If it's the now eleven-years-old Lowry transfers for the umpteenmillionth time, I'll be disappointed but not surprised.
Maybe they'll announce that all six movies are being theatrically re-released in 3D this Fall ahead of Episode Seven?
As I've said before on these boards, I'd love it if the main episodes from now on (7,8,9 and any possible future numbers) could open with the Fox logo/fanfare even though it's Disney distributing. I was naively hoping that Fox's ownership of distribution rights on the existing films (and Disney's desire for them) could lead to a deal where that might actually happen. But if Disney is willing to just chop the Fox logo off the other five films, yeesh, not a good sign.
The Paramount logo showed up in Avengers and Iron Man Three, but that was different. Marvel had signed a distribution deal with Paramount years earlier, before Disney bought Marvel. When Disney wanted to buy Paramount out of the last two movies in their distribution deal, Paramount stipulated that their logo remain in those movies. Fox has no such pre-existing legal leverage over Disney.
The spin-offs (Rogue One, Josh Trank's untitled and any future ones) can do their own thing logo-wise for all I care.
I'm curious now as to why they didn't just leave well enough alone. Obviously they wanted the Fox logo completely gone, but I'm guessing they wouldn't allow it to be taken off ANH as part of whatever deal they made with Disney.
So now when people watch these digital versions in "saga" order they go from three movies of just the Lucasfilm logo (now with an edit of Williams' music from the end of ESB's end credits) to one movie presumably opening the way it always has (more or less) to two more movies with this new intro.
I stand corrected, then.
If the rumor is true, I guess we'll find out whether the deleted original frames really were put into storage or not.
Darth Id said:
DominicCobb said:
...I have an itching feeling they're talking about the Reliance master
This is the forerunning hypothesis, by a mile. Especially since the Reliance transfer would presumably have "Han shooting first" just because it would be scanned from physical elements, rather than the electronic house of horrors where Rubberhan resides.
(and, by the way, the colors are very effed in that just in different ways than the blu-ray).
How so?
Mike Verta elaborates on the issues with the Reliance master in his vimeo clips. If you click on the one of R2 and 3P0 on the Death Star or the one with the stormtroopers running down the hallway, he does some interesting screenshot comparisons between the official blu-ray, the Reliance 4k job and his own restoration that uses a 4k scan of a technicolor print. The R2/3PO comparison even throws in the GOUT for good measure.
His conclusion is that while the Reliance work does improve things from the blu-ray somewhat, it's also a step back from some of the things the blu-ray actually got right.
Also, I think you're mistaken about "Greedo shooting first" being a completely digital change. That was done for the '97 "restoration" and would've therefore been filmed out to fresh 35mm negative and conformed with the movie just like the rest of the '97 changes. However, IIRC that change was simply an addition of frames from what was already there. So if we're to assume the reliance 4k job returned the Han/Greedo scene to its original form, they could've easily deleted those extra frames after scanning in the o-neg (which would still be conformed to the '97 version).
Darth Id said:
Devin Faraci sed:
But in the Lucasfilm vaults there is a 4k remaster of the original trilogy that has been tweaked and changed from the latest release, and that 4k version has Han shooting first.
I have a baaaad feeling about this...
Even if it's another SE, I don't see that as cause for worry. IIRC, evidence came up at some point in the 70-page 4K thread for this transfer having been done back in 2009, when George was still in charge. Maybe he wasn't done tweaking it by 2011 so they used the '04 master. Maybe it's done now but Disney doesn't want to unveil a new 4k transfer in the form of a compressed, 1080p download, so they're using the blu-ray version once again.
Even if a 4k SE has been finalized, maybe Disney is simply saving it for later. Perhaps they've realized it won't sell without a restored OOT to go along with it, and so they're biding their time.
Our suspicions of this being a new version of the SE seem to have been semi-confirmed:
http://badassdigest.com/2015/04/09/how-did-i-screw-up-that-star-wars-story/
Ohhhhh....
http://badassdigest.com/2015/04/09/how-did-i-screw-up-that-star-wars-story/
Correction to what I said earlier: Apparently there were no tweaks made for this release. Content-wise it's 100% identical to the blu-rays, unless someone notices otherwise.
