Chen G.

The Crusader in Egypt.

I had a few in my head, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have to do a little research work to find some more numbers.

Wagner's longest work actually isn't part of the Ring: an uncut Rienzi (like the reconstructed version used for the Downes recording) would be a wee bit longer than Gotterdamerung or Meistersinger, both of which tend to clock in at 4.5 hours. And even Rienzi's length was not unheard-of in terms of Parisian grand opera: cf. Il Crociato in Egitto (3 hours 50 minutes), Robert le Diable (4 hours), Les Huguenots (4 hours 20 minutes), le Prophete (4 hours 15 minutes), Vasco de Gama (4 hours 10 minutes), Le Juive (4 hours 30 minutes), Charles VI (3 hours 50 minutes), Guillaume Tell (4 hours) and Les Troyens (4 hours 15 minutes).

Looking at contemporary film series for comparison, The Ring is really not THAT long: the longest being the Goodall Ring in English which is 17 hours, but is EXTREMLY, almost unbelievably slowly conducted. Most conducters get through the Ring in 15 hours or so, and in Wagner's own time it was taken at an even faster clip. That makes it shorter by a considerable margin than the Harry Potter octet, far shorter than the Tolkien sextet (not even counting The War of the Rohirrim as of yet) and only somewhat longer than the Star Wars sextet (and far shorter than the nonet). Sure, the individual entries are longer, but Wagner is pretty generous with his intervals: one is never seating for more than 2.5 hours, as in Rheingold.

But King Arthur and Gladiator have practically the same score?

Gladiator was huge in its day, and its most popular legacy - Lisa Gerard's wailing vocals - have stayed with us ever since as a (frankly rather trite) ubiquitous film scoring convention. Oh, and duduks! Goodness, so. many. Duduks!

I was also nine and watched it at the time. I remember very specific shots and beats. I remember pretty much the entire Darth Maul duel, sans Obi Wan who I had no recollection of. I did remember there was a boy on a desert planet called something "Skywalker" and for all I knew, HE was Qui-Gon's apprentice. I remembered they cremated Qui Gon (which I thought was sad) and the closing parade. I also remember the entire Senate sequence: not what they were talking about, but mostly the visuals, especially the establishing shot and the big pan around Padme in that outrageous costume, as well as the "Vote now!" chants that followed. Other than that, I remembered this shot: But my memories for years to come were mixed up with those of The Fifth Element, making me remember that the shot then cut to this one: Beyond that, I may have remembered a few shots from Tatooine, mostly around Anakin's hovel.

I definitely saw Garanča as Octavian on video. Very impressed!

My my... To add to the variety, a pretty good production of Rosenkavalier. Kurt Rydl is always such a riot on the stage, and he has a better grasp of Ochs' low notes than one might think!

Yeah. There are a couple of VFX shots and probably the nighttime scene with Qui Gon and Anakin that were shot on an early (and very crude) digital camera. And the entire film for the best of my knowledge went through a 1080p DI and this was used as the basis for the latest remaster, too. So its really not THAT much high-res than Attack of the Clones, and certainly not than Revenge of the Sith.

You jest, but The Phantom Menace WAS revised quite extensively and detrimentally by Lucas: you know how people complain the Podrace (a setpiece I quite like) is too long? That's because Lucas went back and ADDED almost an entire lap.

Well, Qui Gon is very much the main character of the film. Anakin is like a sideplot of a sideplot.

You know, I put less weight on the fact that its not by the original creators - although that's important, too! - and more on the fact that there was just nowhere to go with Indy. Not because one couldn't drum-up an interesting adventure for Indy to go on, but simply because we had three adventures with him, and at the end of the third we got a very clear-cut farewell to the character. To use a Star Wars example, even if Lucas had made those films, they'd still feel anti-climactic because the story had already come to an end years before. Here its not exactly a story that came a close, its as I said a goodbye to the character. Having said that, the involvement of the original creators is also important. Its partially just symbolic, but generally speaking with the same creative team you stand a better chance of recreating a similar sensibility, and naturally you would want entries in a film series to hold together, stylistically, feeling like they flow from the same pen, as it were. This is especially an issue with Indiana Jones which is so associated with Spielberg's directorial style that to accept Mangold's quite different style was in itself a big ask.

