Just finished watching the '04 DVD version of Star Wars

That has to be the greatest abomination in cinema history. Okay, just kidding, but I don't know how people can take those changes seriously. As for the the sound and image restoration, while the picture looks better, it was over done on color enhancment and there are some obvious glaring errors (like Luke's green lightsaber, imperfections magnified etc.). I didn't notice this but apparently they screwed up the sound, the stuff plays on opposite speakers of what it is suspose to and the sound transfer seems unbalanced or lousy in some scenes. I don't really mind watching the ANH '04 DVD (although I do have to remind myself all the time that there is a better version), because they didn't really modify or take out anything from the original, they just restored it and added more junk on top of the SE junk. The scene that I get a kick out of the most has to be the Han runs into Jabba scene in docking bay 94. It always makes me laugh. For one thing, the dialog is atrocious. It is almost exactly the same as the greedo scene, it is completely unnesecarry. It looks completely fake and embarassing, makes Jabba look like a wuss, not to mention continuitly incorrect on his image compared to ROTJ and pulls me out of the story. I find the scene also spoils Jabba's intro in ROTJ. The great thing about ROTJ and IMO is it is the movie that finally reveals the two bad ass foreboding enemies we've been hearing about in the first two films, Jabba and the Empreor, and IMO it doesn't disappoint. By introducing Jabba in ANH it blows the suspense of his entrance in ROTJ and doesn't make him seem as menacing. I'm glad I saw the OT before the SE and '04 DVDs.

Do you think GL was once a great filmaker and has just become this ignorant that changes like this are acceptable? Or do you think he has always been this way and the fact that he was working on a tight budget with a lot limitations forced him to make comprises that actually made his films turn out better? I know this has been an ongoing discussion for years that hasn't really been resolved but I think the truth is he was once a good filmaker and has changed over the years. I hope that is the truth because I hate the idea that the man who made the PT and the SE changes is the same man who made my favorite films.

Negative1, I don't mean to be a dick, but you didn't answer my question. I have seen all the '04 DVD versions (or lack of). I am aware that the '04 DVDs is what created the existence of this website. I bought the '04 DVD set (like the rest of us suckers who did) back in '05. Before buying them, I already knew what to expect when watching them because I read a lot of forums and reviews of the set prior to purchase. I bought them anyways because of the commentary and bonus material included with the set. I plan on searching the internet for fan edits and sets on the that would appeal to people like me. Could you Help me out? I know my title of this thread kind of insinuates that it is my first veiwing.

The changes GL made to the movies are the kind of changes you might think would be good ideas as a child, but the older you get the more you realize that the original versions are really good as they are. Sure there's always subtle things here and there, but the fact that the films are now all over 25 years old, it is well beyond the time of tampering without including the original versions in a DVD set. After over 25 years people have become nestalgic of the original versions and it is a crime to our poeple to try to make them forget it. I know back in the early '80s they made a few minor changes to the movies like the episode and title of the movie in the opening scroll and included dialog in ANH. But those changes were so minor those were the kind that you could get away with even from the hardcore fans. This was back when the films were much younger and people didn't have the nastagia like now. Watching the films now after gaining more knowledge of filmaking, I can totally see the screenplay and editing is much smarter and more interesting than the prequels. It is almost like a group of people with much higher IQs made the OT vs the prequels.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the '04 DVD fiasco is what made Ridley Scott become very cautious about his '07 Blade Runner DVD collection. I think Ridley Scott would've included at least one theatrical version along with his final cut in his '07 Blade Runner DVD set, but he decided to include all versions ever made because he saw the upheavle that GL created with his '04 DVD debacle and didn't want to take the risk of letting down his fans. I'm actually not pleased the with the color and sound correction he made to the movies on his '07 DVD set. I actually prefer the '97 Directors Cut DVD over his '07 set because the colors look better on my old TV. One thing I notice is he was able to pack 3 different versions of Blade Runner on one disc without compressing or otherwise comprimising resolution becasue the versions were all the same except for a few things so every version you watch is the same print and only little differences in the version is what is modified in the print. So he was able to store 3 differnet version without actually having to print it 3 times which otherwise would've made them need to store them on 3 discs. I hope that made sense to you. I'm not a well educated in the profession of DVD printing so I don't know all the technical language you use to describe that.

