MYTHBUSTERS 10th Anniversary Season

[Reverend]

I think the idea of a much more active Mos Eisley is sound, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Like the musical scene in RotJ I feel it somewhat confused the mood of the setting. I'd also put the Jabba scene into this category. Nice idea, poor execution. Could also have done without Fett breaking the fourth wall and looking right down the barrel. A little too cute IMO.

For me what didn't work generally falls into two categories; 1) the technology (still) wasn't up to the task (Jabba/Dewbacks) and 2) it altered the tone of the material too much (Greedo shooting first/Vader's "Nooooooooooooooooo!")

As I said, the changes I felt worked best were those that were purely effect shots. The Cloud City vistas, the Yavin V establishing shots, etc. etc. Those were improvements in the sense that they enhanced what was already there without detracting from it. It's a fine line though.

To this day I'm not sure how I feel about the finale musical number. "Yub-Nub" was hardly a masterpiece and it was nice to get that little montage to add some larger context to what had just happened...but the tone of it just felt off.

As for Anakin's force ghost...I can see the logic of it, but I think if that's the way Lucas wanted to go, then he just should have re-shot all of Sebastian Shaw's footage with Christensen. Not that I think he could have pulled it off very well, but at least it'd be consistent.

 

[Forbin]

Correct me if I'm wrong but Empire comes out of the Special Editions pretty much unscathed, doesn't it? I struggle to think of an addition or change that gets people as angry as the "Greedo Shooting First" thing or that's as annoying as the "Jedi Rocks" musical interlude.

The worst "update" to Empire was the recutting of the scene where Vader returns to his ship while Luke is being rescued by Leiah in the Falcon. Lucas' assertion that Vader simply saying "Bring my shuttle" wasn't enough to explain how he got to his destroyer was asinine. And the additional shots of Vader's shuttle taking off and going to the ship, intercut with Luke's rescue, utterly destroyed the pacing of the previously well-cut and tense scene.

I wasn't really happy with the added windows in Cloud City either. All the ship-zipping business out there distracted from what we were supposed to be paying attention to, and broke up all that beautiful white-and-gray set design.

 

[Trekker4747]

Well, like I said up-thread, I think the added windows and stuff added to the expanses of the cloud city and made it seem less claustrophobic.

 

[Christopher]

Err, I think a lot of us, myself included, have lost track of the fact that this is the Mythbusters thread. Maybe discussion about the merits of the various editions of the Star Wars films should go in another thread, unless it's specifically in reference to something the Mythbusters said or did in the episode, aftershow, or elsewhere.

Speaking of which, when Adam said in the aftershow that he was excited about the new SW movies, I was expecting him to say he was excited because he (and Grant and Tory) might get to work on them again. But it kinda seems that M5 has become so Mythbusters-driven that they don't do any real special effects work anymore.

 

[Forbin]

Tread drift!!
("Stay on TARget!")

 

[Christopher]

You know, I was just thinking about the possibility of the Mythbusters getting back into movie FX work, and I had a nifty idea... It would be great if, instead of doing whatever idiocy they wanted and then having the Mythbusters do an episode debunking it, some moviemakers hired the Mythbusters as technical consultants from the start, working with them to test out the proposed stunts and effects in the script to see if they could work as planned, and if not, then refining them to be more plausible in the final film. And of course the show's production team would be getting the whole thing on camera. So you could get both a more plausible movie and a special Mythbusters episode out of the deal.

 

[Forbin]

Great idea! I'd enjoy that.

 

[Reverend]

I really can't see a studio spending money on that kind of thing. The people who plan these stunts, practical effects and pyrotechnics tend to be very practical people (like Adam & Jamie) and most likely know full well how far from reality they are. But then they're in the business of storytelling and spectacle, not total reality simulations.

Take a film like 'Gravity' which on the face of it looks very authentic and very much like it's been thoroughly researched with experts consulted. However, anyone with even a rough knowledge of orbital mechanics (thank you Kerbal Space Program!) can see that just about everything they're doing is implausible at best. I'm sure that any space industry or scientific consultants they probably did hire would have pointed these thing out. Thing is, it doesn't matter. It only has to look and feel authentic enough to properly frame the narrative.

 

[davejames]

It would be cool to see the gang at work building real, high-quality props and effects for a movie or TV show. We can clearly see they have the skills, but it's a bit frustrating that (like in the case of Adam's Tauntaun) they never have the time or budget to make something as perfect and accurate as they'd clearly like it to be.

Everything usually ends up looking really improvised and slapped together (which I admit is a big part of the show's charm).

 

[Marc]

Everything usually ends up looking really improvised and slapped together (which I admit is a big part of the show's charm).

Though hopefully people know that despite how things look they aren't simply improvised and slapped together.

 

[Reverend]

Apropos of nothing: did anyone else notice that the actual chasm swing stunt from the movie looked a lot different from what they ended up testing?

