FF:VIC The Dag House

I was going to pop in and insert the sound of a cricket "chirping" but gladly I don't have to do that now....we have movement.


10th anniversary of TPM....wow....(note is said "wow" instead of "WOW")!

TPM was for me a great introduction to the characters, but there were just too many annoying stereotypes for me.

Jar Jar
Watto
The two headed announcer....ARGH!

and "Annie" with his "Yippeeeee"....honestly...what Dark Lord says..."Yippeee"...makes you sick.


As for FANBOYS....let's go!

 

(Insert sound of Crickets)

Hello???

Mrs Pommell-Horse???

Hellooooooooo?

 

So anyway here I am wandering through my own house thinking "geez it's quiet here" when I realised something amazing.

It IS quiet here!

Ahhh it's good to see that after having been away for a couple of months not much has changed around the ol' VICFF.

Good to see I haven't missed any meets

I know, I can be a sarcastic dude sometimes huh? But I digress...

It's great to see that there are some people out there who are big TPM fans because I know there aren't many of them around. Personally I think if you strip away the annoying layers of the film (Jar Jar, Yippee Ani, and the whole Gungan/Naboo symbiosis clap trap) that there's a damn good film under there. For myself I thought the whole political intrigue element was really good and would've loved to have seen more of it.

In any event, AOTC rocked big time with regards to the PT.

 

Is this really true? Do the majority dislike TPM?? Because i love it! It's still the one I have watched the most and i know all the lines too.
Maybe it's because it came out when I was 12, and i was at the height of my imaginative abilities and started devveloping my obsessive personality. *shrugs* Compared to what we saw in the OT, TPM dazzled me with how much they expanded the Star Wars Unvierse. There were so many exciting and wonderful things and places. Coruscant was amazing.

Do you know what I mean?

 

The truth is that it is true.

Look at any poll and you'll see that TPM rates as the worst of the 6 live action films. Normally the criticisms for this are two fold:

1) Jar Jar Binks (who is hated far more than the Ewoks)
2) Too much dazzle and not enough substance

When we did our TPM 10 year retrospective talk back in May at Skyforce, it was quite amazing to see how much animosity there was around. Quite honestly, a lot of people despise TPM, however, I think that maybe the result of people WANTING it to be soooo good and yet it let them down.

All things being equal though, you wouldn't be the ONLY one who likes TPM, it's just that there wouldn't be many in that category.

I certainly agree that the film had some great positives. For myself I too loved the look of Coruscant, I thought the FX of the battle droids was really groovy, I loved the political intrigue, the look of the senate chamber. Finally I think it was just great to see a young Palpatine working his way up the leadership ladder. Next to all this was the outstanding music (the pod race opening fanfare rates as one of my all time fave SW tunes).

So in essence, TPM had a LOT of positives, but unfortunately it had a lot of negatives too and I think it's these negatives that brought the overall experience down for many people.

But all that aside, if you're a fan of TPM then keep flying that flag!

 

I have a soft spot for TPM because that's what got me into Star Wars (yes yes, I'm one of those ) but even I have to say it wasn't that great a movie. I don't think it was as bad as the critics say - I think it copped a lot of flak for not living up to that insane amount of hype surrounding it, which no movie could've done - but it wasn't that great. When I re-watch it now, the podrace and Jar-Jar are like ... oy, can't believe I used to like that.

ROTS was the best of the PT IMO. Had its problems, but twas good.

 

I think a lot of people felt that way about Jar Jar, they loved him at first and then a day later it was like "wassa meesa thinking!"

When it comes to the PT, AOTC is the one that rocks. Sure, you can ditch the embarrassingly painful scenes of Threepio in the factory and the utterly pointless R2/Threepio cutaways and associated jokes in the arena BUT once these bits are gone you have one fantastic film.

I once said that a lot of the detractors of AOTC would warm to it once ROTS had come and gone ... and many did.

 

I remember BEFORE TPM was released, I saw some Jar Jar stuff and said "He's going to be the Ewoks of the Prequels" meaning people will either love or hate him. I don't think anyone could have imagined he'd be such a hugely hated character.

I did read that when they were shooting Ep2 in Italy, Ahmed Best was actually spat on by fans as he went from the bus to his hotel....I MEAN COME ON...poor Ahmed couldn't help which character he was cast as or how George saw the character evolving.....HE'S AN ACTOR....HE'S NOT REALLY JAR JAR. (say the man in the Vader suit)

Any fan that spits on an actor just because they don't like his character isn't really a fan in my books.

 

So what was his response to that?

