Broom Kid

But nothing past DVD, right?

I didn’t even click on the tile when I saw it, I just figured it’d be at best an upscale of the original DVD release, but I guess it’s full-on 4K.

This (and Fang’s post above) lends credence to the idea that they’re not going to do anything with their catalog on physical media. They’ll restore their movies and give them new 4K transfers, but it definitely seems like they want you to see them on their platform, and not on a disc.

Haha! I was pretty surprised to actually see it on Disney+ when I was scrolling thru the other day. I thought for sure they were going to try burying the evidence of it ever having existed, but there it was! And it turns out the only thing I actually remember about the movie is John Byner voicing Gurgi (munchies and crunchies!)

Oh wow, just checked - apparently it’s available in 4K HDR10 there. I didn’t even know until just now.

I believe that’s the case, yeah: If you buy the individual 4K releases, you get the new blu-ray pressing as a pack-in w/ the new 4K disc. But since the individual blu-ray-only releases came out BEFORE the 4K releases (before they were even announced, I think?) those discs are just repackaged 2011 blu-rays.

The covers, aside from the top banner saying whether it’s a 4K UHD or blu-ray only release, are identical otherwise.

StarkillerAG said:

Keep in mind those are only available in the box with the 4K, the individual releases are still the 2011 version.

Have we ever gotten confirmation of that? Only one source said that, and it only said it was a rumor, so I’m not sure.

I believe that’s correct: the new masters on blu-ray are only included as a pack-in on the 4K UHD releases (either the full box or the individual titles). The discs in the blu-ray only release are from 2011. I believe there is no way to buy the new masters on blu-ray unless you are buying the 4K discs.

The UK blu-ray only Skywalker Saga box that was talked about frequently in this thread before the release might be different, but I don’t know that anyone who bought that one (the Wal-Mart link that kept getting posted was essentially a link to import the UK set) has written about it since they got it.

LexX said:
Even VHS tapes are now in high demand on crappy films that don’t have any later releases. Just wait and see.

But those companies aren’t re-releasing VHS tapes to respond to that secondary market demand. You seem to be suggesting that because old, dead media fetches a high price on the resale market due to scarcity, it’s a no brainer that Disney will re-release that media.

If Disney is really deciding to call it a day with physical media releases for catalog product, as the report states, the used market gouging itself isn’t going to be justification for their starting it back up again a decade later, I don’t think. In 10 years what’s a little more likely is that physical releases end up occupying the same collector’s niche that vinyl and cassettes occupy now, IF that. But considering what the last 10 years of home entertainment has looked like, barring a significant disruption of internet access worldwide, it seems pretty clear that physical media distribution isn’t going to enjoy a renaissance, especially not if one of its major producers decides they’re done with it for the most part.

Haarspalter said:

Too M-U-C-H assumptions. Move along.

How was that post “assumptive?” I’m speaking on the report I shared. I didn’t file the report, or do the reporting, so I’m not trying to make a bunch of declarative, concrete statements, because I don’t have the firsthand knowledge to do so. Why is that worthy of criticism? And what other way SHOULD there be a conversation about things you don’t have firsthand access to?

LexX said:

While that may be true for now, it can change easily.

If they’re moving forward with discontinuing the release of catalog titles (or possibly licensing those titles to boutique labels) they obviously don’t believe there’s much money here. Disney could “cash in” now if they want, and they don’t. They sent the Skywalker Saga set out to die, basically, and they hardly promote any of the new releases they do have. Physical media is dying and it seems like Disney has decided to (pun intended) let it go. It seems very, very much like they’re going to address the “do you want to own something from our catalog” situation by pointing people to Disney+. That’s the “cash-in” they’re pursuing.

If Mulan clears a profit (and it might be able to considering Disney doesn’t have to share any of that revenue with anyone, so the amount of money it needs to gross is much smaller) it seems like Disney+ is going to be how they move forward for everything. The physical media audience is niche enough that they don’t need to cater to it anymore, so they won’t. They’ll maybe accept money from some boutique label to press up limited edition blu-rays, but I wouldn’t be surprised if those licenses aren’t cheap and so whatever hopes of a Criterion-esque (or even Criterion) release of Disney/Fox classics will be limited. That’s if Disney decides to let those titles be licensed.

