While some of us are still trying to erase Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull from our minds, George Lucas has told Vulture that he has begun to think about the story elements for the fifth film.
“I mean, I know what it’s about,” Lucas said, “but I just have to find a MacGuffin that fits into the arena we’re working in.”
The MacGuffin, of course, refers to the element at the centre of Indy’s quest, be the the Ark of the Covenant, the Sankara Stones, the Holy Grail or the Crystal Skull.
Previously director Steven Spielberg had commented on the possibilities of the film, deferring to producer Lucas for any details. “George is in charge of breaking the stories,” Spielberg told Empire back in October. “He’s done it on all four movies. Whether I like the stories or not, George has broken all the stories. He is working on Indy V. We haven’t gone to screenplay yet, but he’s working on the story. I’ll leave it to George to come up with a good story.”
iTunes Trailers has debuted a third trailer for Anthony Hemingway’s Red Tails, the forthcoming WWII action-drama from George Lucas’ production company LucasFilm. You may know them from such films as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Howard the Duck. There’s also a brand new poster for the film below.
Synopsis: 1944. As the war in Europe continues to take its toll on Allied forces, the Pentagon brass has no recourse but to consider unorthodox options – including the untried and untested African-American pilots of the experimental Tuskegee training program. Just as the young Tuskegee men are on the brink of being shut down and shipped back home, they are given the ultimate chance to show their courage. Against all the odds, with something to prove and everything to lose, these intrepid young airmen take to the skies to fight for their country – and the fate of the free world.
This most recent trailer seems to amp up the melodrama, so let’s home this doesn’t get too “Lucasy” before it hits screens next year.
Red Tails is released on 20 January 2012 in the US. It does not currently have an Australian release date.
Bleeding Cool has posted the trailer for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 3D, to be re-released to cinemas next year as part of a planned 3D retrofit of the entire saga. This is hinted at briefly in the trailer below, which is reminiscent of the campaign for the Special Editions back in 1997.
Two Jedi knights uncover a wider conflict when they are sent as emissaries to the blockaded planet Naboo. The trailer, which ran in front of The Three Musketeers over the weekend in the US, sticks with the themes of the poster (also pictured below) in ignoring Jar Jar Binks for the most part, although at least this video acknowledges the presence of Natalie Portman and Liam Neeson.
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 3D is released on 9 February 2012 in Australia from Fox.
Two Jedi knights uncover a wider conflict when they are sent as emissaries to the blockaded planet Naboo.
It looks like somebody has discovered Photoshop! Couldn’t help but notice (thanks to Ben Harlum) that no mention of actual stars Natalie Portman and Liam Neeson are made on the poster. Star Wars could now have genuinely claimed this to star “Oscar winners”. It also wisely chooses to ignore Jar Jar Binks, unless this is the latest in a series of alterations from Lucas that actually removes three of the characters? In the case of the latter, that may be a combination of wishful thinking and wise marketing.
We know it’s hard, people, but try and get behind this. It may just mean seeing more Star Wars films in 3D, and that will only happen if this is financially viable.
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 3D is released on 9 February 2012 in Australia from Fox.
For the last three and a half decades, even scruffy looking Nerf herders can’t throw a rock without bulls-eying one of the monolitic wampas of the blockbuster landscape. The very words “Star Wars” have made their way into the cultural milieu across six films, several animated spin-offs, comic books, scores of novels, a handful of television movies and an ill-fated holiday special. The US Reagan Presidency even named their Strategic Defense Initiative after the films. Originally created as a “space opera” in 1977 by George Lucas, a director then best known for the retro coming of age film American Graffiti, what was once known simply as Star Wars changed the face of science-fiction, special effects and Hollywood filmmaking forever.
For those of you just emerging from a cave, our saga takes place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. While purists may disagree, the saga in its complete form tells the story of the rise and fall of one young Anakin Skywalker. When we first meet him (chronologically speaking of course), he is just a mop-headed boy (Jake Lloyd) on the planet Tatooine, caught in the midst of some kind of intergalactic tax blockade or something. Taken in and trained by Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and later Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), Anakin grows into an arrogant young Jedi Knight, one of the sworn guardians of the Republic who are able to wield the mystical power of the Force. Or perhaps simply have a high Midichlorian count.
