How would you people feel if Disney released the OOT in glorious 4K and then Lucas bought back the franchise and made a proper Sequel Trilogy?
Not happening?
And to note the extra bit depth is incredibly useful for color grading work in fanedits.
I’ve run into many issues with regrading the prequels due to the limited amount available on the current blu-rays. Meanwhile working on Solo from the 4K Blu-ray, it’s incredible just how much you can alter the image.
Are you one of the twelve people in the world who actually owns a UHD optical drive?
I have a question about the color bit (depth?). Can you explain it to me like I’m a five year old? How does that differ from the resolution of the image? Is it that there are more colors to choose from, or something about how they are displayed?
In binary you only have two “numbers” to work with, 0 and 1.
8-bit is 2 to the 8th power, or 256, for each primary color. 256 cubed (since there are three primary colors: red, green, and blue) gets you a little over 16 million possible colors with 8-bit.
Extrapolate that out to 10-bit and you get billions of colors, 12-bit billions more.
If I’ve got this right, regular blu-ray still uses 8-bit color but UHD blu-ray uses 10-bit.
RotS was probably finished in 10-bit, although the actual cameras recorded in 12-bit color.
I’m not sure about TPM, AotC, or the four most recent movies, but Reliance MediaWorks’ 4k restoration of the OT was done in 16-bit. Alfonso Cuaron’s recent film Roma was also finished this way.
If that recent report from an “unnamed UK source” has any truth to it, AotC and RotS were actually the most challenging of the first six movies to remaster for the UHD format.
AFAIK, AotC and RotS, though shot in 1920 by 817, would’ve been finished at cinema 2k res for scope (2048 by 858) and had their vfx shots rendered out at that res as well. For the entirely cgi shots, this would’ve been relatively straightforward. Shots involving live action footage were presumably upscaled very slightly, but I could be wrong about that. It’s possible that ILM worked on all the live-action shots at their native res and they weren’t upscaled to “true 2k” until the final DI pass.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the blu-rays are not the best these movies can look. Lucasfilm would presumably have the 2k, 10/12-bit, 4:4:4, DCI-P3 digital cinema source master files on a hard drive somewhere in the vault whereas the blu-rays are 1920, 8-bit, 4:2:0, rec 709 hd video. These movies can look a lot better than their current home video iterations. Even if we take the limitations of 1080p bd into account, I’d still really love to know how AotC turned out looking so tinted and blurry.
There’s actually already been at least one movie shot in 1920:1080 released on UHD, Resident Evil: Afterlife. The pixel count of the cameras used on AoTC/RotS isn’t the problem, it’s more the other specs like color sub-sampling and whatnot. But like I said, these movies were still finished at 2k.
TPM, though shot on film, had vfx added to almost every last shot. This would’ve been done at 2k. So, the “original negative” for all intents and purposes are the finished rendered frames that were filmed out to actual 35mm negative 20 years (and at least a couple weeks) ago today. The digital filmout tapes were still readable in 2011 and were used to rebuild the movie.
It’s worth noting that 2k vfx were the norm up until only very recently. Even a movie like After Earth, which was shot and finished in 4k, only had its vfx rendered at 2k. The effects shots for Blade Runner 2049 (which Harmy worked on) were finished at 3.4k for the live action shots (to match the native res of the cameras) and 4k for the fully cg shots. TLJ had its vfx rendered out at 2048 by 1718 so that when it was “unsqueezed” by 2x (just like the cinemascope camera footage) it would be full 4096.
Just how far, if at all, has the nu-canon delved into the pre-TPM era?
Do we even have a vague idea of what it looked like from TCW/Rebels and the new books/comics/games or would the filmmakers have pretty much a blank slate to tell whatever story they want?
So are the films coming out from 2022 onwards with the Game of Thrones writers? People seem to be upset about them, but I don’t have any knowledge of the series at all. The release dates and the actual movies on the current schedule is so vague.
Edit: Right so it is theirs. Six movies with no information… I don’t know how many of them will actually become reality.
Well, not exactly.
