Darth Lucas

I’ve always found the “Lucas clause” theory utterly ridiculous. Apart from the fact that I’ve heard from multiple people within the Disney corporation that no such clause exists to their knowledge, it would make absolutely no sense for Disney to agree to such a thing. I think Lucas sold the company because he simply doesn’t want anything to do with it anymore, so he wouldn’t even want to add something like that to put further scrutiny on him.

I really don’t think Lucas hates the idea of releasing the originals as much as people seem to think, I just think he’s a guy who focuses on the future and didn’t personally see the point of putting in the time and effort to restore the “old versions” to a presentable form. He sees the films as Walt Disney saw Disneyland: evolving and never complete. I doubt he’d really complain or anything if lucasfilm released the originals under new management. It’s just that he didn’t personally want to do it himself. He’s not an asshole, he just doesn’t do things if he doesn’t want to, which however reprehensible, you gotta respect to a degree.

My suspicion is that Disney is working on a restoration, or at least has it in their plans, but are focusing on the sequel trilogy and rebels at the moment to renew interest in the saga, which will surely boost sales when the unaltered blu rays are announced.

Yeah, I respect mverta for what he does and he seems like a cool enough person, and I get that he’s had some beefs with a certain member of TN1, but I do find that him taking jabs at something alot of people worked really hard on is a bit unnecessary, especially when at least a few members of the team have been really cooperative with him. I understand jabs at the specific member with the inflated ego, or even at the team, but no need to insult the work. The SSE isn’t a perfect restoration but it was never meant to be, at least not to my understanding. Plus, even all of us praising the silverscreen edition would jump for joy and put all our old preservations in a box for storage somewehre if Legacy was released. We understand it’s the best it’s gonna get and that we, with our limited skillsets and modest equipment to say the least, can never do what he’s done.

Most of us working on these things don’t want fame as he likes to suggest. There may be some select few among us who do, and want the recognition more than anything, but the rest of us, and the majority of us, just want Star Wars back.

Dek Rollins said:

“Essence of the Force” is a good fan shortfilm. 8 mins. I’d say it’s better than the PT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njPK4UKisQc

Hahaha omg thank you for that trip down memory lane. I had forgotten about this gem.

camroncamera said:

mverta said:
Let me just clarify a few points:

1. Legacy will be screened for Fox/Disney executives later this year. At least, that’s the plan, the discussions have started/invitations beginning, and so far, so good. We’ll see.

… (snip)…

mverta said:
But to most people, it’s hard to believe, unless they really see it, just how bad a shape Star Wars is in. I mean, no other important, relevant release (they’re still making Star Wars movies, you’ll notice) is so mistreated and neglected. But a pitch is a show - all pitches are. And I’ve done God-knows-how-many of them in my career. It’s a full multi-media presentation in a theater, with lots of eye candy, and aims to lead the audience towards an inescapable conclusion. But how it’s unique and different, and most importantly, profitable, are just key elements. So certainly an analysis of the market and making that case is part of it. But it’s gotta stay entertaining, and potential laden. Legacy, should it be adopted, would be the first truly new offering in a long time - not just another repackaging, and not just a bit of hype. This is a Star Wars nobody’s really ever seen, ready for 4K… ready for a limited theatrical release if they wanted to do it. It’s a strong pitch just on its merits, but that’s by no means a slam dunk. It’s got to be done just right, pitch-perfect, at the right time with the right people and every last pushback planned for. I have help from a fantastic team. We’re on it.

… (snip)…

mverta said:
I’ve been mostly out of the country, and otherwise working my ass off to dig myself out of this abyss of Legacy debt 😃 So far so good, but that’s why it’s been quiet. But in terms of releases, I don’t want to put anything out ahead of the pitch. I don’t want to risk having any thunder stolen. I want to be able to end the pitch with a mic drop, basically.

Can’t tell you how thrilled I am with these updates. Thanks for logging in and spending some quality time here again. I know I really appreciate hearing exciting news on Legacy like this. Best of luck!

Agreed. I try to log onto the Legacy forums occasionally, but it’s definitely more convenient when things are posted here, given it’s where I spend alot of my time, so I thank you for giving us occasional updates 😃

Yeah, despite anything the team has done or said, I will be the first in line to say Williarob deserves none of the blame.

I guess the cat’s outta the bag now.

We’re all rooting for you Mike. Hope the presentation goes well. Nobody would be happier for our hub to go relatively obsolete than we on this forum.

Any ETA on when frames will be posted? Not trying to rush you or anything, just wondering.

That’s an excellent idea. Name it something catchy like "classictrilogy.com" or something like that.

TV’s Frink said:

That’s no nurse.

It’s a space station.

My opinion is the green shift is absolutely unique to the tech prints. There’s no evidence to suggest it was on anything else.

I would however, not hold my breath for the technicolor project, without getting into detail.

I’ve had a conversation with a certain team member. Out of concern for privacy I won’t get into detail as to what was specifically said, but in a nutshell my understanding is that nothing is really changing and the various projects will (for the most part) still be worked on individually, they’re just not going to be called “Team Negative 1” and work as such.

baron_lando said:

Darth Lucas said:

Fox only has the distribution rights to ANH at the moment, and those rights revert to Disney in 2020, therefore it really doesn’t matter what FOX wants.

