Fang Zei

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.

There are several huge reasons why there will never be a better time than now to restore the unaltereds and get them out there, but the biggest reason imo is so they can heal the division in the fandom as lovelikewinter said. They need to finally put this matter to rest so they can move the **** on with the franchise.

Also, I just don't see a more appropriate time to release it after Episode VII. This isn't Tron: Legacy where they didn't want people to be reminded of the original movie. This is Star Wars we're talking about here, the most successful franchise of all time. Putting out the unaltereds on blu-ray so everyone can spin them up during the wait for Ep7 is a no-brainer.

Could they continue keeping it in their back pocket for later? I guess, but it would be a little awkward cross-promoting with the spin-offs and sequels.

Even from a more general standpoint I don't see the point of waiting. Physical media will only continue to lose its foothold, although I'll admit Star Wars is something people will probably always want a physical copy of. My nightmare scenario is Disney deciding to finally release a restored OOT ... but only as a download.

News of a 4k blu-ray format hitting the market by the end of next year has quelled those fears for now. It's a sign that physical media is sticking around for at least a little longer. I'm not gonna get my hopes quite this high up, but how epic it would be if Disney decided to put out this 4k restoration on 4k blu-ray day-and-date with a regular blu-ray.

SilverWook said:

The trilogy sets with the DVD combos came out just a year or two ago, IIRC?

Just over a year ago, and the initial release was two years before that.

Indeed it's a good question just how long and how many times Fox can re-release the existing discs.

Man, if the supply shortages at Amazon and elsewhere are due to the holidays, then there are a lot of unoriginal (pun intended) gift-buyers out there.

Good God, we can only hope so.

Welcome, XWing4492!

Synapse is a distribution label, not a post-production house like Reliance. He was probably only mentioning them in regards to that one title. The "super secret project" is most likely one of Synapse's titles and not anything having to do with Star Wars.

Even if there's no grand announcement by April, they're gonna have to say something at the convention. These OOT blu-ray rumors have become one gigantic elephant in the room.

It would help if we were given some kind of context for the fb post.

towne32 said:

Not really.

First of all, I think there's a good chance they will release it. If they don't, it will likely be due to the fact that they're unable to, rather than unwilling.

But even if Disney makes the decision to never release the unaltered trilogy, it has nothing to do with the people making VII, and it remains separate from my desire to see the new film. So far, I'm interested. That may change over the next year, who knows.

I'm not sure if you're proposing an actual boycott. The film is going to be massively successful, financially, either way. I can understand not buying a 'complete' blu ray set that includes the Special Editions, though. If you're interested in boycotts, I recall a very silly thread where people proposed buying and returning blu rays. Worth reading for a laugh.

These are pretty much my thoughts on the subject as well.

Buying the existing blu-ray is a much bigger and better example of making the wrong vote with your wallet, which is exactly why I never plan on doing so.

At this point, I would honestly be more surprised if a restored OOT wasn't on the shelves by this time next year.

Mike O said:

If they put it in a giant-ass boxed set which forces me to get the SEs and the PT, and I read that this forum that it is as it should be, I will pay almost any price for it. I won't like it, but this this is something I want badly enough to make the sacrifice.

See, I'm the guy who would gladly buy a set like that if it also included the theatrical prequels and the '97 version of the SE. But yeah, hand over fist if it was just the umpteenth revision of the movies that also included a nicely restored OOT.

As for what they could easily screw up, well, I could see them applying too much DNR if they go the route of using IP's and seps. Really that's just a concern that comes from being dissapointed so many times by catalog titles I was looking forward to on blu-ray. If the unaltereds actually get restored, I'm sure they would keep grain management to a minimum and not go beyond removing dirt and dust.

What will be much easier to screw up is stuff like including all the soundmixes and making sure the film edit conforms to a single version of the unaltered original that was actually shown in theaters.

I look forward to seeing the results. Thank you for undertaking this preservation project, RU.08!

The theatrical prequels are a bigger deal to me than they probably should be, but for better or worse they were "my generation's Star Wars" that we were able to experience for the first time on the big screen. The official dvd version is significantly removed from the highest-grossing film of 1999, the blu-ray even more so.

The stuff that was added for the dvd was probably finished at greater-than-dvd resolution, maybe even full 2k, but those scenes exhibit aliasing and other issues compared to the rest of the blu-ray.

Which night shots are you referring to?

Also, just to avoid confusion (and I'm sure you meant to type this), the air taxi sequence is on Coruscant, not Naboo.

I always liked the blown-out whites in those Theed shots. It gave a more realistic feel to what was going on, like it just happened to be a particularly bright day.

What about RotS?

Were there any differences at all between the 35mm and digital versions in theaters? We all remember the wipe that became a hard cut on the dvd and then went back to being a wipe on the blu-ray. Was it a wipe in both the celluloid and digital prints?

Not unlike the anecdote about the guy who swore the arena scene had different versions, I remember hearing people claim to have seen variations in stuff like the background droids of the Mustafar duel and the end of Vader's Nooooo / the following shot of the blockade runner landing on Naboo.

Baronlando said:

Maybe it's a good thing, it certainly shows they are willing to sell absolutely anything that can be sold. 

And hasn't Lucas spent years and millions of dollars trying to open a museum dedicated to the importance and significance of pop art? Maybe all the exhibits can be smeared with generic looking photoshop.

In the Episode 7 thread on the chud.com forums, two people were recently debating the likelihood of the OOT getting a restoration anytime soon.

One person said it's unlikely to happen while Lucas was still alive. Disney wouldn't want to upset their biggest shareholder and they'll be making too much money off of all the merch to even care about spending the time and money on a restoration just to please a relative handful of people out there.

The other person responded that Lucas was just paid a handsome sum of money in return for the franchise. Disney is going to maximize their profits, and the OOT would be very profitable. The question isn't "why should they," it's "why shouldn't they."

It's only becoming more and more shocking what they'll dig up and repackage with the OOT still languishing in laserdisc quality. First the deleted scenes and ancient BTS on the blu-ray, now this.

Y'know, if this 4k job was for the SE, I wonder how they would go about re-doing stuff like Ian as the Emperor's hologram and Hayden's head on Shaw's body.

Maybe they would just take those shots as they are and plug them right into the new version? The TPM blu-ray did the same thing with the lower-res added scenes from the dvd and, from what I heard, it still looked like that even in the theatrically-released 3D version.

What's causing the higher, more blue-ish color temperature in the 35mm scan? Is this simply a result of the age of the print?

The extended garage scene wasn't in the digital version either AFAIK. The alternate shot of Anakin's hand was the only difference I remember hearing about during the summer of '02.

There was one person who swore the beginning of the Arena scene (when they first bring out the monsters and Padme picks the lock) had slightly different editing at different theaters, but who knows?

I remember reading an interview with one of the vfx guys on the official website claiming there were actually several dozen alterations (such as the speeders in that Obi-Wan shot) in the dvd version.

Do bootlegs exist of both the 35mm and digital versions or do we only have one of them?