After the news about the impending changes to the Blu-Ray versions of the original Star Wars trilogy, the internet as a whole took advantage of a fairly slow Labor Day weekend and produced some gold.
First, here are the changes…
Tag Archives: George Lucas
Return of The Jedi: Vader Dialogue Added…. WHY?
I’ve never been too impressed with all of the “adjustments” that Mr. George Lucas is constantly making to his Star Wars films, particularly the original trilogy. Nothing made me cringe more than on the special edition VHS of Empire Strikes Back, when Luke is falling in Cloud City and the Emperor’s scream from Return of the Jedi was added in…. How terrible. And let’s not forget the infamous ‘Greedo shooting first’ fiasco. Enough said there!
Now we have a scene where there was no need to mess with it. A self-sacrifice action to save a son’s life that worked without any dialogue. In the original scene Vader’s silence spoke volumes.
Now….. good God, just watch the clip below:
Granted the Noooooo! sounded a little better than that botch-job in Revenge of the Sith, but it still should not have been in there. I’m sure that I’ll get the same type of responses with people who will say “it’s George Lucas’ movie and he can do what he wants with it!”, which is true, but I’ll retaliate with the same comeback the outraged fans have –“Respect the fans because we’re the ones lining your pockets….bitch!”. And it’s funny that Lucas keeps changing things considering what he said before Congress in 1988…
I don’t get Lucas’ angle here. Are the fans too stupid to realize that earlier in the film in his conversation with Luke that he was having doubts about turning his son over to Palpatine? Are they too stupid to realize that Vader wasn’t too keen on his son being ‘Force Lightninged’ to death?
Unfortunately those weren’t the only changes to the Blu Rays…
As suspected a couple years back, Yoda is being replaced by a CG model in Phantom Menace. See George, that’s a good thing when you fix something that is total garbage.
Also being added into the Return of the Jedi, the Ewoks will have blinking eyes, now Lucas just needs to make the Gungans in Phantom Menace have no mouths. Also in A New Hope Greedo is still firing (horribly) first at Han in the cantina, and it was decided that the Krayt Dragon roar that Obi Wan emulates needed to be changed for the third time. So enjoy the Blu Rays being released later this month, I know my excitement for one has been unexpectedly stifled.
The Phantom Menace in 3D….Oh Boy.
Rarely do movies get re-released in theaters, and even more rarely in 3D. It’s even more rare when a bad movie gets re-released, let alone in 3D. Yes, according to a brief report over at Bleeding Cool, the Phantom Menace 3D transition is all but complete and Jar Jar Binks will soon be annoying you in more than two dimensions come February of 2012. Check out the report below:
I’ve just had a quick chat with Matt Bristowe, Head of Production at stereo house Prime Focus after the “big” 3D debate at Empire Big Screen. He’s confirmed for me that all work is complete on the 3D version of Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace.
As well you know, the film is hitting cinemas next February. To hear Prime Focus talk about the film, they certainly seem to have done a lot of hard work on this one, considering the artistic implications of another dimension carefully.
Had only the first two dimensions been totally up to snuff, eh?
I’m not going to defend The Phantom Menace at all. People who hated it are completely justified in the way they feel about it, especially the die hard fans who waited a very long time for a new Star Wars movie only to get something woefully mediocre. I for one will be seeing the movie in 3D, trying every step of the way trying to not be annoyed to tears by Jar Jar’s antics and Jake Lloyd’s art form of shitty-acting. It’s really all a means to an end to see the epic lightsaber duel between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Darth Maul. That fight scene was worth the price of admission even back in 1999.
Lucas’ plan is to release one Star Wars film in 3D each year so it looks like we’re looking towards 2016 and 2017 for Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi… Well maybe just Empire Strikes Back because the notion of 3D Ewoks both sickens me and creeps me out.
I would also like to ask everyone to comment after reading this article to inspire Dr. Kronner to see this when it returns to theater next year. He’s stubbornly refused to ever watch The Phantom Menace again or even open a Christmas present containing the DVD. So your comments can act as a petition of sorts to break his spirit and force him to see Jar Jar again… in 3D!
George Lucas and The Phantom Menace of The Rogue Stormtrooper Masks’ Revenge
Okay, so my title was a huge crack at how ridiculous George Lucas’ movie titles were getting with the Star Wars movies. So let’s take a look at how someone else took a big crack at the empire know as Lucasfilm, run by none other than ‘The Maker’ and creator of a Galaxy Far Far Away George Lucas.
I must have missed the newsflash back when he won a lawsuit against an engineer named Andrew Ainsworth, the man supposedly responsible designing the Stormtrooper helmets for Episode 4: A New Hope. Lucas and his minions however claim that they already mapped out how the look of the helmet was to be and that Ainsworth only produced the helmets physically. So apparently Ainsworth and his studio have been making Stormtrooper helmets for quite sometime before ole’ Georgie boy shut them down back in 2006, but that didn’t stop Mr. Ainsworth and company from producing the replicas in the United Kingdom with any hindrance.
