f13.net

So, after about 5 stoli gimlets I finally got up the nerve to watch the recent rerelease of SW ep IV on DVD.  I have to say that it wasnt bad.  I actually am quite pleased with almost all of it.  The only parts that bothered me were the egregrious amounts of CGI added to Mos Eisley and the entirely irrational amount of cyrulean blue used to 'punch up' the colors.  Otherwise, I really liked nearly all the enhancements made, particularly the Biggs & Luke scene that was re-added (the Jabba scene was just o.k., & I can see why Jorgé thinks it's important and now Han and Greedo shoot simultainiously).  All the space effects looked much better, the music and sound were great, and the video quality was exceptional (Leia is still teh hottie).  Really the only thing that bothered me about this version was Luke's hair cut, man that boy needs a trim.

Ok, time for another gimlet and a viewing of Empire.  Wish me luck, I'm going in!

I think the re-release version of Star Wars and Empire were fine (and they are almost the same as the DVD version).  The biggest problem with the DVD version seems to be that they went a little too far enriching the colors.

Most of the really outrageous changes I think are in RotJ, which the changing celebrations, the removal of the Ewok song, and the new Anakin ghost.

Bruce

PS - And, of course, Greedo shooting first... that was the most outrageous change of all.

I fully support the removal of Ewoks in any way possible (but with considerable preference given to explosives, carnivorous animals, or testing of Mary Kay products.)

I used to feel the same way, but if you're going to have Ewoks, you may as well have it as it was, with its own unique style.  When I saw the scene, the omission was quite noticeable.

Bruce

So I had to ditch my drunken all night starwarsathon after my brothers fiance came home (without my brother) in a Very Bad Mood™.  What I saw of Empire looked good though I never even made it to Yoda.  The colors seemed to be less blaring in Empire but maybe thats just because Hoth is mostly white and the colors already came across pretty well.

I'm kind of dreading watching Jedi because thats the one George has felt the most need to pick at over the years.

That's because Jedi is the worst of the trilogy. It's like picking at the worst scab. In 20 years, Phantom and Clone won't look the same either. Lucas is a revisionist. Unfortunately, most of his crap comes out looking awful every time. If I wasn't a completionist I wouldn't pick up the trilogy (since I already have the HK bootlegs from like 2 years ago [they were the laserdisc special edition on dvd]).

Even posting about Lucas makes me angry. That guy is such a cinematic asshole.

If he edits (reshoots) Jar-jar into a semi rational being, drops the little black sambo accent off the rest of the Gungans and adds about 8 years to Anakin, Phantom could be a decent flick.  Clone just has problems, I don't think there is much hope for it.

FIFY. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Good man.

No, it will still be an animated toy catalogue with hammy acting.

AotC was twice the movie TPM tried to be.

I get the feeling you haven't seen the SEs before at all Murgos.  Is that the case? If so the Jabba scene on the DVDs is improved from the release back in 97 by a good margin.  They used the Jabba CG model from Phantom to do the scene this time.  The 97 release had this really poorly CGI'd version (even for 1997) that looked more like a jr High computer student's attempt at modeling than a professional's work.

The enhancements in Empire were really the best done.  I even like that for the DVD version they took out 'monkey face' Emperor and replaced him with Ian McDermond, the guy who played him for Jedi & the prequels.

Altering Anakin to Hayden Christenson in Jedi was just wrong, IMO.  And Lucas' lame attempt to further tie the prequels to the OT. Anakin wasn't ever completly destroyed, as Haden-as-Spirit implies. The whole "Well Anakin died when he became Vader" was Ben & Yoda's opinoin, not Luke's.  If B&Y had been right, then there was no way for Luke to redeem him. Meh.

I've mixed feelings on taking the yub-yub song out of Jedi.  I think it's because the music that replaced it is so obviously 'current' John Williams as opposed to the 80's Jedi/Raiders/Superman John Williams that wrote it in the first place.   While it's familiar, it doesn't quite completly gel with the rest of the soundtrack.  Yub-yub at least had that going for it.

