"“To me, it [the original Star Wars trilogy] doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it.” - George Lucas, 2004
It is insane how much George Lucas has edited the original Star Wars trilogy. I think no movies have had more edits over time than Star Wars.
Few have made so much money from a trilogy or had such creative freedom. I admit I disliked the laser bolt changes of special editions. Yet otherwise loved seeing some modern CGI fleshing out those worlds.
IIRC the original bolts were opaque in the middle and hazy around the edges. It felt like they were blinding even to cameras and visors. New ones were thinner and evenly transparent, as if someone overlaid some cheap translucent plastic
- there was a children's book (that my family had) that accompanied the movie
- there is a scene in the book where Biggs comes back to talk to Luke
- this didn't make any sense to me as a child b/c that scene isn't in the movie
- I realized years later that they cut the scene but AFTER the book was printed.
The scene in question is here btw: <a href="https://youtu.be/O7J_IZ9agRI?t=318" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/O7J_IZ9agRI?t=318
There was also a comic book that came out before the movie.
In the scene where the sand people shoot R2D2, it looked like the other way around so it was quite confusing to see them captured in the next frame. Who knew the little guy didn't have a blaster?
There was also Luke looking up at the space battle and "Treadwell" the droid, which would have played just before all of the Biggs scenes: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDPZfPe5F-w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDPZfPe5F-w (a cleaner version is shown in How Star Wars was saved in the edit)
It doesn't affect the specific point in question here, but it's probably best to treat the RocketJump video with caution: <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=olqVGz6mOVE" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/watch?v=olqVGz6mOVE .
Yeah I knew someone would point out the controversy. Unfortunately the only other version of the clip I could find was some super grainy version, but I hadn't seen that rebuttal. Amazing.
I also remembered that scene and the early Jabba the Hutt scene from the novelisation. And because I knew them from the book, I initially loved it when the Special Editions added them back. Until I realised they don't really work. Well, Biggs does, but Jabba becomes much less terrifying from having Han talk to him like that and even walking over his tail. Jabba being just a feared name works so much better.
Yes!! I remember reading this book at the library as a kid, and for years afterwards I wondered if I had just hallucinated the whole thing.
I think it's a really important scene, and I'm sad that it was cut from the movie.
Side note: the (extremely well-done) Star Wars Radio Drama [0] included a great many expanded scenes on Tattoine (with quite a bit of expansoin on Tosche Station), and I think those scenes (which include the aforementioned scene with Biggs) really add to the richness and flavor of the setting.
If you're a fan of Star Wars and haven't yet listened to the radio drama, I highly recommend it!
It's pretty funny, he took something that was very much a product of its time and beloved in large part for that reasons, and slowly turned it into something even hardcore fans want nothing to do with.
Very little was really lost IMO if you look at those movies with an eye free of nostalgia, but I'm sure many MANY people would disagree with that.
I think the main series has turned to trash, but isn’t it still commercially successful? I personally adored Andor, but even my parents couldn’t sit through the first couple episodes because they’re slow moving.
Massively profitable afaik, up until the last of the new trilogy which underperformed (still made ~$300mil box office using standard metrics). Andor I agree was the first Star Wars property I'd call genuinely excellent, after 'The Empire Strikes Back', but obviously that's hugely dictated by my personal taste.
On the other hand there are signs of the brand wearing thin in places, Mandalorian vs. Grogu was a critical and commercial flop (assuming the usual 2x budget for marketing, if it was more for marketing then it might have been significantly worse than just breaking even).
The trend is really clear though, and it's not going in the right direction for Disney. Obviously they have the resources to reverse that, but the question is if they have the vision and the will.
Hahah your comment put a mental image in my head of Mando fighting Baby Yoda.
We watched it yesterday at home and it was… a strange movie. It looked like it was shot on the same stage they use for the show, the budget seemed far lower than other Star Wars movies, and the story was confusing and rambling in a way my children had a lot of difficulty following. I’m glad I didn’t see it in theaters.
The (believable) rumor is that it was originally scripted as ~5 episodes of the show when management said "We looked at our release schedule and yeah, make it a theatrical release". It's ironic, so much of what's going on now is taking movies (Cape Fear for example) and stretching them in 8-10 episode seasons; it's interesting to see someone try and fail at the opposite maneuver.
If you haven't seen Moana 2... well, don't watch it. And I say this as a parent who watched Moana and loved it. But if you did watch Moana 2 and thought the plot didn't make any sense, it's because they planned a whole TV show then turned it into a movie at the last minute. This resulted in delightful moments like a villain that comes out of nowhere, and in the course of her intro song has a heel-face turn without any explanation, then disappears out of the movie forever.
Scopes in real life, linked to film industry are interesting even more.
Marc Bernays Randolph, cofounder and first CEO of Netlifx is nephew of Edward Bernays who is nephew of Sigmund Freud. Edward developed propaganda in 30s in US, later, after Goebbels did same, renamed to public relations. Nowadays, we have Netflix doing same.
I hated Moana 2 but I didn't know about the context. Thanks for that, that now explains it. It's a pity because I much prefer Moana to Frozen but I have no plans to show my kid Moana 2.
Another part of the story a lot of people don't know is apparently Lucas's cut of the original Star Wars was horrible, so his wife came in and redid everything and that's the version that went to theaters. And she was the editor on the remaining two of the original trilogy as well.
I think it's pretty clear to everyone now that when Lucas is flying solo his final output is... not great. He obviously imagined a universe a lot of people find compelling, but wasn't always the best person to realize the vision of that universe.
That version of events has been disputed: <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=olqVGz6mOVE" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/watch?v=olqVGz6mOVE .
I know it's a meme at this point, but being an "idea person" is legitimately a thing. But there is also being self-aware enough to recognize what your strengths are and when you should call in reinforcements, as it were, to fill in where there's a need. Seems there's a spectrum where people fall in how readily they will recognize this and Lucas falls more towards the reluctant side perhaps.
On a similar vein, Gene Roddenberry was pretty similar with Star Trek. He had a pretty big universe imagined, got the scaffolding in for it, but all the best works under the name of Star Trek were made by other people. Anything Gene Roddenberry was directly involved in as a script writer (see: many episodes of the original and first two seasons of The Next Generation) are generally the weakest and worst parts of Star Trek.
