Fang Zei

Cobra Kai said:

That was my point. We don’t know the details and revenue that they get with their distribution deal. And Disney might believe that releasing this year and taking advantage of the 40th anniversary might be better for them than waiting until 2020.

Now, do I think it’s happening this year? No, I’ve pretty much lost all confidence in Disney/Lucasfilm. I just wanted to point out that it makes a lot of sense, marketing-wise, to release them now.

It’s entirely possible, and they’re not going to have another lull between movies until after IX. Indeed the time to do it would be now. They’ve already said they’re not doing a double-dip of Rogue One like they did with TFA, which kinda leaves the latter half of the year wide open.

Like I said before, I could totally see them putting out a regular 1080p blu-ray of the OOT this year because of the guaranteed dollars it would bring in, even if they have to share some of it with Fox. They would still have a UHD in their back pocket waiting to be released after May of 2020.

Cobra Kai said:

Disco_Lobot said:

It’s not like Lucasfilm hasn’t altered ROTJ multiple times after the director passed away… Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy there?

Also - why would they do any release prior to 2020? Spending a bunch of money on an OT restoration and having to split the money from TESB and ROTJ with Fox is just stupid. I still don’t know why anyone is expecting anything to happen prior to the rights reverting

First of all, none of us know what kind of distribution deal Fox has, nor what kind of money we’re talking about here. It may not be an issue at all.

By releasing them this year, on the 40th anniversary, they have a huge, built-in marketing message and can take advantage of all of the current hoopla surrounding the anniversary.

I’m not completely ruling out a release this year until May 25th has come and gone, although if we haven’t heard anything by May 4th I’d say the chances are next to zero.

As for the deal with Fox, we may not know the fine details (I did find it curious that Disney was mentioned at all alongside Fox and LFL in the press release for the 2015 blu-ray reissue), but we do know that Fox retains distribution on ANH forever and that the rights to the other five revert fully to LFL in May of 2020.

nickyd47 said:

Windexed said:

nickyd47 said:

Also, does it matter if Kathleen believes in George’s vision when the house of mouse can override that and be like “nope, we like money, put out the OOT, we worked out a deal with FOX”

They let Disney have their way with EP7 so…

This. George was his own boss. If he wanted to make a sw film made of nothing but of cgi potatoes, he could. Kathleen Kennedy is not her own boss. She is a figurehead/manager who answers to stock holders and a corporate board (see: syndicate).

When Disney bought Lucasfilm, they bought EVERYTHING. There’s no contract that says they can’t release the out. For $4 billion, they don’t owe George anything. Kk might have professional and personal respect for George, but also has superiors to appease. Superiors who micromanage every decision to the tiniest detail in order maximize short and long term profits.

Disney can and will release the out, but it will be solely when they feel it will get the biggest bang; not when the fans want it, not to comemmerate some date,etc.

The biggest bang would be literally any time now because they haven’t had a proper release in over 20 years

It’s been 22 years since the widescreen VHS tapes came out. It’s been nearly 11 years since we got those terrible DVDs. What’s to wait for?

What Disco_Lobot said, but even if we put the 2020 thing aside I still wouldn’t expect it before then anyway due to Lucasfilm wanting to keep all the attention on the new movies. We know there’s going to be a hiatus at some point not long after IX. We’re already getting two movies within six months of each other, so I could see them at the very least taking a year-and-a-half breather farther down the line. Maybe they do another standalone movie in 2020 and then put out the OOT that Fall or just wait until 2021 if that ends up being the “off” year.

Cobra Kai said:

I just read an interesting quote from a certain person over at the steve hoffman forums.

This is concerning the original restoration for the 2004 release:

I was told point blank at ILM that Lucas kind of didn’t really care that much about home video, and he was mainly concerned with whatever project he was on at the moment. They told me they had considered remastering the theatrical versions AND the revised versions simultaneously, but there just was no time available to do it because Fox demanded a pretty stringent deadline. Money was part of it, but it was more about time than money.

