Hey, I would just be happy if we could get a movie on video that went at its original 24.000 frames per second rate.
This is kind of random, but I thought this as good a thread as any to post it in:
Over at AICN, Harry Knowles mentions in his story about the 20 minutes or so of Star Trek footage that was recently screened to the press that David Fincher was rumored to be directing one of the PT movies back in the day. Is this true?
I just find it kind of an odd coincidence considering he would've been in my top three (one for each movie) of directors for the PT. Him, Johnston and Darabont, all ILM/Lucasfilm alums.
Well there is one thing I found out recently that sort of burst my bubble / rained on my parade in regards to blu-ray:
I started browsing the avs forums and noticed a lot of threads where people would post the disc info for the latest blu-rays and they always said 23.976 frames per second. I never did quite get a full answer from anyone as to why this is the case, but after thinking about it for a while on my own I concluded that since some older hdtv's only went at 23.976/29.97/59.94 and not the whole number framerates then the signal would need to correspond. I guess you could call this "how I learned to stop worrying and love NTSC." It's one less advantage that HD has over analog, but it's not exactly a deal-breaker. Blu-ray does support 24.000p, which is nice to know.
I dunno, I guess the day they figure out how to get 2K cinema in your room is the day movie theaters die.
Now that I've downloaded it, question:
Do I actually have to burn it in order to open it, or can I open it straight from the hard drive?
Yeah I know, I was just wondering if he had to speed it up from the slower framerate or if it was already like that.
Adywan,
How did you get it to go 24.000p? Was the broadcast you used already like that or did you speed it up from 23.976?
By the way, until quite recently I was also under the impression that movies were always encoded on blu-ray at their original framerate since we now live in the age of hd, atsc, dvb et cetera and no longer have to worry about compatibility with the analog formats. After browsing avsforum, I noticed that whenever someone posted the disc info for a blu-ray it always said 23.976fps. I even joined just so I could post a question about this, and that's how I discovered that blu-rays are almost always made this way. I think this is because not all hdtv's can go at exactly 60i/24p, they can only do 59.94i/23.976p.
It's not so much Lucas lied as he told us a half truth. Lynne Hale's email said "existing prints are in bad condition," which could mean anything Lucasfilm chooses it to mean.
I don't think it's pre-rendered on any of the consoles. The Wii, PS2 and PSP ports were all done by Krome studios. The 360/PS3 cutscenes look so good that you would actually think they're pre-rendered, but apparently they're actually in-game.
It would need to be somewhere between the CE3K and Blade Runner sets in terms of size. You would need two discs per film, you couldn't seamlessly branch both versions onto the same disc since there are at least a hundred differences between the two. Then there's the color differences that we've all gone over at length. So one disc for the original version and one disc for the latest version would be just fine. If they really wanted to go all out, they could wedge a third disc in between the other two with the '97 version.
By the way, despite all this speculation of there being even further changes, I have a feeling the '04 versions are the end of the line. Getting Lowry to scrub the picture and adding TPM Jabba, Temuera's voice, Ian and Hayden are really all there is to it. I dunno, I just think that if Lucas was going to go ahead and make those additional changes back in '04 with Episode III (the final prequel) right around the corner, he would've made all of them at that time. The same goes for the dvd versions of AOTC and ROTS. TPM is the only one I'm still curious about.
I was about to say "Did someone actually up this thread?"
But seriously, you would think the fact that a fan went through the trouble of painstakingly restoring - in high definition - the original version of a movie when the guy who owns the rights to it won't would be enough to convince said copyright owner to release the damn thing (especially since it would be much easier for him to do an even better job, having access to the actual interpositives, prints, etc) and make a ton of money off of it! People all over the internet are talking about Adywan's project. Maybe Lucas will actually get wind of it and at least reconsider.
If I were LFL, I would do this:
Put the 3D versions on track to be finished by the end of next year and get a trailer out with the 3D release of Jim Cameron's Avatar in December of '09. I'm baffled by how they'd get all six movies into the theaters, but if things are particularly slow in January and February, get it out then. It would be like '97 all over again. Then get the blu-ray on track to street by the end of 2010. It would be awesome if they included as many versions as possible, but if I could at least watch all six films in their original versions in 1080p24, I'll be happy. The live action show apparently isn't hitting until 2011 at the earliest now, so they could slap ads for the show on the blu-ray.
