Fang Zei

The only scanning that was done back in '97 was for inserting cgi into existing shots (for example, the rontos and dewbacks in the background when Ben, Luke and the droids pull up to the Cantina). ILM also recomposited the miniature effects shots digitally. Aside from that, it was a totally photochemical restoration.

In 2003/2004, the negative was scanned, according to that same press conference I downloaded from TFN, "by some post houses here in L.A." (exact quote from the Lowry guys). I'm curious how the '04 changes such as the newer Jabba model were handled. Did they go back to the same film element they used as a starting point for the Jabba scene in '96 and simply rescan it and start all over? Also, I'm not 100% sure but I think the new '97 shots (expanded Mos Eisley, enhanced Death Star attack, recompe, etc) were simply scanned back off of the negative. Unless ILM still had the final renders on some kind of readable storage after almost seven years, I'm pretty sure they were just scanned back off the filmed-out negative (these pieces of the o-neg would still be in pretty good shape since they were only six or seven years old).

Anyway, the scans were color-corrected and (correct me if I'm wrong) the additional changes like the '04 Jabba and Ian's hologram in Empire were added. All of this (the color-correction and additional changes) was done by Lucasfilm before being sent off to Lowry for restoration.

Anyone else still slightly hung up on the fact that Episode VII won't (as of now) open with the 20th Century Fox fanfare?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Disney should just give Fox theatrical distribution rights to the ST in exchange for getting home video rights to the existing movies (including EpIV) right away instead of waiting until 2021 (and until forever in the case of EpIV). The majority of the theatrical gross would still be Lucasfilm's (and therefore Disney's) anyway, not Fox's. Fox would merely get a small percentage of the gross in exchange for distributing, just as they did on Empire, Jedi and the prequels. The big difference this time is that Disney could just hold on to the rights for everything else (dvd/blu-ray, download, streaming, tv broadcast).

I would be cool with the planned spinoffs not having the fanfare (maybe just opening with the Lucasfilm logo and that's it), but if you're gonna have "Episode VII" in the title of your movie, you'd better open it right.

The 35mm frame, if shot in cinemascope, is 1.175:1. The squeeze of the anamorphic lens is exactly 2x, so you get a 2.35:1 image.

As for the quotes, I can understand the confusion but what they mean is that it's the o-neg conformed to the special edition. When they were preparing the SE in '95/'96, they actually cut all of the changes directly into the o-neg, presumably (we would all hope) placing the original pieces into storage.

The Jim Ward quote was from an audio recording of a press conference I downloaded from TFN way the hell back in September of '04. I listened to it so many times (there's some great bits from Hamill and Kershner) that I've got a phonographic memory of what was said. Ward's exact words were:

"For this one (the dvd), we went back to the original negative. When we did the previous video transfers they were off IP, one generation away from the negative. Detail has never been seen like this before."

There are multiple sources that back this up. It would be great if you were right, but think about it:

GL considers the SE his definitive vision for the movie. Why would he use a second or third generation source as a basis for all copies (prints, telecines, etc)??

1828 x 1556 is the resolution at which the '04 scan was likely done. That's 2K for cinemascope, the format in which the OT (and, for what it's worth, TPM) was shot. Multiply 1828 by the 2x anamorphic squeeze of the lens and you've got 3656 x 1556, a 2.35:1 ratio. Or, if you'd like, simply cut the horizontal resolution in half and you've got 1828 x 778, also 2.35:1. Since the raw scan itself is only 1828 - less than even full 1920 HD res, nevermind 2048 - I guess some kind of magic is worked. Beats me.

Anyway, I had a couple paragraphs typed up about how the o-neg is probably still in its '97 conformation (despite how I'd love for danny_boy to be right), but this stupid ipad had to go and refresh the page after I opened up another tab to look up the exact numbers I just posted. Ugh, I gotta get a new laptop at some point. Anyway, to quickly summarize, Jim Ward said in '04 that they went back to the original negative for the dvd (the lowry master that was also used for the blu-ray). He said that the previous transfers were from IP and even specified that this meant "one generation off the negative." So, if the o-neg was still in its original 1977 conformation, it wouldn't have made much sense for them to scan it in and then meticulously "respecialize it." They might as well have just scanned the '97 IP if that had been the situation.

