Journal of the Whills

I am a fan of Star Wars. The original 1977 version was the first film I ever saw on the big screen in my life when I was 5 years old. It opened my imagination because everything this fantastical existed only as animation, so this movie just widened the limitation of what could be done with a movie.

Now I just got the Blu Rays and we’ve been watching them one a night for the last week.



Strangely, Phantom Menace wasn’t as bad as I remember it. For the first time ever, I was thoroughly annoyed with the whole JarJar Binks thing. It was never good, but it never BOTHERED me until now. The kid was terrible, but then again the ‘direction’ of the script was all over the place. Whose point of view are we with here? Who is the main character and what are their themes? Overall, it looks great but the emotion wasn’t all there. In context of 6 movies, this one still sets up some story.

Attack of the Clones looked, sounded, and was a lot better than I recall. Memory has a funny way of shaping how things might have been, plus people (meaning myself) change over time. I liked it and it looked amazing on Blu.

Revenge of the Sith it turns out, I have only seen maybe 3-4 times before, the least by a large margin of any Star Wars movie, excluding ridiculous Ewok movies or animated stuff. Again, there was some horrendous dialogue at times, like the previous two movies, but this was much more enjoyable than I expected.

I have seen, what is now referred to as A New Hope, in the theater probably 100 times alone. I know it was over 30 times in 1977. Then again in 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, and even made it out to few rare print screenings in the 1990’s. Then the 1997 special edition screenings, including a private only screening a friend of mine did the night before a press screening, where for my birthday, she arranged this for me all by myself without telling me what it was.

I guess I’m not too worried about ‘changes’. I kind of like having something new to see or hear in a movie I have seen literally over 100 times in my life. Still, A New Hope n Blu Ray was not nearly as impressive as the Star Wars Re-Revisited fan edit where some guys did way more than 1,000 changes and ‘fixes’. Having seen this Blu Ray of George’s changes, maybe he should have hired this team of unknowns because they did a lot more and better changes.

Funny how ‘fans’ like this guy making 1,000 changes then complain when George Lucas makes 10-20. I think people like the underdog.
I don’t care of George Lucas changes the movies forever. It’s not really that important, at least not to me. As much as I like the movies, I’m far more interested in the MAKING OF and BEHIND THE SCENES. What moved me was less that actual movies themselves, but rather the idea that whatever George Lucas saw in his head, he could put on a movie screen.

I’ve got several Laserdisc sets, not to covet the unaltered versions of the movies, but because they contain a lot of documentaries, commentaries, and amazing amounts of detail on HOW the movies were made. I don’t own a single novelization of Star Wars, but I have an extensive library of books on the behind the scenes.

We’ll get through EMPIRE and JEDI soon enough. It’s amazing how much I’m liking these movies now that I have no expectations and don’t really care about them as anything more than a movie.

Multimedia Musings

I own the multimedia playing device called the WDTV from Western Digital. I love this thing. I first bought it for the Cowtown Film Series (in 2009) because I hate playing things off an optical disc at a screening in the movie theater. DVD’s and even Blu Rays have inherent flaws in that the videos are greatly compressed to fit on a disc. So you lose color, sharpness, and basic picture information before you blow it up on a giant movie screen. This seemed counter intuitive. So I found this little box that plays the video in full 1080P HD glory off of a hard drive and if needs be, even in surround sound.

Many people are musing about the future of optical discs because standard definition DVD is definitely on the natural decline. Sales in 2010 are down over 20% from 2008 at the same time. Blu Ray has not taken off as it was intended, mostly because of the economy being stressed, which is not a great time to launch a new format, especially under Sony’s guidance which means way more expensive without dropping in price. Another factor is that the saturation of HD TV’s into the home is merely catching up to the Blu Ray market, and even then the importance of picture quality is not weighing well against the idea of re-buying DVD collections.



The other factor oft-theorized as to why Blu Ray has not expanded is digital downloads and file-based distribution of movies. Netflix’s ever expanding Video On Demand service indicates that the market is going for this hard. Between 6PM and 8PM nightly, internet traffic heavily takes a beating from Netflix On Demand, which now includes HD content. Does their “HD” on demand look anywhere near as good as a Blu Ray? Hell No, but as has always been the case, convenience wins out often over quality.

Back to the media devices… The WDTV models now have YouTube and Netflix compatibility, meaning even without a Blu Ray player, you can access the Internet and watch movies and videos like this on your TV via a media player box. There is the APPLE TV for mac lovers and various other similar devices from so many manufacturers.




One of the things people claim prevent the demise of DVD and BLU RAY are the EXTRAS, bonus features, and behind the scenes clips. On this point, I agreed… until this past week. As my recent blog entry told, I loved this film called MONSTER. On the YouTubes, I found a bunch of videos in 720 and 1080 HD definition that could be downloaded via Mozilla Firefox to the MP4 file format, which my HDTV can play flawlessly. I can see it in full high definition on my TV, which means in an entirely file based world; I can have a movie and all the extras.

My prediction for the future is that everything will go file based because at the rapidity of change in file formats, image sizes, and standards, being more computer based will pave the way to handle those better than physical discs that are locked into one size and format. As for “extras”, those will be given away freely online with sites like YouTube or any site where they can be obtained for anyone who does want them, and keep the files on their own hard drive or ported to media players for TV. These bonus features also serve as perpetual EPK’s (Electronic Press Kits), promoting the movie as much as “added value”.

I find I’m moving my WDTV around from my bedroom to my screening room (the man-cave basement) to work. I find that looking at HD content on the computer to the 42” TV versus playing it to the same 42” with the WDTV I can say with a large margin the picture quality of video is substantially better from the media player box. The added surround sound output means that this is the best way to view file based videos.

