Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 31/03/2020 - incl "The Maestro’s Finale" digital only!

[Richard Penna 3,669]

That's weird and annoying, only having an iso for one film. I'm surprised they bothered.

 

Of all of them, I'd love to have one for RotS to correct some of the OST's bizarre omissions.

 

At least they haven't put the OSTs in there too - there would seem something almost insulting about releasing the bog standard albums for the 5000th time when 99% of those who would buy this would already have them.

[Jay 37,284]

Re use fees are fees you have to pay when you, well, re use the music recorded with union musicians for another medium.  IE, they were paid to record music to be heard in the film, if it it re used for a soundtrack album you have to pay them again.  You don't have to pay these fees for an isolated score track.  It's still synced to the original film.  It's the original use, not a re use.

[1977 1,743]

What about the case of the first two Alien films? Both got two iso tracks each on the Blu-rays, one of the complete score, another of the score "as heard in picture". Are reuse fees also not payable in the first case, simply because it's attached to the film (even though it wasn't the version that was released with the film originally)?

[Jay 37,284]

Re use fees are never needed to be paid for any synced to film situation.  Re use fees are only a thing for soundtrack albums

[Jurassic Shark 12,026]

What about use of score cues in (unrelated) commercials? I'm sure that also would trigger re-use fees. Same for use in video games.

[1977 1,743]

Specs released for ROS:

https://www.slashfilm.com/rise-of-skywalker-blu-ray/

 

Bonus features include:

• The Skywalker Legacy – The story lives forever in this feature-length documentary that charts the making of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
• Pasaana Pursuit: Creating the Speeder Chase – Dive into the making of the movie’s epic landspeeder chase and discover how this spectacular sequence was brought to the screen.
• Aliens in the Desert – See what it took to create the Pasaana desert scenes, from the sheer scale and complexity of the shoot to its colorful details.
• D-O: Key to the Past – Explore the ship that connects Rey to the mystery of her missing parents and get to know the galaxy’s newest, irresistible droid.

• Warwick & Son – Warwick Davis, who played Wicket in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, dons the Ewok costume once more; this time joined by his son Harrison.
• Cast of Creatures – The team behind the film’s memorable creatures reveal the puppetry, makeup, prosthetics and digital magic that bring them to life!

 

• Digital Exclusive:
• The Maestro’s Finale – Composer John Williams reflects on his body of work for the Star Wars saga and shares insights on scoring Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

 

“digital exclusive” FFS!!!

[Jay 37,284]

3 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

What about use of score cues in (unrelated) commercials? I'm sure that also would trigger re-use fees. Same for use in video games.

 

If they were recorded with union musicians, sure

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

14 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

Specs released for ROS:

https://www.slashfilm.com/rise-of-skywalker-blu-ray/

 

Bonus features include:

• The Skywalker Legacy – The story lives forever in this feature-length documentary that charts the making of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
• Pasaana Pursuit: Creating the Speeder Chase – Dive into the making of the movie’s epic landspeeder chase and discover how this spectacular sequence was brought to the screen.
• Aliens in the Desert – See what it took to create the Pasaana desert scenes, from the sheer scale and complexity of the shoot to its colorful details.
• D-O: Key to the Past – Explore the ship that connects Rey to the mystery of her missing parents and get to know the galaxy’s newest, irresistible droid.

• Warwick & Son – Warwick Davis, who played Wicket in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, dons the Ewok costume once more; this time joined by his son Harrison.
• Cast of Creatures – The team behind the film’s memorable creatures reveal the puppetry, makeup, prosthetics and digital magic that bring them to life!

 

• Digital Exclusive:
• The Maestro’s Finale – Composer John Williams reflects on his body of work for the Star Wars saga and shares insights on scoring Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

 

“digital exclusive” FFS!!!

 

Well, DVDs, blu-rays and 4K discs are all digital, so...

[1977 1,743]

25 minutes ago, Jay said:

Re use fees are never needed to be paid for any synced to film situation.  Re use fees are only a thing for soundtrack albums

 

So Disney coukld have given us full scores as isos for all the films on the forthcoming releases, without paying any reuse fees. Pity they didn't.

[Jay 37,284]

There are no re use fees for the original 6 scores.  Only the sequel trilogy was recorded with union musicians in LA

[1977 1,743]

Yes I am aware that reuse fees is a US thing.

[Jay 37,284]

Canada too I believe

[Pellaeon 593]

The covers are awful, especially SW77. Ugh. I’ll probably buy the OT eventually, just to feel completely okay about watching Project 4K77 or Harmy’s Despecialized Editions. I think for TFA I’ll get that 3D blu-ray version they link to. I didn’t know about it. It looks good.

[Frank Vincent 226]

According to the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) "The Maestro's Finale" is 11 minutes long.

