SW blu-rays have changes to the films again

[Trekker4747]

OK, normally I don't mind making changes, the Han shooting first deal is a problem for me but I accepted it but now with Vader saying no in Jedi is just a bit much. To me, the scene is much more powerful with seeing Vader fighting within himself and eventually just grabbing the Emperor and tossing him over. This addition really cheapens that scene IMO.

I was just talking with a buddy of mine about all of this and he agreed with me that the actor in the movie did a good job of showing the conflict in Vader before tossing the Emperor over. It's amazing to say that about someone whose face you cannot even see.

The "Nooo" bit just adds too much corniness and beats the point of the scene on your head with a brick.

The one thing he could also "fix" if he was really intent on doing so. He'd fix the CGI Jabba in ANH and make it look more like the Jabba we see in Jedi. He'd also maybe make the movements and such of the characters (Jabba and Han) work better so we don't get that horrible-looking effect of Han walking behind Jabba and over him.

 

[Hound of UIster]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nny7w_eLIT0

Crap. I need to find a VCR too.

 

[Corran Horn]

OK, normally I don't mind making changes, the Han shooting first deal is a problem for me but I accepted it but now with Vader saying no in Jedi is just a bit much. To me, the scene is much more powerful with seeing Vader fighting within himself and eventually just grabbing the Emperor and tossing him over. This addition really cheapens that scene IMO.

I was just talking with a buddy of mine about all of this and he agreed with me that the actor in the movie did a good job of showing the conflict in Vader before tossing the Emperor over. It's amazing to say that about someone whose face you cannot even see.

The "Nooo" bit just adds too much corniness and beats the point of the scene on your head with a brick.

The one thing he could also "fix" if he was really intent on doing so. He'd fix the CGI Jabba in ANH and make it look more like the Jabba we see in Jedi. He'd also maybe make the movements and such of the characters (Jabba and Han) work better so we don't get that horrible-looking effect of Han walking behind Jabba and over him.

I think they already 'improved' the CGI Jabba for the DVDs. Still doesn't look right though.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah they "improved" him between the c1997 version and then the DVD, but it still doesn't look right. Jabba gains about 300 lbs, becomes vastly less mobile, and his body better blends in with the lighting he's in between ANH and ROTJ.

I think a lot better could be done to make that ANH scene Jabba look more like the Jabba we see in the other movie, and like I said it looks stupid when Han walks "behind" Jabba (when filming, actually a human actor) and they have to manipulate the footage make it look as-if he walks over Jabba's tail.

Think about this for a moment, Jabba is supposed to be this bad-ass gangster who's greatly feared by Han. Han doesn't want to let this guy down, his life counts on him being happy. Now, sure, Han is aloof and bit indignant to Jabba but he at least respects the "man" for what he is capable of.

Would he really step on this guy?!

It'd be better, and look better, if as Han walks "behind" Jabba, Jabba circles around, dragging his tail, to sort of "Yin/Yang" match Han's movement preventing himself from being walked on.

Or they can cut that stupid scene out entirely.

 

[Dream]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6zTo5-IzYE&feature=related[/yt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6zTo5-IzYE&feature=related

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

OK, normally I don't mind making changes, the Han shooting first deal is a problem for me but I accepted it but now with Vader saying no in Jedi is just a bit much. To me, the scene is much more powerful with seeing Vader fighting within himself and eventually just grabbing the Emperor and tossing him over. This addition really cheapens that scene IMO.

I was just talking with a buddy of mine about all of this and he agreed with me that the actor in the movie did a good job of showing the conflict in Vader before tossing the Emperor over. It's amazing to say that about someone whose face you cannot even see.

The "Nooo" bit just adds too much corniness and beats the point of the scene on your head with a brick.

The one thing he could also "fix" if he was really intent on doing so. He'd fix the CGI Jabba in ANH and make it look more like the Jabba we see in Jedi. He'd also maybe make the movements and such of the characters (Jabba and Han) work better so we don't get that horrible-looking effect of Han walking behind Jabba and over him.

Easy fix for Lucas. next version the JEDI Jabba will look like the HOPE Jabba. That will keep fans from complaining about any differences between the two... right?

