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Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas? — Page 3

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I never heard anything about Rinzler tackling ESB or ROTJ. Are you sure about this? I think you may be mistaken. Indy is definitly in development--he has said that this is his next project is Lucasfilm lets him, and based on the strong sales and critic reaction to his SW book, I suppose we'll get an Indy book in a few years years.

The Star Wars Vault book comes out in the fall and is a sort of sampling of the Lucasfilm archives Star Wars material as far as I understand. It looks sort of interesting but pricey, but I'll bite because I'm a sucker for this stuff.
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Originally posted by: starwars1977
Originally posted by: Mielr
I guess the next big SW-related book down the pipeline is that 'vault' one.

Pray Tell more....?


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Originally posted by: zombie84
The Star Wars Vault book comes out in the fall and is a sort of sampling of the Lucasfilm archives Star Wars material as far as I understand. It looks sort of interesting but pricey, but I'll bite because I'm a sucker for this stuff.
I usually get sucked in too- I loved the "making of SW" book, but a lot of the star wars books in recent years have sort of left me cold. For instance- The Star Wars Chronicles was too expensive, had too much PT content, and a lot of OT stuff I'd already seen, same goes for the poster book.

Having said that, this 'vault' book looks kind of interesting. If there's no SE/PT stuff in it I may bite as well. The 2 CDs sound unique.

PS- zombie84, you didn't answer my question above re: 16:9 TVs vs 2:35 movies.

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Regarding a 2:35 image on a 16x9 screen, its both anamorphic and letterboxed since its the only way to get an image of a different shape to fit on the screen--so yes, the tiny black bars are letterboxed. Instead of with a normal 4x3 tv where the whole image is letterboxed, 16x9 tvs can display as much of the image anamorphically as the screen permits with the remainder thus having to be letterboxed--films shot 16x9 can be true anamorphic, 1:85 will have tiny, tiny letterboxing, 2:40 will have slightly more letterboxing, and if you watch Ben Hurr in its OAR it will look even more letterboxed.
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All I meant by the comment "letterboxed Blu-ray" was that we may get shockingly get the OOT in laserdisc quality even on HD formats
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Regarding a 2:35 image on a 16x9 screen, its both anamorphic and letterboxed since its the only way to get an image of a different shape to fit on the screen--so yes, the tiny black bars are letterboxed. Instead of with a normal 4x3 tv where the whole image is letterboxed, 16x9 tvs can display as much of the image anamorphically as the screen permits with the remainder thus having to be letterboxed--films shot 16x9 can be true anamorphic, 1:85 will have tiny, tiny letterboxing, 2:40 will have slightly more letterboxing, and if you watch Ben Hurr in its OAR it will look even more letterboxed.


Blu-ray and HD-DVD don't support anamorphic data? In other words, since Star Wars isn't 16x9, it will have to be letterboxed in the actual, visual data contained on the discs? (An anamorphic image can't be corrected along the vertical axis and then given black bars by the playback software?)

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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I guess it just doesn't work that way since 16:9 (and not 2.35:1) 1080p is the television standard now. It begs the question of just how this whole aspect ratio thing works in relation to the resolution of digital cinema, to say nothing of actual film projection.

To get back on topic in regards to movies wider than 16:9, since it's being shot in 35mm either way aren't we not really "losing" any lines of resolution unless the movie was shot in 70mm?
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this may come as a shocker to some of you guys asking about the "letterboxed" bluray stuff.... any movie you have on standard dvd that is anamorphic, but wider than 16x9, is also letterboxed. it's just not letterboxed AS MUCH as a non anamorphic dvd... So, the bluray stuff being "letterboxed" is really no different than the way they do standard anamorphic dvds....
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Originally posted by: canofhumdingers
this may come as a shocker to some of you guys asking about the "letterboxed" bluray stuff.... any movie you have on standard dvd that is anamorphic, but wider than 16x9, is also letterboxed. it's just not letterboxed AS MUCH as a non anamorphic dvd... So, the bluray stuff being "letterboxed" is really no different than the way they do standard anamorphic dvds....

