Fang Zei

towne32 said:

 Although I would only care about .2% as much as an UOT release

 99.999999% of the populace wouldn't even care at all, which is exactly why - short of another reissue of the 2011 discs - the OT will not see another blu-ray release unless it includes the unaltereds.

Lucasfilm literally has no other selling points left.

That doesn't mean such a release couldn't also include a new 4k-sourced transfer of the SE (in fact, I would hope it did if they're gonna force me to buy the SE yet again), but it definitely wouldn't be marketed around anything other than the inclusion of the unaltered versions.

XWing4492 said:

It's odd though because 9/21/2015 is a Monday, and I'm under the impression new releases come out on Tuesdays, though there's no reason they couldn't come out on a Monday...

 Midnight Madness Maybe?

I really wouldn't be surprised if they re-release all six films theatrically in 3D in September as part of the build-up to Episode VII. Maybe they're not done converting the OT yet but they'll use this occasion to make the grand announcement?

At the very least, I could see them doing all-day marathon screenings in theaters leading up to the midnight release just like Marvel did for The Avengers.

A random thought I had the other day:

Lucasfilm always made sure to time their dvd releases of the movies with a video game. The '04 OT set hit the same day as Battlefront. RotS dvd hit the same day as Battlefront II. The GOUT's release was the same day as one of the Lego Star Wars games.

Anyway, we know the new Battlefront game is releasing by the end of this year. It would make sense for them to schedule some kind of blu-ray release for the same day.

Smithers said:

 

Considering George Lucas made a point of mentioning the amount of money it would cost to restore the OT, and that being the reason for him not doing it, outside of the fact he says they no longer exist, ............ no.

:)

 I don't understand this reply... are you joking around or what? Money is no object when George Lucas wants something (CGI was pretty expensive stuff in the late 90's) and they DO exist because... Harmy put together a complete theatrical release of the original films and has way less than half the material that George Lucas had to make it. And... what does this have to do with the thread anyway? 

Jetrell was just being facetious.

George notoriously said back in 2011 that the unaltered versions would be too expensive to restore. We all knew that was total BS, of course. As you said, money was no object.

Yeah, pretty hard for me to justify spending $100 on 1993-quality transfers in 2015.

I vote for just getting ahold of Harmy's version like Frink suggested.

Remaking the prequels would probably involve a complete reboot of the franchise.

The earlier drafts of Star Wars had it as Episode I, not Episode IV, and I've heard it theorized that TPM might've been the movie George was trying to make all along.

The irony is that the world fell in love with his half-finished film and had, at best, a mixed reaction to his intended vision.

Personally, my biggest problems with the prequels are that GL wrote/directed them and that they are meant to be watched with the SE, not the originals. The actual story of the PT, how Anakin fell to the dark side, the Clone Wars, and the decay of the Old Republic, was always George's to tell. Those are just minor complaints compared to the much bigger problem of George scripting/directing them himself and retroactively re-directing the OT.

In that sense, the PT isn't worth the trouble of remaking/replacing. The ST and spin-offs, which will be from new writers and directors, will probably "ignore" the prequels even if they take place within the same continuity.

Darth Id said:

Fang Zei said:

For me it was a very delayed reaction.

May of 2006, finding out that the unaltered Star Wars dvd's would be sourced from the 1993 laserdisc ...

 Not only delayed, but a complete non sequitur reaction to a completely unrelated event.  Strange indeed.

I guess it was more of a really long denial, one that the ultimate insult of a non-anamorphic dvd of Star Wars in 2006 finally ended.

For me it was a very delayed reaction.

May of 2006, finding out that the unaltered Star Wars dvd's would be sourced from the 1993 laserdisc and not, at the very least, a fresh transfer from an IP or something so that it could at least be presented in modern dvd quality, absolutely infuriated me. I realized at that moment just how badly the franchise had been handled for almost an entire decade. For some reason it just didn't catch up to me until then.

