Maclunkey

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Flack
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Maclunkey

Post by Flack »

I can't think of another movie that's been modified more times than the original Star Wars.

The first edit came just a few years after it was released. Back in 1977, the film was simply titled "Star Wars." It wasn't until The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980 that the first film became known as "Episode 4: A New Hope." The Episode 4 subtitle was added to the first home video release in 1981.

If you want to get picky, there have been lots of minor changes to A New Hope throughout the years. For example, originally, the film was released with a mono soundtrack, which was changed to stereo for the 1985 VHS release. The Laserdisc version is also stereo, but was sped up by 3% in order to fit the entire movie onto a single disc. In 1993 the entire trilogy was released on laserdisc, this time with a THX audio mix. Quite literally, every single release of A New Hope is unique.

Perhaps the most infamous and obvious change throughout the years has been the Han vs. Greedo scene in the cantina. I can't imagine anyone who has read this far doesn't know what I'm referring to, but just to make sure we're all on the same page:

-- In the original (1977) version of ANH, the confrontation between Han and Greedo ends with Han shooting Greedo before the green alien was able to get off a shot. "Han shot first."
-- In the 1997 "Special Edition," the scene was digitally altered so that Greedo shoots first, but misses Han (from a distance of three feet). In this version, Han was also digitally manipulated to dodge Greedo's shot. George Lucas said he felt the original made Han out to be a cold blooded killer (he was), which is why the scene was modified. It looks terrible.
-- In the 2004 DVD release, the scene was again modified. This time, Greedo and Han shoot at the same time.

You would think by now there would be no more possible edits to make. Everybody should have been happy; in one version Han shot first, in one version Greedo shot first, and in this one, they shot at the same time. Pick which one you like!

Disney+ customers were delighted to hear the Star Wars franchise had been added to the streaming service, and those who watched it were both surprised and puzzled to find the scene had been changed once again. Does Han shoot first this time? Does Greedo shoot twice? No, none of that -- instead, right before pulling the trigger, Greedo utters something new.

"Maclunkey."

Here is a YouTube video of that clip, followed by every version of the Han/Greedo scene to date.



The scene is jarring for a few reasons. From an audio standpoint, it sounds weird. The background noise drops out, and it doesn't sound exactly like Greedo's original voice. Additionally, all of Greedo's other lines are subtitled. This one isn't. It's just a weird pause where Greedo, for no reason, utters the word "Maclunkey."

Paul Blake, who played Greedo in A New Hope, just happened to be at a Star Wars convention when the new version was released. According to him, "a million people" asked him what "Maclunkey" meant. He said he had absolutely no idea, and was as confused as everyone else.

My original theory, which was that Disney+ made this minor change to be able to tell their version from other versions, doesn't appear to be true. Those who have purchased the film on iTunes had the versions in their libraries updated to the new "Maclunkey" version as well. Disney, for their part, denies making the change. They say this is the version that was delivered to them from Lucasfilm.

For the past week or two, fans have been trying to figure out what exactly "Maclunkey" means. One sharp-eared fan discovered that Sebulba says something that sounds similar to "Maculkey" to Jar Jar Binks during their confrontation in Phantom Menace. Apparently the word is Huttese and roughly translates to, "this'll be the end of you."

And if you know George Lucas, suddenly, this starts to make sense.

George Lucas has been obsessed with attempting to tie the original trilogy to the prequels. The first time this happened was during the closing scene of the special edition of Return of the Jedi, in which the Ewok celebration was partially replaced with shots of other planets around the galaxy, including one of Coruscant (a planet we hadn't seen yet, but was heavily featured in Phantom Menace). This was also the driving force (no pun intended) in inserting Hayden Christensen into the final "force ghost" scene at the end of Jedi. (Lucas also digital removed Vader's eyebrows and changed the actor's eye color in Vader's final scene after he was unmaked, to make him look more like Christensen.)

So for Lucas to pull a word out of one of the prequels and insert it into the original trilogy, in his mind, makes perfect sense. In his mind, the fact that Greedo and Sebulba both uttered the same word ties these two trilogies together. (Who cares if Greedo was speaking Rodian, his native language, up until the end of the conversation at which point he inexplicably switched to Huttese.)

So now, along with "Han shot first", "Greedo shot first," and "they both shot," let us welcome the latest edition into the long list of versions of A New Hope: The Maclunkey Edition.

And now, the memes.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

So goddamn dumb, him screwing with it all these times is SO goddamn dumb.

And you're right, last thing he says is the equivalent of one of us getting shot and awkwardly shouting TRISTE NON???
The Laserdisc version is also stereo, but was sped up by 3% in order to fit the entire movie onto a single disc.
Hahah - I have DVDs that were made from the Laserdiscs and I always thought they were the "most" perfect version. And now I realize they're screwed up too.
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Flack
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by Flack »

For laserdisc releases... the first versions of the films (the same versions that appeared on the first VHS releases) were released in 1982, 1984, and 1986. Those are all 4:3 ratio. In 1986/1987, widescreen editions were released in Japan; those same versions were released in the US in 1989/1990. In 1993, "The Definitive Collection" was released, and then in 1995, they were re-released separately with the "faces" covers (I believe both of those releases contain the same versions). Each one of these is slightly different -- the first release was mono, the second one was stereo, and the last two are THX remixes. Fortunately, all of them predate the Special Editions.

There have been several homebrew attempts at restoring the originals, but the best (all around) is Harmy's Despecialised versions.
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AArdvark
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by AArdvark »

I was just gonna ask about those. I found them someplace but had since forgotten the name.