What REALLY annoyed me, though, was the removal of "Lapti-Nek" in favor of that lousy "Jedi Rocks" song.  Lapti was one of the most fun pieces in the whole soundtrack, and one of my favorites, up there with the Cantina song and the Imperial March.

I *sob* actually own the second disk.  Cut out everything but the scenes wher Jedi fight, and you have a pretty cool, 5 minute movie.

Nada, negatory. I will take watching the saber battle between Qui-Gon, Obi-Won and Darth Maul in Phantom over and over again in deference to actually having to watch any part of AotC again. I'd rather watch Ewok sex than watch that goddamn bland, over CGI-ed piece of excrement again.

Now granted, the rest of Phantom was pretty shitty too, but that saber battle made up for it. Nothing, not even Samuel Jackson getting all badass on Fett makes up for it.

And fuck Lucas in tiny places for Ewoks, Greedo shooting first and pasting Hayden Christensen into RotJ.

As much as I rail on Lucas to my wife about what a gigantic fucking waste of human DNA he is and how the next Indiana Jones will probably be involve Ewoks and giant Jamiacan bunnies fighting over the discovery of Mohammed's thigh bone; I got the trilogy for my birthday over the weekend and was happy.   I bet my wife was thinking that I was just putting on an act in front of my brother, but I was honestly really glad I got them.

Now despite all of the dislike I have for the major changes, I can shrug them off because I now have one more reason for not ever hooking up my VCR again, and I have 3 of my favorite movies in a long lasting format that I actually watch.  I can always just close my eyes when Greedo and Han meet.

So, I guess I can still hate Lucas yet realise no matter how badly he butchers my childhood, I'll still recognize it enough to not care when the chips are down.  For the record, I do not own EP1 or 2.  As much as I like Star Wars, I find it hard to buy DVDs of movies I can't stand.

Edit: And now at least I have a copy on DVD before he re-re-re-re-re-re-releases them and has an Ewok blow up the Death Star.

I'm quite happy with the DVD set, I bought it when it came out. Sure, Greedo shoots first is dumb, Hayden as Vader's spirit is arguable, and the over-CGI-ification of Mos Eisley is very noticeable. In all, about one minute of screentime for complaints, and a lot cleaner effects through the rest of the movie. I'll take that compromise, with it's anamorphic widescreen and DD5.1 trimmings.

Looks and sounds great on the home theater, and the 4th disc of extras is pretty nice as well, I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes stuff from the original productions. Seeing the stuff about the limited release reminds me of being a kid and bothering the hell out of my parents until they let me see SW in theaters way too many times.

I wish I'd bought it with the money I paid for that Fable crap. I'm a very happy SW geek/fanboi.

The "New Hope" audition videos were very cool. Seeing Kurt Russell audition for Han Solo was interesting.

Reminds me of a great SNL sketch where Kevin Spacey imitated Christopher Walken auditioning for Han Solo and Walter Matthau auditioning for Obi Wan.

I would too, if it weren't for the gratingly jerky animation of the riding in the beginning of ESB. Notice, for instance, the feet movements when Han's beast rides into the hangar the first time. Is the floor really that slippery? Also later when Han finds Luke and he rides through the Obi-Wan apparation - not exactly a large number of animation frames there.

Animation improved considerably for the third, though, which can be seen in the Rancor beast segment.

My verdict:
-The edits that sucked in the "Special Edition" now suck less.
-The remastering job was fucking awesome. Colors are a bit strong at times, but me and a friend watched the original VHS releases (nonspecial) and they looked like SHIT in comparison.
-New edits are eh. Why the fuck did they need to add the shitty music and pointless CG of people celebrating to Jedi?
-Still too much "funny" CG junk. The stupid frog thing in Jedi was so out of place, as was the extended song.

Zero times two is still zero.

I prefer to think of it as frosting on shit doesn't make it edible. Which it was, some sword fights on some of the worst dialogue ever seen in a huge budget motion picture. Lucas infuriates me. I'll step away now.

That's an interesting observation.  I wonder if Lucas changed the songs to provide himself with the psychological crutch of a partner in crime?

