Star Wars coming to Blu Ray (UPDATE: August 30 2011, No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!) — Page 18

I thought fffffff was talking about the '97 preservations being worked on in the pres thread, but who knows but fffffff?

SilverWook said:

ThiefCobbler4ever said:

Mayhaps some people didn't hear what Lucas said:

"You have to go through and do a whole restoration on it, and you have to do that digitally," he said. "It's a very, very expensive process to do it."

So it's obvious he's willing to do a proper restoration on the OOT if he has enough money. So the OOT will come to Blu-Ray, the only question is "when"?.

 

A. Lucas is a billionaire.

B. The costs of a restoration should not be more than any other films of similar vintage. Not to mention some restoration was already carried out in the 90's in prep for the SE's.

C. Noted film historian Robert Harris has offered his services for a song.

D. Did I mention Lucas is a billionaire already? ;)

 Yeah, this whole "restoration" thing is bullshit.

The films were restored in 1997. It was paid for by Fox, to the tune of $20 million dollars. The 1997 SE looked pretty fucking sweet in the theatre right? Lucasfilm doesn't have to do anything because Fox did almost all the work already.

Know what Lucasfilm has to do? They have to restore the missing 7-5% material (if it is necessary--not all shots needed work) to de-SE the film and the scan the pieces, and then colour time it. It would be about a day to pull the film from the archives and scan it, and another couple days to colour correct and make the master. For a full-out restored original version of the trilogy you have about two weeks of work, to the tune of a couple hundred grand. They could do digital restoration to top it off if they wanted, but this wasn't done in 1997 and that released looked good right?

So yeah. Figure out what percentage of the films the SE footage represents. I'd say about 7% for ANH, and about 5% for ROTJ. Thats what they have to actually restore; 5% of a movie. And thats only if every frame of that film pieces need it. In reality half of it would probably be fine, so you are looking at repairing 2% of a movie. "Oh poor me, I can't find any money to spare in my 3.5 billion in assets. Get that Clone War sticker book in production!"

Um...where on earth did you hear that?

To follow up, I can see why you would think that...

Mr. Lucas said the versions of the first three “Star Wars” films – “Star Wars,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” – included in the Blu-ray boxed set will be the special-edition releases that were shown theatrically in 1997 and digitally restored for a 2004 standard-definition DVD boxed set.

But I think that just means he thinks of the 2004 DVD set as the '97 theatrical release that has been "digitally restored."

I seriously doubt the Blu-ray set will have the '97 theatrical SE.

I'd suggest doing some poking around the preservation forum.  Maybe you'll find something more to your liking.

This picture says it all.

doubleofive said:  

Star Wars will be stuck at 1080p forever. Episodes 2 and 3 are, as Lucas filmed them at that resolution,

I could have sworn he filmed them at 4k.

Nope, AotC and RotS were filmed with 16:9 1080p cameras and then cropped to 2.35:1 (so the resolution of the original live-action footage would actually be 1920:817, just like any other 2.35:1 movie when viewed on blu-ray). I'm pretty sure that the effects were done at 2K though, so 2K would be the resolution of the final master if I'm not mistaken.

The '04 SE is a different story. It's currently stuck at 1080p. I would hope that if Lucas ever decides to release them theatrically he'll remaster them at 2K. A 2.35:1 movie from a 1080p master wouldn't look too good projected up on a movie theater screen.

Rebel1one1 said:

This picture says it all.

 There's more than one quack in that picture.

digitalfreaknyc said: There's more than one quack in that picture.

Somebody certainly looks goofy...

Rebel1one1 said:

This picture says it all.

Isn't Lucas holding Vadar's OOT blooper lightsaber in that pic? :p

avoidz said:Isn't Lucas holding Vadar's OOT blooper lightsaber in that pic? :p

I think Mickey has Obi-wan's...

See also Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

Because of the media backlash he got in the UK after the release of A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick himself pulled its availability and stated that it would never be available for viewing or sale anywhere in the UK (except for the first year (and only for that period) of its release, one cinema in the whole of the UK had the rights to show it). And this is how it was until he fell ill. At which point Warner prepared the DVD release and within a month of his death it was in stores.

Ripplin said:

Who's Vadar? ;)

He's a new character in the SW universe to be inserted into the original movies in the next box set :)

http://www.digitalbits.com/#mytwocents

"Well... as you might expect the discussion today is all about Star Wars on Blu-ray. Predictably, a LOT of fans bemoan word that Lucasfilm is only including the special edition versions of the film, and not the theatrical cuts. It could easily be done via seamless branching, much like we're seeing on Fox's comprehensive Alien Anthology or as Sony did on their Close Encounters Blu-ray. It seems the sad reality is that creator George Lucas just doesn't want to include them. That's really a shame, and I'm sure Lucasfilm will be hearing an earful from fans. Still, as I said on Saturday, I am at least encouraged to finally see more of the vintage deleted material from the original films. Again, I just personally hope all the DVD color timing issues will be fixed (more in line with that of the the original Star Wars laserdisc box set) and that the Episode IV soundtrack issues will be fixed (the reversed score in the surrounds and the missing/dialed back trumpet fanfare when the X-Wings first dive to attack the Death Star). I guess we all have our nits to pick.

Speaking of deleted material, it's worth pondering at this point exactly what that deleted footage might be. There's little doubt we'll finally see the fully-digital Yoda in Episode I, and if I'm not mistaken an unfinished deleted scene from Episode II (in which group of Jedi led by Ki-Adi Mundi and Plo Koon attack the Droid Command Ship on Geonosis) appeared on Star Wars.com briefly. Maybe that will be included as well. From the original Star Wars, there's all that infamous deleted footage of Luke on Tatooine watching the space battle with binoculars (see image below), then telling his friends (in Anchorhead) about the battle and having a lengthy discussion about joining the Rebellion with Biggs. Plus there are shots of Han with a woman in the cantina in Mos Eisley. All of that appeared on the Star Wars: Behind the Magic CD-ROM, so it's reasonable to assume it could be on the Blu-rays. For Empire, there's the infamous "Wampa attack" on the Rebel Base material, and there was an alternate Han/Leia scene at Cloud City in the Empire of Dreams documentary. And for Jedi, we've just seen the scene in which Vader talks to Luke via the Force and Luke finishes building his lightsaber. (The footage is linked in Saturday's post.) There's also a missing scene in which - having just freed Han and Leia from Jabba the Hutt - everyone returns to the Falcon and Luke's X-Wing on Tatooine in the middle of a sandstorm (again, see image below). There are many other rumored scenes as well, so it'll be VERY interesting to see how much of it we'll finally get to see on the Blu-rays, and just how finished/polished the scenes will be. For those interested in the topic, Wookieepedia has a list of these rumored scenes, and T'Bone has a pretty good page dedicated to known details about the cut scenes (with photos) as well."