Empire Strikes Back is visually beautiful

It never really bothered me either. I just noticed it.

 

AMEN, my friend, AMEN...

 

Good point about the hyperdrive. But months? I had a model of the Millennium Falcon as a kid and I don't remember a shower on it. Or a toilet.

 

Somebody wrote a whole book on these discrepancies:

The Secret History of Star Wars
by Michael Kaminski
Legacy Books [ISBN #0978465237]

Kaminski goes into extraordinary detail about all the things that make no sense, comparing scripts to movies and noting things that got lost or changed along the way. For example, we've established that Anakin Skywalker is about 20 when he gets wounded at the end of Episode 3. Twenty years pass, and Luke Skywalker grows up. Eventually, he defeats his own father, who's become Darth Vader, in battle. Luke removes Darth Vader's helmet, and we see... not a 40-year-old man, but a 75-year-old actor (Sebastian Shaw)!

The book has a very good explanation as to why and how this happened.

 

Wow, that book looks awesome. Another one to add to my "to read" list, which is almost becoming insurmountable given the lack of time I have to read these days.

 

ESB related...I had to laugh. Kid friendly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0rN-KG0zNw&NR=1

 

That's funny... I've seen it before, but it's still good for a chuckle.

It might be a little more effective, though, if they were able to edit the footage so that the scene doesn't constantly swap General Veers with Admiral Piett....

 

I thought I'd revive this thread in light of the Return of the Jedi appreciation thread that's currently running.

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-return-of-the-jedi-appreciation-thread.352390/

Let's talk about this film SOME MORE!

 

seen it so many times,but i still get the tingles through my body when the Falcon eventually escapes via the hyperdrive.
the reinserted extra scenes seem to work better in this one than in the others.
but don't ask me which ones,as i don't have the DVD sets,but always make an effort to watch ESB when it's on TV.

 

I recently read an interesting theory, that Admiral Ozzel was neither clumsy nor stupid, but rather a Rebel sympathizer or high-placed Rebel spy. Hence his trying to dissuade Captain Piett and Darth Vader from further investigating Hoth and having failed to do so purposefully came out of hyperspace close to Hoth, thereby allowing the Rebels the chance to get their shields up and avoid bombardment, and prepare for evacuation.

 

I don't think anyone has mentioned the very last scene? It's truly magical. The music... the visuals... perfect.

 

I agree 100%. Luke's robotic hand is attached, the music swells, then we go to the shot outside the spaceship as Luke and Leia look out the window, watching as several spaceships with their friends take off... and we roll the credits. It's a beautiful, beautiful sequence, and the music was the best Williams did for any of the Star Wars films (so far!). I was amazed by how many fans disliked the movie, but I got that Empire would just be the middle section of a longer tale.

You're way, way, way overthinking this.

 

I love this description of the final scene/closing credits from the ESB Special Edition soundtrack:

Using the first four notes of Darth Vader's theme to end it? Awesome!

I also read somewhere that Williams would have the final chord be major or minor depending on the overall theme of the movie.

 

But this one was so perfect, they did not mess with it much for the special editions. The only obtrusive changes are putting in Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor (which I like as it fixes the continuity problem), Vader loading the shuttle and adding the Vader landing scene from ROTJ (which I do not like, but it is a minor nit), windows in Cloud City (which I like), extra Wampa (which I like). They changed the Emperor's dialogue (which is revisionist, but I kind of like). There are many more minor changes.

What I am saying is watching the special edition of Empire is not the blasphemy of Star Wars and ROTJ, which have farting CGI characters and Vader yelling NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This makes me want to watch ESB tonight. I recently found an HD fanedit that basically restores the original theatrical edition into HD...at least as well as it can without being official.

 

Its definitely the one thats dated the best and is the least childish, though NOTHING beats Blade Runner IMHO, when it comes to a fully realised amazing looking plausible alternative world.

 

is that the part where vader and the Emperor are talking through some futuristic visual communicator?
and where the line "the son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi" comes from?
i can understand it being left out of the original,so not to give any hint to the big revelation.

 

It's a minor change but a pointless one. Would it really have any effect on continuity to have left it out?

 

I don't like Vader's dialogue change from "Bring my shuttle" to whatever it became. I can't remember the exact wording. I believe it was "Tell my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival." It was better the first time around. Very short, simple and ominous. You can hear the frustration in Vader's voice.

The shuttle transfer sequence looks like what it is: a cut and paste job, and it slows the momentum of the film.

 

Nope, which just might have something to do with why it was left out in the first place...

 

I don't have a problem with McDiarmid as the Emperor, but the dialogue change is just stupid and unneccesary.

The removal of Vader's "Bring my shuttle" and the added shuttle sequences (including the final landing which is an outtake of ROTJ of all things) is more than a minor nitpick... its such an unneccessary change that disrupts the near perfect flow of the last part of the film.

And you're missing one of the worst additions of the whole SE trilogy, Luke's scream when he purposely falls down the shaft. Here is one of Luke's defining moments, choosing death over turning to the dark side, and instead of him silently falling and accepting his fate you have him screaming like an idiot as if he didn't know what he just did... plus its not even him, they just lifted the Emperor's scream from ROTJ. I put it right up there with Vader's new "NOOOOOO!" in terms of horrible changes. To his credit even Lucas realized this mistake and axed it from the DVD release.

 

I never saw the version with Luke screaming.

Another unnecessary dialogue change which hasn't been touched upon much is Luke's line after R2-D2 is spit out by the Dagobah creature. The original line is "You're luck you don't taste very good." The SE line is "You were lucky to get out of there." I really don't understand why that change was necessary. The original line is much better.

 

I didn't miss it. As you said, it was removed, and is not on the DVD.

You are also correct that it was shameful when it was there.

 

My understanding is that they used a different take in the SE, and in that take Hamill reads the actual script line. The original we all know and love was an adlib. I prefer the original.

 

Lucas has an unusual sense of humor, and he tended to go with his gut in editing. I think of all the things George does well, editing is very high on that list -- he generally has brilliant instincts in knowing what to cut and what to put back in. I don't agree with permanently revising the old films, but the original films as edited were extremely well done, and Lucas had pretty much 100% control of all that editing (with help from his then-wife, editor Marcia Lucas).

I think there's a tendency for all directors to second-guess themselves later on, and this isn't the first time I've seen directors make odd choices many years after the fact. From a professional point of view, I can't criticize it because it's their movie, not ours, though I totally understand why fans of the originals would prefer to stick with that. Revisionist transfers, edits, and mixes are very dangerous.