Besides "The films need to be the way I want them," has Lucas stated anything as to why the Blu-rays became the travesty that they are? — Page 6

SilverWook said:

Wait a minute. The whole raison d'etre for the 1997 versions, was George felt the OOT were unfinished works, because he didn't have enough time and money originally to achieve his "vision".

So, he essentially leaves them unfinished again, on purpose this time?

Good point. Lucas' rationale just doesn't hold up to serious scrutiny. It's the stuff of satire that would make Orwell, Kafka and Heller proud. 

Here's an infamous quote from 2004 by LFL's VP of marketing, Jim Ward in response to the demand for the original versions:

We love our fans but this is about art and filmmaking.

As a point of integrity, an organisation that loves their fans and is truly concerned "about art and filmmaking" wouldn't deliberately release an unfinished product with the founder claiming during interviews that the release fulfils their "vision." (On a side note, a company that loves their fans and is committed to the ideals of art and filmmaking wouldn't suppress the availability of their films, nor would they release vandalised versions in the first place.)   

imperialscum said:

Mike O said:

I actually love that blue/green tone. That was the only good thing about 2004 release of OT.

Like it or dislike it, it's not how the film looked for 25 years prior to its Blu-ray release, and that, IMO, is not OK.

In digital form the colours of course do not degrade over time.

On the other hand, film stock have never looked the same over 25 years since it is constantly changing (degrading) the colours. At the time they scanned for DVD the colours were different from ones that were originally captured on set. Not to mention if they scanned a copy of the original footage. And even further, films stock could not have captured the exact colours that were percieved by the director's eyes at the time he setup the scene. So if the director thought that were not the colours he perceived at the time, I don't see why not try to reproduce them the way he wanted them.

Yes, and the type of film stock upon which Aliens was shot was difficult and discontinued thereafter. That's not the point. Did the film look exactly the same over the course of those 25 years? Maybe not. But over the course of time, it still had a very specific color palette which millions of fans came to know the film looked like. For the Blu release, Cameron specifically changed the look of the film to a way which it hadn't looked before. It's also a color-timing issue he applied to T1, and the teal and orange is currently trendy, so I question his "originally" comment anyway. It's NOT the way either of those films looked for decades. Cameron can pull a Lucas and say that's how he always intended them to look, but he's still changing something, and revising something, from how it's been known to look for decades. Obviously, how acceptable that is going to very from viewer to viewer, but it is significantly different. Maybe it is what he originally intended, but it's not film I came to love. Everyone looks like they have psoriasis on the new release. That screenshot alone clearly shows that it's completely different from the way it used to look. Unless of course Prometheus II: Deus Ex Machina reveals that the xenomorphs carried a pathogen or something. 

JayArgonaut said:

SilverWook said:

Wait a minute. The whole raison d'etre for the 1997 versions, was George felt the OOT were unfinished works, because he didn't have enough time and money originally to achieve his "vision".

So, he essentially leaves them unfinished again, on purpose this time?

Good point. Lucas' rationale just doesn't hold up to serious scrutiny. It's the stuff of satire that would make Orwell, Kafka and Heller proud. 

Here's an infamous quote from 2004 by LFL's VP of marketing, Jim Ward in response to the demand for the original versions:

We love our fans but this is about art and filmmaking.

As a point of integrity, an organization that loves their fans and is truly concerned "about art and filmmaking" wouldn't deliberately release an unfinished product with the founder claiming during interviews that the release fulfills their "vision." (On a side note, a company that loves their fans and is committed to the ideals of art and filmmaking wouldn't suppress the availability of their films, nor would they release vandalized versions in the first place.)   

 As with much of digital revisionism Lucas practices, his so-called "original vision" has changed at least 3 times. Moreover, if that was his "original vision," he shouldn't have released the GOUT. Then he'd have at least stuck to his guns even if I'd have disliked him and disagreed with him. Now he's pretty much contradicted everything he himself has said.

Mike O said:

imperialscum said:

Mike O said:

I actually love that blue/green tone. That was the only good thing about 2004 release of OT.

Like it or dislike it, it's not how the film looked for 25 years prior to its Blu-ray release, and that, IMO, is not OK.

In digital form the colours of course do not degrade over time.

