"The People Vs. George Lucas" documentary... — Page 5

Not all elements were re-comped. They redid all optical effects like wipes and fades and transitions because those are duplicate negatives pieces anyway, so they went back to the original sources and did them fresh. But as for the visual effects, only certain sequences were re-composited. In Star Wars you definitely had Luke's Falcon training sequence re-comped, but other than that its unclear. ESB had the walker sequence and at least part of the asteroid sequence re-done. ROTJ might have had the Rancor scene re-comped. But mostly its the original 1977-1983 composites.

The "what has changed" article on the official site a few years back broke it down exactly which shots were re-composited. I don't know if that was written with any inside knowledge or if the guy was just eyeballing it. (there seems to be a shot in Jedi that was subtly altered for some prints way back in '83, just not on the GOUT source)

Because it would cost more, and it probably wasn't felt it was necessary. I have to agree with them for the most part--there are a few scenes that called for re-comping, but the films generally held up well. There's only a few instances where matte lines are obvious (many of which were fixed), and garbage mattes only show up on home video.

Of course, I'm speaking of the 1997 SE. The 2004 SE cleaned up more mattes and probably re-comped some more stuff, but the blacks were crushed so much that if you can still see garbage mattes your brightness setting must be way off.

I saw this yesterday at its Canadian premiere and hung out with the director, producer and some distributor reps until the wee hours of the morning at a few pubs. Great guys, and Alexandre introduced me to a sold-out audience during the intro before the film as well, which was flattering.

This is a terrific, terrific--HILARIOUS--film. OT.com will be proud--I guarantee it. These guys are one of us. OT.com gets a lot of coverage, as do fan edits, and Jay is in the film. The movie is divided into chapters and a whole chapter is devoted to the OOT preservation issue and the SE nonesense. They have Lucas' "I'm concerned with preserving our heritage" quotes, the National Film Registry issue, the 2006 GOUT debacle, the stupid Lyn Hale "all the prints are gone" e-mail, they have the Blade Runner 5-disk set example, and when they showed the clip of Hayden in ROTJ to demonstrate how absurd the SE was the whole theatre groaned! During the Q and A after the screening, Alexandre talked at length about what a travesty it is to have lost the original versions of the film, and I gave a talk to him and some people after about the particulars of the negative surviving (an issue the film brings up is whether the negative survives as Lucas say it doesn't--which is a language trick!).

I hope everyone see this when it comes to DVD. The guys at TF.N will probably not like it. This is the documentary OT.com would make--thank Christ someone's doing it!

I probably shouldn't have mentioned it, I don't want to implicate anyone in what is clearly a legal grey area (at best). But my point is that these guys are definitely cast from the mould of the OT.com crowd, and it's a great relief that such a high-profile film is highlighting the issue of OOT restoration.

They came to me over a year ago and we have been in contact since then. There was plans to have an interview with me as a DVD extra along with Dale Pollock and Gary Kurtz, but since they are pressed for time and don't have their equipment right now that might not happen.

These guys really did kill themselves for this film. They financed it out of their pocket. Alexandre is in the middle of a divorce because of the film. They might be sleeping on my couch this week because the Hot Docs festival only pays for the first four days. Troopers all the way, I have to say. Reminds me why I got out of the industry. :p

A high percentage of the online reviews back up what zombie84 has just said.  They knock the overall movie but agree on the importance of preservation.  For instance:

early on the film succeeds in digging up some dirt on Lucas by criticizing his decision to essentially erase the existence of original prints of Star Wars while simultaneously pushing the importance of film preservation in Congress.

via: http://www.filmjunk.com/2010/05/03/hot-docs-the-people-vs-george-lucas-review/

But most spend only a fleeting sentence, deciding to focus on the reviewer bashing the randomness of the talking heads or the quality of a youtube video...

How does their 'secret project' differ from 'negative 1's secret project?

