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Does it depress you...

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... that the blu ray sets coming out in September will sell by the million, further validating Lucas's revisionist versions and giving an entire new generation of Star Wars fans the wrong impression of the films?

I find it rather sad.

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This 'It's Sad' thing works on many level, and could be the direction of vocal disapproval of the way the powers that be handle the SW franchise.  When parts of fandom became hypercritical of the SE and PT, it drifted towards anger and such and those type of phrases are easy to point out and censor.  If everywhere people started posting 'sad', 'disappointed' etc. then explained about the loss of the theater versions of these films, it could be a way to get to the masses. 

Maybe 'I'm too depressed to buy the blu's'

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I don't feel like anything has changed. An entire popular media format was born and died without the originals ever getting a proper release. There is nothing new here.

My best childhood friend's younger siblings haven't even seen the originals (I just realized this depressing fact a year ago when I went to visit his family). He and I had always been huge Star Wars fans, when he moved out of the house taking his old VHS set with him his family replaced them with a 1997 SE VHS set because that was what was available. These kids are in college themselves now, and have never known anything but the '97 SE. The originals have already been suppressed to an entire generation.

The 2004 set came out seven years ago, that is the only Star Wars children of the DVD generation have known; unless they happen to have accidentally popped in the bonus DVD from an '06 set or have parents who know the difference between the versions and care.

Unless they have parents who are big enough fans to care about the difference between SE and OOT, the vast majority of kids aren't going to be exposed to the unaltered films. It is that way now, and it will be that way on Blu-ray. Even if the OOT is released on BD someday, that still isn't going to change.

 

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It's not sad, it's business.

What's sad is that the world as an adult is not as you imagine it to be as a 7 year old boy.

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It does.  In fact, I used those very words a few days ago;

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-People-Vs-George-Lucas-documentary/post/497332/#TopicPost497332

However, I should have been more clear in my original post.  It's not depressing from an - I'll never see Star Wars in a proper, respectful, 1977 theatrical release - sort of way.  It's depressing that people are that easily led and that quick to bully opposing opinions without even bothering to find out the truth. 

Even more depressing is that they don't even consider that there may be a truth to expose Lucas' constant lying.  Particularly now, when research is so incredibly easy.  History has been preserved in the form of countless interviews, articles, videos, and organized on sites & books such as Kaminski's - but still they see absolutely no need to bother with giving it a look.  

There are hundreds of thousands of Star Wars fans who not only think living a lie is ok, they seem to prefer it.  To the point that they quickly attack anyone who even mentions the truth. The official Facebook page is going to do wonders for advancing their fantasy world.  Lucas is cleansing the thing hourly.  It's real-time revision of history.  A real world, happening before our very eyes, actual Ministry Of Truth. To me, that is positively bone-chilling.

 

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed, if all records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct.  Nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record.  All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."

 

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Anchorhead wrote: The official Facebook page is going to do wonders for advancing their fantasy world.  Lucas is cleansing the thing hourly.  It's real-time revision of history.

Is there an RSS or e-mail feed for a facebook page?  Something that auto forwards or sends new posts to an outside mailbox or account.

If there is could someone point the feed to 'starwarsfacebookarchive@gmail.com'  thanks.

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 (Edited)

S_Matt said:

... that the blu ray sets coming out in September will sell by the million, further validating Lucas's revisionist versions and giving an entire new generation of Star Wars fans the wrong impression of the films?

I find it rather sad.

 

Reading an old, old complaint taking up a whole 90 page thread dedicated to it acting as the newest and freshest thing in the block, makes me sad.

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miker71 said:

It's not sad, it's business.

What's sad is that the world as an adult is not as you imagine it to be as a 7 year old boy.

QFT


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Anchorhead said:

...

'Who controls the past' ... 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'

Anchorhead's quote reminded me that I'd heard it spoken on an intro to a DJ mix tape I had back in the early nineties. Some searching later, I found that it was this one.

I've now found the tape at the back of my cupboard.

This makes me happy.

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Moth3r said:

This makes me happy.

Wrong thread :P

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Yeah, it depresses me. Of course, everything about this current generation depresses me, from the talentless musicians to the soulless blockbusters to the semi-literate schmucks who eat it all up.
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miker71 said:

It's not sad, it's business.

What's sad is that the world as an adult is not as you imagine it to be as a 7 year old boy.

Not sure I understand your point.  Many of us believe that Lucas not releasing the OT in decent form is a bad business decision, and is purely being done out of some sort of personal thing.  And as a 7-year-old boy, I don't think I would have cared if a theatrical version of a movie was being released or not.

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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Alright new tactic: Everyone go on the fan page and say that your sad about what star war has become. George will feel so bad for us that he has to give us the theatrical trilogy! EH? EH?

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Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

miker71 said:

It's not sad, it's business.

What's sad is that the world as an adult is not as you imagine it to be as a 7 year old boy.

Not sure I understand your point.  Many of us believe that Lucas not releasing the OT in decent form is a bad business decision, and is purely being done out of some sort of personal thing.  And as a 7-year-old boy, I don't think I would have cared if a theatrical version of a movie was being released or not.

