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Info Wanted: Curious about plans for long term cultural legacy of the efforts here

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This is probably way beyond what anyone really wants to think about, but I think it’s something worth considering if nobody has yet.

Given that many of the Star wars projects on this site are with the intent of cultural preservation, has anyone thought about the very, very long term plans for their continued public existence?

I mean in terms of beyond our own lifetimes?

Take Nosferatu (1922) or Phantom of The Opera (1925). Or the silent films of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton.

Almost no one, if indeed anyone, is still alive that would have either produced those films or seen them in theaters upon their initial release. But they continue to be easily available for two reasons. Their cultural/historical relevance and because the copyright holders chose to make them available.

With the OOT, the studios want to expunge a large part of the legacy, so it will be up to future preservationists to maintain public access. Have any of the producers of restored content here given any thought about doing anything to try to make sure their work passes to the public of future generations?

Or is that too ridiculously down the line to even think about at this point?

The NJVC Custom Bluray Set of Harmy’s Despecialized Editions is available on Mega.

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“The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

Personally, I wouldn’t do what I do if I thought there was a very realistic chance these films would be preserved via normal channels at any point in our lifetimes. So everything I do here is under the assumption that we are the only preservationists these films will see for many, many decades.

Because we’re acting in an unofficial capacity, we can’t do as much as official channels can to preserve this content. However, one thing that’s relatively easy to do is distribute it broadly, to increase the chances it will survive. In biological terms, because we’re not strong enough to be K-strategists, we are instead r-strategists.

Project Threepio in many ways was designed to amplify this strategy for other preservation projects. To make existing projects have more appeal beyond the English-speaking world than they already did, increasing distribution outside the linguistic and legal boundaries of the English-speaking world, with the goal of long-term survival of these films on a global scale, even if legal forces manage to effectively erase them within certain regions.

I’ve designed Project Threepio as a “torch-passable” project. While I’m certainly still engaged in maintaining it, I’ve also fully documented my processes and made available all of the tools I use to do everything in the project. It would be fairly easy for someone, years from now, to download Project Threepio, dig into the gory details, and become the next CatBus.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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For those of us who have collected film prints over the past decade or so, where they should go before we shuffle off this mortal coil is something to think about. There must be some independent film archive somewhere they could be entrusted to?

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For my measly part, I will show my children only the Despecialized Editions until they reach the age of majority, burn the NJVC and vanilla DEED rar files to M-Disc, put them in my safe deposit box and will them to my children.

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I think the idea about entrusting actual prints to an independent film archive is a good one. In terms of public access, though, it wouldn’t help much.

Of all the efforts here, it seems to me that the Despecialized Project fills that niche best.

Someday, though, the Despecialized Project will presumably be finished. This might happen either because it will reach a version that cannot be further improved upon or there won’t be anyone left who wants to continue it.

If the project reaches that point (perhaps decades from now) what will happen to the Final Despecialized Editions?

Catbus’s r/K analogy is apt. And I suppose anything involving the Library of Congress is out of the question, since copyright laws actually threaten the existance of the DEs rather than protect them.

At the same time, it seems inadequate to hang the future of films as significant as the OOT on a plan that amounts to flood the web with copies and hope some of them survive.

Is there some independent digital preservation society that exists now that could keep them online for posterity?

Something with the relative permanence of archive.org but the unofficiality of fanedit.info?

Or if nothing like that exists now, but came to be within our lifetime, could it hypothetically serve as a repository for the future last version of the DEs?

The NJVC Custom Bluray Set of Harmy’s Despecialized Editions is available on Mega.

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solkap said:

I think the idea about entrusting actual prints to an independent film archive is a good one. In terms of public access, though, it wouldn’t help much.

Of all the efforts here, it seems to me that the Despecialized Project fills that niche best.

Someday, though, the Despecialized Project will presumably be finished. This might happen either because it will reach a version that cannot be further improved upon or there won’t be anyone left who wants to continue it.

If the project reaches that point (perhaps decades from now) what will happen to the Final Despecialized Editions?

Catbus’s r/K analogy is apt. And I suppose anything involving the Library of Congress is out of the question, since copyright laws actually threaten the existance of the DEs rather than protect them.

At the same time, it seems inadequate to hang the future of films as significant as the OOT on a plan that amounts to flood the web with copies and hope some of them survive.

Is there some independent digital preservation society that exists now that could keep them online for posterity?

Something with the relative permanence of archive.org but the unofficiality of fanedit.info?

Or if nothing like that exists now, but came to be within our lifetime, could it hypothetically serve as a repository for the future last version of the DEs?

Only time will tell.

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Great thread Solkap, very interesting to read and glad to hear about the efforts going into preserving these films since no one else seems to care or understand their significance.

Val

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It also goes for every film we discuss and try to bring back to its former glory whether it be the unavailability of original audio or revisionism by someone preparing the video master which then becomes the defacto standard.

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Even though this is a terrible idea, would it be out of the question to consider using small used book/video stores to distribute/store the DEED in case of “emergency”? Is this a bad idea? Is this a somewhat good idea? Is there hope for Pluto becoming a planet again?

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As far as the DEs being distributed from a small used book/video store, not sure how that would work. Wouldn’t one have to sell it?