This is the future. I like discs and I love the “collection” feel, but in 20 years no one will know what a disc is, much like high school kids may not know what a “video tape” is now.

Rotating the Axle of Confabulation

As I start to get creative again, weird things happen. Without exception, as I embark on the making of a movie, ancillary side effects occur. When I first made my first “shorts”, I eventually got fired from my job. Today, I work in the same industry, so the two things go hand in hand. The differences are the people I meet and the worlds that collide from the creative/artistic world those that call “The Normies”, for normal people.

More on that later.

Here is an update from Rossdonia, not to be confused with the old place better known as Rossdom. Our new government with the feline races has much more equality, but we still deal with terrorism. “V”, has made our “Most Wanted” list for destroying the corner of a couch, and Cousette remains a rebel leader, but since she’s soon to be 13 years old, she’s much easier to catch. This is a close to being a parent as I think I am capable of. Because I love these critters, I might be sharing some of their personality online. I haven’t quite found the niche I want, but I have some idea now what I’ll do.



TECHIE UPDATE – If you read this blog, you know that last year I made the jump to HD-DVD just in time to get burned by its loss in the High Def video war against Sony’s BLU RAY. I eventually relented and got a Play Station 3 ™ and kept my HD-DVD’s. At some point last year I sold my PS3 and got a Samsung HD-DV/BLU-RAY combo player so I didn’t have to change out cables every time I switched between the 2 formats. I’ve been very happy with the combo player and it has allowed me to scoop up some sub $5 deals on HD-DVD discs or buy 6-7 disc sets for $15 (like HEROES season 1 and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA season 1).



The rain in paradise came from the latest Sony and Disney Blu-Rays. Part of this new technology that makes it great is the new formats, like the “TRUE HD AUDIO”. Unfortunately, that means that discs that have ONLY the TRUE HD audio means I can’t hear any of it on my surround sound. That is, unless I upgrade my surround sound to SONY’s exclusive DTS surround sound. There is nothing wrong with my surround sound package whatsoever, but in order to hear the full 5.1 surround mixes on the latest discs like BAND OF BROTHERS, FIREFLY, or WALL*E, I would have to buy an entirely new receiver.



Now for MORE rain in paradise (starting to get pretty moist in this place), all the new receivers use a “passive” subwoofer that takes a coaxial cable, not regular speaker cable. So I not only would have to buy a new receiver with Sony’s DTS, I’d have to buy a new subwoofer. What’s the point? I can get a full surround sound “package” that has all 6 speakers and a receiver for about the same price.
So I collected up my 5 Best Buy gift card from Xmas, and researched and found the right system for me. I didn’t want to upgrade to the full HDMI setup because I’d be spending too much money that I don’t have to spend, so I priced out an inexpensive PIONEER set, of which that company has been very good to me in the past. The plan is to donate my old surround sound to my father who has ALWAYS wanted one, but my mother would never allow it. We have plans to secretly install it when she is playing bridge this coming week. My pops has become quite a bit more like me since he retired.

Yesterday I had to drive to Grove City in south end of Columbus to get the last known surround sound kit within 100 miles of us that matched my price and requirements. There was still some “risk” in that my HD-DVD/BLU RAY combo player allegedly converts the TRUE HD AUDIO into a Sony DTS signal, but I read it on some guys review on Amazon.com, so it may not work. I did the latest “firmware” update where they put some software out there you can download it, burn it to a CD or DVD and put it in the player and it will upgrade the internal software of your player.



It worked. I setup the new surround sound system, used my old cables, replaced all the speakers with the new ones, and then hooked up everything. The bass and subwoofer shake the foundation of the Earth. Meanwhile, I had bought years ago the 5.1 surround mix DTS versions of 2 Sting CD’s (Brand New Day and Ten Summoners Tales), which are amazing in surround. I also played THE BEATLES – LOVE 5.1 surround audio CD. Still, the true test will always be a movie, so last night I jammed out some DTS surround of Band of Brothers in a battle scene and I probably tripled the wattage from my old surround. If the neighbors hated us before, they will learn the meaning of despise before February.

For the past 2 years, I have not been “in the mood” to watch many features at home. I occasionally would get through 1 movie in a weekend, and usually something I rented from Netflix. I have been stockpiling cheap Blu-Ray’s and HD-DVD’s without watching them, thinking “I’ll have time when the economy crashes” or the usual “someday” feel. The economy has crashed, but I still don’t have that much free time, but for the last month I’ve been carving out more time and watching more of my discs.



Two weeks ago, My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and I delved into the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA remake HD-DVD set that had the entire miniseries and also the entire first season. She was hooked and for me it was round two, but I had not seen them in High Def, with full 5.1 surround sound. Now I have often said, and still believe, that I will only ever own season 1 because it was near perfection and none of the other seasons are as consistently at this quality. We went from the HD-DVD marathon to my pre-recorded versions of the rest of the series all the way to the half way point of season 4 that is about to start up again, but still… not as great as season 1, but still good. I feel similarly towards HEROES, but I don’t think the 2nd or 3rd seasons are anywhere close to the mark they had in the 1st. I feel no need to buy additional seasons of either show.

Saturday night I watched Clerks 2 on HD-DVD and IRON MAN on BLU-RAY. God, these look and sound great on my 42” 1080P TV and I can turn around and edit on that same monitor at 1920x1080 or play Wolfenstein Enemy Territory full screen and immerse myself completely in another world. Last night we watched the season premiere of 24 in full surround sound and in HD off a $5 antenna. All of these things were fantasies beyond science fiction when I was a kid.

Sometimes you have to look back and realize that we’re living in the future today.