Fang Zei

I remember a discussion with the vfx guys posted on the official site around the time of the dvd release in which they claimed to have made several dozen changes.

The only change anyone seems to have noticed is the speeder during the Coruscant chase.

Wasn't there also discussion of the sparks on Jango's jetpack right before he's killed in the arena battle? On the commentary track during that scene, Lucas actually expresses surprise to the vfx guys at how quickly they were able to get the changes done.

Yet the blatant continuity error of Ki-Adi Mundi's lightsaber color changing during the arena battle (as pointed out in the depth commentary) was never fixed. That is unless it was fixed for the blu-ray, which I wouldn't know.

So just to be clear, there were at least four different versions released in 2002 alone:

-The 35mm version, which would've needed to be locked at least two weeks before the movie opened on May 16 in order to allow enough time to make the more than 2,000 prints going to U.S. theaters.

-The digital version, which only a hundred or so theaters were able to show. Rick McCallum had some comment about how they were still shooting only a week or so before release day. What would this have been? The only difference noticed by people who saw both versions was Padme holding Anakin's hand at the end.

-The dvd version, which was essentially the digital version plus an extension of the garage scene with Anakin and Padme. This is in addition to the aforementioned vfx changes.

-The IMAX version, released only days after the dvd (really smart business strategy there, Lucasfilm). This version had several scenes removed to get the running time down to 120 minutes, the maximum amount of film that an IMAX projector's platters could hold at the time. By many accounts, these edits actually improved the film somewhat.

Presumably, there are 35mm scope and 70mm Imax prints in existence somewhere, and we have preservations of 2.35:1 hd broadcasts of the dvd version if I'm not mistaken.

What really fascinates me is the digital version. Presumably the DCP's were sent back to either Fox or Lucasfilm after their theatrical run, just like the celluloid versions. But unlike the celluloid versions, the hard drives would've needed to be fired up occasionally in order to preserve the data. Whether or not Lucasfilm kept a master file of this exact version is anyone's guess.

unamochilla2 said:

emanswfan said:

unamochilla2 said:

Do we know when they'll start filming Episode VIII?  If they haven't started already?

Well, they're filming Rogue One as of right now.  I'm guessing they wouldn't start principal shooting till the beggining of 2016.  But they concieveably shoot some second unit starting late fall.

I'm just not sure whether they'd want to start principal filming before TFA's release, given just one little overhead set photo could spell possible spoilers if they aren't careful enough.

That's a good point.  There's already speculation about Hamill returning since he was seen sporting a beard recently.

Heh, when do we start the Episode VIII *SPOILERS* thread?

Considering Billy Dee is several years older than Harrison Ford (just sayin'), you'd think they'd prioritize him being in Ep7 rather than saving him for the sequels.

Hal 9000 said:

SilverWook said:

And we also need a movie to explain what the heck is up with General Madine's Gumby hair.

 For the last time, he's one of them...

Wasn't Crix Madine from Corellia?

I could totally see Lord and Miller using this as an excuse to work head-drinkers into the new canon.

So it has now been confirmed there will be no new footage from The Force Awakens shown at San Diego Comic Con this week.

I'm not getting my hopes up (far from it), but I can't help but wonder if Lucasfilm is going to unexpectedly announce a restored OOT.

It would be doubly appropriate considering Comic Con was used to promote the original film way back in '76.

Like I said though, not getting my hopes up....

I honestly don't care if the '04 and '11 versions are included in a future "ultimate" collection. In fact, I would almost prefer they not be, just so I don't have to pay for them again. The 2011 version is already out there on blu-Ray for those who want it, and I'm sure someone's done a nice HD preservation of the '04 version from the broadcasts.

The '97 version is the only historically important version of the SE imo. It's probably the first time (still the only time?) that such a beloved classic got that wide of a rerelease and drew in that much box office while still being a radically altered version of itself.

The next iteration of the SE, from the new 4k scan, will probably just replicate most of the 04/11 changes anyway. There's even a rumor that some changes, like the Han and Greedo scene, have actually been reversed.

Sad news.

Gormenghast was probably the first thing I saw him in when it aired here in the States on PBS in the summer of 2000. Right around that same time I read an interview with him in SciFi magazine, talking about his career and that he was playing Saruman in LotR. I think by that point it was known he had a role in the as-yet-untitled Episode II, a role not dissimilar from his Hammer cohort Peter Cushing's in Star Wars '77.

