logo Sign In

DVD controversy mentioned on imdb.com

Author
Time
Interesting. Kind of makes us look like the bad guys.

"We just wanted the the fans to have fun. But all the kids do is bitch, bitch, bitch. Pfft. See if we ever do anything for them again. Ungrateful basterds."
"I am altering the movies. Pray I don't alter them any further." -Darth Lucas
Author
Time
Well, the comments made by John Singh didn't really sound THAT bad, but, if they really didn't want the films to be a source of frustration, they should've assumed that fans DID want quality treatment given to them.

Here's a couple of quotes from a May 11th article on MTV.com from Lucas that makes this whole DVD release seem to amount to a round of poker with Lucasfilm dealing from a stacked deck:

"It's just the original versions, as they were," Lucas said. "We didn't do anything to it at all. But we're not sure how many people want that."

AND

"Now we'll find out whether they really wanted the original or whether they wanted the improved versions," he said. "It'll all come out in the end."

(Full MTV.com Article)
Author
Time
The comments made there by Lucas in the MTV interview are the most revealing yet for what this release is really about for George. i.e. do they want them so badly they will take a laserdisk, letterboxed transfer as 'bonus material' while paying for another copy of the SE ?

He comes across as a bitter, resentful man.


Author
Time
My e-mail to the IMDB:

To whom it may concern:

Your article about the Star Wars DVDs needs to be updated. It is incorrect. You are currently stating, "..they will be copied from the laserdiscs of the films released in the mid'90s, formatted for the conventional TV screen and not wide-screen 'letterbox' versions."

That is incorrect on 2 counts. They will not be copied from laserdiscs. They will be made from the masters used for the old laserdiscs. Also your article states that they will not be "wide-screen 'letterbox' versions". These will absolutely be widescreen. They will not be anamorphic widescreen. If you are unsure what this means, here is an article that I have written, fully illustrated and devoid of any tech talk. Perhaps you could link to it to better help your readers. Either way, the article should be updated to present the proper information.

Thank you for your prompt attention in this matter.

Sincerely,

Neil S. Bulk

Well at least the reversed surround channels have been addressed.

Author
Time
I really hope that IMDB was wrong on that one. I liked the idea of the movies being actual masters. I could of swore I heard that they were washing them so IMDB was wrong.
Author
Time
Man, George Lucas really hates his fans. Someone else posted part of a recent interview, and man did it piss me off. It was something like, "Now we'll see if fan's really wanted the originals, or the improved versions."

How exactly does George not know which versions fans want? For god sakes, all anyone has to do is get on a forum with Star Wars posts, like this one, to see what version fans want.

I don't disrespect George Lucas. He created three of the best films in cinematic history. Then he screwed with them. That would have been all right, if only he'd left the un-screwed with version around with the "improved" version. But instead, he basically tells us the OOT is just a piece of crap he made back in the ninties. George could redeem himself in the eyes of fans, (well, at least in my eyes) if he'd just give us an anamorphic, remastered version of the OOT. George likes the Special Editoions better. I respect his opionon. Why can't he respect ours?

And about mentioning the topic on IMDb, that was just silly. They just took bits and pieces from the press release to make us all look like the bad guys.
Watch DarthEvil's Who Framed Darth Vader? video on YouTube!

You can also access the entire Horriffic Violence Theater Series from my Channel Page.
Author
Time
Power and money has corrupted the once imaginative mind of George Lucas. Bottom line. That simple.
"I am altering the movies. Pray I don't alter them any further." -Darth Lucas
Author
Time
RANT WARNING!

Well, more emails aside, I'm throwing in the towel. Lucas has won. His ego is just too well-fortified to be contended with.

I'm not a big proponent of corporate greed, where the slogan often seems to be "where you see green, that's the place to be", but, at least a corporate studio mentality, free of the need to protect the ego of a filmmaker who has made a film which they own and he doesn't, would probably see the value (in $$) of giving the market what it wants. If it had been up to FOX alone, I'm sure they would've picked up on the fan demand for the OOT and given the three movies the grand DVD treatment that would make the fans happy.

Since this is apparently not the case at Lucasfilm, where CEO Lucas has the ultimate pull, we will most likely be stuck with the OOT as non-anamorphic bonus features sitting back seat to Lucas's precious "original vision", SE versions of the Star Wars films.

