Fang Zei

Mocata said:

Han Solo IRL said:

https://abload.de/img/benvaderp8ktk.png

https://abload.de/img/lukefalconcrjkm.png

https://streamable.com/nit5m

Jeez. Everyone is waiting for some miraculous OOT release and they’re doing THIS?

…Wait is Vader’s red/green suit control button been changed to red/blue like in ESB? Weird thing to notice… but y’know.

Since anyone with a Disney+ subscription can now stream the movies in 4k hdr whenever they want, I have to wonder if Disney isn’t planning on restoring the OOT to include in the UHD disc package just so they can give fans a selling point other than simply “the same exact thing you can stream on D+ … but with better compression and on a disc!”

Harmy said:

Looking at the screenshots posted so far, it does look like a new master but not necessarily a new scan, because the clarity/detail level is comparable to or worse than the 2004 masters.
It might be that they simply found the 2004 digital masters before the color grading and sharpening and upscaled them and gave them a new grade, which would have been necessary for HDR anyway.

I feel like you’re overthinking it.

This has to be from the 4k 16-bit restoration we first heard about more than five years ago. Now we know why it took so long to get out there. Disney clearly wanted to save it for their streaming service.

I was checking out the ESB duel and it looks identical to the brief glimpses we got in Reliance MediaWorks’ sizzle reel, and not like the blu-ray.

Logic would dictate that Disney would eventually have to put it out once they’ve run out of ways to milk the OT again and again with multiple releases. We’re already at actual 2160p-on-disc and there’s still no word on whether or not we’ll see the unaltered’s properly restored this time.

canofhumdingers said:

Huh. Rogue One, to me, felt like some of the best EU from the 90’s (like the early X-wing novels and comics or the dark forces video game series) brought to live action.

This trailer feels like some of the more bizarre or “out there” 90’s EU like, say, Dark Empire. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not yet…

Gareth Edwards mentioned that he was a big Dark Forces fan iirc, and it’s been pointed out that Jyn and Cassian could totally be Jan and Kyle.

Didn’t Lucas say back in the 90’s that Dark Empire reminded him of how he would’ve handled the ST? They consulted him for IX, so maybe that explains the similarities?

nl0428 said:

When the Original Trilogy makes its way to 4K, it will, without a doubt, be the 2011 Special Edition. However, do you think it’s possible that Disney and Lucasfilm will at least correct both the colors and sound mixes to match the theatrical presentations and sound far less compressed?

It’s going to be from an entirely newer scan of the negative, so they’ll have to redo the color-correction anyway.

As for the sound mix, your guess is as good as mine.

BedeHistory731 said:

Part of me wouldn’t mind waiting, see how much they absorb from pop culture osmosis alone.

This was pretty much my experience growing up.

I got into Trek first, knowing pretty much nothing about it until my mother rented Search for Spock on vhs for me when I was five (this would’ve been 1990, so do the math). That’s kind of like going into Star Wars cold and starting with ESB or RotJ, but either way the movie blew my mind and I was hooked. I saw all five films before seeing Undiscovered Country in the theater.

Star Wars was something I just always knew about and don’t remember “discovering.” So yeah, I never had that experience of sitting down and watching Empire for the first time and finding out the big twist. My earliest clear memory of watching the “I am your father” moment for the first time was after I’d already seen RotJ on USA, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t even part of a proper viewing of ESB but rather a clip on some making-of / retrospecticus special.

But certainly by ‘93 or ‘94 at the latest I’d seen all three from beginning to end.

trillary dump said:

dgraham414 said:

Can’t wait until I can have my complete box set with theatrical-97-04-11 and revisited all together. For now other reason then I totally need 5 different ways to watch the same movie

I’m glad I’m not the only one who wants to make a box set like that! I’m actually trying to make three multi-disc boxsets for each movie like the Blade Runner box set!

I’ve long said that if we ever got an official set that included more versions than just the original and “most recent” (presumably revised even further from the 2011) that it should be the ‘97 that takes priority over the ‘04 and ‘11 versions, which were only ever seen on home video and tv anyway with the exception of a few screenings in theaters here and there every now and again.

But the irony is that if they really wanted to still include the ‘04 and ‘11 versions they could simply branch them onto the ‘97 disc, just as the middle disc of the Blade Runner set branched the ‘92 and both ‘82 versions. They would have to conform everything to the same color timing (preferably the ‘97 color) and they’d have to include three separate audio tracks, but it’s totally doable.

IIRC, the 2013 reissues of the 2011 OT and PT bd packs included dvd copies of the 2011 versions, so it should be the 2011 versions across all formats now.

The irony is that digital movie cameras improved by leaps and bounds in the decade following AotC’s release. We forget that the 3D rigs James Cameron used to shoot the live-action sections of Avatar were still using essentially the same 2/3” Sony cameras as George used on AotC and RotS, just with a few improvements. It was right around that time (2007) that the Red camera made its debut and started the competition between the various companies that got us to where we are now, where you shoot something digitally and emulate grain in post and no one but the most experienced cinematographers would be able to tell it wasn’t actually shot on film.

