Fang Zei

The more I think about it, the more it becomes obvious that people simply do not care about seeing the OOT restored. Or at least there aren’t enough people who actually care as much about it as we do.

If the next several years came and went and Lucasfilm continued to say nothing on the subject, that many more people will simply say “I give up, it’s never going to happen.” Over a long enough timeline there simply won’t be anyone left who actually gives enough of a damn to complain about it. Sure, maybe someone at Lucasfilm will see the money-making potential of a release that includes the original versions, but man, they really seem to need a lot of convincing for something that’s guaranteed to rake in the cash.

The biggest imperative is preserving the movies, because one way or another the films elements will eventually disintegrate. Maybe we really should forget about dangling that carrot of “we’re waiting for you to take our money on this,” a strategy that’s failed to get their attention, and appeal to them on the grounds of preserving our cultural heritage.

In other words, we need to shame them into restoring the OOT.

Yet their using the word “revised” implies that the OOT was not merely a rough draft of the “finished” version.

This should probably be retitled as the spoilers thread if we’re going to post stuff like spy photos here.

Just sayin’

Writing an article about the 20th anniversary of the SE while also celebrating the 40th anniversary of the original movie is actually a step in the right direction as far as I’m concerned.

It’s the biggest acknowledgement that the films have been changed since … well, since they were changed.

ratpack1961 said:

Haarspalter said:

I wonder if Lucas created the PT primarily to keep LucasFilm alive? Its artistic outcome would not have been important as long as it generates money. Back in the 80s he also saw ESB & ROTJ as mere vehicles to fund his elaborate Skywalker Ranch. Somewhere between ANH & ESB the filmmaker disappeared and the businessman took over. Didn’t he say during infamous “White Slavers” interview with Charlie Rose that he wanted to do the ST himself and that he had to care about his employees? Maybe it was easier to sell LucasFilm than to stem another trilogy himself…

Late reply to this one but this is actually true. Young Indiana Jones in the early 90s was a huge money loss for Lucasfilm. He had to come up with something that was going to generate income. This was partially why he went forward with the prequels.

I think Lucas has a love/hate relationship with Star Wars. With Empire he really did want to farm out the star wars movies to other people and he would build his dream Skywalker Ranch studio. However he had a very hard time letting go of wanting to control Empire and the quality of that film. When he did Jedi he was onset every day I believe as opposed to the hands off approach he had with Empire. After Jedi he was finished with the whole thing until he decided to finish the saga with the prequels which would make him a ton of money and he would have absolute control over the output of the film.

It’s worth noting that Disney spent roughly 50% more on TFA than George did on TPM, and that’s after adjusting for inflation. To George’s credit, he spent twice Jedi’s budget on TPM. As many were saying at the time, the prequels would have cost way more if George hadn’t owned ILM. It’s ironic that seeing their work on Jurassic Park is what convinced him he could finally make the PT, because a certain Ian Malcolm quote fits rather perfectly with what he decided to do next.

SilverWook said:

Did any of the educational stuff Lucas once talked about utilizing with Young Indy ever come to pass?

Are you talking about the historical documentaries he mentioned they were working on for the dvd during that Charlie Rose interview circa RotS or is this something he mentioned way back in the early 90’s when the show was airing?

On a related note, I’m only just now getting around to watching Twin Peaks (I tried a couple years ago but only got several episodes in before getting sidetracked). I would’ve been almost five when that show started airing and I do seem to vaguely recall being aware of its existence. By contrast, imdb tells me that The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles aired from March of '92 to August of '93 and yet I don’t recall even being aware of its existence during that time at all despite being several years older.

Maybe I was too distracted by TNG and DS9 to notice, maybe I just hadn’t quite seen the Indiana Jones movies, but it’s still shockingly weird to me now that this show wasn’t even on my radar. Was it on during a bad timeslot? Is it even any good? Imdb also tells me there were several made for tv movies (or were they just direct to video?) done afterwards.

I would hear/read this show being brought up every once in a while, and remember seeing the ad at the front of the Raiders vhs (I’d seen it before and so I knew how the ad ended, but I remember this one time we were watching Raiders and my parents and their friends burst out laughing when you hear old Indy say “all before the age of 21”).

