Ronster said:
I think disc 2 should be 1997 / 2004 / 2011.
Who is honestly going to miss the way 2004 and 2011 looks?
This is exactly what I was going to say in my post.
The 04/11 color timing doesn’t need to be preserved. We already know they did a fresh 4k scan of the o-neg, with is conformed to the '97 version already. They might as well include it. But the 97/04/11 preference thread got me thinking that some people might end up preferring '04 or '11 over all other versions, and since there really weren’t too many changes done specifically for 04 and 11 it shouldn’t be too complicated to branch the changes in. However, I say that knowing there are some very subtle differences they might miss. For example, which version did they digitally fix Piett and the other officer’s insignia so it was on the correct side in the flipped shot toward the end of ESB? Because I honestly couldn’t tell you now if that was 97 or 04. That’s why including the 97 version takes priority for me over branching in 04 and 11. I’d rather have them include 97 exactly as it was and lose 04/11 than have them screw something up trying to include the different versions.
Of course, I say all of this knowing full well there is little chance they will even include 97. That story about Han shooting first again may be complete BS,* so the 2011 version might really be the final version. They could have easily ported over those changes when they went back and rescanned the 97-conformed o-neg for this newer 4k master we’ve been hearing about. If we get the unaltereds on blu/UHD, it will probably have the original version and the final versions on separate discs and that’s it. They probably won’t bother branching in the '81 crawl on the unaltered disc for ANH either, and that wouldn’t be a deal breaker. The original version of the crawl from those first four years when Star Wars took the world by storm obviously takes preference over the one that says “Episode IV: A New Hope.”
*Still, I’m really, really curious just what exactly Devin Faraci’s unnamed source inside Lucasfilm saw to lead to such a rumor. It really wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out to be true. I’d say it’s still considered the most egregious change that’s been made to these movies. Even George seems to realize this if his wearing the “Han Shot First” shirt on the set of Crystal Skull means anything at all. Also, wasn’t that shot further tweaked in both 04 and 11? Maybe he finally gave up on it. I can’t see him reversing many other changes, not that he hasn’t done it before (Luke’s scream in ESB). But I could see him fixing some vfx mistakes that still linger in the 2011 version. Some pretty blatant errors still persist in the Endor space battle, and you can see through the Falcon as it pulls away from the Rebel cruiser at the end of ESB.