Harmy said:

I am however a purist in that I think that any official release of an unaltered version should be really absolutely unaltered beyond some basic cleanup. I actually hate the idea of a version that wouldn't have all the most obvious changes but have the "invisible" fixes such as recompositing or removing wires etc. An official release like that to me would be more offensive than an obvious Special Edition, unless again it would have the original original alongside it.

This goes for other films as well; it bothers me that in the BD of Aliens they removed the hole in the ground where Bishop's real body is hiding or that they removed the cobra reflection from the Raiders Blu Ray. It doesn't bother me to a point where it would taint my enjoyment of the movie because they are small changes but it does bother me.

Couldn't agree with you more. It really bothered me when word got out that there'd been changes made to Aliens and I saw that screenshot comparison. Pretty disappointing considering James Cameron's comments about finding the changes made to Star Wars "disturbing" and even saying that the version of his own movie Avatar that won all the oscars should be considered the definitive version, not the extended cuts.

To then turn around and pull a modern digital fix while still calling these the versions from 1986/1991 felt disingenuous. Plus, as people have mentioned in forums such as the one you linked to, that wasn't the only fix they made. They blatantly re-ordered the shots in that one scene (no, it didn't make sense, but that's how it was originally) and I remember reading something about a matte shot that's been digitally fixed, but I haven't seen a screenshot comparison.

What I thought was kinda dumb about the bishop fix was that it's not like we don't already know that bishop is an imaginary character played by Lance Henricksen. He obviously didn't actually get torn in two (now that would've been dedication!). So, when you start fixing visible stuff like that, stuff that's flashing by in an instant anyway, you're going down a slippery slope in my opinion.

Evil Dead, interestingly enough, hit blu-ray right around the same time, and also had similar digital fixes, also at its director's behest. This kinda angered me even more than the fixes made to Aliens. To digitally fix Evil Dead is to take away part of the charm of that movie, imo.

But, like you said, it's not until we're seeing a version that's vastly different editorially (like an extended or director's cut) or blatantly different content-wise (like the SE's of Star Wars) that we actually consider it a different version of the movie. Modern day audiences who don't know a movie like its die-hard fans will never realize they're watching an altered version. Hell, it bothers me that Disney got rid of the original cgi Disney logo and fanfare for the Toy Story blu-ray. Once again, it's kinda ruining the "charm" of it all, not for the entire movie, mind you, but it now feels like the movie is starting several seconds too late.

I wish filmmakers like Cameron and Raimi (and corporations like Disney) would just leave well enough alone, but what are you gonna do.

I'll share my story about when/why I became an OT purist later, just had to get my thoughts out there on this.

After this Disney deal, I'd be kinda surprised if LFL used the (now ancient) Lowry master as a basis for the 3D conversion of the OT. They need a high-quality 4K source to start from. For TPM, they used the original filmout tapes (since TPM was made just before the DI era), which were used to make the theatrical prints back in '99. AOTC and ROTS still presumably have their highest quality digital cinema masters intact, so those 3D conversions will at least be up to par so far as the source is concerned (the quality of the conversion will be another matter).

The OT should still be considered a film-based project, and thus in need of a 4K rebuild. The only potential problem is that sizable chunks of the movies have now gone through the computer (for the digital recompositing) or been rendered from scratch, in both cases at a limited resolution (presumably 2K if we're talking 1996).

Ideally, Disney would write a check for the kind of treatment Blade Runner got for its Final Cut. That would mean redoing the digital recompositing at 6K this time around. Also, I'm wondering if ILM still at least has the final renders for the cgi shots (I'm wondering the same thing about Jurassic Park). For the Lowry transfer in '04, I'm pretty sure they just scanned in the '97 shots off the negative (there's still some noticeable film-based anomalies even in those completely cgi shots), but it would be nice if they could just use the direct digital source for the 3D conversion, instead of having to pull it off the negative. I wonder if it would even be possible to re-render those shots at 4K .....