That certainly wasn’t the first time Fox gave George a “stringent deadline” and said it was “more about time than money.” 😉

As for not really caring about home video, that doesn’t surprise me. He was going to wait until RotS was on dvd just to put out the OT on dvd at all, which would’ve been less than a year before the hd disc formats hit the streets.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Well, now I put even less credence into his earlier reporting on the matter. Let’s see if Making Star Wars gives us an update or if the rumor pans out in the next few weeks.

For all we know, they’re planning an announcement for next month and are playing dumb about it in the meantime so as not to spoil the surprise. After some googling the other day, I found that first USA Today article telling everyone about the GOUT and, yup, it was from the day before May 4th.

The reporter could’ve phrased the question better. He brought up “the sale to Disney” as a way of asking in very coded language if there was any agreement not to release the unaltereds. Then, when Kennedy understandably failed to see what he was getting at, he asks about “further alterations” to the SE. You can’t pussyfoot around the question you want to ask and then expect a direct answer.

It also frustrates me to see people conflating the issue of the SE being George’s official version with the mostly unrelated issue of the unaltereds being suppressed.

rodneyfaile said:

I’m actually replying to a signature I’ve seen a few times:

“I have to say that I felt George’s group of six films had more innovative visual imagination, and this film was more of a retrenchment to things you had seen before and characters you had seen before, and it took a few baby steps forward with new characters.” - James Cameron about Episode VII

…

“I start to see things I recognize. It’s being very respectful of first two films. Then all of the sudden, it just swerves. And now I’m going on a journey. I feel like the franchise has been reinvigorated, like this is a renaissance.”- James Cameron regarding Terminator Genisys

He should just get busy putting True Lies and The Abyss on blu-ray and leave the movie reviews to others.

+1

FTFY BTW

Disco_Lobot said:

Fang Zei said:

Disco_Lobot said:

Fang Zei said:

This discussion of changing writers from one movie to the next kind of begs the question of whether VIII and IX will even vaguely resemble George’s outlines for VIII and IX or if Lucasfilm is totally and completely doing its own thing now.

I’m highly doubtful that there was ever much of an outline in the first place.

From what I remember, Lucas had a 50-page story outline for the entire ST and hired Michael Arndt to write the screenplay for VII. Abrams eventually rewrote the script himself, keeping certain elements from Arndt’s earlier draft. For example, we know that a female protagonist was always in the cards. One of the very earliest rumors following the Disney deal was that Matthew Vaughn would direct with Chloe Grace Moretz in the starring role.

The only major difference I remember hearing about was Abrams giving the original characters a bigger role in the story. I’m sure there were other differences, apparently enough for the “white slavers” comment from Lucas, but did TFA at least vaguely resemble his outline for VII or was it really that different?

George showing up at Celebration makes me wonder if TLJ isn’t going to get back to what he had in mind for the ST.

Supposedly Lucas is a big fan of Rogue One… that might have something to do with it.

Oh, really? I don’t follow every bit of Star Wars news like I used to (I still haven’t bothered to look up which scene in TFA uses a cgi mask for Kylo Ren). I knew that George had visited the Rogue One set. Was he also taken with the finished product?

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Fang Zei said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Except that the SE color timing is supposedly part of Lucas’ original creative vision. Magenta Leia and all.

Counting the '97 SE and the RMW scans, we’ve now got no less than three different versions of George’s “original creative vision,” four if you count the tweaks made in 2011.

I’ve clarified what I was getting at since that post.

My point is that the RMW master could end up improving the look of the movie. It still wouldn’t be ideal (Mike Verta said on his vimeo channel that it still looks way off from Legacy), but it would at least look better than the 2004 master.

Disco_Lobot said:

Fang Zei said:

This discussion of changing writers from one movie to the next kind of begs the question of whether VIII and IX will even vaguely resemble George’s outlines for VIII and IX or if Lucasfilm is totally and completely doing its own thing now.

I’m highly doubtful that there was ever much of an outline in the first place.

From what I remember, Lucas had a 50-page story outline for the entire ST and hired Michael Arndt to write the screenplay for VII. Abrams eventually rewrote the script himself, keeping certain elements from Arndt’s earlier draft. For example, we know that a female protagonist was always in the cards. One of the very earliest rumors following the Disney deal was that Matthew Vaughn would direct with Chloe Grace Moretz in the starring role.

