Films Lucas re-edits the Star Wars films again for the Blu Ray release!!

WTF are they saying ? I can't pick up a single word. I can't even tell if it's english

 

Just chatting about radio stuff. Seems pretty clear to me. Then again, I'm pretty practised at listening to weak voice signals way down in the noise.

 

This is the cruellest piece of misinformation imaginable. 1-3 are terrible, terrible films (albeit with some good effects). 4-6 are wonderful classics (albeit slightly cheesy and visually dated).

If you watch 1-3 first you probably won't have any patience or brain cells left for the original trilogy.

 

There never were any prequels.

Hey, denial works for me, OK?

 

73s good sir.

M3JJM & 2E1JJM.

 

Al Bundy?

Isn't just a river in Egypt.


To be honest, Star Wars was good when I was a kid, but it's not the only sci-fi in fiction.

 

Alien and Blade Runner were more defining for me. And of course, nothing captured my experience of computing in the 1980's more than TRON. Seriously, those were the days of miracle and wonder.

 

He say you Blade Runner.
Tell him I'm eating.

 

Happened to be channel-hopping the other night and landed on Beverly Hills Cop III. I foolishly allowed myself to get caught up in the god-awfulness of it when what popped but an inexplicable George Lucas cameo. He sure has made some odd decisions in the last 20 years.

 

LOL! I did exactly this!! I didn't make it far through the film as it was terrible, but I saw the cameo in 'Wonder Land' or whatever it was called.

 

Cheers to that.

I actually find Star Wars boring

 

Watch the old three original cuts twice!

 

Thinking about it, I only really watch Star Wars for the Luke/Vader storyline. The Ewoks, the rebels, Jabba the Hut, Wookies and all that other camp 80s crap was fairly disposable - cutesy filler that wouldn't look out of place in a Doctor Who episode. Luke's character arc and his relationships with Vader, Obi Wan, Yoda and the Emperor were what made the film emotionally relevant.

I mean, dismiss them as cheesy sci-fi all you want, but if you don't find the death of Luke's aunt and uncle and the iconic sunset shot moving, there's something broken inside you. And the encounters between Vader and Luke really are gripping, as much as I hate that word.

Also, Luke and Leia's incestuous kiss was totally awesome, as much for how much it makes fans squirm and argue as for how hot Carrie Fisher was.

 

Actually, I thought that death scene was a bit hammy.

Still, Star Wars was magical because it was the first space opera that presented spaceships and robots in a credible but exotically exciting way. The special effects were mind-blowing at the time. It was also a very clever adventure film that hooked right into the teenage sense of restlessness, that there was a more exciting world out there, that they were destined for something greater, that there was more to life than this... It was the best of fairy tales. It was magic on celluloid. Like all film classics, from Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon to Blade Runner, it cannot be remade or improved upon. It is what it is. Any attempt to fiddle with it will only detract.

The Empire Strikes Back was even better. Darker, edgier, it seemed to have grown up with the teenagers who had watched Star Wars. The story did not have an all-happy ending. Characters were more morally ambiguous and conflicted. There were lessons in there about the complexities of friendship, family, moral decision making and sacrifice; questions about fate and self-determination, how we judge others and ourselves; what is strength and what is weakness. It is the best film of the lot.

And then, of course, George blew it with Return of the Jedi. The plot felt rushed and derivative (let's blow up another Death Star!), and what was it with those Ewoks? Perhaps the rot was setting in already. Perhaps he caved in to the merchandising opportunities. But the film series that grew, developed and matured alongside our teenage selves suddenly regressed to kindergarten. It became a film for the little one's. Even Leia in her bikini felt like facile pandering to teenage crushes and frankly, a bit of an insult.

I think that is where George started losing it. The problem is that his audience grew up and the genre matured, but he did not. What we saw as sense of wonder coupled with a good dramatic classical story line may not have been the result of a sound understanding of how to exquisitely balance special effects with a good story to create a credible and exciting universe, but a child being restrained from finger-painting big shiny rockets all over the place by the limitations of cinematography. Now those technical restraints are gone, we see George's real vision: it is garish, and shiny, and full of bright flashing lights. But no story.

 

I have been laughing at Simon Peggs Tweets regarding this, for a fan boy he's getting mighty annoyed with the re edits etc.

Though I understand where he's coming from. The Trilogy was fine before the edits and still fine before Episode 1, 2 and 3 lol

 

Pretty much. Redlettermedia put the slippage down to how much (and then how little) George's team were willing to step up and intervene against his infinite stupidity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIWKMgJs_Gs#t=4m38s

 

Well there's certainly a fair amount of correlation between when it really started going wrong and when Rick McCallum showed up on the scene...

 

The other way to look at it is that things went down hill when Gary Kurtz left.

 

All of which would suggest that Lucas is not the central influence that he should be; that the brilliance of the first two Star Wars films is basically due to the coincidentally ideal combination of certain key other people.

 

Nexxo, would it be possible for you to ban George Lucas from life on the grounds that he is clearly into fiddling with things that shouldn't be fiddled with and is a threat to every child, woman and bit tech member?

Or would we need to build a new, more powerful Ban Hammer for said task?



I think some of the first changes he did to the original 1970s films to get them on VHS were good, better CGI being the main thing. (No vaseline to obscure wheels springs to mind) But he is going too far, everything is defined by imperfections, trying to iron them all out would probably make a technically brilliant film. But I for one would much rather watch the Star Wars films with the little imperfections, then have GL mess and mess and fiddle until it becomes a wonderful pile of steaming crap that looks quite good but has no soul.