I'd fully be behind another petition, but I won't be giving my money to Lucas for a non-anamorphic, "limited-time-only" DVD set that treats these historical movies as bonus features. This treatment screams that he is only begrudgingly putting the originals out. And not only that, but it amounts to scare-tactics as well: "You better be happy that we're giving them to you at all. Now, pre-order them before they're never available again!"

The marketing that his company has done for the SE release has been nothing short of misrepresentation, if not outright lying. Anyone who goes into Best Buy to buy the currently available DVDs will find no indication that the DVDs are anything but the original versions. They are simply labeled as STAR WARS TRILOGY.

It's the attitude that Lucas seems to exude regarding the originals that really has taken a lot of the fun out of being a fan. The illusion of a masterpiece has been shattered, now that the supposed master seems to be only a leader of a team who has produced three movies that he doesn't consider to be his "true vision", aka, not true master works.

Lucas seems to pride himself on being an auteur filmmaker, and, yet, so much of what made his originals so powerful seems to be the creativity of so many others that worked with him. And this creativity, he seems to readily disregard in favor of supplanting it with his own extrremely after-the-fact retooling.

Why won't he graciously accept the fact that the originals are what made him and that people love the versions they grew up with?

As Aldous Huxley, author of the sci-fi and literary classic BRAVE NEW WORLD, said about his most popular work:

"[T]o attempt to patch a faulty work into the perfection it missed at its first execution, to spend one's middle age in trying to mend the artistic sins committed and bequeathed by that different person who was oneself in youth - all this is surely vain and futile."

Sound like anyone we know?

I won't be paying Lucas for SE ammunition to throw right back at him. I'll be more content to tell my kids, "Not too long ago in a reality not too far away, there existed three of the most magical movies ever made..."

That is, unless of course, they end up on Blue-Ray or HD-DVD, which isn't a possibility too far afield.

It will be interesting to hear how all of this pans out, and I will be sending another round or two of emails to the people in charge telling them that I won't be buying the September release. But, for now, this is the straw that broke the bantha's back.

SW: R.I.P. - 9/12/06
Author
Time
Did you just say this in another thread? We all understand your pain, but Star Wars is dead when every last copy of the original original movie is gone. And as far as I know, Lucas doesn't know where I live and I have a few VHS stashed away.

Let's wait and see what the future holds before we get all slit-wrist angsty. Our reckoning will come.
"I am altering the movies. Pray I don't alter them any further." -Darth Lucas
Author
Time
Originally posted by: Invader Jenny
Did you just say this in another thread?


Yeah. Sorry. I got a little post-crazy.

Author
Time
Originally posted by: darkhelmet

As Aldous Huxley, author of the sci-fi and literary classic BRAVE NEW WORLD, said about his most popular work:

"[T]o attempt to patch a faulty work into the perfection it missed at its first execution, to spend one's middle age in trying to mend the artistic sins committed and bequeathed by that different person who was oneself in youth - all this is surely vain and futile."

That is a beautiful quote and should be in your signature.
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.
Author
Time
I think it's very encouraging that complaints about the September discs are starting to get some coverage. The more the word gets out the more likely that the people at LFL / Newscorp are going to get the message. They can't be allowed to think that this release is in any way satisfactory.

They have to be made to realise that those that are buying them are buying them for the OOT, and would buy them even if the transfer was 100 times worse, just so that they can (officially) replace their copies on older formats! Further, they have to be told that those that have bought the new discs are not happy with the quality at all!

What we DON'T want them to think is that:

(a) people didn't want to own the OOT on DVD after all.

or

(b) people now have satisfactory DVDs of the OOT and they don't have to be released again.
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
Author
Time
Originally posted by: ADigitalMan
That is a beautiful quote and should be in your signature.


Done and done. Thanks for the suggestion, ADM.

Author
Time
Well, the IMDb is reasonably well-visited. Let's see if we can get the news out anywhere else. I can see it now: the covers of Newsweek and Time saying "Jay Sylvester and originaltrilogy.com: The Fans Battle to Save Star Wars." He we can dream, right?

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

Author
Time
Originally posted by: Ozkeeper
The comments made there by Lucas in the MTV interview are the most revealing yet for what this release is really about for George. i.e. do they want them so badly they will take a laserdisk, letterboxed transfer as 'bonus material' while paying for another copy of the SE ?

He comes across as a bitter, resentful man.


That's what I though too. LFL's PR stuff (Oh, gee, how fun. I haven't been requesting these version out of novelty value or for my health. It's because I prefer them.) seemed slapped together, but Lucas's comments were far, far more revealing. It's almost as if he takes people's dislike of the SEs as a personal insult.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death