Yeah, also I think part of that was Gene wanted to portray a more optimistic vision of the future as a principled thing, which I get, but that also made Classic and TNG feel a bit superficial and low stakes a lot of the time. DS9 is personally my favorite series, mostly because of the age I was when it came out, but also because I liked that they shifted it to be a bit less idealistic.
I watched it when it was originally on in the 90's. As the show got more serialized it was like a cliff hanger or huge event every few weeks. Then we got a great 10 episode arc to end the series.
Yeah it's aged phenomenally well, and makes more modern Star Treks so frustratingly awful. The Visitor is arguably one of the best episodes of any Star Trek ever, Past Tense was basically prophetic. And so many of the episodes are extremely insightful on human nature - For the Uniform where good can so easily become evil - In the Pale Moonlight being of a similar nature, and so many more.
One of the things I'm most looking forward to is watching the series with my kids when they're old enough.
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Unrelated but the TNG episode Tapestry also deserves a mention. [1] Wtf happened to media. Writers used to actually understand people, now everything is so trite.
I still think TNG was the best, but DS9 was good too. In hindsight though, it seems like it was good to have someone like Roddenberry doggedly insisting upon his positive vision for the future. The modern Star Trek series, where there's nobody pushing for the utopian vision any more, are kind of depressing and not really in line with the idea that humanity will eventually be able to improve itself and leave behind the pettiness that holds us back today.
Yeah, I think that's fair. IMO DS9 got the balance right because it's a bit more gritty than TNG, accepts more complexity and ambiguity, but still holds up those ideals as something worth striving for even against severe difficulties.
I'm sad to say the newest Trek shows have just missed me.
Yeah same, there was the one that was both "in the past" (taking place before TNG I believe) but thanks to mushroom magic they had instant teleportation and then timey-wimey stuff so it was also a hypermodern show. The melodrama was just grating on me after a while.
Then there was Picard which actually showed some promise but I couldn't find myself caring about the new characters they tried to introduce on top of the layers of nostalgia. I heard it got a soft reboot or new writers for season 3 but I have no idea, I haven't heard anything about it.
Voyager was still good but that was the last show I actually watched on the regular.
And yet that's what I like about original trek and dislike about many other newer Sci-Fi. Writers trying to one up each other with univers-shattering dangers gets old pretty quick.
Roddenberry specifically wasn't needed, Rick Berman was able to learn from his vision and maintain it. After Roddenberry died, Berman was able to maintain TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise all with the Star Trek ideals that Roddenberry always fought to maintain when he was alive. Even as Deep Space Nine and Enterprise had to seemingly throw the ideals out the window temporarily, with the Dominion and Xindi arcs, just to better demonstrate why they were so badly needed in the first place.
Unfortunately, we don't have a Rick Berman, or anyone else that maintains the same ideals, at the helm anymore.
Marcia Lucas along with two other editors won the Film Editing Oscar for Star Wars/ANH/Ep. 4 ( <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1dW6bNBzN8&t=52s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1dW6bNBzN8&t=52s ): she was no doubt a very good editor. Neither she nor the other two "saved Star Wars in the edit" in the manner often claimed. For example, Marcia Lucas fought to keep the teen-movie version of the opening with Luke meeting Biggs and others at Tosche Station in Tatooine, while George Lucas had always preferred to begin the Tatooine segment with the droids <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olqVGz6mOVE&t=1407s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olqVGz6mOVE&t=1407s .
There’s no way to know one way or another whether her editing “saved” it. There’s no other original edit without her, so it’s an unfalsifiable claim.
I was just responding to the poster claiming it was some sort of feminist conspiracy theory to claim that she was an editor on the film and did a good job. She did edit the film, and a plurality of her peers thought the editing was a good enough job to award the most prestigious award in the industry for the work.
It's reasonably clear that Star Wars would have been in some trouble if it had come out with anything like the original John Jympson edit, and in that sense it's fairly safe to say that Star Wars truly was saved in the edit. (Though that's also not very surprising, as by all accounts it's not particularly unusual for a good completed film to have had a shaky first edit.) But it seems that all the evidence suggests that George Lucas was always unhappy with Jympson's editing and understood its problems, and that it was he who selected three professional editors including Marcia Lucas to work on a re-edit which achieved his high-level creative intentions and was closely and actively supervised by him, and in which he did some of the hands-on editing to boot. There doesn't seem to be much to support the idea that the (other) editors took Star Wars out of the hands of a hapless George Lucas and bestowed on him a film which had been reworked beyond his own capabilities or vision, which is the usual "saved in the edit" claim, let alone that Marcia Lucas alone was largely responsible for that supposed feat, which is what was claimed at <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49883758">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49883758 .
Again, I never claimed she wasn’t good at her job or didn’t earn some credit for her work on New Hope. I guess I wrongly expected HN users to have better reading comprehension and nuance than redditors. My point was entirely that in this specific instance, her contribution was overemphasized by a brigade of redditors spreading misinformation.
It’s well known that a group of fans who follow a certain youtube channel well known among star wars enthusiasts share the channel’s opinions on sites like reddit, and these became an oft-repeated myth spread there to discredit Lucas because they (like the channel admins) despise the sequel trilogy. They also don’t limit themselves to praising her editing work, but often claim that she was the _real_ creator of star wars and Lucas wouldn’t have been anywhere near as big without her. I don’t have any side on this, I am not particularly fond of the sequel trilogy nor a big fan of Lucas, but what I do dislike is the myth-making constantly pushed about various things on reddit.
If you had reading comprehension, you’d understand that my comment was about the excess claims, not real ones. Marie Curie has long been known for her achievements, nobody in recent history claimed otherwise. I guess reading comprehension is too much to assume nowadays.
I think it's justifiable to call out her contribution. She was an excellent editor without Star Wars, her work includes American Graffiti and Taxi Driver.
I consider her a part of what makes the original trilogy great but I don't think it diminishes Lucas' contribution. No one person is "what makes it great". Plus the internet loves the underdog or a a "TIL"
> I think it's pretty clear to everyone now that when Lucas is flying solo his final output is... not great.
The evidence is pretty compelling that George had a lot of great ideas as well as some not-so-great ideas and his own ability to distinguish between the two was... less than ideal. Thus his best work was from those times he collaborated closely with talented people who had significant input and there was a strong, empowered curator. Positive examples include the great results on Star Wars, the fact that Empire is so good and his work on Raiders with Spielberg. A clear negative example is Phantom Menace where George was in absolute control.
