Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by BillieCassin

I think that's what is so bizarre to me about it's inclusion. I am not completely opposed to it - at least it's a vintage scene, just uncompleted - but it simply doesn't jive with Jabba just a few years later. It's not like there are 20 years between ANH and ROTJ. So while I understand that Lucas never liked the fact that Jabba was relatively stationary in ROTJ - seeing him slither around like he is a completely different character is just strange. It just does not fit.

He didn't slither in 1983 due to limitations of the puppet and technology. I'm sure if he was CG he would have moved, even a little bit.

[MechaGodzilla]

My problem with the ANH Jabba isn't that he moves around, or that the scene is included, but simply that he doesn't look enough like ROTJ Jabba. The '04 update is a big improvement over the '97 one, but he could still look better. Make him look exactly like his ROTJ self design-wise and I'll be 100% happy with the scene.

[master gandhi]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

My problem with the ANH Jabba isn't that he moves around, or that the scene is included, but simply that he doesn't look enough like ROTJ Jabba. The '04 update is a big improvement over the '97 one, but he could still look better. Make him look exactly like his ROTJ self design-wise and I'll be 100% happy with the scene.

My problem with the ANH Jabba scene isn't about his look at all. I just find the scene unnecessary and counter-productive. So Han owes Jabba money, and he's hired bounty hunters to bring Han to him. Then why is he so lenient with Han when they're face to face? It feels wrong being in there. I'd prefer the conversation between Biggs and Luke on Tatooine over that scene. I like that deleted scene.

[Lyle_JP]

Originally Posted by master gandhi

My problem with the ANH Jabba scene isn't about his look at all. I just find the scene unnecessary and counter-productive. So Han owes Jabba money, and he's hired bounty hunters to bring Han to him. Then why is he so lenient with Han when they're face to face? It feels wrong being in there. I'd prefer the conversation between Biggs and Luke on Tatooine over that scene. I like that deleted scene.

Thank you. I've always disliked how inappropriately amicable that scene is, just minutes after Jabba tries to have Han killed. It's also too soft of a Jabba in contrast to who (what?) we meet in Jedi.

[Gold Ranger]

Originally Posted by master gandhi

My problem with the ANH Jabba scene isn't about his look at all. I just find the scene unnecessary and counter-productive. So Han owes Jabba money, and he's hired bounty hunters to bring Han to him. Then why is he so lenient with Han when they're face to face? It feels wrong being in there. I'd prefer the conversation between Biggs and Luke on Tatooine over that scene. I like that deleted scene.

I always felt that Greedo took it upon himself to try to take Han on to gain favour with Jabba.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by master gandhi

My problem with the ANH Jabba scene isn't about his look at all. I just find the scene unnecessary and counter-productive. So Han owes Jabba money, and he's hired bounty hunters to bring Han to him. Then why is he so lenient with Han when they're face to face? It feels wrong being in there. I'd prefer the conversation between Biggs and Luke on Tatooine over that scene. I like that deleted scene.

Indeed.

It's a one-two punch with that and the poorly done CGI. Also since RotJ was our actual introduction to Jabba, and he is a mostly stationary picture of gluttony and sloth, it clashes with his character to have him walking around Tatooine.

Like Spielberg and the shark sometimes limitations can make your movie more interesting. I'm sure if Lucas had CGI when RotJ was being made Jabba would have been a lot different, but that doesn't mean he would have been better.

[Blu-21]

I don't mind that Jabba has mobility in TPM and in the special edition versions of ANH. Think about it, in a way it makes sense because by the time ROTJ comes along he is older and fatter then before to the point that he can't move.

So even though in the real world its really about what CGI could do and what puppets couldn't do, it actually works in a story context for Jabba.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Lyle_JP

Thank you. I've always disliked how inappropriately amicable that scene is, just minutes after Jabba tries to have Han killed. It's also too soft of a Jabba in contrast to who (what?) we meet in Jedi.

The dialogue in the Greedo scene could track either way; I've always read it as Greedo's merely capturing Han and he'll delight in watching him suffer at the slimy hands of Jabba ("You can tell that to Jabba. He may only take your ship"). Yeah, there's the "Over my dead body" "That's the idea" exchange which ends the scene, but Greedo certainly switched pretty quickly from taking Han to Jabba, to killing Han by himself, and let's bear in mind that he doesn't actually shoot at Solo in the original version!

