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Ha, that was a great episode of South Park!

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went through all our movies so that we could get rid of all the VHS movies we have replaced with DVDs. I told him we definitely had to hang on to our copies of the old Star Wars trilogy and Weird Science.

lance wrote:South park had a spectacular episode mocking all this special, ultra-special edition nonsense.

That episode was brilliant, and absolutely hit the mark in regards to how true it was.

Plus, for any Trey & Matt fans, the trailer for the upcoming Special Edition DVD of Orgazmo, has Trey talking about recutting the film complete with the omitted Jabba the Hutt scene.

ClarenceWorley wrote:

lance wrote:South park had a spectacular episode mocking all this special, ultra-special edition nonsense.

That episode was brilliant, and absolutely hit the mark in regards to how true it was.

Plus, for any Trey & Matt fans, the trailer for the upcoming Special Edition DVD of Orgazmo, has Trey talking about recutting the film complete with the omitted Jabba the Hutt scene.

That was one of the best trailers I have ever seen.

ClarenceWorley wrote:

lance wrote:South park had a spectacular episode mocking all this special, ultra-special edition nonsense.

That episode was brilliant, and absolutely hit the mark in regards to how true it was.

Plus, for any Trey & Matt fans, the trailer for the upcoming Special Edition DVD of Orgazmo, has Trey talking about recutting the film complete with the omitted Jabba the Hutt scene.

Clarence Worley,

I love your new Avatar! Is this your cat? Very pretty.

The South Park episode was brilliant. I loved how they did a mock advertisment for "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe: Special Edition 2002" in the middle of that episode.

Best,

Lance Man

candygirl wrote:Ha, that was a great episode of South Park!

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went through all our movies so that we could get rid of all the VHS movies we have replaced with DVDs. I told him we definitely had to hang on to our copies of the old Star Wars trilogy and Weird Science.

Weird Science?

Yeah, I remember that movie, pretty cool. Not out on DVD yet?

Lance Man

It was briefly released on DVD for about two minutes. Try doing a search on ebay - people are paying ridiculous prices ($70!) for this movie on DVD. Hopefully they will re-release it soon - the 20th anniversary maybe?

lance wrote:I love your new Avatar! Is this your cat? Very pretty.

Thanks. Yep, that's my cat Coby. Thankfully he doesn't mind me stealing his identity.

lance wrote:The South Park episode was brilliant. I loved how they did a mock advertisment for "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe: Special Edition 2002" in the middle of that episode.

I loved that, particularly just for seeing Matt and Trey on screen.

candygirl wrote:Hopefully they will re-release it soon - the 20th anniversary maybe

Universal were planning on releasing Weird Science, The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles as new Special Edition titles in April. But for some unknown reason, they've postponed them until further notice. All I know is, John Hughes recorded commentaries for all 3 movies in early 2002.

Weird Science is coming, it's just a matter of when.

candygirl wrote:It was briefly released on DVD for about two minutes. Try doing a search on ebay - people are paying ridiculous prices ($70!) for this movie on DVD. Hopefully they will re-release it soon - the 20th anniversary maybe?

My husband and I got it at Wal-Mart for like six bucks. Sweet. But no extras.

Damn, talk about good timing! You lucky girl you - until the next release, I'm stuck with my good old VHS tape.

ClarenceWorley wrote:

lance wrote:I love your new Avatar! Is this your cat? Very pretty.

Thanks. Yep, that's my cat Coby. Thankfully he doesn't mind me stealing his identity.

lance wrote:The South Park episode was brilliant. I loved how they did a mock advertisment for "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe: Special Edition 2002" in the middle of that episode.

I loved that, particularly just for seeing Matt and Trey on screen.

candygirl wrote:Hopefully they will re-release it soon - the 20th anniversary maybe

Universal were planning on releasing Weird Science, The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles as new Special Edition titles in April. But for some unknown reason, they've postponed them until further notice. All I know is, John Hughes recorded commentaries for all 3 movies in early 2002.

Weird Science is coming, it's just a matter of when.

Clarence Worthy,

Thanks for the info on Universal Releases and Coby.

My cats often look at me like "If you only knew what we know."



Lance Man

I could go on and on about this subject.

Suffice to say I will never ever buy the Special Edition of Star Wars. Nor will I buy any DVD or VHS tape of the crap he calls prequels.

I grew up on the original, it was the first movie I ever saw and was the reason I went into film and became an animator.

These films have a special hold on those who are members of the so-called generation X. I am and I can tell you, most everyone I know will not buy the SE.

I hate how much power Lucas weilds over his films, and the outside world. I truly think he has lost it and has totally lost touch with his fans. After the Original films are what started it all. Doesn't he realize that I do not care that Jabba is not in the first movie and I did not even know what a matte line was.

I only want the original trilogy, matte lines, mistakes, Han Solo shooting first, and all.

I think the whole Jaba the Hutt thing is lame, it looks like utter crap and as a child the build up to seeing Jabba was amazing. What I don't think Lucas realizes it that his films were better becausue he could not do exactly what he wanted and was forced to change his mind and listen to other people's suggestions. I have read original scripts for "Luke Starkiller" and they are so much crap. The concept only became good when he was forced to change the story when his oirigianl so-called vision could not be made.

Today he has all the money and all the bad CGI he wants to create. But he does not realize that the new movies have absolutely no soul and feel so cardboard. I was so excited when Empire and Jedi came out, I could hardly contain myself, and I begged my parents until I was taken to see them. Now the prequels come, and I don't even care. Lucas sucks, he let us all down.

