the crimes of george lucas ('90s on)

Spielberg is, like, rolling his eyes, like, ‘My nerdy friend won’t shut up, I’m sorry…’

Makes me wonder what it must be like for Spielberg to still be friends with GL, (particularly after the SW prequels). GL *must* have asked him what he thought and would he just lie? say "they're not for me"? I mean S/berg at least can still make a decent film, so to see one of his oldest and richest pals actively desecrating his own legacy in new and exciting ways every year must affect the dynamic of their friendship. Especially as this is the man whose input made sure that the last Indy film was dead in the water.

Hang on now--Spielberg is the force behind Michael Bay's Transformers shitfests, and the man responsible for foisting Shia Lebouef on the world, so don't be giving him too much credit

plus yeah, i'm just as inclined to blame spielberg as lucas for that last indy shitfest.

foisting Shia Lebouef on the world

balls, that shit almost cancels out AI for me...

as for Indy blame, from what I understand it was Lucas that actively vetoed Frank Darabont's script and went with his own Mayan temple fixated horseshit, and that turd remained resolutely unpolished. Guess Spielberg can be blamed for agreeing to make the fucking thing, but the underpinning garbage = all GL.

If it wasn't for the piles of money he sleeps on at night, I'd call Lucas a tragic figure

from what I understand it was Lucas that actively vetoed Frank Darabont's script and went with his own Mayan temple fixated horseshit, and that turd remained resolutely unpolished. Guess Spielberg can be blamed for agreeing to make the fucking thing, but the underpinning garbage = all GL.

The actual screenplay was written by the guy who wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park and its sequel, though. And I thought the whole alien plot was right up Spielberg's alley, after all he has been directing and producing various alien movies and TV series since 1977.

Both are 100% establishment hacks now and no doubt both have complete respect for each other as such.

spielberg doesnt seem like the kind of guy who'd be tortured over not being able to tell his friend that his movies suck - is probably just happy to nod and smile and be nice about it

It's like if your mate's in a band that you think are shit you just pretend that you like their band and hope they don't ask too many questions about why you like them.

Spielberg has produced tons of films, including Harry and the Hendersons and the live-action Flintstones and Casper movies. The movies he has directed himself - the latest IJ aside - have been pretty great.

I was surprised to see his name in the credits for True Grit.

It's like if your mate's in a band that you think are shit you just pretend that you like their band and hope they don't ask too many questions about why you like them.

GL: Say, Steve, so what did you make of The Revenge of The Sith?
SS: George, I thought it was just super, rly great. Also, Admiral Bone-To-Pick, I *loved* that guy.

Spielberg's last seven films as director are pretty patchy and there's a couple of outright disasters

2008 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2005 Munich

2005 War of the Worlds

2004 The Terminal

2002 Catch Me If You Can

2002 Minority Report

2001 A.I. Artificial Intelligence

At least four of those movies are among the best he's ever done!

BTW, Spielberg helped storyboard and pre-viz the Anakin/Obi-Wan lava fight at the end of Revenge Of The Sith, so there you go.

The Terminal and A.I. suck and I haven't seen the last Indy movie, but the other movies are fine

Well, I adored AI, really liked Munich, CMIFC and WoTW and could probably watch Minority and The Terminal again. Only real stinker there imo is poor ol' Indy.

Re Anakin/Obi-Wan fight, apart from the skipping about on the river of lava I dug that well enough. Certainly chopped up charred up Ani was more than I expected to see so vividly rendered.

Crystal Skull - Crystal Shit more like
Munich - Very good
War of the Worlds - nice action, otherwise meh
The Terminal - Horribly misjudged IMO. Should've been a flat-out quirky comedy
Catch Me if You Can - Great fun on first viewing, tiring on second. Also kind of sexist.
Minority Report - Fantastic until the final act
A.I. - I thought it was a mess with a few great ideas when I saw it in the cinema, maybe I should watch it again

The Terminal and AI (although i know it has it's defenders) were the disasters i was referring to. Catch Me If You Can and Minority Report really don't hold up on repeat viewings. War of the Worlds pretty much sucks.

Dude directed The Lost World, cannot be trusted.

“He claimed he didn’t have a spaceship, but there’s no doubt there’s a Millennium Falcon in a garage somewhere with a pilot just waiting to go… It’s gonna be him and Steven Spielberg and I’ll be blown up like the rest of us.”

this is a movie worth watching! though it sounds like a south park premise.

this was a Simpsons episode, and a live Kids in the Hall bit (and Mr. Show too, iirc?)

Spielberge is on record as saying ..Clones is his 'second favourite Star Wars film'. also he features a fair bit in the extras on the prequels dvds apparantly although i haven't seen em.

are Munich and Catch Me If You Can any good then? i thought Speilberg was a washout these days but maybe.. not?

Munich is great, Catch Me If You Can is charming.

I saw the Robot Chicken version of Munich the other night. Yikes

there's some weird backwards thing going on with spielberg where the movies are executed with more confidence the further back in time you go.
i have nothing but hate for michael bay but you get the sense that the man has a clear and willful sense of exactly what kind of shit he's going to make you endure.

