Star Wars [2]

Star Wars without John Williams isn't the same

bungobaggins wrote:After all these years I broke down and bought the OT on blu-ray. I've only watched ANH so far and while some of the special edition changes are really annoying they seem to be spread out and a majority of the film seems untouched. Well, just cleaned up and with some enhanced effects. Overall the picture looks great. Listening to the commentary George is trying to convince everyone that he had everything in terms of plot planned out ahead of time. Yeah, sure George.

I watched the 2004(?) special editions of NH and Empire recently I don't know how different they are to the Blu Ray versions, but other than 'Greedo Shot first' nothing stood out as particularly annoying (which in itself was kinda annoying) the CGI and random inserts don't really add much to the films either way i.m.o, they just stick out as more intrusive because they just aren't needed-there were literally scenes where random new CGI animals walk in front of characters and the camera just because Lucas could do it.

I'll be waiting for the original versions to turn up on Bluray personally...

Eldorion wrote:To be completely honest, a lot of the EU was trash, and the good stuff can still be read and enjoyed (a lot of it remains in print) regardless of its canonicity.

I've heard the trash argument before, and after reading that Chewbacca died in the books screaming as a moon crushed him I'm inclined to agree  Canon has never bothered me with Star Wars, as with Who (which has never had an official canon), I treat everything outside the films as just additional fun escapism (I was probably more into the videogames than films as a child).

It was obvious that Disney was not going to constrain their new trilogy in the decades of post-ROTJ continuity that was already established, nor should they have.  

Agreed, it would have been disastrous from a business point of view, planning the films around a lengthy series of obscure series of novels aimed at hardcore fans (very few of which were probably still in print or easy to access), fans who would probably moan when they changed things anyway. TFA proved i.m.o that Disney was more interested in doing a safe semi-reboot for the masses, rather than the true sequel Lucas or the hardcore fans may have wanted, and based on my very limited knowledge the EU wouldn't give Disney much breathing room. I do sympathise with the fans who had spent/wasted lots of time on the comics, books etc though, bit of a dick move to chuck out all of the pre-OT stuff as well, since it seems Disney isn't going to touch the prequel era stuff very much.

I kinda wish they had kept The Holiday Special canon though...

I guess my flippant attitude towards canon may come from my formative experiences in Tolkien fandom, where we have no real canon to speak of.  Reading THoME you get used to finding dope stories that you don't fit with the more famous parts of the franchise.  But that doesn't detract from those stories' own qualities.

Agreed again, in some ways I actually prefer the BOLT versions of the great tales over what was published in The Sil, Tolkien like SW is at its heart escapism, arguing over the details is interesting/fun (sometimes) but before that I just take things as they come and enjoy it without worrying about where it fits and when.

There has been an ... awakening of Star Wars spin-off stories over the past year or so.

I see what you did there

 There are a bunch of novels in the new official sequel trilogy continuity.  The Marvel Star Wars comics (which were among the first SW things ever published) got relaunched with a bunch of new series.  And there's a currently airing animated show called Star Wars Rebels which, along with the CGI Clone Wars cartoon from a lot of the same guys, is part of the new canon too.  My understanding though is that Disney has done away with the old "levels" of canon and wants everything to remain entirely consistent in a single continuity.  

Although I like the idea of a shared universe of sorts, with a clear canon for SW, I wonder if it could prove a bit limiting, and as somewhat very unlikely to read any of the books etc, I'll be a little annoyed if Disney use it as a opportunity to cross promote (i.e having to read ten books to understand the backstory of a character)...

Then in the early '90s, the Thrawn trilogy, about a former Imperial general fighting the New Republic several years after ROTJ, became an unexpected smash hit and revived interest in Star Wars, leading to an increase in new narrative material as well as a relaunch of the SW toy line in 1995.

I do intend to read the Thrawn trilogy at some point, though I've heard it's pretty dark and depressing (not that Han, Leia and Luke had entirely happy endings judging on TFA)....

In 1996, a few years after Thrawn, there was a big multimedia project called Shadows of the Empire involving books, comics, special toys, a video game, and even a soundtrack.

