Fang Zei

avoidz said:

Fang Zei said:

Ha! I got a Yoda birthday card too! With me it was kinda fitting though, since me, my sister and our cousins had been constantly quoting the Plinkett AOTC review earlier that week. My sister actually wrote "Number One: Everything" in it.

Was it the interactive one with the light-up green saber on the front and the music playing?

Nowhere near as elaborate.

avoidz said:

Akwat Kbrana said:

I think another reason many are less than enthusiastic about this release is that we've been double-dipped by LFL in the past. ("That's like putting your whole mouth right in the dip. From now on, when you take a chip, just take one dip and end it.")

When I say I absolutely will not buy any Star Wars set that doesn't include the OUT, it's not just vitriol; I'm really genuinely not interested in the least to see George's "improved" versions, regardless of resolution, audio compression, or format. Even if the color timing was corrected and the audio mix was, as kenkraly2007 is fond of prognosticating, "fixed," I still couldn't care less. These aren't the movies I'm looking for.

That feeling is just intensified when I remember paying full price for the trilogy on DVD in 2004 only to shell out again two years later when the GOUT was released. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I'll gladly wait until until a decent transfer of the OUT is completed before buying another Star Wars product. If that time never comes...oh well, it's not like I'm interested in any of the other cheaply-made, soulless, mass-produced Star Wars garbage coming out these days.

Great post.

I feel betrayed every time I see another Star Wars product these days. Even a Yoda-adorned birthday card I received recently made me resentful of LFL.

Ha! I got a Yoda birthday card too! With me it was kinda fitting though, since me, my sister and our cousins had been constantly quoting the Plinkett AOTC review earlier that week. My sister actually wrote "Number One: Everything" in it.

Speaking of Empire and Jedi, there's something I've been wondering. Were the original six-track versions 5.1, or were they 4.2 like Star Wars? There's a featurette on the Apocalypse Now complete dossier about how it was the first movie to be mixed/played in 5.1 when it opened in '79. Did every other six-track release from then on do the same thing?

Here's something I'll grant Lucas:

LFL doesn't exactly have as many films in its library as any of the major Hollywood studios. In fact, it really only has a handful of titles people would regard as classic. Take away all the royalties LFL receives from all those hundreds of other companies and you're left with only a handful of products they can make a direct profit off of.

Had Star Wars remained the property of 20th Century Fox, right now we'd likely be reading a press release for a Blade Runner treatment and not the PT+SE box set. From a totally realistic, business-minded perspective, I can't really say I blame Lucas for milking the OT the way he has. It would be nice if he'd stop lying about it, "ohhh, they don't exist anymore .... well, I'll put them out, but won't spend a dime remastering them .... it would be way too expensive to remaster the OOT for blu-ray," but I get it, 3 of the few dozen films he owns the rights to just happen to be the most popular movies ever made and he's gotta keep milking them because not only does he know he can, he kinda needs to.

It's a cruel irony, but it's the truth.

Anyone got confirmation of what exactly was projected at the State Theater yesterday?

The reason LFL is waiting another year is simple: a lot more people will have blu-ray players than this year.

Here are all the times the movies got purchased because of me:

-got the '95 full screen vhs of ANH for Christmas that year

-got the '97 widescreen trilogy for Christmas that year

-got the TPM full screen vhs for Easter, 2000

-got the TPM dvd at Sam Goody not long after it came out in October, 2001

-got the AOTC widescreen dvd at Circuit City (they were price-matching a killer price-undercut from Toys R' Us) not long after it came out in November, 2002

-My mom picked up the '04 widescreen set at costco when I was back from school several weeks after it came out.

-Not long before ROTS hit theaters, I found an '86 (original) full screen vhs of Jedi. Shortly thereafter I completed the '95 collection with used copies of Empire and Jedi, but Empire had static every several seconds. A couple years later, I would find a '95 boxset and throw out my earlier '95 individuals. I'd still kinda like to get original vhs copies of ANH and Empire, just so Jedi isn't all by itself. :)

-got the ROTS widescreen dvd the day before it streeted (Halloween, I still remember)

There's a theory that Greedo shooting first was done because Lucas didn't want the ANH SE to get a pg-13.

It's probably the '97. The running time is the only thing throwing that in doubt, but they could've very easily listed the wrong one.

Wow, God I hope it's the original version. Not that I'll be able to see this, but still, perfect follow-up to the Baltimore screening of ANH and it would be awesome to see screen photos.

If this was a true 1980 original, would the print still be in watchable condition after 30 years? Were the post-80 re-releases fresh new prints or were they reused?

For what it's worth, the running time listed is the original....

Normally I would say "It's still the Special Edition, so who cares?" but for the sake of people who will be handing over their money for this LFL will hopefully correct all those problems.

I'm with skyjedi on this. I won't even consider buying the OT movies on blu-ray if it doesn't at least include the '77-'83 originals.

I won't buy a non-theatrical prequel blu-ray either, horrible as the TPM Yoda puppet may look.

Nerfherder, I've linked to both the petition and zombie's new site in my avsforum sig.

