Fang Zei

I'm pretty sure the desert escape pod shots are from the 2004 job. The voice-over guy even says "here's what we delivered for dvd." The only weird part is that he refers to the film element as an IP whereas I thought they were working with o-neg scans. Maybe he was simply using the term "IP" in place of "scan."

The lightsaber shots are from a different demo-reel, one that contains nothing from before 2009. Also, the framing doesn't match the blu-ray. I think the Star Wars and Empire footage in this particular reel is from the new(er) 4k job.

Another thing to consider:

One big reason Lucas decided to put out the OT on dvd in 2004 is because he realized he could use it to hype RotS, the movie that was going to complete the saga.

Now Disney wants to hype the continuation of the saga.

The 4k SE will probably be the "final" revision of the movies. George knows he can't keep changing these movies forever. It's worth noting he's the same age now as Ridley Scott when the final cut of Blade Runner was released.

To me they wouldn't even need to include the '04 and '11 versions for it to be the Star Wars equivalent of the Blade Runner set. Just give me the versions that got wide theatrical releases (as I'm sure the 2015 or whenever version will) and I'll be more than satisfied.

I second (third? fourth?) all of the Robert A. Harris love. If there's one person who would know the best way to go about restoring these films, it's him.

Cedric T Sealion said:

darklordoftech said:

Nick66 said:

Trust me, Star Trek fans are. All the time.

Give me one example of a Star Trek fan complaining about a Star Trek movie having matte lines.

I don't think they moan about matte lines, but they are certainly crying out for the extended versions of the Trek films to be released on blu-ray.

I'm the guy crying out just for decent-looking transfers of the versions they did give us. When I heard it was only gonna be the theatrical cuts for the blu-ray debut I was actually thrilled.

Then I saw the screenshots.

Wrath of Khan looks great thanks to the restoration they gave it, but the other five are like the blu-ray equivalent of the GOUT for me.

That's the big problem when it comes to stuff like this: ignorance on the part of the consumer. They assume that because they're watching a blu-ray it looks perfect and exactly as it should. With new release titles they're almost always correct (although even that has exceptions. See: the blu-ray of the finished-on-film Transcendence), but with catalogue titles it's a very mixed bag. There was a long stretch of time when my attitude towards the quality of older films on blu-ray was "if it's not one thing it's another." In other words, it was rare that we got a catalog release that completely lived up to the potential of the format.

But the issues with most other big catalogue titles pale in comparison to the Trek movie bd's.

Are people really gonna care, though? Yeah, they'll probably notice the matte lines, but they'll also notice a lot of other stuff that was changed.

.... Except I highly doubt an official OOT restoration would omit the original crawl. If anything, the '77 crawl would get priority. They can (and should) include the option of watching the movie with the '81 crawl via alternate blu-ray/dvd video angles. The region 1 prequel dvd's did exactly this to show the crawl in French and Spanish.

The same goes for matte lines, which they would not be cleaning up if we're talking a strict restoration here. That was a technological limitation of the time. It's not about making "the vast majority of fans" happy, it's about preserving the films as they were originally presented. 

moviefreakedmind said:

So, this means that if RMW is doing this 4K restoration, they have to restore the unaltered scenes of Mos Eisley, Yavin, Death Star, etc. etc. and then go back in and recreate all the lame CGI?

No, all the work done in '97 would presumably just be scanned back in from the filmed-out negative, just as it was in '04. It's the changes made in '04 and '11 that would need to be redone.

IIRC, Zombie mentioned somewhere (either on savestarwars or secrethistoryofstarwars) that the negatives were assembled in an A-B fashion. That is, over/under/over/under and so forth. This allowed the SE team to remove and replace the relevant pieces of negative without destroying any frames. 

What they could've done, if they had so desired, is simply set Episode 7 at wherever and whenever they were up to in the novels. It would've certainly been possible. The only real problem would've been Chewie's absence, but even that could be communicated to the layman audience with a moment of Han looking at his photograph or something. But they literally could've gotten away with just not bringing up whatever's happened in the 30-40 years since RotJ. It's not like previous stuff hasn't "ignored" what came before. They could've simply "ignored" once more, but instead decided to jettison everything George didn't have a direct involvement with.

I disagree that "the old EU was never considered canon." Everything from Zahn onwards was certainly considered canon. As I recall, it wasn't until 2008 clone wars that the idea of the different "levels" of canon was introduced. That show set such a giant precedent of overwriting EU it was covering the same ground as (in this case the previous clone wars stuff from 2002-2005).

It actually had nothing to do with that. Mark Webb bailed on his two-picture deal with Fox after 500 Days of Summer and so Columbia agreed to slap that X-Men scene at the end as recompense.

This is kinda random, but one of the HBO channels was just now showing The Abyss in actual HD. I'm dog sitting for my grandfather's caretaker this week while they're with my aunt and uncle at their beach place. I checked to see if they were subscribed to HBO and just happened to notice The Abyss in the lineup thinking it would just be the usual 4:3 SD master upscaled, but nope, much to my surprise it was actual hd and 2.35:1. To my knowledge there's no previous hd transfer of the movie, which means this is undoubtedly the one RMW worked on that will be used for the blu-ray.

