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Star Wars theatrical versions not coming in 2015 — Page 6

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crissrudd4554 said:

TV's Frink said:

I hope it's true just so the thread title is wrong.

 Even if it's true, I highly doubt they're coming in 2015 especially if the steelbooks for the SEs were already released this year.

 Before this story broke I agreed, but now that I'm thinking of it as an actual possibility instead of a hypothetical I'm not so sure. I figure the level of excitement about Star Wars among the general public is probably going to be the absolute highest it ever will be during these next few months. Even if The Force Awakens is a masterpiece beyond everyone's wildest expectations, even if the franchise has a long and healthy life at Disney, nothing's ever going to compare to the anticipation for this first movie after such a long drought. I think if Disney releases this just before TFA, they're going to make a lot more money than if they hold off a couple of years, just because enthusiasm will have waned by then. The same population of diehards is going to buy it whenever it comes out, but now is probably the best time to get casual viewers interested. And besides, by that point they'll have a few of their own films to repackage. I kind of have to think if we're going to get any significant re-releases of old material, it's going to come before Disney generates too much of its own content. I've also got to think Fox would be interested in doing this while they still own all three films. This is probably all just rationalization, but eh. A guy can dream.

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 (Edited)

Criss has a point, if it was just the money, Lucas would have taken the free offer for a restoration. I remember that offer being made, it was one or more professional restoration guys were willing to do it for little or no money, they just wanted to preserve and restore the Star Wars trilogy and then give it back to Lucasfilm (similar to what Mike ended up doing, except they would have had full access to the best materials to work with).

This is mainly about his ego, which apparently has grown to gigantic proportions over the years. He thinks his changes in the SE, the even more SE (2004) and now the yet *more* SE (2011) are just brilliant. And he's quite annoyed that so many Star Wars fans strongly disagree with him on that, and find at least some of the changes very intrusive, incongruent, silly and in just plain bad taste. So he walked off in a huff and didn't want to play nice any more. But since he didn't have much interest in making more Star Wars movies (likely because the prequels got a rather, shall we say, cool reception among Star Wars fans... plus the general irritation among fans over a lack of the unaltered original trilogy in high quality), he decided to sell the whole thing to Disney. And now that it's no longer his direct responsibility what Disney does, he can distance himself, artistically and creatively speaking, from whatever Disney does in terms of releasing the unaltered original trilogy or whatever garbage they stick in these new movies (and he has a point there...).

The Star Wars trilogy. There can be only one.

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We also have to keep in mind is if these rumors are true, then how long has Disney/Lucasfilm been planning this? Since the sale in 2012? Production stages of TFA? Also there's the point to releasing them now to capitalize on the growing anticipation for TFA but do we know if Disney/Lucasfilm has even begun the restoration yet? Was the rumor posted by comicbook.com last year indeed true and the restoration has been ongoing since or was that just a rumor that has become true a year later? Again I know there's a lot to speculate until an official response is given but perhaps a statement from a fellow filmmaker who does know Lucas is a good sign. Who knows?

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Come to think of it, if Fox still has the rights to the trilogy, won't they try to withold this?

Ol’ George has the GOUT, I see.

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Fox has video distribution rights. I think they could play it in theaters without Fox's consent. V and VI could apparently be distributed digitally without Fox?

But I think an important point that people sometimes gloss over is: would Fox try to withhold this? Why would Fox try to withhold this? Would they simply not want to put money into it themselves? I can see why Disney might not want to go through with it until Fox's rights expire (or are otherwise dealt with for IV), but I can't quite see what Fox has to lose, here. 

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towne32 said:

Fox has video distribution rights. I think they could play it in theaters without Fox's consent. V and VI could apparently be distributed digitally without Fox?

But I think an important point that people sometimes gloss over is: would Fox try to withhold this? Why would Fox try to withhold this? Would they simply not want to put money into it themselves? I can see why Disney might not want to go through with it until Fox's rights expire (or are otherwise dealt with for IV), but I can't quite see what Fox has to lose, here. 

Fox would WANT this to happen because they only have a few years left to make money off of most of these films. Refusing to accept their distribution cut would literally just be turning down money for no reason at all. If anyone wanted to wait for some reason it would be Disney if they wanted to hold off until 2020 so they wouldn't have to give Fox a percentage on Empire and Jedi. I don't think that would happen though since the movies are all being released both physically and digitally.

The Person in Question

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Fox is in a bit of a pissing contest with Marvel over the movie rights to The Fanstastic Four though. And Disney owns Marvel.

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moviefreakedmind said:

Fox would WANT this to happen because they only have a few years left to make money off of most of these films. Refusing to accept their distribution cut would literally just be turning down money for no reason at all. If anyone wanted to wait for some reason it would be Disney if they wanted to hold off until 2020 so they wouldn't have to give Fox a percentage on Empire and Jedi. I don't think that would happen though since the movies are all being released both physically and digitally.