A lot of fantastically talented creators simply shouldn't have unchecked 'final cut' over their own output. It's really nothing to be ashamed of, and frankly, is more common than not.
One huge addition that she created entirely in the edit is the "ticking clock" during the final battle. Originally there was no count down to the Death Star destroying the base. Imagine how much tension would be lost without that.
Luckily, it seems like they are all being undone for the 50th next year. Most of them, anyway. We'll have to wait to see the release to be sure, but it's a definite improvement. Maybe the definitive version, finally.
I was talking to Bob Gale once about this topic and he said that him and Zemeckis had put a veto clause in their contract when they sold BTTF to Universal in the 90s giving them the power over any later fuckery with the releases, while they are alive. This was during the height of the 3D TV craze and he said Universal had asked for permission to do a 2D->3D conversion of BTTF and both Bobs had refused. So there's one franchise at least that won't get dicked with in the near future.
[I'm not totally against 2D->3D conversions if done right. The Titanic conversion looks like it was filmed 3D-native, beautifully done. The Star Wars: Episode 1 conversion is essentially unwatchable and killed the whole project.]
Part of the problem is that often enough the original cretives are the ones pushing for revisionist changes to their works and it isn't just the evil studios, who could be prevented from meddling with a sufficiently iron tight contract.
I have the original trilogy's original version on VHS still, and just recently watched them. I would say they hold up very well and weren't really in need of any post release changes or updates. The effects look great today compared to some other movies that actually came out later, probably because Star Wars used more practical effects vs some early Sci-Fi CGI that ended up not aging as well.
The changes are mostly just window dressings around the original footage, like extra CGI in transition scenes. They don't really change much of the core movie experience. It does end up causing some funny side effects though. Like when the main characters move from one place to another you'll see a splashy dinosaur like creature or fancy robot, but once they actually arrive in the scene the background falls back to the original with a lot less of that added CGI action.
> It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it.” - George Lucas, 2004
I don't begrudge any director the freedom to go back and revise their work to more perfectly realize their creative vision. The problem is when they try to erase the original released version of an historically significant film by making it completely unavailable. George had no issue accepting the accolades and billions of dollars from the original trilogy. It's fine to later release his 'perfect vision' but in today's digital media era, there's zero reason or justification to make the originals unavailable. Be proud of what your younger self made and let fans decide which they version they want to watch.
I'm not just being post-hoc selective here. I think original theatrical releases of classics should remain available even in cases like Blade Runner where the OG theatrical release is a widely-hated, critically panned abomination made by a clueless executive producer without the involvement of the director, writer or main star and released over their strong objections. It is objectively awful and by far the worst release of the film - but I still believe even that miserable train wreck should remain available forever (perhaps with appropriate warning labels :-), even if only as a cautionary tale to future clueless executive producers).
Since you brought up Blade Runner (and I agree with all your points, by the way) I'm deeply offended by how the Final Cut decided to add all these wonderful improvements yet Ridley Scott agreed to completely mess up the color grading. What's up with the new greenish tint? Did he think it would make Blade Runner look more modern or what?
Fortunately, we can still watch the Director's Cut. It's a shame, too, because the Final Cut has a lot of improvements otherwise (e.g. fixing Zhora's face is a major one).
I've heard that Ridley was busy shooting another film when the Final Cut was in production so he wasn't that involved personally. Most of the improvements were pre-approved in bullet point form, meaning the editor probably did much of what we both like about it in advance and Ridley was there in person only to supervise the color grade and to sign-off on changes.
Personally, when it comes to revisiting revered classics many years later, I think directors (even good ones) should focus on correcting obvious technical errors like matte lines in effects, muffled audio or the proverbial boom mike at the edge of a shot. They need to resist the urge to make non-technical stylistic changes like color grading or noise reduction (looking at you James Cameron). Things like adding back cut shots or recutting scenes to change pacing need to be carefully considered and only done when the original cut was obviously in error or not what the director intended at the time - perhaps due to not having time/budget to reshoot, overdub or being overruled by the studio or producer.
When a film has become a classic, and is of historic importance, it should be respected as an artifact of its time and a snapshot of a director's abilities, style and tastes at that point in their development. They should be thankful for the opportunity and stick to making it what their original intent was then, not what they'd do if they made it now. Otherwise, they're quickly on a slippery slope toward a strange stylistic hybrid between then and now.
James Cameron's Aliens "Directors Cut" is an example of a mixed bag. Fixing the VFX matte lines is a definite plus but the excessive noise reduction sucks all the texture out of the image. Adding back the lengthy sequence at the beginning of the film showing Newt and her family encountering the Aliens on the mining colony removes much of the suspense and mystery, making the film worse IMHO. Cameron cut that scene after test screenings for good reason which makes the addition feel like it was motivated by the studio's desire to market the Director's Cut with "X Minutes of New Footage!".
The same is true of the entire ~20 min French colonist digression in the Apocalypse Now Director's Cut. It's mildly interesting from an historical point of view but it brings the entire movie to a grinding WTF halt. It's a clear example of putting a mistake back into a film that should never have been in the script in the first place. The 'Newt's Family' scene in Aliens is just unnecessary but it was probably hard to know that until seeing a rough cut.
I think Aliens has a couple of additions that do make sense, Ripley being told of her daughter and the scene with the miniguns, but that's about it.
Agreed about the rest, you're basically reading my mind about how I feel about movies.
Cameron is a special case where one has to wonder how he can possibly think that waxy over-DNR look is a good choice for any move - preservation or new. It feels more like he's intentionally destroying his past works than anything.
Oh you're going to love the Penultimate Cut fanedit/restoration of Blade Runner:
<a href="https://fanedit.org/what-the-final-cut-shouldve-been/" rel="nofollow">https://fanedit.org/what-the-final-cut-shouldve-been/ (check out the Changes tab)
This opinion rubs me the wrong way. I don't think you meant it like this, but it really feels like when someone creates something, they now have some obligation to society, should society deem it good enough.
In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing to support this idea. If I make something, I can change it however I want, as many times as I want, and throw away old copies - even if you really really liked those old copies. It's my art, not yours.
