Fang Zei

Mocata said:

Does the general public even know the PT has different versions? I mean barely anyone out there in the wild knows what the OOT is so…

RotS is kinda the odd one out, since the version we have now is basically the theatrical cut with only one or two very minor changes to the picture and sound, and it’s the only one where the edit hasn’t been adjusted one bit AFAIK (aside from the wipe/cut).

Even TPM’s most significant changes (Extended podrace, Coruscant taxi, cgi Yoda, the bridge by Theed Palace), could easily be branched onto the same disc as the theatrical cut.

Heck, including the imax cut of AotC would merely require skipping over stretches of the movie for the most part.

For each movie they could do three cuts:

TPM:
‘99 Theatrical
‘01 Extended
‘11 bd

AotC:
‘02 theatrical
‘02 Imax
‘11 bd

RotS:
‘05 theatrical
‘05 dvd
‘11 bd

I don’t think any further changes from the 2011 versions were spotted in the D+ versions, were there?

JawsTDS said:

For a small moment in time, I thought we might just get the OOT. Guess not. Oh well.

I made sure not to get my hopes up, because if those bonus discs were ever going to end up being the unaltered versions we would’ve known about it the moment this set was announced.

Maybe on some distant day, when I have the gear to easily acquire the fan preservations of my choosing, I’ll pick up this set just to abide by the rules. Although I must admit I’ve never fully agreed with this idea that we need to give LFL money for work they didn’t do. Does having a D+ subscription count?

I don’t think they’ll remove the “Fox” name from legacy credits of movies they now own (they haven’t here). It’s only for future projects that they’re changing the name. For example, the poster for The French Dispatch already says Searchlight Pictures on it.

This is similar to how Ted Turner bought out MGM’s entire back catalogue in the mid-80’s and, even after his assets were in turn acquired by Time Warner in the 90’s, the legacy credits on the back of the Warner Bros dvd releases of those films still said Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer just as they always had (2001: A Space Odyssey is a good example). Also worth noting is that while the opening logos of those films remained unaltered, the turner logo was added to the packaging since the copyright technically belonged to that company now and not MGM.

The fact that it was the last major re-release of the movies in theaters is reason enough to consider it important.

Like I’ve said before, if the OT were ever to get the Blade Runner treatment it honestly wouldn’t bother me if the ‘04 and ‘11 versions were jettisoned. They could easily be branched onto the same disc as the ‘97 version (just as the ‘92 Blade Runner was branched onto the same disc as the ‘82 cuts), but the ‘97 version takes priority. It’s the first and still the most significant round of revisions to the films. It’s what got us into this whole mess in the first place, which gives it historical value. For seven years it was the final version of the films, George’s “vision,” until he changed it again while finishing up the PT. The stuff he introduced in ‘04 like TPM Jabba, Temuera’s voice as Boba and Hayden as Anakin’s ghost reminds many viewers of movies they don’t like while they’re trying to enjoy movies they do, and the ‘97 cuts at least take advantage of cgi without actively reminding the viewer “hey, this trilogy is part of a longer saga now.” Even if the SE was created in large part because the PT was right around the corner, it’s still a pre-PT version.

But at the same time, I acknowledge that any change to the content of these movies is going to put off fans of the OT as it existed originally. Had the SE been basically the same films we remembered, maybe with just the fx shots re-comp’d and the wipes re-done, this site wouldn’t exist. But since they decided to flat out erase the groundbreaking vfx work of many talented artists in order to “modernize” these movies, any improvements that come along with that is soured. I didn’t even get into the Han and Greedo / “Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival” / Jedi Rocks of it all.

The ‘97 version was the expensive $20 million restoration of Star Wars even if it introduced a lot of changes we don’t like. It was the first time I saw the OT on the big screen after only seeing it on tv throughout the early-to-mid 90’s via home video and USA network airings. I was eleven, and don’t remember noticing Greedo shooting first until I saw it again almost a year later on letterboxed vhs! I wasn’t hip to internet fan culture at the time (we didn’t even have internet until late ‘97, and that was 28k dial-up), so I don’t think it even dawned on me how big of a deal that particular alteration was until I saw Ben Affleck commenting on it in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

What I find kind of funny is that this Skywalker Saga set is going to contain an additional disc per movie and yet that additional disc will not contain the unaltered versions.