 

I actually still have a working copy of Shadows for the N64 and dug it out the other day, either I'm prematurely turning into a confused all man with a short attention span, or videogames were much harder twenty years ago...still a very fun game despite its age and dated graphics, wouldn't say no to a remake...

bungobaggins wrote:After all these years I broke down and bought the OT on blu-ray. I've only watched ANH so far and while some of the special edition changes are really annoying they seem to be spread out and a majority of the film seems untouched. Well, just cleaned up and with some enhanced effects. Overall the picture looks great. Listening to the commentary George is trying to convince everyone that he had everything in terms of plot planned out ahead of time. Yeah, sure George.

I dunno if I could bring myself to listen to that commentary. I have the special edition DVD with the old Laser Disc rips of the original versions of the OT, but they look pretty ass compared to modern Blu-rays.  I tried downloading the Despecialized Editions once but some of the files were missing.

malickfan wrote:I watched the 2004(?) special editions of NH and Empire recently I don't know how different they are to the Blu Ray versions, but other than 'Greedo Shot first' nothing stood out as particularly annoying (which in itself was kinda annoying) the CGI and random inserts don't really add much to the films either way i.m.o, they just stick out as more intrusive because they just aren't needed-there were literally scenes where random new CGI animals walk in front of characters and the camera just because Lucas could do it.

The biggest set of changes came in 1997, which are the versions officially labeled the Special Editions.  Theatrical re-releases and home video prior to 1997 had already incorporated some minor changes (most notably the addition of "Episode IV: A New Hope" to the opening scrawl of the original film).  For the 1997, which had a major theatrical re-release and then came out on VHS, Lucas filmed a bunch of new material as well as redoing/adding a lot of special effects with newer technology.  When he was filming ROTS, he shot a little bit of additional material (including having McDiarmid redo the Emperor's hologram from TESB and Christensen replace Sebastian Shaw as Force ghost!Anakin in ROTJ) for the first DVD edition, which is the 2004 one.  But for the most part it's similar to the 1997 version and so it's sometimes also referred to as the special edition, although that's not entirely accurate. The 2004 cut actually undid a couple unpopular parts of the 1997 SE, such as Luke yelling while falling at the end of TESB.  In 2006 they released a limited edition DVD set that also included the original cuts ripped from a Laserdisc release circa 1992, which is why they have relatively poor image quality.  In 2011, for the first Blu-ray release, there were a number of minor changes made (including Vader's "noooo" in ROTJ), but AFAIK no new footage was shot.  This version is identical to the Blu-ray steelbook versions that came out a few months ago.

I'll be waiting for the original versions to turn up on Bluray personally...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure these are coming one day in the not too distant future, and when they do I'll definitely be there.

malickfan wrote:I do sympathise with the fans who had spent/wasted lots of time on the comics, books etc though, bit of a dick move to chuck out all of the pre-OT stuff as well, since it seems Disney isn't going to touch the prequel era stuff very much.

The CGI Clone Wars cartoon had actually already been trashing a lot of prior EU stuff. They had added a new tier to the then-official canon hierarchy that gave the show precedent over books/comics/games, which pissed off both some fans and some authors in the Lucasfilm stable, but Lucas was more involved with the show than he was with most EU stuff and it became fairly popular with fans over time. That show is still canon in the new system anyway.

I don't expect Disney to do a ton with the pre-prequel era (which spans tens of thousands of years), although

TFA spoilers:

I see what you did there  

Although I like the idea of a shared universe of sorts, with a clear canon for SW, I wonder if it could prove a bit limiting, and as somewhat very unlikely to read any of the books etc, I'll be a little annoyed if Disney use it as a opportunity to cross promote (i.e having to read ten books to understand the backstory of a character)...

I feel like they're getting dangerously close to that already, though it's probably just a factor of Abrams' sorta ADD approach to pacing. Some of the books published in the run-up to TFA followed Rey, Finn, and Poe, but they didn't look all that exceptional and were being marketed as kids' books. On the other hand, the most promising-looking book so far (Lost Stars, which I keep hearing great things about from other fans) was marketed as a YA (teen) book, so go figure.

malickfan wrote:

I'll be waiting for the original versions to turn up on Bluray personally...

