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Grendels Dad posted:Why, she really looks like the wife of Darth Vader here! And she started being attracted to him after he goes on a murderous rampage.
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Sep 19, 2011 19:36
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Baron Bifford posted:I'd like to hear what a professional swordsman thinks of the duels in Star Wars, especially comparing the OT and PT fights. I took fencing lessons as a kid, and dabbled in kendo in college. That's probably about as close as this thread's going to get to a "professional swordsman," so I'll take a stab at this one. (Get it? A stab! Because swords! Get it?) Real-life swordfighting isn't much to look at. I once read that in medieval times, sword-to-sword combat usually lasted all of three or four seconds before it was over. A fencing match is about as long and involved as swordplay gets, and even that gets pretty dull. Victories are almost always tactical, not strategic -- a fraction of a second where one guy slips past the other guy's guard, and boom, it's over. The swordplay in both trilogies is pure stage fighting. The OT is a lot closer to reality than the PT because they aren't flipping and bouncing all over the room, but it's still designed to look good on screen, not be an effective combat technique. The duels in ANH and ESB are probably the most realistic -- ANH because it's quite straightforward, and ESB because Luke doesn't actually know what the hell he's doing and Vader is just loving with him. The RoTJ fight is more choreographed and less realistic, but it fits the emotional tone really well. Now, the fight choreography in TPM is simply superb. Ray Park earned his paycheck there. But Darth Maul's lightstaff is a hilariously impractical weapon. I never did much staff fighting but I'm under the impression that you often need to brace the near end against your arm or body, shift your grip, or block a blow with the center of the staff between your hands. All impossible with a lightstaff. Your moves are pretty much limited to big slow diagonal swipes -- which if you watch carefully, is really all Maul does. But Park's good enough that he makes it look outstanding. It's a pity the surrounding movie never really makes us care. By Eps. 2 and 3 we're firmly into the flippy poo poo. Which looks kinda nifty, I guess. 
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Sep 19, 2011 19:58
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God I love these guys.
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Sep 19, 2011 20:02
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Powered Descent posted:By Eps. 2 and 3 we're firmly into the flippy poo poo. Which looks kinda nifty, I guess. It doesn't look nifty at all. It just looks stupid. At least with the Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon/Maul fight you got the impression people were actually trying to kill each other. By the time we get to the "climactic" lightsaber battle at the end of Revenge of the Sith, the fight legions of nerds have been waiting decades for, it's all just so overblown and hammy that it's impossible to take seriously on any level.
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Sep 19, 2011 20:02
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When I saw Sith in the cinema, I honestly zoned out during the big lightsaber duel because it went on for so long, and was so repetitive, and nothing Anakin or Obi-Wan did had any effect on the other, and they were just running from CGI backdrop to CGI backdrop and swinging their identically-coloured swords round and round and round and... I only snapped out of it when Anakin got his limbs sliced off, with a jolt of "Wha- hey, something of consequence happened!" What I found funny when I saw it again on DVD was that my mind had completely blotted out the entire sequence with the lava river, because I was so loving bored by that point. Lucas might as well have just had orange and blue strobe lights flashing on the screen for two or three minutes.
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Sep 19, 2011 20:51
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The same goes for the space battle at the very start too, some sections were so long and boring of it I actually nodded off watching it on DVD a few years back.
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Sep 19, 2011 21:01
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What we could have used was a cutaway from the duel, where R2D2 is forced to use one of his utensils to perform a C-section on unconcious Padme who is near death with her throat surrounded in a bruise.