Then there's the matter of preserving the OOT and, ideally, the '97 SE as well. If the missing pieces were in fact put into storage, it's a simple matter of scanning everything in. The o-neg is currently in its '97 conformation, so they've got the SE version all ready to go right there, given the proper color-timing, of course. It would be great if they could just use the o-neg as a basis for all three projects:

-'97 SE (scan, color time and you're done)

-OOT (scan the missing pieces, color time, you're done)

-3D version / "Final Cut" treatment (redo the recomps and cgi at a higher res, convert movies to 3D, you're done)

If they follow the Final Cut model exactly, they'll simply use existing interpositives for the older versions. That would still be a huge step up from anything that's been officially released thus far, but:

1) the '85 interpositives are grainy as hell, and

2) In world where we have meticulously de-specialized fan edits using the lowry (negative scan) transfer as a basis, yeah, it would be a tad ridiculous not to use the negative for an official release of the OOT as well.

What do you guys predict will happen????

Baronlando said:

Since episode 7 is coming in 2015 I'd figure the 3D was being accelerated to be done before that

Yup.

It would make little sense for them to release the 3D conversions of Episodes IV, V and VI after Episode VII had already hit theaters. We'll see them in early 2015 at the latest, it's a safe bet. I just hope it doesn't mean a rushed, slapdash conversion. They're getting much better at it now, if the 3d trailers for Jurassic Park, Man of Steel and Star Trek were any indication.

It's a weird thing to get hung-up on, I'll admit, but one thing I really don't like about Lucas having directed the prequels forming the six-film saga is that you've now got the first four movies irising out to "directed by George Lucas" and the last two movies irising out to other guys' names. Episode IV should've remained the only Lucas-directed Star Wars movie.

I reiterate what I've said in other threads on this topic:

For each of the three movies, give me a three-blu-ray set that includes all theatrically-released versions of the films. This would mean the original (1977/81, 1980 and 1983), special edition (1997) and 3D (2014/15) versions. This would be the Blade Runner treatment for the OT as far as I'm concerned. Use seamless branching for the '81 ANH crawl and we're good.

There's debate to be had on what sources would be used for the original vfx shots. Correct me if I'm wrong, but those sections of the o-neg had completely faded and had to be re-composited digitally for the SE. I'm sure there are non-fade sources out there for those shots (seps perhaps), so there are probably ways of including these shots in a hypothetical OOT restoration without re-compositing them (which shouldn't be done if we're gonna call this the original version).

I'd also like 100% original versions of the prequels, with TPM rebuilt from the filmout tapes they used for the blu-ray and 3D conversion, and an AOTC without that ugly teal cast and seamlessly branched to include the 35mm, digital and IMAX cuts of the film.

The original trilogy (or, at the very least, Star Wars and Empire) works so well because the first film, written and directed by Lucas, had the challenge of a limited budget and a controlling hollywood studio. Empire was controlled by Lucas, but he kept himself resigned to simply writing the story and executive producing. Finally there's Jedi, where Lucas controlled things a little more, but you've still got Marquand and Kasdan.

In all three cases, Lucas' influence is offset by other factors. Those other factors were pretty much absent in the prequels.

At the very least, we should've had a Jedi scenario where maybe Lucas co-wrote the script and even directed a few scenes himself, but we still had another director to give input Lucas wouldn't have considered on his own. Ideally, we should've gotten an Empire scenario.

AntcuFaalb said:

SilverWook said:

zombie84 said:

You must live in the United States pf Blockbuster Video.

But seriously, the last time Blockbuster mattered was 2004. The company has been effectively dismantled since 2008 or so.

It seems so. I'm sure location and demographics have something to do with it. (The major indie video rental place in the area is also a record shop.)

I've heard some video stores are still rocking with VHS in predominately senior communities. I imagine the new release section is a tad thin?

I have an excellent (thriving!) Blockbuster near me. I live in Columbia, MD.

Man, I used to think that the BLOCKBUSTER EMPIRE would be around forever...

timdiggerm said:

AntcuFaalb said:

I have an excellent (thriving!) Blockbuster near me. I live in Columbia, MD.

True, but there used to be like 3 or 4 in the Columbia area.

Source: Former employee of one that doesn't exist anymore.

DC area represent!