By that I mean if you watch the original footage, you see Hamill grab Fisher under his right arm with her head about level with his shoulder. Then they cut to the wide-shot of the actual stunt and "Leia" (I'm assuming they're both stunt doubles) is suddenly sort of lying across "Luke's" abdomen with her head under his left armpit and her legs dangling back before she swings them forward, wrapped around his hip so that she's practically horizontal when they get to the other side.

I just thought it'd be interesting if they had also tried the swing in the way the stunt performers had done it and see if it was any easier than how your eye tricks you into thinking they pulled it off (i.e. side-by-side). It looks like Leia's double was the one actually controlling the inertia in that shot as opposed to just hanging on.

I tried to find a clip of it on the youtubes to illustrate, but came up empty. I imagine Lucasfilm & Disney are quite prompt with the C&Ds and copyright takedowns. :/

 

[Christopher]

I just thought it'd be interesting if they had also tried the swing in the way the stunt performers had done it and see if it was any easier than how your eye tricks you into thinking they pulled it off (i.e. side-by-side). It looks like Leia's double was the one actually controlling the inertia in that shot as opposed to just hanging on.

Well, the idea of testing movie myths is to test the way they were supposed to happen in the story. The stunt work, editing, etc. created an illusion, and it was the illusion, not the reality, that the Mythbusters were testing.

 

[Reverend]

Yes, I know. I just thought it'd be interesting. Also, don't they sometimes do a "and now let's actually re-create the myth" bit at the end?

 

[Trekker4747]

You know, I was looking into it and there seems to be pretty good chances the forest scenes for the Endor myth with the Junior team could've been filmed in the same place the original Endor scenes were filmed in, which involved a redwood forest near San Francisco.

 

[Christopher]

Aww, hell, they're doing another one of their crossovers with Discovery Channel shows, this time some stupid "reality" show about "moonshiners." I am sick of this. In the decade that Mythbusters has been on the air, Discovery has decayed around it from a science channel into a mindless reality-show channel, and it's starting to drag the Mythbusters down with it. I think the show should jump networks. Although are there any cable educational channels left that haven't completely degenerated into pseudoscience and reality rubbish? Is even The Science Channel still about science anymore?

How do you even make a show about "real" moonshiners? If what they're doing is against the law, why are they willing to show their faces on camera while they do it? The whole thing is probably staged anyway. Hold on... yep, Wikipedia says it's a dramatization. The Virginia authorities have requested a disclaimer to that effect, but the show refused. They're lying to their audience about the reality of their fictional show. This is not the kind of program the Mythbusters should be collaborating with.

Anyway, the actual experiments were pretty standard Mythbuster stuff -- exploding gases/pressure vessels and alternative automotive fuels. Kind of run-of-the-mill. But that high-speed shot of the shop-test explosion in the model shack was a thing of beauty. And I really liked that brief bit between commercials where Adam was talking about the transfer of energy and the physics and mechanics of the full-scale explosion. Despite Discovery's awfulness, there's still some science in this show.

In the car tests, I didn't get why they used a dirt track to compare the performance of gasoline vs. ethanol. All the swerving and fishtailing and going off course introduced too many variables for the time comparison to be meaningful, especially when the difference was only 2 seconds. Although I guess it does show that the performance is comparable.

Still, presumably this myth isn't based on modern cars with computer-controlled fuel mixtures, since it would've originated some time in the past. So it seems like a cheat to test it with that kind of car.

Oh, and Kari in a cop uniform? Also a thing of beauty.

 

[Trekker4747]

I've a question going back to last week with the tauntaun/Hoth "myth." One thing I got to wondering is even putting Luke in the tauntaun was even needed? Would he have survived on his own laying in the snow/out in the open for the time it took Han to build the shelter? In the test itself it seems the tauntaun didn't loose much heat itself (and remember it wasn't plumbed into the heart machine so not generating heat anymore.)

Also, having watched Empire this week, going back to the discussion above it did seem that Han was more heavily dressed than Luke, probably because he was going out closer to sun down during harsher weather. Also after he puts Luke in tautaun he seems to start putting up stakes which would seem to lean more towards him not building a snow-cave but having a physical shelter with him.

Haven't watched tonight's episode yet but I agree with Christopher the "cross overs"/tie-ins with other Discovery properties isn't as interesting as the ones they do with other fictional series. (Like Walking Dead.) Still, I enjoy watching these guys do their thing, so whatevs.

I never understood the concept behind the show and asked myself the same questions when I first saw as Christopher did above. I was preparing for a sleep study and was there as the tech was putting the electrodes on my head and the show was on the room TV. (I watched an episode of MB that was ending and this was the next show to start.) The tech even asked me, "I don't get it. How are they filming this? Isn't what they're doing illegal?" I responded that I had no idea, I'd never seen the show before. *Still* have never really watched one as the concept didn't interest me.

