Fang Zei

kellyliston2017 said:

I realize this is kind of morbid, but in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke’s hand is cut off by Vader, does it seem weird to anyone else that he doesn’t bleed more? I know George Lucas wants to keep the movies PG but if he could get a way with showing a bloody arm in A New Hope in the Mos Eisley Cantina scene and that made movie was PG, then why wasn’t there blood gushing from Luke’s wrist? I mean…come on! Really? You can’t show him smear blood on his outfit or anything while Vader tells him he’s his father? I don’t know. It’s a little morbid but it seems that scene should be bloodier.

I remember reading somewhere that the MPAA originally gave Star Wars a G rating and Lucas requested it be bumped up to PG. I’d be very curious if the G was still with everything in the finished movie (like Owen and Beru’s charred corpses and the aforementioned bloody arm) or if those shots were added later.

I actually don’t mind so long as it’s not Tatooine again for a very long time, and even then I’d want a damn good reason to go back. It was pointless enough having Luke go back there in RotJ other than Lucas checking off “the hero returns home” from his Joseph Campbell cheat sheet.

Humby said:

Fang Zei said:

Slavicuss said:

It’s been five years and still nothing. They’re too busy catering to the lightsaber-waving crowd by producing mediocre crap.

Oh, there’s no doubt.

If people were to stop buying Star Wars merch tomorrow, Lucasfilm would immediately look for other ways of making money and you-know-what would be right at the top of the list.

Disney doesn’t acquire distribution rights of 1-6 until May of 2020 (and Fox will ALWAYS own 4, unless Disney can strike a deal with them). Even if they were planning on releasing the OOT, they would stay mum until late 2019 at the absolute earliest.

I have a feeling that after Episode 9 comes out, we will start to hear some rumblings, and by 2020 Disney will push marketing for an ultimate box set. If there was ever a time to release the OOT, it would be with a box set, forcing everyone who wants it to dish out $$$ and double down on any of the films they already own.

Frankly, I’m already assuming that they will instead give us yet another updated special edition, but we can pray to Vader that they show some damn respect and include the OOT as a bonus.

I suspect this is exactly what will happen.

joefavs said:

I was just at the book store and I noticed that the current paperback anthology of the OT novelizations has the slightly taller dimensions of the canon Disney novels rather than the traditional mass market paperback size that all the Legends material is. Maybe they did quietly recanonize them after all.

Well, to the layman, the weird thing about slapping “legends” on the covers would be that the novelizations of the very things kept within canon aren’t canon. So maybe they left the legends label off to avoid confusion.

Slavicuss said:

Fang Zei said:

robertelee said:

I’m really saddened by how little activity there was. I and a couple others were very proactive about trying to spread it, but is seems the world does not care.

There are more important things to worry about in this world, really.

It’s Disney that should be taking the initiative for the sake of film history.

It’s been five years and still nothing. They’re too busy catering to the lightsaber-waving crowd by producing mediocre crap.

Oh, there’s no doubt.

If people were to stop buying Star Wars merch tomorrow, Lucasfilm would immediately look for other ways of making money and you-know-what would be right at the top of the list.

robertelee said:

I’m really saddened by how little activity there was. I and a couple others were very proactive about trying to spread it, but is seems the world does not care.

There are more important things to worry about in this world, really.

It’s Disney that should be taking the initiative for the sake of film history.

rodneyfaile said:

I wonder how many times the unaltered versions came up in conversation.

I’d be interested in knowing who was most chiefly responsible for the shots that were replaced with cgi in the SE. Even then, most of the other shots were digitally recomposited. So whoever did the original optical compositing had their work erased.

rodneyfaile said:

Fang Zei said:

crissrudd4554 said:

Maybe someday when something you worked hard on and received a lot of recognition for is just suddenly replaced by something else you’ll understand. I doubt much of that event was spent crapping on Lucas but nonetheless it is a bit bittersweet for them to all be gathered together for one event to celebrate SW40 when much of the work they did isn’t even in the film anymore.