I think Fox has New Hope forever, in perpetuity, and loses the other 5 completely in '20.

Yes this has been established and I was incorrect in my original statement.

I feel as though Despecialized over the years has gotten far more publicity than Team Negative 1’s release as of late. Despecialized has had these spurts of time where the media is all over it too, yet nothing like this has ever happened to him. I believe the op about it being specific to the recent screenshots they’ve been posting, although I really have no idea what that exactly means, and I’m not sure it’s really important for us to know the details, unless of course it’s something that could affect those of us working on our own projects in the future.

http://originaltrilogy.com/announcement/Team-Negative1/id/48366

Oh, looks like you are correct in that. My mistake. Either way, the point stands. At least for Empire and Jedi.

Oh wow. This is sad. Come on guys, we’re better than this.

clutchins said:

I’ve always wondered how the 1997/2004 version will be presented on a single disc. I would have expected a 2004/2011 split disc since they are similar in color grading.

Similar color grading, yes. But since each version will be on its own timeline that doesn’t much matter. If I was doing seamless branching between the versions, I absolutely would put 04 and 11 together. But then at that point there would be enough space for 97, 04, and 11 to be all on the same disc.

The first post is kept pretty up to date with what’s included. Really the only thing not listed is audio, which for Disc One will include the three DTS-HD-MA tracks (5.1, 2.0, and 1.0).

Discs Two and Three are still in their infancy. I’m still trying to gather the necessary tracks for them, so until I finish Disc One, not too much will be said in terms of technical details for them.

I am extremely happy to say that all of the material for Disc 1 is finalized.
I have both the color corrected 1977 and 1981 versions of the movie finished rendered, menus all finished, apart from a couple thumbnails for the chapter selection menu, which should be finished later today, and the audio tracks extracted directly from DeEd’s MKV.

Now onto probably the quickest (which sounds funny to say, cuz it’ll still take quite some time) part of the process, authoring the discs.

I am really happy with how this is turning out. Discs 2 and 3 should not take nearly as long, given they are much more drag and drop; no color correction or recreating crawls or anything.

But Disney is notorious for removing old logos of both their own company and previous distributors of their older films and replacing them with updated logos.

Fox only has the distribution rights to ANH at the moment, and those rights revert to Disney in 2020, therefore it really doesn’t matter what FOX wants.

And if I’m being perfectly frank, the only people who really care about the logos and consider them to be as important as anything else in the film are us. People like us on these forums. General audiences do not care nearly as much and the studios know it. I wish I could be optimistic about it, but that’s the sad reality of it.

Disney would most definitely be willing to take out the Fox logo for a release. Assuming they wait until after 2020, fox will have had nothing to do with the release, and disney does not want people thinking they did.

The digital release removed the fox logo on everything except ANH which is only because they legally couldn’t. The only reason it was still on the most recent bluray release is that it was just repackaged discs from 2011 and they didn’t want to have to strike brand new blu rays just for the sake of removing the logo.

And if and when they do an OOT release omitting the Fox logo, general audience reactions will be. “They took out the Fox logo and fanfare, which is kinda sad, but really that’s such a small detail who really cares.” Like I can already see the YouTube reviews in my head.

I think this is my new most anticipated release right up there with Harmy’s 3.0

I don’t think they’d have that new lucasfilm fanfare either way though. There was such negative backlash to that from the digital release. Notice how the lucasfilm logo was silent for TFA. I think they planned on using it for TFA but because there was so much negative backlash they just decided to have it silent.

If they released it before 2020 when the distribution rights for sw revert to Disney, it would most likely be all original with the fox logo, but with a new hope on the crawl.

After 2020 they’d take the fox logo out and either have the original lucasfilm logo silent or add the new lucasfilm logo.

ray_afraid said:

I didn’t mind the movie ending with finding Luke, but I really hated the scene. I suddenly felt like I was watching a Nat Geo documentary. Skellig Michael and the cinematography just pulled me right out of the film.
It was good to see Luke though.

I felt the opposite. I really liked the scene but hated it ending with Luke like that. I’ll play devil’s advocate and take the unpopular opinion here. I agree that it should have ended when she flies away and the resistance is all standing there watching her go.

If they were just upfront with us from the get go and said “Luke skywalker is not in episode 7, but he will be in episode 8” I don’t think people would have minded his absence.

The end of the film perfectly sets up that you’re gonna see Luke in the next film. You didn’t need the tacked on cliffhanger ending. It did feel to me like the end of a tv show episode where they feel the need to tag on an unnecessary teaser at the end to get you to watch next week.

I don’t hate the ending, but I think it would have been better in the long run if it had ended there. Felt like the logical place to end it.

Plus then they aren’t obligated to start episode 8 directly where episode 7 ends. There could be some passage of time in between the films.

Not to mention every Star Wars film prior has ended on a wide shot of a group of heroes standing, usually staring into the distance.

While the Luke/Rey shot could still fall under this criteria, the spinning helicopter shot felt weird to me.

Once again though, I don’t wanna sound like I hated it. It worked fine for me and I liked the execution of the scene, I would have just personally preferred it be saved for 8.