Chronicle > The Grey on Rotten Tomatoes? I was a little surprised by that. I just assumed from the commercial that it would be crap.
Chronicle is by the writer, narrator, and director of The Death and Return of Superman. It couldn't not be an awesome film; the guy also created and directed the Drunk Comic Book History videos and is John Landis's son, in addition to being an avowed comic fan.
Does it not bother you that the Navy is participating in blatant propangda that appears so over-the-top rah as to make Top Gun look like a protest film?
The other trailer is better, I think - that one tries to play it like your bog standard American action movie, but the other shows a little more of it.
I’ve heard of “fan edits” of Star Wars many time before, but I’ve never bothered tracking them down to watch them. My thought process was “Why should I? I know which of the movies I like, so I’ll just watch the movies I like, and not watch the movies I don’t like.”
But I finally decided to download two of the more famous edits and see if they were worth my time. Or not my time, as I will have already spent the time on them to find out if they were worth it, but maybe I could save time for other people in recommendations or negative recommendations.
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Revisited.
This is an edit of the special edition DVD of episode IV. To be honest, I’ve never seen the special edition versions of any of the original trilogy, that I know about, so I wasn’t sure how much was changed by the editor or how much by the official special edition re-release.
The idea behind this edit was to fix all the little details in continuity and special effects that were missed by Lucas and his team. I gather the editor asked for suggestions in fan forums and then went through the movie, frame by frame, fixing stuff that only the highest level of nerd will see.
For example, in Episode IV, Darth Vader’s chest mounted control panel doesn’t have any flashing lights, and in V and VI it does. So every moment Vader is on screen, he now has flashing lights. The full list of changes is here.
Most changes I didn’t notice, of course, but some were pretty big. For example, the colour has been “fixed” for the entire movie, and the Death Star interior is now much darker, a deep grey, to look more like Imperial decor in later movies rather than the white of utopian Bespin…
Oh fuck, I’m become nerd.
Needless to say, in A New Hope Revisited, Han shoots first, but considering I’ve never seen the special edition version, that’s the only way I know the movie. Some special effects changes, like the addition of dinosaurs to Mos Eisley, were obviously from the special edition version, and looked utterly shit. Not just shit, but got in the way of the story. When Ben Kenobi points to the cantina, and says that’s where he’ll find a ride off Tatooine, it looks like he’s indicating a dinosaur, because it is now the thing RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN, and MOVING while the cantina door is off to one side, darker, and motionless.
So I wish the fan editor had used original footage in some cases, minus dinosaurs.
The biggest negative about this fan edit is the sound mix. Human voices are too low to hear easily. This might have something to do with it being an all new surround sound mix, and I watched it with stereo speakers, but the fan editor is obviously a visual effects guy first, not a sound mixer.
Do I recommend this edit? A New Hope Revisited is really just for the nerds and fans of the original, as I don’t think there was much wrong with it. Except, of course, the original isn’t easily available at the moment. Having not seen the latest Lucas approved versions, I’d say watch Revisited if there was a choice between the two, because fuck… does Han really not shoot first? But I’ll be clear, Revisited is not, and is not trying to be, anything like the original. A lot has been changed, so if you’re a purist, this isn’t for you. Chewbacca gets a medal at the end!
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Edit
This is probably the best known fan edit. The yellow scrolling text at the start sums it up by saying “Really? After all this time, that’s what you gave us? I bet I can use the same footage and make a better movie.” I paraphrasing, of course.
The idea is that the Phantom Editor used the first DVD release as a basis, then cut out all the shit he could and re-ordered other stuff to make more sense. I think this is about 20 mintes shorter than the original version, which means we spend about 20 minutes less with Jar Jar Binks and very little redundant dialogue with Anakin.
I’ve only watched Episode I once before today, and that the original cinema release back in 1999, so the dozen intervening years means I’m probably not the best qualified person to talk about the changes. There’s always a bigger nerd, especially in Star Wars where I hardly register on the nerd scale at all.
But you know what? It’s actually a really good movie! The Phantom Edit version, I mean. It really does strip away so much of the boring and pointless bits. People sitting in circles and talking? Hardly any this time around!