Maybe one could make the argument that George Lucas is not the only artist here, and I'd agree with that, but to imply that society is owed something that someone created of their own volition, simply because society happens to like it, feels wrong. He can change it however he wants until the day he dies, as far as I'm concerned.
Society grants you the right to enforce what we call intellectual property. Enforcing that concept is rather new, and some of humanities biggest cultural works predate it.
The timespan for which we grant a creator the sole right to decide about his work is arbitrary and, last but not least, almost all of our cultural works are derivative in nature, so what actually is our own work is equally arbitrary defined.
In the existing framework he can do what he did, but the current one is not the only possible.
I don't see why it matters to the argument if the original creator is alive.
I also don't believe the creator has a special obligation to make things available. But I generally agree with the GP, once something is released and widely popular, society now shares some ownership. There should be some way to access it, at least as part of the historical record.
It's not the creator's responsibility to facilitate that, but they also shouldn't be able to hinder it.
Authors, painters, musicians (and at some points in my life I've considered myself among them) can have a lot of intent in creating something, and a lot of intent later to alter something, but at no point do I believe an artist owns their art once released/sold, outside of IP laws. What I mean is George Lucas has the legal right to only release the shitty remastered versions, but he certainly can't dictate they're better.
The whole concept of "death of the author" is about how regardless how a writer meant something to be interpreted, if another interpretation gets more traction, and is more coherent, it's hard to argue it's wrong.
I’m not implying that Lucas gets to decide which cut is best, just that it’s his right to decide what “Star Wars” actually refers to.
What the movie means, how it affects people, how it reflects on the author, etc. are all out of his control, but the public doesn’t get to argue with him on what it actually IS.
Once the author dies, all bets are off because things must continue to change to remain accessible to others. Translations, data format changes, viewing methods, etc. all can require adaptations. Since we can no longer ask the author their opinion, we take the works as a whole. No future discussion of SW would be complete without taking time to reference the changes it underwent over time. If nothing else, it adds necessary context to understand the media.
IMO it’s also kind of a blessing. It gives us multiple angles to consider a work from when squeezing more meaning out of it 100 years down the road.
I get your point, but also on the other hand, art is subjective, and people subjectively appreciate older / imperfect versions of things. Consider film grain - it's an artifact, an unintentional or unwanted side-effect of how films used to be made. But because it was a part of a production, people wanted it back - it gets added artificially to modern films, added as filters to video games, and video encoding has special features to support it without affecting compression negatively too much.
Or take video games, particularly 2d / pixelart ones - they were built for CRT displays and relatively low resolutions. They can remake them now with multiples of the original resolution and fidelity, but for many people it loses some of it. Some art doesn't translate at all - take this digitized artwork from Castlevania, which was digitized specifically for display on CRT displays but which loses all charm (e.g. the eyes reduced to a single pixel) when rendered somewhere else: <a href="https://x.com/CRTpixels/status/1408451743214616587" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/CRTpixels/status/1408451743214616587
But this probably applies to film as well; if a film was made for a 35mm projector from the 70's, it won't look good or anywhere near that "experience" on a modern day 4K OLED display without editing.
At the end of the day I think the viewer should be given options and choices. And for a good while it looked like they would - with DVD and blu-ray offering options like different audio tracks, camera angles, and different versions of the same film in one package. But that never materialized because I suppose it's only a wish from purists. And at that point they're competing with piracy and internet hobbyists like the article.
I could not agree more emphatically with your points on CRTs, OLEDs, etc. So I hope you won't mind me quibbling on one statement.
> Consider film grain - it's an artifact, an unintentional or unwanted side-effect of how films used to be made.
I don't think it's quite so binary. Depending on the context and intent, film grain can be an undesirable artifact of limited celluloid chemistry, optics and available light. But it can also be an expressive aspect of the artistic medium no different than depth of field, focal length, color timing, grading, etc.
There are certainly examples of low light scenes where it's clear the filmmaker reached the limits of then-available optics and chemistry and they were forced into compromises such using higher-speed film and/or 'pushing' the chemistry during film processing. These can increase grain and the result is often shadow detail being lost in the noise floor. I agree that's always bad.
But there are also wonderful examples where directors and DPs very intentionally selected film stocks for their unique texture, gamma curve, color sensitivity, etc as an expressive choice. In those cases, it's no different than a painter intentionally using different canvas textures, brush bristles and pigment viscosity as part of their expressive palatte. In this form, the unique textures of different film stocks are often referred to as 'image structure' (a less pejorative term than 'grain' which is often construed negatively).
> But because it was a part of a production, people wanted it back
Artists hate any limitations on their vision, whether technical, financial or societal. They want maximum expressive freedom yet also grudingly concede pushing against limitations often elevates their work to new heights. When film grain was a limitation they struggled against, they hated it. When grain is an artistic element giving their image texture, they want in their toolbox.
To be clear, not all chemical, optical or technical limitations from the past were expressively useful. No VFX artists are pining for the black matte outlines from misregistered optical printing or generational mismatch in multi-pass composites. :-) Interestingly, as optics, lighting instruments and film sensitivity improved in the late B&W era, it was briefly trendy among some cinematographers to abandon depth of field as an unfortunate historical limitation of the past. Of course, it was just an over-reaction to a long-resented limitation finally becoming a choice and DoF remained an invaluable storytelling tool in the hands of a master (<a href="https://creativecow.net/depth-of-field-gregg-toland-citizen-kane-and-beyond/" rel="nofollow">https://creativecow.net/depth-of-field-gregg-toland-citizen-...). I just want to avoid similarly over-reacting by dismissing the creative value of image structure and texture as we leave unwanted graininess in the past.
I suspect we'd have several enjoyable beers debating edge cases; which visual artifacts of past technical limitations can arguably have expressive utility to visual storytellers going forward and which have no real redeeming qualities outside retro callbacks and nostalgia? I'll nominate anamophic lens flares to start: <a href="https://theasc.com/article/star-trek-into-darkness/" rel="nofollow">https://theasc.com/article/star-trek-into-darkness/. My take: J.J. went overboard intentionally milking them in ST:ID but I'd be horrified if Spielberg digitally removed them from Close Encounters. Philosophically, I think the same principles broadly apply to retro gaming and preservation. So much so I built a custom arcade emulation cabinet around a 27" Wells-Gardner 9200 quad-sync analog RGB CRT and Radeon R9 380x. To me, it's about authentically preserving original artistic intent, especially when the original creators placed individual pixels by hand specifically to leverage certain analog video artifacts.