Speaking of John William's past I ran across a tidbit.  John Williams was Henry Mancini's pianist for a long time and played on the original recording of "The Pink Panther".  I thought that was neat.

The Pink Panther DVD set is nice, too :P

I got this for my birthday last Friday and watched them over the weekend. I found nothing to complain about. The changes that most people seem to whine about seem rather superfluous to me. Whether Han shot first or not, doesn't really bug me. I'm willing to bet that no single viewer ever, walked away from that scene and thought, "wow - Han Solo just murdered that guy in cold blood cuz he clearly shot first!" The scene had no value in the establishment of Solo as a 'bad guy', because truth be told, he's NOT a  bad guy. He's an intergalactic UPS truck driver who had to ditch his cargo on the side of the road, and now his boss wants him to pay for it. oooooh a real scoundrel, that one.

I didn't quite understand why Anakin's blue ghost would revert to his younger days while Obi Wan and Yoda are forced to live ethereally as octegenaric spirit guides, but I can understand why it was done. It just ties up the six movies into a single story, as opposed to individual groups of two stories. It doesn't really make sense when looking at the three jedi masters, but artistically, it makes a lot more sense than an anonymous old guy that nobody really knows. Using Christensen's image makes it seem a little more clear that Anakin has been redeemed; restored to the side of light. Its an artistic visual that, in a vastly superior way, demonstrates that a lifetime of evil is not enough to forever doom one to evil; that each day, we choose to be good or evil; and despite Yoda's suggestions, one can never really be 'lost' to the 'dark side' - The image of young anakin at the end of Jedi makes all that statement in a single image. I think it was a good idea.

I never thought of Han Solo as a bad guy because he shot first. It was all about the fact that if Solo shot first, he is a decent guy who sometimes has to do bad things to get by. If Greedo shoots first, he's just not as "naturalistic" a character as he was.

But I also just have huge problems with an "artist" going back to reworking his old creations. Let them stand on their own merits, as expressions of who you were then. Because at some point, as an artist, you'll be dead, and the stuff you created will have to stand the test of time without your meddling.

Knowing when it's finished is an important creative skill.

Thanks for that.  I would defend to the death your right to hold that wrong opinion.

Not sure which defense would be more effective - yours, or the Washington Redskins. Eitherwise, I still didn't have a problem with the changes. At all. I'll leave this drama to be debated by the Star Wars equivalent of Trekkies, and just continue on enjoying the DVD releases.

They didn't jerk around with Empire, and it's my favorite of the three, so I'm ok with the DVD series as a whole. Considering that Return of the Jedi was the one that got the most tweaking, and that its my least favorite, I think I see where Lucas is coming from on making changes. I don't see where he's coming from by making them the absolute, won't release originals ever again, fanboys can go fuck themselves changes.

What Arc said, except that I still fucking HATE the new dance-number in RotJ, particularly when compared to the surreal quirkiness of the old one.  However, I do consider the superb picture enhancements to all three films a fair tradeoff, especially since I can now skip over that godawful scene.

While I think the new movies are utter crap, and that Lucas' track record as a writer/director shows, that he should just keeps his hands off, because he has the least understanding of why his originals were great - I agree with Arc, that the changes aren't really that horrific.

And I was happy with the original restorations.
I was in the cinema when I saw the first trailer. A small television screen in the center of the countrys largest screen and the sound of Williams' score playing in stereo from the front. A voice says: "Is this how you remember Star Wars?" Then a X-wing zooms out followed by Tie-fighters and glorius THX Surroundsound.
I'll trade the assinine idea of Han shooting first for the chance of experiencing the movies on the big screen any day.

I don't really like the changes - to much flashy cgi, Han shooting second makes him a less resourcefull badass and the new music is worse than the old - but I'll live with that in exchange for the fixing of special effects and the new restored sounds.

And the stuff about artists never going back and changing stuff...
please, do you guys have any ideas how many Mona Lisas Leonardo painted before he was happy? Not sketches, not plans, but actual paintings? Artists goes back all the time, and Lucas isn't an artist - just a craftsman that got lucky once.

