Did you just refer to my by location, bitch? You know, I was contemplating suicide, but now I know that I HAVE to. George Lucas is personally destroying everything I love.

I had to. Though go check out those changes, pretty neat that all the official versions have changed laid out on one page.

There's a rediculously comprehensive site that has every single change listed, screencapped, and documented across every version.

Some of the shit that was changed is just nonsensical. There's a shot in A New hope where they completely changed the CLOUDS in the background.

Unfortunately for you, George Lucas OWNS "everything you love". Fuck knows that I don't always personally agree with everything that he does, but he's the dude that came up with the story, and got the original flicks made. So, in my books, he's got the right to do pretty much whatever he pleases. If you don't like it, create your own universe, make a squizzillion movies, games, books and dollars out of it and you can call the shots....

I saw the original trilogy at the flicks (yes, I'm that old...), and they are the ones that stay with me. I wasn't appalled with the newer trilogy - they bored me more than anything, but I could sit through them. Only recently have I started waking up to the fact that I don't NEED to love everything in the Star Wars universe to make me a fanboy (of which I certainly am), so while I own like three different versions of the movies, I don't need to watch them again unless I REALLY want to do all six as a completist marathon. I will, however, purchase the Blu Ray box out of sheer dedication. A fanboy is as a fanboy does...

I personally would have preferred that the Star Wars universe stayed within the boundaries of the original trilogy, thereby keeping the mystery of these characters and their lives intact. It was always so cool to see the story beginning at chapter IV, as if we were receiving part of a story completely alien to us and already in the throes of the action. Now, if I happen onto Wookiepedia, it's literally bloated with information and stories and just way too much. The original trilogy was a thrill-packed ride through this amazing universe, and as much of a geek as I am, things like Wookiepedia make Star Wars feel like an immense school science project. The universe and story in my head was waaaaayyyyy better and far less involved.

So, what am I trying to say here? The original three flicks ruled, and Lucas rules because he wrote the damn things. The latter trilogy was boring, but worth a gander. In my head, characters like Jar Jar Binks, Darth Maul, and the rest of the later characters never really existed, but a bunch of other ones that I made up did - I like them more

Either way, Star Wars kicks ass. I don't play the games, I don't read the books, I don't collect any of the new toys, I don't give a damn about Clone Wars cartoons and Ewok villages and crap, and I don't belong to any SW chatrooms. But I fucken love those three movies, I love Han Solo, I love the Emperor, I dig R2D2, Chewie, the amazing Darth Vader and, of course, Leia in her gold Speedo. Sci-Fi movies rarely get better.

Oh, I'm aware he owns it all, but I'm usually just baffled at some of the decisions he's made reguarding his creatons.

I'm hip to that - I certainly wouldn't have made 90% of the decisions that he has over the past few decades.
I just can't give him shit knowing that he created these characters and films that have made my mundane life that much better.

Yeah, I understand that completely. It's just that some of it inspires eye-twitching rage.

Hehehe!

I wish I could high-five you.

Yes, but good people can do stupid things. This is one of them. Not to rag on you personally, but you're pullling this in a Manowar direction, in how the band Manowar really don't put out quality material, yet certain people still eat them and hail the band as the greatest. Lucas is in the same boat. He's not the same man he was in the '70s/'80s. He didn't even direct the TESB or ROTJ. Although the main ideas were his, he still had filters and controls, and his vision was very different than it is today.

His motivation back then involved fantasy, pushing the boundaries of film making, and bringing a whole new vision to reality. His motivation now is kids and money, basically.

All valid and fine points. All I'm saying is that ultimately this universe is his baby, and as the fella that gave us the original trilogy, I have no beef with the man. I don't have to watch anything past 1983 to appreciate that. Granted, it may sound like an ostrich with it's head in the sand viewpoint, but those movies are magic.

It's like any artist (musician, film maker, painter etc) - whether they only create one amazing work and put out shit for the rest of their lives, that one work is still valid and special. You don't have to keep up with them for the rest of your/their lives to appreciate it. People tend to believe that artists have unlimited inspiration and talent, whereas we are all different. Some people (Tom Waits, Joel & Ethan Coen, Michael Amott etc.) consistently create with a high level of quality, some people (Metallica, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Andy Warhol etc.) give us great stuff off the bat and continue with lesser material, and some people (Sex Pistols, Refused, Emperor etc.) give us their best and quite before they churn out shit on a treadmill. Not everyone has talent that continues - some have one idea and that's it. I think George had one great idea that lasted a trilogy (American Graffitti excluded) and continued with a career that was mundane. Doesn't tarnish those flicks at all for me.

