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ORIGINAL STAR WARS TRILOGY OUT 09/2006 BY LUCASFILM — Page 12

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Perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly, but when they pulled out the film to start making the 1997 Special Editions, didn't they find it all rotted and faded? I remember hearing that they had to undergo a huge cleanup effort to recover the film. They probably did a lot of that cleanup digitally, and at the same time added the "extra special" features. They could probably provide an anamorphic transfer, but it would most likely look awful. What consumer is going to put up with that? Not many.. we would, because there is amazing talent on this board that could fix the flaws, but we are a special group here. They probably viewed the 1993 version, realized how much better it looked, and used it instead.

We might all wish that they'd do the cleanup again, but I doubt they'd break even. They were able to pay for the last time with the theatrical release and then VHS and DVD sales. Remember, if it is too much of a risk, the higher-ups aren't going to go along with it. Releasing the 1993 editions is quick, easy, and doesn't cost nearly as much. As much as we hate it, I think it is the wise business choice. No matter how much money they might have stockpiled, they aren't in the business of losing money. They aren't a charity.

Besides, the laserdisc copies I have (faces) are excellent. And I guess they aren't even the best LD's (Definitives are sometimes better?) So, I'm happy to get the 1993 editions in a timeless digital format than nothing at all. And, it will be a much better transfer than any before possible.. even better than my crazy plans of reading directly off the laserdisc and decoding the signal digitally. We get a digital picture and digital sound. Isn't this what we wanted, even just a month ago? Yes! As an extra bonus, we get the 2004 editions. As much as we personally hate them, a lot of people like the 2004 editions better (really!), so why wouldn't Lucas want to release them on DVD? If you bought them before, then that is your own fault, not Lucas's. Sorry to be harsh, but it's true.

People change, Lucas changes (he had that divorce, has kids growing up, is just growing older). And Lucas is a great film pioneer. He has always been at the bleeding edge of film technology. So, if anyone was going to go back and tinker, why not him? I think he has more than earned that right. If he didn't like to experiment and try new things, we wouldn't even have these films we love today. So you have to take the good with the bad. We are stuck in the past and are resisting change. It's not a bad thing, but we have to put up with the consequences of that choice. That they are even throwing us this bone is wonderful, and sending nasty letters is not going to help things.

Oh, as far as predictions go, here is mine: There will of course be a Blu-ray/HD-DVD release if these formats take off, but it will be the special editions. After that horrible cleanup, they'd have to be idiots not to have stored it digitally in a high resolution. They might make a few more fixes.. but only to the special editions, because that's what they'd have. We won't be seeing them go back to the original films again.
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"Doubt they'd break even..." Lucas has plenty of money that for him to make the upcoming release anamorphic from a film print would probably cost the equivalent of a few pennies. And that small cost would easily be made up for by dvd sales, the rerelease in theatres in '07 and the rumored ultimate box set that would be foolish not to deliver on. Do all of you realize how cheap it is for studios to make dvd's these days even though the prices are getting higher and higher.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