Of course, this is only what I would do in LFL's shoes.
It's not like LFL didn't know what they were doing. There's a big huge elephant in the room when the '04 dvd's are enhanced for 16:9 television (like 99.999 percent of all widescreen dvd's out there) while the '06 bonus discs aren't and they go "but isn't that what you wanted?"
While there's no real point in "should have's," I do think that the whole laserdisc port vs. genuine dvd remastering thing is what allowed GL to get away with what he did. We can blame ourselves for this, but we'd be the only ones to do so. Who in their right mind digs up a laserdisc master of a 29 year old movie for its first time ever on dvd?!
No, I have a feeling George would've done this even if we had specified "remastered from an actual film print, thank you." No one at LFL ever even said they read that specific petition (as if there was any bigger one), they just said that there'd been a huge demand from fans for it.
Yeah but that's the thing, I remember LFL making an official statement way back when that they were supporting blu-ray.
I know the recent talk (even after January) from LFL is that they're playing the waiting game, but didn't they say wayyyy back in '06 that they were supporting blu-ray?
As a friend of mine has said, the "Art of" books for the prequels really make you hurt from what might've been.
I just LOVE how misleading it was that they framed both of them in 16:9, even though the GOUT is only 4:3 letterbox.
(all kidding aside)
My dad recently got an HDTV, and the '04 discs look so good that it hurts to not have the original versions in comparable quality.
When I first clicked on this thread several days ago, I thought I was going to find that someone had finally drafted an actual petition. If someone can just make a good argument as to why we want the OOT in decent quality, then we can go from there on what exactly we want.
ESHBG said:I am going to laugh so hard if the OOT bonus discs do turn out to be anamorphic and Luca$ tries to slip it in like ntohing even happened at all. With how crazy he is, I could see him doing something like this LOL
No, the "like nothing even happened at all" act is going to step out on stage when he puts the OOT on blu-ray.
Ditto on what Gaffer Tape said.
They don't actually say a word about it on any of the discs to my knowledge. There's just that one glimpse as Gaffer Tape said.
I would want the theatrical versions of ALL six movies on a future blu-ray set, not just the OT. After all, I actually saw the prequels up on the big screen. I don't want the OOT or theatrical TPM stuck in laserdisc quality.
Baronlando said:Well, even though it's most likely just a repackage of the shitty 2006 discs, look at it this way: the original versions have now been widely released TWICE, so much for the whole Integrity of Lucas' Vision BS holding things up, at least that's been put to rest.
Yeah, and what's weird is that I didn't even notice this thread until after posting in the Star Wars: Take Two thread. What I was going to say there, but didn't, is that Lucas has already thrown out the window all credibility as to an artistic stance by releasing the original versions at all. "Now we'll see who wants them, it'll all come out in the end, etc." As you said baron, we're now getting them for the second time when they were supposed to be limited editions. Hell, I still saw them on sale at Borders recently next to all of their other star wars stuff (mostly the new Clone Wars books, in addition to stuff like the paperback of Allegiance, etc).
Could the estate allow it, or would Lucas write into his will "not even over my dead body?"
Hey, whatev. If we can at least get the OOT mastered in HD someday (a feat well within the realm of the possible) then I can live without Episodes VII through IX. It would be hard enough to fit it into continuity, although they have left themselves a one hundred year gap before the Legacy comics start.
While I'm on that subject, no, I don't think we're ever going to see something like a reboot happen with Star Wars. This only happens when the franchise is both creatively bankrupt and not still controlled by the guy who started it 30 years earlier. Even when Lucas is gone, the most unexpected thing that might actually happen is what we're all on this website for. But I have a feeling that could happen much sooner.
It's been redone in its own way anyway, with alterations to the original and retcons in the prequels. Really, I think that's the key difference between Star Wars and the other franchises.
Episode VIII is up.