Truly awesome.

I have just purchased the Lego Executor- mentioned earlier in the thread. It is amazing, and even though I have had most of Tuesday evening, a lot of Wednesday and this morning to work on it, it is still only around two thirds built.

My wife basically thinks I'm [LIFTED] nuts and she's none too happy. Tough [LIFTED]. As well as being Star Wars, AND Lego, AND awesome!, it is an investment. It is hard to get the original UCS Star Destroyer for less than around £700 (boxed)- nearly three times the original retail price- and I have seen it for sale for over £1K. Although it may be darned expensive, I hope that the future increase in value- even without selling it- will satisfy the boss.

The only problem now is where to display it, but right now I am looking at an empty patch of wall above my monitor and printers that looks just perfect for a shelf.

I have been reading reviews of the Blu-Ray box set today and I have to say that Lucas is a dick. This was the reason that I bought a Blu-ray player in the first place. I have five of the films on tape and only one on DVD, so I was going to move into the 21st Century with this set of discs. Now that I have found out what a mess George has made of them, I am determined to wait as long as possible and get the set as cheap as I can!! What a [LIFTED]

Original Star wars sound effects

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-v ... ase-236037

BT Tower turned into a light sabre.



Apparently, it wasn’t as good as some of the photos make out.

Really? Is anyone that surprised that he's taken the opportunity to fiddle with SW for a new disc release? It's not like he's got form for this sort of thing.

I can understand him wanting to update some of the special effects to take advantage of newer technology but messing about with the dialogue and reinterpreting characters actions is pants. What's worse is that he seems to have no understanding as to why people don't like what he's doing (or he does and will release the 'originals' at a later date to rake in more cash, hmmm).

OK - take this slant for a moment:

Buy a CD of music. You get a recording of songs. When you see them performed live, you get a different interpretation of the music. It’s effectively revised. I’ve heard about 5 or 6 variations of the same songs from The Wall by Pink Floyd. The studio album should be the definitive recording, but some later versions I’ve heard at concerts are better.

How many versions of the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are there? Douglas Adams tweaked and revised for each retelling.

How about Alien? There’s a “director’s cut” of that. Or Blade Runner? Surely the original cinema releases are the definitive versions, and anything else should be discarded as meaningless revisions. Yet here we are elsewhere saying how good these revisions are and how they add to the films. There are changes which change character dynamics, slow the pace in places, yet there they are - in the revisions.

Music, film, TV are all very easily modifiable. A director can return to the work and make the work closer to what he wanted at the time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14944240
Interesting take on the BBC web site.

At least four (original radio show, book, TV Series, Film) although they were crucially, all different mediums with very different rules. It could be said that Douglas was 'tuning' the work for the strengths of each medium. Lucas has re-released effectively the same work in the same medium at least three times, amending it each time.


Not necessarily. There are several cases in film when the film has been re-edited post facto without the director's approval or wishes, which is where the 'Alan Smithee' phenomenon comes from. In one of your quoted cases Blade Runner, several changes were forced on the film makers by studio producers and pretty much everyone involved in the film agrees that the definitive version is the director's cut, in which all those changes were removed and the film restored to it's actual 'original' form, even though it was only seen in the cinema 20 years after the initial release..


Er... it's actually a rather poor argument to suggest that because some post-release re-edits are good, all post-release re-edits are by definition good. Each must be taken on it's own merits. I'd agree there's a fair great degree of 'its' not the Star Wars *I* watched as a kid so therefore it can't be any good' about the re-edits to be sure but equally, some seem entirely superfluous to the artistic value or indeed enjoyment of the film. And besides, the problems most people have with Lucas and Star Wars is not that it was re-issued as a Director's cut, but that he keeps re-editing it every five years or so and pushes it out as a 'new version'. It's very hard not to be cynical and see that as a simple money making scheme when it's happened that many times. And some of the changes are frankly farcical anyway - who goes back and tries to change the name of a film 25 years after it was originally made for pity's sake. Add to that the fact that Lucas hasn't actually done anything else of any worth in donkey's years.


To use a famous film quote 'so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.' I will posit as my evidence the song 'You got the love' - original version; good. Florence + The Machine version; also good. Florence + The Machine version with Dizzy Rascal blithering along in the background with apparently no sense of the rhythm or melody of the song; bloody awful.


And if it's the fifth time he's done it, you rather have to conclude the director doesn't seem to actually remember what it was he actually wanted in the first place.

Jon

My issue with George is not that he keeps re-editing the films, but that he refuses to release the original versions.
If we take Blade Runner as a case in point, the last "ultimate" release contained 5 versions of the film, including the original US cinema version, original international original version, the directors cut, the ultimate cut and the work print. Is everyone up in arms about this latest version of the film? No, because You can choose to watch the version you want. If George would release the original cut on Blu or even DVD all these complaints would disappear overnight

Quite.

There was a Limited Edition release on DVD several years ago of the 3 original films that included the Theatrical releases (I've got all three) but I take your point.
It's not like there isn't room on the 9 BD discs of the 'Special Edition' to include the original films.

Cheap SW stuff until midnight:

http://www.play.com/Search.html?searchs ... ters=ae212{642133}%2bc{439}%2b

Yes. I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers that the theatrical versions were released on DVD.

It still looked pretty good, IMO.

http://www.lighting.co.uk/news/bt-tower ... 80.article

Truly a sign that computers are evil.

Floppy disks definitely were...