Rian had originally been announced, less then a month before TLJ’s release, as writing a trilogy, and the GoT guys were announced only a month or two later as writing and producing “a series of Star Wars films.”
Then Kathleen Kennedy apparently said at Celebration last month (and I heard this second-hand so apologies if I have this wrong) that Rian and the GoT guys have been talking to each other.
Then we got the announcement just last week of the release dates for three untitled Star Wars films and got confirmation only within the last day or so that the GoT guys are working on the first of these three films.
Everything else seems up in the air at the moment.
Disney released their entire slate for the next few years. They’re going to alternate releases of each Avatar and Star Wars every December (2021 Avatar 2, 2022 new Star Wars, 2023 Avatar 3, etc.).
Makes way more sense now, thank you for the clarification. I went back and clicked the link in that article and see they pushed back Avatar 2 yet again. Anyone remember when it was going to hit theaters December of 2015 (the release window Episode VII moved right into) and was then slated for 2016 until Rogue One stared it in the face and it moved again?
I wonder if WB releasing Dune only a month earlier had anything to do with Disney pushing Avatar 2 back an entire year. Hopefully audiences give it a shot, I’d love to see the rest of Frank Herbert’s main series adapted for the big screen by Denis Villeneuve. I mean, we got five Michael Bay Transformers movies, didn’t we?
Meanwhile, I see Disney’s got a Marvel movie, a Pixar movie, a live-action Cruella movie and (via Fox) Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, all in those last two months of 2020.
Speaking of Spielberg, Indy 5 is still slated for July of 2021, and now that we know there won’t be another big screen Lucasfilm production released until a year and a half later I’s say the chances are good they actually hold to that release date this time.
The Avatar Sequels always make me chuckle. The first one was a huge success, but since 2008 a ton’s changed. We witnessed the rise of the MCU, and with it the “cinematic universe” which we now see with DC and Godzilla. Star Wars and Marvel have become insanely profitable. Avatar 2 should have come out in 2012 or something, back when it was still popular with the public. Once you have two great movies you got a franchise… but as it stands most people will look at Avatar 2 as just another “two-decade late sequel” like Independence Day or Blade Runner. One of which was good the other not- both of which struggled at the box office.
Concerning Lucasfilm- I am annoyed they are stuck to Star Wars. I know this is an unpopular opinion for a star wars site… but George Lucas created his two big franchises from nothing. Why does his company have to stick to just Star Wars? Why not make a new franchise and market it as the “third Lucasfilm property” alongside SW and Indy?
Or just make some Indy movies. How they recast Solo before they made another Indy is beyond me.
It’s funny you bring up the “cinematic universe” comparison, because those are the exact buzz words Fox used two or three years ago when it was officially announced that there would be four Avatar sequels.
It just occurred to me that the same amount of time will have passed since the original Avatar as Cameron took to make said original after Titanic was released.
Disney released their entire slate for the next few years. They’re going to alternate releases of each Avatar and Star Wars every December (2021 Avatar 2, 2022 new Star Wars, 2023 Avatar 3, etc.).
I wonder if WB releasing Dune only a month earlier had anything to do with Disney pushing Avatar 2 back an entire year.
Really doubt that Disney would be worried that the sequel to (as of writing) the biggest movie ever will face rough competition against a remake of a box office flop directed by the guy who just made a long awaited sequel that turned out a box office flop (I’m really excited for it though). More likely than not James Cameron himself is delaying it (or, the same reason it’s been delayed for the last five years).
Oh, Cameron can only be happy they’ve been delayed again. It gives him that much more time to perfect their presentation. More Dolby Cinemas and Imax-with-laser theaters will have opened by that point. He’s been hyping the capabilities of Dolby Vision 3D, and I wonder if this might be the first cgi-heavy 3D production to be finished in natively rendered 4k-per-eye. Maybe by the time the last two sequels come out he will have finally brought his dream of glasses-free 3D projection tech to fruition, even if it’s only in a few theaters here and there.
It makes me wonder how these future Star Wars movies will be made, now that they won’t be constrained by having to fit within the pre-existing saga.