It also focuses on the main plot a lot more. What is the plot of the movie, you might ask? Well, after I watched it in the cinema, I probably wouldn’t have been able to explain it. The Phantom Edit, on each story “beat”, brings it back to the fact that the Princess wants to A. stop the blockade, B. get to the Senate to lift the blockade and then C. get back to the planet to save her people because the Senate is obviously not going to do the work. Anakin and the Jedi council stuff is relegated to a sub-plot, where it should be.
I think the interminable fight sequences have been cut down, along with the never ending ending battles at the end.
Also near the beginning, they land with the invasion fleet on the far side of the planet, and then have to go through the middle of the planet to get to the capital… why did the invasion fleet land so far away from the target? In the Phantom Edit this seems to have been solved. The whole chase ride in the submarine through the planet? Gone! No pointless monster chasing them for no reason other than extending the running time and spending more time in an enclosed space with Jar Jar Binks.
I’m not sure how much material is reordered, or if dialogue has been changed or re-dubbed. I think it would be cool for the Revisited Editor to do a pass on this movie though, if only to re-dub the voice of Anakin’s mother. What the hell is that accent?
Do I recommend this edit? If you have never seen The Phantom Menace… don’t! Instead just watch The Phantom Edit. It’s better in just about every way it could be. The special effects from the original still hold up, as does most of the action, and you get to see R2-D2 sticking his metal penis into different holes than in the original trilogy. What more can you ask for?
Finally, if you’ve had the misfortune of watching all of the prequel trilogy, I must recommend Red Letter Media’s trilogy of reviews of the prequel trilogy. Each review is about 70 minutes long, and I’m not kidding when I say you will get waaaaay more entertainment from the reviews than watching the movies through again. In fact, even if you never intend to watch the movies again, watch the Red Letter Media reviews.
The Phantom Edit fixes many of the negative points brought up in the review, and while the rest of the faults slip through, the Phantom Editor has made the movie so much better that they remaining faults are now forgivable, if not ignorable.
About a year ago, and then some, I saw Joel and Ethan Coen's version of True Grit (the superior one in my mind) in the theaters and I remembered loving it, with reservations. Just today, I decided to revisit it and see if it held up. I was delighted to find it not only did, but my previous reservations were gone as I had a different perspective this time around (I won't bore you with those). Almost everything is spot on: the acting (especially the little girl), the cinematography, the camerawork, the writing, etc. If you have Netflix Instant Streaming and haven't seen it yet, your time would be well-worth it.
Still haven't seen it. All I know is horsey doesn't do so well. I thought about watching that top whatever of IMDB, but it's not high priority.
The number of films on that list that I don't even consider good kills my desire to go through the whole list.
What movie in the IMDB top 250 do you not consider to be even good? Clearly you don't have to like all of those movies. And there is plenty of argument to be made about the ordering. There's also a tendency for recent and popular movies to be ranked much more highly than they deserve. But every movie on there is at minimum, worth seeing and definitely at least good. The overwhelming majority are at least great. The fact that you don't think so suggests that your need to go down the list is greater than that of most other people, as your film education is severely lacking.
Still haven't seen it. All I know is horsey doesn't do so well. I thought about watching that top whatever of IMDB, but it's not high priority.
The number of films on that list that I don't even consider good kills my desire to go through the whole list.
What movie in the IMDB top 250 do you not consider to be even good? Clearly you don't have to like all of those movies. And there is plenty of argument to be made about the ordering. There's also a tendency for recent and popular movies to be ranked much more highly than they deserve. But every movie on there is at minimum, worth seeing and definitely at least good. The overwhelming majority are at least great. The fact that you don't think so suggests that your need to go down the list is greater than that of most other people, as your film education is severely lacking.
Simply put all three Lotr movies are not better than the pianist, the professional, Das Boot, the Prestige, or about half the films on the list. Then of course there is the fact Avatar is on the list at all.
Still haven't seen it. All I know is horsey doesn't do so well. I thought about watching that top whatever of IMDB, but it's not high priority.
The number of films on that list that I don't even consider good kills my desire to go through the whole list.
