4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 210

Dang, poita. That’s simultaneously both the most depressing and incredibly exciting post this site has seen in ages. Thank you for all the effort you’ve already made to preserving film that no one else seems either willing or able to, and thank you for this renewed effort. Godspeed in your endeavors and health!

This does also raise so many questions, but I’ll stick to a couple of the most significant.

1. Does this mean starting from scratch or will some of the previous scans and associated work be included in this new restoration?

2. Regarding copyright; does this potentially mean that in some parts of the world one could legally press and sell “official” copies of Star Wars (or the whole trilogy?) WITHOUT Lucasfilm’s/Disney’s involvement?

Thank you again Poita, this really is tremendous! Hopefully one day history will remember you as a key player in saving our artistic history when those who should’ve wouldn’t.

doubleofive said:

Or, any kind of restoration would be done internally to LFL and general Disney restorationists wouldn’t know anything about it.

Better safe than sorry, but yes, I agree.

We’re not going to know either way until 2019 at the earliest.

The “personal health deadline” sounds terrifying and I just hope I misread you, but at the same time I am happy that at least somebody is doing a proper restoration

I fear that disney won’t be able to move foward

Disney needs new hope and han to shoot first again for their to be headlines

And they only are entitled to 5 films distribution rights

Lord Tobias said:

I fear that disney won’t be able to move foward

Disney needs new hope and han to shoot first again for their to be headlines

And they only are entitled to 5 films distribution rights

Disney will simply pay Fox its cut for ANH starting in May of 2020 when Lucasfilm gains full rights to Empire, Jedi, and the prequels.

The current blu-rays will likely be phased out in 2019 and the 4k UHD release timed for Fall of 2020. It would be perfect timing since the 4k disc format will need at least until then to gain enough traction for as high-profile a catalogue title as the OT.

Since Disney will want as many people as possible buying it (and also an excuse to charge as much money as they can for it), the OOT will likely be included. They’d probably also release it on regular blu-ray.

That’s my prediction, anyway.

At this point I think Disney would quite frankly do more hard than good. I am glad this project is in the capable hands of fans who care.

Is this a project starting from scratch, or do you think you can leverage existing work on 35mm sources?

If they are not doing anything right now, I don’t see how 2020 is a realistic date. One because such a restoration is surely a lengthy process to have it ready then is not feasible. Two because if damaged and aged film prints are in bad shape now, they will be even worse when that time rolls around.

Poita whatever you are doing keep it hidden from the Empire or it will go the way of Mike Verta’s work.

Mocata said:

If they are not doing anything right now, I don’t see how 2020 is a realistic date.

It’s simple, they don’t want to do anything other than reissuing the 2011 discs until the rights are back in their hands (with the previously noted exception of ANH, which will never be back in their hands anyway).

Yes, it’s reckless of them to wait so long and risk further deterioration of the source elements, and Poita’s efforts are commendable, but I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about the 2020 thing.

Sounds to me like there will be a new set coming in 2020. It might be 4K, it might not be, but it certainly doesn’t sound like it will be the unaltered originals so drop that fantasy now. They don’t need those to sell a ton of discs so why do the extra work?
I’m glad a few great people are still around who will not let history be erased.

I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about the 2020 thing.

I don’t see how getting the rights back somehow creates a useable master for the such a release, if it was ever to happen at all.

Fang Zei said:

Mocata said:

If they are not doing anything right now, I don’t see how 2020 is a realistic date.

It’s simple, they don’t want to do anything other than reissuing the 2011 discs until the rights are back in their hands (with the previously noted exception of ANH, which will never be back in their hands anyway).

This is all nonsense. Releasing a new set has nothing to do with distribution rights. If that were the case, Disney would pull all copies off the shelves and just wait until 2020 to sell anything. They wouldn’t be selling the Blurays AT ALL.

Just like what happened with VHS, DVD, and Bluray, they will wait until the next technology becomes widely adopted by consumers, and then they will issue a new set with an updated master. For obvious reasons, that will most likely be after the ST is completed, so they can issue a 4k set of all the movies.