Disney released their entire slate for the next few years. They’re going to alternate releases of each Avatar and Star Wars every December (2021 Avatar 2, 2022 new Star Wars, 2023 Avatar 3, etc.).
Makes way more sense now, thank you for the clarification. I went back and clicked the link in that article and see they pushed back Avatar 2 yet again. Anyone remember when it was going to hit theaters December of 2015 (the release window Episode VII moved right into) and was then slated for 2016 until Rogue One stared it in the face and it moved again?
I wonder if WB releasing Dune only a month earlier had anything to do with Disney pushing Avatar 2 back an entire year. Hopefully audiences give it a shot, I’d love to see the rest of Frank Herbert’s main series adapted for the big screen by Denis Villeneuve. I mean, we got five Michael Bay Transformers movies, didn’t we?
Meanwhile, I see Disney’s got a Marvel movie, a Pixar movie, a live-action Cruella movie and (via Fox) Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, all in those last two months of 2020.
Speaking of Spielberg, Indy 5 is still slated for July of 2021, and now that we know there won’t be another big screen Lucasfilm production released until a year and a half later I’d say the chances are good they actually hold to that release date this time.
Disney has announced the release dates for three untitled Star Wars films, which will be December of 2022, 2024, and 2026, much like the ST.
https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2019/05/07/disney-just-announced-three-new-star-wars-movies
Nothing else has been said about just what these films will be, whether they’re Rian’s, Weiss & Benioff’s, some of each, or something else entirely.
What I find curious is that IIRC Fox had set the release date for Avatar 4 in December of 2024, so I guess that’s getting moved. James Cameron said Avatar 4 and 5 wouldn’t get finished at all unless 2 and 3 do well, so maybe Disney is taking a “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” approach now.
Star Wars, meanwhile, continues to be a license to print money.
First Steven Spielberg doesn’t even bother including the later version of E.T. in the blu-ray release or the 4k, now Francis Ford Coppola (George’s friend going even further back) is including both the theatrical Apocalypse Now and Apocalypse Now Redux alongside a new third cut of the movie, all in 4k!
though the rumor says 4 discs per movie for the 4K sets and 3 discs for the BD
Right, I seem to have unintentionally caused some confusion when I said “three discs.”
The assumption is that the three-disc blu-ray and the four-disc 4k will have the same three regular blu-rays and the 4k will simply also include the final version on an actual UHD disc.
I doubt they’ll bother including a dvd copy.
Because if they include things to make it one whole “Saga” with explicit links to the PT and the SW Story films it’s unlikely they want any weird stray threads lying around. It’s always been a Special Edition. It’s always been one interconnected series. George Lucas was a genius and this was all part of his original vision. Solo and Rogue One were smooth productions. It’s all one nice brand friendly package and all remnants of the old versions will be swept away.
But, again, what exactly is “three discs per film” supposed to mean other than that one of those discs is gonna be the unaltered version?
I mean, if Lucasfilm just considers it “bonus content” anyway…
It blows my mind a little but I think you’re totally right, Dre. If anything, we would be more likely to get an official release of the OOT because of a few old school fans/professionals over at Lucasfilm who want to see it released, rather than Lucasfilm wanting to appease a fanbase hungry for the OOT, which doesn’t seem to be the case. I only say that because there sounds like some kind of effort internally to maintain/preserve the theatrical versions of the OT, based off a few nuggets of information, like Gareth Edwards mentioning watching it before/during Rogue One’s development, and them using material from Star Wars for the inclusions of Red/Gold Leader in his film. But I’m no expert on the matter.
Rian Johnson jokingly referred to the SE as “the cartoon versions” the week the 2011 bd was released. You may or may not be able to find that tweet now.
Abrams claims to have shown his kids the original versions when they were growing up.
Edwards didn’t watch the OOT, it was merely the newer 4k restoration of ANH done by Reliance MediaWorks. It was still presumably the SE.
If for no other reason than that it will inflate the price and all of the people who don’t care about the unaltered versions will still pay any amount for a brand new release of Star Wars day one, Disney will include the unaltered versions.