Piracy really isn’t that much of a concern to the bottom line, and hasn’t been for long while. It’s been more of a boogeyman than an actual threat to business, especially not to any business the size of Disney. Pirated copies of Hamilton and Black is King aren’t even denting Disney’s subscription numbers, for example.

I think if there are hopes for a future Star Wars release that maybe someday possibly involves an official release of the theatrical versions, that release is going to be on Disney+. It’ll be a bonus feature they add one day. This announcement seems to be pointing that way.

Anakin Starkiller said:

As the characters exist currently this would feel totally out of character.

That’s why its a reboot.

This probably isn’t a great sign when it comes to any future physical releases of Star Wars

https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/080720-1600

The article makes room for possible Star Wars releases still, but it really sounds like Disney’s about done with physical media, period. No catalog releases going forward. No promotion for the catalog releases they’ve already got.

If you were waiting for a 50th/60th anniversary box-set, you might never stop waiting.

Padme openly forms the rebellion with Mon Mothma
Padme tries to kill Anakin
Padme and Obi-Wan are a thing
Palpatine’s ascension is less “machiavellian 4-D chess” and more “Fascist strongman preys on the weak”
Boba Fett has nothing to do with the clones.
Luke and Leia aren’t related
Rey Nobody
Finn and Rey are both openly force sensitive
Finn and Poe are soulmates

The music transition IS really good.

Quick corrections: There’s no H in “Jon Favreau” and (I just looked this up) he didn’t direct any of the Mandalorian’s episodes. I knew he was the executive producer and the primary showrunner - but he never did direct any of the Mandalorian’s episodes.

The Guardians of the Whills suite is so gooooood.

People don’t talk a lot about Giacchino’s score for that movie but it’s really one of my favorites.

I almost put down “The Spark” for TLJ but while that’s my favorite musical bit in that movie I don’t think you could call it the movie’s theme. Same with Asteroid Field and ESB.

I also really like The Droid March as it was heard in Attack of the Clones. That piece could have been the PT’s “Imperial March” - I guess it kind of is, but it could have been MORE so. But that would have necessitated writing the droid army completely differently, I think.

Anchorhead said:

Johnson just seemed bent on the angle of “I’m going to shake up the Star Wars franchise and turn it on it’s ear”. Where did he get off deciding the franchise needed shaking up? What it needs are great characters and stories.

Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. See: The Empire Strikes Back.

He didn’t “get off” anywhere, I don’t think? Not looking at all the behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, at least. It seems like the “angle” he was bent on WAS “great characters and stories.” If that happened to “shake up” people who watched it, all the better, but the idea he superficially went in to trash Lucasfilm’s hotel room seems weird and unfounded to me. He’s not Josh Trank or anything, LOL.

But it seemed like a fairly traditional Star Wars movie to me in most aspects. For as controversial as the film’s since become, there isn’t much in it that you can’t source back to earlier films setting precedent.

Anyway, the themes of the Star Wars movies are:

The Throne Room
The Imperial March
The Forest Battle
Duel of the Fates
Across the Stars
Battle of the Heroes
The Scavenger
The Resistance is Reborn
We Go Together

Special mention to The Asteroid Field, TIE Fighter Attack, Luke & Leia, and Han Solo & the Princess.

Octorox said:

I think if the visual is too subtle only nerdy forum geeks like us will pick it up.

Who do you think is going to be watching this, LOL.

Seriously though, it’s kind of a jump to describe the suggestion as being too subtle for a thing I’m comparing to the V-hold on a TV being broken. That’s not a subtle thing. It’s just not constant

I’m not saying the effect, as-is, is bad. It looks very good, especially considering it’s placed right next to the professionally done effect that is Kylo’s saber, and it blends right in. But I’m saying maybe it shouldn’t look exactly like Kylo’s saber - it should be broken in a slightly different manner. Maybe not as constantly noisy and crackly, but more of a rolling, wave-like fluctuation.

