When there are those who don’t know you’re name

And lets just say, you’re Lord Darth Vader, and you run THE Death Star…

And you’re hungry…

Bon Appetite!

Interdum vos ut volvo ferrus six.

It’s Been One Week

Full of asshats.
New boss is an asshat and is very angry.
Five days of near slavery,
Saying asshats galore, get the hell away from me.
Two days in the living room,
Another asshat comes, but this time was virtual.
Yesterday, I’d flamed her,
But it’ll be never before I say I’m sorry.

Not much changes in the world of me. My life’s a war, and for some fucked up reason, all the asshats gravitate towards me. I mean, come on, can’t these pieces of biological waste get a hobby or something?

This one, however, has. She seems to find people like me, who stand against America (for me, it’s simply the Americanization of Canada). She has, as you have now realized following the link, taken on a war against anti-Americanism (isn’t that just as futile as taking on a war against another concept, such as terrorism)? And just to show you where I stand (as it seems I’m highly misunderstood). America is fine. Within limits. For me, just south of 49 will do. And they can have Toronto to boot. I had a choice to live permanently there, but I chose to stay in the Great White North. Why? Health care and not living in a culture of fear were good reasons.

Not to say that America doesn’t have great strengths. I just want to enjoy Canadian strengths. Hockey. Beer. To put a defining point on my beef, take a full college or university program on Canadian Film studies. The lack of funding for good Canadian content is a real sore spot with me.

Still, this ‘person’ chose to hammer this post and the About Me page on here, prior to writing this post about how we Canadians are ‘insecure about our southern neighbours’. Now, instead of defaming her on this site, just read all the comments to see what a nutjob she really is. My favourite bit though still is these two points.

1. I got banned! Woohoo! Break out the champagne! Cocktails! It’s been a while since someone has blacklisted me from their blog. And I’d thought I’d lost my touch!

2. ‘Apparently’, my ass was handed to me. ‘Apparently’, I’m pissed. News to me. Time for another celebratory drinky poo!

And finally, in sheer celebration, my latest bobblehead:

So, from Darth Stewie unto you Candy/Virgo Monkey/flavour of the week girl, I say to you this parting phrase:

If you can’t take a joke, don’t be one.

Now for your airlocking:

Interdum vos ut volvo ferrus six.

P.S. Grow my city’s industry.

To fiddle or not to fiddle Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

When I last left the discussion to where I stand regarding George Lucas’s constant fiddling with Star Wars, I made mention that I would review The Empire Strikes Back, Special Edition this weekend.

This review, however, is less black and white (or should that be Vader and Stormtrooper) than last week. There is an element I’m absolutely grey about. Luckily, my favourite of the whole saga is the one tinkered with the least. It is far more character driven than any other story, and special effects sequences took a bit more of a backseat to developing Luke, Leia, and Han.

What I like in the Special Edition:

Cleaning up the battle on Hoth. Something started for the 1997 re-release, but finally completed in the new millenium. For the original release, CGI was still far enough off to be a practical special effects medium. So, speeders, interior AT-AT shots, and other special effects shots were done via blue screen matting, just as the space scenes were shot. However, when you do this, it leaves a thin, black outline (not too much unlike that you get with a comic book character). In space, this is no problem. In the snow, this sticks out like a sore thumb. As such, they played reduced the opacity of the overlayed element to minimize this issue.

In the Special Edition, Lucas took his CGI team to bring speeders, AT-AT’s and vehicle interiors up to full opacity. Except for one problem. They didn’t get all of it in the first go. Tied in with the dogshit original CGI Jabba the Hutt from Episode IV, I get the feeling they rushed the job instead of doing it well. If you go back to the 1997 version, the view out of General Veers’ AT-AT, along with the two troopers driving it still was somewhat transparent. This is the most apparent upon approach to the shield generator. Thankfully, all of the transparency issue (that I could find) has been handled, and the overal visual feel is now on a level much closer to the stunning visuals of the prequels.

