The Song Fight Bulletin Board

i'm not so against the changing, except for the asinine greedo shooting first and missing, and the jabba thing. the rest was actually pretty cool, i think. unless i'm forgetting something else that was stupid.
but yeah, that's why i haven't bought the dvds. i'm boycotting.
-bill

HeuristicsInc wrote: unless I'm forgetting something else that was stupid.

A couple of plastic-monsters do a pointless song and dance routine in Ep 6. Apparently Lucas's big goal was to digitally enhance Return of the Jedi into a musical.

Of course, it was already halfway there. "Yub nub!"

Puce wrote:"Yub nub!"

of course, swapping out that song was the biggest flaw with the new version of the trilogy. even worse than the greedo scene, as far as i'm concerned.

<center>THEY GOT RID OF THAT SONG!? RARRGH!!

</center>

I hear that in this latest version, Han and Greedo shoot at the same time.

Best thing to do is find DVD rips of the laserdiscs on Bittorrent, or some other file-sharing thing. I got some, and the quality is better than VHS but not as good as DVD.

I'd like to see a version with no changes to the content. So, fixing the color and masking artifacts would be fine, but nothing more than that.

I have never seen any of the enhanced versions of 4,5, and 6. I have the original trilogy on vhs without all the make-up.

By what ya'll are telling me, I don't even want to alter my perception of those originals by even seeing the 'dehanced' versions.

This is why I won't listen to Dark Side Of The Moon while watching The Wizzard Of Oz. I don't want to change my perception of DSOFTM. It's already happened to another PF album for me...by accident.

Sometimes people just need to leave well enough alone.

(guess I'm truly getting old)

Hoblit wrote:It's already happened to another PF album for me...by accident.

what's this?
-bill

HeuristicsInc wrote:

Hoblit wrote:It's already happened to another PF album for me...by accident.

what's this?
-bill

Animals, I used to love that album and it took me back to a time when I would listen to it in the dark with some incense. (and some herbal enhancment and I'm not talking about tea) I don't even get high now but it still reminds me of this safe place that I had put aside for myself while growing up / older.

I recently met someone...a new friend who played this album quite a bit in the short time we had known each other. I realize now that i didn't particularily like this person a whole lot in the end...left me feeling confused and a bit bitter. Now I have that association with the album, and I can't seem to get past it. I put it in now and it does nothing but remind me of all the problems this friend brought with her...all her puking on my floor and staining my couch with various spills and her general craziness and her paranoia and delusional drunken speeches.

booooo, just booooooo

Those kindsa women: at least they're not boring...

HeuristicsInc wrote:i'm not so against the changing, except for the asinine greedo shooting first and missing, and the jabba thing. the rest was actually pretty cool, i think. unless i'm forgetting something else that was stupid.
but yeah, that's why i haven't bought the dvds. i'm boycotting.
-bill

I don't remember anything else that they changed in ep. 4. I remember the embarrassing Jabba scene and the shooting thing, (which was minor to me), and a few more monsters in Mos Eisley. What else is changed?

I also remember how appalled I was that they DIDN'T fix a lot of the sfx in the final battle scene. You can still see little boxes around the ships as they fly.

Hoblit wrote: Animals, I used to love that album[...]I put it in now and it does nothing but remind me of all the problems this friend brought with her...all her puking on my floor and staining my couch with various spills and her general craziness and her paranoia and delusional drunken speeches.

Hoblit, you truly have a poet's soul. The irony of that story is delicious.

Songs about human depravity = awesome.
Actual human depravity = depressing.
The inability to keep them seperate = the artist's angst.

Hoblit wrote:

Puce wrote:

HeuristicsInc wrote:of course, starship troopers was more like 90210 in space than an actual science fiction movie, and was very unlike the book

I found myself laughing at [with] all the little propaganda snippets, how the military demonizes an enemy defending itself, and the brainless Aryan heroes. I walked out of the theatre smiling.

I watched the movie again a few months ago and realized, to my horror, that all the sarcastic touches I had loved may not have been intentional after all. I knew the book was full of social commentary on superpowers and how they wield their manifest destiny, but then I realized that this movie was from the director of Showgirls, RoboCop, and Hollow Man. Hmm...

