Super Troopers 2 (2018)
Finally got around to seeing this one (I love the first movie). Despite a few funny moments, this movie was not worth the 17 year wait. The comedy felt stuck in 2002. And overall just wasn’t that great.
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Star Wars.
Think I’ve seen it before, many years ago. S’alright, I suppose.
One thing nags - this Death Star chap, it’s evidently a series of levels surrounded by a spherical outer shell. It clearly has a top, middle and bottom. How then at the end bit with the trench are the fighter jet things not at various points flying upside down?
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And that, my friend, is what they call movie magic, you just have to believe what you are seeing on the screen and than everything will be alright! 
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Doesn’t the Death Star, itself, appear to be upside down at one point?
I was never attached to Star Wars the way so many in my generation were. I was 12 in the Summer of ‘77 and thus the perfect age for it, but while I found it a fun diversion, it hardly changed my life, and one viewing was enough. Maybe that was because I was already firmly in the Star Trek camp, maybe because I saw the film in a less-than-impressive venue (it was my first visit to a shopping mall theater, and it was one step up from watching on an airplane) or maybe because even at that young age, I was already one of those guys who if everyone tells him “You’re have to see this; you’re GOING to love it,” my answer is, “Oh yeah?”
All that said, what I did take away from the film, like pretty much everyone else, was tremendous respect for the talented artists who made the effects work so well. Like a lot of kids my age, I collected the SF-oriented moviemaking magazines that revealed how models, matte paintings and camera tricks could create new worlds on the screen, and I played around with my Dad’s Super-8 camera in the backyard, dreaming of a career as a movie FX artist. All of that was largely thanks to Star Wars.
Sooo…lately I’m watching the “Light and Magic” documentary on Disney+ and seeing guys like Dykstra, Trumbull, Ralston, Ellenshaw, etc in their heyday, and marveling at the surprising amount of existing behind-the-scenes footage. Every now and then after explaining how a shot was done, they show the final result, and then it hits me…this work is all lost to time now. This documentary is the one way I can see those effects, because Lucas has replaced them all in the films. This whole documentary is lauding the geniuses behind effects that can no longer been seen unretouched and in their original context.
Are the original effects perfect to modern eyes? Maybe not. Probably not to people in the biz. But I’d argue the main, if not sole, value of Star Wars ‘77 at this point lies in its importance to the history of cinema. And how can you appreciate that if you can’t SEE the film? I know others have made the same point many times, but seriously: you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t say, “Star Wars is a must-see because it changed the history of cinema” and follow that up with “Now buy this deluxe BluRay of something that is NOT the film released in 1977 and therefore has no claim to historical importance.” King Kong’s effects could be done better today, too, but the main reason to watch the 1933 version is to gawk at how effects can be “primitive” and astonishing at the same time. You’re not judging the work against what’s being done today, you’re judging it against what was being done THEN. It’s the same appeal as the Pyramids: how could they DO that back in ancient times? No remake of Kong has ever topped the original because it works on two levels: it’s a kooky fun story in-universe and a fantastic historical landmark IRL, and as a viewer you’ve always got one foot in each universe; “That’s cool and scary what Kong just did. How on Earth did they manage that?” A Kong film could be made technically “better” now, but it can’t be made in 1933, so the effort is pointless.
Anyway I’m enjoying the doc as it’s taking me back to those adventures in the back yard with models and action figures and an old camera, and that aspect entertained me more than the stories, anyway. I just finished the chapter on ESB. Not sure if I’ll keep watching when they get to the digital era, but I strongly suspect not.
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STAR WARS did change my life - but I was eight years old, so that impressionable age was instrumental to that, I guess. Also, it primed me to watch a certain film which came out in 1977, too, and before STAR WARS I was just visiting the cinema for an outing of “The rescuers” (three outings, to be exact).
But I get what you’re driving at: the circumstances which prevent the original trilogy as it was at first to be at least released on discs remain troublesome.
Especially for a studio which has no problems wringing money out of anything. The nostalgia market would yield giant returns for that truly ORIGINAL Star Wars trilogy. And even if Lucas prohibited that in his contract, wouldn’t the almighty lawyers find a way around that?
In any event, when I was 14 and saw RETURN OF THE JEDI I had already become less attached to the Star Wars saga and was kind of disappointed by that film.
But that’s the way teenage fandom works, I suspect. You’re finding your way and leave things behind.
Still, I never thought I needed to choose between Star Wars or Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica for that matter. I loved them all. And still do.
But the first Star Wars was always my initiation to cinema.