 

https://bbfc.co.uk/releases/star-wars-rise-skywalker-bonus-maestro%E2%80%99s-finale-vod

[crumbs 14,300]

No deleted scenes or extended edition? Yikes, seems like Disney are just dropping the film like a hot potato.

 

And what a slap in the face to have the Williams featurette relegated as a digital feature. But hey, at least we get an entire featurette about D-O instead. 

[Pellaeon 593]

40 minutes ago, crumbs said:

No deleted scenes or extended edition? Yikes, seems like Disney are just dropping the film like a hot potato.

 

Who knows?

J.J. Abrams Reportedly In Talks With Lucasfilm To Release Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Director’s Cut

[TSMefford 1,509]

4 hours ago, Pellaeon said:

 

Who knows?

J.J. Abrams Reportedly In Talks With Lucasfilm To Release Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Director’s Cut

 

Lol. That will never happen in a million years. XD. Especially if it’s at all “better” than the movie we got. If it is, then it makes it clear that Disney was the one who decided to meddle

[Pellaeon 593]

31 minutes ago, TSMefford said:

Lol. That will never happen in a million years. XD. Especially if it’s at all “better” than the movie we got. If it is, then it makes it clear that Disney was the one who decided to meddle

 

Does anyone seriously doubt that it would be better? That it’s been over-trimmed is evident from the work itself, I’d say.

 

If, at the end of the day, Disney can sweeten up the fans, while taking more of their money, what would they have to lose? Sure, they are responsible for the mistake, but they could be responsible for the correction, too.

 

Personally, I just wish they would release the cut that JW originally scored. #ReleaseTheJWCut

[TSMefford 1,509]

1 minute ago, Pellaeon said:

 

Does anyone seriously doubt that it would be better? That it’s been over-trimmed is evident from the work itself, I’d say.

 

If, at the end of the day, Disney can sweeten up the fans, while taking more of their money, what would they have to lose? Sure, they are responsible for the mistake, but they could be responsible for the correction, too.

 

Personally, I just wish they would release the cut that JW originally scored. #ReleaseTheJWCut

 

Lol. Trust me. There are many that doubt it would be any better, depending on the validity of certain rumors and of course the actual content. But plenty of people think whatever JJ did or would've done would be garbage either way.

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

5 hours ago, Pellaeon said:

 

Who knows?

J.J. Abrams Reportedly In Talks With Lucasfilm To Release Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Director’s Cut

 

This is fake news.

 

Will never ever ever ever ever ever ever happen.

[Faleel 5,333]

There will be an extended cut.

 

 

 

It's called the novelization.

[gkgyver 1,645]

Forget it, RoS is fucked, what's done is done. The horrible movie stands as is, the core story is what it is, and 30 additional minutes to flesh out the shittiness won't help anyone. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Eh it was okay.

[1977 1,743]

The lack of deleted scenes on the Blu-ray release is...interesting. Perhaps Disney is hedging their bets in case they do decide to release an extended cut.

 

18 disc UK Blu-ray only set

 

26 hours of bonus features, I wonder if that includes the commentary tracks?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

1 hour ago, Þekþiþm said:

Eh it was okay.

 

Insert angry tirade about the prequels. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

7 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

 

Insert angry tirade about the prequels. 

 

Hi Demodex!

[Chen G. 3,943]

4 hours ago, Þekþiþm said:

Eh it was okay.

 

No, it really wasn't.

[Jurassic Shark 12,026]

It's very similar to Braveheart, actually.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Lawrence of Arabia more like it.

[Chen G. 3,943]

All this talk reminds me of something Sydney Pollack said of Lean's earlier film, The Bridge over the River Kwai, which Abrams might have been wise to adhere to:

 

Quote

Its a movie that takes its time [...] this happens, and then this happens [unhurriedly], and then this happens, and then this happens.

 

How much story is actually in 3.5+ hours of Lawrence of Arabia? Not much, really: After a brief framing device, Lawrence goes to find Faisal, undertakes the Quest of Aqaba, returns to Cairo, begins attacking the Turkish railways, is captured and humiliated at Deraa but convinces to rejoin the Arabs, massacres the Turks at Mazril, conquers Damascus and leaves.

 

Compare that with the two hours of "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" story of The Rise of Skywalker.

[TSMefford 1,509]

9 hours ago, Chen G. said:

All this talk reminds me of something Sydney Pollack said of Lean's earlier film, The Bridge over the River Kwai, which Abrams might have been wise to adhere to:

 

Compare that with the two hours of "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" story of The Rise of Skywalker.

 

Thats what is just so odd to me about Rise of Skywalker. I know people don't like J.J. or his approach to his films, but personally his pacing has always worked for me. Somehow his films typically do feel like they take their time, but not too much time. They keep it moving at a nice comfortable speed. They slow when they need to and move it along when they need to. That pacing almost always makes his movies feel comfortable to me personally. Hell, in my opinion, The Force Awakens is one of the better paced Star Wars films.

