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Post by TV's Cowboy on Sept 21, 2011 7:58:59 GMT -5
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Post by The Mad Plumber on Sept 23, 2011 20:45:07 GMT -5
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donmac
Moderator Emeritus
Beedee Beedee Beedee This Sucks!
Posts: 1,290
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Post by donmac on Oct 8, 2011 10:44:36 GMT -5
This is my 140 Size Review on Lucas' continued changes to the Star Wars movies: "Star Wars saga: SF franchise that gets worse w/ each new part so Dark Lord Lucas retroactively ruins earlier films just 4 consistency's sake" I'm glad I bought the DVD release of the Original Trilogy with the original theatrical versions of the movies on a bonus disc. They aren't HD or even anamorphically-enhanced, but they are the only versions I will watch.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Oct 26, 2011 10:15:04 GMT -5
I was never an immense Star Wars fan but I've loved THX-1138 from the first time I saw it, and can understand the ire from the way Lucas jammed immense amounts of at best needless CGI into its DVD release. What makes it even stranger and more Orwellian is that he never acknowledges this, even on the commentary track. There is a fairly telling point from that, however. For any unfamiliar with the film, THX-1138 is the character name of a man born into a bizarre, sterile, underground dystopia. An early scene has him praying in a sort of computerized confessional, and at one point in this sequence there is a cut to a lizard in a maze of electronic components. My fairly literal reading of that was to show that this society had sought to abolish nature, but that nature still existed in the interstices. Lucas' interpretation--as stated in the commentary--is that it was symbolic of THX as a natural organism imprisoned in a technological matrix. As Joel once said, it can be all that and more, and really the two interpretations aren't that different, but . . . . . . Lucas CGIed flippin' butterfly wing and feelers onto the lizard, destroying either interpretation. But what I really came to direct you to is RedLetterMedia. A lot of posters here will probably love the feature length deconstructions of the prequels, and also discussions with the maker of The People vs George Lucas. redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-the-people-vs-george-lucas-and-star-wars-discussion/redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/
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Post by TheNewMads on Oct 26, 2011 11:45:56 GMT -5
that first link was quite a lot of fun. i had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went.
i also didn't know lucas had retouched "THX"! talk about a tin ear for irony. next, how about we rename "1984" "1985" and take out all that bummer stuff about memory holes?
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Post by caucasoididiot on Oct 26, 2011 12:15:27 GMT -5
I find Red Letter Media highly addictive. (^_^)
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Post by TheNewMads on Oct 26, 2011 17:19:25 GMT -5
I find Red Letter Media highly addictive. (^_^) yeah, i think you've created a monster. i'm watching the "phantom menace" review right now, which is exemplary -- not only is it hilarious but it describes character and story arc better than both of the screenwriting classes i've taken. (the dead hooker jokes are a bit iffy, though i laughed; i totally wouldn't have been offended if he killed little boys too so it didn't seem so misogynist.) i kinda want to see "phantom menace" again now. when i first saw it i was an ignoramus and just vaguely felt like, wow, that was a crap movie. now i feel like i'm fully informed on the myriad of ways in which phantom menace sucks and am equipped to truly hate this movie well and properly.
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Post by BJ on Oct 26, 2011 18:32:55 GMT -5
^I hadn't seen the Phantom Menace since its release. So, last year, I went through all six Star Wars in numerical order, just to see what it's like, and found Phantom Menace to be nearly unwatchable. In fact, I immediately downloaded the Phantom Edit to get rid of Jar Jar and all the Yippees. The most interesting characters, Qui Gon and Darth Maul, aren't developed at all, and Jake Lloyd is almost as irritating as Jar Jar. Also, and I know people actually like this scene, but the pod race is like watching paint dry. If it weren't for the fight with Darth Maul at the end, I'd never watch this again.
While the persona he created can grow tiring at times, I really enjoy the Red Letter reviews of the prequels. He clearly loves Star Wars, and does a great job articulating why they just didn't catch the spirit of the originals.
As for the Blu-Rays, what a waste. Using 7 year old dvd transfers for some of the most popular movies ever is an insult, and then there's all of Lucas' tinkering. I'll probably grab Sith once it hits the bargain bin in a few years, but I'll never get the originals until all the changes are taken out. Until then, I'm stuck with the non-anamorphic laserdisc copies on the special editions. They might be not be pretty, but at least Han wastes Greedo and there's no creepy pedo Hayden Christensen at the end of Jedi.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Oct 26, 2011 18:56:15 GMT -5
Red Letter Media does indeed get pretty Sloane at times, but I was still so pleased to find a new Half in the Bag segment today.
Dear God, the pod race . . .