That’s one less excuse Disney has to include it in the future. If the bean counters go “oh, pressing an additional disc per film would cost too much,” we can point to this set and say “you pressed an additional disc per film before just so you could include extras a lot of fans would consider of lower importance than a restored unaltered version.”

Density said:

crissrudd4554 said:

27 discs??

My theory on what will be included:

UHDs of each 1-9 (obviously), regular BDs of 1-9, and the same bonus discs from before. That adds up to 27.

No it doesn’t. There were only three bonus discs in the 2011 Blu-ray set, and neither TFA nor TLJ has a bonus disc. The standard Blu-rays of both TFA and TLJ simply include all the special features on the same disc. In TLJ’s case the standard Blu-ray functions as a bonus disc to the UHD for that reason.

So if they just included what’s been released so far, plus ROS and new UHD discs for all the films aside from TLJ, that would only add up to 21 discs.

At the very least they would have to spread everything out to an extra disc per film to get 27 discs. Which would be incredibly inefficient. And I can’t imagine they have enough new features from the sequels alone to make up 6 discs. So we should expect at bare minimum they include a lot more special features for all the films in some shape or form. That may or may not include the OUT.

You’re correct about the 2011 extras, but for both TFA and TLJ the extras were given their own discs. If you’re in a territory outside the US I suppose things might’ve been done differently, though.

It’s the prequels that I’m maybe the most curious about. TPM has been altered the most drastically by far from its theatrical version, but the differences become more trivial once we get to AotC and practically non-existent when we hit RotS. I know there isn’t nearly the same demand for the O-PT as there is for the O-OT, but it would be nice to see those versions officially preserved.

I could totally see Disney streamlining the collection by simply labeling each movie’s third disc “bonus.” That way, if they do include the theatrical I-VI, there won’t be an awkward lopsidedness to the set.

An entire bonus disc for each individual film?

Maybe they’re including the extras from the 2011 bonus discs, just broken up among the individual movies?

Notice I’m trying real hard not to get my hopes up about you know what.

If that $329 price is in Canadian dollars, the current exchange rate brings it to $249 American, or just under $28 per film.

digitalfreaknyc said:

joefavs said:

THAT’S TOO MUCH MONEY FOR THAT

EDIT: did the math and it works out to ~$36/movie. Absolutely insane. Short of the OOT, i can’t begin to conceive what kind of special features it would need to have to justify that price.

I’ve got news for you - the Marvel Best Buy exclusive set comes with none. It’s only the 4k discs and it was $550. It’s sold out.

It includes regular 1080p blu-ray copies and there was a bonus disc exclusive to the collection, but yeah, it was still almost 24 dollars per film.

Is that price for the Skywalker set in Canadian dollars or US?

Let’s put it this way.

When George was in charge, he never restored the OOT because he didn’t want to pay for it and because it contradicted his vision.

If Disney doesn’t do it, it’s going to be first and foremost because they don’t want to pay for it and don’t see themselves getting a good ROI. Any reasons having to do with George’s wishes will be a distant second.

DrDre said:

Fang Zei said:

DrDre said:

Jedi Master Skywalker said:

https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1204960815821946880?s=21

JJ is on our sides

That’s good to hear, and I respect him for being open about his views in this matter, but he sadly also confirms the OOT will not be released for reasons even he doesn’t understand.

As far as he knows.

This is pretty major imo. We have the director of 2/3 of the ST saying on camera in a sit-down interview that he doesn’t understand why the unaltered versions haven’t been restored to modern quality. The most we’d gotten from him prior was casually mentioning he’d shown his kids the original versions in a written interview several years ago (whether this was the GOUT or Harmy is unclear).

Rian hasn’t brought up the subject at all to my knowledge since he was hired by LFL back in 2014, although he did jokingly refer to the SE as “the cartoon version” on twitter the week the bd’s came out back in 2011.

I think, it goes a little bit beyond, as far as he knows. He literally states, he asked about the OOT, and was told a release wasn’t possible. So, I think it’s almost certain the OOT will not be included in the physical release of the 4K versions next year. In this respect it’s also important to note, that the new 4K master was done under the supervision of Lucas before the sale of LFM, making it even less likely the OOT will be restored, as this will be an archive release, not a new restoration by Disney. The release of the OOT is becoming less likely with every year that passes, and with physical media becoming extinct, next year will likely be the last opportunity for such a release, as the SE will forever remain the available versions on streaming services. I just don’t see it happening next year, and so I don’t see it happening at all, sadly.

