Originally posted by: Go-Mer-TonicOriginally posted by: Mike O
And the people who gave him millions of dollars to that he could even make the SEs? What about us? The fans? The ones who make the sequels, the prequels, the SEs, and everything else related to SW even possible? A restoration could be performed. Millions of people want it. There is a simple way to meet in the middle here. Release a proper restoration of the OOT. I'll buy it, and so will countless others. Then I have what I want, and Lucas can do whatever he wants to the SEs and the PT. (I don't hate them. Quite the contrary). Everybody's happy. Only Lucas won't do it. Robert A. Harris, the film restoration expert who restored Lawrence of Arabia and Vertigo, among others, volunteered, and Lucas wouldn't let him. Lucas just doesn't want to do this. I'm not bashing the guy or anything. I'm just stating a fact. And that, to my mind, after I've spent tons of money on his products, is insulting.
I am fully behind getting a new anamorphic transfer of the O-OT. I always felt it was a little selfish of Lucas to just sweep the O-OT under the rug the way he has. If it's just a matter of spending a little more to make it happen, then I agree Lucas should do that out of respect for the fans who really got behind these movies when they were first released.
On the other hand, try to see it from his perspective. He was the one who put everything on the line to make the O-OT in the first place. Mortgaging his property, waiving his directorial fees, working himself into a nervous breakdown in an attempt to make the original Star Wars. The money we gave him for bringing ANH to the world wasn't really spent on the sequels, it was spent on the original film. He then took the money he made from that (the really freaking hard way) and put all of it back into ESB and his companies that helped him make it. When we bought into that movie, we weren't giving Lucas money to make ROTJ, we were giving him his invested money back plus profit because he gave us ESB. And so on and so forth. It seems to me like with each film in this series, Lucas brought the film to the table first, and we in turn rewarded him with our money and support. So it's not like he was ever really operating at a deficet with us.
Add to that the fact that not everyone who wasn't impressed with the SE/Prequels (the people who would want the O-OT on DVD the most) has been very polite about expressing themselves about it, and I don't think it's really that hard to understand his hesitation to spend more money on a group of people who tend to put him down all the time. To him, the money we spent in the past was for stuff he already gave us in the past.
While I think it would be nicer of him to come up with the new transfer, I really don't think he owes us that.