Fang Zei

SilverWook said:

It doesn’t. Amazon is using the wrong photo.

There were multiple store exclusives. Wal Mart had them packed with reprints of the Marvel adaptations.

Amazon is using the correct photo in the link Frink posted. It’s the 2008 reissue barely anyone remembers. For the OT it was the two-disc GOUT sets (even though they had said December 31, 2006 was the last day the GOUT would be retailing). They also reissued the two-disc prequel releases in a trilogy pack as well. They both used those “ultra-slim-plastic-cases-in-a-thin-cardboard-box” packaging, the kind you would see season sets of tv series in sometimes.

I think this was the final repackaging of the OT and PT dvds until the blu-ray three years later.

Whether they do it now and share the profit with Fox or wait three years and keep it (mostly) for themselves, I think Disney will inevitably restore the original versions.

There’s no good reason for them not to do so, especially when Harmy’s version is a widely known thing.

George’s statements over the last seven years seem to indicate he really doesn’t care anymore, and the fans reconstructed the movies without his help anyway. Even he needs to face the music eventually. John Landis’ statements seem to indicate Disney has no qualms about releasing the unaltered versions either. As he said, it’s “money on the table.”

Warner Brothers spent more than a million dollars restoring North by Northwest, a movie I’m sure a restored OOT would outsell. Disney need not worry about losing money.

nickyd47 said:

Wait what happened to the film print of The Phantom Menace?

Nothing happened.

Lovelikewinter simply said it lost its film “touches,” meaning the current hd master is so dnr’d in places that it doesn’t look like film anymore.

I still think it looks better than AotC and RotS simply by virtue of having been shot on 35mm film in true cinemascope, just as the OT was. The DNR only affects certain scenes/shots in the movie. Again, I’m very curious if the dnr traces back to the newly constructed DI or if it was applied specifically for the blu-ray.

IIRC, some reviews and screenshots pointed out how soft and processed the AotC blu-ray looks in certain scenes. Let’s also not forget the teal push they decided to give it for some reason. RotS seems to be the only one to make it through unscathed and looking as it should.

When they inevitably go back to the 2k masters yet again for the UHD release, we’ll know whether the issues with TPM and AotC were specific to their blu-ray transfers or actually baked in at the source.

Considering Disney is by all reports waiting for Dolby Vision UHD disc players to hit the market before finally taking the plunge into 4k, I think it’s a relatively safe assumption they won’t stoop quite so low.

JawsTDS said:

4k restoration of OT aside, does anyone know the details of the “restoration” of TPM that was used for the Blu-ray? Curious if that was 4k - and if they have the film sans DNR.

With TPM it’s difficult to say. They rebuilt the movie directly from ILM’s digital filmout tapes, which were still readable after more than a decade. From there I’m assuming they mastered the movie in 2k (the digital filmout tapes would’ve been that res), finally giving it the Digital Intermediate treatment that AotC and RotS received for their original releases.

From there they would’ve made a nice 2k dcp and also done a stereo conversion for 3D. It was shown both ways in its theatrical re-release in February of 2012. Anyone who saw it at that time in 2d and has a clear memory of it would be able to tell whether the DNR’d shots looked that way in the DI source or if it was applied for the blu-ray.

Hardcore Legend said:

TV’s Frink said:

Hardcore Legend said:

For Disney, the idea of ‘everything matters’ outweighs restoring the OT to it’s original release cut. Disney wants everything to ‘fit’ both stylistically and in effects. I would wager they would be more interested in updating the SE SFX to fit in with Rogue One than from removing the SE changes. In fact, I bet they have a higher priority on making changes to the PT than working on a OUT. The SE is the canon they operate around now.

What’s your basis for this line of thinking?

Because Disney has updated their own properties in the past and made that the official version.

The heavy focus right now on the story period leading up to ANH, with everything in the universe controlled by the ‘story group’ makes me believe that it is more about blending everything together rather than restoring the film to its original cut.

I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong in the sense that they release an archival version of the OT to show the film as it was in 1977. But I just feel like blending their universe (which on TV and film is becoming more interconnected every year) is more of a priority.

