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Fang Zei

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14-Oct-2006
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16-Apr-2024
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Post
#301533
Topic
so I finally acquired the '95 boxset
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/301533/action/topic#301533
Time
Honestly, if Lucas thought the GOUT would sell any better than it did (and it sold pretty damn well all things considered), then his ego has grown larger than any of us could've possibly predicted. I think maybe he's finally gotten over the "it's my movie" mantra and is thinking about giving us fans what we've been asking for. This isn't THX-1138 (anyone on these boards actually see that movie in a theater back in '71?), this isn't Young Indiana Jones, hell, this isn't even the Indiana Jones movies (which, to my knowledge, Lucas hasn't prohibited screenings of the original prints of anyway), this is motherfuckin' Star Wars, and a lot of people care which version it is. Granted, it might not be quite as many people as I'm thinking it is. After all, I can remember a time when I would spot the '04 boxset lying around at the place of every single person my age I'd visit. But I'm convinced that was just because it was star wars on dvd finally, not because it was the SE or that they even cared which version it was. Even considering that, people were talking about the original versions when September of '06 rolled around.

I don't doubt that Lucas honestly thought people would prefer the Special Editions when he wrote those words back in '95, but for crying out loud, he's had ten years to get over the fact that they don't. Now that Spielberg has shown him up (or whatever) with the new close encounters release, Lucas doesn't really have much of an excuse to not do the same with Star Wars. Granted, he would have to go through more trouble since you can't just seamlessly branch both versions onto the same disc, but how would it not be worth it? I think one of the reasons Spielberg decided to go all out with the blu-ray release is that he realized people wouldn't have much of a reason to buy it if he didn't. The reason we still might not get what we want with the next Star Wars release is, well, it's STAR WARS and not close encounters. People probably will buy it again when it finally hits hi-def just like they did with dvd back in '04, and maybe we OOT fans are more of a minority than we'd like to think and Lucas will just have to decide if it's worth the trouble just to please a few more fans.

In any event, I say three more years at the most until we see the next release. Close Encounters hit dvd in '01 so that gives some idea.
Post
#301503
Topic
so I finally acquired the '95 boxset
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/301503/action/topic#301503
Time
I'm hoping that when Sansweet or whomever it was said that they weren't planning another home video release because of market saturation or because the GOUT didn't sell well or whatever, that it was just a cover for them planning to bring out the big guns and actually remaster the OOT several years from now (just not the very year after since it would piss off all the people who paid good money for laserdisc transfers on dvd. The shortest amount of time I can think of between a laserdisc port release and an actual remastered release of the same movie is two years and that's Conan the Barbarian).
Post
#301496
Topic
so I finally acquired the '95 boxset
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/301496/action/topic#301496
Time
Some of you may remember my own saga with completing this collection (probably not, in fact it would be weird if you did).

I got the '95 vhs of ANH for Christmas that year.

Cut to early May of '05, I'm back home from college for the weekend to look for a summer job. I stop by my local video store and they've got the '86 vhs of Jedi on sale for 5 dollars! There isn't enough money in my wallet so I race back home (takes, like, a minute), race back and buy it.

Then only a week later I'm in southern Delaware with some friends at a record and tape traders and I notice the '95 vhs of both Empire and Jedi. At last, my collection is complete! Then I get home and find out that the Empire tape is basically shot. There's static like every single second and the tape is wrinkled on one edge. I'm not totally ruling out the possibility that the magnets in my bag fucked it up (it's a flap bag with magnets that snap together instead of those plastic things) since the Empire tape was probably closer to the magnets than the Jedi tape, even though I'm pretty sure I put stuff in between the tapes and the magnets (in retrospect, it was pretty stupid to even put them in there at all).

Back then I was convinced the store had sold me a bad copy and was torn up by the fact that the complete boxset had been lying right there on the shelf, I just hadn't gotten it since I already had a copy of the original movie.

Then January of '06 rolled around and I discovered the whole fan preservation thing. After a couple weeks of torrenting, I had the cowclopsv2 trilogy. But that's really only good for watching on my computer or on a widescreen tv (which neither I nor my parents have), and I'm not getting the GOUT unless it's like 2 dollars per movie. Speaking of which, Black Friday is right around to corner so who knows maybe that'll happen.

So, today I decide for whatever reason to stop by the CD cellar and as it turned out they had the '95 boxset and I ended up getting it for a cool 5 dollars.

First off, I have a question for anyone who knows the answer. The logo on the ANH box and sticker says 20th Century Fox but the boxes and stickers for Empire and Jedi say CBS/FOX (I know there's nothing wrong since the copies I got in Delaware were like this also, I'm just curious). Does this have something to do with the rights to ANH switching over the Lucasfilm around that time?

