Category: Star Wars Musings

All posts relating to the Star Wars franchsise.

The High Ground (Fun With Uberduck – 2021 Audio)

Uberduck is an AI-based text-to-speech online resource that used to have a bunch of IP-infringing voices to read your written word before they were taken down in 2023. You can then save recorded clips into WAV files and do with them whatever you see fit… which resulted in this short audio clip where Anakin has the high ground and Obi-Wan… doesn’t.

This clip has never been published until now.

The only thing AI-generated are the voices, which sounded close but still broken. The audio clips were edited together in VEGAS and the one image used good ol’ Adobe Photoshop to flip our Jedi around from their usual spots. Had this been created today, the process might have been easier and the quality a little better… which should be concern to anyone.

No harm is intended with this clip. Posted purely for entertainment purposes… but perhaps also a warning of sorts.

OG Star Wars Returns To Theaters Next Year

Source: https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-50th-anniversary-theatrical-release

Yeah, so 2027 is supposed to see the original 1977 theatrical cut of Star Wars return to theaters for a limited run of sorts… which is actually something of a big deal considering that for decades, George Lucas had resisted the idea of showing that original cut, insisting that only his updated versions be used since they were the canonical versions of Star Wars. As a result, all people had to work with were old laserdiscs and perhaps that 2006 limited edition release.

Yeah, there were despecialized editions and fan edits… but those are still altered versions. They’re illegitimate solutions at best. The fact that Disney decided to go this route… you know what? That’s a big deal. In fact, it may be the first time in a long while that anything involving Star Wars feels like a genuine, honest-to-goodness big deal event. The last time I might have had this feel was possibly the release of The Force Awakens, before Star Wars became a content machine for Disney to gut.

No details on how this would transpire… not sure if this cut will make it to Disney Plus or any semblance of physical media… but it’s something.

Oh, and there’s a new Starfighter movie coming around that time as well… whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Speaking of Starfighter… I need to dig up that game.

Does Kathleen Kennedy’s Departure From Lucasfilm Actually Mean Anything?

Source: https://filmstories.co.uk/news/kathleen-kennedy-steps-down-as-lucasfilm-president-praises-ai/

So I guess there’s going to be a particular sect of fans and film viewers who will be throwing huge parties over the departure of (now former) Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy, who had been running the ship since 2012 when Disney bought the company and has had a rather debatable influence on the various Lucasfilm properties she had overseen… I think that’s a diplomatic way of saying it. You may be cheering for this or you may be possibly sad by this outcome. I honestly am ambivalent towards the whole deal, but regardless, I wish her the best in all her future endeavors.

I’m just wondering if this actually means anything in the long run because to me, Kennedy was just the head of a division who generally follows mandates from people above her pay grade. To me, the Disneyfication or Marvelizing of Star Wars into a cinematic universal property to be exploited and mined for content would have happened regardless of whoever was in charge. I’m sure she’s had some say on what happened with these properties, but at the same time, is a changing of the guard really going to mean anything going forward or is it just lip service to cause a bit of ruckus before we settle back to the usual routine?

Either way, it’ll be interesting to see who gets the position now and whether they’ll actually affect the way Lucasfilm and its properties are treated, but after that, it’ll be business as usual and nobody will wiser. I make mention of this, but I will forget this soon after.

THE BITE COMMENTARIES #11 – The Force Undead

So, if all goes according to plan, today’s post should publish on the very same day that, ten years ago, the first Star Wars film of the Disney ownership era as well as the start of a new Star Wars sequel trilogy – The Force Awakens – hit movie theaters to usher in a new era of Star Wars that is new and different… although you wouldn’t have been able to tell from watching the movie.

At the time of release, people considered it to be a return to form after the polarizing prequels. For some, it felt like Star Wars again… for others, it felt too much like Star Wars; to the point of almost being a carbon copy of the original film from 1977.

And then The Last Jedi came along and pretty much shat the bed that The Force Awakens set with its dogged insistence in subverting your expectations; something that has become a meme over the years in and of itself. Regardless of your opinion on the film – and I’ve made my feelings perfectly clear – the fact is that the second chapter of the new trilogy was a divisive film and brought about an air of uncertainty among the Star Wars faithful. And then Solo came along… and finally, The Rise Of Skywalker ended the sequels and any subsequent hope for further annual Star Wars feature films, relegating the franchise to limited series runs on Disney+.

What began as a sign that things were going to be okay… turned out to be anything but… and when one revisits The Force Awakens ten years removed from its initial release, with all these other films out there and everything that has happened, is the movie as good as it was? Has it aged poorly? Was it ever that good to begin with?

The answer is… complicated.

Continue reading “THE BITE COMMENTARIES #11 – The Force Undead”

THE BITE COMMENTAIES #10 – Sith At 20

This past May marked the 20th anniversary of the third Star Wars prequel film, Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith, which finally paid off its long-running story of how Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker fell to the dark side and eventually became Darth Vader. And if you want to me to tell how I felt about the film at the time, I thought it was the only really good film out of the prequel since everyone died. And I wasn’t the only one who thought that because a bunch of people I went to see the film with thought it was the only really good prequel out of the bunch because everyone died.