On the other hand, film stock have never looked the same over 25 years since it is constantly changing (degrading) the colours. At the time they scanned for DVD the colours were different from ones that were originally captured on set. Not to mention if they scanned a copy of the original footage. And even further, films stock could not have captured the exact colours that were percieved by the director's eyes at the time he setup the scene. So if the director thought that were not the colours he perceived at the time, I don't see why not try to reproduce them the way he wanted them.

Yes, and the type of film stock upon which Aliens was shot was difficult and discontinued thereafter. That's not the point. Did the film look exactly the same over the course of those 25 years? Maybe not. But over the course of time, it still had a very specific color palette which millions of fans came to know the film looked like. For the Blu release, Cameron specifically changed the look of the film to a way which it hadn't looked before. It's also a color-timing issue he applied to T1, and the teal and orange is currently trendy, so I question his "originally" comment anyway. It's NOT the way either of those films looked for decades. Cameron can pull a Lucas and say that's how he always intended them to look, but he's still changing something, and revising something, from how it's been known to look for decades. Obviously, how acceptable that is going to very from viewer to viewer, but it is significantly different. Maybe it is what he originally intended, but it's not film I came to love. Everyone looks like they have psoriasis on the new release. That screenshot alone clearly shows that it's completely different from the way it used to look. Unless of course Prometheus II: Deus Ex Machina reveals that the xenomorphs carried a pathogen or something.

My point is that over the course of 25 years fans did not experience relatively similar colour palette. Film stock degradation aside, just the difference between colours reproduced by the projection and the one on the film stock is considerable. I think projection is a bad technique and that's the reason why I rarely go to film theatres. If we go further, there is a huge colour difference between a modern LED screen and old CTR screen (there is even a considerable difference between my new LED and my old LCD). The actual difference between the instances I mentioned above can be as big as the difference between two screenshots you posted.

Don't worry, all of the projectionists lost those jobs to digital, so that's no longer an issue. I think that's a huge loss, but hey, I'm stuck int the past. I think if you go through the previous VHS, laserdisc, DVD, TV, and 35mm releases, you'll find that if the color doesn't look the same, it's a similar baseline, which looks completely different from the Blu release. I'm not saying that you can't prefer the newly revised look, but that teal and orange fad is relatively new and I'm fairly certain it wasn't the look which the film had in any incarnation before, if it was even possible to achieve with the technology of the time. I just don't see any way around the fact that this is a deliberate change. You could of course argue that it's a positive or insignificant change, but given how recent the fad of this coloring is and how many sites have reported on it, IMO it is a deliberate change. How much in changes the movie is obviously going be up to each individual viewer. Over the years the fans may have experienced a different color pallet, but this one is different enough that people notice it. But hey, I like 35mm, so to each his own ;). 

I don't know whether it was a deliberate change or just different scanning setup. I mean I am not an expert of digitalisation process but the fact is that different conditions will most definitely produce different colours. Or alternatively, the digitalised footage was post-proccesed by shifting the overall hue.

As I said, film stock is far from perfect. The director might have set the lighting of the set the way he wanted but the colours captured on the film stock did not reflect the reality as perceived by the human eye. In fact, looking at the two screenshot you provided, I would easily concluded that the Blu-Ray colours look way more natural. But that's subjective of course.

There is another interesting thing. It seems humans are very poor at memorising the actual overall hue of the footage seen. If I did not make the explicit comparison between let's say DVD and Blu-Ray shots, i.e. only using my memory of DVD version as a reference when watching Blu-Ray version, I could have never noticed the difference in the colours.

George's vision is appalling.

Knightmessenger said:

msycamore said:

Baronlando said:

The '97 certainly started out as an honest restoration, which the movie needed, even the original plan of a few shots wouldn't have been unreasonable, but then turned into a perfect storm of drunken digital crayon mayhem and classic movies being used as R&D. The lameness of the blu-rays is probably just basic cheapness.

True, it may have started out as an honest attempt at restoration but it was pretty clear from the beginning that Lucas was also going to revise the film. They started storyboarding changes to ANH in 1993, added Jabba in 1994 for example.

