Fang Zei

Remember when I said that not getting the OOT until 2020 might be a good thing because then it would almost certainly be included in 4k?

Well, Blade Runner is being released on UHD later this year, but the final cut is the only version actually being presented on the new format.

It makes sense from a certain standpoint, as the final cut has been ready to go in full 4k ever since it was put together in 2007. The other versions would only have been mastered at 2k, if not 1080p HD.

But it doesn’t even look like the other versions will be included at all, not even on regular bd. This kind of retroactively makes the old blu-ray collection a favor to the fans.

I wouldn’t be surprised, even if the OOT recieves the proper treatment someday, to see the non-final versions eventually fade into memory. Lucasfilm only wants there to be one official version of the saga, and historical curiosity has the potential to get in the way.

suspiciouscoffee said:

lovelikewinter said:

It could get pushed back to Dec 2018 and move Mary Poppins Returns because no one gives a crap about that but will still probably give it billions of dollars anyway.

FTFY

After just now discovering that Beauty and the Beast is the highest grossing movie of 2017 here in the States - and by a significant margin over Guardians vol 2 and Wonder Woman - yup, I’d believe it.

Since this is one of the standalones, Disney probably doesn’t care about placing it only three weeks after the next Avengers movie. Similarly, they probably didn’t care about placing Guardians vol 2 - technically also a “standalone” within the Marvel franchise - only three weeks before the original placeholder date for Episode VIII.

I guess that’s why “The Davids” (Cronenberg and Lynch) were both offered RotJ.

All of this crazy news really makes me wonder how they’re going to handle the eventual behind-the-scenes making-of material. The story behind Ford’s accident on the set of TFA was conspicuously absent from the blu-ray, but Kennedy did bring up Michael Arndt’s draft.

I feel like there could be a similarly short mention of Lord & Miller’s “initial contributions” (nevermind that it was the bulk of principal photography) or they could really lean into this and give us the most interesting making-of ever.

The fact that it’s Disney makes me think we’ll get the former, but this has become an elephant in the room big enough to rival the OOT. I didn’t buy Rogue One on blu, but from what I’ve heard the extras don’t really bring up the massive reshoots we heard so much about. I’m sure they’ll figure out how to brush the whole L&M thing under the rug, if they even bring it up at all.

My biggest question is who will be credited in the finished film.

For the Shout remaster they got Dean Cundey to supervise (or at least approve) the finished transfer. They used an IP source, which is probably why they settled for 2k. I’m not sure what film elements were used for Uni’s hd master, if that’s even knowable.

The main issue with Shout’s release (and IIRC this was also a problem with the most recent Halloween transfer, which was also supervised/approved by Cundey) is that the color-timing pushes everything too far towards the cool end of the spectrum. A regrade using the old bd’s colors, which seem to more closely resemble those of a 35mm print, would seem to be the ideal combination. Maybe Arrow’s 4k job will end up being exactly that.

So apparently George wrote the initial story treatment for this movie.

First I’m hearing of this.

Or it’s possible I heard about it forever ago and just forgot.

It only just occurred to me that The Lego Movie had Star Wars characters in it. In fact, after a quick glance at imdb, I see that both Anthony Daniels and Billy Dee Williams provided their voices. Maybe that was Lord and Miller’s built-in connection to the franchise that led to them getting the job.

Maybe they also just really wanted to direct this movie and had a really good agent. In retrospect, it almost seems like Kennedy needed a big name attached to the movie and L&M seemed like a good idea at the time. But it’s still kind of baffling to hear that Kennedy and Kasdan wanted a movie that felt like a Western … and yet hired two guys known pretty much solely for making comedies.

Mocata said:

MisterRey said:

The Thing is getting a 4k restoration.

Well it’s a masterpiece so why not.

It’s notable because this will literally be the third time - by as many different companies - that The Thing has been released on blu-ray.

It was one of the earlier movies Universal released on the format. They reused the existing hd transfer that had been used for the hddvd, which looked fine, but for the blu-ray specifically they applied some dnr (this exact same thing happened with several other Universal titles).

Shout Factory just did a new 2k master of it last year, but there is debate about the color timing.

So both bd releases so far have been a mixed bag.

I was also wondering why a title as big as The Thing was only getting remastered in 2k,
and why this new 4k master is happening so soon after and from yet another company.

