Topic: Star Wars Blu Ray is out!

[Flame]

True, true.

[Gaia]

and gophers.

...Why? That's just exactly as bitching about Sonic's green eyes. Sometimes animals can provide humor, remember the snakes that were a constant pest through the films?

[Obdulio]

I dont know why , i just remember reading alot in message forums about the cgi gophers  everyone kept whining about them saying it was pointless to have them, as well as all the monkeys in the jungle scene [ which is suppose to be a Tarzan reference from the old black and white film ] .

I'm not saying i hated it , I'm just saying what other people have complained about after its released.  I had no problems with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[Bueno Excelente]

Everything fits. If old Indy movies came out nowadays, everyone would criticize them for being bigger clusterfucks of weird elements things bigger than Pirates of the Carribean sequels.

[Protoman Blues]

Heh, I've already gone into the reasons why Crystal Skull is so [tornado fang]ing terrible a long time ago. No need to bring it up again.

[Police Girl]

Wow, the reviews on Amazon give the thing a whopping two stars. Shows how much the fans think of this.

Lucas doesn't care. He's too busy cruising on a golden yacht decorated with the tears of purist fans in his gigantic vault of Money. He wipes his ass on your money and doesn't think twice about it, for all he knows keeping Star Wars "Timeless" means re-editing them until they're shlock, changing what was good then (and still is good now) into what is barely considered Made-For-TV quality. From what I can guess, he thinks that if he took a dumpster filled with rotting food and toxic chemicals, slapped the Star Wars logo on it, and put a nice little price tag on it for, oh, lets say $1000, Somebody would eventually buy it. Regardless of the contents. Its a sad state of affairs here.

I guess I can be considered "Lucky". I've never watched the "Special" Editions of the Star Wars films, nor do I plan to. Hell, we don't even have the DVD's at our house, just the VHS set from some time in the 80's.

[Flame]

I watched the originals before the prequels existed, when my parents rented them from Blockbuster. On VHS tapes. When i was like, what, 10? Maybe a little less?

[parasitic bomb] was awesome back then. Even as a little kid I understood the basic underlying concepts, found it all awesome.

Saw the prequels. And by then I was probably 16-17, give or take. (saw them after the fact, rented) And even though I was older, i was STILL confused by half the [parasitic bomb] that went on. In every single one of them. Only the third one had any real action or memorable parts in it- all of which consist pretty much of Anakin throwing Samuel L. Jackson out the window, Aaaaand the final battle+epilogue.

[Quickman]

I saw the OT when I was four and understood it fine.  The PT took some after-movie discussion, if I recall.

Oh, when I was scouring Wal-mart for boxes (they were doing inventory and restocking, so I was helping myself to the discarded boxes), I saw their display for the BluRays.  Pretty spiffy.  I should steal that cardboard AT-AT and give its damage some duck tape love.

Then I saw a SW keg of popcorn and died inside a little.

[Police Girl]

I saw the OT when I was four and understood it fine.  The PT took some after-movie discussion, if I recall.

Oh, when I was scouring Wal-mart for boxes (they were doing inventory and restocking, so I was helping myself to the discarded boxes), I saw their display for the BluRays.  Pretty spiffy.  I should steal that cardboard AT-AT and give its damage some duck tape love.

Then I saw a SW keg of popcorn and died inside a little.

Oh yeah, I saw those too.
Like what I said, if it has the star wars logo plastered on it, somebody is going to buy it.

[Quickman]

Sadly.  Lucas knows he has a cash cow and he's not afraid to milk it.  Quite shrewd, I'll admit, but it's still disheartening.

[Flame]

Another thing about the pequels is I just found them... boring... I know during the original 3 I sometimes wandered off, but that was only because my attention span couldnt handle some of the more talky scenes. I was little after all. YOUNGER than 10 now tht I think harder about it. Rewatching them when I was older, I never found a dull moment.

But the prequels were just boring to me. Or at least  had very boring moments. The moments between Padme and Anakin in particular, which by all rights SHOULD have been interesting, were just so badly done that they were just boring. I cant quite place my finger on it, but even some of the action scenes were boring.

[Protoman Blues]

There's actually a reason you think they're boring, and it's not just the dialog & story. If you ever get the chance, go to RedLetterMedia.com and watch Plinkett's reviews of them. They do a wonderful job explaining why they're so incredible bad, going into immense detail.

[Bueno Excelente]

I just noticed something. Anybody remember Space Jam? The deal thing?

The similarity behind these two?





...AND THESE TWO?




"YOU'LL WORK FOR ME... ENTERTAIN THE KIDS... AND YOU WILL ALWAYS LOSE!"

Oh Vader. ;____________;

[Police Girl]

I just noticed something. Anybody remember Space Jam? The deal thing?

The similarity behind these two?





...AND THESE TWO?




"YOU'LL WORK FOR ME... ENTERTAIN THE KIDS... AND YOU WILL ALWAYS LOSE!"

Oh Vader. ;____________;

You know, I never realized it until now, but Lucas doesn't appear to have a chin. His beard just stops halfway on his neck. What a strange looking fellow, no wonder you saw the resemblance to the fat thing from Space Jam, it also has no chin.