2008 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2005 Munich

2005 War of the Worlds

2004 The Terminal

2002 Catch Me If You Can

2002 Minority Report

2001 A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Though I haven't seen the Indy, did any other director have as good a run in the 00s?

coen bros, wachowski bros, any bros I suppose.

who were the brothers that did "from hell"?

hughes

found munich v boring, heavy and overrated, but mostof his other 00's work was good to great imo. Indy aside obv

s1ocki started this thread to suggest options for a poll, but did we ever do a poll thread of this?

all the 00's movies are kind of OK passtime, but c'mon:

1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
1987 Empire of the Sun
1985 The Color Purple
1984 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
1983 Twilight Zone: The Movie (segment 2)
1982 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark

s1ocki started this thread to suggest options for a poll, but did we ever do a poll thread of this?

― some dude, Wednesday, January 19, 2011 8:38 PM Bookmark

no point, building meter data would win

Blu Ray trailer looks good despite it combining prequel footage with the originals:
http://www.starwars.com/video/view/001175.html

Love the originals, but I'm almost completely numb to these movies right now. All those shoddy VFX spliced into the originals will look even WORSE in high-def.

Lucas must be the only director that would look at a frame of film with Sir Alec Guinness in it and think "You know what would make this even better? A giant dinosaur butt blocking the entire frame."

A long time ago in another lifetime, I was in a screening room sitting in front of the late Gene Siskel. This was after the first "special edition" came out, and around the same time a new edition of "The Godfather" was screened. Someone asked him how it was, and he said "oh, it's pretty much the same, except now in the wedding scene there's a big giant lizard in the background. And during Brando's death scene, there's a little robot walking around."

If Lucas thinks the world will end next year, won't that (with any luck) stop him 3ding these fuckers? No point, surely, since they won't be out in time.

is there any more 2012 ho-lucas-t information besides the seth rogen hearsay?

Lucas is waiting until he can release these in 4-D, in Smell-O-Vision.

I love the smell of bantha shit in the morning.

I recently watched anamorphically re-encoded versions of the originals that came out on the 2006 DVD release and it was such a pleasure! I'd almost forgot that they could be enjoyable. They're obviously GREAT movies in their original form, but the special editions are simply unwatchable. Despite the egregious and anachronistic cgi insertions, the whole thing has been color-corrected to death.

The only thing I truly found about the increases sfx editions was the really bizarre song break-out in Jabba's bar in the 1st or 2nd (or..3rd?) movie. And I'm not even sure if that was actually one of the deleted scenes, but it was truly fucking insane.

And I guess while I'm at it I can't seem to remember the first encounter w/ Jabba and Han Solo actually having him mobile and talking to Han on the way to the m. falcon? Was that even changed? Did it always look so awful?

song was in the 3rd one. they shot it just for the SE.

in the 70s version han talks to jabba offscreen. theatrical SE and the current editions have very different versions of that scene, mainly because the original CG jabba looked fucking awful even by 1997 standards.

Xp yeah.

Han never meets him in the first film, they added the whole scene by cgi-ing Jabba over the original actor from a scene that was deleted.
Et voila!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itWq71Y5-B4

To confuse things further they re-CGI'd the scene a bit for the DVD in '04 to make it more realistic than the original re-releases that came out in the late 90s.
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/e/ec/Ataleoftwohutts.jpg

There are yet more changes planned for the new Blu Ray edition. He probably.. flies in or something.

http://johnkennethmuir.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/duneharkonnen.jpg

I recently watched anamorphically re-encoded versions of the originals that came out on the 2006 DVD release and it was such a pleasure! I'd almost forgot that they could be enjoyable. They're obviously GREAT movies in their original form, but the special editions are simply unwatchable. Despite the egregious and anachronistic cgi insertions, the whole thing has been color-corrected to death.

― Spencer Chow, Friday, January 28, 2011 12:52 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

Those are pretty awful DVD transfers though. I have a strong suspicion that Lucas deliberately made sure that the DVD transfers of the non-special editions were half-assed.

in the 70s version han talks to jabba offscreen. theatrical SE and the current editions have very different versions of that scene, mainly because the original CG jabba looked fucking awful even by 1997 standards.

ugh this is precisely why this is so sad - Lucas has actually ruined your memory

any good write-ups on what lucas has to say about the new editions? all i've heard is that he's fairly proud of them and that his vision can finally be completed w/ the ease of sfx.

i can't deny the guy is a grade-a definition visionary (YOU try simply imagining a universe as unique and in-depth as the star wars one) but i really can't believe the guy when thinking that back in the 70's, as he was gazing at the sarlacc pit that he had thought "if only this had a beak, then it would be complete" (it's a FUCKING MOUTH IN THE GROUND. how horrifying/ novel is that already?)

Did not know about the Jabba CGI re-do. Weird. Also, i totally agree with kelpolaris re: the only real big jarring problem was the singing scene in ROTJ. Sorta felt like the moment you saw that, you knew you had been sucked from the normal universe of OG Star Wars into the parallel dimension of hell that is Jar Jar Binks & Kit Fisto.

There's a great DVD bootleg someone's put together called "Deleted Magic", which is the first Star Wars with all the outtakes and unreleased footage synced up to the original Laserdisc film and shit. Absolutely jaw-dropping and a million times more enjoyable than anything past ROTJ.