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Fang Zei

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14-Oct-2006
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5-Nov-2025
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Post
#317578
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317578/action/topic#317578
Time
But what does that tell you about the state of the franchise? Star Trek was also pretty big right around the time of its 30th, and then look what happened, it was burned out within less than a decade.

I don't know if I have to say this in sign language, but I'm convinced that we'll get what we want when the next release hits. This damn argument between which version is better is just too obvious to everyone by now for Lucas to turn a blind eye to it. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if he includes the '97 versions as well, their being the historically significant releases that started the debate in the first place.

The 2004 version is the one Lucas decided to put the money into, fine, so be it, it's not our decision after all.

The 2006 release was a shameless cash grab. It doesn't mean it's the death of the OOT. Once you remember that's it's all only on standard dvd (granted, non-anamorphic standard dvd), it doesn't become that hard to imagine us getting a blu-ray OOT. Because, as I've said before, HOW IN THE HELL ELSE IS HE GOING TO SELL US THE EXACT SAME THING ALL OVER AGAIN?! How many people even are there with blu-ray players that aren't PS3's? Actually, it begs the question of whether he'll even bother to release any of the versions of the movies on blu-ray AT ALL, especially judging by his comment from that interview a couple years ago, "What's the surest way to prevent piracy? Pay-per-view."

But, nah, I'm sure he'll release them anyway. It's only more money to be made, really, and pirating them will be hard anyway. But, as I said, a 1080p SE alone will not be enough of a selling point IMO.
Post
#317529
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317529/action/topic#317529
Time
zombie84 said:

Yes, the negative was deteriorating, and much of it had to be replaced with dupes from other sources, or reprinted. Digital technology hadn't yet advanced far enough, the 1997 SE was mostly an old-fashioned photo-chemical restoration. The entire film wasn't digitized because there was no such thing as DI's back then, they just recomposited whatever shots they need, printed them back onto film and then spliced them into the neg so that it could be completed photochemically.


Yea, I guess I should just stop bringing it up. People keep getting confused in regards to the '97 restoration.

Even if we have to settle for working from theatrical prints (presumably with cigarette burns every 20 minutes, but I'm assuming that could be taken care of somehow), it would be still look better than standard dvd, and it would definitely look better than the laserdisc ports we got.
Post
#317526
Topic
Robert Harris Godfather Restoration WHY cannot lucas restore the oot ?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317526/action/topic#317526
Time
I was going over the wiki entry just now, and now I'm wondering if they won't wait until even later than the premiere of the live-action series to do the 3D re-releases. Apparently McCallum said that they're waiting until the technology is cheap enough to widely implement.

Then again, 2010 is a long ways away. If Cameron plans on having enough 3D theaters to release Avatar in by December of 2009, I would think Lucasfilm would use that as an opportunity to attach a trailer announcing "coming in 2010, the 3D re-releases of the Star Wars movies."

Obviously I wasn't thinking that we'd get the blu-ray until the movies hit theaters again. I only meant that the 3D-re-release-followed-by-a-blu-ray-release-a-few-months-later hopefully isn't more than another two or three years away. That's only really going on the pattern that these movies followed on dvd:

Close Encounters, 2001
Godfather, 2001
Star Wars Trilogy, 2004

Now we have:

Close Encounters, 2007
Godfather, hopefully by the end of this year
Star Wars (with everything we want): hopefully by the time the live-action series hits.

zombie84 said:

Lucas' response to this would be: I DID restore the trilogy, it costs millions of dollars and came out on DVD in 2004. Ugh.


Yea but that's the thing. We're not asking for him to spend millions of dollars. In fact, as it's been pointed out, there's a professional willing to do it for free!!!!

Look at what happened with Blade Runner. The final version is the one that got the 4K mastering and was cleaned up frame by frame to within an inch of its life. By comparison, the remastering they did on the older versions is nothing, BUT AT LEAST THEY REMASTERED THEM.

