I love Lucas, I love him not...
George Lucas REALLY doesn't make it easy on the fans of Star Wars.
On one hand, he gives Episode 3 a quite decent title and what information I have about the film make it look like it might be quite good.
On the other hand, he CONTINUES to mess with his masterworks! It's 99.9% certain that he's continuing to mess with the original trilogy for the dvds that come out in September. I've heard reports of little things like fixing light saber effects. I'm actually fine with that. They are among the few flaws I have problems with in the original version of his trilogy. But why on earth is he replacing Sebastian Shaw's version of Anakin's ghost standing by Yoda and Obi-Wan?? At least he hasn't yet replaced Alec Guinness with Ewan McGregor! And yes, this is 99.9% certain that this is on the dvds that are to be released. Other minor changes are in store such as a view of a celebration of Naboo with Gungans added to the celebration sequence which doesn't really bother me. But even with those, we still have the initial special edition changes which generally stunk. Generally the integration of new cgi with the older footage has looked quite amateurish (to my eyes). Look at the horrible Han Solo taking with Jabba sequence from the special edition of A New Hope. Compare that to Jabba in Return of the Jedi. One of those two is more convincing, and it isn't the cgi creation. Of course, I am a bit biased against CGI. Very rarely has cgi looked very good to my eyes when trying to simulate "real" environments and integrate with "real" footage. Jurassic Park still looks horrible to my eyes (though I don't care much for the story either).
I really don't understand the reason for any of this. In my (not so) humble opinion, the original trilogy's special effects have held up VERY VERY well with time. I watch them and I'm convinced of the reality of the situation. The only film I think has held up better was the brilliant work for 2001: A Space Odyssey (thankfully Kubrick can't go back and do a special edition of that). Minor things like fixing visible errors in visual effects shots and remixing the sound for 5+.1 is great. Digitally cleaning up every frame is also great. I really enjoyed the work that was done for the Indiana Jones trilogy dvds. Small changes were made, but they did not effect the story at all. George, why can't you treat your masterwork with the same respect that you treated the Indiana Jones trilogy? Why do you make me go through all the work of transferring the original trilogy off of widescreen laserdiscs so I can own a dvd copy of the proper trilogy? (yes, I own the laserdiscs, and so it's a legal digital backup)
Still, I do have to grant that Revenge of the Sith is a good name for Episode 3...
On one hand, he gives Episode 3 a quite decent title and what information I have about the film make it look like it might be quite good.
On the other hand, he CONTINUES to mess with his masterworks! It's 99.9% certain that he's continuing to mess with the original trilogy for the dvds that come out in September. I've heard reports of little things like fixing light saber effects. I'm actually fine with that. They are among the few flaws I have problems with in the original version of his trilogy. But why on earth is he replacing Sebastian Shaw's version of Anakin's ghost standing by Yoda and Obi-Wan?? At least he hasn't yet replaced Alec Guinness with Ewan McGregor! And yes, this is 99.9% certain that this is on the dvds that are to be released. Other minor changes are in store such as a view of a celebration of Naboo with Gungans added to the celebration sequence which doesn't really bother me. But even with those, we still have the initial special edition changes which generally stunk. Generally the integration of new cgi with the older footage has looked quite amateurish (to my eyes). Look at the horrible Han Solo taking with Jabba sequence from the special edition of A New Hope. Compare that to Jabba in Return of the Jedi. One of those two is more convincing, and it isn't the cgi creation. Of course, I am a bit biased against CGI. Very rarely has cgi looked very good to my eyes when trying to simulate "real" environments and integrate with "real" footage. Jurassic Park still looks horrible to my eyes (though I don't care much for the story either).
I really don't understand the reason for any of this. In my (not so) humble opinion, the original trilogy's special effects have held up VERY VERY well with time. I watch them and I'm convinced of the reality of the situation. The only film I think has held up better was the brilliant work for 2001: A Space Odyssey (thankfully Kubrick can't go back and do a special edition of that). Minor things like fixing visible errors in visual effects shots and remixing the sound for 5+.1 is great. Digitally cleaning up every frame is also great. I really enjoyed the work that was done for the Indiana Jones trilogy dvds. Small changes were made, but they did not effect the story at all. George, why can't you treat your masterwork with the same respect that you treated the Indiana Jones trilogy? Why do you make me go through all the work of transferring the original trilogy off of widescreen laserdiscs so I can own a dvd copy of the proper trilogy? (yes, I own the laserdiscs, and so it's a legal digital backup)
Still, I do have to grant that Revenge of the Sith is a good name for Episode 3...
posted by Jim Casaburi at
7:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home