Growing up just outside the western edge of the Fall Church city limits, I actually never lived within a short enough driving distance of a blockbuster. Closest one was miles away. It didn't matter, of course, since there were other places that were much closer. I remember an erol's about a mile away when I was like five, which later became a box office video and I think is now a hallmark store or something. A year or two later, I remember a West Coast Video opening up about a mile away in the opposite direction. This later became a Forbes (circa '96) and then a Potomac Video (circa 2000), which then had to move to a smaller space in an adjacent plaza (circa 2007) before Netflix and the economy finally killed it (circa 2010). Ah, good memories of that place. Fanboys was the last dvd I remember renting there (May 19th, 2009) before it eventually disappeared.

There was also a Hollywood Video a couple miles' drive into Falls Church, not sure if it's still there now, kinda doubt it.

My parents have been in the process of selling that house I grew up in, so these days I've been bouncing between my grandfather's place in Vienna (ironically, much much closer to that blockbuster, if it's even still there (I haven't checked in a while)) and my Mom's place in DC. I actually ended up getting a blockbuster card several years ago after my friend moved to Annandale and the blockbuster was the nearest video place.

When I finally went back to finish college a couple years ago, a blockbuster had become the closest place to rent movies. There had been a Video Americain in town, but when I came back it had closed its doors. Found out a lot of their collection ended up in the hands of the school library, which itself already had a good 10,000 dvd's (even a few laserdiscs and bd's) and thus made paying to watch movies kinda pointless. I remember we ventured out to bb once to try to find the original dawn of the dead, which the library didn't have for some reason, but neither did they.

I got a blu-ray player about four years ago after hearing about a sweet online promotion where you could get a (good) player and four bd's all for $200, pretty damn good deal at the time. I've actually sold off most of my dvd's, of which I had more than a hundred.

Sometimes this was to my chagrine. For example:

I sold off my Star Trek movie dvd's in anticipation of their release on blu-ray, was let down when the screenshots went up online and - with the exception of Wrath of Khan, which got a full restoration - they looked either DNR'd or contrast-boosted or a horrid combination of the two. Undiscovered Country's blu-ray is sourced from a 1080i master, probably because they wanted all the movies to be in their theatrical cuts and didn't have any other readily (non-expensive) available source than some ancient hdtv master. That boxset was like the blu-ray equivalent of what LFL pulled on dvd with the GOUT.

That having been said, it's worth noting that even though - as has been said in the last couple pages of this thread - the studios are not seeing the revenue they expected from these expensive restorations (like godfather and wizard of oz) ..... THEY'RE DOING THEM ANYWAY. Now that Disney owns Lucasfilm, there is no excuse beyond not wanting Fox to make a home video distribution profit off the OOT, which is negligible anyway.* Like I said, they should just give Fox theatrical distribution rights on EpVII in exchange for home video on the existing films.

*Assuming, as we've already speculated, that GL didn't have some clause in the deal about the original versions never seeing the light of day.

Yeah, after Disney bought Marvel in '09, they didn't want to wait until the Paramount distribution deal expired, so they bought Paramount out of Avengers and Iron Man 3 (Paramount still handled Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America). But yes, as Akwat Kbrana said, part of the deal included the Paramount logo showing up anyway. If I remember correctly, the Marvel logo actually appears before the Paramount logo at the start of The Avengers.

I'm assuming Iron Man 3 is all that's leftover from the Paramount deal. I can't imagine a Disney logo showing up in the trailer for Thor 2. It'll probably just be the Marvel Studios logo and that's all, same for the start of the movie itself.

Likewise, I can't imagine a Disney logo showing up in front of Episode VII. If they distribute, I would think we'd open with the Lucasfilm logo and go straight into "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away."

Oh, and as for the whole Fox thing, I think it's totally possible since Disney's not gonna want to wait until 2020 to get their hands on Episodes I-VI. They're gonna have to cut a deal to get Episode IV anyway, since Fox owns those rights in perpetuity. When you consider all of this, that percentage really does seem quite small. It would be worth it for Disney to give Fox theatrical rights in exchange for the six existing films.

It's worth noting that we still haven't seen a 3D blu-ray release of TPM. Perhaps this Disney deal was already in the works behind closed doors way back in February and that's the reason why (but who knows).