And when Han meets Jabba, I love the way that there's something almost paternal in the way that Jabba treats him. The tail step will always be a problem - though it's great what they did in the 2004 version as Jabba looks like he's about to punch him before Han starts sweet talking - but Han gives as good as he gets ("Don't send one of these twerps", "Fifteen Jabba, don't push it"). The whole reason why Jabba's such a bastard to Han in Jedi is because he gave Solo another chance and was let down again on a big debt.

Of course, the SE version confirms that Greedo wants Solo's head when he DOES actually try to kill him, and this then totally undermines the interaction between Han and Jabba in the following scene. So not only does Greedo shooting first fudge with Han's redemptive arc, it also makes the tone of the Han/Jabba meet downright bizarre. Greedo shooting first was such a poorly thought-out addition on so many levels.

[Kryptonic]

Greedo is a bounty hunter and going by the dialogue in the scene, Greedo sounds consistent in that he's going to kill Han and take his body to Jabba and collect the bounty. Imagine this as the old west and a bounty was awarded "dead or alive". Also, I kind of see it as Han prodding Greedo verbally so that he gets angry and distracted, giving Han enough time to silently get a hold of his blaster, but Greedo jumps the gun. I seriously don't see it as changing Han's character at all. He was going to kill him anyway, but Greedo just got pissed and got the first shot off a split second before Han.

It's so amazing how fans make something of nothing.

Also, I was watching some of Jedi yesterday and it's still amazing how good the space battle looks over thirty years later. ILM was really on their game here and it's amazing how far they had come in only 6 years.

Star Wars:Return of the Jedi VI - Battle of Endor (Space Only) 1080p - YouTube

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by crazyBLUE

You have no clue

Drop by to see what was happening...same old same old

I no longer post in this thread like I used to do and frankly hardly post at all except in a single thread. There is not much point into it, most thread are just like this one, sounding like a broken record stuck into a loop

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

Drop by to see what was happening...same old same old

I no longer post in this thread like I used to do and frankly hardly post at all except in a single thread. There is not much point into it, most thread are just like this one, sounding like a broken record stuck into a loop

Yeah, but sometimes it's fun listening to the old classics

[Elvis]

Originally Posted by Kryptonic

Greedo is a bounty hunter and going by the dialogue in the scene, Greedo sounds consistent in that he's going to kill Han and take his body to Jabba and collect the bounty. Imagine this as the old west and a bounty was awarded "dead or alive". Also, I kind of see it as Han prodding Greedo verbally so that he gets angry and distracted, giving Han enough time to silently get a hold of his blaster, but Greedo jumps the gun. I seriously don't see it as changing Han's character at all. He was going to kill him anyway, but Greedo just got pissed and got the first shot off a split second before Han.

It's so amazing how fans make something of nothing.

Also, I was watching some of Jedi yesterday and it's still amazing how good the space battle looks over thirty years later. ILM was really on their game here and it's amazing how far they had come in only 6 years.

Star Wars:Return of the Jedi VI - Battle of Endor (Space Only) 1080p - YouTube

Is this another way of saying you are fine with Greeedo shooting first and missing or both of them shooting at the same time?

Drop by to see what was happening...same old same old

I no longer post in this thread like I used to do and frankly hardly post at all except in a single thread. There is not much point into it, most thread are just like this one, sounding like a broken record stuck into a loop

Yep same posts defending Lucas just keeps on going even though they got the product they wanted and are happy with it which is cool. I Wish the rest of us could say the same currently. I am confident however that Disney will right this wrong before the next film comes out. I really think they do not want any backlash surrounding the new release. This also let's Lucas off the hook as he can always say "it was not my decision" and his sin will be wiped away." Everyone will be winners at last so I am very hopeful!

[Himmel]

So which is it did GREEDO shoot first or was it Han?
I never was actually clear on that.

[stvn1974]

Han didn't need to shoot Greedo at all in the Special Edition. He was clearly an inept bounty hunter who couldn't shoot someone 2 feet in front of him. Greedo shoots wide and Han gets the drop on him and then should haven taken him to the authorities. If anything Lucas made Han out to be an even more cold blooded killer by shooting a moron when he didn't have to.

[blonde_devil]

Originally Posted by Elvis

No Jabba at all in Star Wars. He couldn't do it in 76 when he was filming so let it lie.

Even if he could, was the scene needed? The one thing a lot of people really liked about Jabba is how you heard about him for 2 movies before you saw him and no one was disappointed when they did. There is no need to see him in the original film. In fact it makes things a little less exciting as without him, Han is on the run trying to get the money to pay off Jabba where as with him in the film, that urgency is a little less important. His return at the end is now not as big since we assumed he was turning around to do the right thing despite the dangers it meant for him but now, it doesn't feel as big since Jabba never gave him a timeline so his turning around doesn't impact that.

