude pointed out in his episode 3 review (citing that they seemed to only be worn b/c that was the natural garb from tatooine, desert-wear. luke shows up in later films totally decked out in sleek, somewhat futurist black) .

Even the toys had little stickers so you could apply body damage!

It looks like the first Valerian book got reprinted in the last year or so.

http://www.amazon.com/City-Shifting-Waters-Valerian-Vol/dp/1849180385/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309359456&sr=8-1

Oh, that's cool! Hopefully Cinebook starts to reprint the rest of the series in English too, as Valerian & Laureline is one of the most essential sci-fi works in any medium. The first book (actually it's the second one, but "Bad Dreams", the real first story is often glossed over because it's more fantasy than sci-fi) is not among the strongest ones in the series, but it hits its stride soon after, and the next 10+ books are filled with cool ideas and beautiful depictions of planetary wonders.

http://www.legacybookspress.com/Books/The%20Secret%20History%20of%20Star%20Wars%20-%20Free%20Sample.pdf

the fact that the jedis wear monkish robes make things seem even more awkward, something i think the redlettermedia dude pointed out in his episode 3 review (citing that they seemed to only be worn b/c that was the natural garb from tatooine, desert-wear. luke shows up in later films totally decked out in sleek, somewhat futurist black)

what's more in the first movie obi-wan is supposed to be in hiding as a modest sand hermit, and yet if the prequels are to be believed he is dressed throughout in the official uniform of the incredibly dangerous and supposedly extinct psychic knight caste

didn't he go into hiding because of losing Anakin to the Dark Side?

xp good point about the stickers!

he goes into hiding because the empire hunts down and kills all the jedi it can find in an attempt to permanently extinguish the sect. in the original movies he's wearing bedouin robes because that's what everyone wears on tattooine and he wants to blend in so he's not arrested and killed; in the prequels lucas gives all the jedi the same robes as some kind of uniform or indication of status because he doesn't think things through.

ahh ok, been a while since I've seen either trilogy!

yeah i mean there is nothing shameful about being unclear on details of the history of the star wars universe

the "Darth" title is problematic, too, because in the original movie, Obi Wan says "he is called Darth Vader", implying that 'Darth' is part of his name, but it is retroactively made into a 'title' in Episode 1.

and he calls him "Darth" in their final duel as if it's his first name.

Lucas would say "Well, it's Ben being at his most condescending: calling him by his Sith title" but it's really "I hadn't thought this through in 1976."

yeah. when that movie was made (and in fact right up to very late in the script process for empire) vader was not luke's father and really had betrayed and killed a separate character named anakin.

the weirdest thing about lucas is that it's not like anyone would begrudge him not knowing the entire plot of his giant goofy space saga from day one, but he approaches pathology in his insistence that he did.

yea, wasn't the statement going around for a while that there were supposed to be 9 movies total in his 'mind', including three films after Eps 4-6?

yup. he also claimed for years that he had all these films "written", when 7-9 didn't exist at all and 1-3 only existed as a vague idea about anakin getting frustrated and turning evil; this is probably why there's so much padding in the prequels.

and lots of scenes of Anakin on fire going UNGH UNGH UNGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

also they spend all that time on coruscant, a CITY COVERING AN ENTIRE PLANET, and they leave the hotel like twice. but i guess enjoying a city would require having a personality.

Yeah I'm reading "Secret History" and it's pretty much confirming that GL was just trying to make a Flash Gordon movie and once it became successful went back in and made up an elaborate story about how it was this huge epic. Basically anything that doesn't appear in the original Star Wars is some retconned stuff, and as time went on, it got bigger and more complex. All of this explains any of the plot holes or inconsistencies between the OG trilogy and the 'prequels'.

Also, this is a pretty interesting artifact:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/Splinter_of_the_Minds_Eye.jpg

Splinter of the Mind's Eye is a science fiction novel; it is a sequel to both Star Wars and its novelization Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker. Written by Alan Dean Foster and originally published in 1978 by Del Rey, a division of Ballantine Books, it was the first original full-length Star Wars novel to be published after the release of the 1977 Star Wars film, retroactively making it one of the earliest Expanded Universe works.

