I watched THX-1138 for the first time last week and you're right. The inserts in that one were so jarring that I thought I imagined them. I didn't realize he had updated that one too

With Phantom Menace back in theaters that means we get an updated Honest Trailer!!!

If you ever considered going to the Star Wars Hotel there is an excellent video about it on YouTube. I don't feel so bad about missing the hotel experience after viewing this.


It's 4 hours so if you want to know a little before viewing it:

https://www.avclub.com/star-wars-hot...son-1851490754

Even if you never had an interest in going you should check out the video. Jenny Nicholson is one of the best on youtube.

Jenny Nicholson is a pretty well known Youtuber so im guessing she got to go to that hotel heavily discounted or for free.

Dont believe she was. She actually had to pester them a bit to get a follow up on a partial refund request before going for some feature or service she paid for that was no longer available. Don't remember the specifics unfortunately. Been bed ridden and in and out of consciousness the past few days and that part came up either as I was passing out or waking up.

The linked article says:

Watched Episode II with the wife on Monday, as part of her first time watches of the entire series.
Damn, it's bad. She picked up on basically all of the jumps in logic that have been questioned post-release. She was a little forgiving of the overall look of the movie, once I explained it was the first all-digital major movie, but she said it was offputting. Her biggest question was why the leads fall in love when Anakin is so whiny and maladjusted.

I actually agree now that Episode I is a better movie.

Well she would have gotten paid if she gave the hotel a favorable review.

This is the main reason I can't tolerate watching it now. The aesthetic of the movie is so incongruous with what I think of as being the look and feel of the Star Wars universe. I give Lucas some credit for wanting to push the technological boundaries of the time, but IMO that would have been better suited for a project outside the Star Wars universe or at least outside the "Skywalker saga." Not only did it affect the visuals but having so little of the mise-en-scene present during shooting clearly impacted the actors' performances also.

Yeah, the emotional beats are not Lucas' strong suit and that is painfully evident in Episode II.

As time has gone on I think of Episode II as the worst movie of the prequel trilogy. I think all the political stuff in the story kind of weighs it down and makes it feel rather boring. Also the Padme and Anakin romance and dialog hasn't gotten any better over time. My Prequel rankings are now (3,1,2)

The hotel was already out of business by the time she posted the review.

The whole Galactic Starcruiser experience seemed like a nightmare I'd pay to avoid. Even as a nerdy family vacation spot for the wealthy, it's hard to believe anyone was happy shelling out thousands to sleep in a tiny room with nothing offered for on-site entertainment beyond interacting with paid LARPers while doing pointless and glitchy fetch quests through an app on your phone. The whole scenario makes me cringe. The creative and logistics team (not to mention the executive who signed off on that mess) deserve to be demoted.

I’m less than half way through Jenny’s video, but it’s fascinating.

Yes, she paid full price, but one of the posts above said she paid $3k. She actually paid over $6k for one room for two people for two nights, but the ‘per person’ rate can differ significantly depending on how many you have in your room and which add-ons you get. She got no real add ons (except the worthless photo package, which she talks about) so what she paid was what most people would pay. She WOULD have got add-ons but wasn’t offered any when she booked it.

the funny bit is that Disney had no idea who she was or that she was there. She only got a couple things sorted out (a lost shipment for a $200 droid and the photo package) way after the trip and after complaining on Twitter, and she makes it super clear that she thinks it absolutely sucks that she could do that because most people who got identical experiences or ran into similar problems likely got nothing refunded.

She’s one of the most genuine YouTubers on this stuff and this video is fantastic. I remember the video she made when she bought that giant Porg

Happy Premier day to those who celebrate!

I watched the breakdown, and I found it interesting. I do think they put a lot of work into it, and it's clear that they were considering every SE change for whether it improved or detracted from the films. Personally though, I don't see the need for it over the original cut. Maybe some of the mono mix audio lines being added to the surround sound soundtrack, but that's about it.

And again, a bit of a nitpick but, from the comparison video description:
I feel like the fan editor missed out that those other films had a "Final Cut" because the director was known for messing with the films, and the label was to signify that this would be the last time the director would mess with it. It's not necessarily to indicate "the ultimate viewing experience," although maybe that's the director's hope, but really just like: no more different "director's cuts" after this. So unless the cut is from the director, on in George Lucas's case the "creator" of the films, it's not really a "Final Cut."

I guess that, by calling it "the Final Cut," it's getting more attention than the other five hundred fan edits out there.

Yeah, I doubt the guy who made these new cuts is ignorant of the significance of "The Final Cut" label. It's just him drawing a line in the sand regarding all other fan edits, as well as drawing attention to this one.

I only care about two cuts. The original completely unedited/modified ones and whatever the current version that's offered on Disney+. I couldn't give two shits about all these fan boy edits.

You mean someone online is using hyperbole to bring attention to their content?! No way!

You mean you couldn't give two shits, right?

Yeah yeah it's been one of those days.

Well, it is nice to know that Lucas is still the selfish asshole he has always been since he still will not release remastered versions of the original trilogy. Seriously, fuck him. I quit supporting his bullshit years ago and I am just again glad the fanbase is big enough to cause stuff like the 4K77 Project to happen.

George Lucas Says The Original Star Wars Will Never Get The Upgrade We Want (inverse.com)

This quote from him below really gets me. Maybe I am misremembering but when the LaserDisc versions came out, everyone was going on about how great the movies looked and that they had never looked better. I had the Definitive Edition on LaserDisc at one point and other than having to flip the discs during the movie, they set the standard at the time of release. Who got mad? Such a bizarre statement.

I wonder, is talking about the 1993 laserdisc release when it came out, or is he talking about the 2005 DVDs they slapped the laserdisc masters onto? Because I think the laserdiscs were praised when first released, but by 2005, they were woefully behind what other studios were doing with films on DVD. So yes, "everybody got really mad" with the 2005 DVD release of the laserdisc masters, but that was because it was woefully out of date.

Also, it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that the original versions couldn't be cleaned up, considering something like 90% of the SEs are simple the original shots cleaned up.

It also seems a bit of an aside to claim that the original versions never looked good, and could never look good, since his main argument seems to be that they're his films and he only wants his preferred versions out there. Like, if someone showed him a pristine, fully restored transfer of the original, unaltered versions of those three films, he still wouldn't want them released.

An important part of that article though is that it states that if it were up to him, the originals wouldn't get released. So it makes it sound like it's not [i]actually[i] up to him, at least not completely. I still think Disney/Lucasfilm could release them if they wanted, but they're likely deferring to Lucas's wishes.