So what do "young" Yoda-larvae look like?

Obi-wan spent his penultimate years alone: watching over the next Jedi and contemplating the force when "all" other Jedi were dead.  It doesn't bother me that he'd "choose" that body form for eternity.  Though admittedly not in thirty years did it ever occurred to me to spin brain cycles on the question until now.

The point of Anakin being "younger" was always there, just with a different actor.  The point was that this ghost was his REAL spirit, Anakin as he was before he went evil and became Darth Vader, redeemed thanks to his sacrifice during Luke's battle with the Emporer.

Bruce

18 years have to pass between Episode 3 and Episode 4, unless we're to assume that Luke and Leia have been conceived in Episode 2 somewhere, in which case Lucas can divide the 18 years into 2 9-year intermissions.  

But any way, it was weird seeing Anakin's ghost look younger than Luke, his son.

Certainly artists like daVinci and Michaelangelo made multiple paintings and such, but in an entirely different context. It isn't as if daVinci had to publicize the Mona Lisa by a certain date. Making multiple painting is fine, IMO.

Lucas, OTOH, had a specific date for release and he made it. Now, it's like he has sold us a painting, in the original release. Then, while it's hanging in our living room, he walks into the house and puts a few dollops of paint on the old canvas. Then a few months later, he comes back and changes more things. And again. And again. By the time he finally croaks it, the painting we have now is nothing like the original when we bought it.

Give me the choice, motherfucker. Give me the choice of watching the original or his masturbatory changed version, and I'll buy it. Don't give me the choice, don't get my ducats.

F. L. Wright did this with his houses all the time.  Although it was people modifying it instead of him.  If he visited their house and furniture had been moved, he'd berate them and proceed to move it back into the correct position. Artists are nothing, if not completly fucked in the head.

I agree with giving us the choice of getting the original, though.

I'd agree with you if the title of this painting was "Han Shot First", or "Ewoks going YUP JUB with drums" - but we're talking about insignificant alterations. The way people are carrying on, you'd think he'd spliced in scenes from Das Boot and renamed the series "Submarine Wars" - but we're talking about some rather insignificant changes to the films, and of the significant ones, they greatly improve it, such as the use of CGI starships to enhance battle sequences.

See, the problem with remastering to DVD format is that there is a level of clarity that is so far beyond what was capable when A New Hope came out, that all of the horribly ugly scars are visible - R2D2 looks like he's made out of paper mache and water color paints. C3P0's innards are clearly a stocking jumpsuit and not a nest of cable and wire. The guns are made of painted wood carvings. So to help hide the really bad look of a hi-def Star Wars, CGI plug-ins are added, to dress up guns, spaceships, and in some cases, to blot out what would be some really cheesy sets that were passable in the 70s, but not by today's standards.

Its like if a caveman were to show up at your house and offer to repaint the red hand prints on your walls with a massive watercolor reinterpretation of the Sistine Chapel. Our eyes have outgrown Star Wars, so Lucas has tried, and rightly so IMO, to patch the leaky roof and mud up the cracked drywall. I think its great.

My eyes have not outgrown Star Wars. And Han shooting first is a pretty significant piece of character development.

Are we to go back over Citizen Kane and use Orson Welles CGI-ed up to show him explaining WTF Rosebud meant? Do we take all of Ray Harryhausen's movies and CGI them up to remove the silly little stop-motion effects? There's an artistry there that would be completely lost by adding CGI in to make them more "realistic." I'd hate to see the 1950's version of Sinbad digitially gussied up like some aging grandmother turning tricks.

Exactly, imo he's basically pissing on all those guys that started ILM in the first place by saying what they did is just not up to his 'high' standards anymore and should just be cut from the film.  Touchups are ok, what he is doing is not.  I saw the first special editions once and couldn't stand all the god damn cgi bull flying in front of the actors that I was trying to watch.   And I agree with Haem, Han shooting first pretty much set the tone for his entire character.