"How wude"

 

So anyway I came across this little gem recently.

Any of you guys heard of A New Hope Revisited? Or even The Empire Strikes Back Revisited?

There is a dude out there called Adywan who's taking the films (ANH was finished a couple of years ago) and is putting them through the ringer in terms of cleaning up the FX, improving the colour grading, fixing continuity errors and a whole stack of other things that are just mind boggling to contemplate.

In the end he might be improving the films on truly a realistic level, but I don't think he's improving the films overall. In any event the time and effort being put into these is truly staggering and the results are "most impressive", but you have to ask yourself if his time would be better spent doing something of his own rather than having yet ANOTHER fan reworking of the films.

If you want to see ANHR as it's being called, you can download it without any problems (just Google Adywan). Also a comprehensive list of changes and improvements is also available.

Dare I say it, this DOES classify itself as being made by someone "with too much time on their hands".

 

Oooh...

 

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time on their hands....but the results are impressive.

Welcome back Dags.

 

The thing is that he's making changes that you would never notice even if you KNEW where to look. Replacing the starfields for example ... WHY!

In the end making the films realistically perfect is all well and good but is it REALLY necessary?

Some of the additions I do support and some I don't but most I just scratch my head over. In the end if I was going to watch ANY version of ANH I'd go straight to the '77 release because that to me is the quintessential ANH, irregardless of what LFL or any fan has done to it since then.

If you look up ESBR the list of proposed changes in that is huge and one can only imagine how much work this will take.

In the end I don't think it impacts an audience's enjoyment if the films are technically incorrect, in fact I'm sure we can all watch and enjoy ESB '80 KNOWING that the taun tauns are stop motion models, the snowspeeders are slightly transparent, and not all AT-ATs move in the wide shots. In the end who cares.

This guy's work is good, but I think he's focusing his energy in the wrong place. Besides, as a film maker friend of mine said recently, "if the audience is busy looking for mistakes then they're watching the film for the wrong reasons".

 

I'd prefer to watch my BETA version of ANH & ESB....first video release...gotta love it.
(Now if I only have a BETA-MAX video player)

 

Just pull the tape out of the case, hold it to the light and ta da, pretty pictures

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....how about NO!

 

Ah ya wuus!

I see that Celebration V has been announced for August next year in Florida. One thing is for sure, if anything about LAS is going to be announced it'll be here.

I think this also puts the concept of a Celebration Oz to bed, at least for the foreseeable future, as there is just not enough profit margin for them to hold one locally as the lower attendance numbers won't justify it.

Still we can't complain as we did get the Magic of Myth and Science of SW exhibits ... although we did miss out on AOTC for Imax. Anyway I guess there will be a stack of people saving up their pennies for the trip to the US next August, will you be one of them???

 

*waves hands*

Me me me...hopefully...maybe.....if the wife will let me.....so.....possible......maybe!

 

In theory it should do really well, especially since most people who went to C4 will be hankering for this event too. Also IF there is news regarding LAS being announced here, then that will definately bring in the numbers.

 

Well it really is the ultimate of SW events for fans to attend, thought having said that I'm not planning to attend because as I said to LordVaderFF, I think it would be too overwhelming which is actually not a good thing.

Still with that in mind I'm content to keep my options open though I am saving up money for other purposes in 2010.

For C4 a few Vic fans went over, so it'll be interesting to see who goes this time.

 

There's something cool about getting benefits from others who had to endure misery for theirs. In this case you get the signed pix and things in the comfort of your lounge room whilst missing out on waiting in queues for hours and hours for a treasured scrawl.

It reminds me of when Rage was going to show Michael Jackson's Thriller music video for the very first time, in anticipation of this, a mate's sister sat up waiting for it to come on so she could record it. Needless to say Rage kept saying "coming up, MJ's Thriller" hour after hour and finally at 5am it came on and she recorded it whilst on the verge of exhaustion. When we all turned up a few hours later to watch it, we got to sit back and enjoy the show while she slept in her bed. Ahhhh reaping the benefits from the misery of others

 

You see that ADIDAS (one day I'll tell you what that's an abbreviation of ) have released some SW clothing items.

It's all very interesting with some items being more subtle than others, but the range is quite extensive.

Check it out

I must admit I do like the Stormtrooper and TIE Fighter runners which I think are quite clever.

Makes you wonder of any "yo home boy" dudes will be wearing these around the skateboard parks.

 

I just looked at the VicFF main page of threads and noticed that all of last years posts are visible on the one screen.

Geez, wasn't 2009 a productive year for VicFF