What I don't understand is why the heck did FOX pay for all this restoration and not release a home video release of that effort or even produced new prints before the drunken digital crayon mayhem began?  Instead they went with George's wishes and re-released the '93 telecine as a "Last time available" video in '95, simultaneously with this "restoration" being worked on. But I guess they were Lucas' lapdog at that point with the forthcoming prequels on the horizon. I don't think a restored original release on the shelves would have diminished the income for their Special Edition theatrical release either.

Fox is basically as much guilty as Lucas in this travesty.

 Did either of you watch "Anatomy of a Dewback" on the third blu ray bonus disc? It's surprisingly low quality for something you think would have been ported over from a studio videotape master. However there are a lot of interesting parts.

Lucas says he saved everything from the films 1) in case he ever wanted to reedit them and 2) he is like a packrat that doesn't throw anything out.

No, I wouldn't touch that ridiculous BD set with a ten foot pole. But if it is indeed the same featurette that can also be seen on the official site, I've at least seen it in the past. I recall it was just a fluffy Special Edition PR piece with a bunch of ass kissers and nerds who finally got the chance to play around in the SW-sandbox.

Knightmessenger said:

They do show a video of the Look Sir Droids scene, as to how they add to it in 97. But it does include a clip of the original unaltered scene, that appears to be sourced from the YCM restored print. That means the stormtrooper doesn't have 4 eyes. And before that scene, the sandcrawler goes off in with clouds visible in the sky because it was day for night. Well, in the clip they showed, it was much more apparent that it was a daytime sky than the GOUT. (which is tinted darker to hide it somewhat)

So whatever they used had to be like the most original highest generation print of the restored film without any changes.

What the hell did they do with that tape? We're told they spliced in the new footage into the film print but still wouldn't they have made some kind of a video master from that? If nothing else to use as a reference?

But wouldn't that tape have been preferable to use in 1995 for the faces set? Or the 2006 dvd? And if you're going to make an archival tape, why not stretch it anamorphically because surely, LFL knew that would retain more detail and might be useful if widescreen televisions ever became popular.

Don't know what tape you mean but yes, it's basically what I was saying. That's why the "restoration" done in the 90's wasn't exactly honest even in its origin. You simply don't release "A Last Time Available" video release simultaneously with an ongoing restoration. It was meant as a replacement from the very moment the restoration began and Fox allowed it and payed for the whole thing. Sad but true.

If for some miracle the big "George champion of film preservation Lucas" suddenly made a complete 180 and wanted his earlier works of cinema available in modern video standards, Disney, Lucasfilm, Warner or Universal wouldn't exactly oppose his desire. George doesn't want them released, that's why we haven't seen them released on modern formats. It's not an issue of nonexistent or deteriorated film elements. The roadblock has always been Lucas, period.

Fang Zei said:

Cameron didn't quite do the same thing as Lucas with his newer transfers of Aliens and Titanic, no, but then again I think Cameron puts more emphasis on the original version's edit being what makes it the "original version" than any digital revisions that may be found within otherwise identical edits, and he "fixed" a whole bunch of things in Titanic for its most recent release. Funny enough, the theatrical cut of Aliens on the blu-ray can't technically be called that from an editing standpoint either: Cameron corrected the order of four shots where Ripley picks up a flamethrower, puts down a machine gun, picks up a machine gun, puts down a flamethrower.

Wasn't sure if Cameron's latest SE tweaks were applied to both cuts, thanks for confirming. That's sad but with that new color timing I wouldn't have upgraded anyway.

That pulse rifle / flamethrower edit mixup on the dropship, had apparently been corrected already for the '89 TV-broadcast version where most of the footage in the Special Edition first appeared. I don't recall if that continuity error was present in the Special Edition when it was first released back in 1992 and the DVD's brought back the continuity error or not.

The Special Edition of Aliens isn't exactly a Director's Cut in the truest sense either, new visual effects had to be created back in the '90's for example. It's just unfortunate that the 1986 theatrical cut also gets affected just because the director cannot stop dickin around with his Special Edition.

Fang Zei said:

Although I guess I should simply be thankful that the only thing he erased in Aliens (AFAIK) is Lance Henricksen's torso sticking out of the ground in a shot during the final action scene. It's almost like the snake pit reflection to Aliens' RotLA.

There was a few other minor tweaks done on Aliens, see here: http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=294598 

If I recall correctly, the hangar matte painting was also tweaked. Besides the alterations in the Well of Souls, Raiders of the Lost Ark also have the pole guiding the boulder erased. But the other tweaks done in 2003 didn't make the jump.

