Experience Star Wars Like You Never Have Before

...with more rocks

SERIOUSLY! WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?????

The Star Wars Blu-Rays are just around the corner (it's like we are back in 2006). Despite Lucas saying the movies were going to be left intact this time, we all knew he was lying. Here are some of the brilliant changes made to make the movies into the more complete vision old Georgy originally had.

-R2D2 has more rocks in front of him, for some strange reason.

-Ewoks blink, for some strange reason.

-Jabba's Palace door is now five times the original size, for some strange reason.

-Obi-Wan scares the Sand People off with a new blood-curdling inhuman scream, for some strange reason.

-The puppet Yoda in Episode I has been replaced with a CGI Yoda, for actually a good reason. That puppet - the original one they used back in 1979 - was falling apart during Phantom Menace. Also, a change to a prequel can't possibly make it any worse.

-Any open space has been replaced by a CGI Tie-Fighter, for some strange reason.

-And finally, for some strange reason, during the single most climatic scene in the entire series, they added in Darth Vader saying "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" This scene serves two purposes: to bookend Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi, for some strange reason. And to weaken the mystique that has made Darth Vader one of the greatest fictional characters of all time.

Don't worry people. These will all be changed again in two years when the inevitable 3D Star Wars films are released.

(BTW, I haven't been on as of late because my internet sucks. Great job AT&T. I'm glad your merger fell through.)

The Ten Worst Movie Titles Ever

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I've never heard wrong with judging it by the title. A stupid title will turn off so many people, and sink your film before it ever sets sail.

For example, here I have The Midnight Meat Train, which is a great, serious horror movie directed by Ryuhei Kitamure (Versus, Metal Gear Solid cutscenes), based on the amazing short story by Clive Barker (Hellraiser), and starring a pre-Hangover Bradley Cooper and a psycho Vinnie Jones. You should all go see it, however, you could not have seen it in theaters because they could not release a movie called The Midnight Meat Train to a wide audience.

While that was a good movie, here's ten (mostly) not-so-great films with even stupider titles. I can't believe studios would ever ok some of these dumb names. I'm not including any intentional dumb titles (ie The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies), nor am I including any indy or guerilla or just plain horrible films (Manos: Hands of Fate). All of these were green-lit by a major studio without anyone thinking the title was idiotic.   

Box Office, VHS Releases, and other Stuff I Missed

Well I'm back after a long weekend conference. Nothing too crazy happened in the movie world while I was gone, but I'll play some catch-up anyway.

--The Avengers movie poster got leaked. I'm pretty sure this is real, but fuzzy Hawkeye looks a bit too much like a Resident Evil 5 model. Still, I'm liking it.

--Super 8 was number one at the box office, making $36 million and finding tons of good reviews. While this movie had a very small budget of $50 million, this was still below most expectations. I mean, it is practically the sequel to ET, the fourth highest grossing movie of all time after inflation. The Summer of Flops continues. Maybe next time the producers will learn, and Super 9 will be exclusively in IMAX 3D with D-Box.

--X-Men was #2, bringing in $24 million for a total of $98m in two weeks. It still has a ways to go before it gets out of the red.

--Pirates 4 surpassed Fast Five as the year's highest grossing movie ($208 million), only for it to be passed by Hangover 2 ($215 million) in the same week.

--Someone asked where I get my box office stats at. That would be from Box Office Mojo.com, the best place for anything money-related with movies.

--Some definitive "Meh" movies were released today. Now you can own Battle: Los Angeles, Red Riding Hood, and Hall Pass if for some reason you want to own them. There's also Big Momma's House 3 if you really hate yourself. Jackass 3.5 might be good, until you consider it is basically a bunch of deleted scenes sold as a full movie. Your best bet would be getting Haven, the SyFy (I hate writing that) TV show based on a Stephen King western novel.

--At least there are a few decent Blu-ray releases today, namely Johnny Mnemonic, Point Break, and Heavy Metal.

--Michael Bay was inducted into the Transformers Hall of Fame, or something stupid like that. Also, sometime recently, Transformers 3 got moved back from July 1st to June 29th. It's moving the wrong way.

--The producers are considering giving the new Conan movie PG-13 rating now. This wouldn't be crazy news, but the first two trailers had nothing but blood and nudity.

--Sean Bean of Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings fame got stabbed at a pub in London. Boromir he is not, as he was fine and even continued drinking afterwards.

--Finally, the audition tape of Tom Selleck trying out for Indiana Jones surfaced. It is only like four seconds long -- and in Spanish for whatever reason -- but I almost have to say he would have made a better Indy than even Harrison Ford.

Stars Wars is Coming to Blu-Ray

Possibly the greatest quote of all time was when George Lucas said Stars Wars can not be converted to Blu-Ray, because "they are too old". Just think of that for a bit while I watch Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind in high-def.

Well the good news (besides me already having 50 followers. Thanks guys.) is the complete Star Wars collection is finally coming to Blu-Ray in a massive 9-disc set on September 12. The bad news, this will contain only the "special editions" of the original trilogy. This news seems to shock some people, but I've come to expect disappointment by now.

When Terrorist aren't getting killed, this blog is going to focus on comparing sequels and such. But I will stay away from Star Wars simply because everything possible has already been said. The originals >>> the prequels. That is a fact at this point.  

Anyway, let's look at the bright side. Six of the discs each have a movie and commentary. The late director of ESB, Irvin Kershner, was able to provide (presumably) new commentary, and Carrie Fisher is the only actor to add her input. Two of the discs feature tons of deleted scenes for each trilogy, some of them brand new and some have been locked in the archives for 30 years. The last disc, and possibly the best looking one, has several documentaries. There's one for each of the original movies, each untouched from 77-83. There's a brand new Talk with the Masters, featuring Lucas, Kershner, writer Kasdan, and John Williams. One is based just on Star Wars Universe tech, one just on fandom, one just one spoofs, and one just on...Dewbacks.

Just some helpful links:

Here is Wikipedia explaining the differences between each film revision.

Here is the first part of Mr. Plinkett's incredibly well done, incredibly funny, incredibly raunchy, and incredibly long  (Episode 1, the shortest one, is 70 minutes) reviews of the prequel trilogy.  Well worth the time.

And Here is the first part of Star Wars Begins by Jambe Davdar. It is an incredibly impressive fan commentary of the original trilogy that takes the entirety of the movie, and splices in archive scenes, raw footage, interviews, and other stuff. It's very informative and also well worth your time.