George always wanted to move beyond the photochemical realm and I suspect that had he directed Episode VII he wouldn’t have even bothered using the only then recently-available Arri Alexa 4:3 to match the Anamorphic look of the OT/TPM and just shot it in 3D using spherical optics. So we would’ve been back to the bokeh of AotC/RotS but with 35mm-or-larger-sized sensors this time, thus giving The ST its own distinct look from the OT or the PT. Back in early 2012 that’s basically how I thought it was going to go. We’d get the 3D conversions of I-VI one movie per year like Rick McCallum was saying, and then in like 2019 or 2020 we’d get George’s shot-in-3D Episode VII, kind of like ‘97/‘99 all over again but on a much longer timeline.

Then George sold the company.

I feel like it would make way more sense for it to be the latter, since using the old disc would make TFA the only commentary-less saga film of this reissue. TLJ had Rian’s commentary from the get-go.

I’m guessing RO and Solo never got commentary tracks?

I wonder if TFA is the original release or the one from the 3D combo that has the Abrams commentary.

Yeah, it’s just to have them out there individually but with cheap packaging and a digital copy this time.

We’re not even going to see the 4k master in 1080p form until the UHD hits. They’re going to want the 2160p HDR version to look as stunning as possible compared to anything that’s been available before.

They’ve already announced dates for three untitled Star Wars movies in 2022, 2024 and 2026, all in December. Maybe Rian’s trilogy could take the summers?

Broom Kid said:

I think it’s because the episode numbers becoming a prominent part of the marketing and labeling really only happened for the prequels. Before (and after) that point, the focus was less on the episode number (which we know was mostly a gimmick) and more on the title itself.

I’m curious as to whether Empire of Dreams has at least been upscaled. I remember hearing they were working on making as much of that HD as possible, so when it appeared on Amazon Prime I checked it out and it seems to be a straight DVD rip.

Also interesting to get confirmation that the files being used for Star Wars are the digital masters, complete with that weirdly cut-up fanfare over the Lucasfilm logo and the 20th Century Fox logo only appearing on Star Wars. I wonder if they’re only using those for this test, or if that’s going to be what’s rolled out for the rest of us in November. I was pretty curious as to whether they were going to reinstate the logos for the entire OT/PT, or cut them all off entirely. But if this holds through for official launch, it’ll basically just be blu-ray rips.

For the OT it was the titles themselves, for the PT it was the episode numbers, and for the ST they clearly wanted you to care most about the fact that it was STAR WARS.

Yeah, I’m also curious if these will still be the old OT masters once the service goes live or if that’s only for the test. It’s especially curious that they’d be recycling them yet again when Rogue One is being made available for streaming in 4k.

I’ll be honest, the whole idea of Luke using (or at least appearing to be using) Anakin’s lightsaber as a symbolic turnaround from him throwing it over his shoulder at the beginning of the movie never even occurred to me until now. Even though it’s all an illusion, I was always puzzled by why he wasn’t using his green saber from RotJ. Other than the flashback, do we ever see it at all, even if it’s just lying around somewhere in his hut on Ahch-to?

Did he still have it on his belt in that final shot of the first flashback where he’s kneeling next to Artoo watching the training temple burn?

Since Kylo Ren saw Anakin’s saber get broken in half, wouldn’t that have been a dead giveaway? It makes a little more sense that he doesn’t immediately figure out what’s going on if we assume that Luke’s green saber got destroyed on the unnamed (unless it’s in one of those DK books or something) training temple planet and thus a rebuilt Anakin saber makes a little more sense. But still, that’s a pretty short turnaround time.

SilverWook said:

Seeing that The Black Hole finally got a Blu-Ray release last month exclusively through the Disney Movie Club, I wonder if they might take this route with the OUT?

I’ve seen that idea brought up elsewhere, but if that rumor from April is true (that each film will have four discs when it hits UHD next year) then I don’t see how one of those discs wouldn’t be the unaltered version.

The idea that they’d put the OUT out there via DMC implies that Disney doesn’t want to force people to buy versions of the movie they don’t want. I really think we’ve got it backwards. The OOT doesn’t need the SE to sell in bigger numbers, the SE needs the OOT. A lot more people are aware of how many times these films have been revised now than in 2004. That initial dvd release sold like crazy, but I’ve heard multiple people tell me they were shocked to get to the end and see Hayden as Anakin.

A significant percentage of the fans would prefer to watch the original versions, and a not insignificant percentage would probably even prefer the 1997 versions (updated vfx but no replaced actors).

LordZerome1080 said:

Here’s hoping the rumours about a Blu Ray release in September contains the OUT. Also hoping D+ Has it.

