Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)
I think I get what she means, having watched ANH (again) the other day on DVD and the original trilogy on VIDEO!!!.
Once you have stripped out all the additional over complex CGI'd scenes from the special editions there is a straight simplicity to the movie particularly around Mos Esley that is VERY like a western. That space port originally feels kind of under populated and sparse, like a western frontier town and that's true for most of the film.Even the Yarvin base shots (apart from the ceremony) lack the over crowdedness that many sci fi film suffer from have these days , ie they tend to over stuff them so full of aliens ,robots and people its like a shopping mall at Xmas , as opposed to most of the shots in ANH (though I guess with RO coming out they will have evacuated a lot of the RA leaders out of Yarvin ,knowing the DS was likely after them soon ,just leaving the strike force and ground teams). And again I was surprised just how different the tone was changed , may be its just me and my fond memories of decades past revived , but damn it, it did feel so much more like the film I loved. Less is sometimes a whole lot more more.
Yes, the quality of the effects work needed up dating and if I have any arguments to make on the matter, I still think they could take the originals and "restore" them with a cleaner "print" and tweaked VFXs. Get rid of those horribly odd additions like the stormtroopers marching criss-cross across the dunes and on fake CGI lizards, and that terrible dated Jabba MF scene now. The ST on the dewback glimpsed in the desert background is so much better than fully viewed one.
The whole first half of the film feels exactly like a western,with a near lawless frontier town where patrons can shoot each other in a bar over a bounty. If they go for this tone, which is what made the first two films in the OT such a success then it seems like the right path for me. Keep the colour palate and lighting natural and people will respond to it better, less fakery, more realistic which is what made the films such a success originally.
