Fang Zei

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.

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.

DrDre said:

DrDre said:

rodneyfaile said:

DrDre said: The OOT bootleg market is non-existent.

That’s definitely not true.

Really? Type either Despecialized or Silver Screen Edition in Ebay, and you will find only two or three sellers attempting to sell Despecialized, and none trying to sell the Silver Screen Edition. If nobody is buying and or selling, there is no market (market = an actual or nominal place where forces of demand and supply operate, and where buyers and sellers interact).

There are bootlegs, which are shared through torrent sites, but that is another matter. Before the release of the OOT on DVD, there were literally dozens of sellers on Ebay (mostly from Asia, where pirating laws are lenient or absent) attempting to sell bootleg copies of the OOT in varying quality.

Ye, Yes, I read it the first time.

I would still think that for every one person who actually goes through all of the trouble of downloading and burning a copy of despecialized or team -1 there are several more people who aren’t technically savvy enough but would be happy to pay good money for an official release.

Slavicuss said:

I won’t be buying any new box-set unless it includes the OOT restored. Any new bonus material will eventually appear online sooner or later. I already own enough copies of the S/E’s.

I have no desire to see CGI junk in 4K or in-my-face 3D either.

Neither do a lot of other fans, which is exactly why I think we’ll see the unaltereds included in an eventual 4k release. They’re going to need to give the fans a good enough reason to rebuy the latest SE revision on yet another format.

Of course, I’m the guy who thinks they should go full Blade Runner and include the '97 versions as well, but I’m probably in the minority.

DrDre said:

Z6PO said:

Remember when the unaltered were released on DVD, George Lucas wasn’t against the release, he was against spending any money on it. It is not his money anymore.

The reason the GOUT DVD’s were released, can be attributed mainly to the growing market of OOT bootlegs in the early 2000s, based on the old laserdiscs. By releasing a subpar release based on the latest laserdisc master, he could stiffle the bootleg market, but still have the canon version be the superior release in terms of quality. You just have to look at Ebay to see, that this strategy was successful. The OOT bootleg market is non-existent. A few fans preserving prints, and sharing them isn’t going to concern Disney. If OOT bootlegs start eating into their home video earnings, that’s a concern for them.

So, I believe Lucas is very much against the release of the OOT, especially if the theatrical releases could potentially compete with his canon versions. I also don’t believe Lucasfilm or Disney will release the OOT against the wishes of the artist who created them. My guess is, that a 4K mastered release of the SE is on the horizon, which is the reason the Disney people are culling through archive material, in order to supplement their release with unreleased bonus material, such as the footage shown at celebration.

The only “unreleased bonus material” people care about is the original versions of the movies themselves.

DominicCobb said:

Hidalgo did not mention Lucas and I see no evidence whatsoever to suggest he is still involved.

I’m not going to go searching for the tweet, but he was replying to someone’s question about it and said “there’s only one person who could authorize such a release, and he doesn’t seem interested in doing so.”

The “he” part would strongly imply GL.

Again, I’m not saying George has any real power, I think it’s more of an “honoring his wishes” type thing and Pablo not really knowing what he’s talking about.

One of Pablo’s tweets suggested that authorizing an OOT restoration is still up to George, but I kind of took it to mean that Disney, while under no legal obligation to honor George’s wishes, still isn’t going to release the unaltereds without getting his blessing.

What all of that says to me is this:

The unaltereds will be restored (if Disney isn’t in the middle of doing so already) and will be released whenever the time comes to release this new 4k SE we’ve been hearing so much about for the last three years. George really, truly will not care so long as the “rough drafts” aren’t presented in superior quality to his “original vision.”

As for when this will finally happen, I see two possibilities. They could put it out this year, but that would mean not only giving Fox their cut on all six films but also leaving one less thing in their own back pocket to sell post-2020. There is probably a not-insignificant number of fans who will probably never upgrade to 4k UHD.

The other possibility is that Lucasfilm will simply wait until the UHD debut, which given their history of waiting until a format has become widely adopted won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest anyway. If the 2011 discs are still selling well enough, why not wait? Why blow their load now with a regular 1080p blu of the OOT when that’s the final home video release many fans will ever care to buy? They could always release it the same day as the UHD and have all their bases covered, while still giving as little as possible to Fox.