Like I said in the other subforum, I’m convinced Disney is simply waiting until 2020 when the rights to Empire, Jedi, and the prequels revert entirely to them.

They don’t need to make further changes to the OT just to make all the new stuff fit together with it.

Honestly, the 2020 thing is reason enough for me to think Disney is just sitting on it.

Even if they waited until then to do a 4k UHD release (which I suspect they’ll do anyway since it will be a while before UHD even gets close to where blu-ray was in 2011), I think they might also hold back even on releasing the OOT on regular blu in the meantime. Their fear is probably that the fans will go out and buy a remastered OOT blu and then, several years from now, when they finally get the rights back and release the UHD, those same fans will shrug and say “nah, I’m good.”

It’s like that Wired magazine guy said ten years ago the week the GOUT was released:

“They’re not going to make the fans happy because the happy fan has everything he or she needs.”

Now, I should say I have no problem waiting, so long as they make it worth the wait. If Disney really is archiving every piece of Star Wars material, here’s how I’d want my ideal release:

For each of the OT films:

Disc 1: The “final” version.

Presumably this is what RMW was working on, a 4k scan of the o-neg with the 04/11 changes replicated/upscaled. Possibly this could have additional final tweaks, like if that rumor about Han shooting first again turned out to be true, for example.

Disc 2: The 1997 Special Edition

Since the '97 interpositives are presumably still in good shape, I would want a 4k scan of that as the starting point. It would ensure that the colors were how they looked in theaters in '97. If we’ve still got the cinema DTS discs floating around all these years later, remastering the '97 SE exactly as it looked and sounded should be relatively straightforward.

Disc 3: The original theatrical version

Ideally I would want them to hire someone like Robert A. Harris to supervise this, using strictly 1977-1983 material. I would only want them using the o-neg if there’s some foolproof way of only using the pre-97 material. He said rather confidently in a message board post several years ago that he could restore the original versions using the separation masters. Not quite sure what they would use to remaster the theatrical sound mix, perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I can chime in.

Anyway, I’d also want the theatrical cut of TPM, even if they had to do a scan of the '99 “o-neg” or the IP. The Imax version of AotC would be a bonus as well.

Hmmm, if we hear nothing at Celebration can we start a new petition?

JawsTDS said:

All this talk makes me wonder why J.J. funded a remastering of PHANTASM but not STAR WARS '77. Then again, I suppose they were already in the process of the 4k scans by the time he was in talks to direct TFA.

I have a feeling the 4k remaster was commissioned before George even sold the company.* We first saw those clips in RMW’s reel in July of 2014 so who knows how long they’d been working on it by that point.

*yes, despite what we always told ourselves about how George “wants the OT stuck at 1080p so that it doesn’t look better than the PT,” which, considering how home video tech is always improving, would make zero sense, even for him.

Hardcore Legend said:

For Disney, the idea of ‘everything matters’ outweighs restoring the OT to it’s original release cut. Disney wants everything to ‘fit’ both stylistically and in effects. I would wager they would be more interested in updating the SE SFX to fit in with Rogue One than from removing the SE changes. In fact, I bet they have a higher priority on making changes to the PT than working on a OUT. The SE is the canon they operate around now.

The only thing that makes the OUT seem likely is the preservation Disney is doing on the original footage. Archiving the OT gives them the opportunity, but I doubt they will spend any extra money or effort on putting the original cut back together.

Maybe they would spend the money to redo the SE’s cgi, but it would be expensive and the '97 shots look “good enough” so I don’t think they’d bother.

They’re not going to redo the cgi every twenty years so it matches the quality of the newest Star Wars movies. If anything there seems to be a conscious effort in TFA and RO to replicate via cgi the look of the model work from the OT.

ray_afraid said:

I dunno if it’s been mentioned, but not taking a year off after ESB to spend with his wife (as he had promised) was the beginning of the end in many ways. I might list that as the #1.

This might be the first time I’ve heard that story.