To DrDre’s point about how there’s a growing majority of SE/PT fans within the fandom, I would think many of those fans would still love to be able to see the unaltered OT in modern quality, to see the theatrical TPM and the IMAX cut of AotC. Even if they don’t actively want those things the way we do, I’m sure they would find it a nice bonus to have a historical archive of these films.
I just emailed their customer service line.
Thank you!
I’m sure they’re fully expecting to get more questions about these screenings than they do for most other films.
It’s Star Wars, after all.
The 1997 and 2011 versions could inhabit one disc via seamless branching. Give the originals their own discs with plenty of room, and the third disc is every bit of deleted/alternate footage and maybe some vintage docs, hopefully restored?
They could follow Blade Runner’s example to the letter and have the first disc be the “final” version with whatever color timing and last changes George wants, the second disc be the 1997/2004/2011 versions all seamlessly branched (I’d want them to simply conform the color-timing to how it looked in theaters in ‘97), and the third disc be the unaltered version preserved as faithfully as possible.
Based on this recent article’s source’s claim that it will be “four discs per film for the 4k, three discs for the regular blu-ray,” I think the less ideal but more realistic prediction is that the three discs will be the final version, the unaltered version, and the extras, respectively, and the 4k version will be those same exact regular blu-ray discs but with a fourth disc that’s the “final” version on UHD.
I’d love to be wrong, though.
Like before?
Well, it was slightly different in 2015. The day before the digital release dropped (which was the same week as Celebration IIRC) there was a report citing a “source” within LFL that the Han/Greedo scene had been altered yet again, this time back to its original pre-SE edit.
That report may yet turn out to be true. It could be a change that’s being saved for the 4k remaster.
Anyway, yeah, it wasn’t an OOT rumor that time. But Greedo shooting first is arguably the most controversial change George has made to these films. Changing it back to its original state would be a big deal all on its own.
It’s important to note that the article’s source didn’t specifically say that we should expect the OOT the way that every other rumor has. They kind of hinted at it, but again, the point was more that there were 4K restorations happening, not that we’d get the original versions. That, to me, makes the article a bit more credible since it isn’t as speculative.
Yeah, but they also mention that Lucasfilm is thinking at least three discs per movie and that this Skywalker Saga release will “please fans.”
For the OT films, just what in the world could that possibly mean other than the unaltered version on one of those discs?!
I take it nothing of note was announced at Celebration?
It would appear not.
But just like before, we’re getting a suspiciously timed article coinciding with Celebration.
I contacted them out of curiosity. Not that I could go. All DCP, all SE
With whom did you speak? I’d be curious to ask (if they know) whether the OT dcp’s are 4k or just the same old same old.
“As we said a week ago, it makes sense, given that Episode IX ends the 9-film “Skywalker” portion of the Star Wars Saga, that Disney would want to put all of the films (including Solo and Rogue One) into a new box set on Blu-ray and 4K next year. This is one of those subjects were our industry contacts run deep and there’s much we just can’t say. And the reason we can’t is that many things are still in flux and being decided.”
That’s from Bill Hunt’s Friday post at The Digital Bits.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/041219-1200
Meanwhile, the article from The Digital Fix, which cites an unnamed UK-based source within Lucasfilm, seems to indicate the current plan as four discs per film for the 4k (three discs for the bd).
So even if standard dynamic range 1080p is the best we end up with for the OOT, I can’t imagine them doing that many discs per film and not having any of them be the unaltered version.
Just thought I’d bump the thread in light of AFI Silver here in the DC area showing I-VIII next month.
Apparently they’ll all be shown on DCP.
I’m curious if the OT will be from the newer master (not curious enough to actually buy a ticket of course, it’s still the most recent revision either way). Didn’t someone on these boards go to one of the “Roadshow” screenings of the OT a couple years ago and claim that the colors, grain etc looked noticeably different from the Lowry master?
I was just about to say “Surely there was a trailer at Celebration and why isn’t it up on the official youtube channel yet?” But yeah, as others have said, makes more sense to wait until that teaser for IX has been out there for a little while.
I want to say there was a Star Wars novel with that title as well, but that could be my memory playing tricks on me.