That's the truly messed up thing about this situation. All it would really cost Lucas at the end of the day is the added price of including an extra disc in the packaging. That's why I'm not TOTALLY putting it out of the realm of possibility that he'll give us the simple thing we're asking for. Because, as I've said, blu-ray isn't the same ballpark as dvd. If we're already getting The Godfather this year, and when we remember that Lucas only really held off on the OT on dvd because he wanted to wait until Episode III had been released (2001 was also the year that a Star Wars movie hit dvd for the first time), I can't imagine the next release being more than a couple years away.
Post
#317470
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317470/action/topic#317470
Time
zombie84 said:

The only reason the OOT was on DVD in 2006 was because it was already done.


That's exactly my point. What if he's just waiting until the blu-ray to put any sort of work whatsoever into remastering the OOT? Isn't that what Cameron's doing with The Abyss?

Lucas, at least so far as he's concerned, put all of the necessary work into restoring the OT back in '03/'04. True, it wouldn't necessarily take that kind of restoration all over again in order to achieve an acceptable level of quality for a 1080p master of the O-OT, but what you said is exactly my point, zombie. It was already done, so he just got THX to do whatever it needed and then slapped it on a dvd.

Erikstormtrooper said:

This will also save face for George, and he can claim that people are still gobbling up the SE.


Exactly

Isn't it in his best interest to have both?

Lucas isn't making money for other companies, he's making money for his own company.
Post
#317461
Topic
Originals: A New Preference
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317461/action/topic#317461
Time
Yea, there's not much else to it.

Now that I've been able to watch both versions on the same format for almost two and a half years, I'd like to be watching them in the same quality. I'm not asking for something on the level of Lowry since I know it would never happen anyway ("ummm, didn't we restore most of the scenes we're seeing here just a few years ago?"), but I am asking for them to dig up those interpositives or WHATEVER their best film elements are of the OOT and transfer them to video.
Post
#317457
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317457/action/topic#317457
Time
The only possible excuse I could see LFL coming up with is "well, since we know that everyone on the planet is going to want to a buy a copy, we couldn't possibly mass produce the discs without it just being one movie, one disc."

But that's my whole point. Look at what happened. Yes, everyone went out and bought the '04 set, but people made it clear to LFL in various ways that they didn't necessarily want to be required to buy all three movies if they only wanted one. Certain people, ahem, also made it clear that they wanted the original versions on dvd. So, LFL took care of both in one swoop. No, it wasn't remastered, but it was a step in the right direction.

I don't see them repeating this mistake on the next go-around. Now, you all laugh and say "Lucas won't see it as a mistake, he'll see it as another easy double-dip." But I still contend that while blu-ray is nice and all that, it won't be what dvd was. Watching the movies in 1080p will not be enough to get us to buy it again, neither will throwing in a bunch of documentaries. Going the Blade Runner route and putting separate versions on separate discs for the OT and going the seamless branching route for TPM is the only way he'll get a lot of people to buy it again. He'll release them individually this time since, from the sound of things, it's going to be one massive six-film set and people aren't going to want to pay 200 dollars for it.

Worst case scenario, even if he doesn't include the original versions in the individual releases, he'll throw them exclusively in the 200 dollar set to get us to buy it. Am I setting myself up for disappointment?

EDIT: ok, upon further thought that second to last paragraph makes me seem a bit naive. Of course it'll sell well if they advertise it enough.

Back in '06 and '07, I was a little confused by why people kept referring to the marketing department at lfl and how they should all be fired. They should be fired for exploiting people's ignorance of how dvd video works? I thought that was their job in regards to the GOUT.

I think what people were basically trying to say is that they should be fired for not giving us what we obviously want. But I think it's obvious enough by now. You can't watch the GOUT on an hdtv without both a) zooming it in and b) repositioning it so you can read the Greedo and Jabba subtitles. But that's not the market LFL was going for, and if you get the movies in fullscreen that's only for the '04 version, you're still getting the '93 version letterboxed.