As far as using it as a physical place of storage, nothing wrong with doing that, but it doesn’t seem like that would that help with either length of preservation or the scope of distribution.

I wonder if, again, perhaps decades from now, some sort of trust could be set up, charged with keeping the DEs accessible? Would that even be legally feasible?

Brainstorming in terms of generational time spans is difficult with a project as unofficial as this site’s is, but I think it is important.

As for Pluto, I doubt it. 😉

The NJVC Custom Bluray Set of Harmy’s Despecialized Editions is available on Mega.

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solkap said:

As far as the DEs being distributed from a small used book/video store, not sure how that would work. Wouldn’t one have to sell it?

As far as using it as a physical place of storage, nothing wrong with doing that, but it doesn’t seem like that would that help with either length of preservation or the scope of distribution.

I wonder if, again, perhaps decades from now, some sort of trust could be set up, charged with keeping the DEs accessible? Would that even be legally feasible?

Brainstorming in terms of generational time spans is difficult with a project as unofficial as this site’s is, but I think it is important.

As for Pluto, I doubt it. 😉

perhaps donating them to libraries might help until a more permanent option can be found.

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Make analog prints, that’s what Legacy did. For digital degradation issues, just use a crazy amount or RAR/PAR2 redundancy. Your average time capsule is only going for a 100-year increments anyway, so they won’t have a proper official version of Star Wars then anyway, so they’ll go through the extra effort.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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I didn’t realize anyone was making analog prints of Despecialized! That’s awesome!

The NJVC Custom Bluray Set of Harmy’s Despecialized Editions is available on Mega.

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They’re not, that was just a suggestion. But that’s what Mike Verta apparently did for his Legacy restoration.

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Oh, I see. But that is an intriguing idea!

As with many things here, making film prints would pretty obviously be in violation of copyright. So it would probably need to be done with someone’s personal film processing equipment.

If that course of action were taken, I’d presume that it would be best to wait until at least the 1080p 3.0 DEs are done. Or if there are plans to go all the way to a 4K, to wait until then.

(The films were shot in 4K resolution, right? So there wouldn’t be much point as far as preservation goes to try to get any higher resolution than that, correct?)

But presuming a set of 4K DEs was completed and transfered to a high quality film print, a time capsule might just be a viable idea!

One thing I’d imagine would also be wise to include in such a capsule would be a paper copy of full specs for a compatible projector and sound system.

There might not be any left in, say, 100 years, but it seems like the way 3D printing technology is moving now, that with a full set of technical specifications, a system could be reproduced if it was the only way to regain access to the films.

If that were done as a way to create a kind of new master, along with some way of maintaining digital copies for the purpose of distribution (perhaps some kind of official unofficial committee), that would sound like a pretty solid plan to me.

The NJVC Custom Bluray Set of Harmy’s Despecialized Editions is available on Mega.

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solkap said:

(The films were shot in 4K resolution, right? So there wouldn’t be much point as far as preservation goes to try to get any higher resolution than that, correct?)

It gets weedy there. 35mm negatives are presumably 4K-equivalent, but that varies a bit based on filmstock quality (little known fact–Star Wars and Empire were both shot on photosensitive lunch meat, only Jedi used actual film) and other factors (optical effects, etc). 35mm projection prints, the actual movies as seen in theatres, were significantly lower resolution, as they are a few generations removed from the negatives (also varying based on process–normal, Technicolor, or 70mm blow-up). Sometimes more than 2K, sure, but not likely anywhere near 4K in any way. The DeEds may already show more detail than people actually saw in theatres, in some spots. So the question is (as with any Blu-ray transfer), what exactly are you preserving? Negatives have levels of detail nobody ever saw. 4K is definitely more than enough. 2K, from a good enough source, though, could be close enough.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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When talking about resolution and detail from digital scans of film, I think people sometimes have a flawed perception of the situation.

It may be true that 35mm negative only has 4k equivalent in detail resolution, and even lower for prints, opticals, and smaller formats, but a higher digital resolution is required to retain every visible grain in the film to the fullest. When people say 4k is overkill for 16mm, that’s not really true, because the digital resolution still needs to hold the physical image of every grain that would be visible in a projection of the film.

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The four post exchange that starts with this one over in the ROTJ thread got me thinking.

First, am I correct in thinking that the Library of Congress still wants prints of the SW and ESB, and maybe even ROTJ films (even though ROTJ isn’t on the list) in their original versions?

If so, is anything other than George Lucas’s wishes keeping them from accepting something like what TN1 has?

I don’t mean to be morbid, but my point about people not being around forever stands for him too.

What would the practical & legal implications be for TN1’s stuff being submitted to the National Film Registery once George Lucas has passed?

I know there would surely still be many legal hurdles. And perhaps those prints don’t meet the requirements for the NFR anyway. But would it ever be hypothetically possible to turn over well preserved prints the NFR after George Lucas is gone? Or is there another reason I’m missing that would make that a really bad idea?

The NJVC Custom Bluray Set of Harmy’s Despecialized Editions is available on Mega.

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There are plans to donate the prints to LOC once done with them.

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deathstar1138 said:

There are plans to donate the prints to LOC once done with them.

That would be terrific, but where did you hear that?

The NJVC Custom Bluray Set of Harmy’s Despecialized Editions is available on Mega.

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