4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 115

moviefreakedmind said:

crissrudd4554 said:

Slightly off topic but if the National Film Registry included Star Wars among its selected films in 1989, why did Lucasfilm offer the SE print 8 years after the fact??? Was Lucas intending to change the film(s) as early as '89 and wouldn’t submit a print until the film was ‘finished’???

Seeing as how the Library itself had two copies already and the National Film Registry is essentially just another bureaucratic wing of the Library of Congress, it probably wasn’t much of a priority. Who knows really? I’d be curious to see how many films on the registry don’t have prints submitted.

The library only has one 35mm print of the original Star Wars. Unless you’re also counting the 35mm print of the 1997 SE.

As for the NFR, I really probably shouldn’t say anything but it’s been so long since I heard the story I don’t think it’s a huge deal. The truth is they did try to get a copy of Star Wars by other means after Lucasfilm wouldn’t submit the original cut, but in the end it didn’t pan out. I cant go into details, but I can say that one of the “avenues” they were pursuing wound up being one of the sources for Mike V’s Legacy. So it kinda all worked out the same (the film being preserved but not available for public consumption) in a roundabout way…

Interesting. Did they specify exactly what each of the copies were? Because when I went to their film storage facility years ago, they only had one copyright deposit print of each film.

Cool. I wonder if they’re counting their digital scans of the films? When I was there they were just getting Star Wars in the pipeline to be scanned on their 2k telecine. Not terribly long ago I saw a little article written by a guy who went to their viewing room at the library on capital hill and watched a copy of the scan of Star Wars, so we know that scan is finished. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve also completed a scan of ESB but havent gotten around to ROTJ yet. They prioritize their scanning based on historical significance as well as condition of film (i.e., how long they’ve got before it’s too badly deteriorated). SW and Empire were both significantly faded to red (ESB being the worst by a decent margin). Jedi still looked brand new.

Anyway, I’m not doubting what they told you, I’m just trying to figure out where these additional copies came from and exactly what they are. Because back in 2011 it was very clear they had one print each of the original cuts and one print each of the '97 SE.

Didn’t zombie write an entire article on savestarwars about his trip down to culpeper to help scan in and color-correct the LoC’s prints?

Maybe I’m remembering wrong, I couldn’t find the article on the site.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Disney may soon be making an entrance to UHD BD (as in April soon). From Bill Hunt:

According to the German BD site Bluray-Disc.de, Disney and Marvel have licensed Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Iron Man 3 to Concorde Home Entertainment for release in Germany on the 4K Ultra HD format on 4/6, both individually and as a Steelbook trilogy. You can see more here and also here.

If this is true, it would seem likely that a U.S. release is also soon to be announced. After all, the 4K Ultra HD format is all-region. It’s very hard to imagine Marvel and Disney sacrificing potential sales here in the States due to enthusiasts importing copies.

We know that Disney has been waiting for more Dolby Vision capability to start appearing in 4K hardware before joining the format and, as we reported at CES last month, Sony, TCL, LG, Vizio, and Philips have all agreed to support Dolby Vision in their displays and players. The new Oppo UDP-203 player will also support Dolby Vision after a forthcoming firmware update.

We’ve reached out to Disney to see if we can find out more on this and we’ll let you know if and what we hear back from them.

I’m really surprised to hear Bill say something uneducated like that. Movies coming out in other regions (from other studios) is about as indicative of a stateside release as seeing it on cable in HD. Or being able to buy it streaming.

One really has nothing to do with the other.

Fang Zei said:

Didn’t zombie write an entire article on savestarwars about his trip down to culpeper to help scan in and color-correct the LoC’s prints?

Maybe I’m remembering wrong, I couldn’t find the article on the site.

No that was me who went to culpeper. Nobody was “helping the LOC”. They’re professionals and do all their own scanning, restoration, etc. The trip was just an investigation of sorts to see what they really had in their collection because there was quite a bit of confusion at the time. The article never got finished because there were some disagreements behind the scenes and ultimately it was decided it was better for all to just drop it rather than have any party unhappy with the final publication. There was a preview posted temproarily but it was removed.

canofhumdingers said:

Fang Zei said:

Didn’t zombie write an entire article on savestarwars about his trip down to culpeper to help scan in and color-correct the LoC’s prints?

Maybe I’m remembering wrong, I couldn’t find the article on the site.

No that was me who went to culpeper. Nobody was “helping the LOC”. They’re professionals and do all their own scanning, restoration, etc. The trip was just an investigation of sorts to see what they really had in their collection because there was quite a bit of confusion at the time. The article never got finished because there were some disagreements behind the scenes and ultimately it was decided it was better for all to just drop it rather than have any party unhappy with the final publication. There was a preview posted temproarily but it was removed.

Ah okay, I kind of suspected that’s what I was misremembering after reading your post.

I can still remember reading that article and seeing the photo of the Library’s print of Jedi laid out on the light bed (or whatever it’s called) and my shock at how good it still looked after nearly thirty years. IIRC it was the shot where Luke cuts Boba Fett’s gun in half with his lightsaber. The color was still there in all its unfaded glory, from the orange sand to the glowing green saber blade.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

digitalfreaknyc said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Disney may soon be making an entrance to UHD BD (as in April soon). From Bill Hunt:

According to the German BD site Bluray-Disc.de, Disney and Marvel have licensed Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Iron Man 3 to Concorde Home Entertainment for release in Germany on the 4K Ultra HD format on 4/6, both individually and as a Steelbook trilogy. You can see more here and also here.

