Fang Zei

User Group: Members
Join date: 14-Oct-2006
Last activity: 26-Jun-2025
Posts: 2,779

Post History

Post: #251913
Topic: Here's my stance
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/251913/action/topic#251913
Time: 18-Oct-2006 2:58 AM

Originally posted by: Scruffy

Originally posted by: CO

I bought the LOTR set the other day on DVD, and it included the Theatrical Versions and the Extended Versions in one boxset, both transfers with Anamorphic Widescreen and 5.1 DD. Geez, that wasn't that hard to please all of the LOTR fans?

But neither version has the car driving along the edge of Farmer Maggot's field, so you're not getting the TRUE, ORIGINAL theatrical version. You're just getting one step in Peter Jackson's ever-changing "vision." Honestly, if you're okay with Peter Jackson erasing cars from Middle-earth, but you've got problems with Lucas erasing blaster burns or inserting theme-restaurant style CGI musical numbers, you're clearly biased.

And when you look in the background of Osgiliath in the "theatrical version" of The Two Towers, can you see Minas Tirith? If you can, it's not truly the theatrical version. The studio feared that audiences would get confused over what that thing in the distant background was, especially during all that intercutting of helm's deep, ithilien, and fangorn. Peter Jackson then altered those shots of osgiliath at the studio's behest prior to the film's theatrical release in December of '02. He restored the "originally intended" version of the shots for the extended 4-disc dvd. I'm assuming the 2006 dvd doesn't have both versions of those shots on the disc, but then again I haven't seen it so I could be wrong.

In regards to the car in The Fellowship of the Ring, imdb says that all dvd versions are devoid of it. I'm assuming this includes even the 2-disc theatrical version dvd but I don't have my copy on me so I can't check. The car was visible in the theatrical release of the movie.

As an aside, I do own all of the 2002-2004 dvds but unfortunately the theatrical version of The Two Towers has a player-specific error on the disc that causes it to freeze up towards the very end of the movie when gandalf says "Sauron's wrath shall be terrible, his retribution swift." This error occurs on my parents' nice sony s-video dvd player from '99 and on their computer's dvd-rom but it does not occur on my ps2. I've google searched this and it is indeed a player-specific error. For this reason, and also because the theatrical versions (if that's what they really are) are in slightly better quality than their older dvd counterparts, the new sets looked awfully tempting. However, the documentaries were the biggest reason I wanted to buy this set and once I found out they were non-anamorphic widescreen my interest went way down.

It is interesting how Lucas is moving further away from the original versions just as the studios are moving closer to an archival approach such as Alien Quadrilogy.

Now even Superman's '78 release version is hitting dvd.

The fact that Jackson put together longer cuts of the movies immediately after finishing the theatrical cuts is yet another reason why those movies are considered so unique. He considers the theatrical cuts, with a few exceptions, to be his version of choice for the movies. I prefer them simply because they're what I saw on the big screen and I regard the extended 4-disc sets as bonus material, nothing more.

Post: #251686
Topic: Remember when...
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/251686/action/topic#251686
Time: 17-Oct-2006 1:13 AM

another reason I look back on those thanksgiving scifi channel airings of Empire and Jedi, in addition to USA's occassional "trilogy week," is because that was when there were just those movies, no special editions, no prequels, just the classic trilogy. I think that if GL actually brings out the O-OT remastered I can finally get back to feeling that way. I can have the prequels I saw in the theaters (not technically for AOTC but I don't really care because I know it's the DLP version on the dvd, but phantom menace needs to go back to the way it was!), each of them on opening day, and also have those O-OT movies I grew up watching on vhs and on tv.

The O-OT is still just as classic now as it was in the early nineties when I first saw it. The thing is, when it ends up as #15 on AFI's 100 greatest American Films list and they aren't even allowed to acknowledge what the movie made in 1977 actually looks like, it hurts.

I remember sometime in October of '04 asking my mom to pick up the silver boxset while she was at costco. I remember her coming home and telling me she got it. I opened it up out of its black wholesale cardboard packaging with vader on it, Episode III vader IIRC, and the silver IV V VI with a faint red glow behind them-I actually saved that section of the cardboard and might still have it somewhere. Popped the movies into my ps2 and was blown the fuck away. This was before the whole GOUT debacle, I had heard and read a lot about Lowry's restoration and Lucas said the originals were never hitting dvd. Therefore, at the time, I couldn't have cared less that this was the Special Edition.

Well, maybe a little bit.

I remember popping in the bonus material and being further blown away by Empire of Dreams. My jaw was on the floor for a good part of it, and that might have been the first time I had actually seen the widescreen original version shots from ANH. That's one thing I loved about the boxset. It actually acknowledged, on both the doc and the commentaries, the history of these films.

That's another reason I wish GL had never bothered with the GOUT release in the first place, unless he was going to do it right. It's been said a thousand times, I know, but it really stings.

He may be trying to do away with the O-OT, hopefully not. Come what may, those early 90's days will stay in my memory until I'm old and senile.

Post: #251483
Topic: Remember when...
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/251483/action/topic#251483
Time: 15-Oct-2006 9:53 PM

Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Wait. Why would they show the sequels and not Star Wars itself?

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure I'm remembering it correctly.

The possible reasons I can think up, given what I know now, are:

-tv rights issues ensuing from ANH being owned by fox and the sequels being owned by LFL

-the "incredible shrinking ratio" problem on ANH, although I find this unlikely because scifi channel's been around since not too long before when the DC laserdiscs were made.

-so that scifi could show the two movies back to back in prime time. All three movies would be a little much.

I also seem to recall years earlier, circa '93, seeing a commercial on scifi channel saying they were going to show both the pan n' scan and letterboxed versions of all three movies, but I might not be remembering that commercial correctly.

See why I finally decided to join after lurking for the better part of this year?

Post: #251324
Topic: Remember when...
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/251324/action/topic#251324
Time: 14-Oct-2006 7:50 PM

I remember every thanksgiving, scifi channel would show Empire and Jedi letterboxed. I think the last year they did it was '96. Looking back on it now, it was really a big part of what made thanksgiving so great for me.