Oh, and while I'm off topic, Belle > Ariel >> Jasmine.

Yeah, that movie is obviously HOKEY...it's supposed to be..thats what makes it GOOD. I know nothing of the book ..but it wouldn't suprise me if they took it a long way away from the book to make it what it is.

Robocop is full of the same Hokeyness.... I'd buy that for a dollar!

Belle is the best by far

I could swear I've talked about this before here, but I'll do it again anyway.

I had never heard of Robert Heinlein before I saw Starship Troopers, and I thought the same way that Puce did. I thought Paul Verhoven was cleverly mocking Heinlein's glorifying of the military and the kind of society that would produce.

But then I read the book and lots of Heinlein's other books and I realized that Verhoven:

a) had completely missed the point of the book
b) radically changed the story
c) loves to show gore

In the book there were never any scenes of hundreds of soldiers running around like idiots and getting killed. A dozen troopers would drop individually from space, do massive, surgical damage, then regroup and take off.

The whole idea of service guaranteeing citizenship was to make voters aware firsthand of the larger universe and more personally responsible for how they voted, as well as working for the good of the society as a whole. It's not an idea I'd like to see put in to practice here (I wouldn't trust a real government not to abuse it) but it's not a reincarnation of the third reich.

The movie isn't so bad by itself, but as a book adaption it's a travesty. It makes Heinlein look like an idiot, when his writing is much more intelligent. Go read "Stranger In A Strange Land".

But back on topic:

I don't expect too much out of ep. 3. Lucas doesn't listen to his audience, he seems to think he's some master storyteller. I think it will be a bland but vaguely satisfying movie with lots of stuff getting blowed up.

I assume that Ep. 3 is going to be Lucas' last SW movie. But will it be his last movie of any kind? What could he possibly get involved in after SW is over? I assume he's involved in the Indy 4 project somehow.

Lucas has so crashed and burned in the movie culture's general opinion of him from the tippy heights of can-do-no-wrong in the 70's and early 80's to dumbfounding ineptitude in recent years. (This thread alone bears that opinion out.) I find that progression fascinating in any artist. How can somethin' so right become somethin' so wrong?

George Lucas
Woody Allen
Tom Wolfe
Paul McCartney
...and many more

Jim of Seattle wrote:I find that progression fascinating in any artist. How can somethin' so right become somethin' so wrong?

George Lucas
Woody Allen
Tom Wolfe
Paul McCartney
...and many more

I don't understand why Paul McCartney is on that list...he still writes brilliant songs... they just aren't very popular nor are they advertised at all.

I love(d) Woody Allen...but it's sort of a lost cause to keep on liking him. I've already liked all the liking I'm ever going to get out of him. I mean, he's good and I'll probably see movies he makes and movies he's in...but I'm not going to rush out and see all of them now. He's relied to much on his personal charm to be all that creative these days. I like his personal charm though.

in the end, I understand the existance of your list though. It happens that way sometimes. I have a feeling Oliver Stone is slipping gears these days too...David Lynch needs some engine work... on and on.

hoblit, too bad about animals. is that the same crazy girl friend you told us about a couple weeks ago?
malachi constant says what i mean to say. this plan seems to work - i say something brief and not-well-written, and somebody will come in and agree with me in much more well-thought-out terms. thanks!
-bill

HeuristicsInc wrote:hoblit, too bad about animals. is that the same crazy girl friend you told us about a couple weeks ago?
-bill

I'm not sure of your reference... (I have a crappy memory)

but the girl I speak of in relation to my new Animals association is a girl I did not date...just friends....wait...yeah I think I did mention her recently here. The one with the helicoptors flying over my house crazy girl... yeah. She did bring a degree of excitement to my life for a brief time...she was all about the drama. I met her on the street after work one day. She was crying and drinking a can of beer on the corner of a downtown street. For the corner she chose, it was a pretty unusual site. I Stopped and talked to her and in a matter of an hour we were in a parking garage as she took off her shirt to change the tire on my car. I gave her my cell phone number and told her to give me a call. She did...and we hung out the next night as it turned out she litterally lived less than 3 blocks from me. That night her friend who was staying with her was very sick. 911 calling, ambulance arriving, and emergancy room going sick. We ended up having to babysit her special needs child on the fly. The first time we listened to Animals together was after that night of chaos right after getting the special needs child to sleep..it was quite nice... unfortunately, that wasn't the last night we listened to that album.