Looking at the effect, I think maybe it could/should be a little more subtle? In keeping with the audio mix also being more subtle. Maybe less of a constant crackle? Not only would this be less work (from a practical standpoint) but if you choose which shots should have the blade sort of shimmer/undulate with energy every now and again, it’d make it obvious that the reforged blade isn’t fully whole, but not as in-turmoil or disturbed as Kylo’s is.

Right now, it looks like its’ effectively the same energy moving through both blades, and the idea here is, from what I’ve gathered, that Rey’s blade is SIMILAR, but not exactly the same on that note. She did a better job fixing the blade that was broken (LOTR, I know, but still) and I think the best way to get that across is by only subtly manipulating the image - essentially, every 5-10 seconds or so there’s a ripple of unstable energy that crackles and rolls from hilt to point and back again.

LOL, I just realized that the effect I’m kind of describing is (and this is for the old-folks here) a faulty vertical hold on a tube tv. Not EXACTLY that same effect, but something along those lines. The picture is mostly stable, but it jitters some, and every now and again it just ROLLS before settling back down.

Finally saw The Bold One!

There is definitely a tendency to over-correct that pops up here and there. There’s also some scenes where it almost looks like a slightly-off HDR-to-SDR conversion in the highlights. It seems to mostly happen in the scene where Han meets Q’ira again.

If the Bold One’s… boldness, LOL… could be tamed just a smidge, it’d be perfect. I think as a guideline for what Chase is trying to do, it’s a good one. It serves as a good example of just how much color information is still there under all that low-contrast imagery, and how much the movie can pop with a few solid adjustments. It also serves as an example of what going just a bit too far can look like.

Honestly, someone could probably do a general full-movie adjustment of Bold One that reduces some of the blue and green, pulls the contrast down just a smidgen, maybe ups the brightness just a touch, and turns down the saturation mildly, and it would fit RIGHT in next to Empire Strikes Back, Rogue One, or The Last Jedi in terms of visual appearance.

(edit: Although applying an adjustment to “The Bold One” in its release form would probably be not great as there are quite a few compression artifacts going on with that file. It wasn’t encoded as well as it could have been, I don’t think)

I think it might be the settings on whatever you’re viewing the rips with? I’m doing an A-B and the first cap isn’t just noisier, it’s blurrier and darker, too. Granted, it’s Laserdisc - there’s only so much detail to be found, but I don’t think the dynamic range of the image is lacking. The Phantom Menace is a pretty contrasty disc, and I’ve seen it on some monitors/TVs where the shadow detail DOES get lost and crushed. But in this case, if that’s happening, it looks like it’d be more likely to happen in Cap A than in Cap B.

For example, take a look at the difference between the shadows playing across Qui-Gon’s eyes and brow. In Cap A, they’re not only darker, but there are wrinkles under the eyes and at the corner of his mouth that get lost completely in the shadows being cast. In Cap B, you can see, even in the shadows, those wrinkles.

Cut Moff Gideon survival reveal scene and added as post credits scene.

doesn’t this sort of blow the whole “classic Star Wars” vibe you’re going for all by itself?

It seems sort of jarring to adhere so strongly to main saga convention and then make a Marvel gimmick the last thing anyone sees.

I don’t think that line needs to be cut - it makes sense as a reaction. Honestly, a lot of people when they first heard Palpatine was going to be in this movie reacted the same way, even though he’s right there laughing in the trailer.

“Wait, do we believe this” fits perfectly.

Bumping for a pair of questions:

1. has anything further come of this project
2. does anyone know where a version of “The Bold One,” previously mentioned in this thread, can be found?

Hal 9000 said:

Right, fingering was all they got to.

wait, wasn’t that Alien Covenant?

Well, with Reylo the goalposts for consummation were always on wheels. Before TROS, Reylo was said to be unequivocal fact because they touched fingers in the rain, and that was as good as consummated, because “in Star Wars, kissing is like sex, and touching is like kissing, so ergo, vis a vis, concordantly…”

But still, that snark aside - the climax is a mess of “cool” ideas implemented poorly. Leia should have disappeared as soon as Ben was either healed, or just after he talked to his dad. Ben should have resurrected/healed Rey before Rey’s final fight with the Emperor. Both of them should have been voices (or ghosts) in her final fight. It wouldn’t have been hard. But the filmmakers seized on the cool idea of having them both disappear at the same time, and chose the wrong dramatic moment for that disappearing to happen. It’s like they wanted to maximize emotion, and decided the best emotion to maximize was actually “dissatisfaction.”