Other than that, the only things I knew about Young Indy were that some of the eventual PT crew worked on it, like McCallum and Tattersall, and I seem to recall hearing somewhere that George got back in the director’s chair for some of it and also experimented with certain digital techniques. I also see some big names were responsible for the writing and directing, like Mike Newell who went on to direct the fourth Harry Potter movie.

Anyway, I still haven’t seen it after all these years but might be interested at some point if it’s at all worth it. In retrospect, the 90’s might have been the Star Wars renaissance but it feels like the dark times for Lucasfilm since I can’t think of anything else they made during that stretch other than Radioland Murders (which I caught the end of on tv once) and TPM.

To my knowledge it’s not up on any streaming services, which is a mitigating factor since I’m not going through the trouble of getting the dvd just to see it. Maybe the show is still stuck in standard def or it’s a rights issue, or both.

They’re basically fudging all of that stuff. If this were really the prime timeline, why aren’t they wearing the sweater-looking uniforms from The Cage?

Instead they seem to have taken the Kelvin set and costumes and simply extrapolated out that in the original timeline things looked … not very different twenty years later?

No doubt the writers will explain away the inconsistencies in an interview or something. Kurtzman and Orci said somewhere that everything looks way more advanced in the Kelvin timeline because the escape shuttles took scans of the Narada and Starfleet learned all this late 24th century technology (including the Borg stuff used to grow the flower-shaped structure around the ship) 154 years ahead of time.

True, there is a difference between “bad” and “less significant.”

A good example is John Carpenter’s The Thing. It’s not as culturally significant as Star Wars and yet it’s recieved two different blu-ray transfers.

Mocata said:

The Bull’s Eyed Womprat said:

I don’t think linking to the homepage of this site is a good idea. Have any of you seen the homepage? It looks like a defunct niche website from 2007. It says ‘news’ and the newest thing isn’t from this decade… no offense of course.

Yeah already mentioned somewhere, the letter will probably go up there

Couldn’t we just make a page specifically for the letter instead of putting it on the main page?

As I recall, that’s exactly what we did for the most recent petition.

Was it actually someone else’s idea other than George to make changes to the movie (even if it was just re-doing a dozen or so shots with cgi) or were Muren and Knoll simply George’s enablers?

NeverarGreat said:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=star wars unaltered trilogy

Some info on when people have searched for ‘Star Wars unaltered trilogy’.
In short, there were small spikes in 2006 and 2011, then people cared a whole lot right when TFA came out, then cared a bit less when Rogue One came out.

So I’d say it’s obviously a good idea to create a stir when it coincides with a major movie release or a blu-ray/4K release of the OT.

Rian Johnson is not a fan of the SE if this tweet from January of 2011 is any indication:

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

Granted, this was still more than three years before he was hired for Episode VIII, but I’m sure his feelings on the matter haven’t changed.

People were still replying to this more than four years later in August of 2015. It might be worth replying to it and/or liking it and/or retweeting it on the 25th.

I mean, he never deleted it so…

suspiciouscoffee said:

SilverWook said:

rodneyfaile said:

Hope there is a live stream and plenty of Original Unaltered Trilogy talk.

I wonder if they will show the movie?

If George is coming, I doubt it would be unaltered. I can imagine them playing an SE, and loudly voicing their disapproval at the many of the changes, all with George in the room with them to hear their hatred for his destruction of their work. Maybe then something would finally click in his head.

Well, there was that story from years ago about George attending a 35mm screening and, according to the people sitting nearby, getting very uncomfortable upon realizing it was the unaltered version and not the SE.

Phil Tippett has been rather outspoken about his dislike for the alterations has he not?

I’d be curious to know John Dykstra and Richard Edlund’s thoughts on the matter as they were not involved with the SE and PT IIRC.

screams in the void said:

I thought we would see the Jedi fighting scores of Mandalorian Super commando’s

For the longest time I thought Joe Johnston would’ve been the perfect director for Episode II if for no other reason than the fact that, regardless of whatever the story ended up being, Boba Fett was always going to play some sort of role in that particular installment of the PT.*

But hearing you say it like that, suddenly I got images of Captain America taking on Hydra in The First Avenger. I feel like we could’ve gotten something similar to that if the production had hewed closer to the OT’s more practical filmmaking techniques (as the sequel trilogy largely is). Instead I feel like the Mandalorian army everyone wanted to see became the clones and the Jedi were fighting with them instead of against them.