My point is, blu-ray is a totally different ballpark.
Post
#317441
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317441/action/topic#317441
Time
CO said:

To sorta sum up my post, if the '04 DVD's didn't sell well, can we all agree that the OOT would have been remastered for a nice boxset a year or two after that, cause Lucas would have gotten the memo that nobody wants the SE, they want the originals. But the OT is so powerful, the majority of people will 'put up' with the SE just to have them on DVD. I can't tell ya how many of my friends bough the 04 Boxset and said, "Yeah, the SE changes annoy me, but its SW!"


Well, yea, except that's the thing. Why wouldn't the '04 set have sold as well????? I mean, it was Star Wars on dvd finally. The new formats were still a couple years away and Lucas saw 2004 as the perfect time to do it, not a year later. With blu-ray it'll be a different situation. The ball is no longer in Lucas' court. Maybe I'm reading too much into the Close Encounters release from last year, but the fact that it happened when it did (only a year or so into the new format) and the way it did (all 3 versions) kinda gives me hope that each of the original movies will get one disc for the SE and one disc for the original version.

The 2004 set sold so fucking well because dvd is everyone's favorite format. What I was trying to say is that they did such a good job mastering it that for a lot of people out there it'll probably be the last time they ever buy the movies on home video. With blu-ray, as we've said many times, Lucas can charge us whatever he wants within a reasonable limit and, guess what, we'll still buy it as long as it has the remastered OOT included. That's what we just have to remember. At the end of the day, he knows we'll shell out a little extra money if the set has what we really want in it. If economics dictate to him that it still wouldn't be worth it, well, then so be it. But that's just not what I see happening.

Now, I realize this brings us back yet again to the argument of "well, he's not going to because he knows he can get away with only selling the SE." But that's what I'm talking about here. I can only see his including the OOT as helping any future release, not hurting it.
Post
#317435
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317435/action/topic#317435
Time
The fact that the popularity of the franchise is declining is also why I think we'll get what we want sooner rather than later, zombie. Although I'd have to disagree with you that we'll have to wait until the second blu-ray dip to actually get it.

Why?

-for whatever reason, I get the impression that the movies will all be available individually as well as in a huge 200 dollar set. The '04 set was one of the few times that the original movies have not been released individually, and what ended up happening after all? They released them individually, throwing in the '93 telecine so that even people who already had the '04 got them anyway. Then there's Lucas' "it'll all be released in the end ..... now we'll see how many people want the original versions" comment. And it sold undeniably well, didn't it?

-Those multi-disc sets you mentioned, while they are just single movies and not a huge franchise like Star Wars, have made the treatment Star Wars has received thusfar look pretty bad.

-.....

-actually, at this point I'm kinda rambling so I'll just stop
Post
#317398
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317398/action/topic#317398
Time
The point remains, a lot of people got the '04 set from what I can tell. They didn't do themselves a favor by giving it the state-of-the-art THX mastering it received (Lowry issues aside). But they will be doing themselves a favor if they throw in the original versions on the blu-ray.

I mean, c'mon, the originals, or at the very least Star Wars '77, are considered classics. The prequels just aren't. I would think most people can tell the difference between special effects technology of the late 70's and early 80's and that of 1997.

In any event, May 25th is around the corner. I wonder if they'll use it as an opportunity to announce anything.

edited to add: After reading the article on the restorations of How the West Was Won, I'm giving Lucas less of an excuse if he doesn't finally get around to remastering the OOT for the next release.

Also, anyone else think we might see a trailer for the 3D versions attached to Avatar in December of '09? Given that 2010 is the date currently speculated by Lucas and Sansweet for the live action show, a Spring theatrical release of the movies followed by a Fall blu-ray to coincide with the show would make sense.

Is anything planned for 2009? I guess that was going to be the big year until the writer's strike threw everything off.
Post
#317341
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317341/action/topic#317341
Time
zombie84 said:

Its just a quick cash-in on KOTCS coming to theaters. When Indy IV is on video there will be new boxsets made containing all four films. Thats likely when the Blu-Ray version will be out. I mean why bother doing a Blu-Ray trilogy when you will just need to do another 4-film boxset nine months later?


