Fang Zei

TheBoost said:

see you auntie said:

I think Lucas may have forgotten where he came from. He wouldn't be anything if it wasn't for Francis Ford Coppola mentoring him in his formative years but I hardly see George taking on such a role.

 I doubt Lucas wouldn't have been anything without Coppola. He'd already made "THX 1138" which was seen as visionary, and earned his internship at Warner.

To clarify, Lucas had made his student short-film Electronic Labyrinth: THX-1138 4EB, which got the attention of Coppola who wanted to produce it as a feature.

Just wanted to clarify that you were referring to the short film Electronic Labyrinth and not the feature length THX-1138.

Back on topic:

I'm curious how Lucas is going to re-package the movies further down the line. TPM in 3D should be hitting theaters this time next year. Will he release a bd3d of it later on in 2012? Meanwhile, will the PT, OT and Saga boxes still be the only way of getting those movies or will he do individual releases sooner rather than later? It would be great if they made the bd3d of TPM an all-out multi-disc ultimate edition, complete with the theatrical cut.

Here's the big picture to consider: LFL can only re-package these movies so many times before they run out of new shit to sell us. This initial blu-ray release will give us the deleted scenes, plus the novelty of watching the PT and the messed-up version of the OT in hi-def video and audio (....woohoo). Then, as the movies are converted into 3D, we'll get those on video as well. Just what the hell do they have left to sell us after that besides the holy grail that is the OOT?

Ghostbusters said:

I don't understand why LFL wants such a hefty price for these blu-rays when they don't even include the OT, something millions of fans want, but they include a crappy version we already have in higher resolution. Maybe if LFL would give us want we want, they wouldn't have such a problem with tracking down bootlegs/illegal file sharing. 

Yeah, but then they wouldn't be able to quadruple-dip the spending masses. "OMG, Star Wars on blu-ray! What? It's not the original versions? Oh well, it'll do." Why give everyone what they want when you can bait and switch?

That said, I really will be surprised if LFL doesn't eventually do a proper restoration of the original versions at some point, even if it's not until 2017. I dunno, it just seems like it keeps getting built up and built up and after this recent "no comment" from LFL after they got asked for the umpteenmillionth time about the original versions, you'd think they would, I dunno, TAKE A FUCKING HINT.

I just really don't see what Lucas would be accomplishing by never getting around to it. I mean, is he hoping that after he says "no" for the umpteenbillionth time we'll just give up and stop asking? Maybe then he'll convince himself that people really don't want the OOT and it's not even worth the time and effort to restore it and press out the discs because no one will buy them (okay, that sounds a little too Howard Hughes).

Waiting to release it for the sake of double-dipping and making money is annoying, but that's business, I get it. These are some of the only movies LFL owns the rights to and they happen to be the most successful movies of all time. Not to sound jaded and cynical, but if you were LFL wouldn't you be milking these movies for all they're worth?

I'd be willing to wait for a proper blu-ray of the OOT, even if they are the last three movies released on the format.

Refusing to ever release it at all, on the other hand, is just pure lunacy.

Baronlando said:

This situation with the original versions is more of a dick move.

Agreed.

SE or no SE, good prequels or bad prequels, burying the originals is Lucas' biggest sin.

Y'know what one of the most amazing examples of visual effects I've ever seen is?

Zodiac

There's this scene where Mark Ruffalo is walking around a San Francisco crime scene at night, on some Haight-Ashbury-esque street.

Just about everything surrounding him, from the moving cars to the houses, was put in via cgi. I had absolutely no idea it was all fake until someone brought it up on a message board I frequent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT491ctM8Kk

I've been wanting to start a thread about this for a while, but this is proof that Dave Fincher (a former ILM-er!) would've been a perfect director for one of the prequels.

Animal Kingdom

Great movie, I heartily recommend!

Wow, I would've hoped nothing from '97 or '04 would've made its way into that book. At least Kershner was still alive when those versions came out. There'd better not be a single thing from after '83 when Making of ROTJ comes out! Marquand passed away in '87.

I must echo Kurgan's thoughts on the matter.

Throw in theatrical cuts of the prequels and I'll buy those on blu-ray as well.

I don't think that Spike deal actually kicked in until 2008.

It was a confusing use of words, but I think by "the three masters" he meant the o-negs for the "three" original films (the original trilogy).

I'm pretty sure the plan is to see if TPM does well at the box office and then convert/release the others one year at a time.

That's not what I heard.

With each passing year it's not so much a question to me of "if" so much as "when" the OOT will be restored and remastered. What I would absolutely love to see is this:

Let's assume TPM-3D does well at the box office. I would love for the Blu-ray 3D release to be an all-inclusive ultimate edition, complete with the theatrical cut (yeah, getting my hopes up on that), and the same goes for AOTC in 2013 and ROTS in 2014. When ANH hits, LFL should at the very least make the blu-ray a two-disc set that includes the theatrical version, same goes for Empire in 2016 and Jedi in 2017. I think it just needs to be made clear to Lucasfilm that we'll pay a premium to see the OOT restored.