Devin's sources thought they were looking at the version for this digital release. What they were actually looking at was the 4k version we've been talking about since July in that other thread. That version does contain tweaks, and Han shoots first.
Hasn't the Han/Greedo shootout been messed with on each new release post-97 (both '04 and '11)?
Maybe they finally said "screw it, just put it back to the way it originally was."
EDIT: Wow, nevermind. Oh, well. Like moviefreakedmind said, that might've been a bad thing anyway (changing the more "annoying" things but still leaving the SE as the only version out there). I'm not surprised to hear there've been tweaks made for this release, though. I guess we'll start hearing what they are over the next couple days.
Han might shoot first in the digital version:
http://badassdigest.com/2015/04/09/the-digital-edition-of-star-wars-could-make-a-major-change/
generalfrevious said:
I feel like the last person alive who cares about saving the pre-97 trilogy. So to everyone else my rants are seen as nothing more than ridiculous, because no one else seems to care.
...I care...
But in all seriousness, I highly doubt that Disney would've bought the company without securing the rights to all versions of the films from George, in as much as Lucasfilm (not Fox) legally owns them. Now we can see they've worked out a deal with Fox to distribute the films digitally. It's the SE once again, yes, but if they were going to start selling the OOT there's no good reason they wouldn't wait until the next physical release to include it as a selling point.
Besides, as someone so eloquently phrased it in this thread, releasing a remastered OOT for the very first time in the form of a compressed download file would be the 2015 equivalent of the GOUT.
They're continuing the tradition with this digital release of using bonus materials as a selling point, continuing to keep the OOT in their back pocket. I'm now starting to doubt we'll see another release this year, if only because they'd be hurting their own sales of the just-released digital version. They may also be waiting to see how UHD ("4K") blu-ray shakes out before doing another physical release.
generalfrevious said:
They're just the SE being released digitally (I looked at the run times). This means that the SE is here to stay in the digital age. No way iTunes is going to release the original editions...
Yeah, but how much importance should we really treat that with?
The director's cut of Close Encounters is the only one on itunes despite all three versions being on the blu-ray.
doubleofive said:
This being pushed out this week gives me hope. Digital copies of the existing Blu's are no big deal, and Disney/LFL apparently knows this. So if they were going to announce something at Celebration, it won't be a giant countdown to who cares, because it's already out.
On the other hand, if they were going to announce an OOT blu-ray at Celebration then why would they wait until barely a week earlier to put out the digital release?
"What's that? Star Wars is out on iTunes now? I think I'll "buy" it. Wait, what's this? There's a new blu-ray coming out later this year with the unaltered versions? Nevermind, I think I'll save my itunes money."
Disney would really be shooting themselves in the foot business-wise by announcing it now. I'd love to be wrong, though.
Honestly, I don't see how they can get through the convention without at least addressing the issue of the OOT's unavailability.
Well, if they are secretly planning a grand announcement of a restored OOT, I'm guessing they're gonna wait until at least the second day of the convention. Apparently JJ and Kathleen are debuting the new TFA trailer the morning of the 16th.
Funny how all of those grievances are directed at Disney.
Where were they when George said years ago in interviews that none of it counted?
Lucasfilm said from the Thrawn books onward that this was the official continuation of the story, and they were apparently lying the entire time.
TK-949 said:
Just 15 to 18 days until the official announcement that the OOT will be released.
It's what we're all thinking, right?
Apparently both Gareth Edwards and Josh Trank will be there.
pittrek said:
What are the 2011 Blurays?
Something like : Original negatives -> 1995 scan -> SE digital version -> 1997 SE prints -> 1080p scan with colour "correction" -> Lowry "restoration" -> 1080p DVD master -> more stupid digital changes -> 2011 Bluray master
So yes, the BDs are done from an early century 1080p scans of SE masters, but no, they didn't do it because "original negatives are nowhere to be found" but simply because GL for some reason considered the old horrible looking scans to be "good enough" and didn't want to spend money for doing it correctly.