We never would’ve gotten Raiders, though. Speaking of which, Indy came along and kind of stole the focus that should’ve been kept on Jedi. At least, I’ve always thought so.

emanswfan said:

The fam wanted to watch ROTJ tonight and I misplaced my despecialized copy…yeah I loathe the SE changes of ROTJ the most…I had myself leave the room because knowing my level of irritation would probably piss off some of the family members I am forced to deal with (PT is superior, TFA is bad). Oh boy…

So yeah…they need to release OUT officially on blu-ray and/or 4k…save me…

… and since I apparently need to own the blu-rays in order to ethically download and enjoy Harmy’s version and that’s never going to happen …

Even then, going through all the trouble of downloading Harmy’s version and burning it to a disc requires a level of technical know-how not everyone possesses. It’s no wonder people sell it on ebay.

Alderaan said:

Also, Robert Harris last posted about Star Wars on another forum in December. While he did not say anything specific, one could gather in an indirect way from his post that no OOT restoration is underway, or at least not one that he is aware of.

It’s possible that one could be completed and he simply does not know about it, but I really doubt that would be the case.

That’s my biggest question wrt Making Star Wars’ rumor. If an announcement is right around the corner then how the hell has LFL kept such a tight lid on it? Granted, MSW “can’t reveal their sources, blah, blah, blah,” so who knows.

Question:

When did we first hear word - even if it was just rumor at first - that the OT would finally be hitting dvd in 2004?

I remember the 2006 GOUT announcement. There wasn’t so much as a rumor about it until like the day before IIRC, so no need to refresh my memory there.

Then there’s the blu-ray, when did we first hear about that? My earliest memory is seeing the video of George saying “it’s coming next year” at the convention in 2010.

NeverarGreat said:

With the quality of fan restorations becoming available for Star Wars, I don’t much care what official product they release - no matter what, Star Wars won’t be a ‘lost film’.

There are a great many less-well-known films needing preservation or restoration, and there are probably a lot where a fan restoration is necessary. I hope that in the near future they get the attention they deserve.

THIS, a million times over.

I’ve already made up my mind not to buy anything Star Wars related on blu-ray, not even if it’s a future-proofed 4k combo, until the OOT is given its due. I’ll go see the new movies in the theater, but that’s it. I’ve still never bought the blu-rays, sure ain’t going to now. There are plenty of other movie restorations on blu-ray I’d rather spend my hard-earned money on.

Burying the originals is obviously George’s worst decision, but at a close second I would say his decision to shoot AotC and RotS on measly 2/3" digital cameras long before that technology was ready (it’s only in the last four or five years that we’ve gotten digital cameras that even come close to replicating the look of actual 35mm cinemascope) and his obsession with green screen and cgi in general.

I also want to say “directing the prequels himself,” but it’s hard to blame him for that when he offered the job to his friends (Howard, Zemeckis, et al) and they all turned it down saying George should do it. I guess it’s all their fault!

Then there’s the creation of the Special Edition, which ultimately should never have happened, but a world where the SE never happened kind of goes hand in hand with a world where George successfully handed over the PT to other directors (or at least directed it himself without going digital crazy).

SwissArmyTin said:

Fang Zei said:

Disney half-assing an OOT release

That, pretty much. They should either go big or go home, but if they decide to half-ass it, that’s how they’d probably do it.

It brings us back to the question of whether or not they should use the o-neg as a starting point, scan in the pieces that were removed in '97, and meticulously reconstruct it from there. In other words a professional version of what Harmy did. As stated earlier in the thread, all of the optical wipes were redone in '97 with - IIRC - the wipes beginning and ending on different frames than the original version. I seem to recall a screenshot comparison years ago between two different versions of the wipe from the shot of the falcon and the remaining ships flying back to Yavin IV and the shot of Luke climbing out of the x-wing.

The fear we all have with that method of restoring the unaltered versions is the potential for them to miss something and then we end up with a '97 change in our otherwise original version. Sure, maybe it will be something 99% of the viewers won’t notice and it won’t detract from their enjoyment of the film, but I look at this from a standpoint of historical preservation. I want this to be exactly what was seen during the original runs of these movies. If that means going to a source other than the o-neg, so be it.

