Stuart deserves a lot of credit for Yoda, of course. I based my remark on the DVD commentary(?) where Lucas spoke of his frustration that Frank could not even be nominated for best supporting actor in Empire.
Where were you in '77?
walking_carpet said:
Will it turn the tide? not sure. With the clone wars and other things, bouncy lightsaber yoda is becoming more and more the definitive image. But I can gaurantee demand for de-specialized editions will skyrocket even more than last year.
Um, what makes you think that? I think that the massive, record-breaking sales of the Blu-Ray indicate more than ever that the average person in the mainstream doesn't give two shits.
“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
It is also possible that nearly 15 years after the SE's first came out, the average consumer doesn't know the difference anymore.
Where were you in '77?
Mike O said:
walking_carpet said:
Will it turn the tide? not sure. With the clone wars and other things, bouncy lightsaber yoda is becoming more and more the definitive image. But I can gaurantee demand for de-specialized editions will skyrocket even more than last year.Um, what makes you think that? I think that the massive, record-breaking sales of the Blu-Ray indicate more than ever that the average person in the mainstream doesn't give two shits.
yeah the blu-rays had great sales, but there was also a lot more people this time around that had enough and proceeded with getting versions without the changes - not just speaking for myself.
as it becomes easier to download movies and more people become fed up with the changes, I think it'll only increase. And I think replacing yoda would really impact it.
does anyone know what the sales were for the SuperMan II Donner Cut? that also was limited to a passionate fanbase - but i bet there is much more people that want the OOT released.
I think I heard the Donner Cut did reasonably well and is certainly more niche. And since they're currently doing a full restoration to sell 3,000 copies of fucking MAJOR DUNDEE, worrying about the "average mainstream" whatever is not even an issue.
Yeah, it's kind of absurd. This is the most popular film EVER MADE. EVER. Gone With the Wind sold more tickets, but it's no longer current.
-1977: Star Wars is released. Makes the equivalent of $1.13 BILLION dollars in todays currency.
-1978-1983: Goes on to earn roughly another $100 million dollars in todays money in re-releases over the next five years.
-1982: First VHS tape to sell over a million copies. Retails for about $80, or $180 in todays dollars. =over $180 million.
-1995: Released on video. Breaks records for a video re-release.
-1997: The twenty-year-old film is released again and earns $240 MILLION in todays dollars.
-2004: Released on DVD in trilogy set. The OT sells $100 million dollars worth of copies...in a SINGLE DAY. Goes on to selll...maybe a Billion dollars worth by Christmas? Just an estimate.
-2012: George Lucas is worth something like $4 Billion dollars. "It's too expensive to restore them! How would I earn a profit"
Reminder: the above figures add up to about something like the equivalent of... nearly $3 Billion dollars? Something in that range. A movie that has sold $3 billion worth of sales, in todays dollars. Yeah, there's no money there. It would be such a wasteful investment.
Manos: The Hands of Fate is even more of a niche than Superman, and nearly $50k was raised for it's restoration. They were hoping just to raise $10k.
If there ever was a bullet proof rebuttal to the "too expensive to restore" cop out, Manos is it.
Where were you in '77?
I was talking to an acquaintance the other day and he started telling me about Lucas leaving Lucasfilm, which I already knew thanks to you fine folk.
But in his version of the story, George was humbled by the failure of TPM3D and decided he'd had enough of Star Wars. Has anyone heard this, or is this just conjecture?
I haven't heard that. But, speaking of TPM3D, does anyone know if they're going to do AOTC3D? I think they said if TPM3D did well enough, they'd do the next one.
I don't know anyone who went to see it.
If CLONES 3D comes out it will be such a punchline (remember how Ep. I was going to be An Event for A Generation blah blah, until the fanatics moved the goalposts and changed their whole reality in the weeks after it came out), maybe GL figured who needs this, I'll let someone else push it. Or maybe Red Tails was a bigger factor in the retirement.
TPM3D probably didn't make the giant truckloads of money they wanted, but it wasn't a flaming disaster either.
The 3D release did push the total worldwide box office numbers over the billion dollar mark.
If the AOTC conversion is finished and "in the can", it would be silly for them not to release it given the money already spent.
Where were you in '77?
It not unusual for corporates to do that sort of thing, just look at SyFy and Blood And Chrome.
zombie84 said:
-2012: George Lucas is worth something like $4 Billion dollars. "It's too expensive to restore them! How would I earn a profit"
Reminder: the above figures add up to about something like the equivalent of... nearly $3 Billion dollars? Something in that range. A movie that has sold $3 billion worth of sales, in todays dollars. Yeah, there's no money there. It would be such a wasteful investment.
It's never been about money. That has always been one of George's flimsy excuses. The unavailability of the original versions is, was and always will be about George's ego.
