4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 31

So its only the second 2 prequels that are stuck forever in 2K

I guess GL wasn't planning ahead for technological advances. Funny, I thought he patiently waited 20 years so he could add a bunch of modern technology to his movies :-) He really screwed up there didn't he

adywan said:

moviefreakedmind said:

I saw someone post this on hometheaterforums.com today. Not sure if this is completely accurate but I thought i'd post this here since it sounded interesting and has to do with the 4K restoration. I personally don't know what to believe because Wielage said that they wouldn't do a 4K release, but RMW did have on their website (not anymore) that they worked on 4K, so there's no way RMW would lie about that, which begs the question of when Mr. Wielage actually wrote this.

"I thought I would pass this information along.
 
Marc Wielage, who worked on the 2004 Star Wars masters, and has 35 years of video mastering experience within the industry (also having worked for Technicolor and Kodak), recently commented on AVS to my question of whether he had any knowledge of any 4K Star Wars work.  I won't post the link as I am not sure if that is allowed here, but he replied to me.
 
To my knowledge, no -- it was all 2K. Note that Episodes 2 and 3 were all shot on HD with 2K visual effects, and none of the VFX in any of the Star Wars films were more than 2K. Some of the early digital stuff in the 1990s wasn't even HD.
It's an interesting thought as to whether they'd consider rescanning 100% of the live-action film footage in Star Wars and recomping all the VFX in 4K. That would be a monstrous expense -- I'm guessing as much as $20M -- so my gut feeling is it's not gonna happen. 
People get very wrapped up in 4K, but I'm not convinced it's the be-all / end-all. I think 4K can look great, and I'm all for people shooting in this format, but the post process for 4K is so torturous and expensive, I'm not sure if the world is ready for it yet. I think it can work, but when you're looking at a project with upwards of 1200 visual effects, and each one takes 2 or 3 days to bounce around to different facilities (in 2K)... multiply that times 4 and tell me what it does to the schedule. 
Having said that: there are more and more TV shows shooting in 4K. Sony showed some 4K demos of The Blacklistback in April at NAB, and I thought it looked fantastic. But that's not a show with 200 effects per episode."

 I guess he was forgetting that all the FX work on the originals was done using film and only the special editions effects were done @ 2k or below. The originals could easily be scanned @4k

 Yes, so would that mean that if Disney wanted to do a 4K restoration, they'd have to scan mos eisley, cloud city, etc. etc. in their unaltered form, and add the CGI sh#t later? Meaning that they'd be able to restore the OUT and simultaneously recreate the SE if they choose?

yoda-sama said:

Did the canonical status of the original Clone Wars series officially get stripped?  If so, did it go out the window with the Expanded Universe, or sometime before that (in short, explain this canon purge)?  Also, does the CG Clone Wars series ever deal with the events directly leading up to Episode III?

Disney did not de-canonize the Expanded Universe. Because it NEVER was officialy canon. 

From the first Zahn trilogy they said (Lucasfilm) that if Lucas ever wanted to make movies set after ROTJ the stories could be totaly different. 

Disney just sent a reminder to people who forgot that fact. (of course they could have decided to adapt the books, but in this case it would have been a "canonization" of the EU)

(And yes, the first CW series is not canon since they started the CG one. Don't know if it ever was canon by the way. Just know that the CG on is canon. So the other is obviously not.)

Tobar said:

TMBTM said:

Disney did not de-canonize the Expanded Universe. Because it NEVER was officialy canon. 

From the first Zahn trilogy they said (Lucasfilm) that if Lucas ever wanted to make movies set after ROTJ the stories could be totaly different. 

 Don't tell these guys that. They'll have your head.

Hehe. Well, they can twist the truth as much as they want. Truth is: when I read Heir to the Empire in the 90's I knew those books were just cool "what if" stories. And I never really thought otherwise since then.

Of course some  ideas from the books can enventualy be used in the movies if Lucas (and now Disney) thinks it's okay. But believing that the stories from those books would automaticaly be used as the basis for new movies was against what they said from the start. It could have been an option though. But it was not "canon" in the sens that those stories were "writen in stone". They never were.

What they could've done, if they had so desired, is simply set Episode 7 at wherever and whenever they were up to in the novels. It would've certainly been possible. The only real problem would've been Chewie's absence, but even that could be communicated to the layman audience with a moment of Han looking at his photograph or something. But they literally could've gotten away with just not bringing up whatever's happened in the 30-40 years since RotJ. It's not like previous stuff hasn't "ignored" what came before. They could've simply "ignored" once more, but instead decided to jettison everything George didn't have a direct involvement with.

I disagree that "the old EU was never considered canon." Everything from Zahn onwards was certainly considered canon. As I recall, it wasn't until 2008 clone wars that the idea of the different "levels" of canon was introduced. That show set such a giant precedent of overwriting EU it was covering the same ground as (in this case the previous clone wars stuff from 2002-2005).

