[Cosmic Underwear]

Nitpick #1
Additional Wampa Footage
The Wampa footage remains, as far as I can tell, unchanged from the initial 1997 Special Edition. The extra Wampa footage was put in to add an extra element of tension to the Hoth cave scene. Originally the Wampa was unseen until Luke made his wild swipe at it with his lightsaber. The Wampa scene is probably the most vanilla of the additional footage in the Special Edition. It's there, it's different and no one seems to care.

However, it could be argued that the urgency in the original version was a bit more pronounced in that you couldn't see the Wampa. The tension level was higher because you never knew if the Wampa was going to dart out around a corner or not. Lucas seems to have become obsessed with this sort of slap-you-in-the-face/let-the-viewer-infer-nothing approach to his filmmaking. I understand that Lucas is making movies with kids in mind, however, maybe children aren't as dumb as he thinks they are.

As I mentioned on another thread, Lucas uses images to tell the story. The wampa was always to be seen in the original cut, however, the costume just did not look real enough so the hand puppet and a side view of the costume is all we got back in 1980. There was even an entire Echo Base/wampa sub-plot and hints of this sub-plot can still be seen in the movie. The Echo Base/wampa sub-plot involved a wampa that got into Echo Base and reeked havoc on the joint but was then captured and put in a sealed room. The door of this sealed room then had a warning sign put on it to advise people to stay out of the room. And the label can be seen on the door as Han and Leia run past it while escaping from Echo Base. While Han, Leia and 3P0 are running from snowtroopers, 3P0 tore the door's warning sign off and the pursuing snowtrooper then run into wampa's room and are killed by wampa thus allowing our heros to escape.
Now I want to quote from the Episode VI: Special Edition (17 Nitpicks!):

Nitpick #12
Ewoks
The Ewoks, in theory, are a good idea. Hear me out. The idea of a primitive race of people that can overthrow the might of the Galactic Empire is a neat idea.

Lucas has stated this "neat idea" is loosely based on the American involvement in the Vietnam War. Where an indigenous people drive a technilogically advanced army out of their country.
Now if you expand this idea of an indigenous people having to cope with a more advanced foreign people into the other episodes. You have not an idea but a motif that is in all six episodes.
The indigenous, primitive wampas are having to cope with the Rebels.
That's why Lucas put an image of a wampa sitting down like a primate or person does.
That's why in the Star Wars Alien Species Guide, the wampa is difined as a semi-sentient being.
Notice the wampa is just a yeti or abominable snowMAN.

Can you name the indigenous, primitive people from the other episodes?
I'll give you a hint: One of them kidnaps Anakin's mom.

This post has been edited by Cosmic Underwear: 25 September 2005 - 10:18 PM

[Decaf360]

Nobody forget the part where Luke is whining to Yoda that he is ready:

LUKE
How far away is Yoda? Will it
take us long to get there?

CREATURE
Not far. Yoda not far. Patience.
Soon you will be with him.
(tasting food from
the pot)
Rootleaf, I cook. Why wish you
become Jedi? Hm?

LUKE
Mostly because of my father, I
guess.

CREATURE
Ah, your father. Powerful Jedi
was he, powerful Jedi, mmm.

LUKE
(a little angry)
Oh, come on. How could you know
my father? You don't even know
who I am.
(fed up)
Oh, I don't know what I'm doing
here. We're wasting our time.

CREATURE
(irritated)
I cannot teach him. The boy has
no patience.

BEN'S VOICE
He will learn patience.

YODA
Hmmm. Much anger in him, like his father.

BEN'S VOICE
Was I any different when you
taught me?

YODA
Hah. He is not ready.

LUKE
Yoda! I am ready. I... Ben! I
can be a Jedi. Ben, tell him I'm
ready!

Whiny Luke... Ben! Ben, tell him I'm ready!!!

[Alien]

Once again great job; and this time I agree all the way.

I was beyond glad that Luke's scream was removed again. When I saw that part for the first time with the scream, I was pissed! Like you said, it didn't make sense.
"Me so brave." *drops* "EEEEEEEEEEE!"
Wha'd he expect?


Something was poking me during the Boba Fett scenes, but I couldn't put my finger on it; but now that you mention it, yeah, that change was annoying. There could have been any number of reasons for Boba having a different voice.

Here's a good one: He obviously didn't get much chance to grow up with papa, him being decapitated and all. So, wittle Fett grew up in a different hood with a different posse than dear ole dad. That makes people have different accents, yes it does. Mmm-hmmm.


As for the conversation between Darth and Empie, maybe, you know, the whole Skywalker thing slipped his mind.

Or, seriously, maybe Darth Vadar has been trying all this time to reject the idea that his child survived, after his mentor told him it didn't. Perhaps he'd been having an emotional conflict, not willing to believe it, though knowing it all the while. I mean, he didn't exactly seem surprised when he said "how is this possible". Yeah, that sounds like a viable reason.

Or maybe it's a plot hole. But George can use my excuse if he wants.

