May 4th was all about two things for nerds: groaning at the sheer amount of terrible "May the Fourth Be With You!" puns and blog posts, and dissecting the latest news from Skywalker Ranch - the unveiling of the special features to accompany the Star Wars saga's Blu-Ray debut in September.
Unsurprisingly, many fans had their moment of crying out in terror and being suddenly silenced when -- shocker! -- the original, theatrical editions were not among the offerings included in the 9-disc box set. More egregious, however, is the laughable quality of the special features. Yes, we know there will be some kick-ass, heretofore unseen deleted scenes - but that bonus disc of documentaries is a mess. The idea that someone, in this economy, paid to film things like a 91-minute documentary about how movies and TV shows have made Star Wars jokes while devoting a tenth of that to the cultural impact of The Empire Strikes Back is inexcusable.
Worse still, in all their vault-scouring, Lucasfilm chose to include only three vintage documentaries. Surely they'll be great posterity pieces, but this is fucking Star Wars -- a series worthy of a box set that will make sci-fi enthusiasts cry tears of joy, not sorrow. With that in mind, Topless Robot sent a team of researchers (read: me, on YouTube, over the weekend) to scour the Lucasfilm archives and offer a few suggestions to what's missing from the Star Wars set.
8) Star Tours
It's easy to forget now, since Star Wars has been intensely merchandised for the past 18 years or so, but there was a time when there were no new toys from Kenner and no "expanded universe" options outside of the abysmal Droids and Ewoks cartoons. That made the unveiling of Star Tours, a 1987 motion-simulator/short film attraction at every Disney park around the globe, a momentous occasion: a new Star Wars mini-movie with characters we loved (R2-D2 and C-3PO) and action we craved (a continuity-shattering battle over another Death Star).
Later this month, the ride will reopen with a brand-new storyline and 3-D film, making the Star Wars Blu-Rays the perfect place to anthologize the original Star Speeder flight that kids and adults adored. If a studio like Universal can cater to nerds by releasing footage from motion-simulator rides on DVDs of Back to the Future and The Jetsons: The Movie, there's no excuse Fox (with help from Disney) shouldn't follow suit.
7) Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy
Give someone two hours and this documentary -- created for the original trilogy's DVD release in 2004 -- and they'll easily walk away with a greater respect for the bearded wonder and his complex space opera. Directed by Kevin Burns, who later went on to direct another great documentary on this list as well as the stunning Look Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman, strikes that rare balance between general information and in-depth education that every documentarian should reach for. It also addresses something often overlooked in Star Wars lore: the context of the film in '70s culture, and how the worldwide scene was unwittingly ready for great escapist fare, which Lucas and company ably provided.
6) Return of the Ewok
In 2011, we all know Warwick Davis is something of a comedic genius, thanks to cheeky turns on Extras and an in-development pilot with Ricky Gervais. But in 1983, when he was an 11-year-old extra who got a big break playing Wicket in the third Star Wars film, who knew what he was capable of? Watching Return of the Ewok, an unreleased mockumentary showing Davis in and out of character during production of RotJ, it's easy to see that the little guy was destined for big things.
It's unknown if the short -- intended to promote Jedi but never fully completed in post-production -- is in the Lucasfilm archives; Davis has shown his personal VHS copy at several of the official Star Wars Celebrations, but higher-quality snippets were included in the hidden blooper reel on the Original Trilogy DVDs. Regardless, it would be worth presenting to the general public, if only to associate the word "Ewok" with something that isn't intensely annoying.
5) R2-D2: Beneath the Dome
A spiritual sequel to Return of the Ewok, this 2001 short provided viewers with an intriguing, entirely fictional Behind the Music-esque account of everyone's favorite astromech, To the surprise of nobody, Artoo is kind of a dick. I mean, come on! Not only does he party with buxom babes and endure pregnancy scares, but you can't understand a damn word he's saying. Surprisingly, a follow-up C-3PO documentary never materialized. You know there's plenty of dirt on that guy.