I guess Univeral is more than willing to license out the rights to this particular film?

Like I referenced yesterday (before he was officially the replacement), Howard was asked by Lucas to direct Episode I. He told George the same thing everyone else did, “you should direct it yourself.”

I wonder how he feels about taking up a similar role all these years later.

One big thing I never heard anyone talking about is how (unless I’m mistaken) the main reason Man of Steel got made when it did was because WB had to promptly get a Superman film into production as a condition of their settlement with Siegel and Shuster’s estates, or else lose all rights to the character.

Snyder et al weren’t even planning on it being the first installment of a shared DC film pantheon at the time if I remember correctly. Yet, by the time the movie came out, many people assumed that’s exactly what they were doing. The Avengers had just been released the year prior, so cashing in on the superhero cinematic universe craze only made sense. But everyone seemed to have forgotten about the Siegel/Shuster lawsuit, which I’m still assuming is the main reason MoS got made when it did.

They even stayed vague on whether or not this was the same universe as Nolan’s Batman movies. Once BvS was announced, there was a rumor circulating that WB was offering Christian Bale an insane amount of money to return as Bruce Wayne. I’m not sure how valid that rumor ever was, but it’s interesting to consider in retrospect.

Wonder Woman really seems to be the “course correction” of the DCEU many fans were hoping for. I’m even hearing people say things like “oh, if only this one had been the first of these DC universe films.”

But that’s just it. They didn’t really decide to make this the DC equivalent of the MCU until BvS. Suicide Squad wasn’t even connected to the larger milieu in its earlier drafts. I was hearing the same thing about Black Adam, but I can only assume they’ve changes their plans.

It is interesting how we’re finally getting what many consider the “proper” DC movie (complete with a new opening titles logo!) just as The Avengers’ saga comes to a close. I can’t help but wonder how WB would’ve handled their DC properties had the Superman lawsuit not been a concern.

joefavs said:

Swazzy said:

Between this and half of Rogue One being reshot, it seems we won’t ever be getting a new Star Wars film with the director’s vision left entact again.

after that article about Rian Johnson’s near complete creative control on TLJ

I must have missed this somehow.

EDIT: Wait, I’m guessing this was brought up in the spoiler thread (which I’ve been studiously avoiding)?

Ha! I was just thinking last night while watching Moana on Netflix with my sister that it would probably be this time next month that Rogue One shows up.

They’ve followed a pattern of dropping a movie three and a half months after it hits disc. For example, Captain America: Civil War streeted on blu-ray mid-September and debuted on Netflix Christmas Day.

On a side note, I still haven’t seen Guardians vol 2. The recent news that it might end up being one of Disney’s first UHD disc releases and thus “future-proofed” makes me kinda want to buy it (I avoided getting Rogue One on blu for this very reason), but then I remember it will likely be up on Netflix by the end of the year. Ditto WB/Fox/Uni movies and HBO (Fox movies even tend to be properly letterboxed when HBO shows them).

I love physical media and the advantages that come along with it, but it’s really no surprise to hear it’s not selling like it used to.

From Variety’s article:

Kennedy had her own ideas about how the film should be shot. In an interview with Variety last year, she said she wanted the film to have “…a heist or Western type feel,” adding, “We’ve talked about [Frederic] Remington and those primary colors that are used in his paintings defining the look and feel of the film.”

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/star-wars-han-solo-kathleen-kennedy-director-fired-1202473919/

After reading that, I struggle to see why they thought Lord and Miller would be a good fit.

“Unexpected this is, and unfortunate.”

What a truly confusing turn of events.

Going solely on the information we’ve been given, it would seem Kennedy and Kasdan had a problem with how Lord & Miller executed the script. I can’t help but be suspicious of whether that’s really the reason or just the spin both sides are putting on it.

I’m sure it’s possible it just took everyone until this point in time to realize things weren’t working out. But only now (at the end, do you understand?) with principal photography almost over? Yikes. I mean, you don’t hire the guys who made 21 and 22 Jump Street and The Lego Movie and not expect them to do their own thing.

You’ve got to wonder just what exactly LFL thought would happen when they hired the guys in the first place. Based on what we’re hearing, the directors had tensions with LFL from day one.

