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I guess we can chalk this up to the most humorous incident ever to come to the UCF.

I'm sure it will play out in many more threads in the future every time someone needs to say NOOOOO!

Actually, someone who really carries some clout with Lucas needs to tell him in no uncertain terms, "George, you're an idiot. That was hands down the dumbest thing ANYONE has ever done in the business".

I'll bet security has been beefed up at the ranch (and I'm serious about that).

I guess it just goes to prove that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil behavior. Everyone who works for him, and didn't quit after this, is definitely in it for the paycheck.
Personally I'd quit on principle alone, tell him he's an idiot, and let him know my integrity is more important; That I don't want my reputation further damaged by being related to any of his business practices.

I'm sure WETA digital would rake anyone who left Lucas for this.
Sure hope PJ never tampers with his work like this in the future.

LEARN from this Sir Jackson! Learn from this indeed.

Lucas should play both roles in the next edition of Dumb and Dumber.
Maybe a documentary: George Lucas-The Epitome of Stupid.
"and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts- to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut stones, to work in wood, and engage in all kinds of craftsmanship"

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[quote=""Valkrist""]Probably why they rip your arms off: spelling their names incorrectly. [/quote]

Or beating them at board games! :P



You know what, instead of spending one hundred bucks for this latest set of garbage, I think I'll go on ebay and spend twenty bucks on some unmodified Star Wars on VHS from back in the day. :crazy:

Olorin, for some reason I can't view the things you're linking. It says I need to enable JavaScript, but I do have Script enabled... :huh:

I did see the ones on Youtube though, very funny! :laugh:
While we're on YTMND videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4qyKG9N ... laynext=20
Last edited by Fingolfin on Thu Sep 01, 2011 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Remember, the force will be with you, always."

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As funny as this all is, once the laughter is over I can't help but agree with Thranduil and shake my head in sadness.

That something that so many of us have cherished and loved for decades should become the subject of such mockery is ample proof that Lucas has lost touch with reality. I really do wish he would just 'get' how reviled and ridiculed his person and his changes to these movies have become, and have the common decency to just stop and go away. I can't help but feel that Star Wars will be a completely unrecognizable mess by the time he goes to the grave. Sadly, he doesn't give a fig.

Being someone old enough to have seen the original Star Wars back in '77 in theatres, my childhood memory clings now to a faded vision of glory, not this tarnished and bastardized crap he continues to churn out in the name of "improvement." :(

Shame on you, Mr. Lucas. :angry:
This Space for Rent

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Ditto Val, it is sad.
The once highly revered, brought us something very new and exciting guy, is gone. It's like he never made what he really intended, is now making what he intended, and therefore NEVER would be where what he originally did got him.

You know, somehow in the back of my mind I felt very betrayed when I saw Phantom Menace, I think I even said, "Apparently GL isn't interested in his original followers, and wants to cater to children".

Maybe that's the answer; he does what his kids tell him they like. That would at least offer some semblance of e xp lanation for it's absurdity.
"and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts- to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut stones, to work in wood, and engage in all kinds of craftsmanship"

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[quote=""Sedhal""]
I used to have this bookmarked... for dire situations.

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/[/quote]

I still have it bookmarked for dire situations! I've had it for like a year! :crazy:


Thrand and Val, I agree, and I think he started catering to young kids with Phantom Menace for monetary reasons. It worked on me; I was like five or six at the time, and while I had seen the originals many times, Phantom Menace is what got me into Star Wars again. I idolized Qui-Gon Jin and anticipated the release of all the prequels and spent a lot of money on SW merch. George Lucas hooked in an entire new generation of Star Wars fanatics. Now he's filthy rich. Think about how many people continued to get into SW after the release of RotJ in the 80's, then think about how many people will continue to get into SW after the release of the prequels, and now after the Clone Wars, and if the live-action series finally comes then after that. Kids will be spending money on Star Wars stuff and getting hooked for another thirty years. By the time he dies, GL will be one of the richest men alive...he's already quite high on the list, and if you ask me, at this point, he doesn't deserve half of it. :angry:
"Remember, the force will be with you, always."

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I think Phantom Menace gets trashed on a lot, but all three (to a far lesser extent Empire) originals also had the same child-aimed antics to a degree. I was actually on the topic the other day about it, but what I think the problem is, is that the Ewoks in ROTJ were cute and Disney-ish, but... they also died. They got their hands dirty. Of course, there's no way they'd be taking out ATSTs, but hey... they used tactics. And then Jar-Jar clumsily defeats a ton of battle droids. *roll eyes*

However, I think Phantom Menace gave us a lot on par with the original movies. It had two great villains, the best (IMO) lightsaber duel in any of the six movies, a great soundtrack (and I sort of dislike John Williams), and it was the last non-digitally filmed Star Wars not shot entirely in green screen (is there a single authentic set in the latter two?!) The kid sucked, Jar-Jar sucked, but there is a pretty good flick in there somewhere. The originals had flaws too.

I don't even try to defend AOTC or ROTS though. People say III is the best of them, but man... Hayden is awful -- downright awful! And and and.... the dialogue?!?! I'd take Jar-Jar any day over stuff like this: "Anakin, you're breaking my HEART!!!!" *hyper-ventilates* and "YOU UNDEERRESTIMAATE MY PEEEEWWEEEEAAAR!"

That movie was really just his last attempt to cram a bunch of lightsabers into every scene, rushing from one big action part to the next. Can't say I don't like a lot in that, too. Battle of the heroes, Mace vs Palpatine, etc. But still. We all know its faults.
-_-

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The saddest part is the amount of continuity errors in those lightsaber scenes that are suppose to be "paramount." Ex. Ani vs Obi where they are in the control room. When they fight on the table and Anakin has his saber up to Obi's throat, you can see he is actually holding Obi's lightsaber, scene cuts away, cuts back, and then he is holding his own saber. That is because there was a 15 sec clip in there of them fighting with each other's sabers (showing brotherhood connection I guess) and then they cut it out. Those little continuity issues are acceptable in the originals when there was a budget, not in these prequels where there really was no question of money.

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Ya think GL is getting the message?
I've heard talk about the DV Nooooo! across every media imaginable. It's become a bee hive of negativity swarming around it. Have yet to hear a single good word.

Leave well enough alone, leave it the way it was,........................

Did the Simpsons finally end? I can see an episode devoted to this one; with Homer pulling out his best DOH! and Bart saying, "You're right dad, that was lame."
Cut to the baby sucking the pacifier.
"and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts- to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut stones, to work in wood, and engage in all kinds of craftsmanship"

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sigh.... Family Guy has a field day with any little topic, because they're so desperate for material.


South Park on the other hand has already dedicated at least two episodes to Lucas being a turd about his work.

And the Simpsons might have well ended for all the quality episodes they've been churning out the past five years... there's another sell-out show that should be made fun of right along with Lucas. Both the Simpsons and Star Wars I used to love more than anything, and now... :|
-_-

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OK, here are a pair of reviews. For those of you on the fence about getting it, you may be pushed off onto the "don't get" side by the fact that there are no carry-over supplements from previous releases, other than commentary tracks. Or you may be pushed onto the "get" side by the glowing review of the sound portion, and the fact that the original three look the best they've ever looked. Anyway,

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviewshd ... 91611.html

http://www.dvdfile.com/reviews/blurayre ... -bd-review
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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One thing I wanted to point out, for anyone who doesn't want to wade through those lengthy reviews, is an interesting theory from the Digital Bits reviewer. He basically said the last trick in Lucas' bag to get people to buy these were all the deleted scenes from the Original Trilogy that people have been wanting for years: Luke and Biggs in ANH, the sandstorm in ROTJ, etc. Now that those have been released, Lucas will have nothing up his sleeve to induce people to rebuy the set in a few years, when he needs more money to build another monument to his ego somewhere (http://www.slashgear.com/lucasfilm-sing ... -05176996/).

Except for the ORIGINAL versions! Hopefully restored this time.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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I'm finally getting around to watching the BD set and sadly I have to report there are glitches in it. Read here for all the gory details: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1361400

The only glitch I've encountered so far are two spots of pixelation in AOTC. Panasonic has released a firmware update that fixes the video problems, and going into the player setup menu and setting DTS mode to PCM will avoid the "DTS Bomb." I haven't encountered the DTS Bomb yet but from the way that AVS thread reads, it could blow your speakers...so I switched my audio setting just in case.