Any number of things is possible. Maybe they'll re-release the bd's of the six films individually at some point in the next couple years and include the remastered OOT then.

What's hard to imagine happening is an OOT release that doesn't force us to buy the newer version also. Even more unlikely would be the ultimate scenario of George licensing Criterion to do it (which would be awesome, don't get me wrong, but at the same time kinda inappropriate since these are some of the highest grossing films of all time and not the kinda stuff that's up Criterion's alley).

I recently heard that George made ninety-some-odd-million dollars last year. It seems a tad ridiculous to me that he can't spare a tiny fraction of that to restore a piece of film history he himself helped create.

Every time a shot from eps II or III popped up, I winced and thought how much better those movies would've looked if Lucas had just stuck to shooting in cinemascope like on the other four films. Say what you will about TPM, the cinematography is gorgeous compared to the other two prequels.

someone did a comparison in one of the threads (don't remember which) between TPM shots from the new ILM doc and one of the TPM transfers that's out there. It confirmed that the shots in the doc are from a new transfer.

EDIT: ah, you found it

I know someone already did this with shots from the recent ILM documentary, but it would be interesting to see a TPM comparison between the dvd/hbo/cinemax/spiketv version and the new trailer.

None, I thought the TPM opening day digital projection (which only played in four theatres in the U.S., two in Jersey, two in Cali) was the exact same edit as the 35mm. Are you thinking of the pre-release version where Darth Maul's body doesn't split in half?

Found this:

http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=35&ti=1,35&SEQ=20110105004750&Search_Arg=empire%20strikes%20back&Search_Code=GKEY^*&CNT=100&type=quick&PID=HbLCo4FxdNU3Mkmp67FMIpwjbmYLr&SID=1

This is fantastic news!

I noticed that Electronic Labyrinth, Lucas' student short that became THX 1138, was also inducted this (last) year.

Here's the thing:

For next year's blu-ray, since the format is 1080p Lucas doesn't really have much of a reason to pay for a re-do of the '04 masters at a higher res. Those masters are already 1080. Episodes II and III have been ready to go since the day they came out.

Now, keep this in mind:

Episode I is hitting 3D in theaters in 2012 and ILM is already at work on the conversion process, so they probably did a new DI (or, as we've been debating, went back to the files if they're still there) in order to yield 1) a new transfer for next year's blu-ray (which the film actually needed, unlike the other five) and 2) a new, higher res master from which they could start the 3D conversion process. II and III are already completely digital. When/if they get around to IV in 2015, doing a new DI probably won't seem like a such a horrible financial burden for Lucas /sarcasm.

They really are gonna need to do a fresh scan for the 3D version of the OT. In the case of movies like II and III and Avatar, the cameras for the live-action photography were only 1080p, yes, but they went through 2k DI's as far as I know, effectively scaling the live action footage slightly. Avatar was projected at 1920 by 1080 for its 16:9 digital 3D version, but there was also a scope (2.35:1) digital 3D version made for the auditoriums set up for scope. This scope version probably had a horizontal resolution of 2048 (2K). The OT movies are, obviously, scope-only. Maybe Lucas thinks 1920 by 817 will still be considered good enough for a 3D projection in 2015, but he won't be getting around to OT until then, so who knows.

I heard this morning and somehow didn't remember to head over here until just now.

Damn, did this news hit me hard.

I've also got somewhat of a "just yesterday" story. Last night I got in a traffic jam driving up I-95, turned on the radio to find out what was up and heard Leslie Nielsen had died. I had listened to the first several minutes of the slashfilmcast episode where massawyrm from aintitcool mentions recently seeing an original 1980 print of Empire. I had nothing but time to kill, so I decided to listen to the rest. Later on in the episode they bring up the news of the 3D conversions and Massawyrm said how the original version of Empire, with all of its mistakes, was still so awesome to watch.

Maybe I've become out of touch, but I'm honestly surprised if Lucas expects the initial blu-ray set to sell like gangbusters the way the '04 dvd set did.

The "Empire of Dreams" documentary from the '04 dvd claims Spielberg was Lucas' first choice to direct Jedi.

I found something interesting in a post over at the avsforum. This person's dad apparently sat next to John Lowry on a plane flight. Here's the relevant text:

"He also mentioned that they're working with the Star Wars movies again, and have gone back to the originals for the groundwork. This is probably for the 3d versions (I would assume the masters for use with the Blu-Ray set are finished already). He implied that this restoration means they will have restored versions of the theatrical Star Wars movies, but that they have had no indication from Lucas that the movies are in the pipeline for release in their theatrical versions."

Here's the direct link to the post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=19486382&postcount=71

Now someone just needs to dig up an '83 print of Jedi....