SwissArmyTin said:

Fang Zei said:

There are far too many changes to make branching a viable option. They would need to give each version its own disc. Just yet another reason why they should actually do a complete restoration of the OOT.

Yeah, that’s why I said theatrical cut. At this point if they don’t go with a full restoration of the OOT but still want to release the “original” trilogy, I think they’d just fiddle with the OT footage so it’d fit in better with the SE footage, branch it, slap an “ORIGINAL THEATRICAL CUT” label on it, and call it a day.

I guess I don’t know what you mean, other than Disney intentionally being misleading with / half-assing an OOT release, which I don’t see them doing.

SwissArmyTin said:

Hal 9000 said:

Maybe they’d put out a bonus disc containing scenes and segments from the original versions that have been remastered, allowing an editor to recreate a mostly OOT. Maybe that would satiate those in the company who want to put it out and those who want to resist doing so for whatever reason, misplaced loyalty to GL or otherwise.

If they did that, they would have absolutely no reason NOT to use branching to view the theatrical cut. If anything, it’d kick up a mighty large shitstorm

There are far too many changes to make branching a viable option. They would need to give each version its own disc. Just yet another reason why they should actually do a complete restoration of the OOT.

TV’s Frink said:

Ric Olie said:

Haarspalter said:

Sougouk said:
Who is this Hans character? Maybe she was thinking of Hans Gruber? 😃

It’s probably THIS guy:

Hahaha… He looks like Clark Griswald from European Vacation.

I always thought Harrison and Chevy bore a resemblence to each other.

Hal 9000 said:

Maybe they’d put out a bonus disc containing scenes and segments from the original versions that have been remastered, allowing an editor to recreate a mostly OOT. Maybe that would satiate those in the company who want to put it out and those who want to resist doing so for whatever reason, misplaced loyalty to GL or otherwise.

I also highly doubt they would do this. It’s going to be either a restoration using strictly 1977-1983 material or nothing at all.

moviefreakedmind said:

Cobra Kai said:

DrDre said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Han Solo IRL said:

Would it be Disney in charge of restoring Star Wars material or Lucasfilm? If it’s the latter then I’m not sure that what Gluck says would even matter. That, and we don’t even know what question he was answering. Better to just reserve all expectations until April rather than go in optimistic or pessimistic.

I agree. I don’t doubt that Gluck knows what he’s talking about, but he wouldn’t be the one to spill the beans if this is actually happening. To my knowledge he didn’t say anything about whether or not restorationists are or have been working on this stuff.

He essentially only confirmed, that the negative of Star Wars is still conformed to the SE. He mentions nothing about the scans of the SE negative or the OOT elements. In other words a digital reconstruction of the OOT can exist, or can be reconstructed, while the physical negative is still conformed to the SE, and the OOT elements are in storage.

^This
The digital bits article basically told us nothing.

There is also a reputable poster on the blu-ray forums that says he knows for a “100% fact” that Disney is in the process of or has already finished scanning at 4k every single scrap of Star Wars film in their possession.
Now, I’m sure that’s pretty standard for Disney for archival purposes, and it obviously doesn’t mean they are working on an OOT, but at least it’s something…

Can you point me towards that guy? I can’t track that down through google or the bluray forums.

A user named captveg posted that they have it on good authority (they can’t name names) that Disney is currently in the process of digitally archiving every last piece of film at Lucasfilm pertaining to Star Wars, if they haven’t finished doing so already.

Before you go “oh, another unnamed source,” it does sound like captveg isn’t just making this up:

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=13295105&postcount=62144

Lust-in-Phaze raises a good point re: marketing.

George may not have wanted to spend a single dime remastering the unaltered versions, but the company still made sure to advertise their release. I’d be curious to know just how well the GOUT did in terms of sales.

SwissArmyTin said:

Fang Zei said:

I’ve said many times that I would love a three-disc-per-movie release with unaltered, '97, and the new 4k SE (wouldn’t really care if the '04 and '11 versions weren’t included).