*at least that’s what I read in a newsweek article at some point during the months leading up to TPM’s release. Said article also mentioned a rumor about Jet Li possibly playing Boba. I’d love to know how that one started and if there was ever any truth to it.

althor1138 said:

Somebody should do one of these posts on Reddit:

<----- Number of people that want the original theatrical version of star wars released on blu-ray

If that hit the front page of reddit it would mean quite a bit I think. The OT crowd would definitely have to get the ball rolling. I’m assuming everybody has reddit accounts?

I don’t.

Goatboy said:

Fang Zei said:

Goatboy said:

towne32 said:

Right. We are not giving them directions or writing a contract. We are hoping to raise awareness and increase discussion, and despite low chances of success, hoping that we might get some kind of information. A comment that is less worthless/ambiguous than the recent Kennedy interview.

If, someday, they release a 2k OOT (first of all, I would still be thrilled), it won’t be because, "hah! You ****ers should’ve specified 4K! Gotcha!"
I know people still feel burned about GOUT, but that didn’t happen due to a misunderstanding.

I don’t think Lucasfilm will release the theatrical releases on Blue-ray, at least as long as Kennedy is president. Because of her relationship to George Lucas and him appointing her president, she doesn’t want to touch what she sees as “his movies”.

And if it does ever happen, it wont be until 2020, when Disney gets the distribution rights to Episodes 5 & 6.

Getting Star Wars fans talking about it can’t hurt though.

She wouldn’t be doing anything to his movies, though. She would simply be including the original versions alongside his versions. EDIT: crissrudd beat me to it.

Welcome to the forums, btw!

Thanks for the welcome 😃

Lucas has said that, to him, the original releases don’t exist anymore, the current versions are THE movies and he talked how he wants that to be the only version that people see and how eventually all the VHS tapes of the old version will burn out and be thrown away. He underestimates the power of the internet and passionate fans.

So it seems to me like Lucas doesn’t want people watching the theatrical releases, and Kennedy is going to honor his wish.

But Kennedy is 63 years old, and will retire or change jobs within the next decade or two, so the new blood that steps in could have a different stance.

Lucas himself had softened on the issue by the time he sold his company.

Those earlier quotes about the millions of vhs tapes became irrelevant in 2006 when he decided to release the unaltered versions on dvd. Yeah, they were from outdated 1993 transfers, but the dvd discs themselves will last a long time.

George’s comments have been remarkably inconsistent over the years. In 2005 he said there would never be an Episode VII! By the time of the blu-ray release in 2011, he wasn’t even using his “vision” for the films as an excuse to withhold the unaltered versions. He simply said that it would “cost too much.” What he probably would have said under the influence of truth serum is “I’m keeping it in my backpocket for a rainy day since I know many of you fans will go out and buy it all over again.”

Then he sold the company to Disney.

It’s not his money being spent anymore. I doubt he cares one way or the other if the unaltered versions are restored/released, just so long as his versions are still packaged as “the main version.”

dahmage said:

crissrudd4554 said:

The fact that Lucas allowed what were originally intended as ‘Limited Editions’ that were supposed to be off the market by the end of 2006 to be repackaged again in 2008 IMO is another example that shows that he only is/was refusing to restore the originals, not release them.

you have a fair point, but also, once you have a product, i doubt you need to go back to the boss man to approve selling more… but to approve a new project, even if it is just putting a crappy transfer onto bluray, would that not require ‘approvals’ again. Maybe i am just naive about how strongly Lucas feels about holding back the OOT

That’s a safe assumption, not naive.

If anything it’s the situation with Fox that’s made Disney so silent on the matter.

dahmage said:

Would it be strange to add a line to the end of the letter something like “we would love the opportunity to discuss this with you” or “if you would like to hear our ideas please feel free to reach out”?

I would certainly want to.

Or we could simply tell them to talk to Robert A. Harris about it.

Goatboy said:

towne32 said:

Right. We are not giving them directions or writing a contract. We are hoping to raise awareness and increase discussion, and despite low chances of success, hoping that we might get some kind of information. A comment that is less worthless/ambiguous than the recent Kennedy interview.

If, someday, they release a 2k OOT (first of all, I would still be thrilled), it won’t be because, "hah! You ****ers should’ve specified 4K! Gotcha!"
I know people still feel burned about GOUT, but that didn’t happen due to a misunderstanding.

