I think I’m over it, but I recently had some bad Harley Benton related GAS. Look how awesome and cheap these things are! You know I have a thing for weird guitars. You know I have a thing for cheap guitars. This one like the Travecaster is cool. That’s on another list.
One thing people seem to be good at is arguing over texts. We can argue different points about the same information. How many interpretations are there for the constitution? And that’s just one language. Hit up the Torah, Bible, or Koran that’s been translated into different languages a few times and it’s absolute chaos. People seem to focus on minutiae instead of the big picture.
I can easily imagine a post-apocalyptic dystopian future where the Star Wars films have become the basis for religion. People will subscribe to their own versions of the Jedi and Sith philosophies and have an overall high regard for the force. Some people will say it’s all fiction. Magicians will use levitation and spoon-bending illusions to “prove” that the force is real.
I can imagine sects breaking out of each group of trilogies, finding their own interpretations of the overall themes to be the only correct way to see things.
Some will say Anakin/Vader brought balance to the force. Some will say it was Luke. Some may focus on the new characters to come. Some cults will say you have to go to the dark side before you can be redeemed by the light and that is the only true path to Jedi salvation.
Some will argue that the original films unedited are the only true word. Some will argue that the standalone films and animated series are like the apocrypha, and can’t be true canon.
Monasteries will open and instead of vows of silence, they will talk like Yoda.
Books will be written trying to prove that the holiday special did in fact exist.
People will kill each other arguing over who shot first.
I think you now have a script for Idiocracy 2: Idiocracier.
Molly was super-excited going door-to-door getting candy & telling eveyone we passed on the street “Happy Halloween!” She loved the compliments on her dress & shoes, and even got to pet a few puppies.
Ian loved his short 1½ street trip strapped on the front of me. People fawned over him too and he ate it up. It was a little chilly & windy so we took him home about dark to pass out candy with Grandma & BB.
At every house Molly would ask if we were going to get more, but when we circled back & she saw the other end of our street, she was ready to go home. No fight or fuss!
We got to celebrate several times since last week’s Halloween party at the church. I had a day off & was able to attend their library story time, and today we even hit up a trick-or-treat at Gaint Ealge.
I loved decorating pumpkins, the porch, and even gutting/carving the pumpkin with Molly this year.
I have a Fender Mini Twin MT-10 9V amp that I recently dug out of a box in the basement. Obviously I don’t use it much. It’s the one in a plastic enclosure, and it sounds like… it’s in a plastic enclosure. The battery compartment cover has decided to move on to better things. My little Smokey Amp kicks its butt where 9V rocking is concerned, and it drives a cabinet if you wanna get really crazy.
I have the boring MT-10 on the right in the incredibly awesome sounding high-quality black plastic enclosure.
If it looks like a duck, and sounds like a cat getting its tail pulled, it must be a... guitar amplifier?
One of the clamps inside that was supposed to hold the speaker busted off of the plastic enclosure anyway, so it was all in there rattling around.
I have been a fan of the stuff that the dude from Artistic Amplification is doing for a while. The other day I got the brainstorm to turn my Mini-Twin into something like that dude does. He uses the Ruby circuit from Runoof Groove, but I already have guts to a perfectly good amp.
9V me!
All I need is one of those 9V battery connector things(the amp has a stupid box w/ prongs), a fun shell, maybe some longer wires, a drill, some time and I’m good to go. Even my level of poor soldering skills should work for this venture.
These would certainly make badass little novelty amps.
I could possibly route out the eyes of the skull for the Twin Speaker placement. Was thinking the same with with Darth Vader’s eyes, or even mount them in the mouth-piece. Somehow I could maybe even work in that control panel… If the speaker was in the mouth, I could make the eyeballs light up or something even crazier. I can even use the integrated AC adapter, but I have read online that sometimes they produce an additional unwanted hum.