 

[Kegg]

The problem with the ANH Jabba scene is that it was clearly designed, shot, and written for a character who - beyond being a gangster with an interest in Han Solo - has no resemblance to the the bloated, immobile crime lord lolling in a Frazetta painting who showed up in ROTJ.

The Jabba in that scene, besides almost certainly being bipedal, isn't as Big a crime lord and seems like the kind of criminal dealer Han can actually share an acrimonious joke or two with - not quite a distant contemptuous feed-them-to-the-monsters godfather.

And of course you just can't believe that the guy would actually go to the trouble of lugging his huge slug-like body to a dingy spaceport to stalk out the Falcon. No amount of CGI touching up is going to save the scene on that count - although the version in the DVD release looked prefectly excellent to me on a technical level. He's CGI but otherwise clearly Jabba.

 

[Trekker4747]

It doesn't look "purely excellent" to me given that the CGI Jabba looks nothing like the "real Jabba" is way more mobile than "real Jabba" and, just looks obviously like CGI. Then the odd edit when Han walks "behind" Jabba just looks terrible. It looks like someone playing with colorforms.

It's amazing that these versions made in 1997 and then when the DVDs came out a few years later have such, well, sub-par CGI. Look at the CGI creature effects done in Jurassic park where live-action actors are mixed with CGI creatures (the Gallimimus scene comes to mind, and the scenes inviolving the CGI version of the T-Rex) and compare that to Jabba in ANH. It's just a huge contrast between the two, and both were done by ILM.

Granted the SE's pobably didn't have the same budget Jurassic Park did but at the same time it still had Lucas' own SFX studio (ILM) behind it and the potential to rank in large sums of cash with the Star Wars name. There's just no excuse for it looking like ass.

And, yeah, if you've ever seen how that scene was supposed to look it's Han talking to a fellow, human, rougish criminal and not a huge crime-lord. Hence the need for the "walking behind" manipulation in the original scene Han paces behind "Jabba."

 

[Kegg]

It doesn't look "purely excellent" to me given that the CGI Jabba looks nothing like the "real Jabba" is way more mobile than "real Jabba" and, just looks obviously like CGI.

The 'real Jabba' looks pretty obviously like a giant puppet, as fake as a three dollar bill. At no point does he seem as real as the live actors that he's pitted against.

As CGI work goes, the Jabba in the DVD version is very acceptable. The same is also true given the limitations of puppet work and the third film. He is more mobile, but this is a scene that requires him to move - unless they stuffed him onto some kind of apparatus that shuffles him about, he needs to be more mobile by definition. Like with Han walking behind him, it pretty much comes down to trying to fit a square peg into a circle.

And, yeah, if you've ever seen how that scene was supposed to look it's Han talking to a fellow, human, rougish criminal and not a huge crime-lord.

Yep, I have. Hell, here's the scene:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itWq71Y5-B4[/yt]

Now as I understand it the plan was for Declan here to always be a stand-in for a later special effect alien, but I'd assume the imagined 'finished' Jabba was supposed to be a bipedal creature and probably closer in personality to this.

 

[Professor Zoom]

It doesn't look "purely excellent" to me given that the CGI Jabba looks nothing like the "real Jabba" is way more mobile than "real Jabba" and, just looks obviously like CGI.

The 'real Jabba' looks pretty obviously like a giant puppet, as fake as a three dollar bill. At no point does he seem as real as the live actors that he's pitted against.

He's real in the sense he's an actual object. As real as Yoda. Which is also obviously a puppet. CGI characters, until very recently, always suffered from a sort of unsubstantiality. Like gravity doesn't affect them.

 

[David cgc]

Now as I understand it the plan was for Declan here to always be a stand-in for a later special effect alien, but I'd assume the imagined 'finished' Jabba was supposed to be a bipedal creature and probably closer in personality to this.

Lucas may have said that, but it's apparent bunk. Jabba is in costume, he's recording on-set dialogue, there's absolutely no blue-screen, the cameras aren't locked-off... everything about that scene says that it was meant to be used as-is in the film, and it would've been absolutely impossible to replace the human actor with anything short of a hand-animated character painted right on the film with 1970s technology. And even then they wouldn't have had the stand-in while they were actually filming, since they'd have to make the animated Jabba covered every inch of him in every frame.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Now as I understand it the plan was for Declan here to always be a stand-in for a later special effect alien, but I'd assume the imagined 'finished' Jabba was supposed to be a bipedal creature and probably closer in personality to this.