Orson Welles lost his job (twice!) because he couldn't stop futzing around with movies. Every Welles film released was done so by a studio under threats to trashcan the entire production by "such-and-such date." Not a great example, but I know what you're talking about.

But I think the problem is that people treat Star Wars like it was Citizen Kane. Alert: its not. Its a campy, serialized formulaic, space opera that was forced to short-cut a great many things because of budgetary and technological limitations of the era.

Lucas sees the DVD release as a chance to make the movies he wanted to make, but couldn't because of budget and science.

Perfect example: the scene between Han and Jabba in IV was cut because it was originally filmed as a 'stand-in' scene that would later be redone with an animated Jabba. Because they couldn't make a believable puppet for the scene, it was dumped - and for the majority of film viewers, the character of Jabba was reduced to a twice referenced shadow, and thats for those who bothered to even remember him. The film suffered, because with Jabba reduced to an after-thought, you lose  track of Han Solo's motivation. He's not an intergalactic taxi driver - but he needs money and in a hurry - he takes this mission because he has to.

Adding the scene back in, with the technology to do it the way the story insists that it be done, is a great improvement to the film. It establishes Han's motivation in a completely different light: Han's not a money-grubbing thief and criminal. He needs the money to get out of some serious bad debt to a criminal agent. Without this scene, he's just a guy who takes advantage of desperate people who need to evade the authorities.

The problem I guess, is that people want him to be a criminal who helps other 'criminals' avoid the law, but the story never meant for you to establish him that way.

You shut your damn dirty whore mouth!

I realize it is a cheesy, campy, serialized formulaic space opera. However, that doesn't mean it has to suck. The very fact that it didn't try to camp itself, or take itself too seriously is one of its charms.

I agree with you about the Jabba scene; deleted, already filmed scenes being inserted back in don't bother me. It's when he fucks with already established scenes for no good goddamn reason that I get stabby with it. Greedo shooting first really defused some of Han's edginess. Inserting Hayden Christensen was just a blatant pissing on the performance of the actor who originally played Anakin in RotJ. It's like actually inserting a giant pink bunny into Harvey; sure, Jimmy Stewart saw the bunny, but we didn't need to.

Again, a flawed example: adding Roger Rabbit to Harvey radically changes the style and formula of the movie. It would ruin it.

But here's the problem: Han Solo isn't edgy. He's not a bad guy. He's an independant frieght hauler - he drives an 18wheel "Big Rig" back and forth from the Kessel system. If you want to get right down to it, he's a smuggler - his crime is hauling swag for a pirate syndicate, but at the first sign of trouble, does he go guns ablaze? no. He jettisons his load and hi-tails it out of there. He avoids violence. Shooting Greedo because he made a verbal threat isn't right for Han Solo.

No, he shoots him because he knows that either Greedo will shoot him first or turn him over to Jabba.

woah I think I just levelled in geek with this post.

George Lucas sez (http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=5348):

I say to George:

RETIRE, FUCKHEAD. WE LIKED WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU GOT LUCKY. LEAVE IT TO US. HALF-COMPLETED MEANS LESS FUCKED UP.

The changes, on the whole, are pretty damn small.

And not worth much of a fuss over.

The Han shooting at the same time as Greedo is something of a pain, because it's the only change that seriously changes something. But honestly, the film doesn't stand or fall on the issue.

The addition of the Jabba scene in ep 4 could have been done better, simply by finding a way to get rid of the dumb 'Han steps on Jabba' moment (just leave Han out of shot for that second ffs).

Everything else is just cleaning up and fluff.

Bobba Fett's revoicing makes sense, and without it you have a continuity error.

The Anakin ghost scene equally I have no issue with, hell, I'd have considered even adding Qui Gon.

People are just pissed at GL because of tPM and AotC.

If tPM and AotC had been good films, noone would be complaining about the edits on these DVDs.

We were complaining about these type of edits before TPM and AOTC even saw the light of day.  You know, he did fuck around with these films before the DVD release.  Han has now gone from shooting first, to second, to a tie.  

TPM and AOTC didn't make him a revisionist hack, he was well on the way there before.