I remember finding it pretty mind-blowing that a guy pushing 80 was taking on such big roles in these huge franchises.

It wasn't until later that I saw his earlier work, like The Wicker Man and The Man with the Golden Gun, although I still haven't actually seen any of his Hammer/Dracula stuff (must rectify this soon).

How cool that he was able to reprise his role of Saruman for The Hobbit.

What an extraordinary life!

He will be missed.

It's being reported that at least some of Rogue One will shoot on Arri's new 6k, 65mm-sized model of Alexa camera. But that's not all! These 65mm shots will use the 1.25x anamorphic Ultra Panavision lens recently revived by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Richardson for The Hateful Eight, which they shot on actual 65mm film.

Ultra Panavision (2.20:1 65mm film with a 1.25x squeeze) yields an extremely wide aspect ratio of 2.76:1. There were only a literal handful of films made in this format before it was abandoned, Ben-Hur probably being the most well-known example. Several years back I actually got to see an anamorphic 70mm print of the last Ultra Panavision film, Khartoum, which was released in 1966 and also happens to star Charlton Heston.

Gareth Edwards and his cinematographer Greig Fraser are clearly fans of the more old-fashioned formats, as they shot last year's Godzilla movie in panavision/cinemascope with 2x anamorphics using the alexa 4:3.

I wonder how much of Rogue One will shoot in this digital "equivalent" of Ultra Panavision and if the movie will shift to the ultra wide AR at certain points. Maybe they'll crop those shots to 2.40:1 while still taking advantage of the added resolution and detail?

yoda-sama said:

Frink, I do believe you missed him also saying Luca$$$film.

Also, Mr. Doom, where are you getting this "restore PT in 4K" stuff?  In his foolish eagerness to completely distance himself from all things that worked well from the OT, Lucas jumped too early onto recording completely in digital for Episodes II and III, forever trapping them at a maximum resolution of 1080p.  The PT will never be a 4K showcase, due to extreme shortsightedness, and Disney is not about to lead with that foot.  If Star Wars ever commercially goes 4K, it would pretty much have to be just some form of original trilogy release (be it redone-from-scratch SE, or OOT), not the complete Vader saga.

 I don't know if Eps 2 and 3 were technically finished at 1080. They were definitely shot that way (technically 1920 by 817 for the 2.35:1 scope framing), but I think they still did all the cgi and color timing at 2k cinema resolution (2048 by 853 for scope). Small difference, I know, and it certainly doesn't improve the limited resolution of the live-action footage, which would still be stuck at cropped 1080p.

Avatar was shot similarly. 1920 by 1080 hd cameras with the vfx and color finished at true 2k for the scope version. John Knoll said in an interview that ILM delivered some of their shots at 3k just so they would really shine in the 70mm Imax version.

When it comes to the OT SE, only 20% of it, at the most, is actually stuck at 2k detail. Most of the trilogy would still benefit greatly from 4k as it's still photochemical. They say even 35mm negative doesn't "max out" until you hit 12k resolution, although the point at which our eyes can't tell the difference is maybe only slightly higher than 4k unless we're viewing it on an insanely large screen at relatively close distance.

And even if the prequels are stuck at 2k, they can still look quite good. I just saw Avengers 2 last week, a movie that was only finished in 2k, and it looked absolutely amazing projected in 4k.

I still remember George's words during that scene on the '04 RotJ dvd commentary, and they were something along the lines of "Y'know, if I'd known he would become such a beloved character I never would've killed him off. Most people think he never really died anyway."

That last part is probably a reference to Dark Empire (which we know George read at one point) and maybe the other post-Jedi EU he appears in, although the "most people" qualifier seems to drive home George's own opinion of the EU which he's shared elsewhere in interviews.

moviefreakedmind said:

Fang Zei said:

That too.

It could be that he's there to announce his final version of the SE (from the Reliance 4k job we've been hearing about) and, to counter the "who %#*^ing cares" response that would follow from the comic con audience, Disney's also gonna announce a blu-ray set that includes the remastered originals.

I'm not holding my breath for this to actually happen, but it's one big, giant "could happen" in my mind.

Yeah it's a bit of a stretch. That being said I don't feel that Lucas's desire to see the OOT limited to 4:3 letterbox extended beyond his own tenure at Lucasfilm. I can't see him being opposed to other people releasing it now that he has sold the company, or at least not opposed enough to try and do anything about it. 