Even if the rumours that the original negatives were modified to contain 1997 SE material (which I doubt, I simply refuse to believe they were THAT stupid), they still have finished prints of the original theatrical editions (including some Technicolor prints if I remember correctly). Even scanning these prints would be "good enough" for most of us
I think it's been documented that the o-neg was in fact re-conformed for the SE. That is why they were able to just scan it in '04 and all the '97 changes were already there. If you look closely, you can still see some filmic anamolies in the cgi shots from '97, even after Lowry's cleanup job. This leads me to believe that the filmed-out negative is the best surviving source for the '97 cg shots and that the final 2k renders were not saved on hard drives at ILM or Lucasfilm.
Well said, msycamore.
The quote in your sig only drives the point home.
Do we really think, even for a moment, that she actually wanted to type those words as part of the form reponse letter?
While we're once again on the subject of THX-1138, I continue to wonder if there is anything legally barring WB from releasing the original version, ditto Universal with American Graffiti.
towne32 said:
Harmy said:
Well, that's what I've been saying from the beginning - that I'm afraid they'll release some bastardized "close enough" version of the OOT and then when we once again complain, everyone will call us petty fanboys who are never satisfied, like with the GOUT.
Even a disappointing release will be a fantastic source for projects like yours. Little to no rotoscoping, no low res elements, no issues with 35mm color and fade. Although neg1's RotJ prints seem damn near good enough.
When comparing SW restoration to the love and attention *some* other major films get, much time has been spent discussing the limitations of restoring the original film. The negatives and elements are obviously in a sorry state. But as far as ESB and Jedi go, is there any reason they can't perform restoration as good as, for instance, Jaws? There is no such thing as flawless, and as stated above, there will always be complaints. They'll have to make decisions that can never please everybody. But a professional quality release should actually be possible for those two, right?
Robert A. Harris has said otherwise re: Star Wars '77.
If I remember correctly, he commented on the home theater forum around the time of the blu-ray release that all of the assets/elements for these movies are "well-protected" and that there is no need for concern.
Clive Revill making an appearance?
Shaw Anakin pins being sold?
I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's hard to not take this as some kind of sign....
Anything short of the best treatment possible is pretty much inexcusible, isn't it?
I mean, Paramount spent quite a bit of money (more than a million dollars, I think) restoring The Godfather movies at Spielberg's behest, and the go-to authority on these things, Robert A. Harris, was consulted.
When we consider the fact that the first Star Wars alone made over a billion dollars after inflation, by that measure the second highest grossing movie of all time after Gone With the Wind, "close enough" of a restoration job certainly doesn't cut it.
Lucasfilm is under a larger corporate umbrella now, just like Paramount. I would like to think Disney doesn't see money as an object when it comes to proper preservation of these films.
Danfun128 said:
moviefreakedmind said:
Fang Zei said:
The convention in Anaheim is just a few weeks away. There will doubtlessly be a lot of people there wondering the same thing we are. Disney/Lucasfilm can't expect it to go by without at least saying something about it. It's been almost two and a half years since the buyout and they haven't said a word. The elephant in the room has become too big to ignore.
This is why i think that we'll get some sort of quality presentation of the OOT on blu ray, maybe not a restoration on the same scale as 1997, but at least a transfer on par with most acceptable blu rays released today.
In other words, a fresh transfer...by Lowry.
That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. It depends on whether Reliance Media Works (who bought-out Lowry) still uses the old Lowry's restoration methods.
He smiles and gives a coy response of "y'know, that's a pretty good idea," implying that that's exactly what they're planning but can't say anything about it yet.
The convention in Anaheim is just a few weeks away. There will doubtlessly be a lot of people there wondering the same thing we are. Disney/Lucasfilm can't expect it to go by without at least saying something about it. It's been almost two and a half years since the buyout and they haven't said a word. The elephant in the room has become too big to ignore.
Was something like this used on the pre-2010 episodes of The Simpsons for the fxx version? Granted, they also cropped and stretched them, but they definitely used some sort of super-duper upscaling algorithm to make new transfers out of the existing ones in lieu of an actual fresh hd scan of the original elements.
Speaking of the prequels, Bill Hunt theorized in his review of the bd set that something like this might come along to do a deep analysis "guess and render" for a new 4k version. It's already been almost four years since then.