That is the biggest thing that Lucas and his changes ruined - it softened a lot of the characters. Han is now not so much as badass as lucky a lot of the time, Vader loses his evilness with that stupid "noooooo" line, etc. They take those strong character types and starts to lose some of the definition.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by blonde_devil

That is the biggest thing that Lucas and his changes ruined - it softened a lot of the characters. Han is now not so much as badass as lucky a lot of the time, Vader loses his evilness with that stupid "noooooo" line, etc. They take those strong character types and starts to lose some of the definition.

Yeah, it's like they start off larger than life (which is great, these movies are space operas after all) but Lucas feels they're too broad and he's spent years trying to soften the edges.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by BillieCassin

Disney is going after the entire market, not focusing on kids/collectors like the PT did.

That could be a huge mistake. When you go after everyone, you please no one. IMO, the mistake that Lucas made in the PT is that he tried to go after everyone, so he had an extremely convoluted and largely incomprehensible plot about the trade federation, complex politics, a proxy Queen, Clones who seemed to be made for some evil purpose but then worked for the Jedi (but who were "bad guys" in the OT, which everyone already saw) combined with a story about a seven-year-old boy and Jar Jar Binks. Kids couldn't understand the plotting and adults couldn't stand the child Ani and Jar Jar.

That's what happens when you try to make a movie for everyone. If Disney is going to create new Star Wars characters so they can sell dolls at Toys-R-Us, we're going to have a similar sorry result.

Originally Posted by Kryptonic

A couple of really well edited videos on the Saga. Gotta say, I kind of got choked up at a couple of parts.

Very well done (except for the audio, which sounded muffled to me). I don't think most people realize how hard it actually is to edit a movie down to three minutes and still have it mean something. He almost was able to make the PT look good, although some of the really bad line readings still made it in. And he did cheat a little on the OT by including some of the PT.

I happened to re-watch all the films last week (still have Episode III to go) and I've decided that the entire thing, even the OT, actually makes very little sense whatsoever unless you take the view that Lucas' vision, whether intended or not, was to show that in spite of some individual heroics, every "organization" in this galaxy, was either corrupt or incompetent and the Jedi were among the worst. The films make a lot more sense if you interpret the lessons of the story as corporations (Trade Federation) are evil, politicians (The Senate) are corrupt, weak and incompetent and Religions (both Jedi and Sith) are any combination of evil, incompetent, unnecessarily paranoid or hypocritical. That's the only way the movies even begin to make any sense.

[Geoff D]

Yeah. Lucas wasn't exactly a student radical but he's part of that era when the politics of war really started to be questioned by people, so they started regarding every institution as being these greedy, engorged entities that were always looking to put down the little man. His experience with the movie studios did nothing to dispel that notion for him (Warners cut THX, Universal cut Graffiti), and he felt the same about the movie industry as a whole when he and Coppola struggled to turn people around to digital technology. So when he got enough money to become independent from the system he did just that, and in a glorious twist of irony created exactly the sort of mammoth corporation that he's hated for so long.

[Kryptonic]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

So when he got enough money to become independent from the system he did just that, and in a glorious twist of irony created exactly the sort of mammoth corporation that he's hated for so long.

That's true, but he's admitted that even though he was the head of a billion dollar corporation, it allows him to have the artistic freedom he always wanted and in essence he remained independent of the Hollywood system for over thirty years. He's an independent filmmaker....with money.

[blonde_devil]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yeah. Lucas wasn't exactly a student radical but he's part of that era when the politics of war really started to be questioned by people, so they started regarding every institution as being these greedy, engorged entities that were always looking to put down the little man. His experience with the movie studios did nothing to dispel that notion for him (Warners cut THX, Universal cut Graffiti), and he felt the same about the movie industry as a whole when he and Coppola struggled to turn people around to digital technology. So when he got enough money to become independent from the system he did just that, and in a glorious twist of irony created exactly the sort of mammoth corporation that he's hated for so long.

What's really funny is studios weren't always like that. In the early days, a lot of studios were willing to take risks and do unusual films. But as they grew and more and more people got involved, it became about profit and the easiest way to make profit is to take no risks. Untimately they lost focus on why they made films to begin with which is very similar to what happened to Lucas. Had he just created Lucasfilm, things might have been different but all those spinoff companies gave him the independance to do whatever he wanted and not have to listen to others. Just like the studios before him, he lost focus. And he really isn't any different than the studios - as producer, he can recut any film he likes. If it was bad when the studios did it to you, why is it okay when you do it to someone else? Priorities change when you becomes as successful as him.