Lucasfilm has now had issues with its directors on both of the standalone movies made so far. Even on TFA we know Abrams tried to gain as much control over this franchise as he could before Kennedy put her foot down. By contrast, the worst that’s happened with TLJ is Rian Johnson asking the release be pushed back from May to December so he’d have more time to work on the script … and LFL complying.

Speaking of which, it will be very interesting to see if this Han Solo movie doesn’t get delayed as well. Sure, they’re sticking to the release date for now (and no, it wouldn’t look good if they pushed it to December in the next couple weeks with less than a year to go), but is there anything huge from other studios currently scheduled for December of next year?

It would be kind of hilarious if this is what finally puts Ron Howard in the director’s chair of a Star Wars prequel.

pittrek said:

Fang Zei said:

What source was used for the early 77 version?

Japanese Special Collection LD shared on myspleen some time ago

Ah, so the print source for that particular laserdisc transfer still had the older version of those effects shots?

Do we know when exactly the TN1 source print is from?

I can’t even see the little white dot ships taking off in the TN1 version. What source was used for the early 77 version?

Also, wasn’t there a new soundmix done in '85 or was it just a port of one of the existing '77 mixes?

The “100 years from now” talk reminds me of why I would want each individual movie to get its own Blade Runner style multi-version blu-ray release.

The historical context of these movies needs to be preserved.

George did also say back in 2012 that “the time has come to pass Star Wars to the next generation of filmmakers.”

I guess that didn’t stop Kennedy from at least asking Spielberg, which is what many people thought she was going to do anyway.

Yeah, but Spielberg always said “Star Wars is George’s baby,” and with the sale to Disney it would kind of be like dating his friend’s ex.

Alderaan said:

Heh, the OMG I LOVE STARS WARS! GIVE ME MORE STAR WARS! crowd all over the internet seems to be really freaking out over Treverrow now.

I don’t want to really criticize a movie I’ve never seen but the reviews don’t look good.

I was going to ask where they were when he was first hired for IX, but then I looked up JW on rotten tomatoes and … yeah, 72% vs 25% for Book of Henry, ouch.

It still baffles me how JW managed to make so much money. We joke about the Transformers movies being critic-proof, but maybe JW only needed to not be Transformers level bad to get a big turnout. The trailers didn’t even sell it very well, aside from a couple cool-looking shots. Nostalgia apparently did all the work for them.

NeverarGreat said:

joefavs said:

Safety Not Guaranteed was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, so I’ve been on edge about this from day one. That review excerpt that Alderaan posted for Book of Henry honestly made me morbidly curious, though.

Yeah, quite a few people liked it but I just couldn’t stand the interminable romance or the ending.

The third film in a trilogy is always the hardest to get right, so why Disney seems intent on shooting themselves in the kidney before they even start is beyond me.

After he finishes Ready Player One, Spielberg should just do Episode IX before going into Indiana Jones 5. Or since that franchise is already toast, just skip that and go right into Robopocalypse.

It would be an oh so fitting way of closing off the saga (for now, anyway) since Spielberg would have directed RotJ.

That said, I don’t think they’d switch directors now. Book of Henry is Super 8 if Abrams already knew he was about to make a Star Wars movie and someone else was directing Into Darkness. The reviews and the box office seem rather inconsequential, and there aren’t any bad behind the scenes stories with this director like, say, Trank on Fant4stic.

What was weird to me was how the announcement of Trevorrow for IX seemed to come without any fanfare whatsoever, like it was just perfunctory. “Oh, the guy who made that Jurassic Park movie that just made a bajillion dollars for some reason? okay.”

When they announced Abrams for VII - even though they went with the most obvious possible choice - it was still a big deal, and I was ecstatic when they announced Johnson for VIII.

I actually liked Safety Not Gauranteed, but part of its charm is that it is such a small movie. When he was hired for Jurassic Park 4, someone pointed out that it must have been some kind of record for the biggest jump in budget sizes between a director’s first and second films.

Johnson feels like the happy medium between Abrams and Trevorrow in that respect, since he started small with Brick but his budgets only gradually increased with his next two films, and he’s done some solid tv work in the meantime.

I’d be curious to know what series of events led to Trevorrow’s hiring. Jurassic World had more than a couple connections to Kennedy (a franchise she’d produced and which her husband is still a producer on) and it feels like a repeat of Abrams getting recommended by Spielberg for Episode VII after turning it down. I wonder if that didn’t happen all over again with IX (them going after Spielberg and him having yet another person to recommend).