If You want the original trillogy untouched and unedited, buy the dvd set with the special edition and original versions combined and stop wasting your time on this website posting garbage about something George Lucas is not going to do for you anyway. That goes for everyone else who have posted the same garbage. As for me, I don't care what George Lucas does because I like whatever he has or will do to the films. It's his films and I think it only makes them better. As for the missing special features, if you want the documentaries that were in the dvd box set but not in this blu-ray set, Just save the supplementary disc that came with the original star wars trillogy dvd box set and add it to the blue-ray set and you're golden, Not that some of the special features will look any better on blu-ray than they did on dvd given the age of the source material. But I'd rather have the dvd suplementary disc than complain about some of the features from this disc missing on the blu-ray box set. If you bought the SW dvd box set previously then the special features aren't missing. They are just not on the blue-ray set. So if you have the dvd set you got them. Make sense? Thank You!
Yep. Totally agree. what about the excellent DVD documentaries from the prequel releases? Maybe there are still more surprises. There is supposed to be 40 hours of extras, they haven't announced everything. Oh, if you want to discuss this and more Star Wars stuff, check out http://www.theforcebook.com
one more thing is in episode IV in the conference room the background walls were shaking at the tops in the original cbs fox video release and jabba's sail barge blew up on the ground not in the air.
what I want to know is what it looks like. Do you knwo that the cbs fox video release are different from the thx remasters? I'm not even talking about the special additions before Hayden or epidoes 1-3. Caera angles were different for example. In empire strikes back, after vader tells them to go to the hoth system the guy that gets chocked out first looks at admiral beit. In thx you dont see him only veirs looking to no one, in the fox video you see them both in the shot. lets take jabba's sail barge. in thx they added in luke chewie and han on a speeder in the background. in cbs fox they were not there, not to mention how many added people in the first shot of the sail barge sailing. alos the way it blew up. next in episode IV. tattooing and of course mos isley, so many aliens changed replaced or removed from the original bar scene as when they frist enter town....
yes there's more. like I said camera nagles, the ships and star destroyers do not look as white. the sbers god more bold. now the actual special additions I hated. I appreciated Hayden's ghost which was off considering he was old then young in his ghost. Obi wan died old just as vader did so that does not make sense. or that they removed the upcha ewok sng at the end and replaced the singer at jabba'as apalace with a cheesy kids song and a new cgi singer. there's so mch more. in fact 5 different versions of episode IV exist including one where a storm trooper bumps his helmet on a low ceiling. Encorporating the episode 1-3 to the old trilogy did not match at all. Much story was flawed as well. Vader and obi wan did not recognize R2 or C3PO? .... I love star wars but a lot of people no not know about this. the emperor was played by a different actor in empire strikes back in the original version as well.
One of the big reasons for The Ewoks was as an example of a big advanced super power being brought down by a primitive group of people.Examples being:The United States in Vietnam or the great Roman Empire being brought down by barbarians.In both cases,2 advanced(allegdly)civilizations were defeated by a primitive,yet determined,group of people!
I have an old 9-disc LD set (think it was called "The Definitive Collection") that had a music-only option. It also had TWO different audio commentaries. Not bad for pre-dvd.
There was also a little known fan made documentary that was made before the release of the special editions called "Tatooine or Bust." Should be included also.
the most important thing that they didn't reveal was whether or not these blu rays will feature some fixes in the movies that have been needed for a long time.....things such as consistent light sabers, audio problems, matte boxes, the emperors slugs, jump-cuts...etc.....
The fact that a group of neolithic teddy bears can actually trounce gigantic mechanical war machines and armoured soldiers bearing energy weapons might have something to do with it.
That's really the point though, isn't it? You create drama in an adventure movie through overcoming incredible odds. The Ewoks work precisely because when you first see them, you're thinking, "Oh, great - these little buffoons will never be any help. We're doomed." And then the movie has to find a plausible path to victory through these supposedly impossible odds, and I think it does that.
Everybody always complains, "how do the Ewoks beat the technologically advanced Stormtroopers with just sticks and stones and little arrows?" And the answer given clearly by the movie is: they don't. The Ewoks launch their opening salvo with sticks and stones, and while the attack shows some promise at first - mostly by being a nuisance (remember, they don't need to "win," only distract the troopers long enough for Han and Leia to open the door) - they are quickly overwhelmed and over-matched. Unlike the Gungans, we actually see Ewoks die onscreen, and that death scene is specifically meant to remind us that they have little chance of success here. Only later, when they get creative with the big rocks and logs, and - most importantly - when, with Chewie, they capture an enemy walker, does the tide of battle begin to turn.
