How many names did the original petition get?
From memory it was less than 90,000
For an online petition.
And how many of those names would pirate it and not buy it?
Without a big marketing campaign, selling the OUT versions would be extremely difficult to get a real ‘spike in profits’.
Any marketing campaign would also potentially be saying that the SE is, well rubbish, which is a tricky thing for a company to say about their own product which is still making them money.
The big question is, how much extra money would an OUT 4K release bring over and above just a 4K SE release? I can’t see it being very much, and by the time the restoration and marketing money required to educate the populace about what the hell an OUT version is, and make them want it, well, I can’t see the money argument for Disney.
To them, there are a handful of crackpots out there that want the original versions, they also know that no matter what they release at least half those people would complain about it being too restored, not restored enough, too grainy, too clean or a thousand other niggly complaints.
Outside of these forums, and a few hundred posts on other sites when it is mentioned, where do you see the clamouring for people to buy the originals of a movie that is now over 40 years old? Most petitions I have seen get anywhere for 7 to a hundred or so signatures. The petition here ran for years and didn’t get 100,000 people.
The people that saw the original Star Wars in the cinema in their 20s are now in their 60s. The people that saw it as young kids in the cinema are now approaching 50.
I will talk with more people at Siggraph, but honestly, everyone I speak to is honestly baffled, it isn’t on anyone’s radar there, even slightly. Normally if you probe about something that is even being vaguely considered, the answer is “I can’t talk about that”, but this was just “huh?”.
I want them to release an OUT, I’d love to be able to get the 4K scans they have, but I can’t think of a financial reason for them to do so.
The only scenario I can see is if someone like Criterion approached them, with a solid business case for a Criterion style release. Something that Disney doesn’t have to confuse their marketing with, that they can keep at arms length, and that has money coming in from a third party company.
I can’t see that happening either, where is the evidence for the demand? I certainly wouldn’t bet the cost of a major release on a market that can’t get 90,000 online signatures for something.
For the last 20 years, the SE is the Star Wars people have watched and known and loved. For many, it was the one they saw in the cinema. It is their Star Wars, and has been for two decades.
It isn’t my Star Wars, and it irks me badly, but I can’t see evidence of enough demand out there to make a business case for Disney to risk money and ‘brand confusion’ in the marketplace by committing to a 4K restored OUT, unless there is a sudden and huge upswell in people asking for it.