Sweet! I thought we would have to wait until christmas to finally get this gem! and speaking of which, i have my DiF hoodie arriving in time for christmas.

Great episode. I especially liked the "Darth... e.. STAPLER!" part of it. Great fun indeed.

I think you guys should do the OT though. Maybe then it'd be less bashing, and more loving instead. For once.

I agree, but sometimes it's nice to hear why a film did work too

I found this neat little article from a few years back as  I was "stumbleupon-ing" my way through the net. Since you guys were really talking about the whole idea that the prequels should change the way we see the originals. This guy takes what you guys were joking about and turns it into a really serious breakdown of it. It's a really cool way he looks at it.

http://www.morningstar.nildram.co.uk/A_New_Sith.html

All I can say is Ep.1-3 never happened.  Now yes give or take that some of them have there perks but really.  The OT is where its at.. i mean come on a girl in a gold metal bikini that is being held by a giant worm, that is pretty f-ing cool.

Well finally listening all of the STAR WARS commentaries I must tell a small story.

Being born in 1986 I haven't been around for the original trilogy. At least when it came out to theaters. I really can't tell when I saw the originals first time, but I have clear memory of liking them every time I have seen them. I had some toys when the re-releases came out. I have ALWAYS liked them very much.

On 19th of May 2005 Revenge of the Sith opened in Finland 00:02 AM. It was midnight opening. I went to see it with my now ex-wife. I didn't like Phantom Menace or Clones at all. I thought they were badly made and it was a real shame that they fell under the name STAR WARS. Yes I did like them visually and I think there are few nice scenes on them but I hated the fact that there was no story to tell. So the opening titles came on Revenge and I had decided that I will give the movie a change to start all over again.

So the two hours went and I was sitting in my car and driving home. While seeing Phantom Menace of Clones I did have strong feeling of dislike from the start. Now I was sitting in the car and I had to ask my wife; What do I think about the movie? I didn't ask what she thought of it but I asked what I thought of it. I just couldn't made my mind. My mind was saying it was a bad film and it never made a good story. It felt like the three new ones where total waste of time. At the same time my mind was also saying that maybe you didn't just understand it. So problem continued to next morning. I woke and realized it sucked. I didn't like it. My mind wasn't just able to understand that they had f*cked up so badly.

Then I had an idea. George Lucas took one boy as an example. Let's say he was at the time of the Phantom Menace only 10 years old. So he made a movie with droids and lightsabers. COOL! Next one came. Now the boy was 13 years and George decided that he can give the movie a little bit more action and darker tone. Anakin losing hand and so on. Then came the Revenge. Now the boy was 16 years and there could be death and all that. So I think Lucas made the movies to a specific age group and totally forgot the rest. I think it was way to bring a lot of people to STAR WARS and that group of people was all young. He just completely forgot the rest of us in the process.

I think this was done in the Harry Potter books. Maybe Dorkman can correct me if I am wrong. The feeling of Harry's loneliness and dying around him came step by step. Which is natural cause the story took some time play itself. Still I think my theory is well explained here. The people who loved the first Potter book when it came out in 1997 were gown ups when the last one came out. So the story and the darkness grew up with the reader.

I think Lucas tried the something similar but forgot that the story didn't work enough for the majority of fans that already existed.

Yeah, because if I were making a movie for 10 year olds, I would definitely center the plot on space taxes and government bureaucracy.

The Harry Potter stories do mature as Harry does (although considering the entire story starts with the murder of his parents and his inexplicable survival, I don't think we can say that the loneliness and dying stuff comes later); Rowling has said that she thinks the minimum appropriate age for a child to read each book is the age that Harry is in the book.

The difference is that Lucas seems to have taken your hypothetical young boy's age for each prequel film as the maximum target age, which is very different.

Agree completely on ROTS, but my admittedly irrational hatred for AOTC makes it hard for me to accept that it shares any genes with the OT... for example, the danger and terror of Luke in the rancor pit becomes the slapstick and completely ridiculous antics of the monster arena.

People can be right. But only the rightest people have the distinction of being Dorkman right.

/agree, Squiggly_P.

/agree.

Kinda with Greg here.  Say what you want about the story or the directing, the guys pushing the pixels in post did a heck of a job.  Wish George had put them to work doing clean-up for the Blu-ray release.  At least we still have the "Revisited" editions to look forward to.

To be honest, the third one isn't nearly as bad and has stuff that doesn't feel fake, but there's still quite a bit of it in there. Phantom Menace gave me a headache. I will have to acquire copies of these movies in order to demonstrate, as I don't own them or have copies of them.

I totally agree that the artists and effects guys did a hell of a job and stuff looks really really good, but it doesn't look really really real and doesn't mix well with live action, in my opinion. The constant contrast between live action and CGI stuff just bothers me a lot. I'll post further when I have acquired the films and can take shots of them.

EDIT: As far as finding effects shots that work, I can find some in these films, but finding them in other films seems a bit unfair, as there aren't many films that do quite so much in every shot. There's Avatar and maybe certain sequences in the LOTR films and King Kong. Many of the films that do this sort of stuff end up looking fake to me, anyway. I will try to comply, tho.

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2011-09-30 00:07:43)