And, um, not to overextend myself, but I am actaully a HUGE Manowar fan....

Well that's fine on the Manowar point and I agree that a person's future legacy shouldn't tarnish their older works. However, Lucas keeps making changes to the original films - most of them needless. I have copies of the theatrical releases of the original films, and they are awesome as hell. Yeah, some things could need changing like improving the lightsabers (they look like sticks in some shots, and the light gets chopped at points), but otherwise the original films are fine. The original films are fine, and you're fine for liking those films. When Lucas adds a whole bunch of things, most of them cluttered and crappy CGI, then those aren't the same movies. That's Lucas of 1997/2004/2011 padding the ideas of the Lucas of 1977/1980/1983. That means changes to what you already loved as they were.

Then again, if you like all the changes that Lucas makes to these films, over and over again, then my argument is pretty much dead.

Edit: 9/28/11 I was at a friend's house today and showed him the blu-ray changes (even that link I posted on the last page) and he was laughing his ass off at the Vader "Nuuuoooooooooouuu" and Obi scream. He's a major o-trilogy fan so these were especially funny / douche-chilly to him.

The changes were indeed unnecessary. I am a fan of the ORIGINAL films.
Watching Han stand on Jabba's tail makes me sad every time. In fact, seeing Jabba standing AT ALL makes me sad....

Watch the original scene with the stand-in actor taking Jabba's place, it makes more sense.

Yesterday I rewatched the entire third season of Clone Wars in preparation for the recently begun fourth season. I quite liked it, I quite like the show as a whole. There were two major problems though.

The first one is that I'm very unconvinced by the storyline on Mortis, the planet that somehow is the force, where the Son and the Daughter represent the dark and light side of the force, and so on. I don't know, the whole thing just seemed massively silly and shouldn't have made it into the show, let alone a three episode arc.

The second problem is that one terrible episode with Ziro the Hutt and that rogue Jedi, I can't really say anything about that episode other than that it was terrible, Ziro is the most annoying recurring character of the show, far worse than any Gungan. That rogue Jedi just seemed very annoying. And goddamn, the scenes with Ziro's mother must by far be the worst moments in the entire Star Wars universe, a thousand times worse than the Star Wars Holiday Special and the Ewoks movies combined. I absolutely HATED those scenes, they are so bad they make me want to throw up. That REALLY should have been dealt with on the cutting floor, who in his or her right mind could in any conceivable way think these scenes would make a good addition to the show? FUCK THEM for putting that in. Absolutely terrible.

I really need to see the CW, I've heard from way too may people that it's amazing.

Anyone ever try to say that Ep. III was the best out of the new movies? I say nay.

I wouldn't call it amazing, but I think it's a very entertaining show. It has its ups and downs (such as Jar Jar episodes), but overall it is quite nice.

I'd say it is. There's a huge amount wrong with it but there's even more wrong with EP. II and I that it's still better.

Any of you guys watch those 70 minute long reviews of Episode I and II? They're on youtube serialised. Far better watching than the actual movies themselves and they articulate the truly huge amount of flaws quite nicely.

Personally I think III was the worst due to the fact that was the film that was supposed to officially tie up all the loose ends, and they did such a terrible job of wrapping things up, it's not really something I can enjoy seeing.

Yeah, but they did a horrible job with everything in the other prequels too. I think all in all saying which one is the least worst is equivalent to saying your poo smells better after you eat steak as opposed to pasta. They're all pretty terrible. My argument would be that III had Anakin getting burned alive, and the promise that Ewen McGregor wouldn't act as Obi Wan anymore, both big plusses.

Touche, I'd say that's about right. I just felt that shit III was just a bit runnier than the rest

Some trivia.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already but in the movie Paul - 2011, there's a scene when the main characters enter a bar and the band is playing the same jig being played on A New Hope before Obi-Wan and Luke meet Han Solo. There's also another scene when Kirtsen Wiig's character dresses up as a bountry hunter at Comicon just like Princess Leia did when she goes to rescue Han Solo from Jabba's palace. Those are the little things that made the movie badass.

I didn't see that whole movie but I remember there being at least 3 other Star Wars references, including the usage of the good ol' Wilhelm Scream. Definitely made it that much more entertaining for me.

One thing I'd say in defense of Ep III is that the final battle between Obiwan and Darth Vader is kinda cool. And the scene where Obiwan has defeated Vader and takes his lightsaber as he burns is one of the very few scenes in the prequels that had any emotional content to it. It a rare bright spot in the prequels.

Additionally, Ep II is the biggest piece of shit. I just hate it so much.

"Paul" has Star Wars references because Simon Pegg is simply a huge fanboy. Everything he does (especially "Spaced", which is legend) is laced with SW references.

