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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."
You are a sucker for purchasing this for the third time.
Repeated 5,500 times?
And as one of the contributors, I think that's a good thing.
Well you would.
How is a large review of the DVD set of 25-year-old movies a good thing? Is the number of words supposed to impress readers? Does it provide any significant insight not already published about the movies? Is it full of "gee whiz, I sure liked Star Wars!" commentary?
Reviews are meant to be shorter than the movies themselves.
I'll try again later, but if I see even a paragraph on who shot who at the cantina, I'm going to fall on my lightsaber.
At least the submitter owned up to being one of the authors of the review. Others haven't been as scrupulous. :)
Justa so longo as meesa no have to read it...
I sense a great disturbance in the force.. as if thousands of MySQL connections cried out in anguish, then were silenced.
You mean...
For third time purchase, sucker you are.
20. His chest-mounted life support computer also doubles as an electronic day planner.
Big deal, I hacked my pacemaker to double as an iPod!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
DVD Remastered THX Collector's Set....$49
Forcing wife to watch the whole trilogy yet again....priceless.
Be Safe! Sleep with a Marine. Semper Fi!
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.
Three?
1. Fox video stereo edition
2. "THX" edition
3. Laserdisc
4. Special Edition
5. Special Edition - Letterbox
6. Special Edition on DVD
That's just what I'm sure of off the top of my head. I would guess that the Fox video version was also available on Betamax, but I'm not sure.
-Peter
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?
How is this interesting?! If I posted
"I bought the DVD, and it's definitely NOT worth it, regardless of other people's opinions."
would that be modded up too? lunacy
I thought the point of the "ghost" was to show the Jedi at (presumably) the latest point in their life they were "good".
If that's the case (and maybe it's not), isn't the importance of Anakin Skywalker's redemption somewhat diminished if his apparition doesn't really reflect the fact that he abandoned the Dark Side at the end?
This is probably a debate for bigger Star Wars nerds than I, but I thought I should at least throw that out to the discussion.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
It was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Where do you get this "future?"
1. 11 000 words = 22 000 bytes.
2. Assuming an average word is 5 bytes, the text is actually 4 400 words.
3. Repeat.
The review is actually just one quad word in hexadecimal notation: 10CA550CC5.
Oh what the heck:
4. Profit.
Here's a situation where none of us has RTFA.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
(Now that is a good movie.)
20% Troll
20% Overrated
according to a new poll, only 50% of slashdotters mastubate.
mod me up for not posting this anonymously!
This Sig is removed due to factual inaccuracy
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