Supposedly, Robert Harris offered to restore the film FOR FREE and still he was turned down. If George will not allow a restoration to go forward even if it doesn't cost him a dime, then it's clear that it's not about the costs at all. If someone offered to pay him $100 million if he would restore it, he would still refuse.
I'm sure Clones will be released if it's actually done or mostly done, I'm just wondering if GL considers it to be ultimately worth it. (I don't think they were doing this to do okay/adequate/turn a slight profit/get some varied bad press)
Not only did the 3D release under perform, but none of TPM3D-related merchandise seemed to sell, either. All the store shelves near me are still clogged with TPM action figures that don't move.
Last I heard, they were going to release AOTC and ROTS in the same year. That was a rumour, but I believe it, or at least that it is being seriously considered, to just get the PT out of the way. TPM wasn't a collossal failure, but I do believe it would be considered a minor one relative to the expectations they had. It made a profit theatrically, but only a small one. I don't think they ever expected it to do numbers like 1997, but I honestly think George believed that the 1999 box-office numbers were due to people genuinely liking it, and not because of hype, obligation, and all the other factors that drove people that hated the film to see it three times. A lot of fans said the same thing--if everyone hated it, how come it made so much money? On the surface, that would seem to make sense, people vote with their wallets. But this film is an exception to a lot of traditional release rules.
Without the hype, and having accepted that the film wasn't good and moved on, most people who saw the film in 1999 stayed home--almost all of them, it would seem. $671 million in 1999, in todays dollars, versus $43 million with inflated 3D prices or $30 million adjusted for normal prices. That's an estimated 84.8 million tickets in 1999 versus an estimated 5.5 million tickets in 2012. In other words, only about 15% of the people who saw it in theaters in 1999 came back this year. It pushed it into the $billion area, yes, but at the same time it took until 2012 reviews before the film officially became "rotten" at rottentomatoes. Neither accomplishments are too grand anyway, since the film was already close to the edge of both as it was.
Bingowings said:
It not unusual for corporates to do that sort of thing, just look at SyFy and Blood And Chrome.
The late lamented SciFi channel has been slowly run into the ground by a bunch of idiots for years, but that's a discussion for another forum. ;)
Lucasfilm isn't a big faceless corporation like whoever owns the Universal media octopus these days. It's practically a family owned shop.
Where were you in '77?
evan1975 said:
Not only did the 3D release under perform, but none of TPM3D-related merchandise seemed to sell, either. All the store shelves near me are still clogged with TPM action figures that don't move.
I'm waiting for Walmart to cut their prices so I can corner the Ric Ollie action figure market. Thanks to Frink, Ollie's coming back big time!
Where were you in '77?
Quite honestly, I think George is stepping down a bit because he's old, he's made a ton of money, and the future of the SW franchise is more or less secure.
All of the above reasons are valid, but I think when it comes down the guy is simply retiring because the time feels right to him.
“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”
zombie84 said:
I don't think they ever expected it to do numbers like 1997, but I honestly think George believed that the 1999 box-office numbers were due to people genuinely liking it
That boggles the mind. Poor George.
It is amazing how much the state of Star Wars has changed since 1997. Back then SW was very much loved and we were all very excited to rush to the theaters to dish out full ticket prices to see a movie we had two copies of lying around at home. When Star Wars hit the $2 theater, I went to see it every time I could talk someone into going to see it with me.
When The Phantom Menace came out it was a huge disappointment, but I still don't want to admit how many times I paid full price to see it (several). It sucked, but somehow it was still Star Wars and having never known the concept of a crappy Star Wars film before, it was kind of a hard to know what to do with it, hating it and not watching it anymore just didn't sit right.
I guess I am a lot older now so maybe that skews my perspective, but it is really hard to imagine fans who are as old now as I was in 1997 getting as excited for these 3D releases as I did for the theatrical rereleases of the OT. Aside from much of the goodwill that had been associated with Star Wars over the first twenty years of its life being forever changed, so much technology exists now that allows us very theatrical like experiences at home. Contrast BDs on a 50 inch widescreen HDTV with VHS on an old 20 inch set. That old 1997 commercial for the rerelease that showed a tiny box in the middle of the screen playing Star Wars bursting into a widescreen picture that covered the screen was so very relevant then in a way it could never be again.
I could just be naive and majorly overestimating people, but I get a funny feeling that if the OUT were to receive a theatrical rerelease again, bare bones restoration, no 3D even, it would pull in some very serious numbers at the box office. For that too good to be true scenario, I would be as excited as I was in 1997 and I'd once again be going to see it every time I could talk someone into seeing it with me.
evan1975 said:
I was talking to an acquaintance the other day and he started telling me about Lucas leaving Lucasfilm, which I already knew thanks to you fine folk.
