Here is my respons to Lucasfilm:
Dear people at Lucasfilm,
first, I really much appreciate that you finally have taken the first step to communicate with your fan/customer base. This is a very good base now to establish a dialogue, from which both sides can benefit.
> The DVDs being released in September will contain two versions of Star
> Wars: Episodes IV, V and VI – the Special Editions (which represent
> George’s vision of the movies) and the first versions, which will be
> included as bonus material. We hoped that releasing those
> “original” movies on a bonus disc would be a way to have some
> additional fun with the debut of the movies as individual DVDs. We
> certainly did not want it to become a source of concern or frustration for
> any of our fans.
Lots of frustration could have been avoided, if you would have given more thought about the nature of this release, by asking yourself: what is the target group? You are defining the original versions as BONUS material, which is fine, since we all are supposed to like and love the Special Editions. However, by announcing the release of the original versions of these films, and clearly addressing US, in the first press releases ("numerous fans have demanded this...."), you are clearly making the supposed BONUS feature as the main feature of this set. Everyone already has either bought the 2004 SE DVD editions or the bare bones DVD´s of the SE in 2005. So this release is clearly about the original unaltered trilogy.
Did you come to notice that the original versions of the movie would be the first non-anamorphic BONUS feature you are packing with a DVD set? Even the few scenes of the original trilogy, which clearly prove the source material came from an unaltered print, which are shown in the "Empire of Dreams" documentary (e.g.: the origional pre EPIV tectcrawl with all original logos intact, the original Death Star Explosion, the original scene where Han runs after the storm trooper (...)) are, you may already guess it, SHOWN ANAMORPHICALLY!
> As you may know, an enormous amount of effort was put into digitally
> restoring the negatives for the Special Editions. In one scene alone,
> nearly 1 million pieces of dirt had to be removed, and the Special
> Editions
> were created through a frame-by-frame digital restoration. The negatives
> of the movies were permanently altered for the creation of the Special
> Editions, and existing prints of the first versions are in poor condition.
While I certainly would love to believe you, the already mentioned "Empire of Dreams" documentary proves you wrong. Here, numerous scenes from the original unaltered movies are shown there in very good quality, which proves that good film elements still exists. Perhaps let me point of a misundertsnading, which seems to have arisen from our protests:
We don´t want a FRAME by FRAME digital restauration. We just want an anamorphic transfer from a good film source. YOu can´t seriously tell us that a 13 year old video master are the best surviving elements of the trilogy. Occasional dirt and scratches, which are also on the VIDEO , master you are using, are absolutely no problem for us. What is a problem for us is that we know that better film elements for the original trilogy are available, from which could be made a really good anamorphic DVD transfer. There are much older and much less-important films than Star Wars which have gotten a quite decent transfer on DVD.
> So many fans have requested the original movies, we wanted to find a way
> to
> bring them to you. But since these movies do not represent George's
> artistic vision, we could not put the extraordinary time and resources
> into
> this project as we did with the Special Editions. The 1993 Laserdisc
> masters represented the best source for providing the original versions as
> DVD bonus material.
As I already pointed out, the "Empire of Dreams" documentary clearly proves you wrong. Shame on you if the best surviving elements from the original Star Wars trilogy would be an 13 year old D1 VIDEO TAPE, since it would clearly show the lack of care you have shown towards the most important cultural artifacts of our time. Luckily, we film fans know better.
Famous film restauration expert Robert A Harris already has offered you his service for you, and even he is absolutely sure that with some little additional time and effort, you could easily make them look much better than old VIDEOTAPE masters you are going to use for this release......
Although these are non-anamorphic versions, they do
> preserve the original widescreen composition of the movies.
We never have disputed this fact. Even the old VHS versions from 1995 retain their original aspect ratio, as do my 1995 Laserdiscs. Having them in widescreen is one more important reason to make them anamorphically, since the loss of resolution would be even more drastically evident on computer equipment and 16:9 screens. You know that the market share of 16:9 TV´s here in Europe is really high compares to the USA?
> We want you to be aware that we have no plans – now or in the future
> – to restore the earlier versions.
Then you sadly leave me, and numerous of fans, no other choice to boycott this release, as I already did with the 2004 Special Edition. Be prepared, once this release has come out, that lots of customers, which are still unaware of this whole mess you created, will turn to you and show their dissatisfaction about this release. It makes me sad that apparently, you do not much care about your fans, your reputation as a technical leader in home entertainment and most important, the movies we all love and which enabled you to be this big enterprise.
I urge you for the third time to strongly reconsider this decision.
> We hope you will understand our decision and, again, want to let you know
> how much we appreciate your interest and enthusiasm.
As much as you seem to appreciate our enthusiasm, we, the fans, would really like to see some enthusiasm form you. You can´t tell us that a decent release is impossible. You are Lucasfilm! YOu have 20th Century Fox as a capable distributor! You have every resource which enables you to make them look great. Every 2nd grade B-movie gets nowadays a decent release on DVD. It is really a shame that you still don´t see the importance that these cultural important movies repectfully get at least the same treatment.
Yours sincerely
still a disappointed fan