DominicCobb said:

SilverWook said:

DominicCobb said:

THX 1138 is definitely not lost. I watched the original on-demand a couple years ago. I believe it was standard definition, but still.

 You think you could track that down? Even an SD version might be better than the dodgy Laserdisc master that's caused the preservation project more than a few headaches.

Hmm, I wouldn't know how. I saw it almost three years ago now on Comcast On Demand in the free movies section, and they rotate stuff in and out of that. 

Quality wasn't great but it was probably better than Laserdisc, though this is coming from someone who's never seen a Laserdisc.

As with the Star Wars trilogy and American Graffiti, the last transfer done of the original THX 1138 was done in the early 90's for VHS and Laserdisc. So that is most definitely what you saw. Still interesting and nice you were able to see it that way.

generalfrevious said:

About the debate wether Lucas destroyed the original negatives for the special editions; I think that it could have happened. Most film makers would restore the negative before adding the special effects digitally. But since Lucas is dumb enough to make Yoda fight in the prequels, he surely must be stupid enough to splice the negatives of the originals for the special editions. Let's face it: years from now the original trilogy will be on Wikipedia's article on lost films.

Altering original negatives seems highly unlikely, despite the possible stupidity of the person doing it because:

1. It is much easier to apply any kind of changes to digital scan on a computer than directly to the film stock.

2. It is impossible to apply CGI physically on a film stock lol.

3. Even if you apply physical changes to film stock you don't do it on the only copy of it, in case any mistakes or accidents occur.

I am convinced both original film stock (or copies of it) and scanned unaltered digital version of it exist. The only other scenario is that Lucas explicitly ordered to destroy/delete them.

imperialscum said:

I am convinced both original film stock (or copies of it) and scanned unaltered digital version of it exist. The only other scenario is that Lucas explicitly ordered to destroy/delete them.

Yes, ala Kubrick, who instructed Leon Vitali to destroy the deleted scenes and outtakes from 2001, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. 

Tobar said:

Tanaka: I remember when we were working on the Star Wars restoration, that was a different process. I think we optically recreated interpositives. But in order to do this, it went through some kind of warm chemical bath cleansing. The weird thing about Star Wars was that it was made up of different film stocks, so it went through this bath and they didn’t know what would come out on the other end...

Parker: You mean if it would survive or not? ‘George we might destroy your entire film, but it’s... we think it’s going to be OK.’

Tanaka: There’s a space battle shot and a close-up on Hans Solo, and the original negative is coming out of this cleaning solution and it’s just acetate.

Parker: It’s all clear. Oh no, did the bath dissolve it?

Tanaka: Yeah, it dissolved it, depending on the film stock.

Source

Seriously though, how many different versions and horror stories are we going to hear about how things happened for this "restoration"? What is described doesn't make much sense to me either or do I misunderstand what he is saying, he mentions that he think they optically recreated interpositives and the chemical bath dissolved parts that were of different film stock but then he suddenly says the original negative is coming out of this cleaning solution partly dissolved.

The original negative for Star Wars contained four types of film stocks, as two of them couldn't be exposed to the bath, each stock was treated separately. It was disassembled cleaned and reassembled to avoid just such a scenario he described.

JayArgonaut said:

imperialscum said:

I am convinced both original film stock (or copies of it) and scanned unaltered digital version of it exist. The only other scenario is that Lucas explicitly ordered to destroy/delete them.

Yes, ala Kubrick, who instructed Leon Vitali to destroy the deleted scenes and outtakes from 2001, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. 

 Yes, Stanley had stuff burned, but even the most meticulous director can't account for every scrap of film. They found the deleted 2001 footage in a salt mine MGM uses to preserve it's library several years back. Whether we get to see it anytime soon is anyone's guess.

The Eastman House advertised a Halloween screening of The Shining a couple years back with the legendary cut ending. They had to change their plans and show the final cut, presumably because Kubrick's estate objected, but that footage is in someone's hands somewhere.

generalfrevious said:

About the debate whether Lucas destroyed the original negatives for the special editions; I think that it could have happened. Most film makers would restore the negative before adding the special effects digitally. But since Lucas is dumb enough to make Yoda fight in the prequels, he surely must be stupid enough to splice the negatives of the originals for the special editions. Let's face it: years from now the original trilogy will be on Wikipedia's article on lost films.

