Fang Zei

oh yeah, totally forgot about C5.

Y'know, 2012 would make more sense as a release date for the bd at this point. Indy was rumored to be hitting the format this year and .... still no announcement. A lot of big catalog titles are hitting this year, but not all of them (for example, still no word on Lawrence of Arabia). 2011 is Raiders' 30th and '12 is Star Wars 35th. If they actually end up remastering the OOT, we'd get it just in time for the mayan apocalypse.

Welp, kinda wish I'd gone to this as I'm only an hour away in northern VA. Didn't read all the details until just now. I'd seen the thread title but I'm just so used to reading so much non-news in regards to the OOT that I thought this was no exception.

Obviously I was wrong.

Still, it warms my heart to hear people having such a good time in that youtube clip. Seeing camcorder footage of an actual 35mm print projected in a theater ..... it's unreal.

Ugh, kinda feel like Bart and Lisa after the nerds pulled the tv's power plug just as Scratchy was finally gonna get Itchy. An opportunity like this is probably never gonna come around again.

But with me it'd be like preaching to the choir. Just thinking of all those people watching the OO Star Wars in the highest quality possible gives me a slight boost of hope for our cause!

Why does that illustration of Vader's Castle remind me of the Nostromo from Alien?

zombie84 said:

Yes, the 2004 release was done in 1080. It was scanned in 1080, new footage was integrated and it was color corrected in-house at Lucasfilm, then sent to Lowry for clean up.

I don't think Lucas will ever re-do it. Why would he? The prequels were done in 1080 as well (except Episode I). If ROTS had its effects done in 2k then they are higher resolution than the actual film. And either case, who gives a flying fuck, Lucas can dick around with his special editions until he dies for all I care. Re-doing it in 2k is almost pointless because there isn't much difference; 8K is becoming the new standard, but I guarantee you no Special Edition will ever be in 8K.

Also, why would going to the negs be counter-intuitive? Today you wouldn't re-conform the physical negative, you would do a DI, just like the 2004 special edition doesn't actually exist physically on the negative. If Lucasfilm ever got serious about the original film it would be easy to make a restoration from the negs.

re: the resolution,

hmmm, I guess if it's gonna look good enough up there on the big screen then it doesn't really matter if it's 1080 or 2K. This isn't the first time I've raised the question of what resolution the "masters" for AOTC and ROTS are. I'm similarly confused over Cameron's Avatar, since that was shot in 1080 but "mastered" at 2K. Maybe that's only done at the very end of the equation, i.e. the digital intermediate for the 35mm and digital prints. At the end of the day, the resolution of the visual effects doesn't matter so much as how convincing/photorealistic they are.

I think I can now stop being so hung up on this issue of resolution.

re: the negs,

That's not so much what worries me. What worries me is them not getting it 100% accurate to how the film was originally conformed. I guess what they could do is use a print from '77 for reference (the quality wouldn't matter) and then match up the high-quality negs to make sure everything's there.

It's just that for whatever reason I think it would be smarter to just take the best quality IP they have. Maybe I'm just thinking too much about that Blade Runner set and how they used IP's for the older versions and the o-neg for the final version.

zombie84 said:

My feeling is that Lucasfilm will do the least amount of work possible (i.e. just scan one source and say here it is, i.e. the IP or a print)...

Actually, I would prefer they do exactly that (scan an IP). It really doesn't make any sense at this point to try and reconstruct the original conformation of the o-neg, it really just seems counter-intuitive. It doesn't even seem like Lucas himself wants to hold onto the o-neg for purposes of his preferred version. He's got the Lowry master now and 1080p is good enough for him.

That's what makes it all the more frustrating - he doesn't even feel like preserving the version he does like at an optimal resolution. Even the prequels had their final effects done at 2K (unless imdb is lying).

Has it been 100% confirmed that even the new effects for the '04 version were only done at 1080? Were the changes done first and then the Lowry restoration, or was it the other way around and the changes were only done at 1080 (TPM Jabba, etc)?