I realized it would have been much better had the SE's simply never happened and GL handed off the prequels to other writers and directors, just as he'd done with Empire and, to a certain extent, Jedi. Instead, he went the exact opposite route, directing the prequels himself and altering the originals to fit with his "vision."

towne32 said:

darklordoftech said:

timdiggerm said:

darklordoftech said:

moviefreakedmind said:

darklordoftech said:

If this article is anything to go by:

http://www.cinemablend.com/m/new/How-George-Lucas-Star-Wars-7-Ideas-Were-Used-By-Disney-69271.html

 What?

If they don't care about Lucas's treatments, no way they're going to care about his special editions.

 There's a huge difference between an unused script and a thing the public saw.

The OOT is also a thing that the public saw.

 Yep. This news about the script treatment confirms what that Disney is more interested in making proper decisions than appeasing George's personal wishes. Unless there really are technical hurdles making it unrealistic, I don't see why they wouldn't go the route of Blade Runner and Close Encounters and release an 'ultimate' set with all versions. 

There are two huge reasons to release the OOT on Blu-ray by the end of the year:

1. Marketing synergy with Episode 7, and

2. The fact that UHD Blu-ray is right around the corner.

To make a comparison, the GOUT hit just a few months after hd dvd and Blu-Ray debuted. That probably didn't affect sales since the format war was yet to be decided and most people were still watching dvd's on their 4:3 crt's anyway.

If the OT has in fact been remastered in 4k, that would be a pretty big reason to hold off on getting the regular 1080p transfer of it. There will be a lot more UHD "4k" tv's in people's homes by this time next year, and that many more people waiting for prices to drop so they can buy one. It would be smart for Disney/Fox to just get the OOT out there this year while 99.9% of the customers are still unaware there's a 4k blu-Ray format on the way.

This post deserves the Pulitzer Prize.

Did Lucas give any input on the the Thrawn books back in the day? Who got the ball rolling on the idea of novels set post-Jedi? Why didn't it happen until 1991?

The biggest question, one we can't really know the answer to but is still puzzling, is whether GL honestly never intended to make Episode 7 as of '91 and therefore said "sure, do whatever you want, RotJ is the end as far as I'm concerned."

DuracellEnergizer said:

Those books you love are still around, right? They haven't magically faded from existence, have they?

No, but there's still the overwhelming feeling that it was all for nothing.

I'm just glad I never invested too much into those stories. I've got the Thrawn trilogy in paperback but never got much farther than Heir to the Empire, which I've had since the early 90's (the "Star Wars" logo is golden and embossed, unlike the other two which are later reprints (Dark Force Rising doesn't even have the Spectra logo for some reason, just the rooster), it's still in pretty good shape, all things considered). I got Vector Prime in hardback for Christmas that year, primarily because of the hubbub (Chewie's death, the switch back to del rey, the premise, and it being the first post-Jedi EU book to come out after TPM). I read Dark Tide: Onslaught and tried skipping ahead to Balance Point when it hit paperback, but then I lost interest. I actually remember picking up the "reduced price" editions of Luceno's Jedi Eclipse duology at B. Dalton's half-price going out of business sale, so they were only a couple dollars each. They sit unread in a box along with paperbacks of Tatooine Ghost, Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy and The Hand of Thrawn duology.*

The irony is that for all the post-Jedi stuff I bought and never read, there were just as many PT-era books I got from the library and did read. Rogue Planet, Cloak of Deception, The Approaching Storm and Labyrinth of Evil all come to mind. Tried with Outbound Flight but was busy with school. I also bought (and read!) all six clone wars novels in paperback, same with Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter and the prequel novelizations (I got Episode I in hardback just a few days before it hit theaters). I even have a paperback copy of Dark Lord that my friend lent me several years ago, haven't read it though.

Oh, I almost forgot Shadows of the Empire, which I got in paperback Spring of '97 and was probably the first Star Wars novel I read all the way through.

I've also got first-edition paperbacks of the OT novelizations and the 90's paperback of Splinter with the GL intro, all of which I intend to read at some point.

Anyway, all of this is to say that the post-Jedi EU became way too much for me to "catch up" on. It did hold my interest enough for me to follow the gist of it on wookieepedia, though. As I've said before, I always assumed the hundred-year gap was a placeholder for when they inevitably decided to make Episode VII, even though I realized the dilemma of an ST you'd go into already knowing the decades-later "end-point" of.