The principal characters are Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Darth Vader. The characters of Han Solo and Chewbacca do not appear, and Solo is only referred to by Luke Skywalker as "a pirate and a smuggler" he once knew at the end of the book. The book was originally written to be filmed as a low-budget sequel to Star Wars if the original film was not a success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splinter_of_the_Mind%27s_Eye

Upon emerging, Leia admonishes Luke for slapping her in the restaurant and calling her his servant girl; Luke falls off the walkway and into the mud. He pulls Leia down with him. They begin playfully fighting as some miners emerge from the building. They claim that fighting in public is against Imperial law here, so they all get into a brawl.

almost rhymes

other people in this thread may know more than me but the handful of "expanded universe" novels i read were totally fine pulp sf, certainly better than the prequels.

Yeah but this is basically the proto-"Empire Strikes Back", but a low-budget version in case Star Wars wasn't a huge hit. Luke & Leia aren't related, Han Solo and Chewie aren't there, Darth Vader isn't Luke's dad, etc. I kind of wish I could see that alternate universe low-budget sequel!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/Splinter_of_the_Minds_Eye.jpg

he principal characters are Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Darth Vader. The characters of Han Solo and Chewbacca do not appear, and Solo is only referred to by Luke Skywalker as "a pirate and a smuggler" he once knew at the end of the book. The book was originally written to be filmed as a low-budget sequel to Star Wars if the original film was not a success.

okay, so i was SURE that chewbacca did appear in this book. the image is burned with furious clarity into my mind: a wookie leaping into a tank full of stormtroopers, and though the ensuing carnage is not described, "ruby gobbets of flesh" (or some spectacular such) rain to the ground from within. in my memory, this wookie MUST be chewie, but it was soso long ago, 33 years ago, i could be wrong. it might just have been a wookie, some wookie, any wookie, a creature to suggest chewie, i dunno...

weird, though, to see that cover again, which speaks to me on such a basic level, and to remember that this was (maybe) the first "real" science fiction novel i ever read, in the heat of post-star wars passion, the first that wasn't charlie & the great glass elevator or something. so much of my subsequent life falls into place *click*

Great cover artwork

^!

(think it's by the hildebrants, but i'm not sure why)

wasn't the second star wars novel a han solo/chewie adventure? i think i have it somewhere on my shelves...

maybe so? a long time ago, in a grade school far, far away...

the scene i'm so vividly imagining could have come from han solo at star's end, the second and last star wars novel i ever read. i thought i had a 25-cent yard sale copy around somewhere, but can't seem to find it.

[ps by second i mean sequel to splinter of a minds eye, not sequel to star wars]

don't know that there was a direct seq

don't know that there ever was a direct sequel to SOTME. alan dean foster didn't follow it up, and i don't remember a book that pitched itself as a second installment of that particular storyline, not that i was paying terribly close attention. do remember this, the beginning of a separate series, from the following year:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/Stars_End_cover.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6b/Lost_Legacy_Cover.jpg/200px-Lost_Legacy_Cover.jpg

Think I read this one, the only thingI remember is a whole platoon of robots falling to their doom when they march over a bridge at its exact resonant frequency.

Han's droid companions, Bollux and Blue Max.

Hhahahhhahahaha omg

BTW Luke cuts off Vader's arm at the end of Splinter of the Mind's Eye, interestingly.

Uh, spoilers, I guess.

wow that Splinter.. book cover is giving me some major Proustian rushes right now. and i didn't even read the thing. terrible title mind, but i guess no worse than The Phantom Menace.

star wars book cover art is better than the prequels

http://www.comics.org/series/2406/covers/

Crazy talk.

http://images.comics.org//img/gcd/covers_by_id/28/w400/28905.jpg?5767558948402809120

most 70s sci-fi book covers are better than the prequels

Like the death star would just start taking pot shots at them
http://images.comics.org//img/gcd/covers_by_id/28/w400/28805.jpg?5767558948402809120

I had a rather significant chunk of that comics run - at some point almost all of those were online (htmlcomics RIP)

drawn by Howard Chaykin!