This I found amusing, GL on CNN explaining why he released the trilogy on DVD now, instead of a few years after Ep3....



I honestly don't know if this GL being incredibly stupid, or being incredibly cynical, and thinking "Hmm, prequels not going well, must ship original trilogy asap, just need a cover to explain why the change....".

I thought he waited this long to release them on DVD because the stipulation in his divorce of his wife getting proceeds from Star Wars finally ran out.  Of course, perhaps that's just a rumor to propogate his evilness, but that's something that a remember seeing a while ago when DVDs were becoming more mainstream.

Sidenote: Anyone see FOX's opening to the Yanks-Sox game last night? Basically it was one big add for the Star Wars DVD set. Made me throw up.

Just for clarification, in the unaltered scene, Jabba is just a fat pasty guy and Han walks around him. They used a computer to add the "hop on tail" moment because its cute. I chuckled.

Yeah I saw it, and the whole time I was thinking, man the nerds are going to have a fucking field day bitching about this.

Then I thought, wait, are the nerds even watching sports?

Statistics-heavy stuff like baseball, sure.

Actually he's not a Big Rig driver. He's a drug smuggler. This isn't just a nice guy driving boxes for Walmart. This is a hardcore criminal. He shot Greedo first because it was down to him or Greedo.

George Lucas is actually trying to convince someone that he really really believes there won't be a market for the original Star Wars films in 3 years because of... piracy? PIRACY?

George, hate to tell you this buddy. You've slapped the Star Wars logo on just about anything and its sold well in excess of what said merchandise without the logo would. You could LITERALLY put a turd from each of the original cast members in a vaccum-sealed box, label it "Star Wars Collector's Shit" and it would sell the fuck out. The franchise is almost 30 years old, and kids still have Star Wars bedsheets. Fuck, some ADULTS have Star Wars bedsheets. People are posting pictures on the Internet of their homebrewed Jawa outfits. Quotes from your movie are entrenched in the cultural lexicon. This ain't Battlestar Galatica, this is Star Wars.

Is he really going to try to tell us he is that out of touch with the market?

Did you really just ask that question?

I forgot. George Lucas is the same man who made Attack of the Clones.

Haemish, I have a sneaking suspicion that this quote is going to come back to haunt you during the next big MMOG release. :)

Well, look at DAoC. Half the content, much less server crashes and lag.

Well, that's pretty much true...

I wince at the unnecessary, out-of-place, crappy looking cgi that adds nothing to the story, and jars me out of the experience.  Same for the Greedo shooting stuff.  And the jedi rocks song.  And some of the smaller scenes meant to make the movies seem bigger.

Why do people dislike the force ghost Hayden?  Because we don't like Hayden.   You might as well replace him with a force ghost N'sync.  It's all the same angsty teenage dreamboi shit to me.

The Fett voice change isn't horrible, except for the fact that it reminds me of the stupid kid who played young Boba in AoTC's.   But the original voice for Boba sounded alot more menacing, and that's how I prefer it.  Screw Lucas's continuity.  He certainly doesn't seem to mind screwing it up when it suits him elsewhere.

At least they finally managed to make the changes that should have been made in the original Special Edition, like removing the bounding boxes from the tie fighters, and making the rancor scene not look like ass.

If someone wants to explain how we get ghost Hayden but don't get ghost Ewan McGregor I'd love to hear it.  Just kidding, please keep it to yourself.

And Han stepping on Jabba's tail doesn't really work.  It's like making short jokes around Scarface.

If I was the type of person who raided other people's posts for sigs, I would take this one.  Many thanks.

I explained it already. :)  Hayden was Anakin back when he was still "good".  Darth Vader was so evil, so corrupted by the Dark Side, that he was really someone "else".  Anakin's good side redeemed himself in the final battle between Luke and The Emporer, and thus his light side ghost (dark siders don't get ghosts, I guess?) is himself as he was when he was good.

Bruce

Is this the same ex who adopted a daughter then abandoned them both for a pretty boy to go be a wealthy jetsetter?

I could be evil like that too. :-)

Edit: grammer is hard