You can't make good films in a vacuum and that is what he has created. If it was about money, he would release both, becasue he would make more money that way, because some people would buy them both. Plus he does not realize that there is a huge fan base that will not buy the special editions.

I will stick to the VHS and hopefully burn my own DVD's from my friends laserdisc.

As for Lucas I wish he would wake up from his ego induced coma and realize what he had done and stop it.

Well I am sorry for the ranting. I had to get that off my chest.

Heater, you bring up an interesting point, and I think it's key to maybe understanding Lucas. Even if it's a little.

Lucas was one of kids that came out of USC in the late sixties that were immersed and well versed in a lot of genre films along with good old fashioned drama and comedy. Coppola came out and directed the Godfather films, some of the biggest films of our generation. Brian DePalma, the king of neo-Hitchcock, was steeped in genre and only got better at it.

Lucas seemed to come out of college ready to prove a point. He turned his avant-garde short film into his first movie, "THX-1138", which contained a mixture of what was becoming the "new" sci-fi (deep, philosphicical) and social relavence.

The "Starkiller" scripts, the original drafts for Star Wars, were immense. You have to remember that originally, the entire OT was supposed to be inside of one film. That's HUGE. And while they did contain some interesting ideas that never made it on screen, they are extensions of Lucas' handing of sci-fi. He wanted Star Wars to be as epic as Tolkien. I'm sure if Star Wars (which is referred to as " A New Hope" now, something I just won't do) was made today, and he was still his younger self, it would be as epic as broad as Fellowship of the Ring. The technology is available.

The thing is that somewhere along the line, whatever concessions Lucas had to make while filming that first movie did two things. First, it kept him from ever doing another "American Graphitti", a completely human story that has a tone missing from the current trilogy. By never directing another "Graphitti", I think Lucas forgot how to write human interaction. Not fantasy chat - REAL interaction. Like when Han asks Luke if he could see him with Leia, and Luke says no.

That's real, and it was in hyper-space. I don't see that in the new films.

The other thing is that because he made concessions X, Y, and Z in order to make the Star Wars OT, he rendered the films as incomplete. Only recently has referred to the OT as 'drafts", and that says a lot about him, both as a film maker and as a person. That's a pretty old draft you're talking about George... and who are you kidding?

Look, I went to film school and I got a miniscule taste of what Lucas does every day. Would I like to go back and correct the mistakes I made in my student films? Sure, but you know what? Why? They've been seen, critiqued, maybe enjoyed. Done deal, just don't repeat your mistakes. If you can't come to terms with that in the editing room, don't release the damn film.

I said not too long ago, after hearing that Natalie Portman was going to be inserted somewhere in the newer SE's (oy), that Lucas, if he's so dissatisfied, should remake the first trilogy and leave the OT alone, matte lines and all. Then the look of the films will be consistant, the actors will correspond (Ewan could play Obi Wan again, Natalie can be Leia, a grown up Jake Lloyd can be Luke... okay scratch the last part), and, most importantly, the OT will be left the hell alone.

I don't call it "Episode Four" or "A New Hope", I don't need to know the exact names of every creature in the cantina (remember when Hammerhead was just... Hammerhead?), and I certainly don't enjoy the queasy feeling that I'm never going to be able to watch the OT unless he releases them or I burn my LD's to disc before they rot away.

But... we're just talking to a wall. I hope things like this petition does some good, but when you're fighting against the mindset Lucas has, and the fact that people will buy whatever release he puts out no matter what, you wonder if there's a snowball's chance in hell if respect for film history will prevail over revisionist film history.

Gary

GaryEA

I agree with you completely. I too went to film school. I made my student films, and it is true I can hardly watch them today. But, do I change them and fix the mistakes? No! They are what they are, a learning experience.
I had a screenwriting teacher who said it best. She said that you should rewrite scripts over an over, but at some point, if the story is crap it will remain crap and then all you are doing is playing in your own sh**. She said that at this point it is time to move on and chalk it up as a learning experience. Not only that I have heard that before you can even write a good script, you have to write your first five pieces of sh**. Lucas its time to move on and leave the movies alone. Leave them in their time and realize they are what they are. They are great films that spoke to defined an entire generation even with the matte lines, mistakes, and the horrible evil of Han Solo shooting first. Although in my world if someone is pointing a gun at me, I feel justified shooting them.

If you keep going back to the same stuff you will not grow as an artist, so I have moved on. And if someone wants a copy of my films or wants to see them, I get them out and let them watch. Sure I may cringe, b ut as a whole they are enjoyed by the viewer and I can still take some pleasure in that.

Also Coppola went to UCLA not USC. I know this becasue I too went to UCLA and he is our most famous film school alumni.

I also think it is ironic that for so many years I wanted more Star Wars movies. I hoped and wished and hoped. Finally I was told the news that Lucas planned to make more. I was so happy. Then I saw the utter crap. Now I wish he had never made anymore. To me there is only one Star Wars trilogy and only three Star Wars films. I do not even acknowledge the prequels or the special edition. I no longer buy the toys, or collect the legos. I guess in a way it has saved me tons of money.

What do you ean, the "horror of Han Solo shooting first"?

I simply was being sarcastic. Every time Lucas talks about Han Solo shooting first, he acts likie Han is a doing an evil thing. Something a mercenary would do. When in reality it make sense, especially since at this point in the story Han basically is a mercenary.