Eventually, he is corrupted by Sith Lord (and ultimately Emperor) Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) and becomes Darth Vader, a minion of the Empire. Yet there is a new hope in young Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who may or may not be related to Anakin Skywalker, and who joins the aged Obi-Wan (Alec Guinness), a pair of droids named C-3PO and R2-D2 and the scoundrel Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his hairy sidekick Chewbacca to rescue Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy…
For many, the series is ‘review proof’, for nothing we say here will impact on the sales one iota. Taken as a whole, the saga certainly morphs into a whole new dynamic, and not simply because of the added tinkering that George Lucas can’t stop doing every few years (but more on that below). For a generation of people over the age of 25, the original trilogy of A New Hope (or Star Wars as we once knew it), Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi will be the definitive and unquestioningly perfect set of Star Wars films that should never be touched. For all of their flaws, including the introduction of the evil Jar Jar Binks and a weak and often misguided narrative, the prequel trilogy of The Phantom Menace, The Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith will be the films that forever introduced a younger generation to the dysfunctional Skywalker clan. These are very special kinds of film, and neither the ravages of time nor George Lucas’s endless fiddling are going to change that. From the stunning opening to the explosive conclusion, this is a rollicking adventure that you are sure to come back to time and again.
Video and Audio:
When we reviewed the release of the Original Trilogy DVDs back in 2004, the staff of DVD Bits were suitably impressed with the quality of the transfers, bandying around words like “amazing”, “brilliant restoration” and “exemplary”. All that can now be dismissed as hyperbole in the face of these stunning HD transfers. It is no shock that the largely digital Prequel Trilogy looks stunning on these discs. What is really surprising is how good the older films look. We’ve seen some marvellous restorations this year, but the sheer amount of detail in some of the shots is almost like watching a new film. Well, given this is a LucasFilm production it is a new film. C-3PO’s metallic surface shows every bit of tarnish, Leia’s makeup looks caked and Obi-Wan’s beard bristles. The colour correction is marvellous. The sound is perhaps the best yet, with the primary DTS HD Master Audio 6.1 packing a powerful punch. Our windows rattled as the first ships came rattling overhead.
Now for the changes. Yes, everything you have read is true. From The Phantom Menace through to Return of the Jedi, there have been changes made. The first thing you’ll notice is that Yoda is now fully digital in The Phantom Menace, a welcome change from the creepy uncanny-valley puppet used back in 1999. Many of the other changes are the kind of senseless tinkering that George has been doing since back in 1981, with the evolution of Star Wars continuing. The much talked-about sound changes, including Star Wars‘ new Krayt Dragon call and the addition of a few “Nooooos!” to the end of Return of the Jedi are all noticeable to fans. The latter really is unforgiveable as it is not simply tinkering, but changing the silent dramatic tension of another director’s scene. With each of these changes, Lucas is forever erasing the hard work of hundreds of people who worked on the original films, many of whom broke new ground with their special effects techniques. Hell, some of the Blu-ray bonus features celebrate that. Of course, none of this would be a problem if the original films were simply released unaltered alongside these new cuts, as every other filmmaker from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner to Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind/E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial has managed to do. Unfortunately, for generations to come, this will be the only version we get to see.
Extras:
The collection of bonus features is bizarre to say the least, with far too much emphasis on the ephemera of the Star Wars universe, and not enough on the making of. Sure, the audio commentaries are great: each of the films has two commentaries a piece. The first was presented on the original DVD releases, while the second has been constructed from archival interviews and are new to this release. But where are the PiP tracks? Video commentaries? Seamless branching? If Lucas is on the bleeding edge of technology, then why are these Blu-rays not taking advantage of any of the features available to the HD age?
Discs 7 and 8 of the set are where the majority of the film-related bonus features for Episodes I – III (Disc 7) and Episodes IV-VI (Disc 8) are found. These include deleted, extended and alternate scenes; prop, maquette and costume turnarounds; matte paintings and concept art; supplementary interviews with cast and crew and a flythrough of the Lucasfilm Archives to name but a few. There is a wealth of material here, but not everything. Once again, while there are some great new inclusions, including the much talked about deleted scenes from Return of the Jedi, Lucas has missed a great opportunity to archive all that material we have seen floating around over the years, with few of the DVD documentaries making it over. Unlike the Alien Quadrilogy Blu-ray set, which literally put everything that has ever been committed to disc (including all versions of the films), this misses the mark even with three bonus features discs!