 

However, I do agree that Rise of Skywalker moved at a utterly breakneck pace compared to what I'm used to from Abrams. I could feel that spirit that I tend to like about his films in certain parts of it, but overall it felt very unusual for one of J.J. films to have so many pacing issues, which, even when there are issues with the writing, he usually has down. This time around the writing was off (which I'd like to blame Chris Terrio for, but I'm sure other factors were involved) and even the pacing was off.

 

I hate NDA's and all this crap for the very reason that I want to know what all went wrong (Insert some snide comment about J.J. Abrams being what went wrong)

[Chen G. 3,943]

Insufficent time to prepare (being that Colin Trevorrow was axed at the last minute) was what's wrong. At least, in terms of story and pace.

 

In terms of resolution, it has to do with this concept of Ben Solo's redemption being so engrained in Lucasfilm (from JJ Abrams to Kathleen Kennedy) and in most of the fandom that no one could even concieve of going a different way with the character, even after two movies of him being a murderous brute.

 

The third issue is that The Rise of Skywalker had to deal with the consequences of the sequel trilogy being made. That is, that they sit completely outside the narrative of the other six films. In a sad attempt to link the film (and the trilogy) back to the previous six, Abrams all but overweighed the film's story to the breaking point.

 

These three isues combined positivelly killed this film.

[rough cut 1,714]

As all movies are also being released individually, is there really anything exclusive in the box? Except that it’s a box. Is that a book, also? Or just fancy cardboard housing for the discs?

 

Because it seems that buying the box set is more expansive than just buying each separate release. How does that make sense?

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,026]

It's a VERY NICE box. Aparently.

[rough cut 1,714]

How DOES this thing work exactly?

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,026]

You mean the book?

[rough cut 1,714]

Or is it a disc house?

[Holko 9,499]

Went through the bonus discs of these.

 

The menus are the bland kind with a single strip on the bottom (submenus replace it) with only 2-3 things ever visible at a time so you never get an overview of the amount of stuff on there or can never see where you are.

 

The new stuff is mostly complete fluff and very short, 5 minutes on average. From Conversations, the Doug Chiang one stands out tall, by far the best one, "lost interviews" is nice but not unheard stuff (tapes from before the release of SW, Johnny sounds so damn young!), the Tippett-Muren-Knoll roundtable is nice, they have a good rapport, but unfocused and short. The archive look-throughs are infuriatingly shallow; in multiple of them we see in some shots that they prepared a whole table of props or models, but all we see in those 2-3 minutes is Rinzler and someone else picking up and talking about maybe 2-4 of the most obvious and known ones (Lightsaber is a graflex handle? really???) plus of course movie footage edited in - so we never get a good look at all they've prepared, how hard would it have been to just make quick photos of everything for a flip-through gallery? It's the same situation as with the JW cameo props. The matte painting mini is nice, though probably mostly because between stop-motion, puppets, bluescreens and Dykstraflexes, they often get overlooked.

 

Legacy content... hoo boy, where do we start? Less than half the content of the DVDs - Classic Creatures and Anatomy of a Dewback but no Empire of Dreams? Come on! None of the featurettes. For the prequels we only get middle finger zero effort letterbox versions of the big docus. Yes you read that right, it's 2020 and the footage plays in only the middle quarter of your wide screen in the middle of blackness. More on the front of absolute laziness: things have title cards in the new Disney SW font, which is fine, but when going through deleted scenes, you come to the podrace, no.5 or 6 as it's presented here, you get the DSW title card... then the original DVD Prequel font title card saying "deleted scene no.1 - extended podrace". COME ON.

 

Best in this bunch are the Interviews and The Collection from the blus, though not perfect. I don't know what the original menus looked like, but just presenting them as a list, it's really annoying that some chapters repeat material. X-Wing prototype chapter: X-wing prototype closeups then interview bits. X-wing final model chapter: X-wing final model closeups then the same interview bits. Y-Wing prototype chapter: Y-wing prototype closeups then interview bits. Y-wing final model chapter: Y-wing final model closeups then the same interview bits. TIE prototype chapter: TIE prototype closeups then interview bits. TIE final model chapter: TIE final model closeups then the same interview bits. These in a row. Come the fuck on, just make it a single chapter, show both closeups then the interview bits. Also when they show off matte paintings they cut to the shot to show it in action... sometimes the fucking spec ed version of the shot where they already replaced that painting. Great, very helpful.

 

Horribly lazy lowest possible effort legacy stuff, mostly throwaway short fluff new stuff... not great.

[Jay 37,284]

Thanks for checking it out!

I'm not surprised at all by what you found

[mstrox 6,646]

I'm not surprised.  Of the all-time Star Wars DVD special features, I think only Empire of Dreams and the TLJ doc have been really worth watching - maybe also The Beginning on the TPM DVD - and I haven't watched EoD since 2004, so maybe not even that one?  It's on Disney+, so I'll have to give it a rewatch sometime.