4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 178

One of Pablo’s tweets suggested that authorizing an OOT restoration is still up to George, but I kind of took it to mean that Disney, while under no legal obligation to honor George’s wishes, still isn’t going to release the unaltereds without getting his blessing.

What all of that says to me is this:

The unaltereds will be restored (if Disney isn’t in the middle of doing so already) and will be released whenever the time comes to release this new 4k SE we’ve been hearing so much about for the last three years. George really, truly will not care so long as the “rough drafts” aren’t presented in superior quality to his “original vision.”

As for when this will finally happen, I see two possibilities. They could put it out this year, but that would mean not only giving Fox their cut on all six films but also leaving one less thing in their own back pocket to sell post-2020. There is probably a not-insignificant number of fans who will probably never upgrade to 4k UHD.

The other possibility is that Lucasfilm will simply wait until the UHD debut, which given their history of waiting until a format has become widely adopted won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest anyway. If the 2011 discs are still selling well enough, why not wait? Why blow their load now with a regular 1080p blu of the OOT when that’s the final home video release many fans will ever care to buy? They could always release it the same day as the UHD and have all their bases covered, while still giving as little as possible to Fox.

Hidalgo did not mention Lucas and I see no evidence whatsoever to suggest he is still involved.

DominicCobb said:

Hidalgo did not mention Lucas and I see no evidence whatsoever to suggest he is still involved.

I’m not going to go searching for the tweet, but he was replying to someone’s question about it and said “there’s only one person who could authorize such a release, and he doesn’t seem interested in doing so.”

The “he” part would strongly imply GL.

Again, I’m not saying George has any real power, I think it’s more of an “honoring his wishes” type thing and Pablo not really knowing what he’s talking about.

Or it could be the people who think he’s strongly implying that it’s GL don’t know what they’re talking about? Maybe I’m missing something but I’m pretty sure Hidalgo is the one who works at Lucasfilm, not anyone here.

Z6PO said:

Remember when the unaltered were released on DVD, George Lucas wasn’t against the release, he was against spending any money on it. It is not his money anymore.

The reason the GOUT DVD’s were released, can be attributed mainly to the growing market of OOT bootlegs in the early 2000s, based on the old laserdiscs. By releasing a subpar release based on the latest laserdisc master, he could stiffle the bootleg market, but still have the canon version be the superior release in terms of quality. You just have to look at Ebay to see, that this strategy was successful. The OOT bootleg market is non-existent. A few fans preserving prints, and sharing them isn’t going to concern Disney. If OOT bootlegs start eating into their home video earnings, that’s a concern for them.

So, I believe Lucas is very much against the release of the OOT, especially if the theatrical releases could potentially compete with his canon versions. I also don’t believe Lucasfilm or Disney will release the OOT against the wishes of the artist who created them. My guess is, that a 4K mastered release of the SE is on the horizon, which is the reason the Disney people are culling through archive material, in order to supplement their release with unreleased bonus material, such as the footage shown at celebration.

I won’t be buying any new box-set unless it includes the OOT restored. Any new bonus material will eventually appear online sooner or later. I already own enough copies of the S/E’s.

I have no desire to see CGI junk in 4K or in-my-face 3D either.

i wonder if they will ever perfect behind-your-face 3D. then things really could sneak up on you in movies.

What’s wrong with your behind-your-face?

dahmage said:

i wonder if they will ever perfect behind-behind-your-face 3D. then things really could sneak up on you in movies.

ok, fixed it?

You need to go deeper.

DrDre said: The OOT bootleg market is non-existent.

That’s definitely not true.

If George felt compelled to release the GOUT to stifle low quality bootlegs, then I wonder how he would feel about Despecialized and the 35mm fan preservations.

rodneyfaile said:

DrDre said: The OOT bootleg market is non-existent.

That’s definitely not true.

Really? Type either Despecialized or Silver Screen Edition in Ebay, and you will find only two or three sellers attempting to sell Despecialized, and none trying to sell the Silver Screen Edition. If nobody is buying and or selling, there is no market (market = an actual or nominal place where forces of demand and supply operate, and where buyers and sellers interact).

There are bootlegs, which are shared through torrent sites, but that is another matter. Before the release of the OOT on DVD, there were literally dozens of sellers on Ebay (mostly from Asia, where pirating laws are lenient or absent) mostly attempting to sell bootleg copies of the OOT in varying quality.

nickyd47 said:

If George felt compelled to release the GOUT to stifle low quality bootlegs, then I wonder how he would feel about Despecialized and the 35mm fan preservations.

To stiffle the buying and selling of low quality bootlegs. I don’t think they really care, if a few fans share fan preservations among each other. However, when large numbers of copies are being sold on the black market, then they will take notice.

DrDre said:

Z6PO said:

Remember when the unaltered were released on DVD, George Lucas wasn’t against the release, he was against spending any money on it. It is not his money anymore.

The reason the GOUT DVD’s were released, can be attributed mainly to the growing market of OOT bootlegs in the early 2000s, based on the old laserdiscs. By releasing a subpar release based on the latest laserdisc master, he could stiffle the bootleg market, but still have the canon version be the superior release in terms of quality. You just have to look at Ebay to see, that this strategy was successful. The OOT bootleg market is non-existent. A few fans preserving prints, and sharing them isn’t going to concern Disney. If OOT bootlegs start eating into their home video earnings, that’s a concern for them.