It's frustrating that a major release like this has as many issues as it seems from the thread.

All other issues aside, I can tell you one thing about these BDs...they look spectacular!
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Haven't watched mine yet, but my player is a Samsung and it seems that it's mostly an issue with Panasonic players, and some Pioneers and Onkyos. Also, I have my sound set to PCM so that the player does the decoding rather than the receiver as I had issues with sound and picture being out of sync in some movies when letting the receiver decode.
This Space for Rent

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The impression I had was that Panasonic had a large share of the problems because Panasonic has a large share of the home BD player market. I updated my firmware this morning. Without an internet connection at the player and with Windows Vista not capable of burning a disc that the player can use for updates, it's sort of like climbing Mt. Doom to update the firmware. But, I got it done, and it takes care of the glitches in AOTC, so I'm happy.

I had my player set to pass the digital signal to the receiver because I felt that a $2500 receiver probably had better decoders than a $250 player. I've never had any sync problems. Only problem I've had was my old Sony receiver (now retired) was slow to initialize DTS decoding, with the result that there was a moment of silence at the beginning, but it was in sync when it finally got rolling.

Anyway, I think what I'm going to do is set the player back to bitstream digital, turn the volume way down on the receiver, and test out some of the passages mentioned in the thread, to see if my receiver is sensitive to the DTS Bomb. Fingers crossed! :D
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Yeah, I felt the same way too but after e xp eriencing some out of sync issues with a few movies and reading through a multitude of tech forums, it seems that the most common solution to this issue is to use PCM and allow the player to do the decoding as it apparently is not that difficult for the receiver to get tripped up with the load and cause the problem. Besides, there is no audible quality difference between the two modes so no biggie there. Also, before anyone suggests it, yes, I did try using the Audio Sync feature on the receiver and playing with it in miliseconds to adust the lip-sync issue, but no dice. I still get the odd audio-dropout, but it is very rare. Let's see what happens with Star Wars when I watch it. :P
This Space for Rent

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True, there should be no difference in sound quality...if it plays. Some folks in that thread reported a problem with the Oppo BD player that the rears were absent when using PCM. I don't have an Oppo, though I'd like to. They are supposed to be the best at upconverting DVD, and I still have a sizable number of those in my collection (like 4/5 of them ;) ). Also, Oppos will play DVD-A and SACD, and I have a few CDs that are also encoded w/those formats. I'd love to kick back on the couch some day and listen to the LOTR EE soundtracks in DVD-A glory, or Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds from SACD.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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I have now watched all 6 movies discs with receiver-decoded DTS, and there were no DTS Bombs. :thumbs_up

As far as other bombs, given Lucas' (in)famous propensity for altering these movies, it's hard to believe he didn't correct a few things in Return of the Jedi. The effects in the Rancor sequence just do not hold up. The thing and its set look like models, and even with digital compositing, Luke's live action figure does not blend well into it.

Also, the Jabba's Palace Band number has got to go. It was never anything more than an ill-conceived attempt to recapture the lightning-only-strikes-once fun of the Mos Eisley Cantina Band in A New Hope, and it has never worked. There were the original theatrical version and an alternate version released to MTV as a video (!) in 1983, and there is the 1998 special edition version that's on the current BD. It. Is. Awful. They should go back to the original version and prune it severely, leaving just enough to set up the dancer's unfortunate visit to the Rancor pit.

But instead of what would have been those welcome changes, we get blinking Ewoks and Darth Vader's "No!" as he hurls the Emperor down the shaft. I guess this was revisionism on a budget.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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It had been a while since I watched the DVDs and I did not spot check them before watching the BDs, so I can't precisely answer your question. I can say, however, that they looked wonderful, and all the reviews I've read on videophile sites have raved about the video quality.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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[quote=""Olorin""]It had been a while since I watched the DVDs and I did not spot check them before watching the BDs, so I can't precisely answer your question. I can say, however, that they looked wonderful, and all the reviews I've read on videophile sites have raved about the video quality.[/quote]

That makes me happy to hear. I just watched them on DVD a month ago, but having an HD tv and blue ray it made me start thinking... ever since I've been debating picking up the blue rays. Thank you!
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