Now we all know that statement is a bit of a fib. Not everyone died, obviously; this isn’t Rogue One, for cryin’ out loud. But the cast of characters that were introduced in prior prequel films were either killed off or cast aside to make way for the characters that people actually cared about to come along and have the adventures they had back in 77 and the circle would be complete or some deal like that.

Continue reading “THE BITE COMMENTAIES #10 – Sith At 20”

The Mandalorian Is The Reverse Turbo

In 1995, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie hit theaters; essentially a higher budget version of the Power Rangers television show with a much different tone from the usual fare. Two years later, the franchise got a second theatrical release – Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. This was more in line with the television product and not quite as high end. Minus some bits where a bit more money was spent in places, it could have aired as an extended television episode.

That’s the same feeling I got with the recently announced Mandalorian & Grogu movie that’s due next year… which feels like an extended episode of the Mandalorian show that people really liked (and I was on board with too… until they brought in out-of-shape Boba Fett and CG Luke Skywalker into the mix.) Honestly, there’s nothing about the trailer that has me genuinely excited about this thing… which, I suppose, is par for the course with a modern Disney production.

There used to be a time when a new Star Wars movie felt like an event… something that got people excited to look forward to, even if the final product ended up being less than what came before. Now it’s just a thing that happens and everyone goes “meh.”

How did we get to that point?

Did That Kid Keep His Promise?

You probably all know the “urban legend” as it were of Sir Alec Guinness (the man who played Obi-Wan in old Star Wars) ran into a kid who told him that he saw Star Wars over 100 times and wanted an autograph… to which Guinness replied that he would give him one if the kid promised him that he would never watch Star Wars ever again.

According to his autobiography, A Positively Final Appearance, the kid would end up crying and the mother would scold Sir Alec for saying something so mean to a young child. However, this Buzzfeed thing, written by that same kid, told a different story in that he was happy to make that promise and for the most part, kept his word.

Your take as to which story is accurate, but remember one thing; sometimes, people embellish things to make them seem more than what they are. Also, how many kids saw Star Wars over a hundred times back in the day? He probably made a bunch of them promise him never to watch Star Wars again to varying degrees of success.

Revenge’s 20th… And Awakens’ 10th…

So I didn’t mention anything because I was busy with other stuff and unfortunately, the timing didn’t quite work out, but last month, Revenge Of The Sith – the third and final film in the Star Wars prequel trilogy – turned twenty years old. Some may recall that I did a musings on Attack Of The Clones when that film turned twenty… and I had intended to do the same for Revenge.

Alas, things went pear-shaped.

Things are going to be calming down in a couple days where I can just relax and take a pause from recovery periods and other things, so I may pull out my old DVD of Revenge and give it another watch. At some point, I’ll give the film a similar musings that I gave Clones and Jedi.

Meanwhile, in a few scant months, we’ll be celebrating (or condemning, depending on your mileage) the tenth anniversary of The Force Awakens – the seventh live-action Star Wars movie, the first film in the divisive Sequel Trilogy and also the first film of the Disney-era of Star Wars content creation. In all honesty, I have not watched that film in years… I want to say since it first came out, but I imagine that I did see give it one more watch before the final episode of the sequels. I actually remember liking that one, even if it felt like we’ve been here before. Of course, that was before all the content that came along and soured my taste for anything Star Wars… well, almost anything. Some of the comics and most of the video and computer games still hold up.

I’d imagine I’ll give that a watch and do a musings on that. Who knows what that will look like? Will it still be good or will the sins of what came afterwards color my perceptions a bit? All I know is that it gave us a meme (pictured above) and that’s what we’re basing a new set of films upon… which I have thoughts on as well, but I’m saving those for the back pocket.

Chapter 394,939 Of I Stopped Caring About Marvel Ages Ago (But Andor Is Good)

I’m going to spare you the usual rhetoric about how my interest in the Marvel movie stuff ended with Endgame. I’ve said that bit countless times and I don’t think I’m going to do much by repeating what’s been said before. I keep an eye on things, but nothing that outright piques my interest. Even the new Daredevil series – which I’ve heard good things about – didn’t really bat an eye.

However, someone sent me a digital gift card for Disney Plus recently as a “get well soon” gift. And look, I’m not going to lie. I’m still not a fan of the Disney Plus interface… but I’ll make use of it if someone is going to foot the bill in this case.

So rather than watch any of the new Marvel stuff, I’ve been rewatching old episodes of Home Improvement, the Tim Allen comedy series from the 90s. It was fun revisiting that show.

My brother also suggested that I’d give Andor a shot… and I caught the first three episodes of the show… and I actually enjoyed it… honestly, doing a prequel series to a Star Wars side story where the entire cast of that movie dies at the end (sorry if I spoiled the movie for everybody) seems like a bit of a silly thing, but goddamned if I wasn’t hooked on this show. Part of it has to do with the fact that, much like Rogue One, it doesn’t really on the usual Jedi/Sith stuff. This is more grounded stuff, depicting life under the Empire’s rule.

Three episodes in and this is a damned fine show… and not even by the lowly Star Wars standards of the modern product. I mean this is REALLY good stuff. So good that I’m almost tempted to give Rogue One another watch one of these days… now if that isn’t high praise, then I don’t know what is.