o_O
― fuck you, your hat is horrible (Neanderthal), Thursday, 14 December 2017 05:09 (six years ago) link
re: the crappy digital look - yeah. it's all interrelated... chicken and egg problems with building a movie in computer-world versus lucas not giving a shit about stuff you'd normally have in a movie to give it meaning and depth. one thing that struck me a while back thinking about this (which i don't think i've posted?) was that, after shmi and anakin's house in the first one (which is on a real set with real lighting, and looks good) you never see anybody's domestic space again, except padme's incredibly bland CGI apartment. wouldn't we have more of a sense of this character from his home and his stuff? even if there's no room in the film to show him interacting with anybody about anything not strictly related to advancing plot points or covering holes... surely it'd help? but now also imagine someone had had to locate or build, then dress and light, mace windu's jedi monk chambers. wouldn't having stuff to pick up and interact with, light to step in or out of, things to lean against or stand free from, give us a sense of this one guy's particular ways of moving, ways of thinking, how he inhabits a space with other people... all this little stuff that actors on set normally get to bring to a movie are just not available. and lucas, thrilled at the possibility of compositing together different actors' takes against different green screens, has no idea it's even missing.
― the pleather of pleather paul (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 14 December 2017 05:14 (six years ago) link
Huh. The C3P0 thing I liked & mentioned elsewhere which probably spurred the creation of this poll actually won.Whatever, I still like it.
― Valentijn, Thursday, 14 December 2017 07:46 (six years ago) link
or as one of my friends aptly said about AotC, "where the fuck was this shot? Toontown?"
― dipso inferno (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 14 December 2017 07:54 (six years ago) link
This USA Today clickbait column is actually kind of greatWhy Anakin Skywalker should’ve been removed from the Jedi Order for sexual harassmentMaybe if the Jedi were more concerned with gender equality, and less concerned with balancing the force, then they would still be around today.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 14 December 2017 14:32 (six years ago) link
wow that is for real the best thing i have ever read in a USA Today. promote that writer to the Onion!
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 14 December 2017 14:33 (six years ago) link
the set design in the phantom menace is genuinely awesome imo
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, 14 December 2017 14:48 (six years ago) link
the insistence on the tattooine tie-ins is ruinous i'd say.
Ugh, so many myopic, lazy creative choices attached to this. It's supposed to be a dusty backwater on the edge of civilisation and suddenly it's promoted to the most important planet in the galaxy where all the significant shit went down.
If The Last Jedi doesn't feature a desert planet, it will only be the second of nine movies not to.
― chap, Thursday, 14 December 2017 14:52 (six years ago) link
third, right? empire and sith...
― the pleather of pleather paul (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 14 December 2017 14:54 (six years ago) link
Empire and Force Awakens - he returns to Tattoine to kill sand raiders in Sith iirc
― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 14 December 2017 14:56 (six years ago) link
that's kind of a big hole in the middle of return of the jedi -- if han's trying to dodge jabba while he gets the funds to pay him off, why the hell was he on the planet where jabba's main home is?!?
― mh, Thursday, 14 December 2017 14:57 (six years ago) link
xp Oh right, a desert planet.
― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 14 December 2017 14:57 (six years ago) link
that is, he was on some backwater planet in Star Wars, and then when ROTJ rolls around we find out that same backwater was Jabba's home base
― mh, Thursday, 14 December 2017 14:58 (six years ago) link
the awful tusken raiders massacre sequence is in Clones, not Sith - but your confusion is understandable since it takes real effort/detachment from reality to take this as a youthful oopsie from which the character can recover. logical that memory would put it in amongst his other arbitrary atrocities, in Sith.
― the pleather of pleather paul (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:00 (six years ago) link
Tatooine is probably the best place to network with other scum and villainy and pick up smuggler work.
― jmm, Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:00 (six years ago) link
Yeah, you're completely right - the Tatooine appearance in Sith is right at the end when babby Luke is taken there.
― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:03 (six years ago) link
really jabba could have been on any planet. unclear why it's tattooine now that you mention it. would be nice to go someplace else, tho that might have foiled lucas's orientalist urge to create a harem/opium den kinda thing. i do like the like/han "I was born here, you know!" exchange.empire has the best environments. hoth's surface and ice caves, dagobah, cloud city's front and back of the house spaces (incl the whole factory setting of the climax) plus landing platform and dangling-underneath-space, asteroids, various imperial interiors (especially vader's emo sphere)... just great.and duhhhhhhhh of course yes, baby luke arriving on tattooine. which one of my poll options complains about! silly me.
― the pleather of pleather paul (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:07 (six years ago) link
somehow in the midst of all of the weird technical and direction choices, the fact that Anakin runs off and kills a shitload of people mid-prequel series and no one is really the wiser still stands out as an odd choice
― mh, Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:07 (six years ago) link
(extremely pedant voice) strictly speaking Hoth is also a desert, like Antarctica
― Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:08 (six years ago) link
hmm yes
― mh, Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:11 (six years ago) link
In retrospect, Jabba on Tattooine makes zero sense. Why would a creature composed entirely of mucous membrane hang out on a planet covered with sand, why.
― Oiled Launch (Old Lunch), Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:11 (six years ago) link
What, was the salt planet full?
― Oiled Launch (Old Lunch), Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:12 (six years ago) link
he drew the short straw when it came to dividing up hutt criminal territory
― mh, Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:12 (six years ago) link
it's like the member of the mob who runs a couple outfits in like, vermont
can't I come hang out in an actual city? no, sorry man, you gotta make the maple syrup protection money
― mh, Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:13 (six years ago) link
I don't mind them going back to Tattoine in Jedi to sort of bring the OT full circle. But it should've been left alone after that.
empire has the best environments.
