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Fang Zei

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14-Oct-2006
Last activity
17-Sep-2025
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2,790

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Post
#259639
Topic
Has technology accelerated that much?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/259639/action/topic#259639
Time
Originally posted by: BeeJayWhy don't you believe the OOT had a proper release in September of this year?


Look at posts on these threads from on or after May 18th and you'll know why.

Labeling it as bonus content was one thing, fine, so we also have to buy the SE when we buy the original unaltereds. But that same press release from May 3rd also had Jim Ward saying, and I quote "We returned to the Lucasfilm Archives to search exhaustively for source material that could be presented on DVD. This is something that we're very excited to be able to give to fans in response to their continuing enthusiasm for Star Wars."

Sorry, but I really don't think they had to do all that much searching for a few master tapes from 1993. That line about our "continuing enthusiasm for Star Wars" makes it seem like none of us want the OOT on dvd for any reason beyond nostalgia and that we'll accept whatever quality it's in. To remind everyone here that I'm criticizing quality of presentation, not content, the SE is presented in anamorphic widescreen just like every other widescreen movie ever made is expected to be, but the OOT is not!

To give the altered version the expected standard treatment and to give the original unaltered a substandard treatment is not fair at all, is it?
Post
#259618
Topic
Has technology accelerated that much?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/259618/action/topic#259618
Time
As far as I'm concerned, the OOT has not seen a dvd release. Hopefully it will some day.

Hey, it took some other movies from Star Wars's era a long while to see decent dvd releases.

The original Dune dvd from '98 was non-anamorphic and single layer. Earlier this year they finally released a new dvd with a new transfer for both it and the longer television version, both dual layer, both anamorphic. It's all on one DVD-18.

The old Blade Runner dvd, while anamorphic, looks horrible by today's standards. It was only single layer and the picture itself had many issues to begin with. Again, this year also saw it getting updated with a new transfer on a dual layer disc.

Yet another update this year was the Brazil dvd. The old disc was non-anamorphic but this was finally reissued by Criterion.

Even "The Doors," a frequently used example of non-anamorphic dvd releases, is also finally getting an update.

Lucas just might make Star Wars part of a rather exclusive club....
Post
#259511
Topic
Has technology accelerated that much?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/259511/action/topic#259511
Time
Originally posted by: BeeJayThey started going back to do the SE around 1996, possibly very late 1995. That is my guess. If anyone can correct me on this, that is fine.

Lucas mentions the work being done for the SE in at least one of the Leonard Maltin interviews from the '95 Faces set.

Originally posted by: BeeJayFollowing my theory of what LucasFilm is doing, let's be safe and say that if the original negatives were brought out again sometime early this year of 2006. That is a solid 9+ years that the o-negative has been dormant somewhere. During nine years, many things can happen. More grime can stick itself to the film, (nothing is perfect, even the most safest things get damaged,) and the restored scenes they did for the SE could've been lost inside of the computers. Why not go back and start fresh? That has to be what the plan is.


Good God, I hope so.
Post
#259127
Topic
ANH screening with modelmaker Lorne Peterson...WHY ARE THEY SCREENING THE SE??
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/259127/action/topic#259127
Time
Originally posted by: BeeJay
The LaserDisc quality is not piss-poor quality, like a lot of people try to say. Of course it doesn't rank up with truly restored digital viewing, as it would have if they used the original negatives as the baseline for the September release.

By the same token, the old LaserDisc releases were rather crisp, don't you think?


Restoration has nothing to do with it. The GOUT has not been remastered.

The point is that an actual film screening of ANH is happenning to showcase Peterson's model work but it is the SE, which deleted some of his work.
Post
#258964
Topic
See, George, This is how it's done ...
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/258964/action/topic#258964
Time
After various reports over the last several months of what to expect on the new S:TM dvd, it turns out that the 5.1 audio is actually suppossed to be the new 2001 remix but the 2.0 audio is not. The problem is that both tracks use the new 2001 remix, I don't know how this oversight occurred. All copies of S:TM theatrical are affected by this, so WB will be replacing that along with the aforementioned SIII.
Post
#258953
Topic
See, George, This is how it's done ...
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/258953/action/topic#258953
Time
from The Digital Bits:

WHV tells me that corrected DVDs and sets will eventually find their way into stores (as a 'running' production change) once the current stock sells out. They'll have new SKU numbers to distinguish them from the current ones - don't know what those are yet.


this most definitely isn't the best possible way of going about it, but at least WB is doing something to correct the problem.
Post
#257866
Topic
"Black Friday" SW DVD Sales...Wow, Did Some of You...
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/257866/action/topic#257866
Time
anxiously awaiting black friday sale lists for all the stores, but seriously these would have to drop to at least $5 and more realistically $3 before I even consider picking them up. $10 isn't quite what I was hoping for.