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Sep 19, 2011 21:04
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Powered Descent posted:I took fencing lessons as a kid, and dabbled in kendo in college. That's probably about as close as this thread's going to get to a "professional swordsman," so I'll take a stab at this one. (Get it? A stab! Because swords! Get it?) I took a couple years of fencing in university, and I've been involved in reenactment combat beyond that. I've also spoken to some professional fight choreographers in the past. I think should be noted is that almost all on-screen swordplay is pretty bad from a perspective of realism and actually, you know, killing the other dude as best as possible. This is because, like Powered Descent said, actual swordights are generally very fast and boring if you aren't involved. Most of the time it's just a couple passes and someone is dead - often it's so quick that you can miss what happened completely. This isn't a lot fun at all. You want to be able to have fights be somethig for an audience to watch, and they are also great for punctuating with dialogue and stuff! So in many ways, realism is a poor benchmark to begin with. What you really want from a swordfight is: Something that looks good; something that serves as a vehicle for the story; and something that fits the overall tone of the film. A good example of this is Princess Bride. The stage fighting used in this duel is really very simple, and if you pay attention very few of these exchanges are actually meaningful in any way - this is really obvious in the first two crosses, where each character ends with a unparried swipe that misses their opponent. They aren't even close enough to hit each other, why are they swinging and parrying at all! But this fight is pretty much perfect for the film, because Princess Bride is not a serious, gritty film that prizes realism. It's fun, humorous, and flamboyant. So no one cares. Similarly, Inigo's Duel is pretty weak as a sword fight; but the entire point of this scene is emotional. We don't need four minutes of dazzling swordplay for this to be a very satisfying and iconic exchange. The PT duels aren't really terrible because they are unrealistic or anything, they're bad pretty much because they're usually thre times as long as they should really be, involve too many changes of scenary, and lack any emotional weight. Compare the duel in RotJ to the one in RotS. They are both about ten minutes, I think, from initial throw-down to conclusion. But in RotJ a lot of this is actually conversation, mood-building, emotional exchanges. In RotS there are many three lines tossed back and forth and then ten minutes of back-flipping over lava - at a point in the story in which everyone knows what has to happen and no one gives a poo poo about Anakin any more! It's actually pretty hard to critique the PT fights from any perspective as an 'actual' swordsman, because they are so crazily far from reality. I mean you can look at Pricess Bride and talk about the footwork, and the blade handling, blah blah, you know technical fight details. But in the PT you have dudes with laser swords who can throw stuff with their brains leaping around like grasshoppers. It has so little in common any more that it's hard to actually apply any reality-based knowledge. I don't know why everyone uses a lightsaber as a, well, saber and so rarely as a foil, though. I also don't know why they keep it on all the time. You could do a wicked disengage by flickering the blade (has anyone ever done this sort of stuff in the EU?) Also, classic on-screen fencing
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Sep 19, 2011 21:56
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One problem I had with the ROTS duel was the same colored blades. In the other movies every other fight is interesting to watch because of the different colors. Especially in the distant shots, you couldn't easily tell who was who. "Realistically", Vader should have had a red blade. I'm not sure if that would have worked with all of the orange and red of the environment in the fight. But assumming it worked, use that and come up with a contrivance to explain why it's blue when Obi-Wan gives it to Luke. Like maybe he damaged it while cutting off Vader's limbs. Or give Obi-Wan a green blade and come up with a similar contrivance. As he slices Vader's limbs, Vader's saber falls and damages Obi-Wan's light saber. To close this  , Maul kicks Obi-Wan's lightsaber into the pit in TPM. That's the perfect opportunity for Kenobi to start AOTC with his ANH saber, having to build a new one after all. Instead, they re-use the same TPM prop. Then, for no on-screen reason, he starts ROTS with the ANH saber.Lightsabers: Serious business.
