hi there!
i guess here are a lot of people that grew up with star wars like i did and i always was (and am) a big fan. i have a few hundred action figures and space ships and my wife thinks i'm... you know. do you? if yes, you are right here.

i see that here are a lot of star wars threads and i didn't find THE ONE so i will start one because i need to talk about the new movie i just saw. i will not tell you anything that might ruin your experience when you see the film!

i think the new "force awakens" is well done. i was really scared that abrams might ruin the whole star wars universe although i was confident because i also liked his star trek reboot.
the movie is (in my opinion) a real star wars movie and it's very close to the original trilogy. it is also very close to "a new hope" and i didn't see one scene that was not looking awesome or didn't fit in the universe.
the effects are great through the whole movie and the actors are brilliant, they have a great chemistry plus you see a lot of old faces (literally), many many references to the old movies and a lot of familiar "things".
i don't know if it's a spoiler but if you have seen the trailer(s) [IF NOT STOP READING] you know that the millennium falcon is back again and the flight scenes with the bucket are goosebumps moments in the movie

the progress of the story was a little too fast sometimes so the movie was about 134 min but some scenes could have deserved much more time to tell so it was a long movie that felt a little short at some moments. it also had some really funny moments, really funny actually and it wasn't silly or childish i think.
how did you like the movie? when all the star wars fans here have seen it we can discuss here about it.

i am not the one who makes the rules here but i would like you to not tell any spoilers here, not now, maybe later but i won't start it.

I'm no expert, just experienced in watching, reading and playing science fiction stuff for ages sooo... I'd speculate there will be a longer directors cut DVD release (or Blu Ray...or streaming...whatever the cool kids do these days).



-Wolf

when lucas was running star wars the dvd / blu ray releases had no extended editions like lord of the rings. there were always a few changes and on the blu ray box are some rare deleted scenes. i don't know how disney will do this but i think a much longer extended edition would be very useful for this movie. there were a few things that just happened much too fast.

True there wasn't massive extended editions like we know today, but there were multiple editions over the years that added them gradually.

In fact the film changed between cinema release and video release quite drastically.

The actual film that went out on the theatres originally is about 9 minutes shorter than the original video release, this actually happened about two weeks into the cinema runs and George made a statement about it saying "There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the "rough cut", it'll be the "final cut". The other ones will be some sort of interesting artefact that people will look at and say, "There was an earlier draft of this."

So he always intended on updating and adding to the films. Which is evident in the fact that a while before they sold out to Disney Lucas actually had plans in the works to release a definitive star wars collection which would add a majority of the cut scenes in, effectively increasing the length of the films by 20 to 30 percent.

In 1997 to commemorate the 20yr anniversary Lucas went back to the original and completely digitally enhanced it, adding new effects and cg enhancements to existing shots as well as adding many new scenes.

It's actually famous for it becuae it was one of the first films at the time to get such a reatment, and there was a big controversy over whether adding the extra scenes would ruin it, there are whole sub-cultures of fans who argue the new scenes were good or bad till they're blue in the face.

An example of an extra scene in that edition was one where Han is in the hanger with the falcon and is approached by Jabba about paying his debt. Another is when Ben and Luke are approaching Eisley there's an additional minute or two of them gliding through the town showing off some local creatures that had not made it into the first release, also a scene between Luke and Biggs Darklighter just before the attack on the Death Star was inserted. This was a deleted scene from the 1977 film.

In the 2004 dvd release they also added some missing scenes, and reordered some existing ones to make the continuity better, as well as more digital re-mastering including additional Dolby and THX support.

Again in 2011 the Blu-ray edition was launched with further scenes and enhancements.

There's also been various directors cuts and special editions with extra scenes in the special features menu.

So yeah although it was only small additions each time, there have been multiple "extended" versions, and as I said before it was a controversy because it was one of the first to do this, so in a way Lucas set the trend for extended version :p

yes that's true.

i have the 1997 version on VHS and also the version before 1997 on VHS. there were some changes.
i have the first DVD release of the old trilogy and the latest 6 movie blu ray version where there is a new yoda in episode 1.
yes, there were no "new lponger version" like lord of the rings dvd / blu ray release with 40 min+ more film but ove rthe years little scenes were added. yes, the jabba scene in episode 4 and biggs. also some new shots were added in cloud city.
actually i like the new additions but some scenes were almost ruined by this especially the famous "han shot first" scene were han doesn't shoot greedo as an act of violence, they changed it into self defense
the new emperor in episode 5 was great but the new force ghost of anakin with the new ewok song in episode 6 was better before the update i think.

i still can't put "force awakens" into my all time favorite list. wich was like this before the release of the new movie:
1. Empire strikes back (the best one)
2. Return of the jedi (jabba and the final confrontation)
3. Revenge of the sith (best one of the new trilogy)
4. A new hope (great obi wan)
5. Attack of the clones (obi wan, count dooku and palpatine are so well casted and played)
6. Phantom Manace (sorry, although the movie has great characters like qui gon and darth maul it has one great weak point. youse knowse what mesa meanse)

the new movie would be a new top three entry but i wouldn't know where to place it. maybe later.