When they do issue the 4K set…3 years from now, 5 years from now, etc…it will be the SE version if it is left up to Kennedy and LFL, which it likely will be. The only way to get an official OOT release is for their bosses at Disney to order them to make it happen. The only way their bosses at Disney would ever do that is if you, the fans, call it to their attention and force them to do so. Most likely with your wallet.

Alderaan said:

The only way their bosses at Disney would ever do that is if you, the fans, call it to their attention and force them to do so. Most likely with your wallet.

That is never going to happen. Not enough people care. I doubt Disney will tell them to because if there aren’t enough fans who care, I’m sure there aren’t enough people at Disney who care.

My Harmy set of discs just looks better and better every day.

I will not purchase the Special Editions ever again, but there just simply are not enough people who feel that way for it to matter. And no one seems to care about preserving history or anything like that.

I think the matter is just dead.

Alderaan said:

Fang Zei said:

Mocata said:

If they are not doing anything right now, I don’t see how 2020 is a realistic date.

It’s simple, they don’t want to do anything other than reissuing the 2011 discs until the rights are back in their hands (with the previously noted exception of ANH, which will never be back in their hands anyway).

This is all nonsense. Releasing a new set has nothing to do with distribution rights. If that were the case, Disney would pull all copies off the shelves and just wait until 2020 to sell anything. They wouldn’t be selling the Blurays AT ALL.

Just like what happened with VHS, DVD, and Bluray, they will wait until the next technology becomes widely adopted by consumers, and then they will issue a new set with an updated master. For obvious reasons, that will most likely be after the ST is completed, so they can issue a 4k set of all the movies.

When they do issue the 4K set…3 years from now, 5 years from now, etc…it will be the SE version if it is left up to Kennedy and LFL, which it likely will be. The only way to get an official OOT release is for their bosses at Disney to order them to make it happen. The only way their bosses at Disney would ever do that is if you, the fans, call it to their attention and force them to do so. Most likely with your wallet.

I didn’t say the rights issue was preventing a new release. I said they are intentionally keeping what’s coming next in their back pocket for after May of 2020 so they don’t have to share any of the profits with Fox.

Time traveling robot sock confirmed.

Fang Zei said:

I didn’t say the rights issue was preventing a new release. I said they are intentionally keeping what’s coming next in their back pocket for after May of 2020 so they don’t have to share any of the profits with Fox.

Again, this doesn’t make any sense though and doesn’t hold up to the bare minimum of scrutiny. If they didn’t want to share money with Fox, they wouldn’t be selling the Blurays right now, at all. The distribution rights aren’t faintly related to the lack of OOT release in way at all.

Alderaan said:

Fang Zei said:

Mocata said:

If they are not doing anything right now, I don’t see how 2020 is a realistic date.

It’s simple, they don’t want to do anything other than reissuing the 2011 discs until the rights are back in their hands (with the previously noted exception of ANH, which will never be back in their hands anyway).

This is all nonsense. Releasing a new set has nothing to do with distribution rights. If that were the case, Disney would pull all copies off the shelves and just wait until 2020 to sell anything. They wouldn’t be selling the Blurays AT ALL.

Just like what happened with VHS, DVD, and Bluray, they will wait until the next technology becomes widely adopted by consumers, and then they will issue a new set with an updated master. For obvious reasons, that will most likely be after the ST is completed, so they can issue a 4k set of all the movies.

When they do issue the 4K set…3 years from now, 5 years from now, etc…it will be the SE version if it is left up to Kennedy and LFL, which it likely will be. The only way to get an official OOT release is for their bosses at Disney to order them to make it happen. The only way their bosses at Disney would ever do that is if you, the fans, call it to their attention and force them to do so. Most likely with your wallet.

Ah, so I see you’ve given up your “it will never ever ever ever ever happen no matter what ever” stance despite no new news. Interesting.