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Sep 19, 2011 21:58
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In the special-special edition, Obi Wan will have a 'color selector' on his lightsaber, allowing him to cycle through various shades of blue and green depending on the ambiance of the environment and the blade color of his opponent. Today, we're feeling teal.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:06
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Baron Bifford posted:I there some ego thing involved in this? Is George miffed that he didn't get to call all the shots in the OT, so he's tweaking them and vowing to erase the originals to give his old colleagues the finger? ESB is Lucas' least favorite Star Wars film. The reasons being a combination of this and the fact that it had the smallest profit margin. We really can't be thankful enough for the fact that he had editors and people telling him, "No, that sounds like something written by a stupid manbaby." I think somewhere in this thread someone wrote that the final battle between Luke and Vader was going to be in a volcano room under the Emperor's fortress, and the "If you strike me down I shall become more powerful..." line was going to come back as Obi Wan and Yoda's Force Ghosts shielding Luke as the Emperor stood on a platform and shot lightning at Luke as Vader tried to cut him in half.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:07
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Razorwired posted:ESB is Lucas' least favorite Star Wars film. The reasons being a combination of this and the fact that it had the smallest profit margin. That was me. If anyone didn't see it, I can go back and dig up the post. It was batshit insane. edit: Actually, here it is if anyone wants to read it.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:24
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Can anyone tell me if my old VHS copies are an unfucked version? I just don't know if they're originals or if they have the first set of revisions, the pack has a copyright date of 1995.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:35
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It was Gary Kurtz who kept Lucas in control. Kurtz was the guy who stood up and said, "No, George, this is not the greatest thing since sliced bread." Ultimately, though, after ESB ran like $10 million over budget (which Lucas had to pay from his own pocket), and Kurtz continued to actually stand up to him, Lucas fired Kurtz during the early days of pre-production of Jedi. (I think it was Kurtz who had the idea of Lando and the Falcon getting caught in the explosion of the second Death Star, hence the "Like I'll never see her again" line from Han.) Anyway, Kurtz was replaced by Howard Kazanjian, who was already a top lieutenant at Lucasfilm, and we all know how Rick McCallum turned out.  Raptor1033 posted:Can anyone tell me if my old VHS copies are an unfucked version? I just don't know if they're originals or if they have the first set of revisions, the pack has a copyright date of 1995. Those are un-hosed. That's the "THX Remastered" re-release, which was touted as the last time the original movies would ever be released. Sadly, the original trilogy was never released in an un-hosed widescreen version outside of the laserdiscs. Timby fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Sep 19, 2011 |
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Sep 19, 2011 22:35
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Razorwired posted:ESB is Lucas' least favorite Star Wars film. The reasons being a combination of this and the fact that it had the smallest profit margin. This sounds like something right out of a force unleashed game.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:37
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Raptor1033 posted:Can anyone tell me if my old VHS copies are an unfucked version? I just don't know if they're originals or if they have the first set of revisions, the pack has a copyright date of 1995. 1997 was the year of the first special editions, so you have a copy of the unaltered trilogy. Congratulations! edit: Really shouldn't have sat on the reply page for 10 minutes, I guess.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:44
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Darth Freddy posted:This sounds like something right out of a force unleashed game. Or something crapped out by the worst writers of the EU.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:47
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TannhauserGate posted:Rifftrax makes it go down smooth. I'm not a purist though. Despite the fact that I grew up up with the original 1980s VHS trilogy and it's near and dear to my heart, I would prefer to see these movies cleaned up/updated for an HD bluray release. I didn't mind replacing Shaw with Christenson, and the "Wesa Free", Greedo shooting, and Jedi Rocks debacles are annoying, but worth bearing just to get a cleaned up DVD version of the movies. Having said that, I won't buy this edition simply because Vader yelling "noooo". That change is just awful and negates any benefit to having these movies in high definition over DVD quality. Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Sep 19, 2011 |
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Sep 19, 2011 22:51
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Raptor1033 posted:Can anyone tell me if my old VHS copies are an unfucked version? I just don't know if they're originals or if they have the first set of revisions, the pack has a copyright date of 1995. I wish I had gotten the THX version. I bought my trilogy in 1990 so I have the older, non-widescreen, less cleaned up VHS tapes. But they still got the job done though.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:59
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A few years back I had considered selling them to clear out some space. Very glad I was too lazy to get a listing up on Ebay. I remember every Thanksgiving the tv stations around here would play the entire trilogy as a marathon. Kinda miss that a little.
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Sep 19, 2011 23:04
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Timby posted:Those are un-hosed. That's the "THX Remastered" re-release, which was touted as the last time the original movies would ever be released. Sadly, the original trilogy was never released in an un-hosed widescreen version outside of the laserdiscs. There was a VHS widescreen boxset for the THX rerelease, but it was pretty difficult to find and much pricier than the Pan n' Scan set. 
