A few sci-fi items worth a look: Steven Taylor has links to video and stills comparing the “old” and “new” special effects in the newly remastered Star Trek episodes. I’ve gotten to see some of the new episodes in syndication and they look ve…

I long for the days again, where the movies were better than the trailers.

Right on the money!

It was a fun movie.

A great villian – “I find your lack of faith disturbing”.

The wise advisor – “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.”

The sarcastic ne’er-do-well – “Sorry about the mess.”

Comic relief – “Help. I think I’m melting.”

A damsel in distress – “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you’re my only hope.”

And, of course, the naive hero – “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”

What’s not to like?

People who scoff at the cheezy special effects fail to realise that it wasn’t until five years later that the first film to use CGI – TRON – came out.

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My real question is what happened to the remaining three episodes (or did everyone forget that there were originally nine episodes) ?

Yes, there were indeed subplots of the first two movies that were impossible to reconcile with the later ones. But so what? It’s a story, not a religion. It doesn’t have to be airtight in continuity to be entertaining. And aside from 2001 and Jaws, no movie had attempted so much special effects before. The difference is that both of those movies had intense studio support, and their producers didn’t live in constant fear that the plug would be pulled. Lucas was daily fighting the studio, crews that didn’t believe the movie would ever work, and dinosaurs in the editing house that wouldn’t listen to his thoughts on how a new-style movie should be cut. You can be certain that this trailer was done by Fox studios, without Lucas’ supervision.

I was a senior in high school, and risked an incomplete in a critical course by skipping two days to be online at Grauman’s Chinese in Hollywood for the public opening.

How many movies of the last 30 years would never have been conceived, written, or filmed if Star Wars had never been made? It broke ground on many fronts in the filmmaking industry.

Crappy trailer? Yes. But still a classic movie that brought sci-fi movies out of the 2nd film of a double show at the drive-in backwater. It demonstrated that sci-fi could be entertaining and profitable.

And at the time, Lucas said he made it as hommage to the Saturday matinee adventures he had attended as a kid.

Re: Lucas writing..yep, it’s gotten as bad as Stephen King’s has … but Lucas also wrote “American Graffiti” (1973) — one of his best.

#1 they chose the most dis-jointed random scenes

#2 Watching that mess without music is like having somone pry off a pinky-toenail.

#3 The Voice Over was terrible. It would have been an appropriate voice for 2001, or some other slow-moving drama, but not a sci-fi action/comedy.

For me the franchise began to jump the shark when Vader was proven to be Luke’s father. (He could’ve been lying to mess with Luke’s mind prior to that. Indeed, that would be a very Vader-ish thing to do.)

Lucas also passed on the opportunity to have Han unfreeze in Boba Fett’s ship. It was very cleverly foreshadowed when Lando almost imperceptibly turns a knob on the freshly carbonited Solo. I guess Lucas decided to have Solo make it back to Tattoine to reunite with the slug.

Story-wise “Empire” was my favorite, despite the cliff-hanger ending. Ep IV is still the best stand-alone film. And cinematically, gosh, you really can’t beat the look of Eps I to III.

Remember, these films aren’t about the future. The first words of every film are, “A long time ago…”

And yeah, the trailer is pretty bad. Makes a case for the importance of a soundtrack. That’s AP’s thesis in the first place, right?

(And if I remember correctly, It took weeks for the word-of-mouth to get folks to come see the movie. Meaning that the trailer was fairly unsuccessful in it’s time.)

At least they didn’t have Ewoks!

That would have been the eleventh plague…if the whole Angel of Death thing didn’t work.

Didn’t anyone watching Return of the Jedi in the movie theater squrim in their seat when they found out Leia was Luke’s sister? I remember they made such a big deal out of the love triangle between Han, Leia, and Luke, when Empire Strikes Back was released.

This is why I never believed that he had this whole story in mind when he wrote Star Wars. I think he made the whole thing up as he went along. There are too many plot inconsistancies.

Didn’t anyone watching Return of the Jedi in the movie theater squrim in their seat when they found out Leia was Luke’s sister? I remember they made such a big deal out of the love triangle between Han, Leia, and Luke, when Empire Strikes Back was released.

So is Lucas going to re release this trailor with updated special effects and new footage ?

I can hardly stand the suspence.

William Amos on January 13, 2007 at 10:21 PM

Special Edition.

In Digitally Remastered Platinum THX.

Coming this Summer.

(Carrie Fischer’s cosmetic surgery is taking longer than expected)

Oh good heavens if that is all you have Dune ripped off ancient Roman literature. These are not motifs not is the story anywhere near the same.

The stories are very much the same. I don’t think it’s a big deal though. But it would have been nice if Lucas would just have said, “By the way, this is my rewrite of Dune.”

I mean, how realistic would it be to compare capabilities of a Sherman tank with an Abrams? Maybe a P-51 Mustang with a F-22 Raptor?

warriors, complicated bloodlines, etc. Obviously, nothing in life is truly original and everything borrows from something else. I really can’t fault Lucas too much for it.

I can fault him for destroying my favorite childhood movie by reworking the cantina scene so that Greedo shot first. That is unpardonable. Since then, I will not speak his name.

Oh good heavens if that is all you have Dune ripped off ancient Roman literature. These are not motifs not is the story anywhere near the same.

That trailer blows, certainly doesn’t do justice. And that announcer is no way near as slick as the “in a world” guy.

Whatever they paid you, John Williams, it wasn’t enough.

Don’t forget Sir Alec Guiness and Peter Cushing. We just watched the classic again last night on DVD. I had the exact same MST3K thought after watching the trailer on the documentary. Alas, the brilliance of MST3K has been banished to AFV.