I know there were a great many complaints in the fan community of the direction LFL and del rey took the post-Jedi EU after '99. Heck, I know some people didn't even like the Thrawn trilogy. At the same time, I must echo the sarcastic "how noble of him" sentiment regarding GL and the EU.

This mess could've been avoided, but what's done is done. 

*Man, between all these unread books and the embarrassingly high number of times I saw the prequels in theaters, I must've really had some sick Star Wars addiction.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Tobar said:

Now all future books and comics will share the same level of authority as the films.

Until they change their minds, that is.

Exactly.

LFL's whole statement of "Oh, we're forming a "story group" (or something), so everything we make from now on will be the same level of canon" is nothing more than marketing speak.

Just like how the Thrawn books were the first "official" continuation of the story, right?

Fool me once.

Hal 9000 said:

I'd be interested if anyone wanted to share their personal approach to spoilers, either for Ep7 or their experience with the prequels. 

What are you all planning to do about spoilers? 

For TPM, I remember the biggest spoiler being the comic book tpb sitting on the shelf in April or early May of '99. I picked it up and flipped to the last several pages, seeing a panel of Obi-Wan doing a flip over Darth Maul and cutting him in half with Qui-Gon's green saber. For some reason, I remember the comic book showing it as Obi-Wan cutting Maul in half as he did the backflip and not waiting until he landed on his feet like in the actual film. I could be misremembering, though. Of course, there was also the panel immediately following of a close-up of Qui-Gon's dying words to Obi-Wan, "promise me you'll train the boy." So, I was pretty much asking to be spoiled and have no one to blame but myself there.

I remember getting the novelization less than a week before the film's release and reading through some of it. By opening day, I'd gotten up to the scene of Qui-Gon asking Obi-Wan for Anakin's midi-chlorian count (another big spoiler if only because we'd never seen that word before). It was interesting to hear all those lines from the book spoken aloud. In retrospect, it kinda gives new meaning to Harrison Ford's line "You can write this stuff, George, but you can't say it." I must admit, the dialogue didn't seem nearly as awkward in book form as it sounded in the actual movie.

The second trailer in March gave me the impression that the Naboo space battle happened early in the film, kinda like the Hoth battle in Empire. This was something I didn't have a clear picture of until only shortly before opening day.

There were other things, like the Time magazine article mentioning the cloaked dude who was clearly Palpatine was named Darth Sidious, which I immediately thought was dumb and still do.

For both AotC and RotS I'd been following spoilers the entire time on sites like tfn, so I went in knowing pretty much exactly what would happen. Looking back, man were some of the rumors total bs. Some of them were better than what we actually got, like the rumor of Anakin "collecting" the different parts of the Vader suit throughout Episode III.

I agree there haven't been too many spoilers for Ep7 at this point. For example, we still don't know who Max von Sydow, Lupita Nyong'o, Domnhall Gleeson, Andy Serkis and Adam Driver are playing, and I like that. November 8th seems like way too close of a cut-off point to me. I'm already regretting all the potential spoilers I've already read/seen. For example, based on the leaked concept paintings I think we already have a rough idea of who Andy Serkis is playing (but that's just like my opinion man).

For both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises (especially the latter), I really had to restrain myself from reading spoiler articles. The movies were all the more rewarding because I didn't know how things would play out and had no clue how they'd end. We've got less than a year now until The Force Awakens is released and I think I'm just going to enter spoiler black-out mode right now. I guess that means I can't even look at this thread until December, but oh well, there are and will be plenty of other threads to keep me occupied.

I'll watch the trailers and tv spots, but that's it.

To address several points brought up in this thread,

I think George should've taken a more supervisory role in the EU, rather than simply handing it off and watching the dollars flow in. It's clear that the idea of continuing the story through books was thought up in order to help Lucasfilm build itself up again financially in the early 90's. Make no mistake, they said it was the "official" continuation, which kinda makes George's statements to the contrary all the more annoying.