 Especially since his entire argument for reusing said letterbox transfer was "I don't want to spend any money remastering the old versions."

With Disney now in charge, he's lost even that excuse.

That too.

It could be that he's there to announce his final version of the SE (from the Reliance 4k job we've been hearing about) and, to counter the "who %#*^ing cares" response that would follow from the comic con audience, Disney's also gonna announce a blu-ray set that includes the remastered originals.

I'm not holding my breath for this to actually happen, but it's one big, giant "could happen" in my mind.

So my next guess as to when we might even possibly hear an OOT announcement was Comic Con, but now there's a rumor going around that George himself might make an appearance.

I wasn't gonna get my hopes up, but hearing George is gonna be there kinda squelches even the faintest glimmer I had left.

ETA:

Actually, now that I think about it (just try and follow my logic here), maybe the reason GL is showing up is because they're planning on announcing the OOT restoration ahead of the convention, so that George won't get boos and hisses from the crowd....

... I'm really reaching here, aren't I....

Not only will they need to reframe the existing films as no longer being the complete story, they're going to have to release the films individually at some point. Lucasfilm might as well take a page from its own history, only do things right this time. A blu-ray equivalent of the GOUT, with both versions from brand new transfers instead of existing ones (and maybe with the '97 version thrown in as well), would totally justify a higher price point for an individual release.

DuracellEnergizer said:

scruffy_looking said:

Seeing "4K" and "SE" in the same sentence makes me feel violently ill.

Urge to create a droid character named SE-4K for one of my SW screenplays rising ... 

DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

GlastoEls said:

moviefreakedmind said:

That's a main reason for why I think we'll see the HD OOT soon. Lucas was the only one opposed to its release. Even Rick McCallum said he hoped Lucas would release it someday

The lads from makingstarwars.net, for whatever it's worth, told me at Celebration that there was "no chance", as albeit selling commercial rights, "Lucas retains final cut".

So we shall see. Fingers perenially crossed!

To bring this thread back around, this is what makes me think the 4k version (undoubtedly a new 4k SE) will be released in some form or another in the near future, even if it was only done as a fresh image harvest for the 3D conversion. Even if there was no mention of it at the convention, I wouldn't be surprised if they announce closer to TFA's release that there will be all-day saga marathons in theaters on December 17th.

Even if Lucas retains "final cut," I don't see that precluding an OOT restoration necessarily. I mean, he released it on dvd, didn't he? He just refused to spend a single dime remastering it.

Well, I'm one of those crazies who wants the SE done right and an OOT restoration (or at least a rudimentary cleanup job comparable to a Criterion release).

I'd most likely have to buy the most recent version just to get the unaltereds anyway, so why not demand quality from both?

captainsolo said:

As we know, Vidiot over on the SHTV forums had done some work on the 2004 trilogy ans has given some insight in the past as to how things were done. Recently, he's mentioned a few things which make perfect sense: That it was a bit rushed, understaffed for the scope of the project and continually tweaked and re-tweaked. This would account for many of the issue we have bemoaned for years and years.

But he did say that both the claims of no negatives existing, or that they were conformed to the SE were pretty much bogus.

Nice to have some confirmation for a change isn't it? ;)

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/star-wars-the-digital-movie-collection.427154/page-8#post-12232532

Could you please quote directly what he said?

I don't see any mention of him saying the o-negs weren't reconformed to the SE. Didn't Zombie confirm that they were?

The new color timing of Aliens doesn't bother me, honestly. I never saw a print of the movie and the leaps in picture quality more than make up for any problems I may or may not have with the color. It like the new look, even if it might not have looked that way in '86. At least I know for sure that Cameron wanted it looking this way for the blu-ray. We're still here several years later debating whether the color-timing (and lack of contrast) on the extended blu-ray of Fellowship of the Ring was actually what Peter Jackson intended.

What does annoy me is Cameron digitally erasing things like Lance Henriksen's visible torso in the final scene, or getting rid of the visible marks on the window from earlier takes when Ripley tries to break it with a chair. It's especially disappointing after his remarks on the SE of Star Wars. Apparently he draws the line at "cgi dinosaurs" as a revision of history, but erasing things that were already there is a-okay?

But even things like that don't pull me out of the movie. You'd have to know the film pretty damn well to notice it, something that cannot be said about the very obvious updates made to Star Wars.

Speaking of Raiders, was the erasure of the snake pit reflection Spielberg's idea or was it Lucas'?

