Watch This: The Making Of Star Wars: Despecialized Edition

R2D2 Despecialized

For those of you who don’t know _Star Wars: Despecialized_ is an ongoing project by a group of dedicated fans to take the original trilogy of Star Wars and simultaneously remove all the changes and updates and additions and removals made to the movies over the years and to upgrade that audio and video to current, high definition. It’s crazy impressive and it sounds like a lot of work. What you probably don’t realize is that it’s not a lot of work, it’s a metric shit load of work.

You probably don’t realize just how many additions and changes have been made over the years (spoiler: almost every release since the late 1990s has had changes. This featurette for the project takes us through how they put the despecialized edition together from a multitude of sources, picking and choosing the the best versions of the image from basically every version of the film released to date. Let’s watch:

Continue reading “Watch This: The Making Of Star Wars: Despecialized Edition”

Watch This: Star Wars: Kitbashed Blends A New Hope With The Films Which Influenced It

Star wars

You’re probably aware that Star Wars was the product of George Lucas’ mind and all the swashbuckling space adventures, samurai movies, and general pulp he loved to watch as a kid. Well now you can see how those influences directly… well… influenced Star Wars with this awesome video.

Continue reading “Watch This: Star Wars: Kitbashed Blends A New Hope With The Films Which Influenced It”

Awesome: Read This Interview With Roger Christian, The Man Who Literally Built Star Wars

roger-christian

You know that look that Star Wars has? The sort of rough and abused look that the Millennium Falcon has? How things in that far flung futuristic world still looked like they’d actually been used occasionally? That look that much of science fiction to follow, including post-Jedi Star Wars itself has been trying to recreate ever since?

Here’s an interview with Roger Christian, the guy who literally built Star Wars for George Lucas and created that look (and won an Oscar for his efforts).

Continue reading “Awesome: Read This Interview With Roger Christian, The Man Who Literally Built Star Wars”

Dear Mr. Abrams: Please Remember How To Use The Mystery Box For Positive Effect

JJ Abrams

“_Wait, what’s ‘The Mystery Box’?_” you may be asking. The Mystery Box is something first coined by JJ Abrams to describe his approach to writing in the TED Talk he gave waaaaaaay back in 2007. The long version involves his grand father and childhood memories of a magic shop made real by way of an actual Mystery Box of Magic purchased when he was a child. The short version is that Mr. Abrams values, above all, we the viewers not knowing what is going on with his projects.

And I’m kind of tired of how that’s working these days.

Continue reading “Dear Mr. Abrams: Please Remember How To Use The Mystery Box For Positive Effect”