(since I’m too lazy to check)

Were any of the alums who ended up going along with the alterations twenty years later present at this get-together? I’m talking about people like Muren (he’s actually the only one I can think of off the top of my head).

“Effects legends such as John Dykstra, Joe Johnston, Richard Edlund, Phil Tippett, Ken Ralston, Chris Evans, Lorne Peterson, Paul Huston, Scott Farrar, Steve Gawley, Bill George, Jean Bolte, Craig Barron, Harrison Ellenshaw, Robert Blalack, and many, many others were in attendance as were Marcia Lucas, Howard Kazanjian, Gary Kurtz, Sid Gannis, Tom Smith, Ben Burtt.”

Was Muren even there?

joefavs said:

The guy who works at the comic shop I go to has a theory that the shifting release date has more to do with the Frozen sequel than anything else. I haven’t looked into it myself yet, but that sounds plausible to me.

That would make sense. I just checked imdb and Frozen 2 is slated for November 27, 2019.

I would say there’s no way they’d compete with themselves by releasing a Marvel or Star Wars movie only three weeks later, but then again they’re already releasing Avengers 3 and Han Solo that exact same length of time from each other next May. Unless plans change, they’re doing the same thing with Avengers 4 and Episode IX a year later.

Lest we forget, the original plan was to release Episode VIII this past weekend, only three weeks after Guardians 2.

Maybe they’ve done the math and figured they’re not competing with themselves during the summer months when most people going to see those Avengers movies will do so in the first three weeks anyway but the winter months are too cold for more than one big tentpole release.

Plus, the movie is called Frozen.

I can see why they’d want it to be the last release of the year.

canofhumdingers said:

He may not have worked on it, but Knoll was still at the party…

Right, but I was trying to think of people who were both involved with the OOT’s production and worked on the SE.

TV’s Frink said:

Fang Zei said:

transparisteel

I hate how the EU apparently makes up words for everything.

“Transparent Aluminum” was already taken.

Ryan-SWI said:

Disco_Lobot said:

The only really good things to come out of the EU are PC games and mods.

You clearly need to read more then.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Lucasfilm kept the film novelizations in canon.

I’m pretty sure that’s not true. The only things they outright said were going to be in the Disneyverse were the six films and TCW series and movie (CG, not 2D), plus all Disney content going forward.
Unless of course they’ve since come out and said the novelisations for I - VI are also part of the Disneyverse, but I don’t recall them every saying so.

I don’t recall them ever saying that either.

LuckyGungan2001 said:

and Shatterpoints.

Which (some people think) was made canon in that episode of The Clone Wars where Mace Windu, er, shatterpoints the transparisteel of an AT-TE cockpit.

Or, in other words, he Windu’s a window.

LexX said:

Fang Zei said:

crissrudd4554 said:

Maybe someday when something you worked hard on and received a lot of recognition for is just suddenly replaced by something else you’ll understand. I doubt much of that event was spent crapping on Lucas but nonetheless it is a bit bittersweet for them to all be gathered together for one event to celebrate SW40 when much of the work they did isn’t even in the film anymore.

(since I’m too lazy to check)

Were any of the alums who ended up going along with the alterations twenty years later present at this get-together? I’m talking about people like Muren (he’s actually the only one I can think of off the top of my head).

John Knoll and Ben Burtt at least.

Ben Burtt is another one I was forgetting, but Knoll wouldn’t count since he didn’t work on the OOT.

crissrudd4554 said:

Maybe someday when something you worked hard on and received a lot of recognition for is just suddenly replaced by something else you’ll understand. I doubt much of that event was spent crapping on Lucas but nonetheless it is a bit bittersweet for them to all be gathered together for one event to celebrate SW40 when much of the work they did isn’t even in the film anymore.

