Does it depress you... — Page 3

negative1 said:

 

i'll be buying the whole blu-ray box set day 1, (although i hate the format, and don't own a bluray player)..

why do you hate the blu ray format?

negative1 said:

as far as a new generation getting a 'wrong' impression... if they really cared, and were real fans, they would dig deeper, and eventually realize that these aren't the original versions..  

if they know enough to dig deeper.   The point is, they shouldn't have to.   Lucas shouldn't be trying to erase them for existence in the first place.

negative1 said:

 

i laugh at the whole situation, because the power of restoration is back in the hands of the fans... and since we will eventually have full 1080p HD restorations, and possibly better coming out in the next few years (2k/4k), why worry about it? if lucasfilm changes there stance, and wants to see what happens, more power to them.. if not.. we have to take the situation into our own hands, and work with the prints and data we have now..

somehow I think a professional studio would be able to do a better job at restoring them than amateur fans.    

negative1 said:

2) sony (and other companies) pushing yet another format, that who

knows how long it will be around, and being stuck with yet another format

they are yet again working on another new format??  Seems like just yesterday that blu-ray came out. 

negative1 said:

if they know enough to dig deeper.   The point is, they shouldn't have to.   Lucas shouldn't be trying to erase them for existence in the first place.

only people that bother watching documentaries and maybe are old 

enough to remember the originals will really care. 

whatever, I still the OOT released so my niece (and my kids if I ever have any) can see it as I saw it.

negative1 said:

somehow I think a professional studio would be able to do a better job at restoring them than amateur fans.  

you would think that, but look at what 'professionals' have done so far..

not very technically inspiring, and thats what led us to this in the first place.  

that's because they are not even trying to restore the OOT.    If did try and did it right,   I think the results would be better that what one could do with a fan edit.   But perhaps I am just underestimating the abilities of the people.   If that is the case, I apologize. 

CP3S said:

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. 

 

It depresses me that a series which has so influenced the popular imagination is being repeatedly debased.

A series which has been quoted by world leaders, which altered the nature of cinema in the U.S and the wider world and, not least of all, lives in the imagination of millions of people.

The kitsch of merchandising was once cute, but it now it is merely exploitative. The whole thing feels hollowed out. The Special Edition is a desecrated corpse. Any small sliver of dignity and wonder which existed in the series is being meticulously squeezed out.

If Lucas had actively set out to destroy Star Wars, I don't think he could have done better than this.

Easterhay said:

As for world leaders quoting the films, I wouldn't be too proud of Reagan's Star Wars project, for which Lucas attempted (and failed) to sue for improper use of the name.  And didn't the Daily Express have May The Fourth Be With You as their headline when Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election?  Hmm, not so proud of that one either...

Oh, don't get me wrong - I definitely wouldn't be proud of the circumstances either. I certainly wouldn't be proud of the militarisation of space being associated with the series, and I can understand why Lucas fought against it. Dick Cheney affectionately comparing himself to Darth Vader is hardly something to be proud of either.

But my point is that the series has embedded itself into history via these means, if by no other means. It should therefore be treated with respect as an item of historical significance. It should not be treated with the crassness we've seen.

Easterhay said:

Look, it's only really the fans of the original originals who are hacked off with this.  Everyone else accepts the Star Wars films as they are just fine.

 

originaltrilogy.com - mostly fans of the original originals who are hacked off with this.

Easterhay said:

Does it depress me?  As a fan since 1977, no it doesn't.  Serious things depress me, like the question of whether I will always be able to provide for my family, or the thorny issue of shooting unarmed terrorists because there isn't enough evidence to convict them in court, but does the fact that the older versions of some favourite films won't see the light of day on Blu-Ray depress me?  No, course it doesn't.

Should they be available?  Well, maybe as works-in-progress or from a curio's point of view, then perhaps.  The fact that I haven't seen the originals since nineteen-oh-spit probably speaks volumes on my perspective on this most trivial (in my mind) of issues.

 Come on, we all have our priorities right, we are talking about being depressed in the context of watching the movies.  Of course the OOT isn't as serious as the unemployment rate, terrorism, the national debt, etc.  We all get that.

In the context of being a SW fan, it just sucks that every BluRay release has every version (Close Encounters, Bladerunner, ET, T2, etc.)  and a SW boxset can't?