Well put, Puggo. I've been scratching my head on that one. If the OUT was released on DVD/BD tomorrow, I'd run out and buy it first chance I got. As it stands, the only SW DVDs I've ever purchased were the GOUT, and I waited until I got them used for less than $10 a piece.

The effort to restore the remaining non-SE elements would cost relatively little (not to mention it has been offered to be done free of charge), and there is evidence those elements have already been restored anyway. It would be just as easy for those to be placed into the new Blu-ray set as all the other worthless crap that is on them. The only reason it isn't is that stubborn, "they don't exist anymore attitude".

It isn't business, it is a defiant stance that may very well be costing business (though, admittedly, very minor). But it most definitely isn't business. All this fan animosity that has developed over the last decade, this rift in fandom, the "Han shot first 'debate'" would all for the most part go away (or be no more volatile than the "Kirk or Picard" thing in Trekkie fandom) if the unaltered trilogy were included. 

 

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BloodnoseThePirate said:

Alright new tactic: Everyone go on the fan page and say that your sad about what star war has become. George will feel so bad for us that he has to give us the theatrical trilogy! EH? EH?

Hmmm, maybe if we all post on the FB page in a concentrated effort, stating calmly, concisely, peacefully, and affably as possible, we will make a big enough scene with a loud enough voice that we might get an amended September BD release... or all of our posts would get deleted...

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It's naturally a cause of concern but all we can do is continue to fight the good fight, both by attempting to preserve what we have access to and providing interesting alternatives to the official SE which has be become the default entry point for new viewers of these films (even the PT isn't entirely the theatrical experience).

But if you do find yourself depressed I recommend watching a comedy classic from before the era when everything went wrong for Star Wars, for example :

Tootsie (1982)

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I don't see how anyone could be depressed after that post.  Actual lol.

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Tootsie aside, Star Wars is kind of dead to me nowadays. I mean, I'm interested in what the fan archivists/restorers are up to (which keeps me coming back to this forum) but when i visited the official maythe4th website i just closed the window, didn't even wait for the video to load. I'm sick of LFL's self-aggrandizing bullshit, which results in this:

...over this:

PRIORITIES?

To paraphrase an earlier post, it's not about the films anymore, it's just bu$ine$$ (and i guess has been that way for quite some time).

But there is a bright side, all those dollar$ i would've spent on the Blu-rays? They'll buy a helluva lot of mosquito nets for people in REAL need.

Laters.

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 (Edited)

It says something when a big countdown leads to a repeat of the earlier announcement, a few extra details, no screen shots of the actual transfers and a menu preview with cocked up spelling.

Adding the OOT to the set would have been an opportunity for a 'converstion' between the past and the present of Star Wars.

All the brew-ha-ha of a few days ago does is to underline what we have long suspected about the people running the officially sanctioned show.

It's the clueless selling to the clueless.

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It is sad that a once great filmaker and storyteller sold out and became a toys salesman.

Joined the Video dark side and whores out cgi.

No longer working with true craftsmen like traditional effects artists or even working with real film.

The oot will be a lasting monument to cinema when film was film and not video, or video games replacing films.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Bingowings said:

Adding the OOT to the set would have been an opportunity for a 'converstion' between the past and the present of Star Wars.

I actually laughed out loud at work.  Well played, sir.

;-)

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skyjedi2005 said:

It is sad that a once great filmaker and storyteller sold out and became a toys salesman.

Wasn't he selling toys back then, too? Wasn't that part of the movie advertisment?

Joined the Video dark side and whores out cgi.

No longer working with true craftsmen like traditional effects artists or even working with real film.

Different times, different tools. Just because something is new/different, doesn't make it bad. However, he still worked with what you call "true craftsmen" and "traditional effects artists" on the more recent movies.

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Maybe sad isn't the right word, but it's really baffling. What a weird and lame use of the kind of power that people everywhere aspire to. In the history of movies (and all art really) there are very few who have the utter, total freedom that Lucas does. And THAT'S what you use it for? To make soccer moms buying stuff at Target (and their kids) think 1997=1977? The hell?

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The irony is there are MANY cases where its been frustrating and sad to see the work of many directors bastardized by studio execs and one wishes that said directors could be independent and regain artistic control over their films.

With Lucas we're probably all wishing at this point that Fox still owned the copyright...

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The frustrating is actually Lucas has created this fan rift between which version you love more, where it never had to get like this.

Look at movies like Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Terminator 2, ET,  The Abyss, Aliens, Bladerunner, etc, all have DVD and some BluRay releases with both versions.  I have never argued or even cared which version another fan liked.  I have never gotten offended that there are 5 versions of Bladerunner, and the one I love might not be the preferred one by the majority.  If some fans prefers the ET/SE with walkie talkies instead of guns, so be it, I don't ever have to watch that version.

If Lucas had released both versions on DVD in 2004, and on BluRay in 2011, the fanbase wouldn't have silly arguments on Han Shooting first, or should Hayden in be in ROTJ Ghost Scene.  I could watch the OOT, another fan could watch the SE, and we could live happily ever after.  

I dont think it is sad, I think it is frustrating because this whole SE vs OOT is so unneccesary, and this could have been nipped in the bud years ago.