I see why people think this, but it is also anti-social. Once you've introduced art to the public market, two things happen:
- people form a relationship with and an emotional response to the art
- they give you money for the art
Now, the latter gets into questions like Sony or Steam removing games or films which people have previously purchased. A consumer rights question. People tend to feel they have been treated like a sucker when the publisher does this.
The former you are effectively rescinding the emotional relationship with the art. A much more complicated question. This can certainly be pathological - see kpop and the idol industry. But I don't think it's unfair to say that insisting that the art relationship should be totally unilateral and you owe the audience nothing, is going to anger the audience.
Since at least 1100 CE, even artists have disagreed with you. "The Moving Hand writes, and having written, moves on. Nor all your piety nor wit shall remove half a line of it."
You don't own art that has been released to the public, anymore than you own a car or pizza that you sold.
Buying art does not give you any rights to force the owner to do anything, either.
This is where IP law gets so confusing in the modern world. You can "buy" access to IP, and it feels like you are buying the thing, but you are not. Netflix is under no obligation to provide s04e01 of CSI:Indianapolis, even if that's the sole reason you subscribed.
I'm not sure what you are arguing for. Should an artist be able to remove a viewing of a film that's already occurred if they dislike the final product? Or should George be able to forbid me to watch a released version of SW where Han shoots first?
> they now have some obligation to society, should society deem it good enough.
I was expressing a wish or, perhaps an ideal, not an obligation. I don't think there's any implied ethical, moral or legal duty on a creator to do what their patrons or fans want. As an amatuer filmmaker who's also worked in the industry creating technology for cinematic storytelling, I'm as pro-creator as can be.
And, full-disclosure, my feelings about Star Wars are 'complicated'. In 1977 I'd just become a teenager when I saw Star Wars at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. It not only rocked my world, it made me want to be a filmmaker and changed the course of my life. Turns out I was better at software than filmmaking. Fortunately, as film became digital, my interests collided :-).
Decades later my software was used extensively to make several Star Wars films including hundreds of shots in Phantom Menace. I was at the ranch many times during production and was back at the Chinese theater for the premiere of TPM - almost exactly 22 years to the day after my life was changed in that theater. Prior to the premiere I'd only seen storyboards and individual shots so, going in, my expectations were as sky-high as any fan. But, like many hardcore fans, I felt let down by Phantom Menace. Did George owe fans the film they wanted him to make? Nope, not at all. He made the film he wanted to make. Even though I was disappointed by TPM, it hasn't changed how much I respect George. He's still a remarkable filmmaker.
Wait until you see how often Tolkien edited The Lord of the Rings. Most of it was name and print corrections, but still. You would think you’d fix it all after one or two reprints.
Whenever discussion about Lucas and his taste comes up, I remember this story in <a href="https://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/04/04/fall-of-the-empire-how-inner-turmoil-brought-down-a-legendary-studio" rel="nofollow">https://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/04/04/fall-... about him being asked for a name for a new character, and him suggesting Darth Icky or Darth Insanius.
thewizzardofnl · · focus · HN ↗
It is insane how much George Lucas has edited the original Star Wars trilogy. I think no movies have had more edits over time than Star Wars.
paulryanrogers · · focus · HN ↗
hungryhobbit · · focus · HN ↗
kurthr · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://investor.colgatepalmolive.com/news-releases/news-release-details/introducing-colgates-galactic-new-oral-care-line" rel="nofollow">https://investor.colgatepalmolive.com/news-releases/news-rel...
<a href="https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/jar-jar-toothpaste--185773553354100437/" rel="nofollow">https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/jar-jar-toothpaste--18577355335...
Groxx · · focus · HN ↗
encrypted_bird · · focus · HN ↗
paulryanrogers · · focus · HN ↗
alexpotato · · focus · HN ↗
- there was a children's book (that my family had) that accompanied the movie
- there is a scene in the book where Biggs comes back to talk to Luke
- this didn't make any sense to me as a child b/c that scene isn't in the movie
- I realized years later that they cut the scene but AFTER the book was printed.
The scene in question is here btw: <a href="https://youtu.be/O7J_IZ9agRI?t=318" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/O7J_IZ9agRI?t=318
kurthr · · focus · HN ↗
In the scene where the sand people shoot R2D2, it looked like the other way around so it was quite confusing to see them captured in the next frame. Who knew the little guy didn't have a blaster?
letsbehonest1 · · focus · HN ↗
throwaway219450 · · focus · HN ↗
leoc · · focus · HN ↗
Ringz · · focus · HN ↗
throwaway219450 · · focus · HN ↗
mcv · · focus · HN ↗
dml2135 · · focus · HN ↗
floydnoel · · focus · HN ↗
NamlchakKhandro · · focus · HN ↗
HanClinto · · focus · HN ↗
I think it's a really important scene, and I'm sad that it was cut from the movie.
Side note: the (extremely well-done) Star Wars Radio Drama [0] included a great many expanded scenes on Tattoine (with quite a bit of expansoin on Tosche Station), and I think those scenes (which include the aforementioned scene with Biggs) really add to the richness and flavor of the setting.
If you're a fan of Star Wars and haven't yet listened to the radio drama, I highly recommend it!
[0] - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-29uKdckL4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-29uKdckL4
Uhhrrr · · focus · HN ↗
ghaff · · focus · HN ↗
EA-3167 · · focus · HN ↗
Very little was really lost IMO if you look at those movies with an eye free of nostalgia, but I'm sure many MANY people would disagree with that.
JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
I think the main series has turned to trash, but isn’t it still commercially successful? I personally adored Andor, but even my parents couldn’t sit through the first couple episodes because they’re slow moving.
EA-3167 · · focus · HN ↗
On the other hand there are signs of the brand wearing thin in places, Mandalorian vs. Grogu was a critical and commercial flop (assuming the usual 2x budget for marketing, if it was more for marketing then it might have been significantly worse than just breaking even).
The trend is really clear though, and it's not going in the right direction for Disney. Obviously they have the resources to reverse that, but the question is if they have the vision and the will.
onlypassingthru · · focus · HN ↗
wincy · · focus · HN ↗
We watched it yesterday at home and it was… a strange movie. It looked like it was shot on the same stage they use for the show, the budget seemed far lower than other Star Wars movies, and the story was confusing and rambling in a way my children had a lot of difficulty following. I’m glad I didn’t see it in theaters.