 Of course, I don't know how big of a cut Fox would get. But is it worth losing five years of sales to get the Fox margin back on two of the three films? Star Wars will probably still be big, then, though folks might be a bit saturated with it by that point. But they *know* it's big now. And it would do some good to turn back some of the more jaded fans as all the new material begins to run its course. 

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SilverWook said:

Fox is in a bit of a pissing contest with Marvel over the movie rights to The Fanstastic Four though. And Disney owns Marvel.

 It's turned into a pissing contest of who can most effectively destroy the franchise that people are already kind of "meh" about. 

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After reading other reviews of this rumor on other sites, some have noted that it was not exactly specified what it's being restored for if at all. BluRay?? Theatrical?? Both?? Sources I've read is that AMC Theatres is showing all 6 films as a marathon on the eve of the release date for TFA. However, I think showing the original versions, as much as I prefer them over the SEs, in that light with the prequels and having the new film released the next day would be a little awkward don't you think?? Unless I was misreading something. Not to mention it may also have the tendency to overshadow the much awaited anticipation for TFA. One thing I think I'm sure we can agree on is if they are indeed being restored than a BluRay release should be inevitable. Unlikely they'd spend that much on a long awaited restoration just to throw them in theatres and never shown again. I don't even think George would stoop that low then again he told us to be happy with '06 DVDs.

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 (Edited)

It'd be interesting if it would be played in theatres; if so then they would definitely be released on blu ray for profit. Perhaps it isn't necessarily going to be a Disney sponsored showing in theaters, but maybe they will start allowing people to show the unaltered versions in theatres, like in events showing the best movies of the 70s etc etc

The Person in Question

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moviefreakedmind said:

It'd be interesting if it would be played in theatres; if so then they would definitely be released on blu ray for profit. Perhaps it isn't necessarily going to be a Disney sponsored showing in theaters, but maybe they will start allowing people to show the unaltered versions in theatres, like in events showing the best movies of the 70s etc etc

That would be very nice indeed.

The AFI Silver shows the '97 SE prints every now and then. Recently they showed ANH as part of an Alec Guinness series and RotJ as part of their 80's series. It would be great if, going forward, they could be allowed to show the true originals.

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towne32 said:

It's turned into a pissing contest of who can most effectively destroy the franchise that people are already kind of "meh" about. 

Meh? Bah! I'd rather see an actual decent Fantastic Four movie than another mediocre, overrated Buttman movie anyday. 

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I can only hope that the edit you made betwen 1:11 and 1:16 was due to the realization that you could change Batman to Buttman. 

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DuracellEnergizer said:

towne32 said:

It's turned into a pissing contest of who can most effectively destroy the franchise that people are already kind of "meh" about. 

Meh? Bah! I'd rather see an actual decent Fantastic Four movie than another mediocre, overrated Buttman movie anyday. 

 Hehe, butt.

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Ol’ George has the GOUT, I see.

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towne32 said:

I can only hope that the edit you made betwen 1:11 and 1:16 was due to the realization that you could change Batman to Buttman. 

Actually, it was to remove a mention of "Bum Asslick". 

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a Jedi must have patience  

"There's been a rebellion, sir. Don't worry. The situation is under control. I'm sorry, sir. It's time for you to leave."

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I've found torrents to be a perfectly adequate substitute for patience.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

I've found torrents to be a perfectly adequate substitute for patience.

You'd think Lucasfilm would've caught on to that by now.

Just as the proliferation of the ld-to-dvd fan preservations led to an official unaltered dvd release, we're now at the point where we have a perfectly serviceable substitute for an unaltered blu-ray.

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Fang Zei said:

CatBus said:

I've found torrents to be a perfectly adequate substitute for patience.

You'd think Lucasfilm would've caught on to that by now.

Just as the proliferation of the ld-to-dvd fan preservations led to an official unaltered dvd release, we're now at the point where we have a perfectly serviceable substitute for an unaltered blu-ray.

 Not to mention that Harmy's work is way more well-known than any of the ld preservations were. I made an off-hand joke about the SE's at work a while ago and my coworker recommended them to me.

The Person in Question

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Knowing our luck, it'll be the Special Editions. They don't even call it Star Wars, they call it A New Hope! That's all you need to know!

Ol’ George has the GOUT, I see.

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I really doubt this is how they would release the OOT. Just for people who want to suffer through 7 hours of prequels first? (Not to mention, are able to take a day or possibly two off from work to binge on 7 Star Wars movies).

They could probably pull off a wider release of the films separately, at some point in between releases of the new films.

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There were many stories of people arranging to get May 25th 1983 off well in advance.

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