So, I believe Lucas is very much against the release of the OOT, especially if the theatrical releases could potentially compete with his canon versions. I also don’t believe Lucasfilm or Disney will release the OOT against the wishes of the artist who created them. My guess is, that a 4K mastered release of the SE is on the horizon, which is the reason the Disney people are culling through archive material, in order to supplement their release with unreleased bonus material, such as the footage shown at celebration.

The only “unreleased bonus material” people care about is the original versions of the movies themselves.

I only wish that were true. The 2015 releases of the saga box set contained nothing new, yet it still was a huge hit.

If the history of releases teaches us anything, it’s that people will buy anything with the words “special collectors edition”, or “remastered” on it, or just a cool new cover.

Slavicuss said:

I won’t be buying any new box-set unless it includes the OOT restored. Any new bonus material will eventually appear online sooner or later. I already own enough copies of the S/E’s.

I have no desire to see CGI junk in 4K or in-my-face 3D either.

Neither do a lot of other fans, which is exactly why I think we’ll see the unaltereds included in an eventual 4k release. They’re going to need to give the fans a good enough reason to rebuy the latest SE revision on yet another format.

Of course, I’m the guy who thinks they should go full Blade Runner and include the '97 versions as well, but I’m probably in the minority.

DrDre said:

DrDre said:

rodneyfaile said:

DrDre said: The OOT bootleg market is non-existent.

That’s definitely not true.

Really? Type either Despecialized or Silver Screen Edition in Ebay, and you will find only two or three sellers attempting to sell Despecialized, and none trying to sell the Silver Screen Edition. If nobody is buying and or selling, there is no market (market = an actual or nominal place where forces of demand and supply operate, and where buyers and sellers interact).

There are bootlegs, which are shared through torrent sites, but that is another matter. Before the release of the OOT on DVD, there were literally dozens of sellers on Ebay (mostly from Asia, where pirating laws are lenient or absent) attempting to sell bootleg copies of the OOT in varying quality.

Ye, Yes, I read it the first time.

I would still think that for every one person who actually goes through all of the trouble of downloading and burning a copy of despecialized or team -1 there are several more people who aren’t technically savvy enough but would be happy to pay good money for an official release.

I wish I could be a little more optimistic, but after more than 10 years since the release of the GOUT, and 5 years of Disney ownership, we’re seemingly still in exactly the same place we were in 2006.

Any optimism I had, left when celebration ended without the slightest hint of an OOT release. At this point I will just assume it’s not going to happen, and let myself be pleasantly surprised if it does happen, rather than assume it will happen, and be disappointed for the umpteeth time.

Fool me once, shame on…, shame on you,…if you fool me can’t get fooled again…

DrDre said:

I only wish that were true. The 2015 releases of the saga box set contained nothing new, yet it still was a huge hit.

If the history of releases teaches us anything, it’s that people will buy anything with the words “special collectors edition”, or “remastered” on it, or just a cool new cover.

True, but if you go back to the initial releases of these discs in 2011 and look at how people reacted to news of the additional changes and how it took the blu-rays more than a week to make what the 2004 OT dvd made in its very first day, then it should become clear that the fans wouldn’t be so excited about repeating the experience on a new format.

Fang Zei said:

DrDre said:

I only wish that were true. The 2015 releases of the saga box set contained nothing new, yet it still was a huge hit.

If the history of releases teaches us anything, it’s that people will buy anything with the words “special collectors edition”, or “remastered” on it, or just a cool new cover.

True, but if you go back to the initial releases of these discs in 2011 and look at how people reacted to news of the additional changes and how it took the blu-rays more than a week to make what the 2004 OT dvd made in its very first day, then it should become clear that the fans wouldn’t be so excited about repeating the experience on a new format.

Sure, but the bluray market now is quite a bit smaller than the DVD market was in it’s heyday, and the price tag for the saga set was also pretty steep, compared to previous releases. I’m not sure if things would have been very different, had an OOT set been included. Most of the OOT fans still bought the bluray set, despite no OOT, while the general audience doesn’t care either way.

If a 4K SE set is under way, I would still buy it, if only to replace the horrible 2011 release, and to get better material for fan edits. I suspect many here will do the same.

DrDre said:

rodneyfaile said:

DrDre said: The OOT bootleg market is non-existent.

That’s definitely not true.

Really? Type either Despecialized or Silver Screen Edition in Ebay, and you will find only two or three sellers attempting to sell Despecialized, and none trying to sell the Silver Screen Edition. If nobody is buying and or selling, there is no market (market = an actual or nominal place where forces of demand and supply operate, and where buyers and sellers interact).

There are bootlegs, which are shared through torrent sites, but that is another matter. Before the release of the OOT on DVD, there were literally dozens of sellers on Ebay (mostly from Asia, where pirating laws are lenient or absent) mostly attempting to sell bootleg copies of the OOT in varying quality.

I think there’s a pretty good argument to be made that the rise of torrent sites and the ease of obtaining pretty much anything for free on the internet is probably the thing that has killed the bootleg market. Why would I buy a bootlet on a physical medium when I can get a (likely superior) portable digital copy at no cost?

I was on BBSes as far back as the early 1990s, but movie sharing didn’t really become a thing until the early/mid-00s when people started getting fast enough broadband. Downloading a movie over a dial-up connection or even ISDN line was just too painfully slow to ever catch on.

The 2015 box set was a huge hit because of The Force Awakens. New fans/people getting back into Star Wars was that sets biggest customer