There’s pretty much no chance Disney+ would have the OUT. In fact, since I-VI will be up on the service “within the first year,” that’s all the more reason for Disney to include the OUT in the physical 4k ultra hd releases next year and make it exclusive to the physical release. It would give people one more reason to buy them instead of simply waiting for them to go up on the streaming service.

Disney has said the service will have 4k HDR content “where applicable,” although I don’t think they’ve said anything yet about just when exactly I-VI will be available to stream, at all, at any resolution.

It would be a little weird if the new master ended up making its first appearance in the form of a stream. For one thing, Disney would be undercutting their own sales of a physical UHD release if they were to do that.

This “special look” wasn’t made to go out to theaters anyway, and probably can’t be streamed on youtube in anything higher than 1080 (although please correct me if I’m wrong), so the OT footage coming from a higher res source wouldn’t have made any noticeable difference, hence why they went with the off-the-shelf blu-rays.

It’s worth noting that the first teaser trailer for RotS back in late ‘04 used the then only recently finished Lowry master for its two or three ANH shots and in fact used the alternate camera angle (the close-up of Alec Guinness) for Obi-Wan’s “for over a thousand generations” line. In the actual movie we don’t cut to his close-up until the “before the dark times” part IIRC. I don’t know if that alternate angle was also the OCN or if they used another source, but presumably LFL had it restored just for that teaser.

Similarly, the first trailer for Crystal Skull used footage from the Indy trilogy. I don’t know if it was from the ‘03 Lowry masters or the 2008 remasters (the ones that were broadcast on WoWoW and which were used, with a different color grade, for the eventual blu-rays of Temple and Crusade).

It would be cool if they did something similar for the final trailer in October. The teaser trailer from April went out to theaters as an actual 4k file, so if they were going to use OT footage I feel like they’d want it to look as good as possible.

Yeah, think I’ll bow out of this thread now just to be safe. It’s going to be a long (almost) four months.

I feel like the inevitable final trailer in (probably) October will tide me over, and in the meantime there’s been just enough info put out there to keep me guessing how this all will end.

It’s also worth noting that we’d already gotten, off the top of my head, at least fifteen Marvel-based films in the span of nine years before the MCU even came along.

We will have gotten as many big-budget Star Wars films in the span of only four years as we got in the franchise’s first twenty-five.

The 4k UHD artwork for TLJ and Solo pretty much matched their respective poster art IIRC, so unless Disney reissues those with different artwork to match whatever they do with the covers of the other films (as they have for next month’s bd releases) then it would make sense to go with the theatrical poster art for I-VI and TFA and RO when they eventually hit 4k.

I also think there’s a chance they might just commission new artwork yet again for those other eight movies so that they’ll better match the 4k artwork for TLJ and Solo and whatever they end up doing for TRoS.

Stotchy said:

I’m very keen to know whether they use the new master for this or the existing 2004 master.

Even if they used the new master that is the SE versions of the OT I would be very happy with higher quality versions with improved colour timings.

The only thing making me think it might be the new master is that they’re all being released by Disney this time.

But it wouldn’t surprise me if all they did was slap new art on the top side of the disc and everything on the data side is exactly same.

Bill Hunt has weighed in over at The Digital Bits. He’s convinced I-VI (and Rogue One and TFA) are hitting 4k next year, probably early in the year to coincide with IX’s home video release.

Here are his thoughts regarding the possibility of an unaltered restoration:

“Now, before you all start bombarding me with questions like, “Are they going to include the original theatrical versions?!” take a deep breath, folks. I don’t know. None of this is official yet. And if I were you, I would assume not so you don’t start getting your hopes up. I’ve seen a bit of speculation online to suggest that there are plans to include the theatrical cuts of the original three films in 4K, but history suggests you should treat this with a grain of salt.

That said, it’s certainly possible. Lucasfilm DID allow the Academy to show a rare 70 mm print of the original version of Star Wars (1977) back in June… and even a week before that was announced it would have seemed inconceivable. So it’s possible there’s been a softening by George Lucas and that Disney does have plans to include those versions in any 4K release. I’ve said MANY times here at The Bits in recent years that – at some point – Disney would absolutely release those versions. The studio simply knows too well how badly fans want them and how much money they could make by including them. Could it happen with a 4K release next year? I don’t know and I think it would be safer to assume not and allow ourselves to be surprised.”

Rodney-2187 said:

If they release a restored unaltered Original Trilogy, they can put it in a homeless guy’s sock and I’d buy it.

My feelings pretty much exactly, and this artwork isn’t even all that bad as covers go. The individual cases from the 2004 set and the GOUT also looked rather terrible.

The inclusion of a digital copy and use of cheaper non-steelbook packaging for I-VI and design uniformity across all ten films seems to be the only reasons Disney is doing this now that their buyout of Fox is complete. I wonder if the extras discs for the four most recent movies will be included.