I was really into the giant green rabbit character

yeah I had one of these what was up with the giant rabbit - the best thing about star wars was the campiness blended with actualy neat effects

Luke attacks with a carrot
http://images.comics.org//img/gcd/covers_by_id/28/w400/28812.jpg?5767558948402809120

http://www.littlestuffedbull.com/images/comics/ggswr02.jpg

rollin rollin rollin
keep them jawas rollin
http://images.comics.org//img/gcd/covers_by_id/28/w400/28832.jpg?5767558948402809120

quick-witted Lepi smuggler from Coachelle Prime!

god I hate Star Wars

From Coachella, you say.

I love how they feel the need to fill in all these details - leave nothing to the imagination "he leaves small turds in the shape of Kix cereal"

Later, Jaxxon paired up with one of his fellow Star-Hoppers, Amaiza Foxtrain

I just finished rereading Dune yesterday and it's pretty remarkable how much of Tatooine Lucas lifted from Dune

including the processing of shit in the thigh pouches to be re-used

lol

xxpost -- Eh, yes and no -- obviously yes to an extent but even as someone who got into both fairly early on (SW when I was six, Dune when I was 11, a couple of years pre-movie), I never really associated them much in my brain until much later and only after other people were all "DO YOU SEE." To me it's more like how there are a hell of a lot of landscapes out there in fantasy lit that couldn't've happened without Middle-earth but that doesn't mean every one makes me think of Tolkien.

Really if anything it's David Lean via Lawrence of Arabia first, THEN Dune.

he totally lifted the death star from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDaOOw0MEE

lucas stole from EVERYBODY

LUCAS WILL PAY!

a lot of the most explicitly dune-like stuff is crap that was built out from star wars in/for the "expanded universe" (or w/e). all we really know of life on tattoine from the first film is that humans there live at least half underground beneath bulbous adobe structures, use "moisture vaporators" in their farming and wear desert-appropriate clothing. nothing so terribly dune-like abt any of that.

also they spend all that time on coruscant, a CITY COVERING AN ENTIRE PLANET, and they leave the hotel like twice. but i guess enjoying a city would require having a personality.

I can't tell if this is an actual Star Wars thing or a Lost in Translation joke.

LOL^

"moisture vaporators" is from dune

xxpost -- Eh, yes and no -- obviously yes to an extent but even as someone who got into both fairly early on (SW when I was six, Dune when I was 11, a couple of years pre-movie), I never really associated them much in my brain until much later and only after other people were all "DO YOU SEE." To me it's more like how there are a hell of a lot of landscapes out there in fantasy lit that couldn't've happened without Middle-earth but that doesn't mean every one makes me think of Tolkien.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, July 1, 2011 4:27 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah I got into star wars and dune pretty early too and never made the connections either, but this time these things jumped out at me

-fierce band of desert nomads making trouble for the local imperial government
-sandcrawlers
-giant worm in the sand

although #1 is really just 'bedouins'

Meantime I muttered this over on the crimes of George Lucas thread but here was a fun mystery of the day:

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentality/2011/07/mystery_of_the_day_did_george.php

also C-3PO is obviously a gay robotic Mentat

including the processing of shit in the thigh pouches to be re-used

― coffeetripperspillerslyricmakeruppers (Latham Green), Friday, July 1, 2011 4:24 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark

haha yeah I can't get how this anatomically works. catheters I get, but does a stillsuit really involve sticking a tube up your ass and having a colostomy bag strapped to your thighs at all times?

"It's called the Weirding Way."

"Why?"

"Think about it."

"...Muad'Dib help us."

oh yeah, there's the Bene Gesserit Voice which is Kenobi weirding stormtroopers.

there's also the Sardaukar but I suppose every evil empire needs an elite army force. though the stormtroopers are pretty incompetent.

