Fang Zei

one69chev said:

Fang Zei said:

I don’t have a dvr and my attempts to screenshot it on the hbo go app with my phone just get me an image of solid black for some reason.

The solid black is a piracy prevention tactic used by most streaming services now to prevent screen recording of purchased or rented materials. Sometimes you can still get audio, but the video is blacked out.

I managed to screenshot it on the comcast app, but this is on my phone, which is only 1334 by 750 pixels. So I’m not sure how much good this would do for a comparison with the GOUT and the SSE. Maybe I should take this to the preservation forum.

Has Lucasfilm made any official announcement that this movie is even happening yet?

To my knowledge, all we have to go off of is the Hollywood Reporter article from earlier this year.

ChainsawAsh said:

Was the Empire of Dreams scan an upscale? I genuinely don’t remember.

What I meant was that the crawl in the Spielberg doc didn’t look like it had merely been upscaled from the clip in EoD. It looked like it came from a much higher quality source. Sorry if I worded it confusingly.

Do we even know what source was used for EoD? There had never been a home video release that included the unaltered crawl when EoD was put together in ‘04.

ChainsawAsh said:

Is it the same as the scan from Empire of Dreams?

It doesn’t look upscaled. To my eyes, it looks like a native hd transfer.

What source did the earlier versions of Despecialized use (or the current version for that matter)? I’m thinking specifically of the one that was used for the Kitbashed documentary on vimeo.

What source did EoD use back in ‘04 anyway?

Because I didn’t feel like starting a new thread just to bring this up:

Did anyone see the Spielberg documentary that aired on HBO the other night?

The original ‘77 crawl makes its appearance for a few seconds as Steven tells his version of the now well-known story about De Palma suggesting an opening crawl to Lucas.

I don’t have a dvr and my attempts to screenshot it on the hbo go app with my phone just get me an image of solid black for some reason.

But I bring all of this up because it at least appears to be from a better quality source than the GOUT. Perhaps it was taken from the fresh (presumably hd) scan that was done back in ‘06 before it was downscaled all the way to 4:3 letterbox.

Has the original crawl popped up anywhere else over the last eleven years in comparable quality?

Lust-In-Phaze said:

I’ve tried to understand this point for months now, but I really just have to ask: why would the rights reverting to Disney in 2020 make any difference whatsoever? They’ve released the trilogy on home video two or three times since the LFL buyout, albeit in the pre-existing 2011 edition, and they finally put the saga out on digital formats as well in that period. Why wouldn’t they wait until 2020 for those, too, if it was just a matter of making the most money off of them? And even when 2020 rolls around, they’ll never have the rights to the original 1977 Star Wars, so it’s not an issue of them not being allowed to restore the OOT either.

What moviefreakedmind said regarding the 2011 discs.

As for releasing the digital version in 2015 instead of waiting, that was because Fox never owned those particular rights to the other five movies to begin with. George held on to them, which means they immediately became Disney’s when the buyout happened (you can’t buy ANH on Disney’s digital download service, but you can on itunes, amazon, google, etc). Same thing applies to the tv broadcast rights.

Mike O said:

GlastoEls said:

Nothing new in it really, but a new Gizmodo article:

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/09/why-hasnt-disney-released-the-original-unaltered-star-wars-films/

I kind of wish a lot of noise was made about this, especially with Reed’s recent Tweet. I don’t think it’d change Disney’s mind of anything, but it’d nice if the cause got a little more exposure.

We’ve got three years to continue making noise. Lucasfilm isn’t gonna say a word on the subject until then. Reed’s tweet is certainly a nice start, although it’d be even better if someone working for Lucasfilm itself would speak up.

Johnson slammed the SE in 2011, years before he was hired, but Abrams did at least let it slip in a 2015 interview that he’d shown his kids “the original versions” specifically. I’d certainly love to know what Edwards and Ron Howard’s thoughts on the subject are.

When Trevorrow said he would shoot all of IX in 65mm I assumed he meant traditional 5-perf spherical 65mm aka Super Panavision which he used for some of Jurassic World. Abrams has only shot his movies in cinemascope, with some of STID and TFA shot in Imax (Johnson is doing the same for TLJ).

I wonder if JJ will follow Nolan’s lead and shoot all of Ep9 on 65mm stock with some of it in Imax.

To bring the Avatar conversation back around to Star Wars, Cameron essentially took what Lucas was doing with AotC and RotS and went a few steps further.

The sony cameras used were only slightly better versions of the same 2/3” ones used for the latter two prequels. The big difference obviously is that for Avatar they were arranged into beamsplitter rigs to shoot in native stereo.

Instead of shooting everything against greenscreen, more than half the movie was MoCap’d without even using actual cameras.