Ian McDiarmid being shot and substituted as Emperor Palpatine. This one is short and sweet. In the effort of maintaining a strong visual continuity, it makes more sense to have the Emperor look like he does in all other films

than this look, which was voiced by Clive Revill

Being as the six films should be viewed as one whole film, I do think it makes more sense with the change. I also like the added piece of dialogue, referring to Luke, the one who destroyed the Death Star, as the “offspring of Anakin Skywalker”. I like the added context of the seperation of Vader from his former self, and the defining of that moment as the point where Vader learns his child has survived.

As an added bonus, it’s really not all that hard to do ADR with the Dark Lord while he wears his meanacing mask. At least they got James Earl Jones to deliver Vader’s extra line, “How is that possible?”

Eliminating Garbage Matte Artifacts. As theatrical re-release of the films will probably be rare, home video shall dominate the wars from here on in. As such, on the video transfer of the film, Garbage Matte Artifacts exist around, most notibly, spacecraft, in the form of off-black boxes. This has been cleaned up. Again, no real change, just cleaning up and enhancing the print.

Approach to Cloud City. Elaborating on the Falcon’s approach to Cloud City gives that grander look at the environment that became a signature in the prequels. Hence, we get to see more of the universe, and maintain that all important visual sense.

Fixing the mirror shot of Admiral Piett. Just as the Empire thinks they have the Falcon (now piloted by Lando Calrissian), Vader and Piett have a brief word, to which Vader orders weapons to be set to stun. For whatever reason (probably Murphy showing up on set when they shot that day), the Imperial officer’s rank tags showed on the opposite (right) side of their uniforms, instead of the typical left (over the heart). ILM, not in 1997, but this millenium, has gone in and changed that. It’s not a huge issue, but it keeps the Comic Book Guy types at bay.

What I disliked in the Special Edition:

The CGI Wampa. According to my base principle of visual continuity, I would actually agree with the Wampa. However, dramatic sense overcomes visual continuity in this case for me. Due to the constraints, in the original release, they had to keep the Wampa hidden from camera. I feel this brought added tension to the scene, which was lost when the Wampa was added to the scene visually.

The walls on Bespin turned into windows. I agree that some windows should have been CGI’ed into windows (is CGI’ed a term?), but it just felt like a little overkill to me.

Vader’s return to the Executor. We really don’t need a scene to show Vader flying back to his Star Destroyer from Bespin. Are we as the audience really that much in the dark about how Vader got back to his Star Destroyer? We really don’t need to see the second Death Star’s docking bay remodelled as the Executor’s docking bay. And for that bit of ADR, that sure wasn’t James Earl Jones’ “this is CNN” voice.

What I feel grey about.

Temura Morrison’s voice being ADR’ed for Boba Fett. Yet another one I’d be in complete agreement with, this time for audio continuity (something I didn’t touch on as much for the original, as I would have spent months picking it apart… I cringe at certain parts of the audio for the original). Boba was the clone of Jango, so therefore the voices should be the same. But I ask you this. Shouldn’t all the Stormtroopers also sound like Jango, also being clones of his? However, from Star Wars (I don’t remember any stormtrooper dialogue in Empire), none were done. Fix the stormtroopers, and I might agree. Again, Boba and Stormtroopers are easy to ADR.

Well there you have it. I would like to add one side comment. With the integration of McDiarmid as Palpatine, and Morrison as the voice of Boba Fett, neither recieved a special edition credit for their work. I wonder if SAG payed any attention to that.

Next weekend, the final installment. Return of the Jedi, otherwise known as “Episode that ends in a Muppet War”.

That is all.

To fiddle or not to fiddle

For typical readers of this tripe blog, it should come as absolutely no surprise I’m just a little more than a Star Wars fan. In fact, some may have gone even so far as to say I’m a bit overboard in my fandom of the Holy Saga (maybe the fact I can quote the alien lines, with proper timing and pronunciation might just be a tip off).

As a purist, yes I do far prefer the original trilogy to the prequels, though I do interject that Revenge of the Sith, my favourite of the prequels, did help make up, in my mind, for the weak miles of celluloid which makes up Episodes I and II. I also do, as George Lucas had intended, look at the saga as one complete story, a la Lord of the Rings, a standing reminder of Star Wars’s homage to serial films, to which Lucas pines to considerably.

