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If GL changed his mind about releasing OUT, but with a few tweaks.....

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If George was to give in to pressure in releasing the Original Unaltered Trilogy (or the Classic Trilogy as he now calls them) on Blu-ray, especially now with all the negative attention, he would inform us that he would be sending the original film stock to Lowry Digital, make a future proofed 4k (or higher) scan......but insisted on cleaning up the movies.....fixing mistakes, composites.....poor visual effects.....but nothing too drastic......no Greedo shooting first,....no Jabba in ANH.....

Would that be acceptable?

J

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I would buy that and probably be happy with it. But it's not acceptable, people will always have different opinions about what is an acceptable change and what is not. Is the redone Rancor in Jedi acceptable, for me it is, for others probably not, the blue R2 in all the X-wing shots? I don't like it, I like the original black R2 even if it's "wrong" but some people do like that change. Just release the original as it is and be done with it.
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Sure, we'd love it.  It's not like we're fanatics or anything.*

But really, even if he approached this with the best possible intentions, isn't it a given that he'll screw up color timing and sound at the very least?  But even then I'd appreciate it as a much better source for proper restoration projects.

 

* Okay, that was a little tongue in cheek but I'm serious.  Minor cleanups would put him well within the boundaries of what other directors regularly do.  Sometimes I wonder why they bother and wish they wouldn't, but I don't begrudge them for it.  Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blood Simple, etc.  A certain amount of change is, even if not desirable, tolerable.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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We went through this a couple of months ago, but I couldn't find the thread.  As I, and very few others said then, I would be happy enough with that.

Call me what you will, but it's the story/pacing/character/tonal changes and blatant technical errors that annoy me more than any of the "tweaks" or "fixes".

And by "tweak" or "fix" I mean the standard street definition of this term, not the LFL definition.

That's why I'm pretty darn happy with Theatrical reconstructions or de-specialized versions.  They're not original, but they look original.  And that satisfies the Star Wars geek in me, even if the film historian side is still unhappy.  And, in this case, Star Wars Geek wins.

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.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I would be fine with it.

looking for HDTV of the  Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.  Also HDTV of The Lord of the Rings trilogy

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To me, yes, absolutely.

I am less versed in technical aspects and simply want the story I know. If matte lines are removed, I won't notice or care.

I didn't mind removing Shaw's eyebrows or that they now "fixed" the Wampa arm. Such changes merely fix fairly obvious errors - they don't try to revise what actually happened. There's arguably a slippery slope here, but I could accept a great number of minor alterations.

Of course there would be no reason for GL to not preserve to the original originals. I mean, it seems like something any rational person would want to do with his creations...

The blue elephant in the room.

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I'd buy it sure, but it's really so much more work and money than just doing the Blade Runner '82 method, which is what most of us use as the yardstick. (i.e. find the best available source and make it nice. THE END.) We're actually keeping it easy for the poor, overburdened guy.

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I feel no romantic attachment to matte lines, visible cables and the like.

I don't mind them because they are films of a particular vintage but I don't cling to them as vital components of the film.

To me it's the story that is important so a slightly wonky effects fix here or there will not make my blood boil.

Just as long as Greedo does not shoot and wax plop Jabba doesn't permit Han to walk all over him, that the colours don't look like the whole galaxy is under a UV lamp and the dialogue isn't tickled to death I'd be happy.

It would cost more than just restoring the film as it was but if that level of fiddling was as far as it went in home cinema releases since 1997 I doubt if this forum would exist.

Personally I'm more miffed that I can't even go into an art house cinema and watch a print of the film as it was.

The special editions should be special editions.

If they existed along side the original versions there would be no controversy on this subject. 

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I do feel that with so much negative press, tweets & chat that he may cave in and go towards what everyone wants......but I can't imagine he'll give us a scan of the original print....its like he's embarrassed by it (ANH, that is)

J

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Cost analysis and the expending of effort always trumps his embarrassment, hence selling shitty laserdiscs in 2006. (and leaving glitchy '04 discs on the market for 7 years)

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If he tweaked the OUT, it wouldn't be the Original Unaltered Trilogy.

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Sluggo said:

If he tweaked the OUT, it wouldn't be the Original Unaltered Trilogy.

The NOUT (nearly)? The AOUT (almost)? The POUT (practically)?

You have a good point but I think people are right that the vast majority of us would find it acceptable even if less than ideal.

I wonder how you would all feel if he 'fixed' inconsistencies (like replacing Ponda's arm).

The blue elephant in the room.

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xhonzi said:

We went through this a couple of months ago, but I couldn't find the thread.  As I, and very few others said then, I would be happy enough with that.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/opinions-on-film-restoration-preservation-and-how-it-applies-to-Star-Wars-what-do-you-think-should-should-not-be-allowed/topic/12818/

Ah... here it is.

Interesting that the winds are blowing differently today than they did then.

I asked this thread's OP question here:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/opinions-on-film-restoration-preservation-and-how-it-applies-to-Star-Wars-what-do-you-think-should-should-not-be-allowed/post/498010/#TopicPost498010

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.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Mrebo said:

Sluggo said:

If he tweaked the OUT, it wouldn't be the Original Unaltered Trilogy.

The NOUT (nearly)? The AOUT (almost)? The POUT (practically)?

You have a good point but I think people are right that the vast majority of us would find it acceptable even if less than ideal.

I wonder how you would all feel if he 'fixed' inconsistencies (like replacing Ponda's arm).

The POUT!  I lol'd. 

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And I summed up my thoughts pretty well when I said:

Harmy, Gaffer, Zombie, CP3S, etc... all pretty much said:

Regarding Xhonzi's question of whether or not we'd still pursue a proper release of the original if a replica of the original was made with newly composited special effects. Absolutely I would. I wouldn't even bother spending money on a set that only replicated the look of the original.

