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Do you think the special editions will get the same remastering as the 50th anniversary?

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Do you think the special editions will get the same remastering as the 50th anniversary of the original unaltered Star Wars?

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No, they’ve already been rejected as useable sources for the restoration.

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DarthSmaul said:

No, they’ve already been rejected as useable sources for the restoration.

You misunderstood me I was hoping for the special editions to get the same kinda care when it comes to a remastering.

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Jedi master anakin 1 said:

DarthSmaul said:

No, they’ve already been rejected as useable sources for the restoration.

You misunderstood me I was hoping for the special editions to get the same kinda care when it comes to a remastering.

No I didn’t, they’re not restoring them, it’s strictly the original versions only that are being restored.

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I don’t think they will, tbh. I think Disney sees the 2020 UHDs as “the” Special Edition, since that was George’s vision at the time; DNR, drained color, Atmos mix that barely resembles Star Wars anymore, and everything else. I see them just leaving the 2020 UHDs in print and just…letting those exist as is.

“Bring my shuttle.”

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DaleJrFan2003 said:

I don’t think they will, tbh. I think Disney sees the 2020 UHDs as “the” Special Edition, since that was George’s vision at the time; DNR, drained color, Atmos mix that barely resembles Star Wars anymore, and everything else. I see them just leaving the 2020 UHDs in print and just…letting those exist as is.

That’s a shame, because despite its flaws I like the special editions

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DarthSmaul said:

No, they’ve already been rejected as useable sources for the restoration.

Why and how do you know this?

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I have no idea, but I think its amazing they reverted the negative back to original cut. and reconformed it. after a new photochemical restoration. and cut out the Special Edition sections.

I’m surprised Fox even allowed the original to be tampered with in the 1990s because that was 20th Century Fox crown jewel. Disney protecting its investment it makes sense.

Plus we know that of all the O-negs Star Wars is the one that was in the worst shape in the 1990s. The fact they had to spend significant resources again to restore the film in the last number of years, it’s a culturally important work.

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DarthSmaul said:

No, they’ve already been rejected as useable sources for the restoration.

What does this even mean? It’s not that the sources aren’t “useable”, it’s that the purpose of this restoration is to restore the original cuts.

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I would put this in my sig if I weren’t so lazy.

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DarthSmaul said:

No, they’ve already been rejected as useable sources for the restoration.

Not what the person was asking lol

They were asking if the Special Editions would be re-released using these new 6K/8K film scans, with all of the VFX re-rendered at 4K.

I think the likely answer is no, they’re just going to leave them as the current 4K releases, since those are the final versions that George worked on.

Kathleen Kennedy already said they wouldn’t be touching those versions of the movies, or doing any further edits to them.

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DarthSmaul said:

Jedi master anakin 1 said:

DarthSmaul said:

No, they’ve already been rejected as useable sources for the restoration.

You misunderstood me I was hoping for the special editions to get the same kinda care when it comes to a remastering.

No I didn’t, they’re not restoring them, it’s strictly the original versions only that are being restored.

Yeah, every effects shot that was shown were the originals, no SE shots.

In an ideal world we’d get the 1997 SEs as an extra finally above laserdisc quality, but we don’t live in an ideal world hahaha

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GHz-Man said:

DarthSmaul said:

No, they’ve already been rejected as useable sources for the restoration.

Not what the person was asking lol

They were asking if the Special Editions would be re-released using these new 6K/8K film scans, with all of the VFX re-rendered at 4K.

I think the likely answer is no, they’re just going to leave them as the current 4K releases, since those are the final versions that George worked on.

Kathleen Kennedy already said they wouldn’t be touching those versions of the movies, or doing any further edits to them.

Kathleen Kennedy is no longer the boss at lucasfilm

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I’d love for nostalgia’s sake and preservation to get the 1997 cuts in the same quality as the cinema releases in 1997.
But I expect them to remain lost media. I mean to put things into perspective we still don’t have the original American Graffiti or Thx 1138.

Lucasfilm is mixed at best on restoring their catalogue titles. and I’d probably give them a failing grade, outside the Ali restoration for Star Wars. None of their 4K from the George era are demo worthy. Even when they come close like Raiders of the Lost Ark, there are things less than to be desired. At best you get scans that are either older or pretty much left alone like Howard the Duck or Willow 4K, or a 2k interpositive scan like Radioland Murders for Blu-Ray disc.