They could probably fit all the SEs versions (97, 04, 11) of a single film on a single disc w/seamless branching. They could also probably rope in the unaltered version as well, but then you’d be playing with fire in terms of color accuracy. It worked with Blade Runner (I think disc 1 of the 5-disc set contained the theatrical, international cut, and 1st director’s cut. I think.)

You read my mind! I was going to say all of this, but didn’t.

They could easily branch those three versions onto the same disc. I would want them to go with the '97 color timing, though. The color-timing of the lowry master isn’t worth preserving to me. A 4k scan of the '97 interpositive, given the proper restoration and mastering, would probably produce better results than the 2k scan / 1080p master of the o-neg did in 2004.

But yes, the actual content changes (landspeeder and Jabba re-do and aurebesh tractor beam signage in '04, blinking wicket and Vader Noooo in '11, etc) could probably be branched in without any problem since they’re so few and far between.

I doubt we’ll even get any of those three versions, though. Not even the '97. It will probably just be this new 4k version which, for all we know, might simply be the 2011 version in terms of content.

It was the middle of the three actual blu-rays on the five disc Blade Runner set that you’re thinking of. The second and fourth discs were just regular dvds with the Dangerous Days documentary and bonus features, respectively.

Yup, just under six weeks until the “suprise,” whatever it is, gets unveiled at Celebration.

Ronster said:

you have not done anything wrong but video will definitely be produced only in 10 bit color depth from now on whilst previously a lot of content was produced in 8 bit color depth. This produced Color Banding and solid gradients sometimes in some video sources.

8 bit depth was a mistake really.

To process 10 bit color depth and a high contrast you need to have a display that can handle it. If you want to get a New TV only get one that is labelled “ULtra HD premium” anything else is not of any Standard of HDR. A TV can exceed the standard also of Ultra HD premium.

I would not bother getting a 12 bit color depth display though either. The LCD panel needs to be 10 bit native not 8 bit dithered to be proper HDR.

There is very little demand for 4K video. there is a demand for an improved image and more detail better contrast more color range. Nobody want’s to stream 4k video to everyone it stupid and unrealistic and to be able to do that it’s very demanding.

all of these improvements that can be done without the massive burden of 4k for which you need a massive screen to get the benefit from anyway also and which most people don’t have the space for either. And the infrastructure for the needed bandwidth is not there either to do it and provide the service for everyone. It’s also a stretch for broadcast nobody is going to be able to get 4k down a normal aerial.

There is however everything right with scanning old films in 4k and with a higher exposure. And then displaying it on a TV with HDR at whatever resolution is needed for the size of your room / screen.

I would suggest this is the way forward for most people. Average everyday people that is.

http://www.techradar.com/news/sony-is-bringing-hdr-to-its-1080p-tvs-but-only-ps4-owners-will-benefit

I didn’t know anyone was making regular 1080p tvs with hdr. In fact, I thought the tv manufacturers had ceased making 1080p panels altogether. Very interesting.

By the way, 1080p hdr broadcasts will apparently become more of a thing in the near future according to an article I saw the other day. Apparently the industry determined that signals could be bumped up to 1080p and hdr using existing hardware whereas a complete overhaul would be necessary just to get 4k (even without hdr).

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

nickyd47 said:

TV’s Frink said:

moviefreakedmind said:

They said there’ll be multiple surprises.

Three 4k SE discs.

The 1997,2004 and 2011 cut. What a release that would be.

I think he meant Star Wars, Empire and Jedi. And your scenario would never happen. Unless there is an OUT, a multi-version release is inconceivable. Even if we get the OUT, having multiple SE cuts seems unlikely.

I’ve said many times that I would love a three-disc-per-movie release with unaltered, '97, and the new 4k SE (wouldn’t really care if the '04 and '11 versions weren’t included). It would especially make for an interesting collection if, for example, the cgi were given a complete overhaul in the newest version, or if that crazy rumor about Han shooting first again turned out to be true.

But yeah, I’d be equally unsurprised if the '97 version became lost to history just like the theatrical cuts of Titanic and TPM.