I dunno, it really wouldn't surprise me if the '04 restoration is eventually redone at 2K. I would hope they're gonna do that if Lucas really does plan for the movies to be shown on the big screen again at any point in the future. I mean, how expensive could the '04 restoration have been? Surely it wasn't more than a drop in the bucket against the record breaking first day sales of the dvd set (128 million bucks or so).

Jeez, it seems like I'm always nothing but questions on these boards.

Actually, that American Dad episode pre-dates the GOUT debacle. Spooky, but true.

Bingowings said:

Most importantly Lucas should not have written it all and only directed maybe the first one if that.

ANH and ESB worked because they were team efforts pushed by his energy the rot set in with ROTJ and Lucas should have realised this and played to the strengths of what worked before.

 

This is the only "what might have been" aspect of the prequels that interests me. Frank Darabont should've been the PT's Lawrence Kasdan. Joe Johnston would've been perfect to direct one of the movies. Lucas writing and directing the whole thing himself was what prevented the PT from rivaling the OT and made it "just some prequels." Considering Lucas admitted he only had one movie's worth of material, yeah, he really should have known better than to do the whole thing on his own.

This is sorta stream-of-consciousness, but here's an idea that just came to me in terms of "what might have been" behind the scenes:

Episode I, directed by Steven Spielberg. He's known for working really well with child actors, so he'd be perfect for this (assuming Anakin would still be a kid in the script).

Episode II, directed by Joe Johnston. It's "the one with Boba Fett," the character Johnston himself designed back in '78. Also, there's the Anakin/Padme romance and I can't help but think of Johnston's Rocketeer.

Episode III, directed by Dave Fincher. There's probably a better-fitting director I could think of, but this is what's coming to my mind right now. He's an ILM and/or Lucas alum just like the other two directors and he's known for dark movies, making him a good choice for Anakin's turn to the dark side.

In any event, the original 1977 Star Wars should've remained the last George Lucas directed film.

CE3K is a different story. The differences between the three versions are (mostly) editorial, which made it easy for them to branch all three onto the same disc.

For Star Wars, each version would need its own disc to properly do it justice. We would be insanely lucky to get three-disc versions for each of the OT movies ("current" version, '97, original), but let's just say it did happen. The lowry-restored (unless LFL decides to have that job completely redone) version would be on the first disc. The '97 version would be a on a second disc, mastered from the '97 IP. Finally, the original version would be on the third disc, mastered from its IP.

I wouldn't hold my breath for anything more than a two-disc set (not that many of us care about the most recent version) with the original theatrical version we've all been clamoring for.

With Avatar I'm sure there must have been some theaters showing it in digital 2D in 1.78:1, since they might've had a digital projector installed but not real-d. There were 18 different versions made for U.S. theaters alone. The blu-ray might not replicate my own theatrical experience (twice in 1.78:1 real-d and then a third time in 2.35:1 real-d), but it's absolutely optimized for 2D hi-def presentation.

I joined and invited 40 of my friends.

I'll be honest. Most of the screenshots I've seen from the Fellowship blu-ray look pretty good to my eyes. But there are a few instances where DNR has been needlessly applied. The most egregious example I've seen is this:

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/1883031-post2.html

The hdtv broadcast clearly looks better in that comparison, and that's just unforgivable. If the uproar over this release doesn't get the studios to lay off the DNR once and for all, nothing will.

What's really laughable is how if you go to the menu on the official website there's a tab reading "restoration process" that says "coming soon" when you mouse over it.

http://lordoftherings.net/home.htm

Yeah, there definitely wasn't a restoration for this release, quite the opposite lol. Maybe they're talking about the updates of the extended editions Peter Jackson mentioned he's working on, because there isn't even anything to "restore" in the case of TTT and ROTK since they got complete DI's.

The next release of the SE needs a Final Cut treatment anyway. There are still some unfixed effects errors in the '04 version like the transparency issues brought up in the People vs. GL thread. The most glaring effects error of all is the second time the Death Star II blows up a ship and all of the ships in the background roll with the camera.

Oh, and the deleted scenes are gonna be on the blu-ray no question. They were conspicuously absent on the '04 release and we now know that people at LFL are going through the material. So deleted scenes are a given. I still don't think that's gonna be enough for LFL to get the numbers they're looking for without throwing in a remastered OOT.

