Star Wars: Episode VII: The Nerd Rage Awakens
- Thread starter cooleddie74
- Start date
Yeah my problem with the Han/Greedo scene has always been more about how awkward and poorly executed it now looks, more than about whatever damage it does to Han's character.
But you're right, it's definitely far from the worst change to the OT. Ben's new dragon call, the cheesy CG rocks in front of R2, the musical number in ROTJ, and Vader's "Nooooo" are all MUCH more grating in my book.
Well yeah, those are the crappy old VHS. Download the awesome Harmy versions of the OT with their beautiful HD picture and you'll be completely blown away, and never want to watch the SEs again.
Greedo shooting first is a terrible change because it's clunky and badly-edited, completely changes what amounts to our introduction to the character of Han Solo and what he'll do at the drop of a hat if he deems it necessary for his own survival and turns a supposedly talented bounty hunter like Greedo who's under the hire of one of the galaxy's top gangsters and crime lords into a guy who can't hit a stationary man sitting just a couple of feet away from him at almost point-blank range.
It sucked then and the change sucks now.
Completely agreed on changing Yub Nub to Victory Celebration, though. The Special Edition/DVD/Blu ray change to the very end of Jedi is greatly superior to the original 1983 climax of the film (if you don't count the Hayden Christensen alteration, which itself may be just as if not more controversial than Greedo shooting first).
It sucked then and the change sucks now.
Completely agreed on changing Yub Nub to Victory Celebration, though. The Special Edition/DVD/Blu ray change to the very end of Jedi is greatly superior to the original 1983 climax of the film (if you don't count the Hayden Christensen alteration, which itself may be just as if not more controversial than Greedo shooting first).
Doctorwhovian
Fleet Captain
Luke's scream in the original/VHS version of the SE is actually reused from Emperor Palpatine's ROTJ scream when he was thrown down the pit by Vader.
Can't help you.
I don't care about picture quality, I find HD to be extremely overrated, and would never choose it over SD unless forced. As films, I find the pre-SE versions to be inferior to the SE. Not because of video quality, because of things the pre-SE don't have that I miss. Some are cosmetic, like Cloud City looking 1000x better, but some added scenes were essential to me (like Biggs/Luke scene right before they get into their X-Wings). I also like the celebration at the end of ROTJ better, and just find the SE of the OT to be superior movies to the vanilla versions, and the actual visual quality of the film has nothing to do with it. The vanilla versions just don't work as well for me, although they're still good movies, just inferior to the SE.
Fair enough. There were certainly some nice additions to the movies as well, but for me the bad far outweighs the good (especially when you factor in the messed up pacing and outdated CG effects).
Ah, so that's where I'd heard it before. Thanks for the confirmation.
Agreed about the pacing, Star Wars won the Best Editing Oscar, and deserved it. I find the whole SE thing suspect, as if stuff was added just for the sake of being able to and without much thought otherwise. As I've said before, the decision to follow the ominous warning about Mos Eisely with a hokey, slapstick Jawa gag is just inexplicably stupid.
I get a real kick out of Yub Nub, but I enjoy both versions because the addition of the celebrations on other worlds worked well for me.
And, let's face it, the new Victory Celebrations just plain look and sound great.
Doctorwhovian
Fleet Captain
The Coruscant segment is kind of interesting, it sort of served as a preview of The Phantom Menace (Then just known as "Episode One"). The "airbus" is actually based on concept art for the vessel at the beginning of TPM if I'm not mistaken. (Although it was later changed to a vessel similar to the Blockade runner to sort of mirror ANH).
As for putting in some of the deleted scenes, the Biggs thing was kind of OK since it gave more context to why they're so familiar with each other in the battle. The Jabba scene as noted was kind of redundant though. I doubt any future version of the film will have the Anchorhead stuff (apart from the deleted scenes section of the home media), originally it was going to appear in-between the scenes on the blockade runner (Luke, in his original debut scene, would've observed the battle while tending to a Vaporater with a broken-down droid). That would've really hurt the pacing of the opening scene IMO.
As for putting in some of the deleted scenes, the Biggs thing was kind of OK since it gave more context to why they're so familiar with each other in the battle. The Jabba scene as noted was kind of redundant though. I doubt any future version of the film will have the Anchorhead stuff (apart from the deleted scenes section of the home media), originally it was going to appear in-between the scenes on the blockade runner (Luke, in his original debut scene, would've observed the battle while tending to a Vaporater with a broken-down droid). That would've really hurt the pacing of the opening scene IMO.
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And the DVD and Blu ray edits inserted both the Jedi Temple and the dome of the Senate into the Coruscant skyline.
Yup. Not to mention screwing up the big reveal of the Falcon by showing it earlier during the Jabba scene. Or interrupting the moving climax of ESB to show Vader traveling by shuttle to his Star Destroyer (as if we couldn't figure out how he got there otherwise).
The biggest problem in the new ROTJ ending is that everyone in the Ewok city is still gyrating to Yub Nub. They maybe should have slo-mo'd it down, or worked some digital magic, or something.
Lando knows how to groove and bust a move and look cool no matter what the background music.
Doctorwhovian
Fleet Captain
They sort of did a tiny bit with the Ewoks using the Imperial helmets as drums.
Part of the problem also of the Vader scene is that when Vader exits the shuttle, they just use another take of his ROTJ arrival. You can even see the same Imperial commander/Moff Jerjorodd.
Part of the problem also of the Vader scene is that when Vader exits the shuttle, they just use another take of his ROTJ arrival. You can even see the same Imperial commander/Moff Jerjorodd.
