I picked up a 4DVD boxed set of Star Wars 4,5 & 6 at the thrift store for $10, and they threw in a 3DVD set of the BBC’s Narnia for $5. (What is Narnia? asked the clerk). I’ve seen Star Wars 2, and it amazes me that someone with that good a cast and special effects couldn’t write a decent story.
All I have is a few dozen Joe Johnston sketches that he seems to have done on the set. I am getting the kids to colour them in but I tell them not to colour over his signature.
Has there ever been a home version release of SW without “Episode IV - A New Hope”?
Lucas could never write a story. He was once a fairly gifted director, but that =/= storyteller. The only movie in the franchise that could be called halfway gould is ESB, which was penned by a much better screenwriter (Kasdan).
Lucas had two stories in him, both dealing with his youth. American Graffiti dealing with coming of age in Small Town CoCal and SW, which is re-doing his childhood adventure films on Saturday afternoon at the local theatre. All of the first SW is recycled in one way or another. The movie has exactly one good actor and the material Sir Alec got to work with wasn’t exactly stellar. Hamill is terrible, Ford is OK, but not very convincing and Fisher doesn’t convince very much, chewing the scenery most of the time.
Even in this first effort, we notice Lucas unwillingness to direct actors. The droids and Vader are composites of different actors and sfx. He didn’t direct again untill it was time for the last three films in the franchise, and it’s obvious that it was only because he got to play with all the cgi toys. Maybe the 2nd unit director handled all the live actors, McCallum the logistics and economics and GL sat at Skywalker ranch and fiddled with computers. I wouldn’t be surprised,
I loved SW when it came out, adored ESB, but felt that with RotJ, Lucas ddn’t have anything more to say, it was basically ep 4 again, with some cool effects and nice scenery, but there wasn’t a story. I heard a rumour back then that the ewoks was added to be merchandised in toy stores, and Lucas got a tip from Speilberg, because the E.T. dolls didn’t sell as well as projected. Dolls need to be furry and cuddly.
What sealed my final decision was “Who’s da man, Yoda Man”.
For nostalgic reasons, I’d like to have true original copies of SW and ESB, but it’s really not that important, almost 30 years later.
I’d be all over the new SW originals if they included a Bonus Disk with the Star Wars Christmas Special.
I haven’t bought any of them yet, and I’d like to. Somebody let me know when the version that I should buy comes out. Then I’ll buy it.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Lucas sucks sweaty bantha balls. I will probably be picking these up, just because I have no decent copies of the OT (I’ve got the VHS set of the Shortbus Editions, but I’ve only watched it once.). Then, however, I’ll not give Lucas another nickel until he get’s off his ass and coughs up the untouched original versions in a properly mastered format (maybe when the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format wars have shaken themselves out).
The Ewok Christmas thing? : shudder : There was simply too much cocaine in the 70’s & 80s.
Blue, buy whichever ones make you feel good when you’re drinking margaritas and nibbling on a pizza in a dark livingroom, basking in the warm glow of the tube. With enough tequila i find myself very forgiving. I could not, however, find myself hammered enough to watch “Christmas in Hobbiton” should Jackson ever OD on crack and produce such a monstrosity.
I disagree. I think Lucas is an extremely gifted editor, which in filmic terms is very close to being a good storyteller. However, even the best editor in the world would be challenged to create something good out of crappy raw material, so Lucas the writer and Lucas the director are crippling to Lucas the editor.
That’s where I fall off the beam. The original movies were the “Luke” story arc, where he learns to stop being a whiny little bitch and be a man. (I’m ignoring the whole “missing prince” angle for the purposes of this discussion.) The series hung together pretty well, and I was fine with it then. Unfortunately, Lucas decided to trash that by subsuming it into the “Annakin/Vader” story arc (most of which, I’ll admit, I’ve never seen, but The Pantom Menace really sucked), and fucking it all up.
Nobody.
Nobody could have pulled that off because it was a crap role written by a crap writer. And none of it made any sense (he said, not having watched either of the movies with Hayden Christensen in them, but willing to wager that he’s right).
Maybe so. But when I check his IMDb listings, I note that he has a lot of credits for “story” and “characters” but very few for “screenplay”. Sitting down in a meeting and saying: “We should do this and that and it should end that way” is not really storytelling. Maybe the art of editing (which he’s done uncredited for the SW franchise) is more like proof reading. As such, he is gifted, but no proof reader can turn crap into gold.
I still think he prefers not having to deal with humans, handing out that work to others. And since he couldn’t direct live actors if his life depended on it, his ear for dialogue is tone deaf, or even totally deaf, and he can’t plot a coherent storyline, I think (and agree) that his talent as editor, technical whiz and producer, has failed artistically (but not at the BO).