Eh, as the reviewer says it does cater to fans. It's not something I would show my parents. But having said that, if you are a fan of the series it is something that is right up your alley, I suppose it helps that I saw it in a theatre of 800 Star Wars fans. The film isn't terribly "in depth" and philosophical (although I thought it had an appropriate balance), it's a comedy showing the absurdity and experience of Star Wars fans' relationship to the creator of the franchise over the decades, which is why it takes a chronological approach. A good comparison might be Trekkies. Topics of conversation are brought up, conflicting sides are presented, but for a lot of them there isn't some resolution because there can't be, it's just people's opinions and there are some wide disagreement even at that. I don't know, I'm not sure what people were expecting. The film uses footage from parodies in place of narrative footage and cutaways, which is quite extensive, and I thought this was part of what made the film so funny, so it's definitely not 90 minutes of talking heads. I would say it is true that a lot of people aren't introduced and aren't developed as characters aside from them recounting their various SW experiences, but only because that would be superfluous, I don't need to see cliched footage of Gary Kurtz and Dale Pollock walking around their gardens and taking their kids to school. I agree that there could have been more insight from professionals to perhaps frame the arguments of fans and admirers that are the focus--the film is already structured like this, they just could have featured them more. The filmmakers simply didn't want to--their interview of Dale Pollock went on for 4 hours, and even though Gary Kurtz has only a few lines in the film his interview was 90 minutes long. You start getting into the issue of covering too much, which I thought the film struggled with already. I look forward to see these interviews on the DVD though, which is what I am told is the plan right now.

Eh, as the reviewer says it does cater to fans. It's not something I would show my parents. But having said that,

Although I haven't seen it, i'm surprised everyone's first take is to not believe the public might value watching this thing theatrically.  Star Wars is such a part of the lexicon of culture since 77, there's rarely anyone (born around then, and after) who isn't vaguely familiar with the general building blocks which come up in this doc.  And this doc. then provides and easy segue into concepts like preservation and fan edits which they wouldn't normally be introduced to, but could potentially impact their lives.  Plus people can always walk away with the idea, hey i'm not as crazy as that Jar-Jar hater.  For me that makes this a perfect small theatrical run presentation.

I'm glad this turned out well. It's also nice that the original-version topic can still stir up a crowd. Especially since 2006, it seemed like LFL adopted the policy to just willfully ignore it and hope it would go away.

Yeah, I'm very glad that the issue has gotten highlighted in a high-profile production here. We need more public recognition of this. The only way things will ever change is if people visible to the public eye start saying, hey, this isn't right.

I went and saw this film here in Toronto on Tuesday, May 4—that's right, the staff of the currently running Hot Docs festival opened the film by saying "May the Fourth Be With You!"

I personally loved the film. Of course, being a long-time lurker of these forums and of other similar sites, much of it wasn't new per se; however, the film does an excellent job at really highlighting how odd this whole situation is.

One of my moviegoing friends was someone who had never watched any Star Wars before; she enjoyed the film quite a bit (which is good, seeing as she was reviewing it for a local magazine), and found it both entertaining and genuinely fascinating, even if the really specific in-jokes went over her head.

Oddly, the film has only heightening my Star Wars mania, because now people are talking about it again.

If anyone hasn't seen it, and has the chance to, I highly recommend it.

http://moviemoxie.blogspot.com/2010/05/hot-docs-2010-selections-from.html

Video clips from one of the recent Q&A.

Director Alexandre Philippe and producer Robert Muratore talk about the fan submission and their personal Star Wars experiences

 

Alexandre Philippe responds to audience question on where they stand on George Lucas now that they've made the film:

Alexandre Philippe responds to audience question on The Force Unleashed & backlash:

Alexandre Philippe responds to question on if he thinks the original of Star Wars was erased:

Lestrade said:

I went and saw this film here in Toronto on Tuesday, May 4—that's right, the staff of the currently running Hot Docs festival opened the film by saying "May the Fourth Be With You!"

...

HOW DID THIS COME TO TORONTO WITHOUT ME KNOWING?

Damn it, I want to see this >_>

The website has updated and has a feature that allows you to identify your location and that information will hopefully convince a distributor to release the movie in a theater near you.

http://www.peoplevsgeorge.com/