 In the case of other changes like Cameron's, I'm inclined to believe that were simply done at the digital stage, and they're reversible, though of course that would require people to actually boycott until he stopped doing it, and in the case of high-profile releases like that, it so won't happen. We're stuck with his revisionism. If Lucas did destroy the negatives, is it possible to make a new one from a positive print of the originals? I'm think I remember reading about it being done with Stagecoach.

msycamore said:

Knightmessenger said:

msycamore said:

Baronlando said:

The '97 certainly started out as an honest restoration, which the movie needed, even the original plan of a few shots wouldn't have been unreasonable, but then turned into a perfect storm of drunken digital crayon mayhem and classic movies being used as R&D. The lameness of the blu-rays is probably just basic cheapness.

True, it may have started out as an honest attempt at restoration but it was pretty clear from the beginning that Lucas was also going to revise the film. They started storyboarding changes to ANH in 1993, added Jabba in 1994 for example.

What I don't understand is why the heck did FOX pay for all this restoration and not release a home video release of that effort or even produced new prints before the drunken digital crayon mayhem began?  Instead they went with George's wishes and re-released the '93 telecine as a "Last time available" video in '95, simultaneously with this "restoration" being worked on. But I guess they were Lucas' lapdog at that point with the forthcoming prequels on the horizon. I don't think a restored original release on the shelves would have diminished the income for their Special Edition theatrical release either.

Fox is basically as much guilty as Lucas in this travesty.

 Did either of you watch "Anatomy of a Dewback" on the third blu ray bonus disc? It's surprisingly low quality for something you think would have been ported over from a studio videotape master. However there are a lot of interesting parts.

Lucas says he saved everything from the films 1) in case he ever wanted to reedit them and 2) he is like a packrat that doesn't throw anything out.

No, I wouldn't touch that ridiculous BD set with a ten foot pole. But if it is indeed the same featurette that can also be seen on the official site, I've at least seen it in the past. I recall it was just a fluffy Special Edition PR piece with a bunch of ass kissers and nerds who finally got the chance to play around in the SW-sandbox.

Knightmessenger said:

They do show a video of the Look Sir Droids scene, as to how they add to it in 97. But it does include a clip of the original unaltered scene, that appears to be sourced from the YCM restored print. That means the stormtrooper doesn't have 4 eyes. And before that scene, the sandcrawler goes off in with clouds visible in the sky because it was day for night. Well, in the clip they showed, it was much more apparent that it was a daytime sky than the GOUT. (which is tinted darker to hide it somewhat)

So whatever they used had to be like the most original highest generation print of the restored film without any changes.

What the hell did they do with that tape? We're told they spliced in the new footage into the film print but still wouldn't they have made some kind of a video master from that? If nothing else to use as a reference?

But wouldn't that tape have been preferable to use in 1995 for the faces set? Or the 2006 dvd? And if you're going to make an archival tape, why not stretch it anamorphically because surely, LFL knew that would retain more detail and might be useful if widescreen televisions ever became popular.

Don't know what tape you mean but yes, it's basically what I implied. That's why the "restoration" done in the 90's wasn't exactly honest even in its origin. You simply don't release "A Last Time Available" video release simultaneously with an ongoing restoration. It was meant as a replacement from the very moment the restoration began and Fox allowed it and payed for the whole thing. Sad but true.

If for some miracle the big "George champion of film preservation Lucas" suddenly made a complete 180 and wanted his earlier works of cinema available in modern video standards, Disney, Lucasfilm, Warner or Universal wouldn't exactly oppose his desire. George doesn't want them released, that's why we haven't seen them released on modern formats. It's not an issue of nonexistent or deteriorated film elements. The roadblock has always been Lucas, period.

Fang Zei said:

Cameron didn't quite do the same thing as Lucas with his newer transfers of Aliens and Titanic, no, but then again I think Cameron puts more emphasis on the original version's edit being what makes it the "original version" than any digital revisions that may be found within otherwise identical edits, and he "fixed" a whole bunch of things in Titanic for its most recent release. Funny enough, the theatrical cut of Aliens on the blu-ray can't technically be called that from an editing standpoint either: Cameron corrected the order of four shots where Ripley picks up a flamethrower, puts down a machine gun, picks up a machine gun, puts down a flamethrower.