Fang Zei said:

I disagree that "the old EU was never considered canon." Everything from Zahn onwards was certainly considered canon. As I recall, it wasn't until 2008 clone wars that the idea of the different "levels" of canon was introduced. That show set such a giant precedent of overwriting EU it was covering the same ground as (in this case the previous clone wars stuff from 2002-2005).

There are no different levels of canon. Am I wrong? (true question, not playing smartass here.) To me there is canon and not. So it you say that the official canon/ not canon "rule" has officialy started in 2008, then everything E.U before 2008 cannot be considered canon or not in a way, because "canon" did not exist. What existed though is words from Lucasfilm saying that the stories of these books could possibly not be taken as a basis for future movies if Lucas wanted to make more.

Tobar said:

The problem was that while the official company line was "It's all canon folks!"

 Not what I read about in the 90's when the books where released. (of course the ads in the magazines could have such lines as "the next chapters in the SW saga" and things like that. I give you that)

I still don't see how at least the last part of the original Clone Wars animated series--the part that directly related to the 3rd movie by setting up all the events at the beginning of that film--isn't considered canon.  Rest of that series kind of blew, but the stuff that directly related to the films seemed rather important.

yoda-sama said:

I still don't see how at least the last part of the original Clone Wars animated series--the part that directly related to the 3rd movie by setting up all the events at the beginning of that film--isn't considered canon.  Rest of that series kind of blew, but the stuff that directly related to the films seemed rather important.

 It was done with a tie with the movie in mind, indeed. But that does not make it "canon". Basicaly what makes something canon or not is what lucasfilm says is canon or not... But of course everyone can have their own private canon. To me it is recomended even!

Bottom line for me on this subject is that since Lucas said so many times that he will not make more SW after his two trilogies, the fans tended to believe that the E.U was, logicaly, de facto, "canon" cause it would be the only stories with Han, Luke, Leia and co, that would ever be told. But it never was to begin with (cause Lucas always had the right to change his mind), and Disney and Lucasfilm agreed to keep it that way when they decided to make more movies.

TMBTM said:

Fang Zei said:

I disagree that "the old EU was never considered canon." Everything from Zahn onwards was certainly considered canon. As I recall, it wasn't until 2008 clone wars that the idea of the different "levels" of canon was introduced. That show set such a giant precedent of overwriting EU it was covering the same ground as (in this case the previous clone wars stuff from 2002-2005).

There are no different levels of canon. Am I wrong? (true question, not playing smartass here.) To me there is canon and not. So it you say that the official canon/ not canon "rule" has officialy started in 2008, then everything E.U before 2008 cannot be considered canon or not in a way, because "canon" did not exist. What existed though is words from Lucasfilm saying that the stories of these books could possibly not be taken as a basis for future movies if Lucas wanted to make more.

 There are, or at least were, 6 levels of canon: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Canon#Canon_in_the_Holocron_continuity_database

Canon should be for religion*, not for fictional franchises.

*And even that's questionable.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Canon should be for religion*, not for fictional franchises.

 

*And even that's questionable.

Correct. Fictional canon is the worst thing to ever happen to fiction.

SilverWook said:

Wasn't this thread about 4K something or other? ;)

Yup.

darklordoftech said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Canon should be for religion*, not for fictional franchises.

 

*And even that's questionable.

Correct. Fictional canon is the worst thing to ever happen to fiction.

 I agree 100%. I personally don't care what they retcon because I only consider things I don't find ridiculous to be canon, so it's a lot different than what is officially considered canon. For example, I had all kinds of ideas in my head about what happened to Anakin before he was Darth Vader etc. etc. and then I saw the prequels... Basically, I don't consider the prequels canon, no matter what Disney says about them being the "immovable pillars of the saga" or whatever. Also, Scream 3 had a really terrible ending that I felt ruined the ending of the first movie if you consider them both canon, so I don't consider that part of Scream 3 canon. Something I've noticed about TF.N and Wookiepedia people is that they almost seem obsessed with what is and isn't canon, almost like they think they aren't allowed to like things that aren't canon, it's kind of depressing really that people feel like they can't enjoy something that isn't officially recognized as part of the "saga". I personally don't blame Disney for not wanting to be beholden to all the expanded universe material, they did the retcon just to cover their tracks because they know their future movies are going to be much different.

To be fair, I've never read a Star Wars book before (except for the 1976 "Star Wars" book based on Lucas's script, but that doesn't really count) so maybe if I was actually interested in the EU I'd feel differently about all this.

gizzy2000 said:

To be fair, I've never read a Star Wars book before (except for the 1976 "Star Wars" book based on Lucas's script, but that doesn't really count) so maybe if I was actually interested in the EU I'd feel differently about all this.

Not necessarily. I like -- even love -- a sizeable portion of the EU, but I still reject the official canon nonsense. Hell, it's probably my love for those stories which is why I reject the canon nonsense; I wouldn't be able to enjoy the Tales of the Jedi comics, the Marvel comics, the Thrawn Trilogy, etc. if I had to reinterpret them into fitting the PT and the prequelized junk that followed.