Judge me how you will:

This whole conversation has made me realize that while I feel and understand the need to preserve these films as they were, I care MORE about my being able to enjoy them.  The SEs don't offend me so much because they're not the original versions, but because they are terrible.  They took something that was good enough, and tried to improve it- instead they weighed it down with goofiness and camp.

It offends me because its UNWATCHABLE more than because it is NOT ORIGINAL.

So something that had the story and goofiness changes undone (which is most of them) and looked like the original would satisfy me personally.  Could you call it a restoration?  I suppose not, in the technical sense of that word.  Would I still say that the films should be restored?  Maybe.  But I can assume that I would be so busy watching an enjoyable version of the film that I wouldn't be here complaining about it.  Ady's ESB reconstruction is seriously good enough for me.  It saddens me that it's not widely available and is considered illegal by some.

Regarding Fink's comment about how many little changes have been made over the years. I guess to some of you we may come off as comically anal,

This is kind of my thought process.  To the outside world, we are an unsatiable group what will never be happy no matter what Lucas releases.  The GOUT was obviously meant as a slap to the face, so we took it that way and weren't satisfied.  But if something that looked and played like the originals was released- without it meeting every point on our list of demands, and we (the OOT demanding community) still demanded more-  Well, I can hear the response now.

So... call me a coward.  Call me selfish.  But I prioritize my own enjoyment of the trilogy over needs/wants of "film history".  Perhaps that makes me no better than someone who enjoys the SEs (except that I have taste) but it is what it is.

but tiny little changes here and there aren't that big of a deal to me, but completely redoing the special effects is not a tiny little change. That is a massive overhaul, even if it is done to resemble the original as closely as possible sans the "flaws".

 We're still talking about recompositing original elements, right? 

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.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I would be more than happy with that, even if they didn't send it to Lowry. Just as long as they don't screw up the colors.

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I'd be fine with it.

And lol at Asaki's new avatar. :-)

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I don't have a link to it, but I recall reading an interview with Gary Kurtz in which he said that while he disapproved of the way the special editions turned out because of the unnecessary additions and changes and so forth, he was fine with the digital recomposites because they helped make the effects more convincing while remaining faithful to the original intent and look.

Ultimately, I tend to agree with this on the whole.  If a version like that were released, I'd watch it and be happy, as long as the colour and sound were also presented properly.  Still, I very much understand the need to preserve them exactly as they were, and I would really like to see them that way too (seamless branching of a version with matte lines and without might be a good way to go).

Still, given LFL's track record with technical issues, it would not be a very good idea to let them get it into their heads that this would be acceptable, because the more things there are to be 'fixed', the more chance there is for them to screw it up somehow.  An exact restoration and transfer of the originals without any alteration whatsoever offers the least chance of error, and the most chance of being what we'd all want to see.

I'm more picky about the authenticity of the sound.  I would want all the original mixes to be included exactly as they were; most importantly the 70mm versions because they sounded so much better than the 35's, but they should all be there as options.  In the case of Empire this would present a bit of a problem in that the actual edit of the movie differed in a few places, so ideally these image differences would be included as well through branching, but if this proved impractical then minor remixing in those parts for the sake of maintaining synch would have to do.

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At this point, speaking only for myself, I say fuck the negative. They aren't competent to handle that kind of job anyway and doing it the so-called "Lauzrika-Method" (since Blade Runner-Original Flavor didn't use the negative) is proven and is an incredibly reasonable thing (in cost and time) to be asking for. An existing sound mix and an IP is harder for them to screw up, and cheaper and easier, for when we get to the part where they play the sad sack martyr about making the effort & spending the cash.

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Like Spielberg said in an interview this summer with AICN, seeing matte lines or wires on models is what makes you appreciate a film even more. I feel it's a slap in the face to all the people who worked hard on the OT only to see George dismiss and overwrite their effects work as not good enough or incomplete.

Just give me the 1993/1995 THX versions.

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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Jaitea said:
If George was to give in to pressure in releasing the Original Unaltered Trilogy (or the Classic Trilogy as he now calls them) on Blu-ray, especially now with all the negative attention, he would inform us that he would be sending the original film stock to Lowry Digital, make a future proofed 4k (or higher) scan......but insisted on cleaning up the movies.....fixing mistakes, composites.....poor visual effects.....but nothing too drastic......no Greedo shooting first,....no Jabba in ANH.....

Would that be acceptable?

J


That would be acceptable to me. I've said before, that I would have happily accepted the faulty coloring of the 2004 discs, if the films were the 1977,1980 & 1983 versions in all other respects.

I'd also accept re-compositing shots to improve matte lines, removal of the boxes around the ships, etc. I'm actually pretty agreeable about that sort of stuff, which I know a lot of others aren't.

But, the Wampa changes, the changes to the cloud city/bespin scenes, mos eisley, cantina changes, jedi rocks, ewok celebration changes, Hayden force ghost...... NOT acceptable.

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hairy_hen said:   An exact restoration and transfer of the originals without any alteration whatsoever offers the least chance of error, and the most chance of being what we'd all want to see.

This!  I want an exact restoration of the OT.  We have Darth Editous to fix errors and make tweaks. :D

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I think most of this desire of a slightly tweaked version "BR-Final Cut style" comes from the way most people expected and wanted a Special Edition of SW to be. We who want the original films restored are not hard to please, quite the opposite, I don't know what this perception comes from, is it because we were unhappy about the re-release of the 1993 THX LD-transfers in 2006?

No, the guys who are impossible to please are the ones who continue to bitch about the various updates and what he doesn't update in every new SE-release, something that often gets confused with us who just want a true restoration of the originals. I don't care if he would replace Luke with a pink elephant in his next edit, just restore the original films.

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com