Wasn't sure if Cameron's latest SE tweaks were applied to both cuts, thanks for confirming. That's sad but with that new color timing I wouldn't have upgraded anyway.

That pulse rifle / flamethrower edit mixup on the dropship, had apparently been corrected already for the '89 TV-broadcast version where most of the footage in the Special Edition first appeared. I don't recall if that continuity error was present in the Special Edition when it was first released back in 1992 and the DVD's brought back the continuity error or not.

The Special Edition of Aliens isn't exactly a Director's Cut in the truest sense either, new visual effects had to be created back in the '90's for example. It's just unfortunate that the 1986 theatrical cut also gets affected just because the director cannot stop dickin around with his Special Edition.

Fang Zei said:

Although I guess I should simply be thankful that the only thing he erased in Aliens (AFAIK) is Lance Henricksen's torso sticking out of the ground in a shot during the final action scene. It's almost like the snake pit reflection to Aliens' RotLA.

There was a few other minor tweaks done on Aliens, see here: http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=294598 

If I recall correctly, the hangar matte painting was also tweaked. Besides the alterations in the Well of Souls, Raiders of the Lost Ark also have the pole guiding the boulder erased. But the other tweaks done in 2003 didn't make the jump.

I'm willing to tolerate the minor edits, though begrudgingly, but the color-timing changes are simply unacceptable, it was them and the lack of the mono which kept me from buying T1, and rumor has it that HDTV version of The Abyss which started circulating recently does as well, which means the Blu-Ray will likewise. As far as I'm concerned, it makes him just as bad as Lucas. And he's about as likely to fix it anytime soon.

msycamore said:

Tobar said:

Tanaka: I remember when we were working on the Star Wars restoration, that was a different process. I think we optically recreated interpositives. But in order to do this, it went through some kind of warm chemical bath cleansing. The weird thing about Star Wars was that it was made up of different film stocks, so it went through this bath and they didn’t know what would come out on the other end...

Parker: You mean if it would survive or not? ‘George we might destroy your entire film, but it’s... we think it’s going to be OK.’

Tanaka: There’s a space battle shot and a close-up on Hans Solo, and the original negative is coming out of this cleaning solution and it’s just acetate.

Parker: It’s all clear. Oh no, did the bath dissolve it?

Tanaka: Yeah, it dissolved it, depending on the film stock.

Source

Seriously though, how many different versions and horror stories are we going to hear about how things happened for this "restoration"? What is described doesn't make much sense to me either or do I misunderstand what he is saying, he mentions that he think they optically recreated interpositives and the chemical bath dissolved parts that were of different film stock but then he suddenly says the original negative is coming out of this cleaning solution partly dissolved.

The original negative for Star Wars contained four types of film stocks, as two of them couldn't be exposed to the bath, each stock was treated separately. It was disassembled cleaned and reassembled to avoid just such a scenario he described.

 I'm not saying this to be a smartass, but are you sure? Do you think he was lying, misinformed, or just being an idiot?

SilverWook said:

JayArgonaut said:

imperialscum said:

I am convinced both original film stock (or copies of it) and scanned unaltered digital version of it exist. The only other scenario is that Lucas explicitly ordered to destroy/delete them.

Yes, ala Kubrick, who instructed Leon Vitali to destroy the deleted scenes and outtakes from 2001, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. 

 Yes, Stanley had stuff burned, but even the most meticulous director can't account for every scrap of film. They found the deleted 2001 footage in a salt mine MGM uses to preserve it's library several years back. Whether we get to see it anytime soon is anyone's guess.

The Eastman House advertised a Halloween screening of The Shining a couple years back with the legendary cut ending. They had to change their plans and show the final cut, presumably because Kubrick's estate objected, but that footage is in someone's hands somewhere.

 Yeah, maybe back when they actually used film. 35mm is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night, and given how digitally obsessed Lucas is, I wouldn't put it past him to find digital archiving to be sufficient and destroy the negative.

PS What is the cut ending of The Shining? Enlighten me about some of these stories.

Mike O said:

I'm not saying this to be a smartass, but are you sure?

