A Host Of Star Wars Bits

BIGJIMSLATE writes: "Maybe these should be considered quickies due to the number of them, but they're all Star Wars. *Warning* There may be spoilers here for some of you, so read at your own risk. Anyways, here I go." Read on below for an interesting, eclectic (not to say, oh, I dunno, "obsessive") pile of links. Sheesh, the next one won't even be out for a while!

"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)."

Comments

Starwars sends the wrong message, I'm afraid

[alewando]

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.

Re:Starwars sends the wrong message, I'm afraid

[ajs]

Let's overlook the racism and the poor acting, for a moment.

Let's not. What racism and poor acting? Granted, I will never claim that ANH, TESB, RotJ or TPM have the best acting that hollywood has ever seen, but TESB was, IMHO, one of Ford's best roles. TPM featured some excellent acting on the parts of McGregor (who, I will readily concede has done even more accomplished work elsewhere) and many others. I'm not going to go into child actors like Portman or the boy, because they're children. They were both better than Shirley temple, but you just don't expect an adult's range of skill from a child.

As for racism, I think you're grasping for straws. There are racial stereotypes certainly, but it's hard to establish a never before heard of race and not stereotype it as "agressive" or "funny" or "ill tempered". It's one of the limitations of the medium. However, in order to classify as "racism", I think you would have to actually introduce an *existing* racial stereotype or clearly attempt to sway the audience to hatred on the basis of race alone. SW never does this, AFAICR.

StarWars portrays space as a site of warfare between different species and even between rival human factions.

Please cite a period of human history that suggests that warfare is likely to ever stop being a part of our lives. Once you come up with that example, you can tell me why we should portray it, the exception, instead of the other 99.9999999 percent of human history as the rule.

Of course, we're not talking about humans here (it being a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away), but I'll give you that much as a rhertorical point of common ground.

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.

Don't go speaking for me. I'm not just a fan of the Star Wars movies (though, I am that), I'm a fan of the genre made up of hero-epic stories. Joseph Campbell has it right, we tell stories in order to explore our nature, and the hero quest is the aspect of our nature which we portray the most universally (though, you could argue that it's a particularly male point of view). Star Wars helps a new generation of viewers to explore that story in a time when Beowulf, Greek myth, Exodus, Robin Hood and the other classic Hero tales are considered pase. I applaud George Lucas and all of the others who have helped to bring Star Wars to fruition, and deeply urge anyone with the talent to try to further the quest in new stories about humanity's quest for enlightenment.

Disgraceful.

No, what's disgraceful is that such a poorly thought out post would be moderated up to a 5 just because it was cranked out before there was much to moderate.

Re:Starwars sends the wrong message, I'm afraid

[seanmeister]

Or maybe it's just a movie.

--

Re:Heresy, but Natalie Portman is too thin

[Geoff]

Perhaps if she should eat the hot grits instead of pouring them down her pants.

Re:Ask Slashdot: Best Star Wars costume to get gir

[Glytch]

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".

Star Wars is NOT a remake of Hidden Fortress!

[Thag]

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

Forthcoming DVD options...

[KFury]

George has said they waited on the DVDs so they could put time into them and add the special features they deserve.

Some of the features I'm looking forward to:

• Anamorphic wide aspect-ratio non-Jarjar edition.
  
• 5.1 remastered Home-THX with Grover voiceovers for Yoda.
  
• Deleted Natalie Portman scenes in multi-angle.
  

Kevin Fox
--

I hate to agree with Bill Waterson

[the_tsi]

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...

Lords of the Sith

[kevinank]

One master, one apprentice, no less.

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.

Re:The first movie was just Star Wars.

[Ereth]

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).

Slashdot posts news on Star Wars!

[KurdtX]

And slowly, across the nation, work grinds to a halt for all Slashdot'ers...

Kurdt

Re:Portman's Coustume

[eclectro]

Here's a picture of Cassiopa and Sheba (from Battlestar Galactica)

Here's a picture of Athena (from Battlestar Galactica)

Here's a picture of colonel Wilma Deering (from Buck Rogers)

Compare the Buck Rogers one with this photo of Natalie (on the right) and this one from above.

The similarities have not been lost on a lot of people;
http://www.chud.com/board/ubbhtml/Forum1/HTML/0015 45.html

IMHO - Natalie still seems much like a girl, compared to the others above that seem like women. Maybe it's because I grew up with them ;-))

Also it seems Battlestar Galactica is making a comeback;
http://www.kobol.com/revival/index.html

Heresy, but Natalie Portman is too thin

[typical geek]

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).