I hear that it was originally supposed to be a planet of Wookies, and Lucas sold out when he changed it to teddy bears. But, first of all, anybody who thinks a planet of Wookies would have been any less annoying hasn't seen the Holiday Special yet. And secondly, the only Wookie we've seen so far - just the ONE guy - is shown to be one of the ultimate badass mofos in the galaxy. And the reason given for that is usually just that he's a Wookie. So if we have a finale in which an entire planet of these woolly mofos defeats a legion of the worst shots in movie history (long established before they missed all those Ewoks)... well, where's the drama in that??
Yeah but like I said before, smashing machines with giant rocks is a pretty good way to destroy things, and knocking them over making them immobile is a pretty effective way to make a walking weapon useless. I don't recall their bows and clubs ever being effective against the war machines and storm troopers, they only really caused damage when bludgeoning them with massive tree trunks and the like. That makes sense to me.
The ewoks annoyed the crap out of me from day one. I was a young teenager when the movie came out, and my feelings about them are hard to explain other than to say they struck me as "gratuitous." The aliens we'd seen so far were, for the most part, gritty, dangerous or at least only cute in a "what a big lug" sort of way. Even YODA managed to command more coolness than cuteness. The ewoks felt like something thrown in at the last minute by an exec (or possibly someone's mom) who, for some ungodly reason, thought the Star Wars franchise needed something cute for the kids. And NO way could they defeat the imperial troops. I still stand by my love of the original trilogy, but it would be 1000 times more awesome if we could just replace those damn ewoks with Terry Pratchett's "Nac Mac Feegle." THEY would have been a believable foe for the Empire, and sure as s#it would have thrown a better party afterwards.
I watched it not as a fan, and I honestly saw very little difference between it and the movies, save for the lack of action scenes. I know fans will hate me for it, but I'm just being honest with what I thought.
I honestly didn't have any problem with the special at all; I think people were expecting to see action that they had to go to theaters to see, instead ending up with lame variety show stuff; what'd they expect? It was the '70s. I did enjoy the commercials though...it gave me a better understanding of that time period, and some of those commercials were downright insulting.
I can get behind no "Empire of Dreams" as that's just such an awesome documentary, would have liked seeing it. But hey, if I'm poppin so much for this set, I want fresh stuff, not just repeats from previous sets.
As for the Holiday Special, again, Lucas has openly stated his greatest wish is to find and personally destroy every copy. This is a man who has put out no less than 10 different versions of the movies on VHS/DVD and yet refuses to put this out, that should say something.
And kudos to the guys pointing out how older fans ignore this was never some high-thinking sci-fi thing, just family fun. It's like what Kevin Smith said to prequal bashers: "Have any of you WATCHED the original trilogy lately? Plot holes, bad dialouge, poor acting, it's all there too, just smaller budget."
I do agree a number of special features are missing. I think a music-only track should be a requirement with this film set. In factm to not include a John Williams documentary is bordering on disrespect. Can you imagine this film with a less-majestic score? Ya, Family Guy couldn't either.
Anyway, I think all 3 versions of the original trilogy (theatrical, special, and final) should be available. If they are going to release the older "Making Of" documentaries, I think it's silly not to include "FSWTJ". Aw well, it's more than I expected.
Because even as a kid of about 8 first seeing the movies, I could never understand how those crappy little bows and rocks were taking out storm troopers. I can remember thinking "get back to luke vs vader, I am tired of this back woods crap." Probably not in that exact language though, I was 8.
I want to beat Rick McCallum to death with a sockful of quarters... come to think of it, Richard Arnold from Star Trek's Franchise as well. Why is it that all the "Right hand men" to sci-fi visionaries have names that can be shortened to "Dick"? And why are they so evil?
Does anyone happen to know why Luke looks so ridiculous in the Holiday Special? I mean apart from the fact that it is the Holiday Special. Was he in the process of filming something else? I'm trying to think of what movie he would've been filming at the time that his hair would've been so fucked up.
I'm pretty sure Hamil's motorcycle accident was on the last day of shooting for Star Wars. So he likely had asphalt burns and legacy scars across his scalp. Which is best hidden with a bigger mane of hair.
I really hope that at some point the complete Star Tours ride film is included on a DVD. As excited as I am for Star Tours 2.0,the original is awesome and definitely has a place in SW history.