Alien

[RandomThoughts]

Concerning the added Vader scenes, I don't know if this has been pointed out yet, (I did read the Nitpicker's Guide, a while back)...but one thing that ticks me off about the added Bespin scence w/ Vader and his shuttle, is the fact that they blatantly recycled footage from ROTJ, to show Vader landing on his SSD and walking down the ramp, towards the waiting troops . Kinda thick-skulled to think that any of us wouldn't notice ...and no, I'm not a 30-something loser living in my parent's basement ...I'm 21 and a university student...anywhooz...if ya watch the film closely, you'll notice what I'm talkin' about...no need to elaborate...

RandomThoughts

[Vesuvius]

I just watched the original theatrical release of ESB and like always, it was wonderful. I came here and read about all these nitpicks for the film and because I also have the SE of this film, I decided to skip through a bit of it and see this junk for myself.

The biggest thing that I noticed that was absolutely pointless was most of Vader, all of Yoda, and a big portion of 3PO's lines have all been re-dubbed with the same lines by the same people. Seriously! So now, Yoda sounds exaclty the same age he sounded in the PT. Vader sounds more stoic or something... I can't quite pin it, but he doesn't seem to convey the original feeling of the film anymore. None of this had to be done.

I'm still wondering what did Lucas possibly hope to achieve by doing this? All lines were delivered fine in ESB. This was one film that didn't need modifying of any sort.

[Mr Pye]

I'm still wondering what did Lucas possibly hope to achieve by doing this? All lines were delivered fine in ESB.

I'm still wondering why Lucas doesn't go all the way and completely remake the old movies just as he wants them with the same actors as in the prequels.

It would be the perfect solution. Those who like the prequels would get their ideal continuation and those who hate the prequels could watch the 1995 trilogy content that these have no prequels.

And Lucas could reissue all nine movies in new fancy boxes and make some more dollars and then he could activate the self destruct mechanisms that BOOMTAGS - the board of merit, taste and good sense - surely made him build into each copy of his special editions.

I wonder what he is waiting for. Maybe for Hayden to turn 45?

This post has been edited by Mr Pye: 04 January 2009 - 07:18 AM

[KurganX]

It seems like Lucas wanted desperately to have a good excuse to release the OT on DVD right before the Prequels (since he said before he was going to hold it over our heads until the Prequels were finished).

It's like he's still embarrassed by the success of the OT with fans over all of his other cinematic attempts but can't let go of the Star Wars cash cow. He still wants the Prequels to outstrip the originals (and perhaps something to do with the fact that he only directed one of the originals which is not the fan favorite, and his ex-wife edited all three contributing to their success).

I know at the time the 2004 editions came out it FUELED fan speculation and anticipation of Episode III, that somehow this was anticipating changes in the continuity that would be revealed in the final Prequel. Turns out it really didn't.

It also was something to do with how around this time Lucas was saying how he "intended" for everyone to watch the movies in "Chronological order" for the first time. So fanboys were tripping over themselves to explain how this was going to be "more logical" because we wouldn't know that Anakin and Vader were the same person or something. But that totally doesn't make ANY sense when you think about it. Plus, now that Episode III Is out, it's clear he had no such plans, or if he did, they failed miserably.

To people who still argue that these sorts of things are a good idea, they should be handed a copy of "the Secret History of Star Wars."

[R2-D2 MUST DIE!]

I haven't seen the new special editions, but I do know one change that SHOULD be made.

Yoda's line in Dagobah: "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defence, NEVER for attack.

Which would be fine, except when TPM came out, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were force-pushing battle droids left, right, and centre. But hey, maybe they forgot that rule, they're just droids anyway, who cares, right?

I let it go until AOTC, when Yoda has his showdown with Dooku. During their little 'push stuff back and forth battle' (which by the way, Vader did a way better job in TESB) Yoda quite clearly catches a bolt of force lightning in his hand, AND SHOOTS IT BACK AT DOOKU! How exactly is this different from shooting his own force lightning?

As usual, ROTS was the final nail in the coffin. Before the duel with Palpatine, Yoda uses the force to kill two Royal Guards at the same time. Sure, it looked cool, but he was still murdering living things with the force.

They should just take the line out.

[civilian_number_two]

Well it was asinine to introduce a suggestion of pacifist philosophers to a Samurai storyline. Lucas is not a good writer. He is an above average producer. He should have outsourced the writing and made better films.

[Mr Pye]

Lucas is a brilliant merchandiser, a very good concept man, a good producer, a lazy director, and a horrible writer, and something of a fire and forget artist.

Though personally I liked the concept of a Jedi never using the force to attack. Those imitators in the prequels weren't real Jedi's anyway, they were part the juggling laser sword circus squad there to perform in the arenas.

[jaitea]

Just a view on the Vader and Palps conversation,

Palps: 'There is a disturbance in the Force, we have a new enemy' = 'I have felt through the force that there may be Jedi activity, even though you and I have wiped them out of existence, I believe that your son Luke, is being trained.'

Vader: 'I have felt it/How is this possible?' = 'Yes I have felt the tremors too master but who could be teaching him'

Palps: 'He could destroy us!' = 'I have forseen that he could be my undoing'

Vader: 'He's just a boy, Obi-Wan can no longer help him' = 'I know that the force is strong with him, but he too old to be trained and Kenobi is destroyed'

The rest doesn't need explained

J