George needed a way of making money for the company, and the books provided that. He was too obsessed with getting the PT made to bother with the post-RotJ timeline, especially when it was already making that much money without his involvement. Besides, maybe he really did consider RotJ "the end" and thought there would never be an Ep7. He did condense the original plan for episodes 6 through 9 into just one movie, so this is kinda true anyway.

What would've been ideal is George stepping back and being the over-arching supervisor of everything, writing the story outline for the PT and the post-Jedi EU but letting other screenwriters, directors and authors fill in the details. Instead he was hyper-focused on the PT and paid little attention to anything else.

As for the PT somehow ruining the EU, I don't get the argument here. There was barely any EU there to ruin, unless you're referring to the stuff brought up in the Thrawn books. GL specifically mandated early on that no EU stories be set within that timeframe. It's a far cry from the mountains of post-RotJ material that now no longer happened.

Oh, and the ST didn't "need" to be set 30 years later. They could've set Ep7 at the 40 years later point that the books were up to. Ben Skywalker was almost 20 years old IIRC. That actually would've made a good starting point for a new series of movies. Also, they wouldn't have needed to bring up whatever's transpired in the 40 years since Jedi. They could've figured out a way to tell an original story that also happens to take place at that point in the timeline. They would've had three whole years to "build up" to it in the EU anyway.

Well, that's the thing. I never expected him to sell the company.

The shock wasn't that Episode VII was happening, it was that it was happening so soon and under these circumstances.

Funny enough, Twilight 2 is the only movie I can remember walking out of. The cousins voted it the Thanksgiving night movie but it started at 11 and I had to work the Black Friday midnight madness shift. I probably just shouldn't have bothered although at least I didn't pay for my ticket. The scenes I did see were so godawful I probably would've wanted to walk out anyway.

Gosh, some people really hated Batman Begins, didn't they?

Here I thought it was just my walking comic book encyclopedia of a friend and pretty much no one else.

EDIT: Wow, nevermind. I read "Year One" and immediately thought of Batman. Now I'm also curious which Nolan movie is being referenced.

As for walking out and asking for a refund, well, that theater showing Tree of Life might've said it best in their note on the box office window: "you're paying to watch the movie, not to like it."

INv8r_ZIM said:

Called it two years ago.

I called it an even longer time ago ;)

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/3D-STAR-WARS-for-the-masseshas-ARRIVED/post/572201/#TopicPost572201

towne32 said:

Well now that it's confirmed that they finished production on the rest of the PT in 3D (and screening it this year), I assume they'll be releasing that on blu ray by the end of the year. Hopefully they will release something nice for the OT customers as well..

They wouldn't bother releasing it on bd3d unless they had the OT-SE to release on the same day. I wouldn't be surprised if this new 4k restoration was done primarily to have a high-quality starting point for the 3D conversion.

The big question is whether Disney/LFL/Fox will do a '97 style theatrical re-release of all six films, keep it to just the OT or skip it entirely and just do all-day marathons on December 17.

Oh, man. What kind of tangent did I get this thread into?

To get things back on topic, let me just say that the prospect of a 4k blu-ray format hitting the market by the end of 2015 makes me wonder how Disney might handle an OOT release leading up to Ep7 (if they choose to do so).

It might actually be a good idea to get a blu-ray release out of the way by September. They'd make a killing on the 1080p blu-ray just in time for a new format to show up. If they wait any longer, there will be more people who will hold off until they can just buy it in 4k. Look at what happened to dvd sales once hd dvd and blu-ray showed up.

The timing of the GOUT's release is worth considering in the context of looming new formats...

RMW (Reliance Media Works) not RLM (Red Letter Media).

I worked retail long enough to know that popular items do sell out during the holidays and become impossible to find anywhere but ebay. That said, I'd be shocked if the bd's weren't back in stock within the next week or so. I mean, were the dvd's ever "unavailable" for significant stretches of time?

IIRC, the last release before the 2011 blu-ray was the 2008 trilogy box set repackaging of the '06 release with the ultra-slim dvd cases. Did that also go out of print prior to 2010 when the blu-rays were first announced?

That right there should be motivation for Disney putting out a newer edition. All the money going to ebay would go to them instead.