If we are to believe what has been said and written about it in several magazines, articles, documentaries etc, yes that is the way they approached the cleanup process.

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/starwars/articles/sped/ssws/pg1.htm

Fortunately, Fox's head of postproduction, Ted Gagliano, made the restoration of Star Wars a personal labor of love, working closely with YCM Labs, Pacific Title, Lucasfilm editorial, ILM and Skywalker Sound. Had the negative been constructed more conventionally, the first order of business would have been to wash it in a sulfur bath a 104F, then wipe it down by hand. But those four different film stocks couldn't be washed together; instead, they had to be separated and washed in batches. That meant dissecting the original Star Wars negative, washing it, and then reassembling it. "That made everybody suck in their breath, " Kennedy says, recalling the stressfull situation. "Thankfully, Robert Hart, the neg cutter on the second and third films, came in to put the negative back together. After doing various tests, we found out right away that nothing beats scanning original negative. Star Wars was an A-B neg cut, which meant that they could actually lift and slug original negative and send it back to ILM whenever we were enhancing a live-action shot. I think this is the first time someone has tried to bring a Seventies effects film back to the big screen."

Mike O said:

Do you think he was lying, misinformed, or just being an idiot?

No, I absolutely don't think he was lying, being misinformed nor do I think he's an idiot. David Tanaka were a visual effects editor at ILM who was directly involved with this "restoration." He was apparently responsible for finding the elements for the original optical effects so that they could be digitally recomposited.

I just find it frustrating hearing these vague stories on how things went down as there's been a lot of confusion and different thoughts on what actually was done to the original negative. It effectively muddies the water. Reading that quote from arstechnica again, my guess is that when he says original negative he's actually talking about those negative bits and pieces they had to track down for recreating and making their new visual effect shots and not the actual finished cut negative that was disassembled, washed and reassembled. But what he was saying may of course have been perfectly clear to you or everyone else besides me.

So, Mike O, what did you make of his story? Do you think I am misinformed, or just being an idiot? ;)

Mike O said:

PS What is the cut ending of The Shining? Enlighten me about some of these stories.

http://www.theoverlookhotel.com/post/41259062113/screenplay-for-the-deleted-original-ending-of-the

http://www.theoverlookhotel.com/post/18532274943/these-three-continuity-polaroids-are-all-that

http://www.theoverlookhotel.com/post/41503679479/i-deleted-a-brief-epilogue-scene-between-shelley

The best damn Shining website from Timbuktu, to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon for that matter. ;)

generalfrevious said:

But what Lucas is doing to the OT is unique. I know few believe this, but I think he wants to spite us and make one of the most significant films of all time disappear off the face of the Earth. 

I think Lucas has drawn inspiration from the behaviour of Kubrick and taken it to a whole new level. In the UK, for 27 years, at his insistence, it was impossible for us to legally see A Clockwork Orange. The ban only ended with Kubrick's death.

During the 90s, at his behest, WB sued a British cinema that dared to show the film, causing them to go into receivership. According to one British documentary, even owning the US Laserdisc in the UK was officially prohibited. The WB office in London gave a posthumous tribute to Kubrick by listing on their building the titles of the films he'd produced for their studio and of course, ACO was glaringly omitted.

It seems like Lucas has looked at what Kubrick did with that situation in the UK and thought, "I'll do that with the OOT on an international level." 

Apples and oranges. (Yes, I went there.) Lucas and his family weren't living under the specter of someone doing them physical harm because the OT remained in circulation.

And so far, rogue screenings of Star Wars have gone on without a peep from the ranch.

Not quite...

http://savestarwars.com/lucas-nfr.html

"Written into George Lucas' contract with Fox is the line stating that any prints of the original that are found must be hunted up and destroyed," he said. "As a result, film collectors are very loath to disclose where any prints of any Lucas films are at all. There are a few IB Technicolor Star Wars prints in private hands." He went on to state. "I'm not sure which contract it is. I have no idea whether it's public record or not.  I do know that in the early 2000s there were a Technicolor festival in LA, and Star Wars was announced as a title.  After trying to legally clear the title through Fox, the organizers of the festival were threatened with having the print confiscated and destroyed. They told the organizers of the festival that it was a line in Lucas' contract.  The organizers were frantic to get rid of the print they had so that Fox couldn't get to it."