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Jizaboz
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by Jizaboz »

Maclunky Culkin
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Tdarcos
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by Tdarcos »

What you are seeing is the clunky and forced efforts to retcon a prequel into an existing work. As it was, the film was a certain way, but, in aome cases they want to put something in a prequel that conflicts with what was there in the earlier made film, whose evets taker place after those in the prequel. In some franchises - if they think they can get away with it - they'll declare a film, a book, or other related work to be non-canon and act like the new canon was always as it was changed, ignoring what already was. Lucas is able to go further and actually alter existing works. Something that became impossible once filmd were released in immutable copies. Now that people get on-demnd showings, anything can be changed.

Changing of fiction to retcon styuff is comon. I'll give you two examples.

* The Bible - At the Nicene Creed back in the 400s, a committee decided what books would be included in the Bible. Whichever were the popular ones priests used in sermons were kept, the rest were discarded as "non-canon." Despite the fact that the part of The Bible that remained Canon refer to parts that are now missing. You can see this if you can get both a Catholic Douay Bible and a King James Version. The Douay Bible includes the books of Macabees. These do not appear in the King James Version.

* The Book of Mormon - a lady I knew told me that every so often the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints reissues a new version of The Book of Mormon to correct errors or where the Church changes doctrine, like when it admitted negroes in 1972, claims that dark races were those who were followers of Satan had to be removed. The old versions of The Book of Mormon are declared non-canon and any on hand are recalled, destroyed and replaced. The old versions are not the same as the current version, and Mormon missionaries visiting people at their homes do not know this. While these missionaries are trained, they are never told that The Book of Mormon has been revised many times. When they came by her place, she'd invite them in, and she'd question them based on items in older versions of the book. When caught not knowing that there are differing versions, the lady was telling me, they look like they've been caught in public with no clothes. After a while they started avoiding her house.
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by AArdvark »

Yeah, I understand why the Commander made MVP.

Comparing Star Wars to the Bible is top shelf!

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Re: Maclunkey

Post by pinback »

For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Maclunkey.
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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Flack
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by Flack »

AArdvark wrote: Sat Jan 25, 2020 3:17 pm Yeah, I understand why the Commander made MVP.

Comparing Star Wars to the Bible is top shelf!
'Vark is the real MVP for summing his comment up in a single line so I didn't have to read it.
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by AArdvark »

You know, if that Maclunkey line was in the 1977 version there would be a HUGE amount of pets with that name. Probably a fair amount of kids as well.

I feel a crazy doodle coming on....

THE
WOO WOO WOO
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AArdvark
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by AArdvark »

Picture a young Karl Malden wearing a Vince Lombardi hat and pointing a .38 police positive. behind him is a dingy brownstone.

Thursday at 8 on CBS. Karl Malden is....Maclunkey!

(In color)

THE
COP SHOW
AARDVARK

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Jizaboz
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by Jizaboz »

Actually Paul bringing religion stories into this go exactly with a real life conversation I had with a Star Wars fan after a Star Wars tabletop RPG session. I brought up how I really enjoyed how this movie showed more “evil” lore of the dark side but I was still starving for even more. He said he could care less for all of that and wanted more “good” lore. But we both agreed there should have been a little more in general given the fact we were not given any elaborate space dogfight scene.

Basically, if you view the Jedi religion as the “good”, then the Sith religion as the “evil”, you can start to draw modern contrasts.

- Let us say Jedis represent Christians, Hindus etc as the “good religion”

- Let us say the Sith represent Satanic dudes. (Disregard the thinking of ancient pagan religions being evil for now)

So.. Satanism by definition would never exist without Christian it Catholic lore. Paul can probably back me up on this historically, but I generally accept that as fact. The names of these evil beings were first mentioned in “good” text.

So there are 2 different theories on the Force and the Sith I have when compared.

1. The Sith would have never existed without the original religion of the Jedi. Some that studied the ways of the Force decided they “Didn’t agree with God’s plan” and chose to focus on the dark characters and aspects of the Jedi religion.

2. Now let us not disregard these ancient, “pagan” religions such as the religion of ancient Egypt. In this case, the Sith have ancient and forbidden knowledge of things previous civilizations achieved as well as leaps through “alien” tech retrieved. They believe there is no “new hope” because they fully understand universes on a deep level.. and the more they see repeating and failing patterns, the more they wish to destroy.
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by Tdarcos »

Tonight's dinner menu includes partially cooked pasta with cheddar sauce. We're calling it (and you can probably guess)...

Macclunkey and cheese.
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I don't know how Lucas even gets near the source material of these movies. They paid him four billion dollars and they let him screw around in Avid to put this dumb shit in.

I've been thinking about this thread for a while. I've been making stuff for people for 20 years, I'm hoping I have started phase two for another 20 years. Lucas putting something mind-bendingly stupid as "Maclunkey" in a scene that was perfect the first time ... I mean, I hoped that with time and experience he'd understand things a little. The link that Flack in-lined shows various versions and the ones where Harrison Ford's eyes are looking right at Greedo and his head move supernaturally to the left looks SO BAD. It looks like utter cowshit.

So maybe we don't learn and we don't get better. Lucas certainly hasn't. Maybe this is the best we can do and we keep picking at the scab to make it worse and it's hopeless to think that we can ever get truly better at creative endeavors.
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Flack
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Re: Maclunkey

Post by Flack »

I think you're missing the boat. I'd like to see a re-release of Cryptozookeeper in which the dog, right before it attacks you, barks "Maclunkey!"
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