If this is true, it would seem likely that a U.S. release is also soon to be announced. After all, the 4K Ultra HD format is all-region. It’s very hard to imagine Marvel and Disney sacrificing potential sales here in the States due to enthusiasts importing copies.

We know that Disney has been waiting for more Dolby Vision capability to start appearing in 4K hardware before joining the format and, as we reported at CES last month, Sony, TCL, LG, Vizio, and Philips have all agreed to support Dolby Vision in their displays and players. The new Oppo UDP-203 player will also support Dolby Vision after a forthcoming firmware update.

We’ve reached out to Disney to see if we can find out more on this and we’ll let you know if and what we hear back from them.

I’m really surprised to hear Bill say something uneducated like that. Movies coming out in other regions (from other studios) is about as indicative of a stateside release as seeing it on cable in HD. Or being able to buy it streaming.

One really has nothing to do with the other.

After all, the 4K Ultra HD format is all-region. It’s very hard to imagine Marvel and Disney sacrificing potential sales here in the States due to enthusiasts importing copies.

This was not the case for BD. Why would they let Concorde entertainment get cuts for American purchases when they could just release it themselves in the U.S.? Unlike with a BD, there is no region coding to protect against that and force American buyers to wait for a U.S. release.

The three Iron Man movies were part of the original distribution deal Marvel signed with Paramount. Disney ended up buying back the distribution rights for Avengers and Iron Man Three after buying Marvel in late 2009 (Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America were still distributed by Paramount in the meantime). Paramount actually had nothing to do with Avengers’ release, not even theatrically. They just stipulated in Disney’s buyback that the Paramount logo remain in the movie. The same (I think) went for Iron Man Three the next year.

As I understand it, Paramount does have a certain degree of ownership over the Iron Man franchise that they don’t over the other standalone characters, kind of like how Disney can’t make a standalone Hulk film without Universal. A friend-of-a-friend who’s a screenwriter in Hollywood actually told me that Paramount has “continued interest” in the Iron Man franchise. Maybe that’s why Tony keeps showing up in these other movies but not his own?

Anyway, Concorde is the company puting the three Iron Man movies out on UHD in Germany, so I’m assuming they’ve got home video distribution rights there. I’m guessing they probably had a deal with Paramount and/or Marvel that predated and superseded whatever arrangements Disney made later on and there’s nothing they can do to stop this release. I’m reminded of how Close Encounters was the first Spielberg film to hit blu-ray because - as I heard it - it was made earlier in his career before he made sure to have things like signing off on the home video releases of his movies written into his contracts.

I don’t think Paramount has any hold on Iron Man. Universal has Hulk because they’ve had the rights to that character for decades (and thus why Marvel has little interest in standalone Hulks). Marvel never gave the rights for the Iron Man character to Paramount, they were always with Marvel Studios (and Iron Man 3 was the first Marvel film to only have the Marvel Studios logo). As for what sort of distribution rights Paramount still holds for the first two films, I couldn’t tell you. Anyway, whether Disney holds the distribution rights or not to those films hasn’t stopped them from packaging them along with their own in box sets (along with Universal’s Incredible Hulk), which should tell you that the kind of mixed rights distribution a Star Wars set would require isn’t impossible.

DominicCobb said:

Iron Man 3 was the first Marvel film to only have the Marvel Studios logo

You’re thinking of Thor 2.

The Paramount logo is still there in Iron Man Three.

My main point with my long-winded post was that the overseas distribution rights for the three Iron Man films may very well have been signed away well in advance of Iron Man Three even being made. That’s why, all these years later, Concorde is able to put them out in UHD in Germany before Disney gets around to releasing anything on the format themselves.

Weird, had to check to make sure you’re right because that’s not what I remember, but yes it’s there (but only for the same reason it’s there in Avengers - the film was still distributed by Disney).

That’s certainly possible. Either way, anyone who doesn’t think Disney will start doing 4K releases of their own at some point is just fooling themselves.

Also my main point ended up being that it’s important to remember that Disney released the Phase One box set even though they only originally distributed one of those films, which is promising for SW.

DominicCobb said:

Weird, had to check to make sure you’re right because that’s not what I remember, but yes it’s there (but only for the same reason it’s there in Avengers - the film was still distributed by Disney).

That’s certainly possible. Either way, anyone who doesn’t think Disney will start doing 4K releases of their own at some point is just fooling themselves.

Also my main point ended up being that it’s important to remember that Disney released the Phase One box set even though they only originally distributed one of those films, which is promising for SW.

Oh, I know Disney’s going to start releasing stuff on the format eventually. It’s just super annoying when all of the other major studios (even lionsgate) jumped on within only a few months and yet here we are almost a year later and probably looking at Rogue One being previous-gen format only. Hmmm, where have we seen that before with a Star Wars movie? Hint: I’m not talking about the GOUT, which was actually released several months after hddvd and blu-ray debuted.

Can we really call traditional blu-ray previous gen? Most people don’t have a 4K TV and even less have a 4K blu-ray player (surely why Disney hasn’t leapt at the opportunity yet).

DominicCobb said:

Can we really call traditional blu-ray previous gen?

How about Generation P?