Then again, I thought trolling an antique store or two for an old box or transistor radio or crazy piece of kitsch would be kind of fun. I might come across something that hits me as the perfect vessel for the Frankentwin. (And a wooden box or old leather-covered transistor might sound better than yet another plastic enclosure.)
HELP ME!
I pulled the amp apart with ease… I’m sort of stuck with the knobs. They’re not coming off with a gentle pull, and while other goofy replacements might be fun, I don’t really want to bust these (or the circuit board inside) yet. I guess I’m going to have to try to get something thin in behind them to pull them off.
I’m asking you the reader if you have any tips, tricks, advice, suggestions, etc. Have you done this before? Have you seen anything similar? Have you ever had the urge to build your own amp? Would you buy one if I learned how to make a circuit & started making/selling weird stuff? (Provided it sounded cool?)
Damn you, George Lucas. I’m pretty sure you could sell the proverbial air conditioner to the Eskimo (is Inuit the correct term now?) without a problem, but I bet you can also amazingly re-sell him the air conditioner that he already has just by cleaning it, maybe adding a new filter, and putting a shiny sticker on it… and repeating that process every few years for the next 30 or 40. You are a genius.
Fanboy rant that you’ve already heard a million times over aside, George Lucas is a creative genius, and no matter how much we love to bicker about changes with new actors/voices, re-releases, re-edits, mis-colored & re-colored lightsabers, flying CGI droids, who shot first, and dancing Yoda… it all comes down to the fact that we love the Star Wars films and feel some kind of connection to them. If we didn’t feel so strongly about them, we (hopefully) wouldn’t waste our time bickering. (Sorry, can’t let it go: I still want “Yub Nub” back, I hatehatehate the new Ewok song in Jedi.)
Of course I’m going to get the Blu-ray version. To have them all in one package? Awesome. Seems like forever-ago that I was pontificating on what I’d like to see on a Blu-ray release. Now that it’s almost here & available for pre-order, I’m getting jittery… like I’ve had too many cups of coffee. Maybe I did that, too.
Bill Hunt is a lucky bastard that got a preview of the discs, and he shares the goods with us. Basically there are a lot of error fixes, clean ups, and a bunch of sound remastering and rebuilding. Some cool bits…
One thing I should confirm for you at this point: The original theatrical versions of the Original Trilogy are not included on these discs. Personally, I never expected them to be. I know a lot of fans want them, but it’s clear that Lucas has no intention of making them available at least for the foreseeable future.
Figured as much.
In addition to these sorts of fixes, significant additional dirt removal has been done, more garbage matte lines have been cleaned up and other little “fixes” have been applied as well. Here’s an example of one such fix done to Episode V. For years, fans have complained that in this shot of the Wampa attacking Luke’s Tauntaun, you could see part of the puppeteer’s arm because the costume didn’t extend quite far enough… Now, that’s been fixed.
For Episode IV, however, “getting it exactly right” required a rather extensive forensic effort, as this material just wasn’t cataloged with future surround remixes in mind. In many cases, Matt and his team went back to original analog tape recordings made in 1976 to get the best quality of all the required elements. As a result, it’s fair to say that the surround mix for Episode IV was almost completely rebuilt from scratch, with Matt comparing his work to the original print master to ensure its creative accuracy. And at every step of the way, director George Lucas and original sound supervisor Ben Burtt were consulted to ensure that the mix reproduced as closely as possible their original intent for the film’s sonic experience. In fact, Matt says he played the film’s reels many times for George, in 15-20 second chucks, to get his feedback.
Crazy. I think I’m going to have to break down & buy a surround-sound system just for this Blu-ray release. Maybe a better Blu-ray player too. Any ideas on how to convince my wife why this is necessary?