Lucas may have said that, but it's apparent bunk. Jabba is in costume, he's recording on-set dialogue, there's absolutely no blue-screen, the cameras aren't locked-off... everything about that scene says that it was meant to be used as-is in the film, and it would've been absolutely impossible to replace the human actor with anything short of a hand-animated character painted right on the film with 1970s technology. And even then they wouldn't have had the stand-in while they were actually filming, since they'd have to make the animated Jabba covered every inch of him in every frame.

Thanks for this. I wondered about that myself.

However, I do clearly remember seeing a variety of concept drawings for an alien Jabba, purportedly for the original film. Maybe very early on Lucas wanted to do an alien Jabba, but lacked the budget and technology.

 

[Trekker4747]

Indeed, my interpretation of that is that was supposed to be the "real" Jabba as origioanlly intended. Lucas had everything planned out from the beginning my ass.

As for "puppet Jabba" the above postered had it right. He looks real in that he's a real object that's actually in the room and in the camera. It's really there, his lack of dynamic movement and lip movements lends a bit to it being a puppet (and just knowing how movie effects work) but it atleast looks like it is really there. (Because it is!)

Hell, even the stop-motion fight with the freaking Rancor looks better than CGI Jabba and CGI Jabba was added in decades later!

CGI Jabba just stands out as not really being there, the ligthing, coloring and everything is all wrong. And it also looks nothing like puppet Jabba.

 

[Whofan]

Some of the special edition changes WERE actually storyboarded for the original film. The Falcon doing a fancy move after destroying Vader's wingman dates back to the 70s, instead of the static shot of the falcon lifting up.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Hell, even the stop-motion fight with the freaking Rancor looks better than CGI Jabba and CGI Jabba was added in decades later!

[nerdrage] It wasn't stop-motion. It's a puppet. [/nerdrage]

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, the Rancor was a puppet. Except for the matte work, I thought it worked really well in the original theatrical release.

 

[Whofan]

There's some interesting test footage for the Rancor in some of the many documentaries released for the film-at one point it was going to be man-in-suit ala Godzilla.


I remember when the Rancor was suppossed to be the 'last one'. But now they have to have a rancor in every single video game so that 'canon' has changed.

 

[Trekker4747]

Hell, even the stop-motion fight with the freaking Rancor looks better than CGI Jabba and CGI Jabba was added in decades later!

[nerdrage] It wasn't stop-motion. It's a puppet. [/nerdrage]

You're right it was a puppet, I went right to stop-motion for some reason.

Regardless the work on it was very good.

 

[Kegg]

Lucas may have said that, but it's apparent bunk. Jabba is in costume, he's recording on-set dialogue, there's absolutely no blue-screen, the cameras aren't locked-off... everything about that scene says that it was meant to be used as-is in the film,

That may be so, but on the other hand the character of Jabba was consistently referred to as some kind of alien, in both the earlier drafts of the Star Wars script and the novelization. Trekker is right when he says George Lucas hadn't planned everything out in advance, and the various iterations of Jabba the Hutt between the rough draft scripts and his definitive appearance in Return of the Jedi are wildly inconsistent...

But being a greasy alien pirate of some description is a single constant for the character, with the sole exception of that recorded scene. It's possible Lucas scrapped him being an alien for budget reasons and then scrapped the scene entirely, but for all I know Lucas filmed the scene with the idea he'd do effects that he later discovered were clearly impossible and then scrapped the scene anyhow. It could just be the scene was scrapped for being completely bloody redundant; it doesn't really tell us anything plot-relevant about Han and Jabba's relationship that Han's encounter with Greedo hadn't already provided... I don't know.

CGI characters, until very recently, always suffered from a sort of unsubstantiality. Like gravity doesn't affect them.

Not something I think affects the DVD-release Jabba, though.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

but for all I know Lucas filmed the scene with the idea he'd do effects that he later discovered were clearly impossible and then scrapped the scene anyhow.

Funny.