[Reaperoid]

^ Been buying too much of that rich people's food

Hell, we don't even have the DVD's at our house, just the VHS set from some time in the 80's.

All I have is tapes, too.
I have the original 1997 Ep.IV Special Edition tape, the 2000 original Trilogy VHS box, and the Ep.I and II tapes... I have to say, the Trilogy box is kinda sentimental to me.

[Mirby]

Even more interesting is looking at an older pic of Lucas


The neck thing grows... D:

[Acid]

Oh wow.

He grows with age.

[Flame]

There's actually a reason you think they're boring, and it's not just the dialog & story. If you ever get the chance, go to RedLetterMedia.com and watch Plinkett's reviews of them. They do a wonderful job explaining why they're so incredible bad, going into immense detail.

yeah I saw that analysis some time ago, though I should probably re-watch it. It was pretty long.

maybe if we remove that parasite from Lucas' neck, there might be a change in him?

OK! Who knows how to remove gluttonous special effects hungry neck parasites?

[Bueno Excelente]

OK! Who knows how to remove gluttonous special effects hungry neck parasites?

HIT IT WITH A ROCK!

[Protoman Blues]

It was a big rock!

yeah I saw that analysis some time ago, though I should probably re-watch it. It was pretty long.

Each movie is about 80-90 minutes of analysis each. If you don't have the time, essentially in the third movie's review he talks about the way it's presented. All the talking scenes are the same exact thing in every movie: sitting in a chair, walking in a hallway, standing next to a window, sitting down, walking, sitting, standing, shot/reverse shot over and over again, and your brain picks up on this. It's the most basic and boring of film making.

[Bueno Excelente]

It was a big rock!

Each movie is about 80-90 minutes of analysis each. If you don't have the time, essentially in the third movie's review he talks about the way it's presented. All the talking scenes are the same exact thing in every movie: sitting in a chair, walking in a hallway, standing next to a window, sitting down, walking, sitting, standing, shot/reverse shot over and over again, and your brain picks up on this. It's the most basic and boring of film making.

Not to mention the two-camera system. The same thing they use essencially for sitcoms and soap operas. As low-quality as ever goes the imagination.

[Protoman Blues]

Not to mention the two-camera system. The same thing they use essencially for sitcoms and soap operas. As low-quality as ever goes the imagination.

That's what I meant when I said shot/reverse shot. Essentially over the shoulder talking to one another. Boooooring.

[Quickman]

Yeah, the cinematography in the Prequels suffered, as did the fight scenes.  Flourishing may look pretty on camera, but that's really all that it is.  In a fight, it leaves you wide open, it wastes time, and while you're spinning around and trying to look all slick, your fight-dirty opponent has stabbed you in the flank.  And the usage of all digital scenes, characters, and such just leaves the acting sterile.  The scenes lack substance, there isn't any real danger as the characters are miming moves that they practiced against a guy in a blue unitard.

When the Tusken Raider attacked Luke in ANH, that scene had far more urgency, far more realism than the Yoda/Dooku duel because it was real.  There was a real threat.  Yes, that real threat was the rag-swaddled stunt coordinator with a glorified crobar, but he was still a real threat!  He was a real, tangible threat!  And that prop would hurt if he hit you with it!

CGI would only hurt if you threw a CPU at someone.

[Protoman Blues]

And that's just it. Nothing was real. Nothing. There was no substance, like you said. There was no emotion and on the rare occasion that there was, it was so painfully and obviously forced that it felt as fake as the green screen effects we were watching. Without substance, there's nothing for the audience to connect with, which leaves the viewer empty, bored, confused, and minus whatever you paid to watch this crap. With nothing for the audience to really connect with, there's no purpose. Like Quickie said, everything looks fake and everything feels fake, and your brain notices it.

Someone asked before what the big deal was with the CGI Gophers in Crystal Skull. What you have to understand about film making is that things are kinda suppose to serve a purpose. This is one of the major flaws of Crystal Skull, in that too many things in that movie serve absolutely no purpose at all. When things lack purpose, they are noticed both consciously and sub-consciously. So when you put CGI Gophers in the movie for absolutely no reason other than to put them in there, it's a problem and it's a problem you tend to notice when it looks fake and feels fake.

It's no different regarding the difference between CGI Yoda & Muppet Yoda. CGI Yoda moves more, has more action scenes, and you get to see him bust loose with all his Force knowledge, but Muppet Yoda feels real. Despite the vast VAST difference in wisdom due to better dialog, Muppet Yoda is more alive, and you feel for him.

[Quickman]

They replaced puppet Yoda in TPM with a CG render, and judging by the render's quality, I suspect that they've had the render sitting around for a long time.  Granted, compared to ESB Yoda, the puppet Yoda in TPM wasn't that good in quality, but I still prefer puppetry over CGI.  For one, puppet Yoda was real.  He was a real, tangible character that the actors could interact with.

Now, if only they had spent some more time on and put some more effort into building puppet TPM Yoda, they wouldn't have felt the need to replace him with even worse CGI...  But, that's another rant concerning Lucas's love affair with 3DSMax entirely.

When actors lack something tangible to interact with, they need to fake it.  And the audience notices that.