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Sep 19, 2011 23:23
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Timby posted:Sadly, the original trilogy was never released in an un-hosed widescreen version outside of the laserdiscs. No, I did get my hands on some widescreen remastered VHS tapes. Back in the 90s, I saw a TV ad for them that insisted I buy these because soon they would be "gone forever." I had no idea what the gently caress they meant by that at the time. Baron Bifford fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Sep 19, 2011 |
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Sep 19, 2011 23:41
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Lucas should have taken some more inspiration from Kurosawa and based the ROTS duel on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYbi7gKKvOo
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Sep 19, 2011 23:49
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Powered Descent posted:Real-life swordfighting isn't much to look at. I once read that in medieval times, sword-to-sword combat usually lasted all of three or four seconds before it was over. A fencing match is about as long and involved as swordplay gets, and even that gets pretty dull. Victories are almost always tactical, not strategic -- a fraction of a second where one guy slips past the other guy's guard, and boom, it's over.
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Sep 19, 2011 23:58
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Zellus posted:There was a VHS widescreen boxset for the THX rerelease, but it was pretty difficult to find and much pricier than the Pan n' Scan set. How much pricier were they? They're $25-35 on eBay now.
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Sep 19, 2011 23:58
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Baron Bifford posted:I get the feeling that the most realistic duel in the series is when Palpatine massacres Windu's comrades when they try to arrest him. No flashy moves or parries, but swift kills brought on by a combination of speed and surprise. If I'm right, it would be a tragic irony since everybody considers these to be the most stupid fights of the entire series. This would be the scene that started with an old man launching himself across the room like a champagne cork and ended with him shooting lightning?
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Sep 20, 2011 00:01
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Ashcans posted:In the special-special edition, Obi Wan will have a 'color selector' on his lightsaber, allowing him to cycle through various shades of blue and green depending on the ambiance of the environment and the blade color of his opponent. Today, we're feeling teal. Or if he ever gets into a duel on a bright sunny day. Everybody knows that they only made Luke's saber green in RoTJ because it turned out a blue blade looked like crap against the blue sky in the Tattooine scene. But for the entire prequel trilogy, nobody with a blue lightsaber ever needed to use it in bright sunlight, at least not without a backdrop handy to block out the sky. Convenient, that.
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Sep 20, 2011 00:03
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As opposed to the other fights, yes.
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Sep 20, 2011 00:03
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This was posted a little bit up but having the PT duels look like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6prWV23jAw would have been: 1. Awesome. 2. Different from the OT duels enough to make it interesting. Ignore D'Artagnon's (spelling french names is something I suck at) messing around with the one guy at the end. EDIT: I am a moron and forgot the link. VanSandman fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Sep 20, 2011 |
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Sep 20, 2011 00:24
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Not sure if any of you are fans of Adywan's Star Wars revisited remake, but he's working on HD versions of the trilogy before going on to remaking the prequels. I liked what he did with ANH in 2008. He got rid of the annoying extra scenes like Jabba and the goofy cgi robots in Mos Eisly, Greedo never fires a shot and the lightsabers look a lot better as do the matte boxes around the ships (I couldn't see them at all). Overall everything is cleaned up, but he also did some re-editing, and added music to certain parts (like the Obi Wan/Vader duel) and some people didn't like these changes. I didn't mind them, and in some cases thought they were an improvement over the original. Nevertheless, he has a purist version of the film floating around out there to satisfy those who were complaining about some of his changes. This is probably the definitive version of the film for me right now. I'm looking forward to seeing all of them redone in HD. http://swrevisited.wordpress.com/ Gianthogweed fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Sep 20, 2011 |
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Sep 20, 2011 00:38
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Timby posted:Those are un-hosed. That's the "THX Remastered" re-release, which was touted as the last time the original movies would ever be released. Sadly, the original trilogy was never released in an un-hosed widescreen version outside of the laserdiscs. I think the opening crawl for the first one says "Episode IV: A New Hope", which is technically a change from the theatrical release. But I don't think even us radical purists care about that.