I feel like we still don’t quite know the full story behind what led to Abrams. Brad Bird fits into the equation somewhere, and Ben Affleck was actually on the shortlist. I’m also wondering if the Matthew Vaughn rumor was ever true.

It’s Rian Johnson’s story I’m the most curious about. With Abrams and Trevorrow it felt like Kennedy was listening to her colleagues. With Johnson it feels like she was listening to the internet.

NeverarGreat said:

The DVD’s were released in 2004, two years after AOTC and a year before ROTS. So perhaps a new release will happen between Episodes 8 and 9, and this also almost fulfills the 7 year pattern.

Or something.

The recent pattern has already been somewhat broken by the 2015 digital release, so this means that the OOT will absolutely arrive in 4K in 2022. Yay!

On the other hand, if we’re going to count the digital release as the saga’s first time on a new format (and we might as well), that means the gap is now only four years and we only have two more years until 4k!

Also, there’s been a reissue of the blu-ray every two years. Theoretically that means we would be due for another physical release of some kind this year, even if it’s just another reissue.

NeverarGreat said:

I think it has more to do with generational differences than anything else. Since the last VHS release of the OT films was in 1995, many people born after 1990 probably haven’t grown up watching the originals. So the vast majority of people 17 years old or younger have no nostalgic connection with these films, and even most people under 30 have had their memory ‘replaced’ with memories of the Special Editions (I was one of these people for a time).

I just turned 32 and started watching these movies at 6 or 7 years old, so I can still clearly remember a time before even the Faces vhs.

When the '04 dvd had just been released, I remember watching it with my best friend from high school on the brand new 60" sony widescreen his family had just recently bought. This was over component cables and with a brand new 5.1 system so it was quite an experience.

Each time one of the changed scenes from '97 came up I would just say in an ominous voice “THE SPECIAL EDITION” and if there were multiple changed shots in a row like in Mos Eisley I would say it twice like I was Everett McGill repeating “THE WATER OF LIFE” in the Alan Smithee version of Dune.

My friend laughed and then said “I actually like the Special Edition.” At the time I actually agreed with him, mostly. He’s actually a full year older than me, and I’m pretty sure he would’ve at least seen the original versions prior to '97 (he mentioned once that he’d seen the SE’s in the theater), but we didn’t meet until '99 so I’ll have to ask him about that someday.

I already knew about the aditional changes that had been done for the dvd, but he didn’t…

We only watched ANH, but he obviously watched the Empire and Jedi discs at some point. I know this because one day we were talking about the subject of the original versions and he said “oh, dude, they put Hayden Christensen into the end of Jedi! wtf?”

A friend of mind from college said pretty much the exact same thing.

I bring this up to illustrate how Hayden as Anakin ended up being a kind of “Greedo shoots first” moment for my generation. Even Family Guy referenced it. I actually didn’t even notice Greedo shooting first when I saw the SE in the theater in '97, making it all the more jarring when I did notice it on vhs (and amusing when Ben Affleck mentioned it in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back).

What Cobra Kai said.

I’ll only add that next year will be seven years since the blu-rays first debuted, just as that was seven years after the dvd, which was seven years after the '97 SE.

If an official OOT restoration ever happens, I wouldn’t expect it until after Episode IX, which means I’m definitely not expecting it next year. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if we finally start hearing some solid news after seven years of the same old blu-rays.

That theory just popped back into my brain again, about how LFL could always give us what we want on regular blu-ray in the short term (even if that means Fox getting a cut of the sales on all six movies), only for us to go through this all over again with 4k in a few years.

We’ll see.

doubleofive said:

Most people, even self professed Star Wars fans, only watch the movies maybe once a decade. The people who should be leading this charge are film preservationists, because the average fan doesn’t even notice the differences.

While we’re on the subject, it’s also worth noting that Star Wars isn’t the only film not available in its original form.

For the longest time, I thought the huge changes were actually a good thing since it would at least highlight the night-and-day difference from the original version and the entire argument for an official preservation. Now I’m starting to come to terms with maybe even that apparently not being enough of a reason and recognizing the need for communities like this.

Even if Lucasfilm does relent some day, there will still be all those other films out there on blu-ray stuck in a revised form.