Now, you’ll recall that a little bit ago, I said these should probably be best considered new 2011 versions of these films, and not the 2004 DVD versions. All the fixes and corrections alone justify this in my opinion, but there’s another reason too… and you can probably guess what it is: Once again, George has apparently added a few new “surprises” into these films. I don’t know what they are and didn’t get to see any of them on Friday, but I was assured that there will be “new things to notice” when we watch the films. I think we can safely assume that one of them will be the new all-digital Yoda in Episode I…
More tweaks? Hopefully more archive/deleted footage put into the films in lieu of additional background lizards, droids, clones, or new musical numbers. (Although, if more aliens popped up in the background… like the ones from Close Encounters, Alien, Predator, Cowboys & Aliens, or even a Klingon, that would be kind of geeky fun.) I’d like to see the Revenge of the Sith ending that Simon Pegg wrote about in his book.
What the other changes to these films may be, I have no idea, but I suspect there will be no lack of blog posts on this very subject within hours of the first discs becoming available to fans.
Now then, let’s move on to the extras. Is it really worth getting the Complete Saga set just to get the three extras discs? For me at least, the answer here is clear: Absolutely. Yes… I’ve now seen many of the Original Trilogy deleted scenes. No… I can’t tell you much about them (believe me, that drives me as crazy as it does you). But I was pretty surprised by them and in a good way. What I can tell you is that they are substantial – at least for the Original Trilogy. This isn’t just dribs and drabs stuff – it includes long sequences. And they’re extremely cool. Frankly, for me this is the real draw of the entire BD release. As you’ve seen in some of the teaser clips Lucasfilm has released, they’re not pristine, but most of them are in HD – at least the Original Trilogy clips. And trust me, they’re well worth seeing. It’s stuff some of you have wanted to see in good quality since 1977, along with a few things fans may not have known even existed.
What’s more, each film has two audio commentary tracks – the ones that were on the previous DVD release as well as an all-new commentary compiled from tons of vintage and archived interviews with the cast and crew. Finally, I’m assured that there are indeed a handful of “very fun” Easter eggs scattered throughout the set.
OOOH. How will I find these? Ha ha. I’m going to have to set up a Google News alert or something. I’m never good at just finding them on my own.
Go read the main article, it’s worth it if you’re a geek… and there are some killer photos!
In with that, they point to yet another article, that says exciting things like…
On the special features, we spent 3 years sifting and digging through 30 years of material that is in the vaults at the Ranch, it’s been quite an undertaking. We uncovered boxes that hadn’t been opened in over 20 years, it was a very dirty experience! We looked through work prints, we found dailies, we went through behind-the scenes videos, we really uncovered a slew of new gems that we’re really excited to share with the fans.
Oh what I wouldn’t give to dig through those archives.
Q: Is the holiday special on there?
A: You’ll have to wait and see! The holiday special is a challenge, but look for some Easter Eggs – what’s a Star Wars release without a couple of Easter Eggs?! J
I’m guessing not the whole Holiday special, but maybe a clip… especially the Boba Fett cartoon. A clean version of that would be excellent! (If it exists, watch it have overdubs fromTemuera Morrison
If the whole special shows up, that would be killer. No one ever asks about the Ewok movies. What about those? When are we going to get more forest creatures, lost footage, and an all-new CGI Gorax? How about Cindel & Mace running around in Jedi somewhere?
Oh yeah, maybe Troops will pop up as an easter egg!
Thanks to HarrisPoll Surveys, PNC/Visa Points, and a jar o’ change, I was able to pre-order from Amazon for only $2.49 out of pocket.
Yeah, it’s a stretch, but I wanted to share some more goodies. I made some Star Wars ringtones a while ago, and thought I’d share. If you don’t know how to get them to your phone, try Ventones.
Bentframe used to have a ton of stuff on mp3.com back when they actually hosted mp3’s and made CD’s for you. Now they’ve sort of disappeared… I wish I could get some more of these tracks on CD!
I can imagine sects breaking out of each group of trilogies, finding their own interpretations of the overall themes to be the only correct way to see things.
World (and Lunar) Domination 