Hmm… can’t say I’m a fan of Rey killing Leia. Interesting idea but not for me

Maz Kanata says: “to reach her son will take all the strength she has left”. So it’s clear Leia wasn’t coming out of it alive. Rey didn’t kill her.

I like the cruel irony of it, but I don’t know if the rest of the film supports it.

All of this. Rey killing Leia is a moment with no support on either side of it. In an odd way that makes it seem plausible for an Abrams movie, because the rest of TROS is also filled with cool-sounding moments that don’t have any real setup or effort put into their execution. But there’s no need to come up with another reason to make Rey feel guilty in that moment, much less having it be that reason. It makes the breeziness of Luke’s hangout with her on Ahch-To even weirder and slighter now. “Oh, you accidentally killed her? It’s alright, she was cool w/ you. Check it out, here’s her lightsaber, take it!”

But beyond all that, it just doesn’t work. The whole point of resurrecting Carrie Fisher through deleted scenes was essentially to have her make that sacrifice to save Ben during the duel. They wanted to do that, and worked backwards from what they had in order to achieve that goal. There was no way anyone involved ever thought or meant for that to be read as “so, Rey accidentally kills her.” It’s just a side-effect of bad decisionmaking and execution of their already misguided idea. I can understand why people would believe that’s what happened considering all the other misguided empty-headed decisions for the sake of “COOL” happening, that viewers might want to latch onto something that seems like it COULD be substantial, even if it was an accident. But everything else in the movie is pointing to and underlining the idea that Leia’s whole purpose in TROS is to sacrifice herself to save her son. It’s the only thing she has to do as a character. Re-editing it so she doesn’t even do that makes the whole deleted-scenes endeavor of Fisher’s “performance” even emptier than it was before.

The bigger problem is that she saves her son and then they just cover her with a sheet for the next half-hour of the movie so they can get the disappearing body effect to twin (another example of a cool idea executed poorly and with no real thought behind it). If she’s sacrificing herself there, she should disappear there. Either after Han’s memory, or just after Rey has revived him (you could, potentially through cross-cutting, make it seem like her force is flowing through Rey). But no, they just turn her into furniture for Maz to sit in front of until Reylo is consummated.

The other bad part of deciding to cover her with a sheet until after Ben disappears is now she can’t show up in the “All the Jedi” segment, which she should. If anything, she should be the primary Jedi. The movie was created with the idea of using Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia as a symbol, and then nobody involved actually did anything symbolic with her image. When she does show up as a ghost at the very end, the focus is still on Luke, visually.

If Ben had died resurrecting Rey earlier in the Palpatine fight (and disappeared without them kissing - or without Rey even knowing he’d saved her) you could have both Ben AND Leia in the Ghost lineup behind her.

It’s just a mess.

It’s not even that deep: Deleted Scenes are mostly boring, inconsequential garbage, and the DVD era bore that out pretty clearly.

Nobody really cares about Deleted Scenes because once the curiosity factor of them being easily available on discs dried up in the 2000s, people basically recognized them as not much more than what they ended up almost always being: one-time-watch fluff used to pad out the “bonus features” listing on the back of the box. The only people who still consider them to be items of note ARE fan-editors because they’re the one niche audience that still NEEDS them for their own projects.

Documentaries, gag reels, commentaries (maybe) - that stuff still carries some weight with viewers/consumers. Not so much Deleted Scenes. I don’t think it’s a reflection or referendum of “Disney oversaturation” or anything like that. It’s probably just a combination of “people don’t really care a lot about these so much” and “these deleted scenes are so far removed from what the movie ended up being it’d just be confusing and weird to plop these on the disc, unfinished and without context.”

Good news! It’s also an audio drama!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v5wwQAVR6k