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11,000 Words on the Star Wars Trilogy DVDs
The Barking Dog writes "On Monday, September 27th DVD Verdict posted a bantha-sized review of the Star Wars Trilogy. Written by ten people and weighing in at over 11,000 words, it's probably the net's most thorough, extensive review of not only the DVDs, but Star Wars's impact on sci-fi and filmmaking in general. And as one of the contributors, I think that's a good thing."
I bought the DVD, and its definately worth it, regardless of other peoples' opinions.
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While I did enjoy star wars throughout my childhood, I can't help but think that some people go a bit overboard. If you enjoy that sort of thing then great, but I personally have no use for a review that is that long.
It is a review, which as for as I am aware should be concise.
But I must admit it is nice to see people being enthusiastic about something benign.
And it did make me smile to read the headline.
So carry on, I guess.
Then, Gene Roddenberry saw his opportunity to resurrect Star Trek. Despite the fact that he used the same terrible actors and actresses, he convinced Paramount Pictures to fund "Star Trek: The Motion Picture".
Without "Star Wars", would "Star Trek: TMP" have been possible?
By the way, "Star Wars" is not really about science fiction. Science fiction is about belief in technology. Yet, when Luke Skywalker approached the rubicon in his ill-fated life, he faced a choice between technology (using a computer to guide 2 missiles into the Death Star's exhaust) and faith (using his belief in the power of good to guide the 2 missiles). He turned off the computer and followed his faith.
"Star Wars" is a knights' and princess' tale shrowded with buzz words from science fiction. The fundamental story is about the greater battle of good versus evil. In this life, evil seems to win too often, so we are enthralled by a movie that says, "Sometimes. Just sometimes. Good wins."
The most significant change is the replacement of the Anakin ghost at the end of Return of the Jedi with Hayden Christensen.
I haven't bought the DVDs yet, but this is the one thing I read about the changes that really aggravated me. Is it not possible for Anakin to have aged? Obviously a great deal of time has passed since Episode III, and wouldn't it make sense for Anakin to look older? This seems to be George's biggest mistake in his second set of updates, in my opinion. As the article said, at least they didn't replace Alec Guiness.
In light of the massive restoration effort by Lowry Digital, who did an awesome job with Indiana Jones (and other movies) the color quality is messed up beyond belief. To put it simply, theres too much red, and everything on the whole is too saturated. It just doesn't look natural. On the other hand, its quite sharp and clean considering how bad Lowry Digital said the condition was when they got it. It probably wasn't their fault on the color. If I recall correctly, GL wanted it to make it look similiar to the prequels. Since they were shot on HDCam it was probably just naturally saturated. Trying to adjust the film to look the same way however, has just left it looking completely unnatural. Even more interestingly is how when Lucas transffered Phantom Menace to DVD, he went hdcam->film->dvd to make it match the film look of the original trilogy. Now, he's tried to make the original trilogy match up in quality with the prequels by making them look "more digital." Example #346 of GL not being able to make up his mind.
In Star Wars, the future is a mess. From the rough-and-tumble welded and plated spaceships to the brushed concrete buildings full of dingy flickering lights, to dusty deserts and seedy cantinas, the universe envisioned in Star Wars had a gritty, industrial look, a jaded cynicism that had rarely been expressed in cinema before
Eh? I can't agree with this. Outside of Mos Eisley, the world of the first three Star Wars movies was industrial, yet clean. Just go to the scenes inside the spaceships, the Death Star. The Imperial design was "blocky", but that is far from dystopian. It was more Victorian SF than say 1930's Futurism. Even the rebel base at the end of New Hope was pretty clean.
And even Mos Eisley wasn't that bad (apart from being a wretched hive of scum and villainy). Dark? Ok... it was a bar. Outside it look about as dystopian as the ape town in Planet of the Apes. And that movie got dark and wierd when they found the remains of NYC (especially in Beneath with its post-apocolyptic underground).
Bleek futures had existed in Hollywood before, and some were on a more grimey tip than SW: Soylent Green, The Omega Man. Basically anywhere you had a post-fallout society, you had some pessimistic views, a pessimism that Star Wars lacks.
And that's just film. Dystopia was pretty stock in SF literature. The world of the proles was bad in 1984 or that even that of the Morlocks in Time Machine.
The true thrust of dystopianism in film is usually agreed to be the merger of SF and Film Noir. This achieved critical mass with Ridley Scotts movies (Blade Runner, Alien both mentioned in this article). And many would point to Godard's 1956 Alphaville as the first movie to explore this connection. It even used a form of Orwell's Newspeak.
There's probably more geneological ties to those movies than the pretty standard rebel v. evil empire aesthetic in Star Wars. And all of this does nothing to diminish the series' gargantuan impact.
What is music when you despise all sound?
You know, I really don't mind Lucas going in and tinkering with SFX, and when he says he puts stuff in he wanted to get in originally but couldn't because of budget and technology, I'm happy to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even if the newer SFX are digitally fakey, even if they're somewhat _silly_, I can get over it.