I'm really glad that Lucas changed Luke's name from Starkiller to Skywalker

also odds that Luke's name comes from Lucas

"moisture vaporators" is from dune

― skinny arbuckle (latebloomer), Friday, July 1, 2011 1:39 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

is it? haven't read dune in ages, but didn't remember that particular turn of phrase. the idea of using recovered atmospheric water in a desert ecosystem isn't herbert's idea, though.

to put a sharper point on it: the phrase "moisture vaporator" does not appear in dune, and the idea isn't herbert's

also any excuse to post this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-zEMitTkaU

kynes is so fuckin high on spice

Hahah I still remember loving it when the extended version snuck out on TV with that in it.

Did anyone ever play this videogame?
http://www.heartlessdoll.com/star-wars-kotor-cover.jpg

I've really felt the SW franchise has been allowed to thrive, unhindered, in the videogame realm. While the majority of games were spin-offs of the prequels or the original trilogy, there were a couple original titles - such as KOTOR, a game I continually think (from when I played it in high-school to now) as worthy of it's own movie. The universe is really, really great and the game has a SW-esque twist in which you discover

**SPOILER**
you are actually the person you've been hunting

I kinda wonder a lot how much involvement Lucas himself had to do w/ the game. I imagine not so much. But BioWare is a fairly reputable videogame company pretty famous for their endearing plot-lines... all video-game appropiate, obviously, but there is enough dialogue in this game that I really think the characters are translatable to the film medium.

damn so much for spoiler tags. well it's a fairly older crowd here anyway, i wasn't exactly expecting much anyone to pick this up.

would watch expanded universe sw movies!!!

I just finished rereading Dune yesterday and it's pretty remarkable how much of Tatooine Lucas lifted from Dune

yeah, plus the whole idea of a 'galactic empire' and galactic politicians who never shut up is lifted from asimov's foundation.

iirc the original treatment for Star Wars involved some mysterious "Spice"

no love for wing commander?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvPQHdVG1lc&feature=related

Asimov's "galactic empire" lifted wholesale from Gibbon iirc

Secret History notes the Dune rips, but primarily shows that plot synopsis was lifted in many ways word-for-word from The Hidden Fortress.

^^^^

Kurosawa's dead, Lucas has no one to rip off now

prequels made me cringe more than any miike movies.
so the student has become the master...

ehh, i'm not finding too much fault with the tattooine origins. seemed to me like you lucas just really needed a neutral environment in which neither the "future" or the "past" was synonymous with. which, admittedly, all nature is but there is something about dunes and landscapes of sand that just communicate an impartiality to technological advancements MORE SO than a jungle or arctic would. plus there's something about the jungle that comes off to me as primitive, whereas something more cold seems more suitable to something that necessitates technology - "the future". the desert is very neutral, implying nothing.

and i think it was just an easier choice to film in

plus it's remote. i just pondered over luke having originated from a literal, American-esque farm and i really found no fault or dissonance between tattooine and that until i kinda considered that farms always border on bigger towns. it'd be a little weird to communicate to an audience that *this is another world* if Luke grew up in something that looked strangely familiar to Arkansas.

no love for wing commander?

one of cinematic history's weirder blips is when they gave the guy who designed the wing commander games a deal to write and direct a wing commander movie. starring freddie prinze jr. and matthew lillard. and the guy who played hercule poirot on tv.

anyway yeah guys frank herbert did not invent people wearing robes in the desert and isaac asimov did not invent rome.

i mean they were the first to add "...IN SPACE" to the end but that's not hard to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_F0zLZLJCg

Eh, total homage. Apparently while they were getting ready to make Star Wars he cut a bunch of dogfight scenes together so he could basically say "recreate all this....IN SPACE"!