Most significant of all is the digital character work ILM had started with Jar Jar in TPM and Weta had expanded with Gollum and Kong. The animation for the Na’vi came pretty darn close to bridging the uncanny valley, although it probably helped that they weren’t supposed to represent recognizable human characters like Tarkin in Rogue One.

Circa 2011 I remember thinking for sure that when George inevitably went back on his word and made the ST that it would be a native stereo production, probably using RED cameras.

Then the Disney deal happened and they hired JJ to direct. There went any chance it wouldn’t be shot the exact same way as the OT (and JJ’s other movies).

But by that point the post-conversion tech had actually gotten pretty good and had become more about the extra surcharge anyway, so by the time Episode VII was actually made it didn’t matter one way or the other how it was shot.

joefavs said:

Does anyone in the world actually care about the Avatar sequel? The opinions of everyone I know range from “huh?” To “meh.”

Fox essentially sold the sequels as a cinematic universe (something all the big studios are trying to do with their major properties these days) when they announced there were going to be four of them is instead of just three.

Cameron starts shooting them tomorrow, btw.

What SilverWook said.

Also, as I’ve pointed out, 2020 may very well end up being Lucasfilm’s hiatus year from new Star Wars movies. It would only make sense considering Episode IX hits theaters the very end of 2019, and they’ll be busy enough as it is with Indy 5 hitting theaters July of 2020.

They can’t release anything at the end of 2020 without bumping up against Avatar 2 box office-wise. The only time to release the Obi-Wan movie would be May, and that seems awkward to me when the saga will have just ended that December and they already have Guardians vol 3 scheduled for 2020, presumably for that first weekend in May.

Of course, I say that as the Han Solo movie is scheduled for just three weeks after an Avengers movie, but still.

Like I said, I would love to know what possessed Peyton Reed to tweet this out.

It’s probably the closest anyone has come to “rocking the boat” in regards to the OOT whilst still being employed by Disney post-2012.

They have no reason to keep waiting past May of 2020.

I’m not going to hold my breath until then, but the situation with Fox is very obviously the reason it hasn’t happened just yet.

Mike O said:

ray_afraid said: If you’re watching despecialized, they’re there. Painstakingly restored.

Damn, everything Harmy does in this damn thing just impresses me more and more.

SilverWook said:

Cedric T Sealion said:

Peyton Reed, director of Ant Man, tweeted this yesterday.

"Dear Lucasfilm,

Please release a Blu-ray of the original, unmessed-with version of STAR WARS I loved when I was 13.

Thanks,

Peyton"

And retweeted at the OT twitter. Thanks for finding that.

Huh. I didn’t know we were on Twitter. How many followers do we have?

Cedric T Sealion said:

Peyton Reed, director of Ant Man, tweeted this yesterday.

"Dear Lucasfilm,

Please release a Blu-ray of the original, unmessed-with version of STAR WARS I loved when I was 13.

Thanks,

Peyton"

He’s worked for Disney too. Won’t mean anything in the long run, or the short run for that matter, but it was nice of him to articulate what we’ve all been saying for many years.

He still does work for Disney. 😉

I wonder what brought this on. Maybe he wanted to show the OUT to his kids and then realized he couldn’t?

Rian Johnson also tweeted this in January of 2011:

https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/23164864209887232

Granted, this was long before he was hired for Episode VIII.

The only replies still showing up for me are from 2015.

Getting Robert A. Harris to supervise an OOT restoration would eliminate most disagreements about how it should look.

ray_afraid said:

Fang Zei said:

After reading the responses to my comment about a I-IX boxset, I think it’s more likely they release the films individually and, at the very least, make each OT movie its own two-disc set.

This probably the only way they’ll get my money. They’ve waited too long and I’m too happy with the fan restorations I’ve got.
I don’t want any version of the SE or PT and I will not buy things I don’t want to get the small part I do want.

It’s more the principle of the thing at this point. The OOT should be officially restored if for no other reason than that it’s part of our cultural heritage. Lucasfilm (and possibly Fox) is the only possessor of higher quality sources like interpositives, separation masters, and the o-neg itself. Therefore, we shouldn’t have to settle for even the best possible fan restoration when it could look and sound even better.

Disney would never make a statement about it because their statement would be “we’re waiting until we get the rights to Empire, Jedi, and the prequels in 2020 before we do any new release whatsoever that isn’t a repackagaging of the 2011 discs.”

It would be insanely awkward for them to say that, which is why they’ll simply say nothing until they actually are working on something.

After reading the responses to my comment about a I-IX boxset, I think it’s more likely they release the films individually and, at the very least, make each OT movie its own two-disc set. For one thing, the profits from sales of ANH would go straight to Fox and they wouldn’t need to worry about auditing Disney to make sure they’re getting their full amount from sales of a big I-VI or I-IX set.