Those are all valid points, but I’d say the physical 4k release will sell in significantly higher numbers if an unaltered restoration is included, especially since anyone with a D+ subscription can now stream the 4k hdr SE anytime they’d like.

DrDre said:

Jedi Master Skywalker said:

https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1204960815821946880?s=21

JJ is on our sides

That’s good to hear, and I respect him for being open about his views in this matter, but he sadly also confirms the OOT will not be released for reasons even he doesn’t understand.

As far as he knows.

This is pretty major imo. We have the director of 2/3 of the ST saying on camera in a sit-down interview that he doesn’t understand why the unaltered versions haven’t been restored to modern quality. The most we’d gotten from him prior was casually mentioning he’d shown his kids the original versions in a written interview several years ago (whether this was the GOUT or Harmy is unclear).

Rian hasn’t brought up the subject at all to my knowledge since he was hired by LFL back in 2014, although he did jokingly refer to the SE as “the cartoon version” on twitter the week the bd’s came out back in 2011.

DominicCobb said:

Fang Zei said:

doubleofive said:

I’m going to assume any DCP’s are still HD Branch. The use of it for the TROS teaser makes me wonder if Disney can tell the difference.

They only used that for the D23 preview, which only went up online AFAIK and was never sent out to theaters.

It definitely went out to theaters. It played before my IMAX screening of Ad Astra.

That’s curious.

Did it have an MPAA card at the front? Are you sure it wasn’t just part of the ads before the actual trailers?

Even if I’m wrong and that trailer got sent out as an actual trailer, I’d still chalk the use of the old master up to the fact that this was still prior to the launch of D+, for which we can now clearly see they were saving the new master. Since the 2004/2011 was already sitting on the shelf the trailer people just sourced it from that.

Even if they knew the newer master was pretty much finished and about to make its debut, we forget that the first trailer for RotS that went out to theaters back in late ‘04 used footage from the Lowry master. If it’s good enough to get printed to 35mm, it’s good enough for a trailer today in 2019.

doubleofive said:

I’m going to assume any DCP’s are still HD Branch. The use of it for the TROS teaser makes me wonder if Disney can tell the difference.

They only used that for the D23 preview, which only went up online AFAIK and was never sent out to theaters.

I’d be very surprised if they were still using the outdated 1.9k 2004 OT master yet again for the in-theater marathons when there’s now a true 4k cinema master that people can stream from their couch in 3.8k.

Didn’t one of the earlier drafts of the original Star Wars’ script have a closing crawl teasing the setup for the sequel?

I also wonder how much people’s aversion to spoilers will play into TRoS’ box office. A significant percentage of the opening weekend audience will likely be there just so they won’t have to worry about any surprises getting ruined for them via social media posts.

So, have only some of the ‘04/‘11 changes been redone but others pulled from the same source? Off the top of my head, so far we’ve spotted the aurebesh tractor beam readout on the Death Star in ANH and Anakin’s eyebrows in RotJ as having been redone.

What about the blinking Ewoks? R2 spazzing out during the Endor battle? The first shot in the approach to Mos Eisley (which now has ‘97 and ‘04 changes)?

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Will the forthcoming “filmmaker mode” standard apply to colors/brightness/contrast or just to other picture settings like the soap opera effect?

It will apply to everything. Apparently the main push behind building in a “filmmaker mode” was making sure the soap opera effect was turned off, but otherwise this seems to be pretty much the same as the movie/cinema mode pretty much all hdtv’s already have.

It’s also important to note, as discussed upthread, that even this new “filmmaker mode” won’t be the same thing as a proper calibration. Hopefully it’ll mean every tv with it built in will be as close as possible to calibrated “out of the box” at the push of a button, but the only way to know for sure that all your settings are exactly where they should be is by breaking out the scopes, taking measurements, and adjusting everything accordingly.

DominicCobb said:

I checked quickly and it looked like HD footage from the blu-ray to me. I didn’t take a close look but the shots that I saw of original footage looked pretty shitty to me, definitely not HD.

That unaltered shot of the Falcon and the last remaining fighters flying away from the Death Star right before it blows up and the unaltered Death Star explosion are still there. I don’t remember if the SE shots earlier in the doc are replacing unaltered shots or if those were already SE.

