Fang Zei

IP55 said:

Do you really think this is going to happen? It’s been fucking decades. If they thought it was a viable business opportunity they would have done it years ago. They aren’t gonna release an old version for a load of middle aged folk reminiscing. They’d rather spend cash on churning loads of utter crap out.

We have no idea whether it’s going to happen or not, hence preparing a social media message in case it doesn’t.

There’s no harm in trying.

Hence the “if we hear nothing out of celebration” part.

If they’re not going to announce anything there, when the hell will they?

Even if all they say is “yes, we’re doing a thorough restoration and it will be out next year,” that would at least be something.

I would even settle for them telling us right now in 2017 that it won’t be completed until 2020. Again, that would at least be something.

But if we hear absolutely nothing on the subject for the fifth year in a row? Maybe then we actually will need another petition.

I think you guys are right, btw. The '09 petition only had a few months to build up any sigs before George said “the blu-ray is coming next year and once again it will be (my latest) SE-only.” He’d made up his mind anyway.

With Disney it’s been a different story. I couldn’t help but take the hiring of Kasdan for Ep7 and Johnson for Ep8 as a sign that someone at Lucasfilm was paying attention and actually reading the comment sections spread across the internet. They know what we want.

I’ll say this much, if an OOT restoration is what ends up getting announced at celebration I’m going to be very curious how they managed to keep such a tight lid on it, MSW’s ultravague rumor-mongering aside.

ETA: I like SilverWook’s idea. Maybe we should have that tweet typed up and ready to send (and retweet), in case there’s no announcement?

joefavs said:

At this point I think the main reason I’m hoping this 4K OOT happens is so that I can stop coming here for bootlegs and getting sucked into the whirlpool of combativeness and negativity the General Star Wars Discussion board has become.

So I only just noticed that the link on the main page to the petition has been removed.

That was already seven years ago, and it didn’t get nearly as many signatures as the original one from the dvd days. Now a 4k-on-disc format is actually a thing.

If we don’t hear so much as a peep out of celebration, should we seriously consider a new one?

It could be worded to reflect the advances in home video technology and addressed, politely, to Disney, Fox, and GL (out of respect).

I’m just saying, we don’t need to have negativity just because Disney continues to deny us what’s ours. We can put that energy into something positive if we choose to.

I guess my main question - and I’ll try to word it better this time - is whether Harmy will still be using “recreated” shots (like he did with the dewback outside the cantina) or if he’s going to keep that kind of thing to an absolute minimum.

I understand that the majority (the roughly 80% of the film that remains unaltered) will be sourced from the blu-ray. But what I’m wondering is if the newly available print scans will fill in all the missing pieces or if Harmy will still need to do some recreating like he did with that dewback shot.

Will 3.0 of Star Wars still use “recreations” of the shots that were altered or will Harmy be using the available 35mm print scans?

TV’s Frink said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

joefavs said:

At this point I think the main reason I’m hoping this 4K OOT happens is so that I can stop coming here for bootlegs and getting sucked into the whirlpool of combativeness and negativity the General Star Wars Discussion board has become.

You’re wrong! This sub forum isn’t monolithically bad!

You’re wrong! How could you even say that?!?!

Ah, it’s gonna be a fun four weeks until that celebration panel.

crissrudd4554 said:

A shame the current sets don’t include it though.

Hey, if this rumor about it being remastered in hd turns out to be true they could throw it in as an extra on the inevitable I-IX UHD box set just like how they included the vintage making-ofs from 77-83 on the blu-ray.

The extensive LotR appendices, completed in 2004 with the Extended Edition of Return of the King, were also done in SD. At least they and EoD were 16:9. The Alien Quadrilogy making-ofs from right around that same time (2003/2004) were 4:3 and had to be both cropped and upscaled when they were carried over to the blu-ray in 2010.

Dangerous Days was made in 2007 but only released on a regular dvd across all of the various SKUs of Blade Runner released that year (even for the bd and hddvd). It’s 16:9 and looks like it could have been done at a higher resolution and then downscaled. I’m not sure if this was ever definitively answered, but it’s been ten years and the documentary was never released in hd.

moviefreakedmind said:

Fang Zei said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Fang Zei said:

nickyd47 said:

SilverWook said:

That a documentary made in 2004 wasn’t shot in HD, (if only to future proof it) is weird.

So if anything, we’ll get an upscaled version of it

I feel like we don’t really know.

Did the guy who blabbed about it provide any kind of details?

Just that there were delays with Lucasfilm giving him the prints of the unaltered footage and that he was worried that if they wanted it soon they’d have to upscale things. This was about two years ago though.

Implying that they were actually doing a fresh scan of the unaltered material for the first time in decades? Interesting…

It was not clear what the delays were. He admitted to not knowing so it could have been anything from the scans being a work in progress to them not even doing scans. If the blu-ray forum man is right, then Disney/Lucasfilm has scanned, or is scanning, all of its Star Wars material in 4K.

We can only hope he is right.

Meanwhile, Disney has actually restored Song of the South.

Anything is possible.

moviefreakedmind said:

Fang Zei said:

nickyd47 said:

SilverWook said:

That a documentary made in 2004 wasn’t shot in HD, (if only to future proof it) is weird.

So if anything, we’ll get an upscaled version of it

I feel like we don’t really know.

Did the guy who blabbed about it provide any kind of details?