Of course, I’d love to see the '97 versions included as well, and the theatrical prequels (and the imax cut of AOTC).

I haven’t even brought up the likely possibility that this will be the debut of I-VI on the new 4K UHD format. Now that Disney finally jumped on that Bandwagon last month (Fox was actually the very first studio to announce titles almost two years ago) they might get TFA and RO out on 4k before the holidays and then we’ll see TLJ hit the format in April.

With Indy 5 hitting theaters in July of 2020, I wonder how Paramount will handle the rollout of the first four on UHD. The 2012 blu-ray transfers of Temple and Crusade used the 2008 masters (which showed up as the WoWoW broadcasts around that time), but those were only finished at 2k unless I’m mistaken. Maybe they’ll redo those scans to take advantage of the extra resolution. Raiders was redone yet again with a 6k scan and 4k finish. Crystal Skull was finished at 2k (at least according to imdb), which is too bad but it makes sense considering all the cgi, none of which would’ve been rendered above that resolution.

Close Encounters hits 4k this month, with all three versions on the same disc using seamless branching just like the 2007 release. The OT movies have so many differences once you hit '97 that it would be impossible to branch them onto the same disc, although it might be possible to do that for the '97/'04/'11 versions.

The music cue heard in TFA when Finn, Rey and BB-8 are running from the stormtroopers on Jakku (and heard again when they’re running back to the Falcon with Han and Chewie) always reminded a lot of the SotE score.

Change.org

Y’know, for the important stuff!

Something that occurred to me in light of the recent Episode IX release date shift:

A December theatrical release means an April, 2020 dvd/blu/4k release. Disney gets the rights back to Empire, Jedi, and the prequels in May of 2020, and we’re already getting another Indy movie that July (released by Paramount) in addition to God knows how many Marvel movies. That includes Guardians vol 3 which will presumably hit theaters that first weekend in May.

Maybe the powers that be will decide not to release a new Star Wars movie that year. They can’t in December without bumping up against Avatar 2. I could easily see them scheduling Obi-Wan for May of 2021 (we’re already getting a year and a half between movies since Han Solo isn’t budging from May of next year).

I say all of this because I think it’s a distinct possibility 2020 ends up being the “hiatus” year from new Star Wars movies. It only makes sense. I mean, do they really want to be pushing Obi-Wan only a few months after the grand conclusion of the saga? I expect a similar cool-down period for Marvel movies after Avengers 4.

I’m thinking they’ll use September of 2020 as their release window for what will be a big expensive I-IX boxset you’ll have to buy just to get the restored OOT.

(Since no one is posting in the thread we created just to talk about this very topic free of spoilers):

I’ve been processing this news since first hearing it via text from my sister yesterday a little before noon. She simply wrote “JJ’s at it again.” I knew what she most likely meant, immediately checked my go-to movie news website for confirmation that he had indeed been hired, and simply replied “nooooo.”

Look, JJ coming back to finish this is probably for the best, all things considered. It’s just disappointing that LFL is going back to the tried and true instead of letting us see another director’s vision of this universe for the first time. Will people remember this as the JJ Abrams Star Wars trilogy even though someone else made the middle one, the same way many people still think George directed the entire OT?

Maybe a better comparison is a tv show where one of the proven directors comes back to helm the finale. We’re already seeing that kind of thing in the Marvel movies, with the Russo brothers handling Avengers 3 and 4. Speaking of which, now that Disney’s pushed Ep9 back to December they needn’t worry about releasing the grand conclusions of their two big franchises in the same month.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d still take this over Trevorrow directing. I can’t help but wonder if Carrie’s absence was something he just didn’t know how to work around.

One of these days I’m going to have to get my hands on a preservation of this Japanese Special Collection everyone here keeps going on and on and on about.

ray_afraid said:

Fang Zei said:

George wanted… to wait until RotS was finished to release the OT on dvd … until he realized fans had waited long enough.

The fans waiting didn’t have anything to do with it. He released it before ROTS to remind people that they actually like Star Wars and drum up a little excitement before they troop off to see the latest POS.

Well, he also realized that.

A third factor is that waiting until after RotS was out (probably so he could package a I-VI “saga” dvd release) would have placed it only a few months before there would be actual hd disc formats on the market. Hilariously, he released the GOUT - laserdisc era transfers - after that.

Zombie’s take!

https://youtu.be/s57tYIhSOI0

The seven year thing is probably more coincidence than an actual pattern.

George wanted to release the SE in '96 and TPM in '97 until plans changed.

He wanted to wait until RotS was finished to release the OT on dvd … until he realized fans had waited long enough.

As for the timing of the blu-ray, well, there was no new movie release to time it with, just the ongoing clone wars show. They didn’t want to wait forever like they had with the dvd release and probably just said “screw it, now’s as good a time as any.”