Jay said:

HDTVTest evaluates the OT and ST in HDR on Disney+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGZmMjPJiAk

Vincent of HDTVTest is a respected reviewer and display calibrator. He doesn’t get into color grading or anything like that, but it’s an interesting look into whether the OT on Disney+ is true HDR or just some contrast tweaks (spoiler: it’s not real HDR).

I wonder how much of the issue is “fake HDR.” They may have simply intentionally graded it that way, giving it a restrained HDR pass. It may also be that there isn’t a whole lot of dynamic range to squeeze out of the camera negatives at this point, if there ever was to begin with.

But if I had to guess, I’d say that even if they could have gotten more HDR “pop” they still chose not to, if only so that the OT would still recognizably look like the OT. For all the time they’ve spent keeping the OOT buried, Lucasfilm sure seems to be striving for authenticity as far as the color and contrast goes.

Broom Kid said:

Fang Zei said:
What about the theatrical prequels and the 120 minute imax cut of AotC?

That AOTC IMAX cut (Burtt edited it himself, correct?) is like the holy grail. Many have tried to replicate it, so far as I can tell none have figured out how to get it exactly right. I’d love to see it again - I only saw it the once, almost 20 years ago now, and would love to check it out again.

I imagine it will probably be lost to history. Even if the digital imax master from before they printed it out to 70mm still exists somewhere, it may never see the light of day.

schorman13 said:

Broom Kid said:

I still have my faintest of faint “recreated Original Versions as a bonus feature on the box set” hopes holding on.

Essentially - a Disney-created “despecialized edition.”

To me that’s about the only way the boxset would become a “must buy” for anyone. If there’s nothing exclusive, like the theatrical versions, then most people will be fine just having them to stream on D+.

This way, they can use 4K Star Wars to drive up D+ membership, and still have something left to help sell the boxset next year.

To me it feels inevitable, the only question is how comprehensive they get.

For example, do they include the ‘97 SE as well? What about the theatrical prequels and the 120 minute imax cut of AotC? Do the earlier versions get relegated to only 1080p sdr on disc while Maclunkey gets to shine in 4k HDR?

But yeah, considering there’s going to be a huge overlap between D+ subscribers and those who were planning on buying the 4k discs, I don’t know how Disney plans on selling them in big numbers without including something “truly special.”

I don’t have a nice professionally calibrated display to watch the 19SE on, so take this with a grain of salt, but is anyone else noticing a jarring color difference between the cg and model shots during battle of Yavin or is it just me? I remember it looking more consistent in ‘97 and 04/11 (they just kinda sucked all the color out for the latter)

The model shots were all re-comp’d digitally in ‘97 IIRC, so they should be newer pieces of o-neg just like the cg shots and therefore not degraded color-wise like the older parts of the o-neg. Maybe what we’re seeing is this modern scan in 16-bit color bump up against the limitations of whatever was rendered out in ‘97? Bill Hunt did mention in his quick take that the ‘97 cg shots now look all the more jarringly dated in the ‘19 version, so maybe this is part of what he was talking about.

Hal 9000 said:

More evidence that this version use the 1997 special edition as its base, with subsequent changes being re-created fresh.

Which was always going to be the case since the o-neg itself was conformed to the SE edit of the movie back in ‘97.

Btw, I guess this means the initial scan (before they redid the ‘04 and ‘11 changes) was/is the 1997 version exactly as it existed back then. I’m not going to hold my breath, but this does at least mean they’ve now got that version scanned in at the highest possible quality, not to mention roughly 80% of the unaltered OOT camera negative as well.

IIRC, there was a rumor several years ago that every last piece of film in Lucasfilm’s vaults were being scanned in and catalogued. Perhaps this 19SE is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re: the 19SE OT looking duller colorwise compared to the 2004 master, there’s a couple things to consider here. For one thing, we’ve gotten so used to the ‘04 look that it seems jarring.

The other thing to consider is the OT’s place in the context of the I-IX saga and how we go from the colorful prequels in the waning days of the Old Republic to the sterile, totalitarian reign of the Empire in the OT. The ST seems more “naturalistic” in its look to me than either of the other trilogies.

Obviously this puts aside how the OT actually looked in its original run and in ‘97, but the consensus seems to be that the new master looks much closer to the original colors than the ‘04 did anyway. The prequels, meanwhile, also seem closer to their theatrical colors than they did in 2011.