Exactly what I said before. The only 100% anamorphic image is a film with an aspect ratio of 16x9 (which I believe is 1.78). As it drifts away from this, letterboxing becomes necessary, whether it is getting narrower (ie 1.66 will have slight side letterboxing, 1.54 will have even more) or if its getting wider (ie 1.85 will have slight top/bottom letterboxing, 2:35 will have more). Its just logically impossible to do it any other way since a widescreen television has a fixed aspect ratio and films come in all sorts of tiny variances. 16x9 was chosen because it was considered the best medium since it is between the American and European academy standards (1.66 vs 1.85), thus is was the best overall choice to minimise letterboxing effect. Personally they should have just gone with the american standard since wider is being more and more accepted.

To get back on topic in regards to movies wider than 16:9, since it's being shot in 35mm either way aren't we not really "losing" any lines of resolution unless the movie was shot in 70mm?


I'm not sure if I understand what your asking. Are you suggesting that a totally true-anamorphc HD image would be equal to the 35mm original? HD is about equal to 16mm in resolution (though IMO its actually not as good), but without the aesthetic advantages of 16mm; there seems to be a myth that HD is better or equal to 35mm film but its a total fabrication of marketing, as 35mm is roughly four times the resolution of HD, to say nothing of the technical limits and aesthetic flaws of video.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
To get back on topic in regards to movies wider than 16:9, since it's being shot in 35mm either way aren't we not really "losing" any lines of resolution unless the movie was shot in 70mm?


I'm not sure if I understand what your asking. Are you suggesting that a totally true-anamorphc HD image would be equal to the 35mm original? HD is about equal to 16mm in resolution (though IMO its actually not as good), but without the aesthetic advantages of 16mm; there seems to be a myth that HD is better or equal to 35mm film but its a total fabrication of marketing, as 35mm is roughly four times the resolution of HD, to say nothing of the technical limits and aesthetic flaws of video.


It had nothing to do with the whole HD issue, that's why I started with "to get back on topic." All I was saying was that a 1.85:1 movie utilizes practically all of the 16:9 frame (be it dvd, blu-ray or otherwise) whereas a 2.35:1 movie does not, but since both of those are 35mm aspect ratios the 2.35:1 movie doesn't really have a lower resolution than 1.85:1 movie, right?

Also, I've noticed that some movie theaters frame 2.35:1 movies by simply lowering the curtain whereas others will frame a 1.85:1 movie inside the other sized screen leaving black bars on either side.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Exactly what I said before. The only 100% anamorphic image is a film with an aspect ratio of 16x9 (which I believe is 1.78). As it drifts away from this, letterboxing becomes necessary, whether it is getting narrower (ie 1.66 will have slight side letterboxing, 1.54 will have even more) or if its getting wider (ie 1.85 will have slight top/bottom letterboxing, 2:35 will have more). Its just logically impossible to do it any other way since a widescreen television has a fixed aspect ratio and films come in all sorts of tiny variances. 16x9 was chosen because it was considered the best medium since it is between the American and European academy standards (1.66 vs 1.85), thus is was the best overall choice to minimise letterboxing effect. Personally they should have just gone with the american standard since wider is being more and more accepted.


Perhaps I'm missing something, but anamorphic means that one axis of an image (horizontal or vertical) is magnified to a greater degree than its counterpart. This is used in anamorphic DVDs, for instance, to devote more resolution to the actual movie images and not waste space on black bars. Then the DVD software adjusts the image to be the right side and adds black bars on the screen (as apposed to having the black bars present in the actual, visual data.) Laserdisc was not capable of this and that's why non-remastered DVDs have black bars encoded into the actual movie images.

It would make sense that Blu-ray and HD-DVD have a similar feature that would allow non 16x9 data to be stored in an anamorphic format. A 16x9 image on a 16x9 screen would be best if it were not anamorphic (since that would stretch the image).

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Originally posted by: Tiptup

Laserdisc was not capable of this and that's why non-remastered DVDs have black bars encoded into the actual movie images.


Actually - anamorphic laserdiscs did exist. Only a few titles were produced and I think they were only sold in Japan, but they were made .

