Bonus Feature Cliché Lookout: Get’em!
You know what I always love? When the pursuer becomes the pursued. Going back to an old example, Han Solo charges headlong down the corridors of the Death Star, screaming like a madman and right on the heals of fleeing stormtroopers. Only when he rounds the corner, there are a few more stormtroopers there (inevitable nerd rant: and then George Lucas turded the whole thing up by adding an absolutely ridiculous amount of bad guys… god I hate the Special Editions…).
Ahem, anyway.
It’s always funny when the bad guy is chasing the good guy – or vice versa – and the person being chased leads them right into his friends. There’s a sort of natural response to seeing someone chased where you want to root for them, even if they’re the bad guy and you know you’re not supposed to. Watching them make it to safety is a bit cathartic, although it might put the good guys in danger. Luckily, Han Solo made it through without a scratch. We’ll see if Guy gets so lucky.
About this Episode:
I originally wrote this as taking place in “my office”, because in the fictional comic universe I have an office instead of just shooting in a cramped basement where I always hit my head. However, there have been a few comments here and there asking about the timeline of the Bonus Features in relation to the actual comic, so I wanted to have one run right into the other. In this case, Cheryl and Guy run into the filming of next week’s comics.
Also, I wear a suit in the comic universe, as opposed to t-shirts and jeans all the time. Comic me is much classier.
I keep having characters refer to this person as “this guy” or “that guy” because his name is Guy. Really, really lame joke, I know, but it makes me smile.
Damn anti-zombie protesters – they never learn and then one day they get bitten and become zombie actors! 😀
That is their one saving grace.
Of course, it does mean your secretary is fielding a lot of calls about missing actors who were referred to your set, but never reported back! 😀 If she’s already a zombie she probably doesn’t care! 😉
This is a brilliant angle that I wish I had thought of.
Just credit me if you use it okay? 😉 And yes, of course you can use it! 😀
If I do, I certainly shall. I always try to credit sources.
Well Dave I also hope I get lucky.
Me too, guy, me too.
Brilliant! Go, Zombie! Go get’em and give them the FAME they deserve!
Hah. That poor zombie is handcuffed. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’ll be getting much of anyone.
He needs to go all Bruce Lee on them now.
Hah. Yeah, for a guy in a karate outfit, he sure puts up with a lot of crap.
I’m pretty sure I can see the zombie fitted with handcuffs and sitting in a box in the foreground.
Or is it a wheelbarrow? Anyway, a nice detail!
That is a wheelbarrow. One of the new ones. Pretty nice little accessory.
Haha, nicely done Dave.. two worlds collide! Just a question, “get’em” is the shortened version of “get them”? It’s just that I don’t see why they should get Sheryl but maybe I’m no getting this right.
Get’em can be “get them” or “get him”, generally the former. It could probably be used with women too, but “get’er” sounds cooler to my ears.
Thanks for the clarification, I just learned something!
If nothing else, Bricks of the Dead will be remembered as an institute of higher learning.
Somehow, somewhere, I have a feeling Scrimshaw is behind all this tom-foolery.
Hah! The peoples love their Scrimshaw.
makes sense…Scrimshaw wants to appear in the comic but Dave turned him down because he’s too old, so Scrimshaw then believes it was ageism and decides to start an anti-BOTD group…
I might not be right, but is this where you got the idea of having the comic not be an actual zombie apocalypse???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
Aw goddamnit. I haven’t seen that one in a while.
hah! but seriously, why do yyou hate it when george lucas changes his own creation, I mean, if someone didn’t like something in your comic, how would you like it if they spread hatred of it across the internet… sorry, I just prefer the special editions, they didn’t only add and take away stuff, they also editied stuff to make it look better(the orange glow under the landspeeder).
If someone didn’t like something about the comic, I would say that they were entitled to their opinion. I wouldn’t be super happy about them slagging it on the internet, of course, but that’s their prerogative.
My biggest problem with Lucas is that he steadfastly refuses to release unaltered versions of the films. He even went to far as to change the version that’s held in the library of congress.
Yes, they are his creations, but to some extent, they are also a matter of historical, cultural record. If he wants to monkey around with them, so be it, but make both versions available. Instead, he’s trying to rewrite history. Sometimes it’s harmless enough with the adding off extraneous background content (although I hate that too). But sometimes it alters a fundamental bit of character development, as with the infamous example of Greedo shooting first.
The films should exist as they did when they were released in the 70s and 80s, as a product of the time they were created. Retroactively “correcting” them thirty-five years later is ridiculous.
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Trilogy-Widescreen-Theatrical/dp/B001EN71DG/ref=pd_sxp_grid_i_0_1
you get both altered and original un-altered
I stand corrected, although I maintain that Lucas is still an asshole of the highest order.
Is this still being produced?
If not, it wouldn’t be that hard to start a bootleg operation using one
Not saying I agree completely with what Lucas did, but hey they’re his films, he can do what he bloody well wants with them IMO.
As for the changes themselves, I think he was on the right track, it kind of explains things that I wondered about the first three films and clears some things up. The landspeeder flying around Hoth clip was definitely in need of fixing, that just smacked of bad editing on the editing department’s part.