If I had my way, I'd somehow make sure that any future "Episodes" had the Fox fanfare at the beginning. Who is to say Disney-Lucasfilm won't want to eventually do X, XI and XII (or even XIII, XIV and XV)?

SilverWook said:

Disney's POTC films and Tron Legacy are good examples of all credits at the end.

The opening title and crawl are too iconic for Disney to mess with. I'm keeping my fingers crossed some sort of distribution deal is cut to allow the Fox fanfare and logo to remain. A silent Disney logo like the first POTC film had might precede it though.

Actually, the first POTC movie didn't have an opening Disney logo at all . It literally opened with the title shot. The "silent logo" was at the very end, after the end credits and the little after-credits scene with the monkey.

Anyway, I've been hoping the exact same thing as you in regards to the Fox fanfare. I don't see why it would be completely out the realm of possibility, either. Fox would only need to be given the theatrical distribution rights. Disney could keep everything else for themselves (dvd/blu-ray, television, streaming, etc). The vast majority of the box office gross would still be going to Lucasfilm, and therefore Disney.

So I guess the big reason he directed it himself was pretty straightforward then:

He started off as a director and then became the man in charge of a company. When he finally had enough money to self-finance a prequel trilogy, he wanted to make sure every decision being made on the movie was a sound one, business-wise. So, why not go back to being the director instead of going through a middle-man producer?

Yeah, never thought of it that way.

DuracellEnergizer said:

The SE '97 would have existed, no doubt - it already did! However, the '04 and '11 versions probably wouldn't have been made, and the OOT would have been preserved.

I guess my point was that part of the SE's purpose was updating the OT to fit the vision George had in his head for the eventual six-film saga. Yes, he had to further tweak this in '04 after he'd made the first two prequels and was in the midst of the last, but almost all of the changes to the OT's visual effects were done in '97.

Perhaps this is where I'm overthinking things a bit. Would other directors have made prequels devoid of cgi characters, so that it wouldn't be (jar)-jarring to go from cgi gungans to people in suits??? Maybe the SE's were an inevitability in regards to the prequels, regardless of their directors.

I still think there might've been another way. They could've re-released the OT in '97 after doing strict restorations and no revisions. Then, directors could've come along and made prequels that, once finished, would line up fairly seamlessly with the restored OOT.

Even without George directing the prequels, the idea of there being two completely different versions of the OT out there kinda goes against the idea of there being a six-film saga that perfectly lines up.

With all of this news of Lucasfilm's acquisition by Disney, there's one quote from Lucas that really sticks out for me:

"The time has come for me to hand off Star Wars to the next generation of filmmakers."

What exactly was stopping him from doing exactly this back in the 90's for the prequels???

We know that George's leaving the DGA prevented him from hiring a union director on ROTJ and he went with Marquand. Were the same restrictions in place by the time he was gearing up for the prequels??? Would that have severely limited his choices had he wanted to hand off the directorial duties??? He says in the Maltin interviews on the '95 vhs that he "might direct the first one and then let other directors handle II and III," so it was at least a possibility at some point.

There's that story I heard about Darabont wanting to either write or direct Episode I (or Lucas wanting him to, I forget which way the story went). Why didn't this happen???

At the end of the day, the only conclusion I can come to is that it was George's midlife crisis and he just had to (officially) jump back in that director's chair after twenty years.

I think George would've always written the story for the prequels, just as he did for the OT, but others should've handled the screenwriting and directing like with ESB.

Also, I should point out that, IMO, a world where other people directed and wrote the screenplays for the prequels pretty much goes hand in hand with a world where the SE's never happened.

Sorry, this is a little stream-of-thought, but I just wanted to get it out there. It's a discussion I've been wanting to start on these boards for a while now.

SilverWook said:

I caught a 10:30 pm show with a friend on opening weekend, and we were the only two people in the whole theater.

ID4 was one of the biggest box office hits of the 90's. What theater did you see it in?!

I know, I was just bringing up that particular change as a good example of a "blink and you'll miss it" change in the prequels.