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Whether it is anamorphic or not was not the issue I was talking about! It's the issue of substandard quality. Can anyone get that through their heads?
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i have been always for oar and will be bullshit if the star wars movies are released on blu ray as cropped to fit the HDTV screens as they did on earlier hbo broadcasts 1:85:1 instead of the proper 2:35:1 panavision ratio. some later movies like casino royale have an even wider ratio 2:40:1

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Originally posted by: generalfrevious
Whether it is anamorphic or not was not the issue I was talking about! It's the issue of substandard quality. Can anyone get that through their heads?


Yes, we all know that, we've know that from the outset, we're just on a tangent.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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To finally address gf's point more directly, as silly as the GOUT release was I don't think Lucas would go so far as to bothering to include the OOT on blu-ray unless it was remastered.
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Originally posted by: Fang Zei
To finally address gf's point more directly, as silly as the GOUT release was I don't think Lucas would go so far as to bothering to include the OOT on blu-ray unless it was remastered.



I agree cause the majority of people who buy DVD's just have 4x3 TV's, and really don't even know what Anamorphic is, let alone can really tell between the difference in a good transfer and bad transfer.

BluRay is made for people with HD TV's, so if it is put out non-anamorphically, EVERYONE will notice, and Lucasfilm would look ridiculous in that respects, whereas for DVD's they only look ridiculous to the DVD-diehards like us.

I still think BluRay is our best shot, cause as I have said before: What sold DVD to the average consumer was the fact that they could buy a movie and don't have to rewind it and that each movie had a slew of bonus material in it to watch plus the movie. What is going to sell to the average consumer for BluRay is that because of the space allowed you can buy multiple versions of the same film to enjoy, and Blade Runner and Close Encounters are setting the trend.
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All that space on the disc isn't to store multiple versions, it's to store the high definition picture and uncompressed (or compressed at a very high bitrate) sound. The Blade Runner Blu-ray and HD-DVD releases are five discs just like the five disc dvd set with the Deckard briefcase. I assume the Close Encounters Blu-ray will also be the same number of discs as its dvd counterpart, which at the moment appears to be only one disc.

What's selling the new high def formats isn't the amount of extras or even the number of versions of the movie, it's the 24 frame per second playback (I would think people in PAL land must be eating this up), the 1080p picture and the 7.1 audio.
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that is not necessarily true because blu ray and HD-DVD can offer bonus materials traditional dvd's can't.

Like picture in picture commentaries on the HD-dvd of heroes and star trek remastered.

I know quite a number of people who will be buying the HD-DVD version of heroes over the traditional dvd set because it is the decked out version.

The biggest roadblock i see for either of the two competing HD formats is earlier and classic movies needing to be scanned at HD resolutions and have cleaned up prints or go back to the camera o-negs.

The only viable films I see at the moment would be the recent lowry/dts digital 4k scan of the bond movies that is only on dvd, the 2k scan they did of both the indiana jones movies and the 2004 edition of star wars trilogy.

X-men 1 and 2 the only good ones are not on HD-DVD or blu ray and the lame part III is.

we are getting close encounters and blade runner on the HD spec, and dick donners original superman is on HD as well, though it may be the 2000 cut.

because of the lawsuit of Peter Jackson and weta vs new line we will not see those movies on HD anytime soon. new line broke the profit sharing agreement, and peter will block them from releasing the films on HD in 2008 or 2009 with an injunction because they at weta still have yet to recieve there monies from lotr.

also because of the greedy suits at new line peter's hobbit movie will never see the light of day. The morons are going to do it with an entire new cast and trying to get sam raimi to direct it. Ian Mckellen said hewould only be in the film with a proviso that p.j. directs it.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
that is not necessarily true because blu ray and HD-DVD can offer bonus materials traditional dvd's can't.

Like picture in picture commentaries on the HD-dvd of heroes and star trek remastered.

I know quite a number of people who will be buying the HD-DVD version of heroes over the traditional dvd set because it is the decked out version.

The biggest roadblock i see for either of the two competing HD formats is earlier and classic movies needing to be scanned at HD resolutions and have cleaned up prints or go back to the camera o-negs.