But in his version of the story, George was humbled by the failure of TPM3D and decided he'd had enough of Star Wars. Has anyone heard this, or is this just conjecture?
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:
2. Sorry Geoge... no one wants you to quit! We didn't mean it, honest! To tell the truth, all of us who say we hate the prequels and all of the SE changes, we actually LOVE them. Please stay!
3. Hey real Star Wars fans! Those fake Star Wars fans who hate George Lucas made him quit! THEY'RE THE REASON THAT WE'RE NOT GETTING ANY MORE STAR WARS! GET 'EM!
I thought there would be more of this, but it seems like there's been a fairly light reaction from the fans about GL leaving in general, let alone blaming people like us. It hasn't really happened (except I guess for a few of those super hostile guys who are just flat out CRAZY, you probably know the ones, I wouldn't be surprised if they're reading this right now actually, as part of their hall monitor duties. Hi!). But mainly Star Wars land keeps chugging along like normal, I would have thought it would be a bigger deal for some reason.
The Clone Wars series is also moving right along, and probably generates most of toy sales right now.
There's another Celebration con this summer.
No way 2017 is going to slip by without something significant happening. It's too big of an anniversary to blow off.
All of this can go on with minimal oversight by George if he's really stepping back. Since he's the boss, it's not like he can't change his mind and jump back in.
Where were you in '77?
Lucasfilm has been running itself for a while now. They have a lot of material to work with. That's why they have been withholding a lot of content regarding video releases. According to a friend who knows insiders at Lucasfilm, the projection right now is a 50-year plan, that is, stretch out the material to keep the company alive for fifty years into the future. Supposedly, every single piece of film material--every take, every foot of film--from the star wars movies has been scanned in 4K and is sitting in computers. Few have seen it all because it comprises hours of footage.
And yeah, I'm willing to bet the OOT is included in that. I'm sure they're sitting on it for long-term investment reasons. Maybe the 50th anniversary, once Lucas is out of the way?
There is always the dilemma of "If we sell them the good stuff right now, what are we supposed to sell them later???" You can't deny that's definitely part of why we haven't seen the OOT restored and put out on blu-ray. "Nah, just slip in the deleted scenes that should've been on the dvd seven years ago. That's how we get the fans who weren't planning on buying the blu-ray because they hate the SE!!! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!1" Pad it out with an extra commentary track and some BTS stuff, and voila, you've successfully milked the franchise for that much longer.
Hell, even George himself said this time around that "it would be too expensive" to properly restore and remaster the OOT. I think he knows the excuse that the originals "don't exist anymore" died the moment he put out the GOUT. Not that "it's expensive" is any kind of excuse either, but at least he's not kidding us anymore: it's about money.
In regards to Phantom Menace 3D, the realistic side of George had to have realized the returns were never gonna be great on that one. He even laughed at himself on The Colbert Report when Stephen asked him if he owned all the Star Wars movies on dvd and replied "I think so, I'm not sure about Episode I." All I have to say is that I saw the ROTS blu-ray on my uncle's huge projection screen and WOW, that movie is practically 3-dimensional already! So I think George was ready to take the hit for TPM 3D's inevitably shitty box office just so he could get to Clones and Sith. As we've all said before, the OT will do well because it's the OT.
As for when we'll finally see a restored OOT, who knows, but I think it will happen eventually. I'm sure they'll release the movies individually on blu-ray at some point, and that's yet another potential opportunity for them to throw in the original versions.
Speaking of which (and I've said this before), here's what I think is so good of a plan it would be idiotic for LFL not to do this:
We still haven't heard anything about a 3d blu-ray of TPM, but if LFL were smart, they would include the theatrical cut in the package. Do the same thing with AOTC in 2013 and ROTS in 2014. Then, when we get to ANH in 2015, they could go all out and throw in not only the original version, but the '97 version as well. Maybe spread out some cool extra features over all the leftover space on those several discs. Make it an elaborate collector's set just like we've seen in the past few years for stuff like Wizard of Oz, Ben-Hur, etc, and make this the only way you can get the original version on blu-ray. Repeat for Empire in 2016 and repeat again for Jedi in 2017. Yeah, it would mean we'd have to wait a while to get the entire OOT, but I think the fans would eat it up. If LFL were smart, they'd realize the business opportunity they've got here.
However they end up doing it, I think we'll see the OOT eventually. They won't be able to pull the blu-ray equivalent of the GOUT on us either. The old laserdisc masters + the fact that not as many people had widescreen tv's back in '06 meant easy money for LFL, but it's not like they've got 2K or even 480p transfers of the OOT just sitting around waiting to be dumped on blu-ray. They would actually have to put in some effort this time.