What movie in the IMDB top 250 do you not consider to be even good? Clearly you don't have to like all of those movies. And there is plenty of argument to be made about the ordering. There's also a tendency for recent and popular movies to be ranked much more highly than they deserve. But every movie on there is at minimum, worth seeing and definitely at least good. The overwhelming majority are at least great. The fact that you don't think so suggests that your need to go down the list is greater than that of most other people, as your film education is severely lacking.
Simply put all three Lotr movies are not better than the pianist, the professional, Das Boot, the Prestige, or about half the films on the list. Then of course there is the fact Avatar is on the list at all.
LotR isn't better than those, but they are still in the top 250 of all time movies. Avatar probably isn't, but it's still good. No list is perfect, obviously. But IMDB top 250, all things considered, is not half bad at all.
Avatar is just unnecessary. I don't really hate it, it's a nice popcorn flick and JTVH will tell you I had a blast watching it, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's two and a half hours you can spend doing something else.
The best thing about The Descendants was the music. That film really, really disappointed me. It was one of those movies where I came out thinking "okay, yeah. That was a movie."
EDIT: George Clooney did a good job in it, too, as he's one to do. But I don't think he should get Best Actor.
The best thing about The Descendants was the music. That film really, really disappointed me. It was one of those movies where I came out thinking "okay, yeah. That was a movie."
EDIT: George Clooney did a good job in it, too, as he's one to do. But I don't think he should get Best Actor.
I think I really got touched by the movie because of how closely I could connect to it. Everything played out in a way where I could understand people's motivations, which is usually my top concern with plot. That's why I really dug everything about it, because it's a character piece about Clooney who is solid.
Phoenix Wright was everything it should have been. All the characters were spot on. The courtroom was great. I don't remember the audience or evidence presentation being like it is, but it's a welcome change. There were a lot of words there too, and I didn't understand most of them, but I'm sure it was nothing important.
Phoenix Wright was everything it should have been. All the characters were spot on. The courtroom was great. I don't remember the audience or evidence presentation being like it is, but it's a welcome change. There were a lot of words there too, and I didn't understand most of them, but I'm sure it was nothing important.
The Artist was great. It's deliberate and has the perfect amount of camp and meta-knowledge in it. The direction, acting, and music are perfectly handled.
I don't want to ruin anything, but I will say that if you have not seen it, you absolutely should.
Comments
I’ve heard of “fan edits” of Star Wars many time before, but I’ve never bothered tracking them down to watch them. My thought process was “Why should I? I know which of the movies I like, so I’ll just watch the movies I like, and not watch the movies I don’t like.”
But I finally decided to download two of the more famous edits and see if they were worth my time. Or not my time, as I will have already spent the time on them to find out if they were worth it, but maybe I could save time for other people in recommendations or negative recommendations.
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Revisited.
This is an edit of the special edition DVD of episode IV. To be honest, I’ve never seen the special edition versions of any of the original trilogy, that I know about, so I wasn’t sure how much was changed by the editor or how much by the official special edition re-release.
The idea behind this edit was to fix all the little details in continuity and special effects that were missed by Lucas and his team. I gather the editor asked for suggestions in fan forums and then went through the movie, frame by frame, fixing stuff that only the highest level of nerd will see.
For example, in Episode IV, Darth Vader’s chest mounted control panel doesn’t have any flashing lights, and in V and VI it does. So every moment Vader is on screen, he now has flashing lights. The full list of changes is here.
Most changes I didn’t notice, of course, but some were pretty big. For example, the colour has been “fixed” for the entire movie, and the Death Star interior is now much darker, a deep grey, to look more like Imperial decor in later movies rather than the white of utopian Bespin…
Oh fuck, I’m become nerd.
Needless to say, in A New Hope Revisited, Han shoots first, but considering I’ve never seen the special edition version, that’s the only way I know the movie. Some special effects changes, like the addition of dinosaurs to Mos Eisley, were obviously from the special edition version, and looked utterly shit. Not just shit, but got in the way of the story. When Ben Kenobi points to the cantina, and says that’s where he’ll find a ride off Tatooine, it looks like he’s indicating a dinosaur, because it is now the thing RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN, and MOVING while the cantina door is off to one side, darker, and motionless.
So I wish the fan editor had used original footage in some cases, minus dinosaurs.