The majority of the new bonus features are to be found on Disc 9 of the set, but the inclusion of some of these is incredibly questionable. Really? An 84-minute documentary called Star Warriors on the 501st Legion, the people who like to dress up like Storm Troopers? This is evidence that either the well has been well and truly milked dry on these films, or that this was another misguided reading of the fans from the House of Lucas. Similarly, the 91 minutes (!) dedicated to the Star Wars Spoofs – covering everything from Family Guy, The Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother and Weird Al – could have just as easily been a small featurette rather than a feature-length documentary. The 25 minute Conversations with the Masters: The Empire Strikes Back 30 Years On, with chats from George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Lawrence Kasdan and John Williams, is possibly the only strong new addition. The original ‘making ofs‘ from 1977, 1980, 1983 and 1997 respectively are all nice to have, but the 46 minute Star Wars Tech is another misguided documentary (albeit one from 2007) taking up space where proper content could have gone.
Yet it isn’t so much what is on the discs as what is not. Over 9 discs of material, and no space for the original trailers? While it is almost certain there will be double-dip on Blu-ray, especially given the theatrical 3D re-release planned to start next year, we did get a second round of DVDs, and they included the theatrical cuts of the original trilogy as well. We can only live in a (new) hope.
[stextbox id=”custom” caption=”The Reel Bits”]Star Wars has arrived on Blu-ray, and true to form, it is unlike any version we have seen before. Some will be disappointed by the lack of the original versions of the film, others will crave more bonus features than what we have been offered here. For most, having these films in stunning high-definition will be enough. Regardless, this is undoubtedly the Blu-ray event of the year: let the Force guide you. [/stextbox]
Star Wars: The Complete Saga is released on Blu-ray around the world in the UK on September 12, in Australia on September 14 and in the US on September 16 from Fox Home Entertainment.
Let’s just get this out in the open: we know George Lucas can’t leave his Star Wars Trilogy alone. Whether this has now become a sadistic intent on his part, some kind of cosmic joke only he understands, or just general ignorance as to why this is ticking people off is unclear. One thing we do know that the evolution of Star Wars continues.
In some of the most baffling news to date, it has been reported that Darth Vader’s parodied “Nooooo!” from the end of Revenge of the Sith has been added to Return of the Jedi for the Blu-ray release. The reportedly leaked audio could easily be fake, but Badass Digest has reportedly received confirmation that this is actually happening. The following footage is not from the Blu-ray, but rather the allegedly leaked audio synced up to the existing DVDs.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaSxSuB2vY
And then there is this terrible Krayt Dragon call from A New Hope:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0EUjobdavw
This comes a few days after the rather welcome news that the creepy looking Yoda puppet from The Phantom Menace was being replaced with the CGI model used in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
This we don’t mind so much, and we know this won’t be the last change made to The Phantom Menace: it is to be released in 3D next year to cinemas, and will clearly need to be tweaked for that purpose.
The Digital Bits also reports that there will be corrected colour timing and tweaks to things like lightsaber special effects, and the removal of a few obvious goofs, such as the puppeteers arm in the Wampa in Empire Strikes Back.
A complete look at the pre-Blu-ray changes to the original Star Wars can be found in The Evolution of Star Wars.
Star Wars: The Complete Saga is released on Blu-ray around the world in the UK on September 12, in Australia on September 14 and in the US on September 16.
It may only be weeks until the entire Star Wars saga is released on Blu-ray, but Fox has just announced via a release schedule that Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace will be released to Australian cinemas in 3D on 9 February 2012.
The first of the George Lucas helmed prequels to the original Star Wars Trilogy of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi gets a very brief description in the official press: “Two Jedi knights uncover a wider conflict when they are sent as emissaries to the blockaded planet Naboo”.
The 3D conversion was first announced back in September last year, and while we are curious about “our” Star Wars being converted, the prequels make the most sense given the heavy reliance on digital special effects. Originally released back in 1999, the film met with mixed critical and fan reaction but made a ton at the box-office regardless. It stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid and a digital puppet named Jar Jar.
Post-converted re-releases may be all the rage next year, as this joins Fox’s planned Titanic 3D re-issue supervised by James Cameron.
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is released on 9 February 2012 in Australia from Fox.
It has been a while since there has been legitimate reasons to be excited about some with George Lucas’ name attached to it, but the WWII dogfighting film Red Tails, directed by Anthony Hemingway (TV’s Treme, True Blood), may just remind us of why LucasFilm is one of the most famous production companies in the world. Now thanks to MTV, Red Tails has now added a second trailer with even more dogfighting and a brand new poster to boot.