(since I’m too lazy to check)

Were any of the alums who ended up going along with the alterations twenty years later present at this get-together? I’m talking about people like Muren (he’s actually the only one I can think of off the top of my head).

DuracellEnergizer said:

The SW novelization established that the SW Galaxy was a modest-sized galaxy (ie. small-to-average).

One of these days I should actually sit down and read my first-edition paperbacks of the novelizations that have just been lying around collecting dust.

I feel like every several months there’s another crazy thing from them I’m finding out for the first time and being incredulous about.

Anyway, the neighborhood is having a yard sale next Saturday and I’ve been going through my books on the off chance anyone’s going to want them for a dollar each. I’m getting rid of my paperbacks of the six clone wars (little c, little w) novels, originally published from mid '03 to late '04, which I’m never reading again anyway. There’s also my mass market paperback of Heir to the Empire from 1992 that I feel somewhat of an inclination to hold on to for whatever reason, and my mass markets of Dark Force Rising (from years later) which I never finished, and The Last Command which I never even got to.

I’m also slightly conflicted about getting rid of my Vector Prime hardcover, complete with a crease down the jacket spine that I’d see on every used copy, if for no other reason than its historic place in the old EU, what with Chewie’s death and all. Then there’s darktide: onslaught and my paperback of Balance Point, both of which I actually read, and the Jedi Eclipse duology that I got brand new double-discounted but never got around to (it was one of those later paperback copies where they actually print the discount you’re getting right there at the top of the cover, and this was at a b dalton’s going-out-of-business sale so it was even further discounted). I was smart enough to stop there regarding the NJO, never even got dark tide: ruin.

Then there’s odds and ends like my paperback of Tatooine Ghost I never got around to either. Noticing a trend here?

Ah, then there’s the prequel novelizations, all of which I’ve read. Still have my TPM hardback with the Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon cover, and the latter two are in paperback. I’ll probably hold on to the A.C. Crispin Han Solo trilogy since I’ve never read it and it might be interesting to compare the upcoming standalone movie against. Shadows of the Empire paperback, might keep it out of nostalgia but should probably get rid of it.

My 90’s paperback of Splinter with the GL intro will stay, as will the aforementioned first-edition OT novelizations.

Then there’s my collection of Star Wars comics from '03 to '07 (don’t worry, it’s well under a box’s worth) that I might look up to check the value of but will probably hold on to in the vain hope they’ll be worth something someday. I mean, that’s whay you’re supposed to do with comics, right?

Mocata said:

but nobody would care.

Except, yeah, quite a few people would care.

I agree with everything else you said, though.

Mocata said:

Fang Zei said:
Upconverting a laserdisc master of an entire movie trilogy all the way up to 4k just doesn’t sound like something anyone would do.

Yeah which is why they’d probably just shove it on there as a bonus again, and be like ‘hey kids look at how lame this old version was before we fixed it’

Well, that’s exactly what I meant, dumping it on to disc “as is,” an 8Gb 4:3 standard def file (okay 24 gigs for the entire trilogy although they could probably get that file size down using the latest compression technology) taking up only a small fraction of the available space on the latest disc formats.

What I meant by “upscaling” was just letting the player or display do that part. But like I said, since it’s only 1/27 the resolution of an actual 4k transfer, it would be very, very noticeable. People aren’t that gullible. As I said, George got away with dumping a laserdisc master to dvd in 2006 because the average person was still using a 4:3 tv to watch dvd and couldn’t tell the difference between a recycled transfer and a properly remastered one.

It’s like McCallum bragging about how RotS did more location shooting than any other Star Wars film.

Yes, but the actors weren’t actually there for any of it!

Seriously, were there any scenes in that movie not shot on a soundstage?

Mocata said:

Hey it’s a bonus, what do they need to remaster anything for.

If for no other reason than because they likely won’t get around to even thinking about the OOT until the 4k UHD release and the GOUT is like 1/27 the resolution.