During the preview montage last week when we saw the "moonshine" clip I guess the nerd in me was hoping for another Dukes of Hazzard "myth"/test.

I agree, it's not a show they should be cross-promoting considering what the show is about and that it's a total fabrication but it could be Mythbusters have to do it per their contract with Discovery.

 

[Marc]

I've a question going back to last week with the tauntaun/Hoth "myth." One thing I got to wondering is even putting Luke in the tauntaun was even needed? Would he have survived on his own laying in the snow/out in the open for the time it took Han to build the shelter? In the test itself it seems the tauntaun didn't loose much heat itself (and remember it wasn't plumbed into the heart machine so not generating heat anymore.)

Also, having watched Empire this week, going back to the discussion above it did seem that Han was more heavily dressed than Luke, probably because he was going out closer to sun down during harsher weather. Also after he puts Luke in tautaun he seems to start putting up stakes which would seem to lean more towards him not building a snow-cave but having a physical shelter with him.

Luke was injured, probably in shock and suffering from hyperthermia so the sooner you start getting a person in that condition warm the better.

Even if it only took Han 5 minutes to put the tent up, that's 5 minutes spent starting to bring Luke's body temperature up.

I'm not sure how you equate putting stakes in the ground with building a snow cave (which frankly would be a stupid idea given how critical warmth would be to Luke survival).

The usual idea when putting up a tent or similar structure is use pegs or stakes to a) given it structure & support and b) anchor in to place. In this case it was blowing with strong winds and Han would have looked a right mug if he put up the survival tent only to have it blow away.

Haven't watched tonight's episode yet but I agree with Christopher the "cross overs"/tie-ins with other Discovery properties isn't as interesting as the ones they do with other fictional series. (Like Walking Dead.) Still, I enjoy watching these guys do their thing, so whatevs.

I'm sure if there was a way to defray the costs of producing Mythbusters without resorting to the cross overs, they could be eliminated.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm not sure how you equate putting stakes in the ground with building a snow cave (which frankly would be a stupid idea given how critical warmth would be to Luke survival).

Re-read what I said. Han's putting up stakes suggests him NOT building a snow-cave, as suggested by the Mythbusters during their test. And while in the "tauntaun" Luke continued to lose body heat, not gain it. My question is one of whether it was necessary, if putting Luke in tauntaun even helped. I guess a "control" is what I'm talking about.

Snow caves, also, are pretty critical to build in dire situations as they can provide "warmth" (or at least trap warmth radiating from your body while inside it.) It's a survival technique people do use in extreme circumstances.

 

[Forbin]

I don't know what I found more annoying - another episode that was no more than a promo for another show, the constant "tweets" printed out in the corner that often covered something I needed to see, or the giant animated color ads for "Klondike" that filled 1/4 of the screen and covered Kari's face once!

 

[Christopher]

I've a question going back to last week with the tauntaun/Hoth "myth." One thing I got to wondering is even putting Luke in the tauntaun was even needed? Would he have survived on his own laying in the snow/out in the open for the time it took Han to build the shelter? In the test itself it seems the tauntaun didn't loose much heat itself (and remember it wasn't plumbed into the heart machine so not generating heat anymore.)

First off, again, Luke had already been out in the cold for some time and was already suffering from hypothermia. (Marc, hyperthermia means excessively high body temperature. The Ancient Greeks played a nasty practical joke on us by using almost identical prefixes for "above" (hyper-) and "below" (hypo-), so it's important to keep careful track of the distinction, just to spite those lousy Ancient Greeks.) The tauntaun's body was several degrees warmer than Luke to start with, since it was killed mere moments before Luke was placed into it. That's important because Luke was already too cold, so bringing him into contact with the Tauntaun's warmer body would've helped warm him back up somewhat, which in and of itself would've given him more time to survive than if he'd just been left there.

Second, the tauntaun was considerably larger and more massive than Luke, and thus it would have lost heat more slowly than Luke would even if all else were equal. Third, as stated in the episode, it was adapted for Arctic conditions and its anatomy was designed for heat retention, with a thick layer of blubber and a thick fur coat. Granted, Luke's Arctic gear probably insulated him a fair amount too, but the gear plus the blubber and fur would certainly have provided better insulation than the gear alone.

During the preview montage last week when we saw the "moonshine" clip I guess the nerd in me was hoping for another Dukes of Hazzard "myth"/test.

Yeah. If you're going to make a fictional show about backwoods moonshiners running from the law, then a) admit that it's fictional, b) have Waylon Jennings narrate it, and c) put Catherine Bach in it.

I agree, it's not a show they should be cross-promoting considering what the show is about and that it's a total fabrication but it could be Mythbusters have to do it per their contract with Discovery.

All the more reason they should find another network/production partner. They no longer fit in on Discovery.

Oh, and I agree with Forbin -- the "tweets" were distracting and almost entirely pointless.