Just that there were delays with Lucasfilm giving him the prints of the unaltered footage and that he was worried that if they wanted it soon they’d have to upscale things. This was about two years ago though.

Implying that they were actually doing a fresh scan of the unaltered material for the first time in decades? Interesting…

nickyd47 said:

SilverWook said:

That a documentary made in 2004 wasn’t shot in HD, (if only to future proof it) is weird.

So if anything, we’ll get an upscaled version of it

I feel like we don’t really know.

Did the guy who blabbed about it provide any kind of details?

Cthulhunicron said:

What exactly does it mean for the negative to be disassembled?

Sorry, I wrote and posted my response without fully understanding the context of your question. I’ve edited my post above accordingly with additional information.

Cthulhunicron said:

What exactly does it mean for the negative to be disassembled?

The first thing they did for the Special Edition was clean up the original negative shot by shot and frame by frame. This process was started in 1994. The technology to do this digitally didn’t exist yet, as it would by 2004, so they were still doing this photochemically. Because the o-neg was made up of four different kinds of film stocks (one for the shots that would’ve come straight from the camera, another for the vfx shots, etc), it had to be disassembled in order to clean and chemically treat each shot with the tender love and care it needed. I’m not sure if this necessitated separating each and every shot (for example, the scene where Luke has dinner with Owen and Beru was presumably all shot on the same film stock, so maybe they were able to clean/bath that scene without disassembling it).

While they were doing this, they also redid the optical wipes. This would have involved separating the end of each scene from the beginning of the next.

The negative has been conformed to the SE since 1997. George decided to cut the changes directly into the negative because, as far as he was concerned, the SE was the official version of the movie now.

We recently got confirmation from the relevant person at Fox that the pieces of the negative replaced for the SE were indeed put into storage and not discarded. It’s worth noting, though, that many of the vfx shots had deteriorated by '97 because of the chemical properties of the specific film stock they were finished on. As a result, even the shots that weren’t completely redone with cgi still had to be replaced. Because the only alternative was going to a grainier second-generation source like an IP or sep, George instead had ILM go back to what I presume were the VistaVision originals (which I guess hadn’t faded as badly?) and recomposite those shots digitally.

I think I remember reading on zombie’s website that the negative need not be disassembled to reconstruct the unaltered version. Because a modern restoration would be done digitally anyway, they would simply need to take a scan of the o-neg as it is now, scan in the pieces that got replaced, and rebuild everything in the digital realm.

I’ve accepted that the theatrical prequels will probably never be officially released on modern formats and will likely become a historical curiosity. That’s what places like this are for.

But it would be nice if the Star Wars movies I grew up with (for better or for worse) were preserved in their original form for future generations. The OUT/OOT is what really matters, though. Obviously there isn’t nearly as much demand for the PUT/OPT.

Quick side question:

I’m just throwing this out there for anyone who might have the answer, but do we know exactly why Fox loses the rights to the other five movies in 2020 as opposed to some other time?

Just to clarify, I’m not asking for an explanation of why they’re losing the rights. That much has been made clear. I’m just wondering why it’s happening in 2020 and not some other time. I’m also curious how we were able to figure this out in the first place. There was an article written on some website shortly after the Disney deal that gave the 2020 date, but I don’t think it was ever explained how the writer knew it was 2020.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

And CPY

That also.

crissrudd4554 said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

I mean, unless they had leftovers just sitting around, why would they not use the new master?

And I imagine with the number of times the 04 disks were reissued, there weren’t many left by 2013.

I would imagine they would have just kept pressing the same '04 DVDs since it would likely cost less than designing and pressing brand new discs for something thats only minorly different from the previous DVD releases. I guess not.

Yeah, but for the prequels you’d have slightly different color timing on TPM (not to mention filmic anomolies like wobble, dirt and dust, and also slightly tighter framing) and significantly different color timing on AotC.

crissrudd4554 said:

rpvee said:

TV’s Frink said:

Hey look, you can get the 6-Disc DVD set that includes the GOUT from Amazon for only $310…and free Prime shipping!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001EN71DG/ref=dra_a_ms_mr_hn_xx_P1400_1000?tag=dradisplay-20&ascsubtag=3bc20f423c91737175e22556e17a66d5_S

I didn’t know that set had the GOUT. I thought the only time those DVDs were released in one package was the rare Best Buy tin.

I have the tin case set. Anyways as Fang confirmed yes that set does have the GOUT sets just in slimmer cases and would be the final time, along with the PT, the SW films were in a DVD only set.

Quick question. The DVDs that accompanied the 2013 BD reissues. Are those new DVDs based off the 2011 BDs or just the 2004 DVDs repackaged??

I remember reading confirmation somewhere that they are indeed the 2011 versions.

chyron8472 said:

jedimasterobiwan said:

I hope it doesn’t make all the star wars fan edits not be available anymore. 😦

George Lucas himself had long since known about fan edits. When asked about it in an interview, he said, while bitter about people doing it, he just cared that he had his version with his name on it (the article in question was actually about SW:Revisited).

Disney has had more than enough opportunity now to drop the hammer down on fan projects, but they haven’t. I was just saying, and I stress hypothetically, that making it too easy can bring it more mainstream, which has the hypothetical capacity to annoy them into action.

I also doubt a small handful of third party sellers on eBay are on Disney’s radar.

Disney hasn’t dropped the hammer because they realize they have no one but themselves to blame for Harmy’s efforts over the last four years even being necessary.

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.