But…
If he’d had someone who could really spin a good story, plot it, someone with a very vivid imagination (Towne, Wheadon?) and a good director with a flair for epic sfx movies (Raimi, Singer, Wachowski’s or why not Shyamalan), the franchise might’ve taken as interesting a turn with the revival as Nolan managed with Batman. I think Lucas’ ego is too big, though.
I want the originals. I don’t love the changed versions at all. I don’t think it’s poor quality, I think it’s the way they were meant to be seen in the 70s and that’s how I like them. Then again, I like the popping sound of old records, too.
Some albums just require the popping sound of old records, IMHO. (I also like tube amps.)
Yes and no. I’m no videophile by any stretch, but I do have a 42" 16x9 TV. What that means is that the non-anamorphic picture will have black bars at the left and right and on the top and bottom (unless I set my TV to “zoom” mode, but that distorts the picture often quite badly.)
You see, when they release a movie in what they call “anamorphic” widescreeen (or “enhanced for 16x9 TVs” as it often says on the package) the picture is configured to fit a 16x9 screen correctly. That is there is no ‘dead space’ anywhere; your entire screen is filled up with picture. This is the appeal of getting a 16x9 TV.
When a movie is non-anamprphic (or sometimes called “letterbox”), the black bars that you see on our 4x3 TV (at the top and bottom) are actually part of the picture; its not dead space, but instead actual black picture output. So, when you watch that signal on a 16x9 TV it doesn’t go away.
It’s kind of hard to imagine unless you have played around with a 16x9 TV a bit so I turn to my rather limited Photoshop ability:
Here is Star Wars on a 16x9 TV if it were anamorphic. The image is encoded in suxh a way that the TV knows it’s a 16x9 picture, and shows it that way. Everything is hunky dory and the large amount of us who have 16x9 TVs are enjoying out Star Wars.
Here is Star Wars on a 16x9 TV in non-anamorphic signal (what they’re doing). The image isn’t encoded in such a way that the TV can really do anything with it, so it just shows it as-is, which is really a 4x3 picture inside a 16x9 shape, so get all kinds of annying blackness on all sides. It makes for a much smaller picture and really sets the technology back about 10 or 12 years.
Most 16x9 TVs have some sort of “zoom” mode where you can actually force a non-anamorphic picture to fit by zooming in on the picture thus filling the screen. However, like looking at a web graphic that’s been blown-up too big, it kinda ends up looking like this.
So it’s not all about Special Editions vs. “originals”. It’s about releasing a movie in a format that’s been abandonded a decade ago.
For the record, the Special Editions are mostly good. The picture and sound looks great, the changes I don’t like are the overly vain CGI additions that do zero to help the story, and as others have pointed out alter it or slow down the pace.
Sorry to reply to myself, but one more thing, to actually answer the quite, no you probably won’t care or even notice on your 4x3 regular old TV.
It’s a *huge *issue for anyone with a 16x9 TV though, not just the top-of-the-line audiophiles with the high-end total systems.
After spending $180 on the THX Laserdiscs, i’m pretty much done giving Lucas any more money for Star Wars. If I want LD to DVD transfers, I’ll do it myself, thankyouverymuch.
::looks over at the spare ld player hooked up to the powermac…::
Hmm, supposed to rain this weekend…
Oh, I don’t care much one way or the other for the changes; I actually like the enhancements for Mos Eisley in the updated “New Hope”, just because they made the town actually feel like a town and not a collection of hovels. It’s just that the original Star Wars films had a simple, down-to-earth feel to them, just like how the B-level special effects and hokey dialog are part of the charm. The new scenes and special effects, unfortunately, feel really out-of-place IMO, and the end result is like watching a colorized version of Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Oh, and I actually kinda liked seeing Hayden at the end of ROTJ this time around. If only because it makes sense that he gets to return to what he was-a Jedi.
Plus, Sebastian’s still there, as old, unmasked Vader.
They did fix the “Greedo shoots first” somewhat for the DVDs-he starts to shoot just as Han gets off his shot, but because Han is quicker on the draw, he misses.
(If only we could have gotten a shirtless Obi-Wan in the prequels…yes, I know I can rent any number of Ewan movies and see him in the buff, but those characters aren’t OBI-WAN!)
I really like the way you think, Guin 
Did you ever see Long Way 'Round? (caution:sound) Somewhere in Goddamnistan, Ewan says “I had my first Obi Wan Kenobi dream-and I was naked!” Then he tipped the bike for the 835th time.
Yes, indeed I have, and I read the book. Hehehehe…