Even if Disney was planning to announce an OOT on blu-ray tomorrow, the company line would still be "there are no plans at this time."

Indeed, it's nice to at least see them acknowledged.

Still anyone's guess as to whether it'll happen this year or if they'll wait until 2017 or until the entire ST is finished. It might even be some random time we're not expecting just so Kathleen Kennedy can show a good quarterly statement to the suits at Disney.

The fact that we're not getting BS jargon from Lucasfilm like we were in '06 gives me some faint glimmer of hope.

Nocturnaloner said:

Fang Zei said:

Even if that rumor about Han shooting first again in the 4k version is true (and it very well may be, Devin is pretty sincere about his sources), I don't see why reversing that one change has any bearing on an OOT release. It could still be the SE in every other way, and they've reversed changes before (Luke's scream in ESB '97).

 That was debunked, Greedo still shoots first: http://badassdigest.com/2015/04/09/the-digital-edition-of-star-wars-could-make-a-major-change/

I know, that's why I specified "in the 4k version."

Even if that rumor about Han shooting first again in the 4k version is true (and it very well may be, Devin is pretty sincere about his sources), I don't see why reversing that one change has any bearing on an OOT release. It could still be the SE in every other way, and they've reversed changes before (Luke's scream in ESB '97).

yoda-sama said:

It is just a damned shame they're choosing to miss this opportunity.

 I'm right there with ya, but at the same time, I started to have "a bad feeling" once they released the digital version only a week before the con. There was no way they were gonna say jack shit about even the possibility of an OOT restoration only a week after this new digital release with "never before seen bonus content" (oh, golly). It would've been like shooting themselves in the foot, not to mention it would've pissed off apple, vudu, Amazon, Google et al who were expecting to do business off the digital version.

Which brings me to my second point, which is that we really don't know how long Disney is planning on milking these movies for the umpteenth time in the form of these digital versions. It's certainly not a good sign that they're only just releasing it now, and with exclusive bonus content for added incentive. We could be waiting years until the next release (in any form) for all we know.

But at the the end of the day we really have no idea. The digital release might've simply been a "let's get it out of the way" kind of thing, maybe just timed to take advantage of the convention. Like I said elsewhere in the forums, we've still got Comic Con in July.

Besides, it became pretty clear to me that Disney wasn't gonna blow their load and announce the OOT at the same time as the new TFA trailer. Their stock went up by $2 Billion on Thursday. They obviously wanted Ep7 to be the big talk of the con, followed by Battlefront and Season 2 of Rebels, in whatever order.

In regards to your 4k comment, Disney could very well be timing a new release to coincide with the upcoming 4k blu-Ray format, which is supposed to roll out by the end of the year. It would be Mind-blowing if one of the launch titles was an actual 4k transfer of the OOT. Imagine how many people would run out and buy a 4k TV and a 4k blu-Ray player just to see that. I'm not holding my breath on something like that happening, but when they do eventually put out the OT in actual 4k-on-disc (and they will at some point, even if it's just a 4k SE), I suspect they'll put it out on "regular" 1080p blu-Ray as well and not keep it exclusive to a fancy new format.

Even if we don't hear anything by the end of Celebration, the fact that Battlefront isn't streeting until November gives me some hope. Star Wars dvd releases lined up with videogame dates (The OT and Battlefront, RotS and Battlefront II, the GOUT and Lego Star Wars II, etc). If Battlefront was releasing in September, we'd be hearing right now if a new blu-Ray was on the way. We didn't hear about the GOUT until only four months before its street date. November is still a long way off.

If they are indeed planning an OOT blu-Ray, they may very well be waiting until Comic Con in July to announce a November release day and date with the new game.

As has been said, it would be weird to announce a new blu-Ray only a week after the digital release, even if they're targeting two very different audiences. It just wouldn't make sense business-wise, and they've been advertising the digital version constantly during the livestream.

Wasn't there a fresh scan of Jurassic Park done just for the 3D conversion? I wonder if that's what's going on here.

Maybe that's how this 4k job of Star Wars could've been done years ago without ever seeing the light of day. They might not have wanted people to see any of it, not even in nice 4k 2D, until the 3D conversion was finished.

Titanic's "dimensionalization" took more than a year. The total runtime of the OT is roughly twice Titanic's. If they'd held to their original schedule, we would only just have seen ANH 3D hit theaters a couple months ago. Maybe they "doubled their efforts" to get the entire OT done by the end of 2015.