This is a bit of a pet peeve, but I think the definitive article makes titles sound better. I never understood why it was "Return of the Jedi" and not "The Return of the Jedi." I mean, its "THE Empire Strikes Back" after all! Much better!

Really? To me it seems like the biggest disaster waiting to happen.

Wow, what a cast!

Obi two! Yeah, I'll show myself out...

People hurtling verse at each other is not going to be for everyone... Wagnerians in a way have it easier because the through-composed nature of the works from Lohengrin on does mean you can sit back and enjoy it as a play, in a way that you really can't with Verdi, Mozart, Weber et al. Obviously it also depends on the coming together of a lot of things: stagecrafts, singing, performance in the pit, acting, etc...

It saved Williams some time!

Its a lovely film, although the quest takes a wee bit too long to get on its feet, and in the context of Lucas' filmography the story can feel a little overly recycled, both from his previous films (especially the original Star Wars) and some their antecedents, namely The Hobbit and Hidden Fortress. The quite carefree tone doesn't help sell the stakes of a story surrounding the intended sacrifice of a toddler, and I don't care for Jean Marsch's performance. Ron Howard is his usual workman-like self but captures a pretty nice tableaux, although the final confrontation is kind of a sham. Splendid score by Horner. On the whole, a perfectly pleasant motion picture. Whether calling it one of the better fantasy films of the 80s is a testament to its own merit to the subgenre's limitations is still an open question.

My own understanding of the situation is the following: March 1971-September 1975: Between Lucas first pursuing a space opera, and Star Wars taking the shape we know, Lucas keeps the prospect of multiple installments in the back of his mind. September 1975-August 1977: In spite of making his drafts increasingly standalone, Lucas plans to retcon the ending should the film prove a success, as predictions show. He signs several actors and crew-members for a trilogy, which would naturally end with the defeat of the Empire. He also entertains doing a prequel of Ben's younger days. August 1977- February 1978: Following the film's success, he starts gradually expanding his plans to "at least three or four more films." Cognizant of issues of actor availability, he still aims to start with a trilogy. February 1978-April 1978: Lucas' ambitions extend to a twelve-film series. Outside of the initial trilogy, it is not concieved in sets of three films, but as an anthology of standalone adventures. August 1978: Having turned Vader into Luke's father (Late March?), Lucas tries to fit the sequel into his twelve-film scheme, initially as Episode seven, alongside prequel trilogy about the Clone Wars (Episodes two-four) before deciding to scale down to either nine of six films. He labels the sequel "Episode Five." This is not announced publically until the release of the film. Early 1981: Whether Lucas actually meant to make nine films - or just six and spoke of making nine to avoid telling fans he's halving the series - by this point, when he was sketching the third film, he had surely dispensed with any notion of a sequel trilogy, although he kept talking about it through the 1980s, early 1990s and intermittently as late as 2004. 2012: Preparing to sell the company to Disney, Lucas decides to turn the idea of the sequel trilogy to a reality to bolster the deal.

Well, yeah, that's what Lucas said Star Wars would beginning in 1979 and through the 1980s and early 1990s. Even as late as 2004, he'd slip up and mention it being nine films, and then of course reverted to that version in 2012. For much of 1978 the official number was twelve episodes!

And about it being a nine-parter to begin with.

That interview smacks of the apocryphal.

I don't think its a coincidence. Its just that I see the connection as more generic or "poetic", rather than literal and plot-oriented, as Mattris sees it. Its just that they're both Sith music, and so OF COURSE they're going to be closely related. "Sith" here strictly in the sense of Dark Side Force-user.