EA-3167 · · focus · HN ↗
the_af · · focus · HN ↗
If you haven't seen Moana 2... well, don't watch it. And I say this as a parent who watched Moana and loved it. But if you did watch Moana 2 and thought the plot didn't make any sense, it's because they planned a whole TV show then turned it into a movie at the last minute. This resulted in delightful moments like a villain that comes out of nowhere, and in the course of her intro song has a heel-face turn without any explanation, then disappears out of the movie forever.
EA-3167 · · focus · HN ↗
t0bia_s · · focus · HN ↗
Marc Bernays Randolph, cofounder and first CEO of Netlifx is nephew of Edward Bernays who is nephew of Sigmund Freud. Edward developed propaganda in 30s in US, later, after Goebbels did same, renamed to public relations. Nowadays, we have Netflix doing same.
sersi · · focus · HN ↗
jasonwatkinspdx · · focus · HN ↗
I think it's pretty clear to everyone now that when Lucas is flying solo his final output is... not great. He obviously imagined a universe a lot of people find compelling, but wasn't always the best person to realize the vision of that universe.
leoc · · focus · HN ↗
settsu · · focus · HN ↗
throwup238 · · focus · HN ↗
Cthulhu_ · · focus · HN ↗
chungy · · focus · HN ↗
QuercusMax · · focus · HN ↗
jasonwatkinspdx · · focus · HN ↗
actionfromafar · · focus · HN ↗
lizknope · · focus · HN ↗
lbeckman314 · · focus · HN ↗
- Commander Worf, Take Me Out to the Holosuite (7x4)
somenameforme · · focus · HN ↗
One of the things I'm most looking forward to is watching the series with my kids when they're old enough.
---
Unrelated but the TNG episode Tapestry also deserves a mention. [1] Wtf happened to media. Writers used to actually understand people, now everything is so trite.
[1] - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGvUDvZ7KyU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGvUDvZ7KyU
bigstrat2003 · · focus · HN ↗
jasonwatkinspdx · · focus · HN ↗
I'm sad to say the newest Trek shows have just missed me.
Cthulhu_ · · focus · HN ↗
Then there was Picard which actually showed some promise but I couldn't find myself caring about the new characters they tried to introduce on top of the layers of nostalgia. I heard it got a soft reboot or new writers for season 3 but I have no idea, I haven't heard anything about it.
Voyager was still good but that was the last show I actually watched on the regular.
account42 · · focus · HN ↗
karel-3d · · focus · HN ↗
chungy · · focus · HN ↗
Unfortunately, we don't have a Rick Berman, or anyone else that maintains the same ideals, at the helm anymore.
account42 · · focus · HN ↗
Revanche1367 · · focus · HN ↗
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dghlsakjg · · focus · HN ↗
I don't think its mythology to claim that Marcia Lucas edited the films. It's pretty well accepted reality.
If the remasters and the episodes I-III are anything to judge by, George really does better when there is an editor that will check him.
leoc · · focus · HN ↗
dghlsakjg · · focus · HN ↗
I was just responding to the poster claiming it was some sort of feminist conspiracy theory to claim that she was an editor on the film and did a good job. She did edit the film, and a plurality of her peers thought the editing was a good enough job to award the most prestigious award in the industry for the work.
Revanche1367 · · focus · HN ↗
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krige · · focus · HN ↗
leoc · · focus · HN ↗
Revanche1367 · · focus · HN ↗
It’s well known that a group of fans who follow a certain youtube channel well known among star wars enthusiasts share the channel’s opinions on sites like reddit, and these became an oft-repeated myth spread there to discredit Lucas because they (like the channel admins) despise the sequel trilogy. They also don’t limit themselves to praising her editing work, but often claim that she was the _real_ creator of star wars and Lucas wouldn’t have been anywhere near as big without her. I don’t have any side on this, I am not particularly fond of the sequel trilogy nor a big fan of Lucas, but what I do dislike is the myth-making constantly pushed about various things on reddit.
leoc · · focus · HN ↗
Revanche1367 · · focus · HN ↗
segsgsgsgs · · focus · HN ↗
Revanche1367 · · focus · HN ↗
HaloZero · · focus · HN ↗
I consider her a part of what makes the original trilogy great but I don't think it diminishes Lucas' contribution. No one person is "what makes it great". Plus the internet loves the underdog or a a "TIL"
jasonwatkinspdx · · focus · HN ↗
Revanche1367 · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
mrandish · · focus · HN ↗
The evidence is pretty compelling that George had a lot of great ideas as well as some not-so-great ideas and his own ability to distinguish between the two was... less than ideal. Thus his best work was from those times he collaborated closely with talented people who had significant input and there was a strong, empowered curator. Positive examples include the great results on Star Wars, the fact that Empire is so good and his work on Raiders with Spielberg. A clear negative example is Phantom Menace where George was in absolute control.
A lot of fantastically talented creators simply shouldn't have unchecked 'final cut' over their own output. It's really nothing to be ashamed of, and frankly, is more common than not.
magarnicle · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/tributes/the-woman-who-saved-star-wars-marcia-lucas-1945-2026" rel="nofollow">https://www.rogerebert.com/tributes/the-woman-who-saved-star...
qingcharles · · focus · HN ↗
I was talking to Bob Gale once about this topic and he said that him and Zemeckis had put a veto clause in their contract when they sold BTTF to Universal in the 90s giving them the power over any later fuckery with the releases, while they are alive. This was during the height of the 3D TV craze and he said Universal had asked for permission to do a 2D->3D conversion of BTTF and both Bobs had refused. So there's one franchise at least that won't get dicked with in the near future.
[I'm not totally against 2D->3D conversions if done right. The Titanic conversion looks like it was filmed 3D-native, beautifully done. The Star Wars: Episode 1 conversion is essentially unwatchable and killed the whole project.]
account42 · · focus · HN ↗
mcv · · focus · HN ↗
naet · · focus · HN ↗
The changes are mostly just window dressings around the original footage, like extra CGI in transition scenes. They don't really change much of the core movie experience. It does end up causing some funny side effects though. Like when the main characters move from one place to another you'll see a splashy dinosaur like creature or fancy robot, but once they actually arrive in the scene the background falls back to the original with a lot less of that added CGI action.
mrandish · · focus · HN ↗
I don't begrudge any director the freedom to go back and revise their work to more perfectly realize their creative vision. The problem is when they try to erase the original released version of an historically significant film by making it completely unavailable. George had no issue accepting the accolades and billions of dollars from the original trilogy. It's fine to later release his 'perfect vision' but in today's digital media era, there's zero reason or justification to make the originals unavailable. Be proud of what your younger self made and let fans decide which they version they want to watch.