I really hope GL has learned from the '04 DVD debacle and from Ridley Scott's '07 blade runner DVD collection that he will include all versions on his next Blu-Ray DVD set. He shouldn't have re-released the '04 set back in '05 and he shouldn't have done that crappy half-assed attempt to shut up the fans without comprimising his ego '06 re-release. Now there is an oversaturation of crappy Star Wars DVDs on the market and Blu-ray has just become the new definitive standard media for movies to come. He should've got his head out of his rear back in '04, learned his mistakes from the '04 release skipped the '05 and '06 releases and got to work on the Blu-Ray release restoring the original versions along with his precious SE and had it done and out on the market for Star Wars 30th aniversary. '07 turned out to be a dead year for Star Wars because he oversaturated the market with crappy Star Wars DVDs the 3 years prior.

Mielr said:

The '04 DVDs sank the SEs to yet another depth by adding Hayden Christiansen to the finale of ROTJ, which to me, is one of the most inexcusable atrocities ever committed in the history of the moving image.

I know I'm going to regret asking, but here goes: why do you think it's such a crime? An unwanted change I can buy, but a crime? If it's because Shaw is dead, then I'm calling bullshit. In case you didn't notice, he's still in the unmasking scene. You know, the one appearance where he actually has to act. His entire performance is still in the movie, minus five seconds of standing and smiling. If anything, you should just count yourself lucky that Hayden didn't actually say anything. Seriously, of all the things to get riled up about, you choose this? What about Clive Revill? Not only was his entire performance cut out of the film, but he's still alive to see it. That's a much bigger insult than what happened to Shaw, and yet that's the one major change that most of the people around here seem to accept.

Janskeet said:

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the '04 DVD fiasco is what made Ridley Scott become very cautious about his '07 Blade Runner DVD collection. 

You might be right, but then again Ridley doesn't own the rights to Blade Runner whereas Lucas does own the rights to Star Wars. Someone raised the point last year when the final cut was released that if Ridley owned the rights, he might've very well not released the other 4 versions in comparable quality and just stuck with "his" version. Hey, I hope I'm wrong. I also hope that George's people can sit him down and have a nice talk with him about how a new set would sell better if it had the original versions included.

Hey, forget childhood nostalgia or disrespecting a dead guy. It just looks SO SHITTY. Step back for a sec.: it's an outtake of a young guy's head crudely pasted on an old guy's body. The eyelines don't even match, which is 1st year film school shit, so it looks awkward even if you don't know why. and that's... The End of Star Wars? Isn't that enough to hate it? 

Yes, it is.

Not to mention the fact that we shouldn't even be bringing nostalgia into this at all.

Nostalgia is the very reason George didn't bother remastering the OOT. He thought "oh, sure, people will pay 60 dollars for shitty transfers just because they're nostalgic for them." Whatever happened to these being classic movies, not just stuff from our childhood?

About now, we're getting to the part where we get told we're being too picky about the changes and the transfers, they aren't that bad, we can never be satisfied etc.. Now, someone explain to me why these SAME people are always the ones that get completely cunty about the matte lines and R2D2's black squares and all the other terrible flaws in the original versions?  

Well, that's irony for you. The very same people who accuse us of never being satisfied with how our oh-so-precious OOT is presented are the very same people who are constantly demanding more changes be made to the current SE because, ahem, they're not satisfied with it.

We wouldn't even have to put up with altered colors if LFL would just use a suitable interpositive (or, if worst came to worst, a positive print) of the original versions and just did some rudimentary restoration and then made a 1080p master from that.

All we really mean is that if the '04 versions got remastered for dvd quality, the original versions get remastered for dvd quality (not left in 1993 laserdisc quality). If one version gets put on blu-ray in 1080p, so must the other version.

I hate to say it, but GL was a genius in his plan. He knew that no one out there really knows the first thing about dvd technology, and that he would get away with the treatment he gave the OOT since there are way too many people out there willing to spew their ignorance with "What, you didn't want bad quality?" and so forth.

Remastered for dvd quality?! What do you think this is, Xanadu? 

For those of you who are Blade Runner Fans, I would like to stir up more discussion about the Blade Runner '07 DVDs. Perhaps I should make a thread on it in the Off Topic forum, I'm sure there are probably already some there.

Nothin wrong with that, but honestly I'm pretty indifferent.

Blackjack said:

Janskeet said:

That has to be the greatest abomination in cinema history.

 

 

nothing else needed to be said.

 

Yeah, I wish I wouldn't have said "just kidding" after that because I wasn't, I just didn't want to aggravate the people here who want to keep our ranting professional.