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:lol:

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I'd be blown away if it was fake. What's more likely, that Mark Hamill didn't quite understand a question asked of him while he was in the middle of doing something else and/or that his memory of two 15 second shots he filmed 25+ years ago is fuzzy, or that it's a weird conspiracy by Lucas to fake deleted scenes to garner interest in what is probably going to be one of the highest-selling Blu-Ray sets of all time, regardless of whether the hardcore fans buy it or not?

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I enjoyed reading this and I concur:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...874,full.story

Gary Kurtz should speak out more often.

That said, I'll buy the Blu-rays if they're on sale.

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All due respect to Kurtz, some of the nonsense he mentions that he wanted to do... I just can't imagine RotJ ending that way.

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obviously, since the movie's been around for almost 30 years. Little hard to imagine anything differently after that amount of time it's been around, and all the times you've probably seen it.

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I still stand by this statment from another person...." All Jedi had was a bunch of Muppets". My least favorite film. Kurtz's idea's sound interesting but I don't know. But I'll say this...any ending would've been better than the ewok lu'au, always hated that.

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Sounds better then duplicating the ending of ANH except replacing the palace with the jungle.

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No message

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I like Jedi but agree with most of your points. I do take issue with "From a certain point of view," as that seemed like a Jedi type mind trick thing to do.

Very true. Hard to imagine something you've seen dozens upon dozens of times any different. However, Kurtz's ending sounds interesting.

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This is the kind of "retrofitted" hatred that I mentioned that RotJ is now getting. NO ONE hated this film until recently, around the time of AotC.

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Like I said, I like Jedi, but I can understand the shift in feelings for the film. Most of us were very young for the trilogy and ate up every moment of it. It isn't until years later that you can approach it as a film and recognize all the flaws. It's just a matter of whether or not you choose, as an adult, to love the film warts and all, or continue to love it the way you did as a kid.

As for the timing, wouldn't that "retrofitted hatred" have started about the time they added Hayden to Jedi? Coincidence? :lol:

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Are you serious? RotJ was always the red headed stepchild of the OT. The mupet argument is one that's been around since the 80's. Don't get me wrong, I love Jedi but to say it only started getting bashed around 2002 is far from true.

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I was ten when I saw Star Wars in 77, so when Jedi came out, I was a little old for the "teddy bear picnic." While I have a new appreciation for the movie (it contains my single favorite scene of all 6 films), I still can't enjoy the ewoks.

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I remember ROTJ being my favorite as a child, probably because of the action and upbeat ending. The more I watched the trilogy, the more Empire became my favorite. Empire is practically perfect, and, I consider, one of the greatest films of all time.

As you grow to appreciate film as 'art', the more you come to love Empire.

My .02.


It's sad, Lucas' career could have gone down in such a better light if he made some better decisions. Financially, he made the right ones. Creatively, he's done so much stupid crap that has made him into nothing more than a money-hungry whore. And the reason Empire is so good is because Irvin Kirchner made it into a great film first, a great Star Wars film second. Over time, the former is more important.

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No way that scene is a fake... there are pictures of his "Hero" lightsaber prop that had a control box that opened up to show detail of what he was working on.

http://www.partsofsw.com/jedsab.htm

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That didn't even look like Mark Hamill. It was a neat clip, though.

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Yeah, of course it's not fake or made recently. Lucas would definitely say so as he's more excited about new Star Wars stuff versus old.

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My first exposure to these films was in 1990, when I was 9. At the time, Empire and Jedi would appear on prime time TV Saturday nights all the time. Didn't get to see Star Wars until 1991 when we got a VCR, since for some reason it almost never played on TV like the others did.

I got a hold of all three in that VHS box set which had the two flaps on the sides with the box-office / Oscar nomination information. Back then, Jedi was the movie I watched the most often compared with the others (to this day, parts of Star Wars still bore me) but I always, and I mean always fast-forwarded through the entire Jabba the Hutt sequence. I just never enjoyed sitting through it.

Last hallowe'en, I sat and watched all three - the original versions - back to back.

When I got to Jedi, I watched the entire thing from beginning to end, without skipping those Jabba chapters and thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.

Sometimes perspectives can change for the better, as opposed to changing for the worse is my only point.

At the same time, I watched the 2004 version of "A New Hope" last night, due entirely to reading this thread, and those little things (cheesy flying robots, the CG animals) still annoy the hell out of me. I'll be watching the 2004 Empire tonight and I'm dreading that Vader returns to his ship garbage....who the hell can say they enjoyed THAT change?

:)

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....my memory is hazy of the SPECIFICS of some of the changes..but which is that one?

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Even worse that they just reused some (or all) of the opening Jedi scene. That's the thing I don't get, Lucas appears to be so precise and exacting with certain things, but most of these additions and tweaks are pretty sloppy and half assed. And the really obvious fixes that can and should be done still aren't.

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After the Luke / Vader duel, and Luke is hanging on those antennas upside down, Vader storms out of an entrance saying "bring my shuttle", and he's clearly pissed off.

The scene cuts to the Falcon, with Leia, Chewie and Lando headed back to the city because Leia knows Luke is there outside somewhere. They pick him up and the TIE fighters follow and the next time you see Vader he's back on the Star Destroyer asking about the hyperdrive on the Falcon and if it was disabled.

That of course was the original version.

The SE version presents it this way:

Instead of Vader's simple, angry 'bring my shuttle', you get replaced music (the 'I am your father' music from that scene is reused here) and an almost Vader- impression-style line of "alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival", and then you see a CGI shot of Vader and entourage walking towards one of those imperial shuttles used throughout "Return of the Jedi".

Then it cuts to the scene with Leia and the Falcon looking for Luke but throughout the sequence and eventual TIE fighter/Falcon chase, you see not only a short shot of Vader's shuttle flying away, but an entire scene lifted from "Return of the Jedi" - basically Vader's arrival at the beginning of that film but with a distant, alternate camera angle complete with a second reuse of the 'I am your father' music - stuck into the middle of the chase sequence.

It completely destroys the pacing and excitement of the scene, just so we (the audience) can see that Vader actually made it home!

(edited to add)

and when I say he made it home, I mean to the Death Star since that's where that "Jedi" insert took place, not Vader's Star Destroyer where he was supposed to be going, even meeting that same commander who greeted him!

It's such a pointless, useless, all-around bad insert into the film and the one true element that's wrong with the SE of Empire, since the remaining additions aren't remotely as bad or intrusive.

Absolutely.

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Or it was a second unit sequence that used a stand-in given that Hamill's face wasn't even going to be seen anyway.

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Spot on. I've said this so many times in various SW discussions. Empire is, plain and simple, a well made movie. I enjoy all six SW films, but Empire stands out for this reason. And I also liked Jedi more as a kid, and as time goes by it kinda steps down, but its certainly not unwatchable, not by a long shot.


As for the two endings of Jedi, I've also long maintained that I can deal with having both the original and SE versions of the OT. And when it's just "the holy trilogy", the original ending works better. It's more personal, with the focus on our small band of heroes that we've followed through their trials and tribulations. For "the saga" (by which I mean the PT plus the SE's of the OT), the extended ending showing the celebrations on all the different planets is better. It helps to show what our heroes have been fighting for. Not just some little backwater political squabble, but something that would have repercussions across the galaxy.


I don't mind the SE's existing, I can compartmentalize their flaws into a different part of my brain. My problem is that I don't have similar quality versions of the theatrical editions to balance out the other side.

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is there a site hosting the video of the deleted scene? It's all off youtube :(