I'm not just being post-hoc selective here. I think original theatrical releases of classics should remain available even in cases like Blade Runner where the OG theatrical release is a widely-hated, critically panned abomination made by a clueless executive producer without the involvement of the director, writer or main star and released over their strong objections. It is objectively awful and by far the worst release of the film - but I still believe even that miserable train wreck should remain available forever (perhaps with appropriate warning labels :-), even if only as a cautionary tale to future clueless executive producers).
x______________ · · focus · HN ↗
0 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first
IAmBroom · · focus · HN ↗
the_af · · focus · HN ↗
Fortunately, we can still watch the Director's Cut. It's a shame, too, because the Final Cut has a lot of improvements otherwise (e.g. fixing Zhora's face is a major one).
mrandish · · focus · HN ↗
Personally, when it comes to revisiting revered classics many years later, I think directors (even good ones) should focus on correcting obvious technical errors like matte lines in effects, muffled audio or the proverbial boom mike at the edge of a shot. They need to resist the urge to make non-technical stylistic changes like color grading or noise reduction (looking at you James Cameron). Things like adding back cut shots or recutting scenes to change pacing need to be carefully considered and only done when the original cut was obviously in error or not what the director intended at the time - perhaps due to not having time/budget to reshoot, overdub or being overruled by the studio or producer.
When a film has become a classic, and is of historic importance, it should be respected as an artifact of its time and a snapshot of a director's abilities, style and tastes at that point in their development. They should be thankful for the opportunity and stick to making it what their original intent was then, not what they'd do if they made it now. Otherwise, they're quickly on a slippery slope toward a strange stylistic hybrid between then and now.
James Cameron's Aliens "Directors Cut" is an example of a mixed bag. Fixing the VFX matte lines is a definite plus but the excessive noise reduction sucks all the texture out of the image. Adding back the lengthy sequence at the beginning of the film showing Newt and her family encountering the Aliens on the mining colony removes much of the suspense and mystery, making the film worse IMHO. Cameron cut that scene after test screenings for good reason which makes the addition feel like it was motivated by the studio's desire to market the Director's Cut with "X Minutes of New Footage!".
The same is true of the entire ~20 min French colonist digression in the Apocalypse Now Director's Cut. It's mildly interesting from an historical point of view but it brings the entire movie to a grinding WTF halt. It's a clear example of putting a mistake back into a film that should never have been in the script in the first place. The 'Newt's Family' scene in Aliens is just unnecessary but it was probably hard to know that until seeing a rough cut.
the_af · · focus · HN ↗
I think Aliens has a couple of additions that do make sense, Ripley being told of her daughter and the scene with the miniguns, but that's about it.
Agreed about the rest, you're basically reading my mind about how I feel about movies.
account42 · · focus · HN ↗
flotzam · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://fanedit.org/what-the-final-cut-shouldve-been/" rel="nofollow">https://fanedit.org/what-the-final-cut-shouldve-been/ (check out the Changes tab)
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsdmYjF_064" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsdmYjF_064 (trailer comparison)
<a href="https://archive.org/download/blade-runner-the-penultimate-cut-1982" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/download/blade-runner-the-penultimate-cu...
the_af · · focus · HN ↗
Edit: looking at the list of changes, this is exactly what I wanted. Well, an excuse to watch Blade Runner yet again :D
kulahan · · focus · HN ↗
In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing to support this idea. If I make something, I can change it however I want, as many times as I want, and throw away old copies - even if you really really liked those old copies. It's my art, not yours.
Maybe one could make the argument that George Lucas is not the only artist here, and I'd agree with that, but to imply that society is owed something that someone created of their own volition, simply because society happens to like it, feels wrong. He can change it however he wants until the day he dies, as far as I'm concerned.
After that day, I think the argument changes.
niemandhier · · focus · HN ↗
The timespan for which we grant a creator the sole right to decide about his work is arbitrary and, last but not least, almost all of our cultural works are derivative in nature, so what actually is our own work is equally arbitrary defined.
In the existing framework he can do what he did, but the current one is not the only possible.
sampullman · · focus · HN ↗
It's not the creator's responsibility to facilitate that, but they also shouldn't be able to hinder it.
croon · · focus · HN ↗
I think this is where most opinions differ.
Authors, painters, musicians (and at some points in my life I've considered myself among them) can have a lot of intent in creating something, and a lot of intent later to alter something, but at no point do I believe an artist owns their art once released/sold, outside of IP laws. What I mean is George Lucas has the legal right to only release the shitty remastered versions, but he certainly can't dictate they're better.
The whole concept of "death of the author" is about how regardless how a writer meant something to be interpreted, if another interpretation gets more traction, and is more coherent, it's hard to argue it's wrong.
kulahan · · focus · HN ↗
What the movie means, how it affects people, how it reflects on the author, etc. are all out of his control, but the public doesn’t get to argue with him on what it actually IS.
Once the author dies, all bets are off because things must continue to change to remain accessible to others. Translations, data format changes, viewing methods, etc. all can require adaptations. Since we can no longer ask the author their opinion, we take the works as a whole. No future discussion of SW would be complete without taking time to reference the changes it underwent over time. If nothing else, it adds necessary context to understand the media.
IMO it’s also kind of a blessing. It gives us multiple angles to consider a work from when squeezing more meaning out of it 100 years down the road.
Cthulhu_ · · focus · HN ↗
Or take video games, particularly 2d / pixelart ones - they were built for CRT displays and relatively low resolutions. They can remake them now with multiples of the original resolution and fidelity, but for many people it loses some of it. Some art doesn't translate at all - take this digitized artwork from Castlevania, which was digitized specifically for display on CRT displays but which loses all charm (e.g. the eyes reduced to a single pixel) when rendered somewhere else: <a href="https://x.com/CRTpixels/status/1408451743214616587" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/CRTpixels/status/1408451743214616587
But this probably applies to film as well; if a film was made for a 35mm projector from the 70's, it won't look good or anywhere near that "experience" on a modern day 4K OLED display without editing.