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Please go back and re-read my post. The expensive part is not pressing a DVD, it's the process of restoring the film again (restoring lost footage, removing rot, etc). They simply cannot release a rotted out anamorphic transfer (which is what we'd get if they used the film in the archive). It is unprofessional and will not be received well. And dollars equal dollars. Dollars don't equal pennies. Again, they are not a charity.
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The print is not rotting. Fox spent $20 million for the Special Edition which included a full restoration of the negative. Additionally, the various interpositives are in relatively good shape, and even without those there are plenty of release prints that are in decent shape as well. The price of cleaning and scanning these is relatively little--just over a hundred thousand dollars. Not only would you have a high quality dvd transfer but you would also create an HD master to be used for every other subsequent video release from now until pretty much the end of the world. This is not an expensive undertaking--every other film distributor does it and makes back big profit. All those Criterion releases. The new dvds of Dog Day Afternoon, Godfather, Raging Bull--all the same process as i have described. Theres no excuse at all for Lucasfilm--they simply dont want to spend any money because they dont care about the films. This release is simply to put and end to the LD bootlegs, which is why the LD master is being used. It costs nothing and is marginally better than the bootlegs, thus nullifying the black market and putting that lost profit in Lucasfilm's pocket.
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The have remastered the trilogy during 1993-1995/6 and had them washed agian last year. Also GL has his perosnal copy of the OOT remeastered by Lowary Digital while they did the SE's. So there is no excuse for any of the garbage they are pulling.
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It doesn't make sense to me that if they had a cleaned up copy on film that they wouldn't scan that. They do that sort of thing for DVD's all the time now, so I can't imagine it being that expensive. So, I concluded that they must not have a cleaned up film copy. If that's wrong, then that's pretty lame to stick us with the 1993 master. But, in any case I will be happy to get this thing on DVD, because my laserdisc versions look great and these versions will be even better.
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Calamari, past experience tells us that we can not believe a word that comes ot of GL's mouth or LFL, for that matter. We all know that there is a pristine HD scan of the OOT in the LFL vaults RIGHT NOW. Who knows if it will ever see the light of day? Cost of an anamorphic transfer? Please! GL is spending $350 million on his new LFL campus. Yes, it is "lame" for them to be giving us an unacceptable version now. But, that should only drive home the fact that this is a release out of spite. I'm still amazed by how GL has nothing but utter contempt for his original fans and these movies. That much should now be painfully obvious to everyone. I will not be duped in to buying these, period.

No, there is another...

You can go about your business. Move along, move along.

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The Story of Star Wars
The Adventures Of Luke Skywalker

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Originally posted by: Darth Richard
Also GL has his perosnal copy of the OOT remeastered by Lowary Digital while they did the SE's.
Lowry Digital only cleaned the SE prints. They never touched the OOT.
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Yeah, but didn't he clean up the OOT in order to make the SE's in the first place?
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Originally posted by: ShiftyEyes
Originally posted by: Darth Richard
Also GL has his perosnal copy of the OOT remeastered by Lowary Digital while they did the SE's.
Lowry Digital only cleaned the SE prints. They never touched the OOT.


no they did. I read an interview with John Lowary on MAC.com (don't know if it still there though) talking about them cleaning nearly 30 year old masters and I'm almost positive that the SE's aren't nearly close to being 30 years old lol.
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Originally posted by: Darth Richard
Originally posted by: ShiftyEyes
Originally posted by: Darth Richard
Also GL has his perosnal copy of the OOT remeastered by Lowary Digital while they did the SE's.
Lowry Digital only cleaned the SE prints. They never touched the OOT.


no they did. I read an interview with John Lowary on MAC.com (don't know if it still there though) talking about them cleaning nearly 30 year old masters and I'm almost positive that the SE's aren't nearly close to being 30 years old lol.


Lowry never touched the actual OOT--they started with the 1997 SE print. The elements which make up the 1997 SE print are 30 years old.
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Originally posted by: zombie84

Lowry never touched the actual OOT--they started with the 1997 SE print. The elements which make up the 1997 SE print are 30 years old.
This must be that "new math" I keep hearing about......I must admit I am throughly confused now......

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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Once again, the o-neg was taken apart to make the '97 SE. Due to its poor condition, parts of the interpositive used for the '93 LD masters were also used. This means that making a new scan of the OUT would require significant restoration. It certainly could be done, but it wouldn't be cheap or easy and is not sitting on the shelf, ready to go.
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Originally posted by: THX
Once again, the o-neg was taken apart to make the '97 SE. Due to its poor condition, parts of the interpositive used for the '93 LD masters were also used. This means that making a new scan of the OUT would require significant restoration. It certainly could be done, but it wouldn't be cheap or easy and is not sitting on the shelf, ready to go.



What i want to know is: was a new interpositive struck before making the SE changes? In other words, were the altered parts of the SE (i.e. Mos Eisley, space battle) re-instered into the original negative, replacing the original footage, or was a new interpositive made from the restored original negative which was then modified for the SE?