The circle is now complete. Star Wars has become a show based on a toy line based on a movie.

TheBoost said:

CO said:

See I don't have a problem if they are honest about the target audience.  If they want to cater to the kiddies, then cater to kiddies only, and don't try to mass appeal it like the Prequels.  The Prequels have Jar Jar Binks who appeals to 5 year olds and Anakin burning up on a Volcano planet for teenagers and adults, as Lucas can't have it both ways.

"Star Wars" has adorable beeping R2D2 and Luke's Aunt and Uncle's burning corpse.

"Empire" has more R2 cuteness, Ugnaut football games, giggling backpack Yoda, and Han being tortured and Luke getting his hand chopped off.

"Jedi" has cute lil Ewoks and Luke being electrocuted.

Lucas obviously CAN have it both ways.  

You forgot Slave Leia.

The Holiday Special.

The film is having its world premiere right now ( ~ 6:30-8:00 PM Central Time) at the South by Southwest (aka SXSW) Music and Film Festival in Austin.

http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/5208

Can't wait to hear the responses.

Yup.

If any potential buyer has a computer with internet access with which to go on ebay, they have a little thing called google video search!

I knew I forgot something:

John Mollo designed the costumes for Star Wars, Alien and Empire.

Oh, and I remembered that Jodorowsky quote as something more along the lines of "Star Wars ripped off our designs." Reading it again now, though it could be inferred from his statement I'm not so sure he's saying that. He may simply be pointing out it "resembles the style." His version would've been way too bizarre and had little to do with the book. I'm surprised it even got as far as it did before the plug was pulled, but imagining what it could've been like (especially when we got Star Wars just a few years later) is fascinating. The guy may be crazy, but check out El Topo if you haven't, one of the best movies I've ever seen.

It should be noted that Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov and other SF writers were pissed that GL was reaping so much success over ideas that were basically lifted from their novels. But that's a discussion for another thread.

Ridley was working on Dino's Dune film when Empire came out, and he says in the Blade Runner making-of that it "would have been a step very much in the direction of Star Wars." Maybe that's why he's writing the intro for the book.

I love the David Lynch film because it makes you feel the same way as when you read the book. Paramount is trying to turn it into a film once more, with the guys who made the two mini-series serving as producers and Pierre Morel (as of right now) attached to direct.

I actually have the original 1986 pan n' scan vhs of Jedi (saw it on sale back in May of '05 at my local potomac video and absolutely had to have it). Which mix did they use for that one?

I wonder if I would be able to find the original vhs releases of Star Wars and Empire anywhere at this point.

What JediTemple said.

The 50-gig capacity of dual-layered blu-ray discs would allow them to include all of the sound mixes.

here's an interesting breakdown of the differences in the sound mixes:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releases#Theatrical_Releases

I'm assuming there were no differences for ROTJ since it's not listed. It was, after all, the first THX-certified theatrical release.

Heh, totally forgot this was (originally) about to come out. Ridley Scott doing the intro had really piqued my interest. I didn't know Roger Christian worked on Alien until just now, none. Brian Johnson, one of Alien's sfx people, co-supervised the vfx of Empire with Richard Edlund (he brings it up in the dvd making-of).

This is what makes the OT such an interesting trilogy:

Star Wars

-Written and Directed by GL, Produced by Gary Kurtz, Shot by Gil Taylor

Empire Strikes Back

-Directed by Irvin Kershner, Produced by Gary Kurtz, Screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, Shot by Peter Suschitzky

Return of the Jedi

-Directed by Richard Marquand, Produced by Howard Kazanjian, Screenplay by Kasdan and Lucas, Shot by Alan Hume and Alec Mills

Compare that to the PT, which was entirely shot by David Tattersall and entirely written and directed by Lucas with help on AOTC's screenplay from Jonathan Hales.

..... Well, the first thing that came to my mind was that TPM does need to be restored by Lowry if the master used for the 2001 dvd is indeed the best LFL's got. There are all kinds of defects in the picture, from gate weave to scratches to color timing issues. AOTC and ROTS, being completely digital, don't have any of these problems.