Star Wars was afforded high level restorations because its Star Wars, a license to print money.

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Also, the person who is in creative control of Lucasfilm now was ALSO hired by George Lucas and is even more hardline about pursuing his desires and vision. Kennedy was in charge when the decision to restore/remaster the original versions for a 50th anniversary celebration. Filoni isn’t going to be doing anything to the 2012 versions of the film (Lucas’ final take) at all. And I doubt he’s going to be ordering up a restoration of the 1997 Special Editions, either, since those aren’t the “Final” versions of Lucas’ intended Star Wars Trilogy (he revised them three times after that).

There’s no real reason, I don’t think, for a Filoni-led Lucasfilm to spend time and money on restoring ONE of the iterative versions between the original and the final.

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Didn’t they get that treatment in 2017? Isn’t that what’s on Disney+?

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No, they did not. the 1997 cuts were last on VHS, Laserdisc and VCD and never even on DVD. Not on Blu_ray and not on 4K UHD.

They are lost media.

the first revision of the special edition was on DVD, the second revision was on Blu-Ray. The third revision was on 4K UHD. The Special Edition name was dropped in 2000. Because to Lucas they were the film.

Maclunky is on the streaming and the 4K.

The 1997 edits still have Shaw in the ghost scene. No Hayden, still have Wingreen as the voice of Boba Fett and the original Emperor voiced by Clive Revill. Vader doesn’t yell noooo in Return of the Jedi. There isn’t a bad new Krayt Dragon crawl. Artoo does not hide behind rocks. There isn’t cgi eye blinks on the Ewoks or that bad giant cgi door at Jabba’s.

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I know what’s in the 1997 editions. I guess I misinterpreted the question. I’m not really sure what the point of doing a full restoration of specifically the '97 editions would be. There’s not a whole lot of footage that exists in '97 that doesn’t in the unaltered editions or the D+ versions. I guess it would be nice to have an officially released, ultra collector’s box set of each version of each movie. But I think that’s the only audience, and especially considering how little content there is in '97 that isn’t isn’t in '77 or D+, I can’t imagine why Disney would bother.

FWIW, it’s not lost media. Orphaned media maybe, but if you can still find SD VHS’s, and there are fan preservations online (like 4k97 and Harmy’s Respecialized Editions), it isn’t lost media.

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Besides, an OOT release would be the perfect base to do a “Respecialized” with the 2012/19 master. You just need to regrain/regrade the SE shots, do some minor adjustments with one of the 4K97 prints (for ‘97 exclusive shots), and sync up the 5.1 mix.

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Some people are asking for the Special Edition to be included on a bonus Blu-ray when the OUT is released on Blu-Ray, but I find that unlikely. When the restoration that leaked for the 50th anniversary began, they scanned the OCN—the actual camera negative, not the restored Special Edition master (which is an Interpositive). Consequently, not only does it lack the SE scenes spliced ​​in, and the CRI for effects shots and other sources—such as Interpositives (presumably the YCM separation masters)—were scanned, but nothing from the Special Edition.

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YAREL_RGP said:

Some people are asking for the Special Edition to be included on a bonus Blu-ray when the OUT is released on Blu-Ray, but I find that unlikely. When the restoration that leaked for the 50th anniversary began, they scanned the OCN—the actual camera negative, not the restored Special Edition master (which is an Interpositive). Consequently, not only does it lack the SE scenes spliced ​​in, and the CRI for effects shots and other sources—such as Interpositives (presumably the YCM separation masters)—were scanned, but nothing from the Special Edition.

While the state of the TESB and ROTJ negatives has been left more obscure, we know for a fact that the negative for SW was conformed to the 97 cut, not an interpositive. The 97 scenes were spliced into the negative, I don’t know of many people that would dispute that.

From the leaked documents, we do know however that the negative has now been re-conformed to the 77 cut, and the 97 material has been taken out. As for whether they scanned the 97 material before disassembling, we know that a 4k scan was done back in 2012, and that 4k scans of the 97 cuts for all 3 films already exist at the very least. Whether they choose to release them as bonus features is another matter entirely.

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JadedSkywalker said:

I have no idea, but I think its amazing they reverted the negative back to original cut. and reconformed it. after a new photochemical restoration. and cut out the Special Edition sections.

I’m surprised Fox even allowed the original to be tampered with in the 1990s because that was 20th Century Fox crown jewel. Disney protecting its investment it makes sense.