If the case is that the original negative now has segments of it replaced with the CGI SE frames, what happened to the original pieces that these SE segments replaced? They would surely be stored somewhere, and it would be no trouble at all to simply scan these elements and digitally edit them into their proper original place on the new scan of the rest of the negative.
If the case is that the original negative was restored, untouched, and then a new interpositive struck from which the SE was worked on, why the hell couldn't a quick scan of the original negative be used for a new transfer (or is LFL planning this for a few years from now?).

I have a hard time believing that the first scenario is true--that the new, finished SE segments were edited into the original negative--but if it is, obtaining a real OOT from negative elements is only marginally more complicated, as it would simply require the original stored negative pieces to be scanned and edited back in. Really this whole "teh negative is destroyed!!1!" excuse is balls.


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I would say that everyone at Lucasfilm would've been idiots NOT to strike a new interpositive before the SEs were made. However, their official line assumes that they did not.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
or is LFL planning this for a few years from now?


Thats what I think they are doing. And Shifty Eyes there a big difference between what LFL does and says lol
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Zombie84: That's exactly what I was thinking. All the parts exist and had to be restored. Just because they currently aren't spliced together on a consecutive reel doesn't make a difference with modern digital techniques.

ShiftyEyes:
I would say that everyone at Lucasfilm would've been idiots NOT to strike a new interpositive before the SEs were made.

You know we can't rule the idiot thing out either.

Dr. M

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Originally posted by: zombie84
What i want to know is: was a new interpositive struck before making the SE changes? In other words, were the altered parts of the SE (i.e. Mos Eisley, space battle) re-instered into the original negative, replacing the original footage, or was a new interpositive made from the restored original negative which was then modified for the SE? AFAIK it was option A. I know this is not what we'd like and from a preservation standpoint seems insane, but remember that, at the time, they were working from the point of view that these would be the definitive versions, and didn't think people would want preservations of the originals.If the case is that the original negative now has segments of it replaced with the CGI SE frames, what happened to the original pieces that these SE segments replaced? They would surely be stored somewhere, and it would be no trouble at all to simply scan these elements and digitally edit them into their proper original place on the new scan of the rest of the negative.
It's possible that the pieces were stored, but if the o-neg was in such bad shape that parts of the first-gen interpositive had to be used, they probably aren't the best source for restoration. Either way, it is not "no trouble at all" to de-SE the OT, even with all that might be at LFL's disposal. I see no reason to doubt LFL's claims on this issue, as reports contemporary to the making of the '97 SE support it (and make no mention of the restored OUT negative/print that we all wish existed). Now all this doesn't mean it's impossible to restore the OUT, but it does mean that it would be time-consuming and costly.
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You'd have to be crazy to physically cut the revised footage back into the original negatives or master print. It was very damaged by '97 but even the parts that were still in ok shape had to be in fragile condition. Lucasfilm surely couldn't be that stupid to use a patched master print to make all the copies for theatres and then home video. Anyone with 1/4 a brain would use the negatives only when absolutely necessary because the more times they were scanned and run through a projector, there would be a bigger risk that they would crack, or get misaligned and jam. The original negatives and other surviving elements were used used to create a new master print that was the basis for all subsequent copies. Whether they bothered to scan and restore the original negatives of the parts that were completely replaced is unknown. So they for sure had to restore a scene where the only thing changed was a cg ship was added in the background. But wouldn't they have had to restore everything. Lucasfilm couldn't have known to the exact frame which parts were going to be altered.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

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Originally posted by: THX
Originally posted by: zombie84
If the case is that the original negative now has segments of it replaced with the CGI SE frames, what happened to the original pieces that these SE segments replaced? They would surely be stored somewhere, and it would be no trouble at all to simply scan these elements and digitally edit them into their proper original place on the new scan of the rest of the negative.
It's possible that the pieces were stored, but if the o-neg was in such bad shape that parts of the first-gen interpositive had to be used, they probably aren't the best source for restoration. Either way, it is not "no trouble at all" to de-SE the OT, even with all that might be at LFL's disposal. I see no reason to doubt LFL's claims on this issue, as reports contemporary to the making of the '97 SE support it (and make no mention of the restored OUT negative/print that we all wish existed). Now all this doesn't mean it's impossible to restore the OUT, but it does mean that it would be time-consuming and costly.