The biggest negative about this fan edit is the sound mix. Human voices are too low to hear easily. This might have something to do with it being an all new surround sound mix, and I watched it with stereo speakers, but the fan editor is obviously a visual effects guy first, not a sound mixer.
Do I recommend this edit? A New Hope Revisited is really just for the nerds and fans of the original, as I don’t think there was much wrong with it. Except, of course, the original isn’t easily available at the moment. Having not seen the latest Lucas approved versions, I’d say watch Revisited if there was a choice between the two, because fuck… does Han really not shoot first? But I’ll be clear, Revisited is not, and is not trying to be, anything like the original. A lot has been changed, so if you’re a purist, this isn’t for you. Chewbacca gets a medal at the end!
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Edit
This is probably the best known fan edit. The yellow scrolling text at the start sums it up by saying “Really? After all this time, that’s what you gave us? I bet I can use the same footage and make a better movie.” I paraphrasing, of course.
The idea is that the Phantom Editor used the first DVD release as a basis, then cut out all the shit he could and re-ordered other stuff to make more sense. I think this is about 20 mintes shorter than the original version, which means we spend about 20 minutes less with Jar Jar Binks and very little redundant dialogue with Anakin.
I’ve only watched Episode I once before today, and that the original cinema release back in 1999, so the dozen intervening years means I’m probably not the best qualified person to talk about the changes. There’s always a bigger nerd, especially in Star Wars where I hardly register on the nerd scale at all.
But you know what? It’s actually a really good movie! The Phantom Edit version, I mean. It really does strip away so much of the boring and pointless bits. People sitting in circles and talking? Hardly any this time around!
It also focuses on the main plot a lot more. What is the plot of the movie, you might ask? Well, after I watched it in the cinema, I probably wouldn’t have been able to explain it. The Phantom Edit, on each story “beat”, brings it back to the fact that the Princess wants to A. stop the blockade, B. get to the Senate to lift the blockade and then C. get back to the planet to save her people because the Senate is obviously not going to do the work. Anakin and the Jedi council stuff is relegated to a sub-plot, where it should be.
I think the interminable fight sequences have been cut down, along with the never ending ending battles at the end.
Also near the beginning, they land with the invasion fleet on the far side of the planet, and then have to go through the middle of the planet to get to the capital… why did the invasion fleet land so far away from the target? In the Phantom Edit this seems to have been solved. The whole chase ride in the submarine through the planet? Gone! No pointless monster chasing them for no reason other than extending the running time and spending more time in an enclosed space with Jar Jar Binks.
I’m not sure how much material is reordered, or if dialogue has been changed or re-dubbed. I think it would be cool for the Revisited Editor to do a pass on this movie though, if only to re-dub the voice of Anakin’s mother. What the hell is that accent?
Do I recommend this edit? If you have never seen The Phantom Menace… don’t! Instead just watch The Phantom Edit. It’s better in just about every way it could be. The special effects from the original still hold up, as does most of the action, and you get to see R2-D2 sticking his metal penis into different holes than in the original trilogy. What more can you ask for?
Finally, if you’ve had the misfortune of watching all of the prequel trilogy, I must recommend Red Letter Media’s trilogy of reviews of the prequel trilogy. Each review is about 70 minutes long, and I’m not kidding when I say you will get waaaaay more entertainment from the reviews than watching the movies through again. In fact, even if you never intend to watch the movies again, watch the Red Letter Media reviews.
The Phantom Edit fixes many of the negative points brought up in the review, and while the rest of the faults slip through, the Phantom Editor has made the movie so much better that they remaining faults are now forgivable, if not ignorable.
Almost everything is spot on: the acting (especially the little girl), the cinematography, the camerawork, the writing, etc. If you have Netflix Instant Streaming and haven't seen it yet, your time would be well-worth it.
EDIT:
George Clooney did a good job in it, too, as he's one to do. But I don't think he should get Best Actor.
I don't want to ruin anything, but I will say that if you have not seen it, you absolutely should.
http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/2012/02/chronicle-review/
Absolutely. Everyone I told to see it was blown away and gush this fact at me. Also, best use of Real3D in a movie. Ever.
HELLOOO 90's!