Synopsis: 1944. As the war in Europe continues to take its toll on Allied forces, the Pentagon brass has no recourse but to consider unorthodox options – including the untried and untested African-American pilots of the experimental Tuskegee training program. Just as the young Tuskegee men are on the brink of being shut down and shipped back home, they are given the ultimate chance to show their courage. Against all the odds, with something to prove and everything to lose, these intrepid young airmen take to the skies to fight for their country – and the fate of the free world.
Red Tails is released on 20 January 2012 in the US. It does not currently have an Australian release date.
With Wednesday’s announcement from Fox and LucasFilm of the full content of the forthcoming Star Wars Saga on Blu-ray, the powers that be put the final nail in the coffin for fans hoping to see high-def restorations of the original trilogy on the digital format.
Creator George Lucas has long stated that the Special Editions released in 1997, coinciding with the first film’s twentieth anniversary and a forerunner to the prequel trilogy, are the only ones he will be releasing. “The other versions will disappear”, stated Lucas in an interview with American Cinematographer.
What are the original versions? While the official site states that there are only two versions, the 1977 and the 1997, we also know that they were changed again in 2004 for the DVD release of the film. Yet when most people talk about the “original versions”, it is often forgotten that Lucas began tinkering with the films as far back as 1981.
It is a period of civil war…
The first changes began to Star Wars in 1981, following the 1980 release of The Empire Strikes Back, with the addition of a few lines of text to the famous opening crawl. Anybody who has seen the films since the VHS age will be largely unaware that these changes were ever made. Principally, the lines “Episode IV: A NEW HOPE” (now the official title for the film) were added for consistency with “Episode V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK”, and the words “Rebel spies” were given a capital ‘R’. This also changed the timing and the music cues of the much-parodied text, and is the first major revision made to the ‘original’ trilogy.
There were a number of other changes made in the pre-Special Edition wilderness years. When the original 70mm 6-track audio version of the film was converted to 35mm mono soundtrack for a wider release, some key dialogue changes were made that have now become immortalised in later versions: “close the blast doors!” and C-3POs line about the tractor beam were added, Princess Leia firing a blaster that sounds like a Magnum .44 and during the Death Star trench run Luke’s line “Blast it, Biggs, where are you?” is altered to “Blast it, Wedge, where are you?”. This was changed to reflect the deletion of several scenes with the otherwise unseen character of Biggs. However, this line was changed back in later versions, especially given Biggs finally appeared just prior to Luke hopping in an X-Wing.
There were, of course, a number of minor technical and mastering changes made for the various VHS and Laserdisc editions over the years, in 1985 for VHS/Laserdisc and in 1993 for the Definitive Laserdisc Edition, including some colour correction and the removal of the C-3PO tractor line. In 1995, VHS editions of the film were released with restored remastered picture and sound. At the time, Lucas declared that it would be the last time that the films would be available in that state.
Han shoots last
The twentieth anniversary of the original Star Wars was always going to be a special occasion for fans, and 1997 couldn’t be a better year for the community. Not only would the original trilogy be re-released to cinemas for the first time in years, but shooting had begun on a new prequel trilogy in the same Tunisian desert that united Luke, Obi-wan and the droids under a binary sun two decades prior. The Phantom Menace, the first of these prequels, would employ state-of-the-art CGI animation and special effects to bring Lucas’ vision to life, and the director saw it as important to match the look-and-feel of what would eventually become a six-part saga.
Promising to show the entire trilogy “the way it was meant to be experienced”, the promotions for the re-released saga revealed that audiences would not be experiencing the same films that first captivated crowds in 1977, 1980 and 1983 respectively, with all three films gaining new special effects, and in some cases, entire new scenes.
At a cost of over 10 million dollars, not insubstantial at the time, the changes to the trilogy were controversial to say the least. They added a number of story elements that did not exist in the original films along with special effects that would have been impossible with 1977 technology. The full list of changes can be found at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and they range from small cosmetic changes to major new scenes and special effects.