As for my collection, the original trilogy I own on VHS, along with Episode I, and own the prequels on DVD. Now being sans VCR, I have been debating getting the originals on DVD. Later in the ongoing debate, I found out that Lucas caved, and will be releasing both original and special editions in two-disc combos (which came out here in Canada on Tuesday). As such, each week I am buying one episode, in order (I’m saving up to go to Banff for Christmas, and am just disciplining myself to save more effectively).

So as such, now with the complete saga in tow, I am going to be commenting on the Special Editions of each of the three films, as I am somewhat split as to the need for Lucas to constantly tinker with the films.

So now to start:

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Let me first just put two things in the air. First off, I hate remakes. That is to say films remade with no artistic update, reshot with current celebrities and/or current special effects to serve as nothing more than a cash grab. See Psycho or King Kong. Secondly, holding the whole six episode saga in mind, I do see a certain need to tweak (note not reshoot) bits of the original films so the six, if watched in numeric order, have a higher visual and audio continuity. As such, this will serve as the basis for my analysis.

For A New Hope and it’s position within the saga, I do have one visual concern with the original theatrical release. The special effects, most notably the battle over the Death Star, seem very crude when watched in context with all six films. A definite fx update to keep the visual flow, in my opinion, is justified in the episode.

Now for the blow by blow:

What I like in the Special Edition:

Animated Dewbacks. So many locations seemed so static, and adding CGI animated dewbacks gives more continuity to the previous episodes, ripe with life in the background.

Extended entry to Mos Eisley. The shots from the original release gave a claustrophobic feel to an open air environment. Pulling back and showing panoramic shots of the spaceport reveals more of the universe. As well, the vaseline smudge used in the original to hide the wheels in Luke’s landspeeder really didn’t work for me in the seventies, let alone now.

Jabba the Hutt. Yes, ne Jabba no badda. A scene, back in ‘76, that Lucas couldn’t add as funds ran out and he couldn’t integrate the furry creature to be Jabba into the shot, superimposed over an actor. I agree with the narrative importance of the scene, to fully establish Han’s relationship with the gangster. However, on Lucas’ first crack with the special editions, the CGI Jabba was absolutely butchered.

However, given more tinkering (and bear in mind I didn’t purchase the first DVD release of the original trilogy), Jabba has now evolved to this:

Granted it’s far from perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the first stab seen in 1997. Had this update not been done, Jabba would have DEFINITELY been on my dislike list.

Touch ups on sabre glows. Especially in the Obi-Wan/Vader due. There’s some shots (look for them) in the original that the glow goes away because the relective material in the prop sabre doesn’t send any light to the camera. Can you tell I’m in film lighting?

The Biggs/Luke reunion just before the attack on the Death Star. And hooray, no CGI needed for this scene addition. I am one who likes loads of subtext and background development, and this scene delivers.

CGI enhancements on X-Wing Takeoffs. Just as the X and Y-Wings took off to engage the Death Star, it was nice to add CGI fighters lifting off in front of the sentry. For an open environment, it beat just seeing the exhaust lights in the far distance.

And last but not least, the whole Death Star battle. With dynamic space battles boasted in all other five films, the rigid feel of all ships being in line with each other and having perfect right angles in every shot is a horrible visual discontinuity looking at the entire saga as a whole.

What I disliked in the Special Edition:

Greedo shooting first. Why? It makes more sense that Han gets the jump on Greedo. Though it is funny that Kevin Smith took the piss out of this in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Ben “the Hack” Affleck couldn’t even deliver the line properly.

Luke’s lightsabre is green on the Millenium Falcon. Watch it. It’s green. Yet Anakin’s sabre in Episode III is blue.

The ring of fire accompanying Alderaan and the Death Star exploding. It’s a cool look, but not needed. The explosions filmed are still impressive. And if it’s not needed, don’t tamper with it. Kind of like if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

Adding background stormtrooper dialogue (such as “There’s no one here” while searching the captive Falcon). See the not broken reason above. Not necessary. It’s shown just as well visually.

Digitally adding a garrison of troops behind the handful that approach Chewbacca and Han. Again the not broken clause. The Death Star IS claustrophobic, so you don’t need 200 soldiers to scare Han and Chewie running.

Well now, I do think I’ve made myself the ultimate Star Wars geek, ousting Comic Book Guy once and for all. Next week, Empire.

That is all.