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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This kind of brings me back around to what I was saying earlier about the initial blu-ray from 2011 only including the three bonus discs in the “complete saga” set.
Lucasfilm could totally put together something similar, with the “bonus discs” being the OOT this time, and could even make it an extra special SKU you’d have to pay $200* for and that they’d only press out in limited quantities. I mean, they’re oh so sure only an extreme minority of the fans even care about those rough drafts anymore, right? The “regular” I-VI set, without the OOT, would be the more commonly available / less expensive item.
I’m just brainstorming, of course. But if they really feel like they’d be “forcing” the fans to buy original versions they might not ever want to watch (irony), then that’s one way of solving the problem. Then when the OOT sells out in minutes they maybe realize they underestimated the demand.
*Although, for that price I’d also want the '97 versions, the theatrical prequels, and the Imax cut of AotC.
Would someone please re-explain to me what the whole “GOUT-syncing” thing is and when/why we started talking about it?
A lot of people hated Star Trek Into Darkness and Episode VII still turned out okay. Super 8 also didn’t get the warmest reception.
The difference here is that Abrams’ first two movies reinvigorated existing franchises, whereas it feels like Lucasfilm only focused on the box office and not the actual reviews of Jurassic World when recruiting Trevorrow.
I just see it as an inevitability when plenty of other, less-popular movies are preserved alongside their revisions.
Just yesterday I was reading the breakdown for Kino Lorber’s blu-ray of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and it literally felt like I was reading the first post of a thread in our fan restoration forum.
You mean the one Kino isn’t getting right?
Please explain how. I’m unfamiliar with whatever the issue is.
Too bad we can’t add a bunch of CGI crap to The Wizard of Oz just to see if anybody notices. Purely as a thought experiment of course.
If any movie is burned into the public consciousness, it’s that one.
There was an IMAX 3D version several years ago. Does that count?
I just see it as an inevitability when plenty of other, less-popular movies are preserved alongside their revisions.
Just yesterday I was reading the breakdown for Kino Lorber’s blu-ray of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and it literally felt like I was reading the first post of a thread in our fan restoration forum.
Yeah, without the original Director/Producer/Writer (GL) on board, it makes it more unlikely for a third party like Criterion to have a go at it.
Also, I think people underestimate just how much George hates the originals vs the Special Editions. There is no way he ever would have double dipped and released them. I think part of it is also tied to Marcia and their fallout.
George actually laughed with glee when shown Han stepping on Jabba’s tail for the first time, and considered it one of the best things they had ever done. He loves the vision of the SE, and that’s cool, he is allowed to, but you really have to understand just how much he doesn’t want the originals to exist anymore.
Anyway, I’m sure everyone has their own opinion on this stuff, mine is that it isn’t going to happen so we need to do it properly, others will be convinced it will happen, and honestly I hope they are right, but I don’t believe there is a shred of evidence or even a scenario where it could be vaguely probable to happen.
In regards to Marcia, are you referring to the theory that she got a cut of the OT’s sales until the SE came along and negated it? I thought that rumor was debunked. Unless you’re referring to something else.
I did spot Life Aquatic at Target a couple times.
How deeply was George involved with those films though? IIRC, they got about a page each in that book on Lucas that came with the Definitive Collection Laserdisc box. I think Howard The Duck had a longer entry. 😉
And we’re back again to the matter or whether George still gives a crap or not. Maybe a multi disc set ala Brazil that included the awful happy ending tv cut?
Brazil is actually a good example since Universal put out the U.S. theatrical cut on blu-ray and then Criterion put out theirs a couple years later with Gilliam’s preferred version (and, yes, the “love conquers all” version in 1080i as a bonus feature).