I don’t think Lucasfilm will release the theatrical releases on Blue-ray, at least as long as Kennedy is president. Because of her relationship to George Lucas and him appointing her president, she doesn’t want to touch what she sees as “his movies”.

And if it does ever happen, it wont be until 2020, when Disney gets the distribution rights to Episodes 5 & 6.

Getting Star Wars fans talking about it can’t hurt though.

She wouldn’t be doing anything to his movies, though. She would simply be including the original versions alongside his versions. EDIT: crissrudd beat me to it.

Welcome to the forums, btw!

crissrudd4554 said:

Then again I’d think if they’re willing to spend money to restore it they’d release it yes??

That’s exactly what I was thinking. “Restore” not only implies “release” but also leaves no room for them to pull something similar to the GOUT.

For example, if we only say “release on blu-ray” they might just keep it to a 2k “restoration” from inferior elements. The OOT deserves the highest quality treatment from the best existing film sources. If there’s already a 4k master of George’s preferred version, we shouldn’t accept anything less for the unaltereds.

I would word it a little differently:

“Are you ever going to restore the original theatrical version of the original Star Wars trilogy?”

I think “restore” is a better catch-all term.

For starters, the films do need to be restored before any kind of modern release can happen. “Restore” also implies a blu-ray release and the possibility of theatrical exhibition.

But “restore” also conveys the importance of the matter in a single word whereas “release on blu-ray” just makes it sound trivial.

crissrudd4554 said:

Listing the changes is not necessary. Theyre well aware of the changes and know it’s what drives our desire to see the originals restored. Listing the changes might come off as degrading the SEs which is not the purpose of the message. For once I agree with Alderaan. Mentioning the SEs as less as we can, aside from maybe mentioning that we can respect that they are the canon versions and are how Mr. Lucas intends them to be, is probably a smart option. We just want the originals restored and released regardless of what release method they should choose to do so.

We could even take it a step further and show we’re also not prequel haters by pointing out that those movies aren’t available in their original forms either (at least TPM and AotC aren’t).

Including the words “the original and prequel trilogies” and “all versions” in the relevant parts of the longer letter would be just subtle enough.

SilverWook said:

Don’t most Blu-ray players have a zoom setting for non anamorphic DVD’s? I know Panasonic does.

But then you’ve got the problem of the alien language subtitles getting cut off. Unless of course the player doing the zooming also automatically repositions the subtitles, which I suppose is possible. I’ve got a panasonic bd player so maybe I’ll test it out on a 4:3 dvd.

SilverWook said:

drfsupercenter said:

Well crap.

I messaged the seller, he posted a new picture… definitely bootlegs. They have the cheap Chinese-style cases (the real ones had a flippable portion in the middle, the left of the box was still used for the chapter insert), and also notice no MPAA rating on the discs.

This is why I asked!

Time to look some more…

It’s sad and ironic the GOUT is being bootlegged at this point.

I bet there are a lot of people out there who never realized their dvd players had a setting to make everything not look like stretch-o-vision and now have blu-ray players that are set to display everything in 16:9 by default.

Some of those people are in for a rude awakening when they pop in the GOUT and realize there’s no good way to watch in on their modern setup.

Yeah, we don’t need to list the differences.

The SEs are very blatantly not the same films that were released back in 77-83, especially the first one.

I think what baron lando was saying earlier about pointing to the multi-version treatment Blade Runner recieved and telling LFL “do that” (in so many words) should be enough.

ETA: ray afraid posted as I was writing this. Linking to the comparison might be a good idea.

dahmage said:

Fang Zei said:

drfsupercenter said:

TV’s Frink said:

drfsupercenter said:

I’m looking to add the “limited edition” OT DVDs to my collection.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but…

Why?

Just download one of the many fine restoration projects here.

Because I’m a collector and I like having official releases. I do have the Despecialized Editions, but there’s something to be said about having the actual releases.

Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t have paid money for the GOUT in 2006, nevermind 2017.

You should probably just get your hands on Team Negative 1’s Silver Screen Edition of Star Wars '77 and the grindhouse releases of Empire and Jedi. The picture and sound are based off actual release prints.

um, isn’t the audio from laser disc? (at least it isn’t the print audio).

If it is, I didn’t know that. Could’ve sworn they said in the first post of their thread that they were sourcing the audio from the print itself but that was forever ago.

Which LD mix did they use?