Yea, I know, it's just that they're really cutting it close with this cash-in if the blu-ray set is only half a year away.

Tiptup said:

Getting George to care about film preservation would be to practically set our hopes in the realm of impossibility.


Not really. If I recall correctly, sometime in the past year it was announced that Lucas, Scorsese et al are overseeing some film preservation organization.

Tiptup said:

Preserving a version of Star Wars that best represents the original film would certainly be the right thing to do, but George has shown that he actually has antipathy towards such an effort. If he comes around it will be to earn more money or to gain acceptance from Star Wars fans, but I doubt that either are a huge concern for him right now.


Well, this is just my opinion, but he is rapidly running out of ideas. He's already doing this Clone Wars show, which seems to be pandering almost exclusively to kids (if the fact that the trailer is being attached to Speed Racer is any indication), and Force Unleashed which I've heard cleverly nicknamed "god of Star Wars." It won't be long before he has no one else to pander to except for the longtime/hardcore fans.

Baronlando said:

Just to make this all more annoying, more and more I'm encountering this mistaken idea out there that old movies would NOT benefit from Hd/blu-ray, so why should they bother buying. Lucas has a golden opportunity here, more than any other single person (or film) on earth, to educate a LOT of people by restoring the 1977 movie and letting people see the difference between the 1993 transfer and today. Wouldn't this benefit the larger film preservation cause?


To be fair, I think a lot of people out there are only planning on getting blu-ray players so that they can stop buying new releases on dvd and upgrade to the new format.

While we're on the subject, I'd like to revise something I said recently. I still contend that people won't notice a huge difference between blu-ray and standard dvd so long as everything is properly set. But it's happened at least three times that I've had to set yet another friend's dvd player to 16:9 so that everything won't look stretched out. How many people out there do you think are under the impression that dvd's are basically just digital laserdiscs, that every one looks like the GOUT? When I keep hearing stories about how even people with widescreen tv's don't care about everything getting stretched out and even get pissed off when someone tries to properly set it, I wonder.

Then again, the difference between anamorphic and non-anamorphic is rather insignificant when compared to the difference between sd and hd.
Post
#317326
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317326/action/topic#317326
Time
doubleofive said:

Have you seen the Indiana Jones Special Edition DVDs with no BluRay in sight? Yeah, I wouldn't put it past Lucas to give us the OOT on DVD again.


It begs the question of just what the situation with Indy on blu-ray is. Paramount has finally gone blu-ray, so that's not an issue. But Spielberg hasn't released a single one of his movies on blu-ray besides Close Encounters.

This double dip I see as nothing but a redux of the '03 set. It's like if Lucas hadn't waited until '04 to release Star Wars and then released it again in '04 anyway to take advantage of ROTS.

At the same time, this kind of points to only one real possibility: we get a day and date blu-ray of Indy IV this fall with the original movies getting the treatment at some later time. Unless of course this really is a collector's market and they're planning on releasing the originals this fall anyway, who knows.
Post
#317277
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317277/action/topic#317277
Time
Baronlando said:

(Plus, Indiana Jones is such an exercise in stroking the nostalgia of 30 somethings, a restored 77-80-83 trilogy with a bunch of old school packaging would fit right in with that)


This is exactly what I'm becoming more and more convinced LFL will eventually do.

Baronlando said:

It is really weird why Lucas won't just put out a great edition of the OOT, and create another fanbase to milk every few years. Think about it, he has the Saga fans that he can keep putting out SE/new changes to the OT/PT movies, and they will keep buying them. He can put out EU books/cartoons that another segment of fanbase will always keep up with. He then has the toys/videogames for kids/teenagers for every new system. Why not remaster the OOT on DVD, and then remaster it on BluRay 3 years down the road and double dip us!


Irony: Fans of Lucas's completed saga constantly demand updates to it.