George got away with that on dvd because many people were still watching on their 4:3 sets and couldn’t tell the difference from a properly remastered disc, which of course would’ve been done in hd like the '04 master and at least be somewhat future proof.

Upconverting a laserdisc master of an entire movie trilogy all the way up to 4k just doesn’t sound like something anyone would do.

Slavicuss said:

Fang Zei said:

Slavicuss said:

Who knows? Perhaps we may get the 1993 laserdisc master on Blu-ray this time?

Don’t even joke about that.

Considering how said master was only even released as “bonus content” in the first place, they might very well dump it to blu-ray (just like so many other blu-ray releases have ported over 4:3 sd extras from dvd) and treat the OOT as an afterthought. 😉

Sadly, that’s all I think we’re ever likely to get.

They’ll either remaster it properly or they won’t bother including it at all. Simply recycling the '93 master would be seen as an even bigger middle finger to the fans than when George did it, now that Disney is in charge.

Your earlier post got me thinking about all of the movies both well known and obscure that have been released on blu-ray/4k with multiple cuts all preserved in hd at the bare minimum.

Slavicuss said:

Who knows? Perhaps we may get the 1993 laserdisc master on Blu-ray this time?

Don’t even joke about that.

Considering how said master was only even released as “bonus content” in the first place, they might very well dump it to blu-ray (just like so many other blu-ray releases have ported over 4:3 sd extras from dvd) and treat the OOT as an afterthought. 😉

Another thing I was thinking in regards to 2020:

With the Avatar sequels set to at least slightly renew some interest in the 3D format, I wonder if Lucasfilm/Disney/Fox will release a stereo conversion of the OT during that stretch of time.

Apparently the first two sequels will be released during December of 2020 and 2021 (scratch what I said earlier about Star Wars possibly moving back to December for 2020 because that ain’t happening), then the latter two sequels will be released in 2024 and 2025.

I could totally see them planning an OT/Saga 3D release for 2022 and putting together a trailer to put in front of Avatar 3 in December of '21.

joefavs said:

I think you’re probably fine with the blu-rays. When in doubt, the current official release is a good rule of thumb. Especially since it’s looking more and more like they’ll just ride out the 2011 discs until they do a 4K release rather than putting out a remastered SE in the meantime.

This is why all signs point to 2020.

Since the new format only just launched last year, they weren’t going to release a catalogue title as big as Star Wars until several years in anyway. But that will only be an added bonus to the fact that 2020 is when they completely get the rights back to Empire, Jedi, and the prequels.

But the other factor might be whenever they choose to go on hiatus:

“There seems to be a plan for a hiatus on Star Wars movies – a plan that will happen after a few years after the end of the Sequel Trilogy.”

http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-bits-a-big-announcement-rogue-one-easter-eggs-and-lucasfilms-future-plans/

Now, the way that’s worded, does it mean “several years after the end of the sequel trilogy” or does it mean “several years from now, which will be after the end of the sequel trilogy”?

They don’t want the grand debut of Star Wars on a new format distracting from the latest new Star Wars movie or the home video release thereof. That’s why I don’t see anything happening over the next couple years other than reissues of the 2011 discs. If 2020 and 2021 still hold new Star Wars movies, I could only see the 4k release happening within that stretch if a long-enough window presents itself. For example, if they move back to December for the 2020 movie it would give them a year and a half between movies and they could put out the 4k OT in the Fall of 2020.

Possessed said:

It’s a shame you can’t watch harmys versions then.

Seeing as you don’t own the blurays and all.

Do you even own the films at all?

Like I said, I’ve still got the '95 vhs box but my cowclops discs are how I prefer to watch the movies. Yeah, it’s terrible quality, but I downloaded those back in March of '06, before the GOUT was even announced. Maybe I wasn’t totally “in the clear” to begin with since I never owned the '93 ld set (or any other ld release for that matter), but refusing to get the GOUT does not retroactively make me a pirate.