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“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
“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
“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
“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
Bump-and-a-half here, but I was actually trying to find the thread started by the guys who are making this documentary and I couldn't seem to find it (the forum search seems to be broken so if anyone can find the thread and post the link to it I'd appreciate it).
They're still taking submissions until September 30th. Here's something that recently occured to me:
How many movies can you think of that have been significantly altered from their original form, eventually released on dvd in excellent quality (but still in that altered form), only to have the owner come out with a laserdisc-to-dvd port of the original version - only available packaged with the high-quality alteration - and say "Sorry, folks. That's the best you're ever gonna get."
Yea, I can't think of a single example outside of our coveted OT.
This is the real issue for me.
It's not that we got the OOT in 4:3 letterbox several months into fucking hi-def optical discs of movies being available on the market. There are still movies out there that are in the same condition (The Abyss, for example).
The real issue is that Lucas put out the high-quality alteration on dvd first and said the original version would never hit dvd, only to put out those very same original versions just two years later sourced from 1993 transfers and available only if you buy the high-quality alteration.
For dvd releases, it doesn't get much more shameless than that.
LFL basically said "People will give us their money because this is the original version of the most popular movie of all time and most of them won't even realize they're buying an inferior-quality product because they probably don't even know that 99.99999 percent of widescreen dvd's are enhanced for widescreen tv's because most of them probably don't have hdtv's yet and don't even know what anamorphic video is. They probably think they don't have any choice but to stretch out the 4:3 letterbox picture over that wider screen. Hey, this is a brilliant business strategy! Why put a single dime into restoring or even so much as remastering the OOT? This is Star Wars, they'll eat it up!"
Meanwhile, we get a Blade Runner set with all five versions on it plus deleted scenes.
"Is he fulfilling his destiny or has he destroyed his legacy?" is a line from the trailer for this doc. When you allow your franchise to gradually become nothing but a product, even to the extent where the film that started it all is reduced to being a curious piece of "nostalgia" (LFL's words, not mine), then that's certainly "destroying your legacy" in my opinion.
At least with the Abyss it's a quality control issue, with Cameron unwilling to release an unsupervised transfer. We've seen from the 2004 star wars discs what can happen when the director supervises a transfer half ass and in a hurry. The end result is that both versions look like shit in their own special way. The upside is that this applies to all lucas products these days, it's ALL really 3d rate junk. So it's not like the original versions are singled out. With Disney (and even stuff like the new Beatles cds) raking it in with old stuff cleaned up and repackaged, hopefully LFL will recognize what an easy way it is to make a few million bucks. (let's say: a basic original-original trilogy blu-ray with 3 discs like that Star Trek II-IV thing, probably costing 75-100 bucks knowing Fox, sells half a million units which should be possible )
So... are people sending him videos? Of what exactly?
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
xhonzi said:
So... are people sending him videos? Of what exactly?
I sent to the director my silent Star Wars edits (he said he loved it, even wrote something about it in the "PvsGL blog" (that can be found on the main page of their website) and a movie interview with my answers (made with my shitty webcam).
Let's hope some of my edits will pass the final cut. (would be fun for a faneditor to be edited out though!)
I haven't been to their site. They have interview questions and you're supposed to video yourself answering them?
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
xhonzi said:
So... are people sending him videos? Of what exactly?
I sent him a video expressing my views. Among other things, I addressed people who say "get over it, it's just a movie". My analogy was that's like saying that Woodstock was just a concert. Imagine if the producer of the Woodstock movie went in and "fixed" the wrong notes, took out all the drugs, CGI'd the Beatles in, and then didn't make the original movie available. He'd probably have a thousand flower children camped out on his doorstep chanting that he'd raped their childhood. For nerds like me, Star Wars was our Woodstock.
I have no idea if they liked it or not. Guess I'll find out! :)
"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars
I'm looking forward to a dvd release just to get the entirety of Gary Kurtz, and Dale Pollock's interviews. The fanboy gushing and the he raped my childhood ranting not so much.
I mean is this really going to change the fact that the originals will never be restored and all we can ever hope for is the slap in the face that was the gout?
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
Guys, lets stop thinking that the OOT getting a decent release is beyond the realm of possibility.
I was just reading the blog on their website and apparently Jay has a new OOT petition in the works.
New trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hAkwcHEAo8
http://www.peoplevsgeorge.com/
hm that wasn't as good as the other trailer.
I think the idea was to tone down the "Lucas raped my childhood" sentiment present in the first trailer. It was entertaining, but came off as less than neutral.
I received word today that ot.com gets some significant screen time during the segment on the SEs. I know that in addition to myself, there are members here who contributed interviews as well, so I can't wait to see what made it into the final cut.
MTFBWY…A
There's a brief interview of Alexandre on wired.com about the doc.
MTFBWY…A