Tobar said:

Eh, I'm guessing it's regular EU with no input from ol' George. Though you know he's aware of it from that line he threw in the second season of the Clone Wars. =P

I didn't really catch much of the second season, what was the line?

zombie84 said:

I'd be fine with a fully remastered original interpositive in high definition with the theatrical audio, as Blade Runner did. But yes, it is better to go the negatives.

Y'know, something that's always fascinated me about situations where the actual o-neg is scanned (such as the '04 Lowry job) is that everything on the film is .... well, negative. How exactly do they go about ... positivizing it?

There've been plenty of blu-ray double dips already. T2, Stargate, Full Metal Jacket, Predator and probably a bunch of others I can't think of right now. This Star Wars set will presumably only be a I-VI box with no individual SKU's. It's perfectly reasonable to assume we'll eventually see individual releases.

I look at it this way:

Ever since '05, there's been lots of clamoring for a complete I-VI saga boxset, and that's exactly what this blu-ray set will finally deliver. With the help of deleted scenes, this will sell fairly well. It may not do comparable first day business to the '04 set in terms of number of copies sold, but the doubtlessly huge price tag from the extra three prequels will make up for it.

After that, well, I really don't see what else there is to dip with. It looks pretty clear to me that we're seeing a repeat of what happened with these movies on dvd.

That's the exact reason why I've never been too comfortable with the idea of de-SE'ing the o-neg. Blade Runner befell the same fate, why should Star Wars be any different?

Y'know, between that PvGL documentary and Zombie's new website, I really don't know how much louder we can yell, aside from getting as many sigs as possible on the petition.

This has pretty much been confirmed to be boxset-only and no individual SKU's, right? Then I'd guess the next dip would be individual SKU's. We all remember when that happened on dvd....

Nope, AotC and RotS were filmed with 16:9 1080p cameras and then cropped to 2.35:1 (so the resolution of the original live-action footage would actually be 1920:817, just like any other 2.35:1 movie when viewed on blu-ray). I'm pretty sure that the effects were done at 2K though, so 2K would be the resolution of the final master if I'm not mistaken.

The '04 SE is a different story. It's currently stuck at 1080p. I would hope that if Lucas ever decides to release them theatrically he'll remaster them at 2K. A 2.35:1 movie from a 1080p master wouldn't look too good projected up on a movie theater screen.

..... and Empire's DP, Peter Suschitzky, is still working. He's shot every movie David Cronenberg has made for the past twenty-some-odd years.

Nerfherder said:

Great. Yeah, it's expensive... But not to a billionaire.

 

My thoughts exactly - the guy makes me sick!

Ridley Scott managed to get 5 cuts of his film onto one superb and AFFORDABLE blu-ray set (including the workprint - imagine Lucas doing that with Star Wars), and I'm sure he's not as loaded as Lucas...

Yeah, but that's the sad irony. Think about it. Warner Brothers (one of the EEEEEEVIIIIIIILLLLLLL big Hollywood studios Lucas was fighting against) actually needed to go all out with the blade runner set in order to get people to buy it. Lucas can throw the scraps from his table and do ten times the business.

Anyway, even if Lucas intended to include a remastered OOT in this blu-ray release he wouldn't be proudly announcing it, so I wouldn't take this as a sign it's definitely not happening. Frankly, I don't see how he thinks this will do comparable business to the '04 set with nothing but the '04 version in hi-def and deleted scenes. That's what the most ridiculous part of Lucas' whole "it would be so expensive" comment is....

YOU'D BE SELLING IT FOR MONEY!!!!

Yeah, it's still American Zoetrope. The only difference in terms of credits is the new Warner Bros logo at the beginning, which is funny since the old logo is still there right afterward.

Like I said, there's no copyright for anyone besides Warner Brothers. At worst, they signed a deal with Lucas not to include the original. At best, they simply didn't include it in the dvd/blu-ray because of the restoration and remastering required. Who knows.

Oh, wow, I thought from the title that you meant the entire thing! Would've really been amazing timing considering that recent screening in Baltimore.

captainsolo said:

There is no reason that they couldn't have included the original. It is simply because the original is withheld.

WB included both cuts of Dark City on the Blu ray.

What's curious about THX is that LFL didn't even exist at the time it was made. I sold off my dvd a few months ago, but I'm pretty sure the fine print doesn't say anything besides "copyright Warner Brothers." Makes sense, since they payed the 300 grand to get it made back in the day. What's not so clear is who footed the bill for the director's cut.

In any event, it's a pretty good bet that even if there wasn't some agreement with Lucas not to include the original version, WB did it to avoid his ire. I mean, it would've kinda been an awkward situation to have both cuts officially out there two whole years before Lucas even bothered to throw us the scraps of the GOUT.

I seriously wonder if there would've been any consequences for WB including the original version. It may simply have been an issue of disc space. I remember throwing those discs into my computer and they were both pretty crowded, so on dvd the inclusion of the original would've meant a three-disc set.

Bah, I'm probably over-thinking the whole thing. Like I said, it will be interesting to see if the blu-ray is single-layer or not.