But why would this be difficult? I know that there were a few pieces of the original negative that, whether affected by the SE or not, had to be replaced with interpositive segments, but I'm not even talking about this. I'm talking about, for instance, the original dewback shot, or the original Greedo shot (pardon the irony) or the original space battle shots. If the original negative was altered with SE segments, then the originals segments which the SE segments replaced (i.e. the original dewback shot, the original shot of Ben's hovel, etc.) would have had to be removed and then stored somewhere. So maybe there is 200 feet of the original negative that is stored due to the fact that it was replaced with CGI-altered shots. Maybe there is another 1000 feet that has been stored due to the fact that it degraded to uselessness--I'm not even talking about that, nor do i care about the footage, as the interpositive material that replaced it is of better quality anyway.

But re-constructing the original negative would be fairly easy. Step 1: Scan the original negative, even though it has SE segments in it. Step 2: Retrieve the original non-SE segments from storage and scan them. Step 3: In the new DI, replace the SE footage with the original footage.

Very complicated, huh? They could even output the final product into a new 35mm print to give a new interpositive of this restored OOT.

This wouldn't be very expensive either. The stored OOT negative segments would be very easy to locate, and I'm pretty sure that ILM must have in-house film scanners, so really it costs nothing to scan the film itself. How many hours would it take to edit the material back in? Maybe an hour or two? So the whole act of completely restoring the OOT from the original negative is literally a day's work.

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Well, you could skip step 1, as this was done for the '04 DVDs. Both steps 2 and 3 are more complex than you make out, IMHO.
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Originally posted by: TR47
I knew this would happen eventually, I just didn't expect it so soon. These sorts of manipulative business practices employed by so many modern companies have become very commonplace. I posted a theory about this roughly 6 months ago detailing my suspicions, and lo and behold, it has manifested itself. Lucas has known all along what people want, and has simply been stringing the fans along. Anyway, I'm just glad that it's now official. Don't be too shocked when the movies are rererererereleased onto HD-DVD within 3 years.
Yes, it's called 1. underselling, and 2. two-tier marketing. Underselling because hundreds of thousands of people who bought the 2004 DVD's will now buy this new release as well because they were "undersold" on the original release - in other words it didn't have everything they wanted. Two-tier marketing because this is now the 3rd release of the same movies, it's a way for Lucasfilm to (excuse my french) f*ck-over their customers. The Phantom Menace - which was released BEFORE the trilogy for instance, has had only 1 DVD release, not 3. It has not even been released "bundled" with the other 2 prequel movies.

Don't be surprised if Christmas time 2007 Lucas releases the Theatrical trilogy on DVD not attached to the 2004 SE DVD's as an oober special "30th anniversary ultra limited edition release!!!!!!!!".

It was just 1 year and 8 months ago that Lucas had said:

"The special edition, that’s the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it’s on VHS, if anybody wants it. ... I’m not going to spend the, we’re talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I’m the one who has to take responsibility for it. I’m the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they’re going to throw rocks at me, they’re going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished."
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Anyway, fair's fair. Lucas may not be a man of his word, but I am. I said, before I ever touched a DVD-R Laserdisc copy that I would buy the official release, if released - and I'll sick by that. Even though I don't agree with how Lucas has played the market for fools, and is deliberatly trying to get people to buy the movie on DVD twice.
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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I was just reading the digital bits review of the Spaceballs original dvd release and it said the non anamorphic widescreen release looked ok but not great because it was taken from the laserdisc master. There was a new addition released last year in anamorphic widescreen from a better transfer, I assume. Can post comparisons? I have the 2000 Spaceballs dvd and while I think it looks clean and clear, it doesn't look pristine. Before reading that article, I had thought that a high quality transfer was made from the film but it just wasn't restored or cleaned for the transfer.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger