Slashdot Mirror
A Host Of Star Wars Bits
"First off, I'm sure many of you noticed that the Official Star Wars site has been completely redesigned. In addition to the Episode II Select picture number #40 (finally) being released, there's also some new pictures of some of the characters, specifically Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan, Hayden Christensen (as Anakin), and (yowza!) Natalie Portman (as Padme Amidala). There are also small pics for Christopher Lee (as Count Dooku) and Temuera Morrison as "a bounty hunter" (read: Jango Fett).
"The official site has the first (of what appars to be many) "Making of Episode II" shorts. Although it mainly shows George, Rick, and some others talking about minor stuff, as well as "the camera" and the "Courscant street set".
"TheForce.net has some nice concept pictures of what the Clone troopers look like with a doctored pic, a fan-made rendering, and painting that looks almost like one of Ralph McQuarrie's.
" Also, The Criterion Collection is releasing Akira Kurosawa's classic, The Hidden Fortress (also known as Kakushi toride no san akunin) on May 22nd, with an anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer. What does this have to do with Star Wars? This IS Star Wars. George Lucas has (admitidly) taken this film, added some touches of Flash Gordon and WWII dogfighting films, world religions, and *bam*, Star Wars: A New Hope. It also contains an interview with George Lucas (or as I like to call him, "The Plaid One") describing the influence of The Hidden Fortress on Star Wars.
"One final bit is still a rumor at this point, but its by far the best rumor, from the most reliable sources. The Episode I DVD rumors have been kicked around for a while, but we finally have unofficial confirmation from the top "spies", as well as Rick McCallum himself!. I usually wait for the official press release myself, but these rumors are coming from the best of the best, and even Rick himself implied that they've been completed. Still no word on the "classic trilogy" or Special Editions though...
"Hope that'll keep you busy until the trailer is released (estimated by November)."
Your manboobs are nobody's fault but your own.
Let's overlook the racism and the poor acting, for a moment. (True fans are busy awaiting Episode2 and aren't still making excuses for TPM.) On a much deeper level, StarWars sends a shocking, frightening, and sickening message to America's youth.
StarWars portrays space as a site of warfare between different species and even between rival human factions.
When A New Hope was released to theaters thirteen years ago, America was at peace. The Vietnam War had recently been brought to a close, and Americans were looking forward to a new era of prosperity and at friendly relations with their neighbors.
But within a few short years, America invaded Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, and Haiti. What had happened? What had become of our message of peace? What could have transpired in the interim to bring about this cruel turn of events?
I'll tell you what: StarWars was released to thronging masses of American youths. In their orgiastic rush to imbibe their new-found cultural icons, they discarded all the wisdom we had acquired through the blood and sweat of our recent military conquests.
It's no surprise, of course. Even the name "StarWars" itself conveys a message of conflict and carnage. A New Hope is, at bottom, a story about armed rebellion by rabble against a benevolent legal order, precisely the sort of communistic message we had come so close to defeating in Vietnam.
Perhaps it would've been different if we had won the Vietnam War. Perhaps then we would've witnessed the fall and destruction of communism and all its bastard progeny (socialism, yuppyism, the Home Shopping Network, etc.). Unfortunately, the world will never know.
George Lucas, I think I can speak for everyone here on slashdot, and indeed with the entire breath of humanity: you should be ashamed of yourself for what you have wrought.
Disgraceful.
Perhaps if she should eat the hot grits instead of pouring them down her pants.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
In New Zealond, a bunch of fans are claiming "Jedi" as their religion on the census! If enough people do it, it must be declared as a viable religion... Food for thought, young Jedi.
In my observation, those Star Wars Lego Technics sets have been selling like hotcakes. From where I sit in my cubicle, I see at least 4 displays of Lego Technics Star Wars sets built by my coworkers.
If you ask me, any person who can dedicate space on their desk (not covered with papers and books) for Legos is a SLACKER!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Wear Princess Leia's metal bikini. The girls will see that you're a sensitive new age guy who isn't afraid to be himself in public.
Either that, or dress up as Admiral Ackbar and start singing "Fish Heads".
The Hidden Fortress was mainly the inspiration for the two droids and their bickering comedy-relief relationship. That's just about it.
The Hidden Fortress largely follows the misadventures of two camp followers, who are basically scavengers, scumbags, and comic relief. They encounter the hero, a lone samurai general (Toshiro Mifune) travelling incognito, and get pulled along with him out of greed as they try and find a stash of gold in a (dum-dum-dum!) hidden fortress, really a kind of hole-in-the-wall hideout located in a rugged wasteland. There is also a bunch of bad guys, and a princess. There are a lot of twists and turns and treachery, and some nice sword and spear fighting at the end.
The two movies just don't fit together as neatly as people seem to believe. Star Wars has a lot of plot threads going: saving the princess, saving the rebellion from the Death Star, Luke losing his old life and becoming a hero and proto-Jedi, Han Solo demonstrating that he's not just a mercenary, Obi-wan coming out of seclusion and moving towards his final confrontation with Vader. In contrast, The Hidden Fortress is just about Toshiro Mifune's character accomplishing his quest, and, to a much lesser extent, the two camp followers trying to reap a reward through treachery and survive the results of their own actions.
Lastly, the tone of the two movies is very different. Star Wars is a saturday matinee romp, whereas The Hidden Fortress was a straightforward samurai flick with two offbeat characters for comic relief.
In short, you can see the influences, but they're really two different movies.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
is it just me or does that look like a hand-me-down from Cassiopia from Battlestar Galactica
b
Some of the features I'm looking forward to:
Kevin Fox
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Kevin Fox
More on SW variants can be found at the IMDB
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Since I hate his stand on merchandising, but I definately think that the overwhelming wave of *crap* being put out for Episode I has destroyed (as if the movie didn't do it alone) my faith in Star Wars.
:)
I used to be a theforce.net junkie, I used to get all the action figures (you know, when you had to fight other kids at Toys R Us to get your hands into the first shipment of Boba Fett and Lando Calrissian), and I used to watch at least one of the videos roughly weekly. Yeah, I'd just put it on in the background while I wrote reports, played Quake or brushed the dog.
But ever since the flood of sub-par Episode 1 merchandise (I mean, Lucas used to only allow COOL stuff that was fun to have and looked nice both on the shelf and on the battle scene in the middle of the floor), my interest has waned.
While I did join a team of people to take turns camping out for Phantom Menace tickets, I wasn't one of the folks who was expecting it to be a life changing event -- I wanted to be pleasantly surprised when I got there instead of disappointed. But I guess I had a bad experience or something, because when I saw this list of quickies I thought "Oh great, stuff about that next star wars movie. Where's the technology news?" And then I thought, "what the hell? This used to be a religious thing for me, why don't I care." And then I realized it. And then I realized I could post about it for lots of karma.
Anyway, here's to hoping that Episode II delights more than I did. Maybe I'll see it in the first week. Probably not.
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
Slowly, across the world... allowing for folks on the dark side of the planet to wake up and check /.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
"I will give you access to the Quicktime video".
"It is not necessary to gather demographics to let me view the video"
"It's okay, you don't have to register to view the video."
But seriously, any mirrors for that making-of video? Akamai perhaps?
---
You forgot one of the most copied scenes *ever*. The bandits in seven samuari that come cresting over a hillside at the start of the attack. That whole scene of them pouring over the hill was INVENTED by Akira Kurosawa and copied by just about every battle film ever since.
I don't really mind double posts on
First of all its Troops not Troopers and I think duality is very well made but if you can't figure out the ending I can see why you'd think it had a bad plot.
Seriously, these are very short films, you can't have character development and a long script in 2 minutes.
Go ahead and mod down, but StarWars seems to me to be another one of those sacred cows. I loved the original movie as a kid, and the sequels were entertaining, but as I got older I began to realize that the acting, storyline, writing, directing, etc, really were nothing special. Clearly, the original StarWars will stand out as a groundbreaking special effects piece as well as cultural filmpiece. Reinforcing my erroding faith, Lucas with his renovated re-releases of the first trilogy, insults us with the Jaba scene in episode IV. Also, to be blunt, Episode I completly sucked as a movie. I mean, the light sabres were cool and the darth mul guy was pretty cool, but the rest sucked (except that big fish, that was neat). Midocondrians? What the hell? Explaining the force? That is like when stupid fantasy books try and explain magic. What a stupid premiss. And as for JarJar, enough said. Of course JarJar is no worse than the Ewoks or Yoda. The Episode I script has less depth than one of Bill Shattner's tech war books. The "political" dramma is oversimplified rediculousness. The bad guys are too bad and the good guys are too good. Look, I am not saying these movies are terrible, they are very entertaining, but they aren't worth all of this iconification.
Someone you trust is one of us.
is also quite funny for the true story on how some of the charcters in Star Wars: A New Hope evolved ;)
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Remember, she *is* supposed to be the mother of Princess Leia. Carrie Fisher's portrayal didn't necessarily make her look buxom, nor voluptuous.
- passion
I was just about to submit this as a news article, but since my submissions never get accepted anyway...
Fanfilms.com has several very good amateur short films set in the starwars universe. The one that really caught my eye though is the six and a half minute long film Duality about the final test of a new apprentice Lord of the Sith. The film makers put up some very good information about amateur film-making at their site, including modelling hints, costuming, storyboards, and script notes.
I'm really impressed with the quality of this amateur film; and if there are any more out there like this, I'd like to see them.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
The full title is
Star Wars: Episode 4: A New Hope
Would that be uglier than the kludge where Darth Vadar constructs a robot and fails to recognize same robot from that point onward?
Lest it be forgotten... Starwars SUCKS.
Let's overlook the racism and the poor acting, for a moment.
Acting is your opinion but where did you get racism? If you are refering too the whole trade federation is the Japanese thing that was said when Episode 1 came out well maybe George Lucas is a genius and wanted to make an evil trade federation empire and people assumed that he was making a statement about the Japanese because thats how they see them. The statement was made that various aliens look "obviously" look like various races well OBVIOUSLY no one has ever seen an alien and our human minds relate to what is unfamiliar to what is familiar.
On a much deeper level, StarWars sends a shocking, frightening, and sickening message to America's youth. StarWars portrays space as a site of warfare between different species and even between rival human factions.
1. What's different about that description of space and an accurate description of the way the world/society is? 2. Who's to say that space isn't that way?
. . .But within a few short years, America invaded Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, and Haiti. What had happened? What had become of our message of peace? What could have transpired in the interim to bring about this cruel turn of events?
In other news the government has also built the matrix and we are keeping another race of humans subject to us in a virutual world ... come-on this is a very very poor example of life immitating art. These actions were brought on because of America's insistance on policing the world. Korea, Cuba, Vietnam happened before this movie came out and the gov is still doing it today.
I'll tell you what: StarWars was released to thronging masses of American youths. In their orgiastic rush to imbibe their new-found cultural icons, they discarded all the wisdom we had acquired through the blood and sweat of our recent military conquests.
Ummm maybe news to you but America got their butts kicked in Vietnam. And you contridicted yourself, you said war was bad now you are saying conquests are good? Troll troll troll
I can't believe this was modded up.
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
Inquiring minds need to know.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
err, thats where you're wrong. Only just however; let me explain.
1977: Star Wars released. As suggested, no sign of 'A New Hope'.
1978: Work starts on Empire and to some extent Jedi, thanks to the amazing success of the film.
1979: Star Wars re-released to cinemas, with 'A New Hope' added to the title scroll, in anticipation of...
1980: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back hits the cinemas.
So while its true that 'A New Hope' was only added once Empire was a definite go, the release was out there before we actually got to see the film. I don't doubt that there are plenty who didn't see the re-release, since they had already seen the film, however.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
"Fist Full of Dollars" with Clint Eastwood was a shot-for-shot remake of Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo". That was the movie that really started the Spaghetti Western movement.
"Last Standing Man" with Bruce Willis was also a remake of "Yojimbo", but not shot-for-shot.
"The Magnificent Seven" was a remake of Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai".
And finally Kurosawa's "Ran" was a remake of Shakespear's "King Lear".
The irony in all of this is that Akira took Western ideas and used them to make samurai movies, which then got remade into Westerns.
And to add one more interesting thought. Lots of classic shots in anime fights are taken from Kurosawa's work. Like the striken enemy not falling over until a delayed few seconds after the blow a.k.a. "Seven Samurai", and the great gyser of blood a.k.a. "Sanjuro"
Unless, of course, you are like myself and think George Lucas is the biggest candy stealer from young children in the history of modern cinema. In that case you don't give two shits on a monkey's ass that a new Star Wars movie is going to come out.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I remember seeing another japanese samuri film, and recognizing that it was identical with an early Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. Camera angles and all, just transplanted from Japan to the Italian version of the American west. You could almost run them side by side.
I hope SWII doesn't turn out like that. I still think it would have worked out better writing if young Darth had turned out to be identical twins. The possible plot twists would have been wonderful. (For example - who turns to the dark side - the one who goes for training, or the one who does not?) Audiences would have been second guessing all along.