I must say it looks great. It's got all the staples of a modern 4k/2k transfer with lots of fine detail muddied only by the broadcast compression. There's a very slight teal push but it's nothing egregious and all of the other colors are still there.

If I could watch the OOT like this I'd be thrilled.

Maybe that's exactly why the prequels haven't been released individually: They know Eps I and II wouldn't sell nearly as well as III.

I'm the crazy guy who would buy all six films on blu-ray if the theatrical cuts were included. The blu-ray of RotS already is the theatrical cut if I'm not mistaken.

I've seen several movies projected digitally in theaters over the last couple years that I could've sworn were shot on film and weren't. Digital's capabilities are now close enough to film's for many of the directors and cinematographers out there. Certainly it's become hard to tell the difference as far as 35mm goes.

It's the things Abrams and Nolan and Tarantino are doing with film that can't be done digitally, like shooting in 65mm. Yes, there is currently a 65mm-sized Phantom camera that Imax uses, but it's only 4k and still not nearly as big as real 15/70.

yoda-sama said:

And no, Fox would not be the right place to ask, as they would never spend the money to restore a property that will be handed off in a few years, at this point it is up to Disney/Lucasfilm to fit the bill for any new transfers and then tell Fox how high to jump.

It also isn't up to Fox what gets released (and when) in the first place. That's entirely up to Lucasfilm. I bet an email back from Fox would read "Are you kidding? We'd love to put out the original versions if only they'd let us!"

I'm assuming that the 2013 bd/dvd trilogy combo packs were something Fox was simply within its rights to reissue. Technically there's nothing on those discs that wasn't in the 2011 set. Yeah, it's the first time the 2011 versions were on dvd, but that's splitting hairs.

For some reason, the fact that the movies haven't been released individually on blu-ray gets my hopes up. It could mean that we might eventually get the blu-ray equivalent of the 2006 release, only done right this time.

I guess this means we can expect Rian Johnson's Episode VIII to be shot on film as well.

AntcuFaalb said:

Fang Zei said:

The Spike tv deal expires this year

When?

It was a six-year deal and the first airing was Spring of 2008, so it might've already expired for all we know.

I remember the USA Network and SciFi Channel airings pretty vividly as well. They were also some of my earliest exposures to the films (I turned 9 in June of '94). 

I still remember the bumpers at the end of the USA commercial breaks. It would just be several seconds of footage from a scene with the announcer guy going "we now return to" whichever movie. When they came back from the final commercial break for Jedi, the announcer guy would add "and may the force be with you."

For the letterboxed SciFi Channel airings, I still remember how the bumpers for Empire's commercial breaks would be Billy Dee Williams walking out into a room filled with the miniatures from the movies (iirc) and sharing bits of trivia like how the Executor model had however many thousand light panels. I distinctly remember he pronounced it like you pronounce "execute" and not "executive." They did something similar with Takei and Koenig for the Trek movies, which is how I first heard the story about the Starfleet Academy movie that never was.

Good point about Netflix and 4k. I hadn't even thought of that. They were making a big deal about how you can stream House of Cards in 4k with the right equipment, even though that's 4k at bitrates below even blu-ray, but I digress.

The Spike tv deal expires this year, if I'm not mistaken, so the timing of this would make even more sense.

Ah, Black Angel is the movie I was trying to remember the name of.

Here's my best guess at what's going on:

This rumored digital release in November will probably be the 2011 versions of the movies and nothing more. The big deal about it that LFL/Disney will probably make in the advertising is that this is the first time these movies have been made available to buy/rent as a digital download (which, to my knowledge, would be true). Maybe they'll throw in some itunes extras as an added bonus. We already heard Roger Christian say that his movie (forgot the name of it) might be included in said digital extras.

Meanwhile, we know pretty much for a fact that Reliance MediaWorks has done a 4k remaster of the OT. The comparison of the Obi-Wan/Vader duel with other transfers of the movie seems to indicate these are not the unaltered sabers. Since the sabers were still unaltered in the '97 version, this would suggest that at least some of the '04/'11 changes are in fact being redone. My best guess is that this was to be (and might still be) for the 3D conversion and theatrical re-release of the revised OT, an "SE 2.0" if you will.

Good God!

Nice going, Neverar!

Heh, I was actually gonna ask if someone could look up that shot on the blu-ray but I wasn't expecting such a perfectly lined-up comparison.

Darth Id said:

I certainly hope they're not doing a new sound mix for a purported "OUT".

More likely taking footage for a demonstrative special feature for Episode VII that will compare/contrast OT and ST techniques/technology.

This early?

I'd say this is either for a new SE or they're getting the audio just right for the OOT.

Or could they just be tweaking the existing 2011 audio for this rumored digital release?

Speaking of which, if the digital release is in November it would make sense that we haven't heard an official announcement just yet.

It's Comic Con.

They were probably just showing it just to have something to show on the big projectors in the background while everyone partied it up on the convention floor.