I actually could see something similar happening with Star Wars going forward. Disney would keep handling I-VI as they see fit, but in the meantime Criterion could put together their own release. George doesn’t really consider the ST (the one we’re getting, anyway) as part of “his” saga, right? Criterion could give us “The Tragedy of Darth Vader” and make it that “film school in a box” someone mentioned George always intended. Most importantly, they could include freshly remastered transfers of the original versions to give the proper historical context for these films. I doubt George would mind. He might even do another interview with them! It would make for a nice time capsule years from now when he’s not around to talk about these movies anymore.
Get Disney and Fox to sign off on it and voila, we would have our dream scenario.
Disney will probably want to keep whatever they end up doing with their releases of I-VI on the simple side. They’ll probably want to get it down to one disc per movie so they can eventually put out a box set that includes Rogue One, Han Solo, and the ST and still be able to sell it for a reasonable price.
Of course, I’d also want the OOT available on 4k UHD and Criterion hasn’t announced their plans for supporting the new format, but that could change in time.
“Did it stop Ridley Scott from remastering those cuts and releasing them together?? Nope”
The difference here is that Ridley Scott wanted to do it, whereas George Lucas and Kennedy actively don’t want it to happen.
It would have made perfect sense to have the BD boxset include the OUT if it was a matter of it being slightly more profitable to do so.
"Another example is how a few years ago Kino released a cut of the silent film Metropolis with restored footage not seen since the original release. "
I was involved with the Kino release, the restoration cost was bugger all and there were no royalties to be paid. Prints were borrowed from collectors, it was a simple, quick money grab that only had to move a few units to be profitable, and not a single person out there that didn’t want it to happen. Again totally different situation to the OUT.Companies suck, for Disney to care about something, it has to be worth many, many millions for them to bother. If an SE 4K release would make $300 million or $305 million by taking the risk of packing in an OUT, then they would never take the risk. $5 million return is pocket change, and a risk is always a risk. It will cost them millions to restore the OUT, even with having the scans in place, the sound restoration on SW for the SE cost $8 million alone.
I want it to happen, but can’t conceive of a universe where it will happen in the next ten years.
There are a ton of LFL people at Siggraph this year, I’ll be canvassing all of them, and already know quite a few, but I am pretty sure the answer will be the same as that from the ones I have already spoken to. Not a ‘maybe’ or a ‘no’ or a ‘no comment’ but a ‘huh?’
Was it even Ridley’s idea to include the various earlier cuts or was that Charles de Lauzirika’s doing?
We don’t know what Kennedy does/doesn’t want to do with the OOT. All we know is that she isn’t going to go changing George’s versions, which should’ve been a given anyway (again, why couldn’t that guy just have asked her what we all wanted to ask her???).
I’m convinced George would have eventually double-dipped on the blu-ray and included the original versions if the Disney deal hadn’t happened. He’d already stopped saying it was his “vision” and switched to “it’s too expensive right now” (translation: “Why include it on the first blu-ray when I can just sell it to you all over again?”).
As for the $300/305 million debate, consider the fact that by the time a 4k UHD release rolls around many people will still not have upgraded their hardware to 4k. They’ll need a good reason to buy these movies again on regular 1080p blu-ray since a 4k remaster won’t make much of a difference.
Including the OOT is that reason.
Also, consider how the initial blu-ray release was handled. You had to buy the I-VI set in order to get those three extra discs of bonus features, right? Well, who is to say they won’t do the exact same thing in 2020 … except this time those three extra discs will be the OOT?
Agreed on everything else, though. And yes, please ask as many “in-the-know” people as you can about the OT’s current status. We appreciate the effort!
I actually have seen the Criterion release of Benjamin Button at WalMart.
Yeah, but that was the initial home video release of the movie.
Paramount licensed the movie to Criterion just like Disney did The Life Aquatic.
I could see the big box stores carrying a Criterion release of Star Wars though, if only because it would definitely sell well.
But this brings me back around to why I think that would never happen.
For one thing, isn’t Criterion usually pretty big on presenting the movie as the director intended? Because for Star Wars that definitely ain’t the OOT. Also, I just don’t see Disney licensing it when they’ve already got to work out a deal with Fox over ANH. That would be three different companies handling one movie.