This "Secret History" book is the most interesting SW commentary I've seen since those Red Letter Media things.

those plush official 'the making of sw' and '....esb' books that have benn published the last couple of years are thick with cool details and stuff on the origins of the trilogy and lucas's influences. they're also hella dull-ly written, however. the pics are great tho.

speaking of 'making of..' stuff i can't believe that the new Blu Ray box won't have the amazing 90 minute Empire Of Dreams doc from the *last* box. soon we'll need a separate shelf just for Star Wars vids/discs. actually some of us probably already have i suspect!

speaking of the blu-ray box, and i know this isn't the first time i've said this here, i really wish there was a way to see all that documentary-age on dvd.

Lucas is waiting for a way to convert all that documentary footage to 3-D.

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f7/reconsidering-star-wars-r2d2-theory-597249/

Still wasn't a pred ship.

"write and direct a wing commander movie. starring freddie prinze jr. and matthew lillard."

Has there ever been another video-game-to-movie adaptation where the game cutscenes had more bankable stars than the movie?
Luke Skywalker, Alex from Clockwork Orange, and Sallah versus dude from Scream.

oddly enough, the only thing I remember about that Wing Commander movie (which I never saw) is that a bunch of people went to see it just to watch the Phantom Menace trailer which was attached to it.

ha. the cast for another Origin FMV-heavy game, Privateer 2:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117391/fullcredits#cast

Clive Owen	... 	Lev Arris
	John Hurt	... 	Joe Kane
	Jürgen Prochnow	... 	Xavier Shondi
	David Warner	... 	Rhinehart
	Amanda Pays	... 	Assassin #3
	Mathilda May	... 	Melissa Banks
	David McCallum	... 	Canera Captain
	Brian Blessed	... 	Uncle Kashumai
	Christopher Walken	... 	David Hassan
	John Rowe	... 	Alberto Fossa
	Jonathan Chesterman	... 	Angus Santana
	Mary Tamm	... 	Auntie Maria Gabriel

haha, its crazy how much better that cast is than anything any of today's AAA titles can put together

where was origin even getting this money? was ultima that big a deal?

privateer 1 was awesome btw.

The answer is EA, b/c they'd bought and were gutting Origin by this time.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/privateer-2-the-darkening

done by EA Manchester, so maybe not technically Origin.

oh that does explain it.

another great video game fmv-bullshit cast: red alert 3, starring j.k. simmons as the american president, george takei as the emperor of japan, tim curry (reprising his congo accent) as the soviet premier, jonathan pryce as the british pm, and peter stormare as a mad scientist

I always had the impression Richard Garriot is really rich. Dude's been to space

He did a bit on The Moth where he talked about founding Origin and going to space and etc. Very interesting:

http://jwbookarchive.posterous.com/richard-garriott-the-overview-effect-the-moth

the new Star Tours ride at Disneyland was a lot of fun.

^yes! the gimmick of the new star tours ride is that each journey is a different combination of scenarios and planets, so of course on the first trip i got both pod-racing and a trip to the underwater gungan city, complete with waving jar-jar binks. ffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

but it was a blast and imaginatively done, and on the second ride i got hoth and kashyyyk, so all is forgiven.

true heads know that it's wookiee

"Empire of Dreams" is really amazing, particularly the "Empire Strikes Back" section (of course). I love hearing Irvin Kershner talk and it's obvious he had a blast making the movie. The bit a bout Mark getting the Rolling Stones in his earpiece while doing his Yoda scenes is priceless! The whole thing is on youtube and part 9 starts the ESB section:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn02jwZgMAY&feature=related

At the very end of it all, it gets pretty sad when George is talking about it, about how when he started out he was against giant corporations and now he is one, and that in his own words "He's become the very thing he wanted to destroy" and you realize he is sort of trapped in this creation. It's funny when he says "I like Star Wars" because it almost feels like something he doesn't really believe but has been practicing saying in the mirror over and over again in preparation for the interview.

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnoa6bK1Y21qzky0mo1_500.jpg

Smiley, you old bastard...

latest from the Comic Con. hmm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kxPSgPdkQw

I love that Star Wars is worked thoroughly enough into my brain that all those shots, which look completely ordinary and easily could be in the original movies, jump out as these weird revelatory glimpses, because I know the films practically on a shot-by-shot basis and I know I don't know that footage.