4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 37

For the sake of discussion: I think there's value in differentiating between plain-old DVNR and "grain management". The latter, if done carefully, can improve a home video release of a film considerably. Look at what was done for the optically-zoomed-in shots in the recent To Kill A Mockingbird BD release.

This topic is, of course, a heated one around here. The question is: Is modern "grain management" anti-preservation? I think strong arguments can be made on both sides.

DISCUSS!

Harmy said:

Luckily for us, there are no animated sequences in SW ;-)

 What about the original Fox logo?

;)

Anyway, I agree that wrong colors would be much better than DVNR or crushed blacks/whites, such as plagues the Blu-rays.

I'm trying to think about what may reasonably need to be fixed even if the original negatives are used for a new release. At the very least, the lightsaber effects would need to be scanned from an IP, as the RMW lightsabers are heavily degraded. But since the degraded original elements were placed into the final cleanup, I don't think that Disney will notice this or the many other problems of degradation. If this is true, the 2011 Blu-ray will necessarily be superior than any 4K scan for certain elements, simply because the film has aged and deteriorated for seven years in the interim. If Disney is going to use any shot from the negatives no matter how damaged, I can see this being riddled with issues.

I'm gonna throw this out there and say that my fingers are crossed that Disney has consulted Robert A. Harris on this restoration.  Remember that he offered to do a restoration on the original trilogy for free. On top of that, I believe he's pretty good about keeping mum on projects.

I'm perfectly happy to be proven wrong, given that Reliance Media might be involved.  Either way, I think Disney will give us the best presentation possible and not just do a 4K DNR hack job.

So has this news been debunked officially, or are we still waiting with baited breath?

peter_pan said:

So has this news been debunked officially, or are we still waiting with baited breath?

The latter.

The fact that it hasn't been debunked or even addressed gives me some hope; Lucas made clear that we were never going to get a satisfying release of the originals again the second the SE was released, but Disney's Lucasfilm hasn't said either way. There's also the possibility that they won't officially debunk anything until after Ep. VII so they don't get any bad press before the new movie. 

We literally know nothing about it, and it's shrouded with mystery, which is what gives me hope. I've emailed RMW and they've not even responded with so much as a, "that project was cancelled," reply. Not that they'd spend time talking to someone like me, but the fact that there's been quite a bit of media buzz about the rumors and about Harmy's reconstruction of the OUT, and not even so much as an acknowledgement from Lucasfilm or RMW? Also, the fact that they removed it from their site is particularly interesting, and we can guess from their videos that they've at least restored Star Wars and part of Empire so I doubt it's a cancelled project. No clips from Jedi though, so that could imply that it's a more recent project. Very curious...

I agree, and also (we can't know about this for sure) but hopefully that means the weird purple tint when they're on the death star is gone too. At the very least, the black escape pod door is back to blue; there was a picture of it in RMW's video.

What if we start a new petition stating we will boycott VII unless the original trilogy is released?

peter_pan said:

What if we start a new petition stating we will boycott VII unless the original trilogy is released?

doubleofive said:

peter_pan said:

What if we start a new petition stating we will boycott VII unless the original trilogy is released?

I sincerely doubt that losing a couple million dollars will matter when this movie will probably make a billion worldwide.

 Your right. I wish you weren't, but you are.

With Disney, they'll either release them or they won't. The petition to Lucas made sense because he was personally refusing to release the films and we thought that maybe it would make him realize that a lot of people care about the original versions. Now, it boils down to, "will we make money by releasing this?" as well as, "will releasing the OT create good will and build hype for our movies?" along with a few other business decisions. The new management isn't going to say, "will releasing the OT go against the original vision of the films?" they're going to make their decisions based on business, not some vague and nondescript "true vision", and also not based on a petition or boycott. They already know what we want, and there's no way an OUT release wouldn't make money, so I'd be surprised if it isn't released in the lead-up to Ep. VII; maybe it will be announced at celebration (I think the first SW blu ray was announced at a convention).