The only viable films I see at the moment would be the recent lowry/dts digital 4k scan of the bond movies that is only on dvd, the 2k scan they did of both the indiana jones movies and the 2004 edition of star wars trilogy.

X-men 1 and 2 the only good ones are not on HD-DVD or blu ray and the lame part III is.

we are getting close encounters and blade runner on the HD spec, and dick donners original superman is on HD as well, though it may be the 2000 cut.

because of the lawsuit of Peter Jackson and weta vs new line we will not see those movies on HD anytime soon. new line broke the profit sharing agreement, and peter will block them from releasing the films on HD in 2008 or 2009 with an injunction because they at weta still have yet to recieve there monies from lotr.

also because of the greedy suits at new line peter's hobbit movie will never see the light of day. The morons are going to do it with an entire new cast and trying to get sam raimi to direct it. Ian Mckellen said hewould only be in the film with a proviso that p.j. directs it.


The matter is far from closed, according to some suits at MGM, who own part of the property, and Raimi is comitted to Spider-Man 4, so that's all up in the air. Maybe, just maybe, god will smile upon me and my fool's hope will come true. I doubt it though. But let's get back on topic.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
that is not necessarily true because blu ray and HD-DVD can offer bonus materials traditional dvd's can't.

Like picture in picture commentaries on the HD-dvd of heroes and star trek remastered.

I know quite a number of people who will be buying the HD-DVD version of heroes over the traditional dvd set because it is the decked out version.

The biggest roadblock i see for either of the two competing HD formats is earlier and classic movies needing to be scanned at HD resolutions and have cleaned up prints or go back to the camera o-negs.

The only viable films I see at the moment would be the recent lowry/dts digital 4k scan of the bond movies that is only on dvd, the 2k scan they did of both the indiana jones movies and the 2004 edition of star wars trilogy.

X-men 1 and 2 the only good ones are not on HD-DVD or blu ray and the lame part III is.

we are getting close encounters and blade runner on the HD spec, and dick donners original superman is on HD as well, though it may be the 2000 cut.

because of the lawsuit of Peter Jackson and weta vs new line we will not see those movies on HD anytime soon. new line broke the profit sharing agreement, and peter will block them from releasing the films on HD in 2008 or 2009 with an injunction because they at weta still have yet to recieve there monies from lotr.

also because of the greedy suits at new line peter's hobbit movie will never see the light of day. The morons are going to do it with an entire new cast and trying to get sam raimi to direct it. Ian Mckellen said hewould only be in the film with a proviso that p.j. directs it.


Very few people buy DVDs, today, for the bonus content. Myself and my techie friends are probably the only people I know who actually watch the bonus content and the commentaries. Nobody else I know does that.

It looks like you're basing your opinion on the Hobbit movie, PJ, and New Line on old news. http://www.the-hobbit-movie.com/
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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The new kinds of extras skyjedi was talking about, like the in movie experience hd-dvd is capable of, is something I was also going to bring up. It still doesn't change the fact that it's the quality, not the content, which is driving people towards the new formats.

And yes, the blu-ray and hd-dvd releases of superman the movie are indeed the 2000 cut.
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Originally posted by: Fang Zei
And yes, the blu-ray and hd-dvd releases of superman the movie are indeed the 2000 cut.


Is that bad? Is there something wrong with the 2000 cut? I don't know anything about it, which is why I'm asking.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Originally posted by: lordjedi
Originally posted by: Fang Zei
And yes, the blu-ray and hd-dvd releases of superman the movie are indeed the 2000 cut.

Is that bad? Is there something wrong with the 2000 cut?

Not to me!
I much prefer the 2000 cut over the 1978 cut because it contains additional scenes - like the "gauntlet" scene- which is great. A lot of Superman purists don't like the extra scenes in the 2000 version because they think it slows the movie down. But, I like them- mainly because they were shot at the time the film was being made and they add a little depth to the film, IMO. The 2000 cut also has a remixed soundtrack, which some fans don't like.

Originally posted by: skyjedi2005


The only viable films I see at the moment would be the recent lowry/dts digital 4k scan of the bond movies that is only on dvd, the 2k scan they did of both the indiana jones movies and the 2004 edition of star wars trilogy.