As for III being the best of a bad lot, I would agree. Sure, it has the same downfalls as the other two (wooden acting, story fleshed out in the wrong directions etc), but it is a lot darker and more interesting than the other two. Plus, it has the 'birth' of Vader, the relationship issues, some mean action scenes and what-not. That fight scene between Obi Wan and Vader is worth the price alone.

And while we're at it, Ewan McGregor gets my vote as one of the better casting ideas for the prequels. He's generally good quality, even if the movies he's in sometimes aren't. And he brings a certain homage to Alec Guiness, who was a shining light as Old Ben Kenobi.

Liam Neeson, on the other hand, makes me sleepy....

mcgregor's normally a decent actor but he was horrible in the first III. ANd yeah, while it was a sort of good action scene, it was just so choreographed and cgi-d (like the rest of the first three). No real feeling in it, unlike the clumsier but far more emotional original saber scenes.

nuke lucas

seriously, is there even a single person in the world other than the yes-men on Lucas' staff and eight year olds who don't know any better who think that anything he's done in the last twenty years is at all worthwhile or has even the slightest bit of quality to it?

Is there even one person other than Lucas who thinks Greedo should have shot first?

I get the feeling Mcgregor wasn't really trying in the first three movies, because the script was universally shit.

Anybody feel as though Mcgregor's character should have been the one going out and doing stuff rather than Qui Gon (spelling)? Remember, QG is the negotiating kind of jedi, and having Obi not really make any remarkable development in the film doesn't really add to his character at all in the film. QG also did a lot of questionable things in the movie like force persuade, which is something more expected from Obi, who then should have been criticized by QG in a scene later in the film if Lucas had directed it that way. At least that way there would have been a deeper connection with Anakin and a sort of mystery between why Obi chooses Anakin, rather than QG's sort of "fuck it, let's find the first junkyard we come across". There was probably more to it than that, but Lucas' directing sort of left that up to you to figure out. Forgot what the type of storytelling in films is called - flash edit or something (I'm way off) - where they don't show the character doing something on camera but it's assumed (like taking a shit).

Gelseth (Dekalb, lol), what are your thoughts on this? Agreed that the script for that initial prequel is garbage, but do you see what I mean here? That whole prequel trilogy firmly needed a main character, and why not have it be Obi from the beginning?

yeah, qui gon's character was pretty much completely unnecessary, had a very inconsistent personality and so on and so forth. Btw, anyone notice the extremely obvious anti semitism with the junkyard dealer?

I bet you believe in the Junk Trader genocide the Empire supposedly committed. Open your eyes, the Junk Traders own the Rebel Alliance media.

I think Obi-Wan chose Anikin for two simple reasons:
1. It's what Qui-Gon wanted, and that was good enough for him
2. I doubt any other Jedi would have gone near Anikin after the council told them Anikin was basically a ticking time bomb

I think that OW almost came off as coddled throughout the movie, but we also don't know how old OW was supposed to be. QG is always telling him things, like it's the first time they've encountered situation together. OW is clearly in his very late teens if not early 20’s; it would seem that OW would be a lot more independently by then. But of course, OW does seem rather upset at pulling guard duty at the spaceship their party arrived in. This may hint at OW is used to going out into the fray, and not one for sitting there while QG does all the work. Like, when the Trade Federation destroyed the ambassador's ship they arrived in, they both immediately prepared for battle, suggesting that OW is also a fairly experienced warrior, and strong with the Force.

Yeah, the winged space-Jew was pretty blatant. Might as well have given Watto a space-yamaka and space-peyot.

I thought he sounded more like a stereotype of an Italian immigrant. Natalie-hottie Portman's maternal ancestors were Jewish immigrants to the United States.

@Gelseth - Well if we're going to use all of our SW knowledge, I would say QGJ was a Jedi "master class" and Obi was a Jedi "guardian" class, ala KOTOR. Vague as all hell, and I'm just stealing this from the start of KOTOR, but it makes sense. Aside from Obi, just about every other Jedi was a "guardian", since they were essentially cannon-fodder for CGI fight scenes. Sam Jackson basically played Shaft, but with a lightsaber. And for real, George Lucas, a purple lightsaber for the black guy?

That was actually a request by Samuel L.

lolllllllllllllllll

Don't forget Plo Koon, he's supposed to have a yellow lightsaber!

Qui Gon is supposed to be the wise but renegade master (with the awesome long hair), imo Liam Neeson is always welcome, i'll take 10 movies of Jar Jar Binks instead of Hayden Fucken Christensen.

^ Now let's not go crazy, Mannie. That would be rediculous.

Best post on this board ever.