Yeah, that's what I always said, but I don't think it's going to happen anymore.

Eldorion wrote:
I dunno if I could bring myself to listen to that commentary. I have the special edition DVD with the old Laser Disc rips of the original versions of the OT, but they look pretty ass compared to modern Blu-rays. I tried downloading the Despecialized Editions once but some of the files were missing.

It was actually easier to listen to than the PJ and Boyens commentary on the Hobbit movies. I had downloaded and watched the Despecialized Edition a few years ago. They looked great, but I couldn't justify keeping the huge files on my computer.

I couldn't bring myself to try the Hobbit commentaries but I imagine that's not a very low bar. I do have much respect for Lucas but not for his rewriting of history.

Yeah I listened to whole of the AUJ and about half of the DOS commentary. Have no interest in revisiting those or listening to the BOFA commentary.

That was really interesting; thanks for posting them bungo. It's fascinating to hear what's going through Lucas' mind at this point. I hope that with a little more distance he'll be remembered more evenly than he sometimes is/was in the aftermath of the prequels. He's certainly a monumental figure in popular culture in general but also for most of us fans/geeks.

He has a brass neck and a half talking about folk abusing new tech and going crazy with it forgetting there is a story- SW special editions anyone? So much cgi crap shoved in there you cant even see the original frame

Yeah George is definitely a hypocrite when it comes to the use of CGI and technology used solely to "tell a story," but it doesn't make what he said in that first clip any less true.

Watched the film Kingsman today and suddenly realised Mark Hamill is in it with an English accent. no wonder I didn't recognise him.

I didn't recognize Hamill in Kingsman either. Loved the film though.

he was the kidnapped professor at the beginning. yep kingsman is fantastic, I really enjoyed it.  Mr Fig liked the Swedish Princess. cant think why.

OK I jsut watched TFA. I'm so far behind everybody else (except Petty) that it's hardly worth post ing much of my thoughts especiallly on this computer. I thought it was great fun and struck some excellent ballances (old vs. new fans, live stunts vs. cgi etc.) that i'd been concerned about going in. Glad they chose to focus on Han's arc in this movie, saving Leia's and Luke's for the next films.

Although the structure definitelly echos SW4, I found myself also hearing echos of Naussica of the Valley of the Wind. Gotta rewatch that now. I don't know if it's been credited as an infllluence or not. Anybody know?

Glad you liked it, Dave.

I hadn't thought of Nausicaa myself or heard anyone else make that connection, but when I googled it just now I came up with this really well done mashup trailer:

That IS nicely done. I bet they cold do a lot more now if they had more than just the trailer to work from.

It sseems to me there's at least as much Naussica in TFA as Hidden Fortress in the original.
Girl scavenger and amazingly tallented pilot roams the wastelands. Finds herself caught between to large warring air powers. Meets boy who's not as bad as the others. saves him. Steals plane. Discovers she has special powers, etc.

Personally I think it would be kind of cool if Abrams had been inspired by Miyazaki, who may have been inspired by Lucas, who'd been inspired by Kurosawa. That's a pretty impressive hypothetical pedigree!

This is neat

Information about The Force Awakens Deleted Scenes:

Now that you've mentioned it I can't really unsee the Nausicaa parallels, Dave. I hope someone asks Abrams about it. It's definitely a cool observation.

malickfan wrote:This is neat

Information about The Force Awakens Deleted Scenes:

Spoiler:

I love Wookieepedia.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Vader's_armor

Well, I've seen it- crabbit review to follow- though I will give this general indication of my feelings, "well, it wasn't all bad."

Pettytyrant101 wrote: "well,  it wasn't all bad."

Well, that's something at least I suppose!

I've always looked at Star Wars as just pure escapism, and was expecting more of a modern reboot than straight sequel anyway, so many of TFA flaws didn't bother me that much, it was far from a perfect film, but great fun, and hopefully has laid a solid foundation for Rian Johnson to do something a bit more experimental in Ep 8.

malickfan wrote:Star Wars without John Williams isn't the same

Good lord, this really explains why real life seems to suck so much.