I'm no Star Wars geek, but I remember when they came out the big thing was that they edited it so Han didn't shoot first. I thought that was dumb. Other than that, what was sickeningly bad about it? (I ask out of curiosity because I don't remember that much about Star Wars Special Edition.)
There was an added scene with Luke & his buddy (I can't remember the name) and it was just terrible. The scene with Gredo & Han kind of destroys the Han character. Some of the effects went from being dated to being really poor gratuitous computer graphics. The comic relief scene with Han & Jabba was atrocious. That may have been worse than the Gredo scene.
I only saw it once in the theater and remembering it is kind of painful. I'd forgotten about some of these things. I try to only remember that it's horrible.
Cloud City looked terrible in Empire. I can't remember how much else was changed, not much, but Cloud City just looked really bad.
I had actually been looking forward to the updated Star Wars because it was talked about for so many years. But Lucas has just become a really poor judge of art, talent, writing, everything.
I have to agree that most director's cuts--like 90%--are an improvement over the original theatrical release, even if the original was great.
But not always.
I loved the original Highlander--and the director's cut was better. But Highlander 2--oh my goodness. The theatrical movie was AWFUL and the "director's cut" was just as bad, maybe worse. "I am Conner McCleod of the clan McCleod from the planet Zeist." How bad can you get?!!
I rented the Scarface Special Edition. No director's cut there. Mainly because originally the film was reviewed 3 times and the studio demanded more cuts after each viewing. And they STILL were going to give it an X rating. After much ballyhoo (with I think Depalma and Pacino writing a letter of protest in Variety) the movie was released, uncut and with an R rating. It all revolved around the chainsaw scene and the use of the word "****". This movie would probably get a PG-13 today. It was good to see again, digitally remastered, with director/actor commentary and deleted scenes.
I also rented Wonderland, based on the true story of the murders of 4 drug dealers in LA with implications that John "Wad" Holmes (Val Kilmer) being involved in them. The film was good (though Kilmer was to stocky to play geeky Holmes) but the extras were even better. One being a documentary on the real John Holmes and even the actual gruesome LAPD crime scene video footage from the original murders.
I didn't know that there is a restoration of Welle's Touch of Evil out there! Thanks for mentioning that...it'll be my next rental. Now if they can only find the missing scenes from the Magnificent Ambersons...I know...they were probably burnt...
With the amount of data that can be stored on a DVD directors and studios can provide so much more for us to see from their films. At least the 90% that deserve it.
Comments
Originally posted by Ganondorf
I'm no Star Wars geek, but I remember when they came out the big thing was that they edited it so Han didn't shoot first. I thought that was dumb. Other than that, what was sickeningly bad about it? (I ask out of curiosity because I don't remember that much about Star Wars Special Edition.)
There was an added scene with Luke & his buddy (I can't remember the name) and it was just terrible. The scene with Gredo & Han kind of destroys the Han character. Some of the effects went from being dated to being really poor gratuitous computer graphics. The comic relief scene with Han & Jabba was atrocious. That may have been worse than the Gredo scene.
I only saw it once in the theater and remembering it is kind of painful. I'd forgotten about some of these things. I try to only remember that it's horrible.
Cloud City looked terrible in Empire. I can't remember how much else was changed, not much, but Cloud City just looked really bad.
I had actually been looking forward to the updated Star Wars because it was talked about for so many years. But Lucas has just become a really poor judge of art, talent, writing, everything.
But not always.
I loved the original Highlander--and the director's cut was better. But Highlander 2--oh my goodness. The theatrical movie was AWFUL and the "director's cut" was just as bad, maybe worse. "I am Conner McCleod of the clan McCleod from the planet Zeist." How bad can you get?!!
I also rented Wonderland, based on the true story of the murders of 4 drug dealers in LA with implications that John "Wad" Holmes (Val Kilmer) being involved in them. The film was good (though Kilmer was to stocky to play geeky Holmes) but the extras were even better. One being a documentary on the real John Holmes and even the actual gruesome LAPD crime scene video footage from the original murders.
I didn't know that there is a restoration of Welle's Touch of Evil out there! Thanks for mentioning that...it'll be my next rental. Now if they can only find the missing scenes from the Magnificent Ambersons...I know...they were probably burnt...
With the amount of data that can be stored on a DVD directors and studios can provide so much more for us to see from their films. At least the 90% that deserve it.