And please don't call them works in progess, because you sound like some moron from TFN who gets his talking points faxed to them every morning from Lucasranch   :) 

Well, we can't all be splitting the atom like they are on the rest of the internet.  I'm sure that's true that nobody cares beyond a certain group of fans, but I always wonder what exactly is the magic number that it has to hit to suddenly be considered a worthwhile thing. Is it a million? 100s of thousands? (Especially now that it was considered worthwhile for there to be 3 versions available of MR. ARKADIN.)

Easterhay said:

Dick Cheney compared himself to Vader?  What a creep.

Whilst I think some of the changes wrought on the films seem to have been experimental (ie let's see what this would look like) rather than carefully thought-through and carefully executed (ergo, I have nothing against Hayden as Anakin's ghost but it was clearly a hasty add-on and as for Jabba in A New Hope, well, when will they get that scene right?) I am largely in favour of the the revisions made. 

Look, it's only really the fans of the original originals who are hacked off with this.  Everyone else accepts the Star Wars films as they are just fine.

 

Oh no, I quite enjoy alternate edits of films. I like the various edits available of Blade Runner, for example, and like most people here, I find what Adywan is doing endlessly impressive and entertaining.

What I don't enjoy is that Lucas is trying to make his (very much flawed) alternate edits replace the originals. I think the originals should be respected enough that they be restored and packaged with any editing or SFX experiments Lucasfilm feels like releasing.

Just a little respect for history is all I'm asking. Other directors have had the good moral character to do it, I just want to see the same from Lucas.

Art belongs to the public, and so do films. They are our cultural heritage, they are bigger than any one person or corporation, and therefore deserve preservation. This is what George Lucas said in 1988 and I agree with him.

George Lucas should have the ethical right to revise his own films, but he doesn't have the right to suppress history. (I would also argue he doesn't have the right to revise other people's films, which is maybe the most disturbing aspect of the SE)

Easterhay said:

I think if you accept that, as a fan, you didn't make the films and therefore they're not yours, then that's a step towards understanding.  It's got nothing to do with "moral character" - I really find that remark bewildering, to be honest - and more to do with an artist who will never be happy with what he has created.  Feel sorry for Lucas, if you must, but I think that's about as far as any negativity should go.

I don't see how it's a bewildering comment. I just feel that attempting to rewrite history - even on trivial matters such as this - is offensive. By his own admission, Lucas wants the originals to only be vaguely remembered as the "rough prints" from which the special editions are derived.

As for children now growing up with the special editions and enjoying them, I might as well say now that I also grew up with the special editions. It was only later, when introduced to them by an older Star Wars fan, that I got to see the originals. I prefer the originals. If any special edition is to be made available, I would prefer it to be a very conservative edit which smooths out effects and fixes continuity errors.

The only radical change I agreed with was the removal of the Yub Nub song, but I also feel the Ewoks are one of the major flaws of the series anyway.

And, yes, I even grew up with the prequels. Unlike the originals, however, they don't occupy a favorable place in my memory. They're more like vague impressions from a bad night out.

Just as an aside...

A lot of people here might not realize it, but I was only 14 years old when Phantom Menace came out. This, I believe, is the same age our old friend Anchorhead was when he first saw Star Wars. Does that mean I grew up with the prequels then? I guess it does. I was also twelve when I first saw the Special Edition of Star Wars, and it still to this day is the most important and enjoyable theatrical experience of my life, so I guess in a sense I grew up with the SE as well. Yet a decade later, I'm running savestarwars.com. That's why I think this notion of "anyone who grows up with the prequels will treat them as the older generations treated the OT" totally false, and same with the SE.

My friends were all the same age as me, of course, being 14 when Phantom Menace came out and 17 when Attack of the Clones came out, and we enjoyed the prequels as entertainment while they lasted, but at the end of the day I don't think I know a single person who has re-watched them since they were new, but I don't know anyone who doesn't re-watch the OT from time to time, even if it is just on the television re-runs. It's true that people are more casual about the SE though, but that's because they are more casual fans than us. They just want to see the films, and meh, the SE is the same basic movie, right? They accept the SE, but only because the SE is the only choice being offered and they aren't going to fight some campaign to see the originals like us. So, the SE is tolerated, but only by default, and that's an important distinction.