What I _CAN'T_ get over is changing lines of dialogue and neutering characters at the editing deck for inscrutable purposes.
Han fired first. Period. The fact that he did speaks to his character, and changing that changes his character. If Harrison Ford cared, I'm sure he'd be pissed.
The A&E documentary released to hype up the DVD set goes into how during Empire they kept shooting takes of the Carbonite scene between Han and Leia, how Ford couldn't get a good take with "I love you too" in response to Leia's "I love you". Ford ad-libbed Han's most famous line, and the only reason it survived and made cinema history is because Lucas wasn't directing.
I never purchased or watched the special editions of the movies prior to purchasing the DVDs. I felt that they were an abomination and should be avoided. Unfortunatly I was bored the other night and broke down and bought them (I just got a 51" widescreen tv and really wanted to see them).
Overall most of the enhancements are ok. There are only 4 things I would have eliminated or not changed.
1) Han shoots first.
2) The silly extended dance routine in Jabba's Palace.
3) Hayden Christensen as a spirit at the end of Jedi. This just doesn't make sense.
4) The celebration song at the end of Jedi. I missed the old one.
Overall, I was impressed with the DVD set, although at times Lucas is trying too much to link them to the first three movies.
Good things:
Most of the changes that were from the 1997 releases were good IMHO, such as making Mos Eisley look bigger and "more alive", making the Cloud City a little less claustrophobic, and making the Death Star and Alderaan explosions a little more impressive. I also liked Jabba's new band in Ep-6, it seemed the kind of excess a crime lord like Jabba would have.
The changes I didn't care much for includes changing the Han/Greedo shooting scene (again - that should have been left alone), changes in the shooting scene in the Prison Block (Imperial Personnel are no longer obviously shot), the new Anakin Skywalker ghost at the end of EP6 along with all of the firework scenes from various locations (actually, I have mixed feeling on this one -- I know that the Emperor was killed, but would the Empire crumble that quickly? We are talking about hours to a day or so from the destruction of the Death Star II to Vader's funeral pyre.
There are other changes (both 1997 vintage and new to this set), but they are for the most part do not affect the movie one way or the other, at least in my opinion.
The 3 movies are still fun to watch, so as far as I'm concerned, the purchase was worth it. It would be nice to be able to get the original movies on DVD, too.
Beware of Sleestak
(The original idea, I think, was to replace the actor standing in for Jabba with a puppet shot on a blue screen.)
However, after it became apparent that they couldn't do that scene with current technology, they moved all the information learned in that scene to the scene with Greedo.
So, yes, the scene is totally redundant and looked wrong (because it was originally designed around a different Jabba) as shot. This is why the 1997 version had Han Solo step on Jabbas tail - Harrison Ford walked around the stand-in in the original shot, before they really knew what Jabba would look like.
Ultimately, it's one of those scenes that it's kinda neat to know that we can do it now, but serves no purpose any more since they basically wrote it out of the original movie. It's something that they could have done as a bonus feature or something, since it doesn't really offer anything new to the story.
I can't really find any good links on it, but it's mentioned several times if you search for it.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
with all the zillions of dollars lucas spent cleaning it up, how did NO ONE notice the blocks still visible around the TIE fighters during the fight scene with the falcon in Ep 4?!?!?
trilogy owners: look at 1:35:16 for one example.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I haven't seen anyone else, anywhere, mentioning the ONE thing that absolutely ruined ESB for me. The scene occurs right after Luke jumps down the shaft in Cloud City. Darth Vader is walking out, and the only words out of his mouth are a husky-sounding, "Bring my shuttle." There was a depth of emotion -- anger, sadness -- that I picked up on in that little scene.
... yeah, Han shoots first, but whatever ... more digital aliens, gives the ILM guys good practice ... but in my opinion that single scene took a great movie and made it into a merely good movie.
Now they've got this lame voice-over from Vader, "Alert the commander to prepare for my arrival," or something like that. Throw in some re-used footage from RotJ (Vader's Death Star II arrival) for when he lands on his flagship and you've taken ALL the emotion out of Vader's revelation and its consequences (at least on his part).
Everything else I could cope with
Why hasn't anyone yet considered the possibility that Han meant to shoot first but was too slow?
Um, perhaps because in the original, Han does shoot first? (Indeed, Greedo never gets off a shot.)
-- Alastair
Yeah, the Star Wars Universe was huge! Several planets! Dagobah! with, um, a shrimpy toad guy. Hoth! with, um, a scary snow guy! Tatooine! with, um, a big mouth in the desert. Coruscant! with, um 10 Jedi Knights! and about a hundred Storm Troopers
To be honest, I always found a certain "claustrophia" in the Star Wars movies. You understand the "universe" of the story is huge, but it never really feels like anything more than a handful of heroes, two bad guys and a small swarm of targets (Storm Troopers, Ewoks, Battle Droids). Look at the Death Star with it's thousands, er, hundreds, well, basically about 3 locations. Look at the massive battle on Naboo with millions, er, thousands, well... maybe a hundred Gungans.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.