star wars prequels: most embarrassing and hacky attempt at fan-service and plot resolution

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, 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

banthas. those are banthas. tauntauns live on hoth.

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)

oh nm i just looked it up and the "episode iv" appellation occurred much earlier, in a theatrical rerelease

Manny Banthas?

they were riding dewbacks iirc

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.

i gave my friend a VHS box set of the untouched original trilogy in the '90s. I wonder if the tapes still play.

I love these old commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg3U3rjoGW4

morbs when i was home last Xmas we watched the original SW on VHS, i had the widescreen untampered-with trilogy boxset (which still goes for a decent amount on eBay iirc.) still played nicely.

whoa really?

I need to check, think I reclaimed at least the original VHS special edition release, might have been dumb and gotten rid of the originals because I had pan&scan

sick bastards can't believe they cut off the top and bottom of the movies like that

kind of, as the name implies sometimes they'd use the left/right side and then move across the frame during scenes

or in some really weird moments, distort a scene to get everything in frame

wait, I read that sideways

less letterbox, very rude

the worst movie i've ever seen for distortion on VHS was Die Hard

imagine when movies were broadcast on TV that way, and you had no other option

god i still remember when WGN would air nothing but colorized versions of White Heat and The Maltese Falcon, as if it was the way they were meant to be seen.

Now imagine when the latest Star War was simply narrated through a paper megaphone by a vaudevillian in shortpants.

Shorty Lucas

oh man, I have never seen a colorized Maltese Falcon and I just involuntarily cringed at the idea

Not only was Cornelius Evazan a doctor (?!), but his cosmetic surgery shop was across the street from a restaurant called ADMIRAL SNACKBAR?!

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Admiral_Snackbar

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Thursday, 14 December 2017 00:37 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i kind of love the tone-deaf completionism of this, like if someone decided we needed to compile thorough histories of all the gag shops in the simpsons

https://s21.postimg.org/aatah6w8n/1941_The_Maltese_Falcon_57m27s.jpg

sorry mh

The arc of Palpatine ascending to power by duping possibly the dumbest Senate ever was fun

that’s even more ridiculously funny than I could have hoped xp

Should've voted for Palpatine's face, only decided now. I assumed as a kid sitting around bathed in the hideous power of the dark side made him that way, no it was um, to get sympathy from the Senate? Or something? Way more powerful as I imagined.

I don't think it's so crazy that Han's hanging out on Jabba's planet - I mean it's a planet! It's huge! It's like saying "it's crazy he'd still be hanging around America even though he's trying to avoid that American guy"

I mean I get that it's just a Sci-Fi convention that planets are just treated like "cities", there's only ever one culture and climate etc, never Hoth and Tatooine and Dagobah all just parts of one planet

Naboo has 2

it’s not jabba’s planet, it’s a franchise in the hutt criminal syndicate

it’s like saying a cali cartel associate in like... oklahoma... was from oklahoma because he was the coke guy

Just reread the list, is it better to poll the isolated snippets of the prequels which *weren't* embarrassing and hacky attempts at fan-service and plot resolution?

https://fsmedia.imgix.net/00/53/34/fa/fb49/441e/a1ef/17db16f152f2/jar-jar-tongue-candypng.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&w=700

Imagine how the prequels could have been redeemed if they'd had the cojones to stick with the Jar-Jar-is-Sith plotline from Ep 1. Phantom Menace indeed.

Mr. K, I like your ideas. The long pole in this tent seems to be: can we rely on friendly neighborhood Doctor Casino to curate the isolated snippets of the prequels which were not embarrassing, hacky attempts at fan-service and plot resolution?

I wouldn't wish that fishing expedition on my worst enemy

s/fishing expedition/dumpster dive/

really wish this hadn't been totally overhyped as 'BEST STAR WARS MOVIE EVER!' but definitely not terrible

(Wrong thread)

i enjoyed the American Graffiti diner fan service

well not really

(d'oh! that's what i get for going to see a midnight showing then posting pre-coffee)

if lucas still owned these and were issuing a "clones" special edition i have to assume diner scene would be "enhanced" with CGI Young Harrison zooming by the diner in a souped-up space car, cowboy hat and all.

unwinding at a hotel and "clones" is on TNT. uglier even than i remembered. with regard to this poll: sad to have missed obi-wan and anakin's terrible "why do i get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?" repartee. also the entire business of them going into a colorful bar together. barf.

lollll these digital sets. i feel like i'm in a screensaver. or a terrible rendering of the new lobby interior that will be coming soon - pardon the inconvenience while we the jedi council work to better serve you!

there's an exterior shot of padme's apartment, right before the scene where she's packing her Target luggage set and anakin is bitching unprompted at length about obi-wan and then he's being all creepy.... ugh but anyway this exterior could be the worst-looking shot i've ever seen in a movie. it's totally static and there's not the usual array of flying crap so there is NO reason this could not have been done with a miniature and/or matte painting... i can't find a shot of it online but it's soooooooooo bad.

oh boy now we're at Dex's Diner

with the alien buttcrack and the Brooklyn accent

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, December 14, 2017 2:36 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i bought the pre-SE VHS box at a thrift store this year for $2.99. still plays fine. maybe a little VHS distortion here and there but this is late 70s/early 80s pulp sci fi if anything that only makes it cooler.

my $3 widescreen VHS box set is one of my best thrift scores ever, viewing-pleasure-wise.

my friend still has the laserdiscs. and a laserdisc machien to play them on

tried to watch ROTS last night. I was so far removed from the OG movies when I originally saw the preeks (can I call them that?) in the theatre, so it didn't affect me at the time, but after getting three modern SW movies which had more faithful design, I couldn't get over how ugly everything is. It feels like watching a screensaver at times.

around the time where Anakin kills Dooku then rues "I shouldn't have done that" with a delivery one would use if he woke up naked in bed after coitus with Palpatine...and I had to flip it off.....

yeah that's why I can't take any of the "oh well ROTS actually isn't that bad" talk (let alone any of the really crazy "it's actually good" talk)

it's just so ugly to look at