Yeah, it's sad when TPM gets kind of a pass when only 15 minutes of it aren't completely awful. That fight scene is cool, but it's not enough to save the turgid dog dump that is the rest of that movie.
Holy shit. We must have lived on different planets the last 13 years. I'm not even sure where to begin on that one, it's likely the most bashed film in the history of film. Whether it is deserving of that or not is beside the point.
ROTS is ruined by the last 3rd of the movie. As soon as he gets called Darth Vader the movie sucks. Everything before that isn't bad.
They really botched that transformation. I was hoping it would be subtle and tasteful, but it was like Palpatine just flipped a switch and Anakin goes from wanting to arrest Palpatine to killing children for him, all in the progression of 60 seconds.
Well it was even worse then that. Anakin wanted to save Padme so much (from a nightmare keep in mind) that he felt it was fine to murder dozens of children, all of the Jedi and even wearing red contact lenses. Then as soon as she disagrees with him about something he kills her.
A nightmare that was real. That's the important thing. More importantly, a nightmare he MADE real by trying to prevent it. It's very much like Greek mythology. The dark side is like a drug, and Anakin believed that he could accomplish something good by doing evil things, which is impossible. It consumes you to the point to where it becomes more important to you than your original intention. Also, sith eyes are yellow, not red.
Sorry, I meant to link to the whole article which gives a brief explanation. It's all about bullshit accounting practices. Same sort of thing the music industry was doing to people for the last 60 years. He's no different than all of those Motown cats that died penniless.
Last year, we wrote about Hollywood accounting and how the big studios set up "corporations" for each movie, specifically designed to "lose money," often by paying money back to the studio itself. Basically, the studio sets up this "company," but then charges the company a huge "fee," such that the company itself rarely, if ever, becomes profitable. Of course, hugely successful films usually still get past the threshold, but perhaps not all of them. Hugues Lamy points us to the news that the actor who played Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi is saying that Lucasfilm still isn't paying residuals, claiming that the film is still not profitable:
This is why I've never had any qualms about stealing movies and music. Fuck those people. (I do usually pay for games, BTW).
I'm gonna try to make my point without getting on a high horse, but you're doing more damage than you think. People can hate "the man" all they want, but piracy isn't just about the fat cats. Who it really hurts is people like me. I'll leave it at that.
I thought this was somewhat interesting. As some people are aware, George Lucas has changed a few things in his Star Wars movies over the years. His buddy Steven Spielberg did something similar with his movie "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial".
There's a scene in "E.T." where federal agents armed with rifles are hassling Elliott and his friends on their bikes. When the movie was re-released in 2002, Spielberg added a few deleted scenes back in, and had digitally changed the rifles to walkie-talkies.
He has since stated that he regrets doing that, and when "E.T." comes out on Blu-ray later this year, the original theatrical version will be intact, complete with rifles, and the deleted scenes will be in the extras. Link
"I was disappointed in myself... I realized what I had done was I had robbed people who loved E.T. of their memories of E.T."
One scene, one somewhat minor thing that a lot of people didn't even notice.
Hmm... I wonder if Spielberg and Lucas still chat.
And that is why I respect Spielberg.
And that is why I lost what respect I did have for him. It sure is easy to bend over to fan service and go back on what he obviously believed to be a better artistic choice in the past as long as people will cheer afterward.
Funny how it's all the people griping about preserving cinematic history that get happy about this kind of news. But now it's cool to pretend like the special editions never happened because they're still getting the version they wanted. Like it or not, those versions happened, and they are also part of cinematic history. The notions of preserving cinematic history have always sounded noble, but it has always been more about the notion of collective ownership over a franchise, and fan service is not art.
I'm really curious how much different ROTJ would been if Spielberg would have been able to direct it, as GL originally intended.
Or his original first choice, David Lynch.
Topic: Star Wars Discussion Thread v. Rogue One (Read 461336 times)