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Sep 20, 2011 01:12
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Baron Bifford posted:I get the feeling that the most realistic duel in the series is when Palpatine massacres Windu's comrades when they try to arrest him. No flashy moves or parries, but swift kills brought on by a combination of speed and surprise. If I'm right, it would be a tragic irony since everybody considers these to be the most stupid fights of the entire series. If Palps quickly busted out the saber out of no where and did some quick, lethal swipes to some unarmed Jedis trying to surround and physically apprehend him, I don't think people would have minded so much. Instead he flies across the room, makes a bunch of silly faces, swings/thrusts his saber in some awkward manor, and takes out a bunch of guys making even sillier faces
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Sep 20, 2011 01:21
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Captain von Trapp posted:I think the opening crawl for the first one says "Episode IV: A New Hope", which is technically a change from the theatrical release. But I don't think even us radical purists care about that. Even the 1980s VHS tapes had that change. That change was added in the 1980 re-release of the film. While I'm sure there's a significant number of fans who remember star wars best without that title, most of us growing up with the 1980s versions of the films, namely the ones that were released on VHS before the special edition, remember it with the title. So, for all intents and purposes, the THX tapes are the purists versions of the trilogy.
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Sep 20, 2011 01:26
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hey can you guys clarify some abbreviations cause I don't remember them in the OP: OT and PT? I don't have a clue as to which fights these are supposed to reference. Also, I love the sperg in this thread, in a good way. If you guys ever wanna sperg about starships, let me know. I dunno if it's just the way SAGA handles things, but I was reading through their book on starships (I just joined a campaigned my friend is running, but ships are classified in such a goddamned  fashion.
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Sep 20, 2011 02:20
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SpookyLizard posted:hey can you guys clarify some abbreviations cause I don't remember them in the OP: OT and PT? I don't have a clue as to which fights these are supposed to reference. Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy
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Sep 20, 2011 02:27
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SpookyLizard posted:hey can you guys clarify some abbreviations cause I don't remember them in the OP: OT and PT? I don't have a clue as to which fights these are supposed to reference. OT: Original Trilogy PT: Prequel Trilogy I agree that those might be good to include in the OP.
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Sep 20, 2011 02:27
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WhyteRyce posted:If Palps quickly busted out the saber out of no where and did some quick, lethal swipes to some unarmed Jedis trying to surround and physically apprehend him, I don't think people would have minded so much. Instead he flies across the room, makes a bunch of silly faces, swings/thrusts his saber in some awkward manor, and takes out a bunch of guys making even sillier faces I can think of 700 ways that that scene could have been either better or more believable. At least 700, probably more. Oh George. BTW, the novelization was quite a bit better, including Palpatine making a hidden lightsaber come flying through the air to whack someone. Also, the novelization's depiction of the opening duel between Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Dooku is loving brilliant. It's told largely from Dooku's perspective, his inner monologue giving us a play by play of the fight. He's ridiculously cocky, but as the fight goes on you can see the confidence start to drain away. Then he realizes that he's been double crossed, great stuff. I hate Dooku, I think he was a pointless character, but that scene in the book almost makes him worthwhile. Edit: Do a Youtube search on Kendo matches. They are ridiculously fast and you often can't see the winning blow. Mr. Funny Pants fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Sep 20, 2011 |
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Sep 20, 2011 03:18
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Suenteus Po posted:How much pricier were they? They're $25-35 on eBay now. I found a page claiming $49.99 and a release date of 8/29/95 for the slide out widescreen set. My memory, however, tells me I bought mine a few months earlier than that and at price more like $90.
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Sep 20, 2011 03:19
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Mr. Funny Pants posted:I can think of 700 ways that that scene could have been either better or more believable. At least 700, probably more. Oh George. Agreed. The novelization was far better than the movie. Speaking of which, and I don't mean to start this debate again, but did the novel ever explicitly say if Palpatine threw the fight with Windu?
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Sep 20, 2011 03:23
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So thanks to the kindle marketplace I just binged through all the X wing books. About to go into the heir to the empire but after that no ideas. Any suggestions? Is courtship of Leia any good I loved the character of the warlord so far, but yea we all know how the EU goes.
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Sep 20, 2011 03:44
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