As for it being released on standard dvd again, I'm convinced that won't happen unless there's a day and date Blu-ray to go along with it. Ya think maybe people are getting tired of double/triple/quadruple dips?
Post
#317139
Topic
State of the Trilogy/ annual SW depression
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/317139/action/topic#317139
Time
is that I'll read reviews of blu-rays saying stuff like "the image is superior to the sd dvd."

....

Umm, I would certainly hope it is.

You do need a pretty big screen to see a really significant difference, I'll give them that. Toshiba definitely thought ahead by throwing in anamorphic widescreen. But then again NTSC is still NTSC and PAL is still PAL.

My point with all this is, it will be hard to get everyone to buy the movies YET AGAIN without throwing in the OOT remastered. Even with a widescreen tv, you're going to need a lot of incentive to rebuy something on blu-ray thanks to the future-proofness of the dvd transfer of the same movie that you already have.
Post
#316922
Topic
What order would you show the Star Wars movies to your kids?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/316922/action/topic#316922
Time
The only time I've ever shown the movies to anyone was back in Summer of '05 when a couple friends of mine decided to watch the OT since one of them had never seen it. I brought over my '04 set and we literally watched the entire thing in one sitting.

Now, when it comes to showing kids the OT for the first time, I think it's kind of pointless. I never had a "first time seeing the movies," not really anyway. I echo the sentiments of those who say that it will be hard to keep them away from seeing it until you decide it's suddenly time to show it to them.
Post
#316700
Topic
New 'The Clone Wars' movie trailer
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/316700/action/topic#316700
Time
Sluggo said:

Yup, Luke gets to come home to the cheering adoration of friends and family. His loving uncle and aunt, his grandmother, his best pals Biggs and Tank, the adoring Camie, those lovable sand people.

If there was a hero aspect to Luke's return, it was a very shallow one.


This is exactly why it not simply being some random, never before talked about planet that Jabba's Palace is on is just plain stupid. I mean you could make a fan edit replacing it in the opening crawl with some made up name and just leave the viewer to figure out why there's a jawa or two in the crowd. Tatooine's twin suns would suddenly be nothing special, but that's about it. Am I missing anything?

I figure it's Lucas sticking too closely to the Campbellian idea of "the hero returns home at the end." It's been forever since I read Shadows of the Empire, but as I recall, they actually do "rendezvous on Tatooine" at the beginning and then somehow end up back there again at the end.
Post
#316656
Topic
Why is the GOUT not anamorphic?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/316656/action/topic#316656
Time
I would think the reason you'd get roughly equivalent picture quality on either the DC laserdisc or the GOUT is the following:

DC laserdisc

pro: It's analog, and therefore uncompressed

con: it's analog, you need a top of the line player to make sure the laser is reading the track as accurately as it can.

GOUT

pro: it's digital, so the laser either reads it or it doesn't.

con: it's digital, so it's a compressed mpeg.
Post
#316599
Topic
Why is the GOUT not anamorphic?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/316599/action/topic#316599
Time
I remember reading on wiki that when 24fps movies are transferred to NTSC dvd, they're usually laid on the disc at 23.976. So does the dvd player then apply the pulldown on-the-fly in order to make it 29.97 and then send it off to the tv?

The reason I ask is that I'm wondering what the big deal about progressive scan dvd players are. Is the big deal about the fact that they're able to, um, not apply the pulldown and just send it off to the (presumably HD) tv? How does it all work?
Post
#316397
Topic
Why is the GOUT not anamorphic?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/316397/action/topic#316397
Time
In answer to the copy question, I remember one of the reviews stated that the discs are not copy-protected. Hence Johnboy didn't have to do anything special.

In answer to the original question, it would've saved us the trouble of zooming in but that's about it. Probably the biggest "fuck you" was reading that the fucking menus are anamorphic. It's all beside the point really. LFL needn't bother turning 4:3 into 16:9 when it's all just "bonus material" anyway.