The only major difference I remember hearing about was Abrams giving the original characters a bigger role in the story. I’m sure there were other differences, apparently enough for the “white slavers” comment from Lucas, but did TFA at least vaguely resemble his outline for VII or was it really that different?

George showing up at Celebration makes me wonder if TLJ isn’t going to get back to what he had in mind for the ST.

EDIT: Cobb beat me to it.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Except that the SE color timing is supposedly part of Lucas’ original creative vision. Magenta Leia and all.

Counting the '97 SE and the RMW scans, we’ve now got no less than three different versions of George’s “original creative vision,” four if you count the tweaks made in 2011.

This discussion of changing writers from one movie to the next kind of begs the question of whether VIII and IX will even vaguely resemble George’s outlines for VIII and IX or if Lucasfilm is totally and completely doing its own thing now.

Possessed said:

Mocata said:

Disney needs to ask themselves, which is easier with the same profit? Re-release with a possible boost in resolution or restoration and other time consuming efforts?

A resolution boost would require a restoration anyway because the current master is most likely locked at 1080p, if not 2k.

Right, but what I keep coming back to is, will that many people really want to watch the SE in 4k?

Since they won’t even be thinking about a UHD release for I-VI until around 2020 anyway (they’ll wait until enough people have adopted the tech just as they did with dvd and bd), they might as well throw in a 4k OOT as an incentive to buy these movies yet again.

That’s been IX’s unofficial release date for a while now. I don’t know how that first became known, but in any event it’s official now.

The more interesting news here is that they pushed Indy 5 back a year (it was originally summer of 2019 IIRC). July 10 feels like such a random date, though. Maybe Paramount’s already staked out a Transformers movie for the end of June that year?

From what someone said earlier in the thread, sales of the 2011 discs have actually gone up since the reissue in 2015, no doubt due to the renewed interest in the franchise from the new movies.

Disney need only ask themselves, are these increased sales going to sustain themselves over the next three years or will they dwindle to the point that a remastered release of the unaltereds would be worth it, even though it will likely be the last time many fans will ever buy those movies and Disney will have nothing left to sell them post-2020.

I think the more likely scenario is Disney simply waits this out until 2020 and includes a 4k-remastered transfer of the unaltereds with the UHD release of the SE and uses it to help hype up that release. They could also release it on regular blu-ray the same day.

Disney may or may not release their own movies (TFA, RO, TLJ, etc) on UHD in the meantime. I suspect they will, if only to take advantage of that quickly growing market. It will be like how TPM and AotC were released on dvd first. Lets not forget how GL wanted to wait until after RotS to release the OT on dvd at all. This time something similar “May Actually Happen” (-Egon) regarding the OT on UHD, just for different reasons.

nickyd47 said:

I hope all these new click bait articles get Lucasfilm to say something

Well, it’s sure to hit critical mass next month.

We’ve got May the Fourth and the actual 40th Anniversary on May 25th.

rodneyfaile said:

Then if Disney/Lucasfilm aren’t going after those actually selling the despecialized versions on ebay, they why not just host the free downloads right here on this site instead of hard to access torrent sites?

Because better safe than sorry?

They’re not going after it because, by refusing to restore the movies themselves, they’ve given themselves no excuse to complain about it.

Also, clearly the number of people who actually care about the original versions is such an extremely small number that the few thousand dollars they’re losing to the ebay sellers isn’t worth worrying about (Yes, that was sarcasm).

My point is that if they go after the ebay sellers they are acknowledging the elephant in the room of not having released the unaltereds themselves. It would be an extremely hypocritical move.

Did Lucasfilm ever take legal action against ebay sellers of the ld-to-dvd preservations pre-GOUT?