Don't hate me, everyone. I might not even pick them up just so I can stand by what I wrote in that angry email six months ago, and plus if the movies don't get remastered we're screwed either way.
Post
#256774
Topic
Where do I go from here as a SW fan?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256774/action/topic#256774
Time
What I'm saying is that Lucas used those things I listed, which are all good things in and of themselves, in order to sell us the SE. With the '06 dvds, LFL first announced them in regards to the GOUT but then made the tv ads to focus on them being available "individually for the first time ever," and again he was just selling us the SE.

They'll no doubt use tactics similar to the '04 boxset to sell the '07 release. Who knows, maybe they actually will remaster the O-OT but as that guy from wired magazine so aptly put it, they won't make the fans happy because a happy fan has everything he or she needs.
Post
#256749
Topic
What versions of the SW saga do you own (OT, PT, preservations, etc)?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256749/action/topic#256749
Time
PT:

-'00 TPM fullscreen vhs.
-'01 TPM widescreen dvd.
-'02 AOTC widescreen dvd.
-'05 ROTS widescreen dvd.

OT (copy pasted from the other thread):

-'95 ANH fullscreen vhs. Christmas gift that year.
-'97 widescreen vhs boxset. Christmas gift that year.
-'04 widescreen dvd boxset. Mom got it a few weeks after it was released, it's still back at home.
-'86 ROTJ fullscreen vhs. Found it by pure chance at my video store's used vhs sale in May of '05, still in its original box after all these years and it also plays just fine!
-'95 TESB and ROTJ, both fullscreen. Found these only a week or so later at a record and tape traders. Perfect luck since I already had the '95 vhs of ANH. Perfect luck....or so I thought. ROTJ works fine but I got totally gyped on TESB. Either edge of the tape is wrinkled so there's constant static like every other second practically. And the worst part is that I saw the complete '95 boxset (probably also fullscreen) at that same record and tape traders but passed on it since I already had ANH, plus I might not have had enough cash on me for it. In any event, curses on whoever sold that TESB tape to them in the first place. I was soooooo clooooooooose.
-cowclops v2 transfer of the OT, not 4 months before LFL's out of the blue announcement.

others:

-clone wars volumes 1 & 2
-ewok adventures
-a musical journey
Post
#253953
Topic
Letterbox looks like CRAP on a widescreen HDTV :(
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/253953/action/topic#253953
Time
To be totally honest, I probably wouldn't care about them being non-anamorphic either if the damn subtitles weren't getting cut off. Everything I've read says GOUT is the best transfer out there. The anamorphic transfers probably look better on a 16:9 tv, but like I said they probably don't look as good on 4:3 televisions, short perhaps of doing that full resolution reverse stretch trick, and who really wants to do that?

Lucas could've been cool, he could've told us in advance about whatever he's doing next year ala New Line with Lord of the Rings or Warner Bros with the recent Blade Runner release, but then we'd have no reason at all to buy shitty non-anamorphic transfers unless we didn't know the difference.

Black friday can't get here soon enough.
Post
#253783
Topic
Here's my stance
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/253783/action/topic#253783
Time
Obi, I totally know where you're coming from on the "Star Wars" vs "A New Hope" issue. I once heard it argued that if Empire has one flaw, it's the "Episode V" that's always been at the begginning of the movie. If Empire and Jedi just had titles and not episode #'s, the original trilogy could at least stand totally on it's own, but for better or for worse the sequels have always said V and VI respectively.

This is why I could really go either way on the "Star Wars" vs "ANH" issue. Seeing Star Wars as it actually was in '77 would be amazing, but that really cuts out the prequels if I wanted to do a true saga marathon (PT and the O-OT). On the other hand, letting the absence of an Episode number and subtitle slide isn't all that hard even if I were to watch all 6 films.

Like I said, people didn't get anywhere near as pissed with the addition of "ANH" as they did with all the SE changes. It is an alteration, yes, but from what I hear there were many other alterations made between the original theatrical releases of the movies and their SE releases. That is why, as far as I'm concerned, the O-OT is any release of the movies before '97, and there are many.
Post
#253774
Topic
Letterbox looks like CRAP on a widescreen HDTV :(
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/253774/action/topic#253774
Time
Originally posted by: Harlock415
But damn it Lucas, this took me a couple of hours to do onmy home computer that's 4 years old. He could have done the same thing, probably with bette results.


I theorized about this during the summer. The only reason I can think of for why LFL didn't just make the 4:3 into 16:9 is that, while it would have no doubt looked better on widescreen displays than the non-anamorphic transfers that they gave us, it might not look as good on 4:3 displays. If they had cropped a 480 picture and then made a new 480 picture out of that, people watching it on 4:3 displays would be seeing it after the dvd player performed the 4:3 downscaling (or downconversion, whatever it's called). This might not have looked as good as the 480 letterbox non-anamorphic transfer that he gave us, but of course that screwed over anyone trying to watch it on a 16:9 display.

Lucas/LFL is really behind the times. First he waits until the best possible moment to release the trilogy on dvd, several years after the format had clearly caught on, then waits two more years to release the O-OT in a format that's been obsolete for nearly a decade.