Now it feels less like genius and more like a marketing machine. [shrug]
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Actually, the Episode IV: A New Hope title was not added until the re-release AFTER Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. In fact, there was much confusion when Empire opened with Episode V and many casual moviegoers wandering around wondering where episodes 2,3, and 4 had gone (assuming Star Wars to be episode 1). Lucas had explained that he always wanted it to be part of a trilogy, but that he had had so much trouble getting financing and had no idea how successful it would be (there were articles announcing it would be the greatest dud of all time), that he had left the subtitle off, in case he could only make the one. As we all know, it turned out bigger than anyone expected, and he was able to make the sequels and add the Episode IV: A New Hope title when re-released. There were other subtle changes. Obi-wan, when first meeting Luke and being told that R2-D2 claimed to belong to him originally said "I don't recall ever owning a droid. Leastways not one of these modern ones." The "modern" line was removed for the first re-release after Lucas had decided the entire storyline would be told from the perspective of the droids, and so R2-D2 couldn't be a modern droid, if he were to be in Episodes 1, 2 and 3. And in case you wonder what my source is: it's me. I saw these films on their first run release, over and over and over. The interviews with Lucas were mostly taken from Starlog magazine, which we devoured for any information about the upcoming movie, long before we had a World Wide Web. I knew "The Empire Strikes Back" was Episode V when I went to the first showing in town, but most of the other people who were there did not, and there was a loud outcy of confusion when the opening scroll went by. It was several YEARS after "Star Wars" premiered that the film contained "Episode IV: A New Hope", though Lucas had always wanted it to be part of a serial (like the Saturday afternoon serials of his youth).
And slowly, across the nation, work grinds to a halt for all Slashdot'ers...
Kurdt
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Hmm? As an average geek who plans to enjoy Ep2 when it comes out, but is not obsessing about it, or particularly horny for Natalie Portman, can we get a slashbox for Theforce.net to get some of the more pointless SW news off the main page? Huh? It can't be that hard to set up, guys, espcially if you've got one for Sluggy Freelence.
That's right, Mod me down, karma-boy.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Anyway, for anyone who is too lazy, or doesn't want to accept them before reading them, here are a few key points:
"By using this site, you signify that you agree to these Terms of Use." By the time you've read them, you've already agreed.
"The sale, auction, lease, loan, gift, trade or barter, or use of any of the text, graphics, photographs, audio and/or video material or stills from audiovisual material or any other materials contained herein, for any other purpose, in any form, media or technology now known or hereafter developed, including the use of any of the aforementioned materials on any other Web site or networked computer environment, without a prior written consent from Lucasfilm, is expressly prohibited." You can't give the pics to your friend, in fact, you can't even email them to yourself, should you be so inclined.
"The creation of derivative works based on the materials contained herein including, but not limited to, products, services, fonts, icons, link buttons, wallpaper, desktop themes, on-line postcards and greeting cards and unlicensed merchandise (whether sold, bartered or given away) is expressly prohibited. You may download one copy of the materials on any single computer for your personal, non-commercial home use only, provided you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices." Hmm, one copy only (I hope my browser's cache doesn't count as a second copy!), and I'm not allowed to create a derivative work, like a desktop wallpaper. God forbid anyone should actually like Star Wars, apparently Lucasfilm doesn't allow it.
"If at our request you send certain specific submissions (e.g., postings to chats, surveys, message boards, contests, or similar items) or, despite our request that you not send us any other creative materials, you send us creative suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, concepts, or other information (collectively the "Submissions") shall be deemed and shall remain the property of Lucasfilm Ltd. in perpetuity. By making any Submission, the sender automatically grants, or warrants that the owner of such material expressly grants, Lucasfilm the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, and distribute such material (in whole or in part) throughout the universe and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or hereafter developed, for the full term of any copyright, trademark or patent that may exist in such material for any purpose that Lucasfilm chooses, whether internal, public, commercial, or otherwise, without any compensation, credit or notice to the sender whatsoever. " Two sentences of leglaese. I think it says that anything you say to them, or on their site, belongs to them. Sounds good to me; if episode III is as bad as episode I, they can just steal some fan fics and use them. They've already said they own them and can do whatever they want without giving you credit, or even telling you.
"We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of these Terms of Use at any time. ... Your continued use of this site after the posting of changes to these terms will mean you agree to abide by those changes." And best of all, they can change them without telling you. That makes me especially confident in their privacy policy.
I have my doubts that this policy would be worth the bits it was sent with in court, but I sure hope it isn't. I'm pretty sure I violated it just by viewing the site in my browser. What a load of crap.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
It may be troll heresy to admit, but I think Nat's a little too thin.
I prefer woman with a few more curves, maybe Tiffany Amber-Theissen, or even Rene Zellweger (as Bridget Jones).
-Coach-
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.