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STAR WARS - and I had to look this up because I wasn’t quite sure about it any more - came to cinemas here in the late winter of 1978, when most of the English language market had been going crazy about it for almost a year already. So by the time I came across this cultural phenomenon I was already in Bond’s relentless grip. I admit I was into science fiction long before that via Star Trek, Flash Gordon and our German sf pulp series, so it never was either or for me.
I remember the huge impact STAR WARS had on our generation with its abundance of toys and figures. And there was some kind of background documentary magazine I had to have, showing the development of sf from Verne and Swift to Asimov, METROPOLIS and leading to this space opera. The most astonishing claim in that publication was a quote by Lucas to the effect he was going to make a total of 10 or 12 films (I forget the exact words) out of that universe! How crazy was that?
The effects were a huge part of this story’s appeal. Let’s face it, the first film was as thin as a Flash Gordon serial but we felt as if we were sitting right inside those X-wing fighters - also because of those sound effects that were pure fantasy, interstellar space that sounded huge and threatening!
Many of my friends were into model building and that art was honed to perfection at the garages and backlots of Dykstra’s team. So that was of course a watershed moment for those buffs, continue with Airfix or start building stuff that looks ‘real’. I suppose a great many stage builders and painters had their careers mapped/matted out by STAR WARS. At least until it turned into a CGI sideline of blue screen cinema. And once our generation isn’t any more nobody will be left who remembers how this art was actual magic in those days…
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At least the original cut will finally be released again. Hopefully it will be released on home media (physical copy in particular) with the other original theatrical film copies as well. Even the prequels have changes that weren’t necessary. I know that J.J. Abrams tried to get these copies as well.
I’m happy because it’s time for some new(ish) leadership. I hope that some of those movies will get made. I always felt that Obi-Wan should have been a movie instead of a mini series. Even though I hope for a second season. I just hope that J.J. Abrams doesn’t come back. Although I hope Rey will appear and get some more screen adventures.
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I was in a similar position in 1977: up til then “going to the movies” was all about Disney films and maybe the re-release of “Sound of Music.” Which might not have been so bad if Disney wasn’t in such a slump with stuff like Herbie Rides Again and Million Dollar Duck. Glad you got off that treadmill at 8: it probably didn’t help that I was a preacher’s kid.
In any event, when I was 14 and saw RETURN OF THE JEDI I had already become less attached to the Star Wars saga and was kind of disappointed by that film.
I thought Star Wars was fun for what it was: an homage to/parody of Flash Gordon serials. If they’d left it at that, I’d have been satisfied. I thought Empire was a step up in terms of effects and storytelling, but I wasn’t crazy about the “non-ending” and what it probably meant for movies going foward (ie: frame it as a franchise and you can make everyone wait until the last film to get an ending). The “big moment” in that film went right past me: everyone was so freaked out that Vader was Luke’s dad, but I just said, “Why would you believe that? Darth Vader’s the bad guy, he’s gonna lie.” I think when I finally realized they weren’t kidding is when my interest in the series went out the window. “Jedi” came out around the time I graduated high school, so I had a lot of other stuff going on and wasn’t too into it, but tossing in “…oh, and Leia’s your sister” cinched my disillusionment. Also for once the effects failed to impress and most disappointingly, Vader completed his transition from “first great movie monster/villain in decades” to “sad sack object of pity” which was heartbreaking. Then of course they’d add insult to injury with the prequels, taking 3 films to tell us a story we already knew from a minute or so of exposition back in ‘77.
Still, I never thought I needed to choose between Star Wars or Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica for that matter. I loved them all. And still do.
Well, I wasn’t militant about it but at the time we were all hoping for Star Trek to rise from the ashes and come back in some form, and the implied threat of Star Wars was “now we have a new SF property to love, so leave Trek in its grave.” Of course the opposite ended up being true. But I felt the same way about Space: 1999.
I agree Star Wars is fun, and I liked Galactica just as much if not more. Not so much Buck Rogers, which was a bit goofy for my taste.
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I had a friend who built a wonderful model of a Cylon Raider and as soon as the paint dried, he took it out in the back yard and shot it with a BB gun, then took it to the garage and scorched the area around the holes with a blowtorch to make a “battle damaged” model that was amazing. I’m not sure that would’ve happened before the Dykstra influence.
Never had any luck with models, myself, which didn’t help with my SFX career dreams.
It’s not the same with CGI. Maybe it’s a generational thing, but the most I can manage with the wild and trippy efffects in the Marvel movies is a sort of vague interest, whereas whenever I revisit how Derek Meddings staged the FYEO PTS helicopter sequence with a real helicopter in the distance “flying into” a miniature building in the foreground, I want to stand up and applaud his genius. I don’t know, to me takes more ingenuity and cleverness to make something work in the real world compared to creating a whole digital world inside a software program where the laws of physics are whatever you say they are.