Perhaps some think Lucas went too far, I think he completed his vision to his liking, and he should be congratulated for seeing it through regardless of the complaints. 😀
See, that’s just the thing. I don’t think they’re his films anymore. And I’m not so sure they ever really were.
Filmmaking is a collaborative effort, and he didn’t even write or direct Empire or Jedi. Yes, the universe is his concept, but saying they’re his films gives him more credit than is really do.
Even if they were his films, I believe they’ve made an indelible impact into our culture. Changing them after the fact just seems wrong to me. Like when Turner went back and colorized old films. It’s not right. It take sit out of it’s place in history, and now if doesn’t really belong anywhere.
You should go find the wikipedia article on George Lucas and read up on it. He wrote the original Star Wars that started it all, and he was Executive Producer on the other two, which is a pretty major role for someone in the films. He also chose the people that actually directed them and played a large part in making of the second two films. He got a story credit on Return of the Jedi, and a screenwriting credit on The Empire Strikes Back, which are both pretty heavily involved roles.
So I really have an issue when someone says Lucas didn’t actually do anything, he had major parts to play in all three of the original films, and he played them well! 😉 One doesn’t have to be an actor to be successfully recognized in the film industry, and Lucas did this extremely well! 😀
I don’t need to consult Wikipedia because I never said he didn’t do anything. I said that other people were involved in the films and that, while he was instrumental, he isn’t solely responsible for them. Thus, are they really “his”? I don’t believe they are.
I would say they pretty much are his, because if he hadn’t made Star Wars, the other two films would never exist. So, yeah I think they are his because he came up with the idea of Star Wars, and then helped engineer two sequels, created an entire film industry devoted to special effects and made a pretty epic set of films! The films were all based on a story by George Lucas and people wrote scripts and directed them, and Lucas would’ve had a major influence over which way the storyline would go and I do believe they are therefore his. Collaborative effort is one thing but I think it’s mainly the original concept that counts and I believe this was Lucas behind it! He raked in all the money from the franchising he’d picked up cheaply for the first movie and channeled it into funding the second movie, so he certainly had a major financial role in it! 😀
There’s just so much of the age that’s there in the originals — and so much that they tell us about the state of the art of special effects then, too.
I’ve not watched enough ’40s and ’50s SF to be able to pick out too many examples from that age, but think of the incredible work done on “King Kong” in ’33 and try to imagine that being changed, re-released, and then made the only edition of it in the mid-’50s. I love seeing what the early stages were, and love seeing how the direction and character involvement makes the viewer appreciate it more.
I next think of stuff like the Original Series of “Star Trek” and its impressive-for-the-age FX. I know that there’s 2.0 versions around, but I’m happiest with the old ones, thanks.
“Star Wars” is just far more impressive when it’s done in its seventies splendour. Hell, it’s more realistic, too – I could care less about the fuzzy shadows around the landspeeder or the tie fighters; I care that dozens, if not hundreds, of craftsmen came together and created the miniatures, pyrotechnics, and camerawork that made such thrilling sequences come alive. Video game shit don’t mean much to me anymore; I have enough of that around the house that I know stuff can be programmed for most anything. (Take the BS “Long Shot” that opens Episode III and then compare it to the climax of “Toy Story 3.” Which feels real and important? Unfair picking and choosing? When it comes to the issue of whether Han or Greedo shot first…)
But I also have cameras and miniatures and LEGO galore, and I’ve never gotten anywhere near to anything as good as the trench run. I can dream, but I know that is an epic achievement. It feels like the work of those craftsmen have been shunted aside. Notice the swelling sadness over the death of McQuarrie recently – his creative vision was a major part of the dreams of many. Ditto for whoever took the shape of the Millennium Falcon and ended up greebling the heck out of the sides – it just made it all more gritty and lived in.
Effects change a lot from ’77 to ’97, I won’t deny that. Then again, so does direction and storytelling. Shame that the dedication to upgrading the effects of the originals haven’t been devoted to upgrading the direction and story of the prequels. Once that’s been done, I’m willing to consider trusting George again. It’s not going to happen, though. If memory serves, McQuarrie didn’t receive enough credit for ages… neither did Kirshner or the script doctors or even the actors for their role in making “Empire” the best of them all. Hell, even Bob Anderson, the fencing instructor who was also the stand-in for Vader in the lightsaber duels, didn’t receive credit for ages. If you’re not going to farm out enough credit, you can’t complain when you harvest most of the criticism.
@BrickVoid – I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on the question of ownership here. But let me ask you this: what would you think of Francis Ford Coppola going back to mess with The Godfather? Or maybe the estate of Alfred Hitchcock messing around with Vertigo or Psycho? The Wells family and Citizen Kane?
Another thought. Stephen Spielberg recently came out, saying that he had made a huge mistake in changing ET after the fact (famously changing guns into walkie talkies). What do you think about that?
@Lich – Very well said. Another thought: What about the actor who played Darth Vader getting digitally excised from scenes in Return of the Jedi?
I love that shot in Star Wars. Those poor troopers don’t know what the hell’s going on, they probably think there’s an entire platoon after them. (who expects one guy to charge a squad of soldiers by himself?) Then they reach a hanger with an entire company on parade and at the same time realise it’s only one guy. Classic “Oh shit!” moment for Solo.