It should be possible to re-create the theatrical cut in HD. The blu-ray would be the best starting point because there's no cropping, but then you've got stuff like the different neimoidian viewscreen, digital yoda, etc, for which you'd need to go back to the cropped hd broadcast.

Really makes me wish someone could just get their hands on a '99 release print.

Alexrd said:

Fang Zei said:

From the blu-ray screenshots I've seen, it strikes me as odd that TPM and ROTS look pretty much exactly as they should, but AOTC now looks different. I wonder why they made the decision to shift the color. Did they not have a 23.976p hdtv master from 2002 lying around?? Maybe they had to make a fresh telecine from the digital files for the blu-ray and the colorist - for whatever reason - added the teal. Ugh, it just doesn't look good.

TPM does look as it should (colour-wise), for the most part. AotC teal shift was a very last minute change (like the humdinger glitch) since according to people who were at the Comic Con presentation and the press junket, AotC didn't have that teal tint at the time. Even the small clips of the movie shown in the extras look fine.

The animated menu's on the AOTC blu-ray have the teal tint, just like the transfer itself.

It's truly baffling that they made that change. Looking at the screenshot comparisons, it's like you're watching the movie through sunglasses. It just looks objectively bad and I can't think of a subjective reason for them doing this.

You_Too said:

LexX said:

Are you really saying that you'd rather leave more image out than that small change?

That was not my point. The point is who knows how many small changes here and there like that one are in the blu-ray release? Just take that little thing about the green clothes being changed to red in the Cantina scene in SW, which was pointed out just before Harmy released his version.

That's one reason why the blu-ray version probably shouldn't be used to create a theatrical version in HD. At least from a purist perspective.

But knowing the PT is not as old as the OT, there should be lots of unfaded prints out there which would look better than both the HDTV version and blu-ray.

It's true there are many changes both great and small.

For example, I remember those online text commentaries they did for the dvd's (I think they were called "depth commentaries") and something that was pointed out during an establishing nighttime shot of Theed in TPM (right after the "Weesa goin' Home!!!" and the Queen's ship blasting away from Coruscant) was that George requested that a bridge be added over the river on the right hand side of the frame specifically for the dvd release.

Actually, it might've been that the river wasn't even there at all in the original theatrical. I don't remember, it's been a while.

Someone with either the widescreen vhs or the laserdisc can confirm this for me.

That dvdactive article keeps saying "in the digital and dvd versions" for several of those comparisons, but I don't think the extended version of Anakin's confession to Padme about the Tuskens was in either of the theatrical versions (35mm or digital). I'm pretty sure that particular change wasn't added until the dvd.

Was the vhs of AOTC the theatrical cut??? I thought it was the altered version just like the dvd. They were released on the same day.

From the blu-ray screenshots I've seen, it strikes me as odd that TPM and ROTS look pretty much exactly as they should, but AOTC now looks different. I wonder why they made the decision to shift the color. Did they not have a 23.976p hdtv master from 2002 lying around?? Maybe they had to make a fresh telecine from the digital files for the blu-ray and the colorist - for whatever reason - added the teal. Ugh, it just doesn't look good.

DuracellEnergizer said:

 

Fang Zei said:

In regards to the "What will they do with the EU" question, I think they'll simply set Episode VII at whenever they're at now in the books (40 years after ROTJ). Even if it blatantly ignores everything that's happened, they can at least retcon certain things easier than just saying "oh yeah, by the way, Episodes VII VIII and IX happened only 20 years after Jedi and the characters just NEVER mentioned it afterward."

If that happens, I will commit metaphorical murder/suicide.

 

Which part? the 40 years one or the 20 year one?

I watched the first four installments the other night. Quite cool to see and hear you for real, Zombie!

In regards to the "What will they do with the EU" question, I think they'll simply set Episode VII at whenever they're at now in the books (40 years after ROTJ). Even if it blatantly ignores everything that's happened, they can at least retcon certain things easier than just saying "oh yeah, by the way, Episodes VII VIII and IX happened only 20 years after Jedi and the characters just NEVER mentioned it afterward."

Also, in the case of AOTC and ROTS, the fact that they were shot in digital with spherical lenses (as opposed to 35mm film with anamorphic lenses like TPM and the OT) is one of my big problems with those movies to begin with.