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I’m a little too young to have seen Star Wars on its original release, but it’s still a very important film for me. Watching Star Wars was the first date my parents went on. Then, when the 1997 special edition rereleases came, my dad drove us to Swansea (we lived in a town without a multiplex) so my brother and I could see them on a big(ger) screen. He wasn’t someone who was much into family bonding, so this is the standout memory I have of it.
Basically, I was raised a Star Wars fan.
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In the early winter of 1977 I was 14-years old (I would turn 15 in June of that year). One of my best friend’s Dad was a very popular radio DJ in the Atlanta, GA market and he was given 2 tickets to a sneak preview of some movie called STAR WARS months in advance of the official release. He gave the tickets to his son who invited me along.
We were dropped off at the theater, where they attempted to restrict our entry as this was a press-only screening and we were clearly teenagers. Given that we were stranded in a midtown area of Atlanta, GA, we were begrudgingly allowed to stay and see the movie. Nothing prepared us for the experience, 100% devoid of any pre-publicity hype. For months afterward we were telling our friends about this movie coming out in the summer that was going to change everything. We of course were correct.
When the movie finally released, we put a group of friends together who went and sat through the film 3 times in a single day. I ended up seeing it 11 times in the cinema over the course of the next year. No other movie ever generated that kind of dedication until I experienced my James Bond renaissance in the late 80s and 007 fandom overtook my SW fandom.
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As one who wasn’t nearly as much of a fan as others, yet watched all three of the original films in the cinema, I agree. Here’s an old article that goes through some of the most egregious changes:
The first video is no longer available. I wonder why? 
I first saw Star Wars in the summer of 1977, in a dumpy old theater in the “bad part of town” in southern Indiana, where my parents and I had just moved. My aunt and uncle, who lived near Chicago, had come to visit us. They saw Star Wars advertised in our local newspaper and exclaimed, “Oh, you must go see this! In Chicago, people are lined up around the block to get in!” I think they used the term “space opera” … which would have appealed to my staid classical musician parents. So the five of us went. As I recall, it was a matinee showing in the afternoon.
I had no real expectations, other than what my aunt and uncle said. But, as we sat in our seats, the other moviegoers arriving were an eye-opener, and a hoot. Here was my very straitlaced Midwestern family sitting amongst … well, different folk from us. People I’d only seen on TV and in movies. If one fellow was not a pimp, he dressed like one … complete with entourage. Everyone was high-fiving and hollering greetings. It felt more like a basketball game than a movie. And my parents were allowing us to stay and take it all in? This was almost more exciting than the movie!
The lights went down, and the title crawl commenced. My impression of the movie was that it was very camp, slapstick, slapdash … and great fun. When the Death Star exploded, the entire theater erupted. People jumped up, whooping, cheering, clapping, throwing popcorn and carrying on like they themselves had just defeated the bad guys. I’d never experienced anything like it at a movie. I loved it!
My aunt and uncle loved it, too. Not so much my parents. You have to understand: fun was not in their wheelhouse. Not this kind of rowdy, freewheeling, unrestrained fun. When Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out later that same year, they said, “Now, this is what we were expecting from Star Wars.”
They didn’t even like John Williams’ Star Wars score, which they considered derivative of other great classical composers. Didn’t matter to me. I bought the soundtrack album and tormented them with it. (I also bought the Close Encounters soundtrack and loved it just as much. Especially since music turned out to be intrinsic to communicating with the extraterrestrials. Somehow my parents appreciated Williams’ Close Encounters musical score, but not Star Wars.)
Anyway, I digress. Star Wars was life-changing for me, but not so much because of the movie, itself. It was the effect of that movie on the audience that was a revelation to me. I’ve never forgotten the magic of an audience being so engaged with a movie that we (minus my parents) rose as one and celebrated the climax!
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I don’t remember how the audience reacted at my viewing, so it probably wasn’t too nuts. By the time I saw it, I was probably in a theater full of folks who’d already seen it multiple times.
I do remember my grandfather saying his favorite part was the “Laurel and Hardy robots.”
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FRANKENSTEIN (2025)
Late to the party, as usual, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Some liberties were taken with the novel, but in interesting ways that in some cases arguably make for a better story. Having Victor and the creature actually converse and kinda reconcile at the end was more satisfying, as was leaving the creature alive (with no promise to immolate himself). Making Elizabeth Williams’ fiance instead of Victor’s was an interesting twist, and the addition of Walz’ character answered the question of how everything was financed. It was also interesting how certain elements were lifted from the Universal films, like the whole “animation via electrical current” thing and the friendship with the blind guy in the cottage. Some pains were taken to make sure the creature only killed people who were actively attacking him, unlike the book where he murders William and Elizabeth to get at Victor. Victor emerges as a thoroughly unlikable guy, obviously, but still always a commanding presence on screen, like Peter Cushing’s version.