*shudder*
I know what you both mean. I had caught Phantom Menace and understood why I hated Jar-Jar, Annakin-as-a-Boy and such, but never having studied film as such I didn't get things like the dull composition until RedLetter pointed them out. Occasionally they seem to overly harp on some points, but heck, so did MST a few times.
A few weeks back I found a YouTube that sought to put together the first, pre-release, Star Wars edit. One thing I noticed from that was just how spare the original was: clean imagery, largely in blacks and whites. Reminded me more of THX than the prequels, which seemed hell-bent on jamming as much into the frame as they could. I like looking at a Brueghel, but not when someone's waving it around.
I hesitate to share my name for this because it's rather cruel, but I call it the "Kirstie Allie Effect": just because something's good doesn't mean that a whole lot more of it will be better.
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Post by BJ on Oct 26, 2011 19:27:22 GMT -5
Kirstie Alley Effect, that's pretty funny.
There's a great example of that in Jabba's palace, with a new little creature wandering around for no reason. It's one of the many times I'm reminded of Ian Malcolm's line in Jurassic Park, which incidentally is another recent, high profile Blu-Ray that looks weak.
"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."
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Post by TheNewMads on Oct 27, 2011 10:28:25 GMT -5
watched the troll 2/best worst movies and battle la: galaxy invader reviews last night. today i'm watching the "baby's day out" review (a movie i randomly owned for some damn reason). i'm foreseeing a Red Letter Media lost weekend at some point in my near future. which is somewhat sad.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Oct 27, 2011 11:13:09 GMT -5
First one's free, kid.
Heh heh, dont feel bad. You won't be the first it's happened to. (^_^)
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Post by TheNewMads on Nov 1, 2011 7:11:05 GMT -5
FIFTY-NINE MINUTES....
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Post by TheNewMads on Nov 7, 2011 19:23:48 GMT -5
i've got and am now watching the unadulterated original star wars on the PostageStampVision(tm) version available on Netflix. You know, Plinkett could still work this stuff over. the pod ejects and the one guy sez to hold your fire because "there's no lifeforms aboard"? it could be filled with classified information! (which it turned out to be.) what a dumb assumption to make! why didn't darth vader get that dude fired and force-choked etc.?
i really think john williams doesn't get enough credit for the brilliant godd**n score for this movie. i generally think he's overrated but this is the era where he was right at his stride. And I also think Star Wars came out at a perfect time to really appeal to people who were sick and tired of low-key, socially meaningful, boring space movies like 2001, dark star and silent running (all of which i love, by the way.)
but you can see the movie play with those expectations brilliantly. you can imagine the audience in May 1977 when the lights go down thinking, ok, i've heard good buzz about this movie but is it gonna be another one of these lava-lamp space-walking snoozefests? and then POW! it blows your face off with that bombastic title splash. brilliant! ok, so far. and then, you have to sit there and watch that boring-ass text crawl. (admit it: no one actually reads that the first time they watch a star wars movie. they just wait for it to go away.) so the audience, who just got real excited with the title, start thinking, oh, god, no, this IS gonna be a 2001 sequel. and it teases you, teases you, letting the crawl fade into the distance and slowly, slowly pitching down into that silent black... and then it blows your face off again with the star destroyer savaging the rebel ship.
i bet just in the culture of 1977, engineering your movie beginning that way was just the trick to tap into the zeitgeist. I mean, you think about it, the actual space race was super-exciting right about the time the super-boring 2001 came out, but by the time 77 rolled around the apollo program had gone from boring to defunct (you know, it pretty much jumped the shark when they played golf on the moon), but the whole culture was still space-crazy, if my recollection as an eight-year-old isn't skewed, so an old-school fictional space adventure was just what was needed, and the fact that it teased you about what kind of movie it was going to be in the beginning only made people more enamored of it. folks thought they were going to be betrayed again, 2001-dark-star style, but they weren't.
subsequently, and this is the evil genius of Darth Lucas, since then we've seen that opening title splash and text crawl and it's made us feel we won't be betrayed, and (with the exception of empire and the arguable one of return), we invariably are. Isn't it ironic? Isn't it?
Anyway. The movie has advanced to:
Luke: you know, that little droid's going to cause me a lot of trouble. C3P0: oh, he excels at that, sir.
plinkett: WHAT THE HELL? YOU'RE THE ONE WHO TALKED ME INTO GETTING THAT DROID. who's been kraking with my medicine?
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Post by TheNewMads on Nov 7, 2011 19:28:42 GMT -5
also, when obi-wan gives luke his father's light saber for the first time, IT'S BLUE! if anakin turned evil, why isn't it red?
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