The Wizard of OZ has been given the hi-res treatment too, so it should be out on blu-ray/hd-dvd sometime soon.

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Originally posted by: lordjedi
Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
that is not necessarily true because blu ray and HD-DVD can offer bonus materials traditional dvd's can't.

Like picture in picture commentaries on the HD-dvd of heroes and star trek remastered.

I know quite a number of people who will be buying the HD-DVD version of heroes over the traditional dvd set because it is the decked out version.

The biggest roadblock i see for either of the two competing HD formats is earlier and classic movies needing to be scanned at HD resolutions and have cleaned up prints or go back to the camera o-negs.

The only viable films I see at the moment would be the recent lowry/dts digital 4k scan of the bond movies that is only on dvd, the 2k scan they did of both the indiana jones movies and the 2004 edition of star wars trilogy.

X-men 1 and 2 the only good ones are not on HD-DVD or blu ray and the lame part III is.

we are getting close encounters and blade runner on the HD spec, and dick donners original superman is on HD as well, though it may be the 2000 cut.

because of the lawsuit of Peter Jackson and weta vs new line we will not see those movies on HD anytime soon. new line broke the profit sharing agreement, and peter will block them from releasing the films on HD in 2008 or 2009 with an injunction because they at weta still have yet to recieve there monies from lotr.

also because of the greedy suits at new line peter's hobbit movie will never see the light of day. The morons are going to do it with an entire new cast and trying to get sam raimi to direct it. Ian Mckellen said hewould only be in the film with a proviso that p.j. directs it.


Very few people buy DVDs, today, for the bonus content. Myself and my techie friends are probably the only people I know who actually watch the bonus content and the commentaries. Nobody else I know does that.

It looks like you're basing your opinion on the Hobbit movie, PJ, and New Line on old news. http://www.the-hobbit-movie.com/


Please god, if Jackson directs, I swear I will be so happy.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: skyjedi2005


The biggest roadblock i see for either of the two competing HD formats is earlier and classic movies needing to be scanned at HD resolutions and have cleaned up prints or go back to the camera o-negs.

The only viable films I see at the moment would be the recent lowry/dts digital 4k scan of the bond movies that is only on dvd, the 2k scan they did of both the indiana jones movies and the 2004 edition of star wars trilogy.



Most telecines since 2004 have been in HD masters. And it wasnt really until that time that we started getting newly remastered SE's of classic films--Casablanca, Searchers, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, etc--so most of them are already done and sitting around. Additionally, an O-neg is not required for HD--very few films go back to the O-neg for a new master, and a 2k or 4k telecine is not necessary since HD can't hold that much info (although purists will argue it makes a difference)--Star Wars OT and Indy, IIRC were only scanned at an HD resolution.

Regarding the previous discussion of anamorphic 16x9--that just refers to stretching an image to fit a certain aspect ratio. Although it is true that there is no stretching in a 16x9 image on a 16x9 screen, because it fills it exactly it would not be considered letterboxed since there is no letterboxing--in that sense its not really anamorphic either since there is no re-sizing but its a better way to describe filling a screen of the same size without any loss. As I said, letterboxing is always necessary since tvs are fixed size and films come in all sorts of shapes--in theaters, the projectionist has to letterbox films too, even though 35mm prints are anamorphic; thats how the same size screen fits a 1.85 film and a 2.35 film without changing the screen, there are drawn curtains that mask the shape of the screen to fit the images, even though the silver screen is "widescreen" and "anamorphic."

And while we're on Superman, I have to reinforce my love and preference for the 2000 cut. The expanded smallville scenes add so much and there is a totally kick-ass action moment where Superman breaks into Lex's lair that is classic Superman; they don't slow down the film, they enrich characters and kick up the pace IMO. The biggest drawback is that the soundtrack is remixed in 5.1 and has a lot of new sound effects--to people who have the film memorized the new sounds seem jarring but actually considered objectively they are excellent additions to the sometimes-dated sound mix. Terminator had a similar remix in 5.1 wherein a few sound effects were replaced--people who know the film might be thrown off, but a lot of the times they add an appropriate punch.