The first of these changes can be seen with the addition of a few digital dewbacks on Tatooine, and a few new establishing shots in between, but the most obvious of these would come when we reach Mos Eisley: a wretched hive of scum, villainy and digital puppets. Additional Jawas, large dinosaur-like creatures and new Stormtroopers can be scene scouring the port. Very much the elephant in the room was the new Jabba the Hutt scenes, prior to Han taking off with Chewie and his new passengers. As seen in the clip below, the deleted 1977 scenes saw Hutt as simply a rotund human (Declan Mulholland) giving Han an ultimatum. However, fans will know he didn’t ultimately appear until 1983’s Return of the Jedi as a multi-operator puppet. For the 1997 and 2004 re-releases, LucasFilm digitally inserted a creature consistent with the Jedi puppet. While this looked good, it diminished somewhat from the spectacular reveal of Hutt in the final film, a character who has been built up to be the only threat to the cocky, scruffy-looking Nerf herder Han Solo.
Speaking of Han, the largest amount of outrage at the changes was directed at one scene in particular. You know the one. Bounter hunter Greedo has Han Solo cornered, so Han shoots him. In the 1997 version he still does, but he doesn’t fire first. The roguish smuggler who won our hearts is now simply reacting to being shot at, quite a reasonable reaction one would think, but does this detract from his essential Han-ness? For most people, this is the deepest cut (or addition as it were) of all, for in a singular moment the audience no longer sees Han as the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ kind of guy that his association with Luke and Leia will later begin to erode. ‘Han shoots first’ is not simply a convenient slogan for t-shirts at comic conventions, but a declaration of the fan’s love of of all that is Solo about Han.
A few digital tracking shots of X-Wings and Y-Wings, some revised sound and vision and a trench run later, the Death Star still gets what’s coming to it. Defying everything we know about physics in space, the explosion now has its very own shockwave, ensuring that the spinning Darth Vader will well and truly mess up the inside of his helmet. Speaking of Vader, the end credits add one very overdue change: the correct attribution of James Earl Jones in the credits. Star Wars would never be the same again.
A New(er) Hope
So when the DVDs finally hit shelves in 2004, fans expecting cuts of the original films were solely disappointed. Not only were the fiddled-with versions the only editions released to eager punters, but additional changes were made to the trilogy. John D. Lowry digitally restored and visually enhanced the films for the DVD format, including colour correction and enhancements for 5.1 surround sound. However, a number of new visual enhancements were made, include re-doing the special effects during the Jabba the Hutt scene to be consistent with the model seen in the prequel trilogy. Indeed, as the clip below demonstrates, in the 7 short years between the 1997 enhancements and the 2004 ones, special effects had come a long way:
Does this mean the film will need touching up every few years? Indeed, 23 changes were made to the 2004 edition, on top of the almost 30 alterations to the 1997 edition, some of which removed additions to the previous alterations! Most of these changes are very minor, and only the most dedicated of viewers will notice the non-SFX changes to the film, but that further begs the question: if they are so minor, why bother making them at all? In 2006, a Special Edition of the DVDs were released with the ‘original’ films as bonus discs, but in non-anamorphic 4:3/stereo sound transfers, this felt like another kick in the teeth to faithful fans who now had several shelves dedicated to Star Wars re-releases.
The Force is still with us
So how original is ‘original’? Some sources indicate that, excluding TV edits and the ‘Pan & Scan’ VHS releases, there are at least 10 different versions of the film released to date. Some could argue that we’ve not seen an ‘original’ version of the film since 1981, and it has simply never stopped changing. Perhaps Star Wars is the kind of film that needs to keep evolving every so often to find a new audience, or maybe it is just better left alone.
Whether Lucas is right or not, other directors (including Steven Spielberg) have got away with far worse changes (see: E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial) and several versions of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Ridley Scott actually tightened perfection (Alien) and has managed to tweak Blade Runner through both a Director’s and Final Cut to critical and fan acclaim. So what is it about George Lucas’ changes to Star Wars and its sequels that so raises the fists of us geeks everywhere? Is it just that the films are so beloved and iconic, or more that George Lucas has stubbornly refused to listen to fan requests to make the original films available?
No indication has been made that the ‘original’ versions will see the light of day in hi-def, and we know at least one change is forthcoming with the promise of “gorgeous high definition and with pristine, 6.1 DTS Surround Sound”. Something tells us that while The Lucas is under the hood tinkering with the sound and vision, he may take another look at those 2004 special effects and wonder if they could use a tweak. Either way, they’ll fly off the shelf like a suped-up podracer.
Star Wars: The Complete Saga will be available on high-definition Blu-ray in Australia on 12 September 2011 from Fox. Let us know if you’d like us to look at the rest of the Trilogy!
While some of us are still trying to erase Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull from our minds, George Lucas has told Vulture that he has begun to think about the story elements for the fifth film.