At the end of the day I think the viewer should be given options and choices. And for a good while it looked like they would - with DVD and blu-ray offering options like different audio tracks, camera angles, and different versions of the same film in one package. But that never materialized because I suppose it's only a wish from purists. And at that point they're competing with piracy and internet hobbyists like the article.
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
mrandish · · focus · HN ↗
> Consider film grain - it's an artifact, an unintentional or unwanted side-effect of how films used to be made.
I don't think it's quite so binary. Depending on the context and intent, film grain can be an undesirable artifact of limited celluloid chemistry, optics and available light. But it can also be an expressive aspect of the artistic medium no different than depth of field, focal length, color timing, grading, etc.
There are certainly examples of low light scenes where it's clear the filmmaker reached the limits of then-available optics and chemistry and they were forced into compromises such using higher-speed film and/or 'pushing' the chemistry during film processing. These can increase grain and the result is often shadow detail being lost in the noise floor. I agree that's always bad.
But there are also wonderful examples where directors and DPs very intentionally selected film stocks for their unique texture, gamma curve, color sensitivity, etc as an expressive choice. In those cases, it's no different than a painter intentionally using different canvas textures, brush bristles and pigment viscosity as part of their expressive palatte. In this form, the unique textures of different film stocks are often referred to as 'image structure' (a less pejorative term than 'grain' which is often construed negatively).
> But because it was a part of a production, people wanted it back
Artists hate any limitations on their vision, whether technical, financial or societal. They want maximum expressive freedom yet also grudingly concede pushing against limitations often elevates their work to new heights. When film grain was a limitation they struggled against, they hated it. When grain is an artistic element giving their image texture, they want in their toolbox.
To be clear, not all chemical, optical or technical limitations from the past were expressively useful. No VFX artists are pining for the black matte outlines from misregistered optical printing or generational mismatch in multi-pass composites. :-) Interestingly, as optics, lighting instruments and film sensitivity improved in the late B&W era, it was briefly trendy among some cinematographers to abandon depth of field as an unfortunate historical limitation of the past. Of course, it was just an over-reaction to a long-resented limitation finally becoming a choice and DoF remained an invaluable storytelling tool in the hands of a master (<a href="https://creativecow.net/depth-of-field-gregg-toland-citizen-kane-and-beyond/" rel="nofollow">https://creativecow.net/depth-of-field-gregg-toland-citizen-...). I just want to avoid similarly over-reacting by dismissing the creative value of image structure and texture as we leave unwanted graininess in the past.
I suspect we'd have several enjoyable beers debating edge cases; which visual artifacts of past technical limitations can arguably have expressive utility to visual storytellers going forward and which have no real redeeming qualities outside retro callbacks and nostalgia? I'll nominate anamophic lens flares to start: <a href="https://theasc.com/article/star-trek-into-darkness/" rel="nofollow">https://theasc.com/article/star-trek-into-darkness/. My take: J.J. went overboard intentionally milking them in ST:ID but I'd be horrified if Spielberg digitally removed them from Close Encounters. Philosophically, I think the same principles broadly apply to retro gaming and preservation. So much so I built a custom arcade emulation cabinet around a 27" Wells-Gardner 9200 quad-sync analog RGB CRT and Radeon R9 380x. To me, it's about authentically preserving original artistic intent, especially when the original creators placed individual pixels by hand specifically to leverage certain analog video artifacts.
pjc50 · · focus · HN ↗
- people form a relationship with and an emotional response to the art
- they give you money for the art
Now, the latter gets into questions like Sony or Steam removing games or films which people have previously purchased. A consumer rights question. People tend to feel they have been treated like a sucker when the publisher does this.
The former you are effectively rescinding the emotional relationship with the art. A much more complicated question. This can certainly be pathological - see kpop and the idol industry. But I don't think it's unfair to say that insisting that the art relationship should be totally unilateral and you owe the audience nothing, is going to anger the audience.
IAmBroom · · focus · HN ↗
You don't own art that has been released to the public, anymore than you own a car or pizza that you sold.
kulahan · · focus · HN ↗
Buying a pizza does not give you any rights to force the owner to maintain that recipe you purchased a slice of.
IAmBroom · · focus · HN ↗
This is where IP law gets so confusing in the modern world. You can "buy" access to IP, and it feels like you are buying the thing, but you are not. Netflix is under no obligation to provide s04e01 of CSI:Indianapolis, even if that's the sole reason you subscribed.
I'm not sure what you are arguing for. Should an artist be able to remove a viewing of a film that's already occurred if they dislike the final product? Or should George be able to forbid me to watch a released version of SW where Han shoots first?
mrandish · · focus · HN ↗
You're correct. I did not.
> they now have some obligation to society, should society deem it good enough.
I was expressing a wish or, perhaps an ideal, not an obligation. I don't think there's any implied ethical, moral or legal duty on a creator to do what their patrons or fans want. As an amatuer filmmaker who's also worked in the industry creating technology for cinematic storytelling, I'm as pro-creator as can be.
And, full-disclosure, my feelings about Star Wars are 'complicated'. In 1977 I'd just become a teenager when I saw Star Wars at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. It not only rocked my world, it made me want to be a filmmaker and changed the course of my life. Turns out I was better at software than filmmaking. Fortunately, as film became digital, my interests collided :-).
Decades later my software was used extensively to make several Star Wars films including hundreds of shots in Phantom Menace. I was at the ranch many times during production and was back at the Chinese theater for the premiere of TPM - almost exactly 22 years to the day after my life was changed in that theater. Prior to the premiere I'd only seen storyboards and individual shots so, going in, my expectations were as sky-high as any fan. But, like many hardcore fans, I felt let down by Phantom Menace. Did George owe fans the film they wanted him to make? Nope, not at all. He made the film he wanted to make. Even though I was disappointed by TPM, it hasn't changed how much I respect George. He's still a remarkable filmmaker.
SamuelAdams · · focus · HN ↗
scun · · focus · HN ↗
MollyRealized · · focus · HN ↗
To such a sentiment, I can only say ... maclunkey.
hart_russell · · focus · HN ↗
jurip · · focus · HN ↗