DrDre said:

Fang Zei said:

DrDre said:

The mainstream internet media have picked up on the Kathleen Kennedy statements:

http://movieweb.com/star-wars-classic-trilogy-disney-wont-alter-restore/

They all agree that Kennedy was referring to any alteration of the final cut, including restoring previous cuts of the films. I suppose this may create some buzz on the twitter feeds, so let’s hope for a more extensive statement from Lucasfilm/Disney on the subject sooner rather than later.

I don’t see why keeping George’s version as it is precludes any possibility of the original cuts being released with his version.

Yes, the guy interviewing Kennedy should’ve worded his question better, but all she really said was that they’re not going to alter George’s version. That doesn’t really tell us anything either way about the unaltereds.

The situation with Fox is the reason for their silence, I’m convinced of it. Just wait, after May of 2020 we’ll suddenly get an announcement.

I would say, because as Kennedy states they will always remain his. She won’t touch the final cuts of the OT, which she states in no uncertain terms. In other words, any decisions regarding the release of alternate versions of the OT are Lucas’ prerogative.

Kennedy is not stupid. She understood the question, the same way all the internet news media understood the question. Nobody is interpreting the question and subsequent answer in any other way, except those that refuse to accept the inevitable.

Given the statements she made, it is unconceivable, that they will release the OOT without Lucas’ approval, especially since he has stated time, and time again, he doesn’t want them released. Is it possible he will change his mind? Sure, but it’s unlikely.

Fox is a non issue. Disney already has a distribution deal with Fox for the first six films, as is evident from the fact, that Disney and Fox jointly released all of them in 2015.

It’s a non issue if Disney doesn’t mind giving some of the profits from a guaranteed-to-sell-in-vast-numbers OOT blu-ray release to Fox. If they wait until 2020, they only have to give Fox their percentage on ANH.

It would be awkward for Disney/Lucasfilm to explain it in such blunt terms. That’s why we haven’t heard anything on the subject.

As for the George thing, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Obviously they’re not going to alter the SE without his permission, but I think we’re taking the extreme interpretation of that somehow also meaning they’ll never restore the original versions.

Tobar said:

Fang Zei said:

Like I said, I really wish I could find the audio of this. TFN had a page with four audio files broken up by the people being interviewed (Kershner, Hamill, Jim Ward, and the lowry guys). I don’t remember now how I found it, this was of course way back in September of '04.

http://theforce.net/latestnews/story/Lucasfilm_DVD_Press_Day_Audio_Files_82683.asp

Thank you, Tobar!

Here is the direct link to the interview I was talking about. Jump to about 4:10 and you will hear John Lowry say in no uncertain terms that they were working at HD resolution and not 2k:

http://download.theforce.net/interviews/sw-dvd-q&a.mp3

DrDre said:

The mainstream internet media have picked up on the Kathleen Kennedy statements:

http://movieweb.com/star-wars-classic-trilogy-disney-wont-alter-restore/

They all agree that Kennedy was referring to any alteration of the final cut, including restoring previous cuts of the films. I suppose this may create some buzz on the twitter feeds, so let’s hope for a more extensive statement from Lucasfilm/Disney on the subject sooner rather than later.

I don’t see why keeping George’s version as it is precludes any possibility of the original cuts being released with his version.

Yes, the guy interviewing Kennedy should’ve worded his question better, but all she really said was that they’re not going to alter George’s version. That doesn’t really tell us anything either way about the unaltereds.

The situation with Fox is the reason for their silence, I’m convinced of it. Just wait, after May of 2020 we’ll suddenly get an announcement.

rodneyfaile said:

May the Force be with Harmy then.

Hey, look at it this way. When Harmy finally gets around to finishing his 1080p re-do of the despecialized trilogy Disney will have something even better: a 4k transfer of the real thing.

There is still a simple reason they wouldn’t want to talk about it just yet, and that’s the situation with Fox. We’ve known about this ever since the Disney buy-out but Lucasfilm has never commented on it, for obvious reasons. I really wouldn’t be surprised to suddenly hear something from them after May of 2020.

Cobra Kai said:

DrDre said:

Cobra Kai said:

DrDre said:

Lust-In-Phaze said:

Fresh off the presses: Kathy Kennedy, on whether or not there are plans to alter George’s “final cut” of the films: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie6Cr3m344k&feature=youtu.be

skip to around the 2:50 mark

The writing’s on the wall. “I wouldn’t touch those. They will always be his films”.