I never could figure out that castle/tower/laboratory, though. The signage says (in Latin) “Water is Life”) and (in German) “Watertower of the province,” but how exactly was it supposed to work? It’s on a cliff above the water and there’s nothing on top that could collect rainwater, so what exactly was it for? I guess it’s no wonder it ended up abandoned. Also the stairs and ornate designs seem a little over the top for a municipal facility. Anyway it works out great for lightning-harnessing evil scientists, but I’m gonna guess that was not the original intent…or even how it was described in the real estate listing.
I asked my kids why, if the creature can heal (including regrowing lost tissue) after gruesome injuries, don’t those surgery scars heal up to give the creature an unblemished human face so he can assimilate into polite society. They posited that the most he can do is return to the state he started life in, with those patchwork grafts. And since each piece of face came from a different “donor” they can only return to their best individual states, not meld into one continuous skin. I’m gonna run with that.
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HUSH (Shush Cut)
Mike Flanagan´s early take on the home invasion/slasher movie telling a very streamlined story about a deaf writer (Kate Siegel) being terrorized by a masked sadist with a crossbow and a knife is a masterclass in suspense and horror, using all the known clichés and turning them on their heads, with a surprise at every turn, ending at a crisp 82 minutes. It has been released in a black and white version with only a few scenes scored. This “shush cut” of HUSH works even better than the color version because the night time setting lends itself to the black and white photography perfectly.
And for those who criticized HUSH for not giving a back story to the invader - this is exactly the point! We don’t know why he is doing this, apart from the obvious reason: he is a sadist, enjoying the torment of his victims. And that’s what makes it all even scarier. The same applies to the masked killer taking off his mask early on: he does not care whether she has seen his face, he is so sure he will get what he wants.
Fright Night
I had not seen this original yet, but it is a typical 80´s film, daring at times, still goofy and enjoying its, at that time, state of the art make up effects.
Nostalgic fun.
Flatliners
This one I had seen in the cinema in the early 90´s but I only remembered some key scenes from the trailer. The new 4k version offers a pristine print and lets Jan De Bont´s neon colored cinematography shine. The concept still is intriguing: med students cause death in each other for a few minutes in order to search out what’s in the great Beyond. Back then I considered it disappointing that the story is basically about finding forgiveness for one´s sins. These days I was emotionally engaged and liked the film a lot, especially for its great atmosphere of dread. And the young Julia Roberts has rarely looked as beautiful as in this film.
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Odd Man Out (1947 British film starring James Mason): We watched this last night on TCM’s Noir Alley program. I have been intrigued, thrilled, stymied by many of the noirs Eddie Muller has hosted, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so emotionally moved.
James Mason stars in what turned out to be his breakout role, yet it’s such an unusual starring role. His character, Johnny McQueen, is almost completely passive throughout the film, doing little while having countless others do for him. Part of an unnamed Irish nationalist organization, Johnny is an escaped con hiding out from the law, who leads a robbery that ends tragically. He spends the night on the run, seriously injured and entirely dependent on others to help him reunite with Kathleen, the woman he loves.
The film is beautifully shot in nighttime Belfast, as Johnny and others run and stumble through dark, rain-slick alleyways that turn snowy as the film progresses. The black-and-white cinematography is exquisite. Tension builds as we wonder if people will help Johnny. Or won’t they? There’s an especially chilling series of scenes with Lukey, a painter, played by Robert Newton (who was so terrifying as Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist).
The pivotal character is Kathleen, featuring a delicate performance by Kathleen Ryan. She says little and does less, but her quietly contained demeanor gives the film its devastating heart. While others flounder, bicker and obfuscate, she never loses her certitude.
As my husband said, “Why have I never heard of this before?” We say that about so many of the revelatory films we see on Noir Alley.
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The Night of the Hunter (1955 film directed by Charles Laughton, starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish, featuring Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce as the children): This is another standout movie we discovered on TCM’s Noir Alley.
Robert Mitchum is absolutely chilling as a con man impersonating a preacher, while wooing the widow of his former bank-robber cellmate, looking to steal the money her late husband had stashed away. He murders the widow and stalks her two terrified children, who manage to escape and flee into the night. Their journey is riveting … right to the end!
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Beat the Devil (1953 I think). Waffer-theeen, but remains a bit of a hoot. There are worse ways to pass the time.
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Dark Passage is my personal favorite Bogie and Bacall
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