Easily the most well designed and beautiful of all the films. Up there with best of any SF/fantasy in that respect.
― chap, Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:16 (six years ago) link
Jabba actually spent most of his weekends on his golf planet.
― nashwan, Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:16 (six years ago) link
Isn't there an outtake in New Hope with Jabba on Tatoine? But no, it doesn't really make sense.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:22 (six years ago) link
xp irl lol
― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:32 (six years ago) link
Fred: yes altho at that stage jabba is just a human doofus, possibly just passing through mos eisley and taking the chance to hassle han solo. very odd, bad scene, wisely cut, then later slathered over with CGI to put slug-jabba in, for the 1997 special edition.
― the pleather of pleather paul (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 14 December 2017 15:58 (six years ago) link
That was worse than anything in the prequels.
https://media.giphy.com/media/b0ZFy6vNVveeI/giphy.gif
― nashwan, Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:03 (six years ago) link
eurgh
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:10 (six years ago) link
'97 jabba looks like the dancing baby from ally mcbeal
― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:17 (six years ago) link
also, is jabba yelping in that clip because Han is stepping on his slug tail?
― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:18 (six years ago) link
Well, we can at least applaud the breathtaking craft involved in making the newly-inserted Jabba a dead ringer for the version we'd seen previously.
― Oiled Launch (Old Lunch), Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:19 (six years ago) link
iirc they digitally added some weird skip-jump thing to han's motion so he would step over the tail but i have also avoided watching that scene again for many years. have hatewatched the redone song at jedi's palace more recently and it might be the nadir of lucas's entire directorial career.
― the pleather of pleather paul (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:22 (six years ago) link
― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Thursday, December 14, 2017 9:18 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yes. it was a way for lucas to account for the spatial difference between jabba the human actor and jabba the cgi slug. iirc had lucas not included the tail stepping han would've stepped right through the surface of jabba
obv even as a lover of the prequels i think the special editions are a travesty, any artist should know better
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:23 (six years ago) link
i just did a forum dive on this tail stepping thing in a fit of pique and people seem to have been divided at the time on whether it's dumb or badass that han brazenly steps on the tail of one of the ostensibly scariest gangsters in the galaxy
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:28 (six years ago) link
I sometimes wonder if Lucas is too embarrassed to admit that tried to incorporate the tone of Spaceballs into the prequel trilogy because he forgot that it wasn't an actual Star Wars movie.
― Oiled Launch (Old Lunch), Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:29 (six years ago) link
Apart from the terrible execution I hate the SE Jabba scene for ruining the mystery of Jabba. It's way better if you hear his voice in hushed tones and have no idea he's a massive space slug till the final movie.
― chap, Thursday, 14 December 2017 17:19 (six years ago) link
tbh i like the fat 70s space pirate Jabba. they should have kept him in and had him be a new bounty hunter or something. otm on him looking like the dancing baby.gif
i think the prequels were heavily influenced by the work done on the Rebel Assault games. these were CD-ROM showcase games that were on-rails and were the first filmed new Star Wars footage since the Ewok movies. in the 90s they worked out the groundbreaking digital movie making techniques invented for the prequels and now used for everything with a superhero or Star War in it.
to make the games they used original props and costumes as well as experimenting with digital video & new blue screen techniques. they created cgi digital backgrounds for some scenes and superimposed the actors just as they did with the prequels. not saying it was the same team but that they probably used all the technology and documentation created by a sister company (Lucasarts>Lucasfilm) to do the SE and prequels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnA380gHqSM
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 14 December 2017 17:30 (six years ago) link
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, December 14, 2017 8:28 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
to someone who never saw the original versions it completely undercuts the whole Jabba reveal in Return of the Jedi, which is pretty good. how does he go from a comedy slug to a fearsome evil gangster? a question that should never have been asked.
i think also the CGI addition of stormtroopers on Tatooine ineptly riding around on Tauntauns (i think?) while looking for the droids is just as bad.
― omar little, Thursday, 14 December 2017 18:05 (six years ago) link
― omar little, Thursday, December 14, 2017 11:05 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this sucks too. basically all of the changes suck. having a bunch of bullshit in the windows of cloud city really interrupts the visual continuity of empire
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, 14 December 2017 18:08 (six years ago) link
banthas. those are banthas. tauntauns live on hoth.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 14 December 2017 18:12 (six years ago) link
i guess blending and upgrading some of the practical effects probably didn't suck very much but it's been a v long time since i watched the special editions
i watched the despecialized editions last month and i really love that those exist even though i have my own issues with them. it was a really interesting experience bc i don't think i've ever seen a version of the original trilogy that lucas hadn't somehow fucked with (my first star wars vhs box was the release that he added "episode iv: a new hope" to iirc)
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, 14 December 2017 18:12 (six years ago) link
oh nm i just looked it up and the "episode iv" appellation occurred much earlier, in a theatrical rerelease
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, 14 December 2017 18:15 (six years ago) link
Manny Banthas?
― omar little, Thursday, 14 December 2017 18:19 (six years ago) link
they were riding dewbacks iirc
― mh, Thursday, 14 December 2017 18:28 (six years ago) link
Yeah, those were dewbacks, and there's only one in the un-specialized OT. One of my favorite SW toys as a kid because he just had a little hinged flap in his back to stick a stormtrooper's legs in.
― Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Thursday, 14 December 2017 19:34 (six years ago) link
i gave my friend a VHS box set of the untouched original trilogy in the '90s. I wonder if the tapes still play.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 14 December 2017 19:36 (six years ago) link
I love these old commercials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg3U3rjoGW4
― Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Thursday, 14 December 2017 19:39 (six years ago) link