So of course Mr. Lucas went there to stop this rebel scum and what do you think happened with his lawsuit? If you said “he won and Mr. Ainsworth was disintegrated by George Lucas wearing Boba Fett armor.” then you would be completely wrong. The U.K. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mr. Ainsworth’s appeal and said this via Deadline:
In the UK, Lucasfilm had to prove that the helmets were works of art to qualify for copyright protection under the law. “It was the Star Wars film that was the work of art that Mr. Lucas and his companies created,” the justices wrote. “The helmet was utilitarian, in the sense that it was an element in the process of production of the film.”
So I guess there’s one win for the little guy. Sorry Lucasfilm, you can’t win em’ all. But on the other hand Mr. Ainsworth had this to say after the ruling – “If there is a Force, then it has been with me these past five years.” Seriously tool? Go make a living doing something besides selling white plastic cannon-fodder helmets to a bunch of fan boys. Now what’s his website so I can buy one of these?
Star Wars: The Old Republic Trailer – Return
It would seem George Lucas has set a precedent on doing things in the galaxy far far away backwards, because the latest Old Republic cinematic takes place before the previous two. Satele Shan is not a master yet nor is Darth Malgus. Also the Sith Empire has not returned yet…until the cinematic kicks off of course.
The trailers have showed us just about every character class that you can use in the MMORPG and this one introduces us to the smuggler class, portrayed by a smart mouth human Cad Bane wannabe, who also likes to check out Twi’lek behinds. Check out the trailer below to enjoy the goodness. And be good to yourself by watching it in 720p:
Let’s touch on some interesting points: Malgus and Satele certainly end up having quite a history, fighting for the first time here and Satele being the one to injure him so badly on Alderaan that he needs Darth Vader style life support. I can’t wait to see their next confrontation which will no doubt occur during the Old Republic game. (If it ever finally releases.)
Malgus himself shows that he is quite the skilled fighter, as if that wasn’t apparent with his destruction of the Jedi Temple and concurrent conquering of Coruscant later. (That was a lot of c’s.) He also proves to be a true sith after striking down his wounded master after their fight against the Jedi. It was interesting to see a Sith Lord of the same species of Naga Sadow in action, something I can’t recall seeing before in any video. The red skinned Sith claim to be pure blooded Sith because they share the bloodline of the initially conquered Sith species.
Satele’s master also proved to be quite formidable, taking on both Malgus and his own master with plenty of finesse as he wielded his own lightsaber with Satele’s own double bladed weapon. It’s a shame that he bit the dust because he seemed interesting enough. Given Star Wars penchant for prequel material perhaps we will see him in something in future media.
I’ve told myself and told myself not to waste time playing the MMORPG when it finally does release but the more I see of it the more I know that just won’t happen. From all of the trailers, gameplay and books this portion of the Star Wars expanded universe has shown us so far, the Old Republic era still has plenty for us. Either way I need a new Star Wars game to play because I’m still reeling from the disappointment that was The Force Unleashed 2.
Oldboy’s Revenge: ‘George Lucas Strikes Back’
So, there is this (pretty good) viral video floating around the meme-verse right now…
42 Word Summary: The Real George Lucas was imprisoned sometime after finishing the original trilogy (and presumably after Last Crusade). While incarcerated for the past 20 years, he’s been forced to watch his career torpedoed by an imposter. He’s out now. And he’s pissed. Watch it now. We’ll wait…
Shoot first.
The video is a wonderfully Michael Mann-inspired revenge trailer, and was perfectly serviceable. The humor was not terribly funny outside of an aged Short-Round, but then 2:20 hit. What was an otherwise forgettable internet fake-trailer was completely redeemed by an homage to the best movie you should be Netflix-ing right now: OLDBOY!
What? Oldboy is a 2003 film by Korean filmmaker Chan-wook Park – Watch it tonight.
Spoiler Free Synopsis: Oh Dae Su is a drunken jerk. One day he’s kidnapped. He wakes up in a small room, and is kept there for 15 years without any reason given by his captors. One day he’s released.
Minor Spoiler but we need to talk about it: There is a brilliant 1-shot fight scene in the middle of the movie that features Dae Su, a hammer and a cadre of bad guys. The fight scene is worth the price of admission alone. He’s beat up, stabbed and smacked with what appear to be day-old French baguettes. Throughout the fight scene there is a lone assailant prominently placed. He’s ‘Asian-Wedge‘. He takes a few licks, but manages to crawl away not once, but twice.
Honestly, we can only dream that George Lucas is still imprisoned somewhere, and that he could one day escape and make three more good Star Wars movies… and a couple small personal films in between. But until then we have to settle for the prequels that fall short of greatness. In some cases it falls wayyyy short. Like a football field short. I still watch and enjoy the prequels in my own way, but I’ll go with this trailer’s theory of his imprisonment.
– J. Toepel
Grizzly Bomb 