Plus we know that of all the O-negs Star Wars is the one that was in the worst shape in the 1990s. The fact they had to spend significant resources again to restore the film in the last number of years, it’s a culturally important work.

-First point: The original negative was never reconformed despite rumors saying otherwise, the original negative itself has always been conformed to the 1977 cut and always will be. The special editions from 1997 were finished likely on interpositives, since they had to create at least some type of film element for 35mm printing at the time. But thankfully, the original negative itself wasn’t reconformed (and even if it was, Lucasfilm would’ve saved everything anyway).

-Second point: Whenever Lucas was coming up with the ideas of the prequels, he clearly was also coming up with the ideas of the changes to make to the 1997 versions, but the only problem was as you said, Fox owned the copyright to the first. So Lucas made a deal with Fox, they could be the distributor of the prequels if they gave him full ownership of the original and they agreed to it. All post-1997 versions of the original now have a “copyright Lucasfilm” like the other entries.

-Third point: It was only certain portions of the original negative that deteriorated, I’m not entirely sure what, but the actual state of the negative has been grossly over-exaggerated in terms of damage.

As for answering the original question of this thread, no, the various altered versions are not likely to be remastered but it’s more than just because of fans not liking them. The ONLY versions of the post-1997 releases that could have any hope of seeing a 4K remaster is in fact the 1997 special editions, as those are the only versions (outside of the theatrical cuts of course) to have been finished entirely on film. The 2004 and 2011 versions are the same base masters locked into HD resolution specifically. If one wants to bring those versions to 4K, the work would have to be done all over again in 4K resolution. The 2019 versions are already finished in 4K, likely a hybrid scan of the original negatives and the interpositives that the special editions are based off of, which would explain why many errors from the 2004/2011 masters were reversed.

Raccoons

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SpacemanDoug said:

-First point: The original negative was never reconformed despite rumors saying otherwise, the original negative itself has always been conformed to the 1977 cut and always will be. The special editions from 1997 were finished likely on interpositives, since they had to create at least some type of film element for 35mm printing at the time. But thankfully, the original negative itself wasn’t reconformed (and even if it was, Lucasfilm would’ve saved everything anyway).

We know for a fact the negative for SW was reconformed to the 1997 cut, there are countless sources that state this. The production documents for the new restoration also confirm that the 97 inserts had to be removed from the negative to bring it back to it’s pre 1997 state. Where are you getting your information from that the SW negative was never reconformed to the 1997 edit?

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SpacemanDoug said:

JadedSkywalker said:

I have no idea, but I think its amazing they reverted the negative back to original cut. and reconformed it. after a new photochemical restoration. and cut out the Special Edition sections.

I’m surprised Fox even allowed the original to be tampered with in the 1990s because that was 20th Century Fox crown jewel. Disney protecting its investment it makes sense.

Plus we know that of all the O-negs Star Wars is the one that was in the worst shape in the 1990s. The fact they had to spend significant resources again to restore the film in the last number of years, it’s a culturally important work.

The special editions from 1997 were finished likely on interpositives, since they had to create at least some type of film element for 35mm printing at the time. But thankfully, the original negative itself wasn’t reconformed (and even if it was, Lucasfilm would’ve saved everything anyway).

Yes an interpositive would have been created, after the negative was restored and reconformed. Lucasfilm kept all of the inserts that were cut out of the negative, and those have been scanned in for the new restoration and cut back into the original negative, restoring it to its 1977 state.

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I don’t think the 97 SEs are ever getting this kind of restoration, because there’s nothing in it for them to do that. Lucas’ preferred version isn’t the 97 SEs, it’s the 2012/2019 SEs. And because of the way the Fandom has essentially turned “Special Edition” into a derogatory in general, the idea that anyone in the general audience would make a distinction between the 97 SE’s (the only ones actually titled Special Edition) the 04, the 10, and the 12 versions, much less enough of a distinction that they’d want a SPECIFIC version of the iterations above the others… it doesn’t make sense. It’s a niche of a niche of a niche.

COULD they restore the Special Edition back to all its 1997 glory? Sure. There’s basically no reason to do that though. They’re not the versions Lucas prefers, and they’re not the originals. They’re an early draft of the Special Editions that are basically devalued by its own name (Special Edition) and the fact they were iterated on 3 more times afterwards.

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