The only way an OOT release will happen, is if George Lucas gives his approval. I doubt Lucasfilm would start restoring the OOT on their own accord, and as Pablo Hidalgo hinted, George Lucas is not all that interested.

At this point Mike Verta’s restoration is our best hope. Once his pitch has happened, I suspect a copy will be shared with Lucasfilm, who will have to decide what to do with it.

Well, I dont know - the way the interviewer phrased it she could have taken that as if he was talking about future changes to the movies. So I’m not sure if that told us anything one way or the other. A wasted opportunity by the interviewer

Certainly, but she has great respect, and affection for her former boss. “They will always be his films”. Releasing the OOT without consulting George Lucas would be incredibly disrespectful.

Pablo Hidalgo has confirmed the 4K restoration is the SE, and was started under Lucas’ watch.

The Disney restoration people have confirmed the negative is still conformed to the SE.

At this point all we know is, that Lucasfilm and Disney are preserving all Star Wars related material, which would include the surviving OOT material. So, a release is technically possible at some point in the future, but I wouldn’t bet on any time soon.

Yes, but perhaps George really doesn’t care if they release the OOT along side his preferred cuts. He seemed to soften on his stance about that before Disney bought it anyway.

That being said - yeah I agree with you. I dont have much hope left either.

I just wish someone would ask them directly so we would know.

I really don’t think George cares either way.

Releasing the unaltereds wouldn’t be disrespectful to him so long as they’re packaged with his preferred version and aren’t presented in superior quality. We already know the 4k restoration was of the SE, which means it was off the negative just like the lowry transfer was. An OOT restoration need not be from the negative. If they were to use the separation masters (and Robert A. Harris has suggested they should), right there you are starting out with a lower quality source than the o-neg. Nothing for GL to complain about there. His version would still be superior quality, and they could still get the unaltereds looking close enough to the same level of quality. Hell, call it “bonus material” just like they did last time if he really still wants it known they’re his “rough drafts.”

Now some of you will say “but George doesn’t even want people having that option because they’ll never watch his version again.” To that I simply say, he sold the company to Disney for $4 Billion. If he really is that insecure about it, it should no longer be our problem.

dahmage said:

nickyd47 said:

Lust-In-Phaze said:

Fresh off the presses: Kathy Kennedy, on whether or not there are plans to alter George’s “final cut” of the films: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie6Cr3m344k&feature=youtu.be

Should have asked if an OOT release was possible, and not if a new special edition was possible. She did confirm that they have creative freedom which is good

yeah, a great example of why you should be direct in your questions. never assume that your interviewee can read your mind.

People who actually get as far as interviewing the ones in charge are probably too nervous to just ask that question directly.

DrDre said:

Fang Zei said:

DrDre said:

I only wish that were true. The 2015 releases of the saga box set contained nothing new, yet it still was a huge hit.

If the history of releases teaches us anything, it’s that people will buy anything with the words “special collectors edition”, or “remastered” on it, or just a cool new cover.

True, but if you go back to the initial releases of these discs in 2011 and look at how people reacted to news of the additional changes and how it took the blu-rays more than a week to make what the 2004 OT dvd made in its very first day, then it should become clear that the fans wouldn’t be so excited about repeating the experience on a new format.

Sure, but the bluray market now is quite a bit smaller than the DVD market was in it’s heyday, and the price tag for the saga set was also pretty steep, compared to previous releases. I’m not sure if things would have been very different, had an OOT set been included. Most of the OOT fans still bought the bluray set, despite no OOT, while the general audience doesn’t care either way.

If a 4K SE set is under way, I would still buy it, if only to replace the horrible 2011 release, and to get better material for fan edits. I suspect many here will do the same.

Fair enough, and you’re probably right.

Speaking only for myself, I still wouldn’t buy a 4k SE for the same reason I didn’t buy the blu-rays or the GOUT: it sends the wrong message to the powers-that-be.