Hoblit wrote:

Jim of Seattle wrote:I find that progression fascinating in any artist. How can somethin' so right become somethin' so wrong?

George Lucas
Woody Allen
Tom Wolfe
Paul McCartney
...and many more

I don't understand why Paul McCartney is on that list...he still writes brilliant songs... they just aren't very popular nor are they advertised at all.

I love(d) Woody Allen...but it's sort of a lost cause to keep on liking him. I've already liked all the liking I'm ever going to get out of him. I mean, he's good and I'll probably see movies he makes and movies he's in...but I'm not going to rush out and see all of them now. He's relied to much on his personal charm to be all that creative these days. I like his personal charm though.

in the end, I understand the existance of your list though. It happens that way sometimes. I have a feeling Oliver Stone is slipping gears these days too...David Lynch needs some engine work... on and on.

\

OK, yeah, McCartney was added last, partly to make my list longer. But his last regular album, Driving Rain, was really, really awful. You're right, though, he's not in the same class as the others.

David Lynch, though? What evidence do you have that he belongs in that category? He seems to be running on all cylinders, what with Mulholland Drive and Straight Story and such. He's doing a lot of work for his subscription-based web site, and from what I've seen it's great. Oliver stone, though, yeah.

I liken the effect to someone who's sole artistic purpose is to present us with a certain way of looking at the world. People grok on that perspective, and the artist explores it for a while, but then eventually we all get to the point where we've absorbed it, and it's no longer new, like a joke we've all heard already, but since that artist's reason for making art and getting popular for it was to present that perspective, he keeps on with it, long after we don't want or need to hear it anymore. That and the fact that their creativity gets stale.

My wife and I have a special place for Woody Allen. We've seen every movie of his together as soon as it came out. The first movie we ever saw together was "September", and we have lots of great memories of Woody Allen moviegoing experiences. But anymore it's become something of an obligatory tradition, even though we've liked only about 2 of his last 7 or 8 movies. They just get lamer and weaker and more out of touch to the point of our being embarrassed for him now.

Oh, for anyone who knows musicals, Stephen Sondheim has reached this stage as well. So sad....

Hoblit wrote:crazy story

Yeah, that's the spice of life right there. Except it's like someone loosened the top and now you've got a big pile of life all over your fucking plate.

I'm listening to Wish You Were Here right now and loving it. And thinking of girls I wish were here. Wishing they were here, but still loving the wishing too. And sipping bourbon. (of course)

Jim of Seattle wrote:Woody Allen stuff

I just pretend that he made some comedy, did Annie Hall and Manhattan, and then died and he was a genius. Life is much better that way.

yeah, I'll give back David Lynch...

Not even sure why I picked him in the first place now that I think about it... I think I'm thinking of some other boring director entirely.

Hoblit wrote: I'm not sure of your reference... (I have a crappy memory)

but the girl I speak of in relation to my new Animals association is a girl I did not date...just friends....wait...yeah I think I did mention her recently here. The one with the helicoptors flying over my house crazy girl... yeah.

yup, that's the one i meant.
aha!
mostess's comment was insightful. cool!
-bill

Woody Allen did some great movies after Manhattan, come on! We just re-watched Crimes and Misdemeanors the other night, and it really holds up as one of his 2-3 best, and that was '89, and Bullets Over Broadway, in '94, was also terrific.

Oh, what about Zelig!

Jim of Seattle wrote:I don't remember anything else that they changed in ep. 4. I remember the embarrassing Jabba scene and the shooting thing, (which was minor to me), and a few more monsters in Mos Eisley. What else is changed?

when you say "in mos eisley" do you mean in the cantina, or in the spaceport/town itself? because i was going to mention stuff added into the background in various places, like stormtroopers riding on dinosaurs, but i think that was outside the cantina, and so technically in mos eisley, so probably that's what you're talking about. i can't really remember anything else either.