But even that doesn’t seem as big of a road block to me as George still being around to voice his opinion on it.
Criterion has released at least two movies he was involved with (Kagemusha and Mishima: A Life In Four Parts) and they interviewed him for their release of The Hidden Fortress. Would they really feel comfortable going behind his back like that?
I’d really think that including it as “bonus material” on Disney’s official release of the SE is the much more likely scenario. Clearly labeling it as the “rough draft” George always considered it feels more respectful of his wishes than a Criterion release of just the OUT.
But dammit, I still want my '97 SE and theatrical TPM/AotC.
Didn’t know they had ever done any Fox titles.
It all depends on how much Disney/Lucasfilm cares about the OOT. If they don’t see a niche label release competing with their own SE trilogy releases, they might be okay with it. There were standard Laserdiscs and DVD’s of Armageddon and The Rock concurrent with the Criterion releases.
Criterion doesn’t really advertise beyond it’s devoted fanbase, and you don’t see their titles for sale at Walmart.
A downside I can think of, if it ever came to that, is we would have to kiss any chance of seeing the theatrical prequels goodbye.
I could see Criterion making it happen. They did lavish editions of Armageddon and The Rock, films released through Disney’s other studio divisions.
There was also a Criterion of Kagemusha, a movie released by Fox.
I don’t see the Criterion scenario ever happening, though. We’ve been dreaming about that ever since the GOUT and it just seem unrealistic that one of the most popular movie franchises ever wouldn’t be handled directly by its copyright holder.
In my mind it’s so much simpler, though.
When it comes time to release these movies on 4k, that’s when they include the OOT. They could even put it out on regular blu-ray since many people will still not have upgraded their hardware.
Yes, I know, “the SE in 4k will be reason enough for people to buy it.” But that’s where I disagree.
Either way, Poita, I commend your efforts. This is an important piece of film history and the 35mm prints should be preserved in the highest possible quality.
So few people even know anything about the special edition changes. Of the few who do know about them, I am surprised how few really care. You’d think changes to such a beloved trilogy of movies and the suppression of the original versions would send the large passionate fan base into a frenzy.
Nope.
Pretty quiet.
While standing in various lines at Star Wars Celebration, I was surprised how other fans didn’t want to chat about the possibility of an OUT release, even during the 40th anniversary of the original. I even got a few eye rolls. I could barely believe it. Nothing is going to change anytime soon, which means the desire for the original versions is just going to become more and more obscure because the vast majority doesn’t even know and the few who do don’t even care.
Lucas succeeded. He changed history.
I don’t think it’s going to happen. Ever. Enjoy your fan made projects. My Harmy blu-rays have a place of honor among my collection. Disney/Lucasfilm and the majority of fans are more concerned with the new movies now. I love the new movies too, but it is a shame we have forgotten where they came from. The number of people who care about the OUT is only going to decrease.
The SE of Star Wars is still the most well-known “other version” of a movie ever.
Sure, there are many people who know and don’t care. That’s simply what happens when you’ve got such a large fandom. The people at Celebration aren’t really a good sample demographic for gauging people’s interest in the OOT. A lot of them are “Star Wars fans” first and “movie fans” second.
In my opinion, the ones clamoring for the OOT on blu-ray are movie fans first and foremost.
I don’t think Disney will release the unaltered versions because they are still in the vaults of George Lucas. Kathleen Kennedy also stated that she never touched those versions and that they all belong to Mr. Lucas.
They are in Lucasfilm’s vaults, not George’s.
Kennedy said she would never touch his versions, meaning she would never allow further changes to the SE not done by him. This does not necessarily mean she wouldn’t consider including the original versions alongside George’s preferred version.
That guy who interviewed her at SWCO did not ask her specifically about whether the unaltered versions will ever be restored and released, if that was even his intention.
I think Disney/Lucasfilm will wait until after Episode IX to comment on this matter at all.