Anyways, I find it hi-fuckin-larious what's written on the box, considering what would happen in later years.

"The appeal of Star Wars has gone beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I am pleased that for the final video release of Star Wars in its original version, we can present it with the best sound and picture quality yet available, thanks to THX digital mastering.

In the years to come I hope you, your children, and your children's children will enjoy not only this trilogy but also the adventures yet to come in the continually unfolding Star Wars universe."

-George Lucas

This also raises something I was going to start a thread over but I'll just ask here. What are we going to do if, several years from now (because you know it'll be at least that long), the next release is announced and the remastered OOT isn't part of it? Will we resign ourselves to the fact that we'll have to wait until the movies enter public domain so we can hire Robert A. Harris?
Post
#301060
Topic
Original theatrical subtitles....
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/301060/action/topic#301060
Time
Originally posted by: zombie84
I think all of the OT footage in EOD is just taken from the Laserdisks though.


You mean they pulled a dr.gonzo/cowclopsv2 when they made it?

This is something I've long suspected, and if it's true that means it's another nail in the "we'll never see the OOT restored/remastered" coffin. Is there any proof of this, like softness or a "blowed up" look, etc?

When thedigitalbits broke the non-anamorphic news in May of '06 they said they were pretty sure the footage from EoD was filmprint-sourced, although their only logic was that it probably couldn't have come from anywhere else and still be in anamorphic video. That said, if one of the earlier laserdisc releases did in fact use the original subs it opens up the possibility that the EoD footage was not filmprint-sourced. I guess it all depends on how you interpret Kevin Burns' line from the '04 press junket that they "were granted Papal dispensation to go back and use the footage from the pre-SE release .... but I will say what was shocking was that those scenes .... in our minds eye they looked a lot better than they do when you go back and revisit them and you do see how the quality of the print (or) - the quality of the negative really doesn't hold up the way you think it might, so you kind of understand why things have been revised and digitally restored."
Post
#301043
Topic
Original theatrical subtitles....
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/301043/action/topic#301043
Time
I remember during the GOUT debacle someone mentioned that dvd's can be made with a flag telling the player that it's a "widescreen" disc even if it's not "anamorphic widescreen," and this can allow for things like automatic xy scaling. Even then, I'm not sure if the player would automatically move the subtitles into the safe zone for zooming or if it's possible to do that at all.
Post
#300912
Topic
How did you envision the prequels?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/300912/action/topic#300912
Time
Actually that's the funny part, and it never even occurred to me until now. In the original movie from '77, Obi-Wan never says he trained Anakin (that part should've been more obvious to me) but more importantly he never says Anakin was younger than him. It's just that it's a conclusion that can be drawn when you consider that Owen knew Anakin and Owen calls Ben Kenobi "a crazy old man." Even in Return of the Jedi when we find out Vader and Anakin are the same person, Obi-Wan never explicitly states that Anakin was younger than him, although he did say in the original movie that Vader was a "young jedi." It's just that with the line "when I first knew him, you're father was already a great pilot" you can easily construe that Obi-Wan meant Anakin was exceptionally skilled for his young (as in younger than Obi-Wan's) age. Another possible interpretation is that Obi-Wan says "already a great pilot" because he didn't meet Anakin until he was a great pilot. As for Shaw being much older than Guinness in real life, if you just look at it in terms of the movies it's easy to justify since Vader/Anakin would seem that old after all the lava pit damage he sustained. Nevertheless, that is a failing of the prequels in my opinion. I remember one of the first rumors about Episode III was that we would see Anakin/Vader gradually collecting the pieces that make up his armor. I thought this was a cool idea because it would make the movie a nice bridge to Episode IV, and I was expecting the entire movie to be that, not just the last 5 fracking minutes.
Post
#300850
Topic
The Beginning: Making 'Episode I': A comedy masterpiece
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/300850/action/topic#300850
Time
Yea, I re-watched this a couple months ago mainly because I hadn't seen it in a while and "I've learned so much" in just the past year of posting on these forums. Yes, I would also have to say it's quite amusing, especially watching it now ten whole years after it began.

One thing I remember noticing this time, now that I was watching with a more discerning eye, is that George actually seems to get genuinely annoyed at one point during that conversation he, McCallum and (I think) Burtt are having after getting out of the screening room for that first roughcut. One of the two other guys says something in that slow, trying to say it the nicest he can way and George sort of snaps and goes "yea, yea, yea, I know, this and that" just as the camera cuts away.

Another thing I caught the fuller implication of this time around was how Titanic had not been released when Episode I started shooting, so when they're doing the pickups in Spring of '98 that's why George says "we're never going to beat Titanic" when Frank Oz asks him how well he thinks Episode I is going to do. Also, I didn't notice until this time that George was saying "More American Graffiti" and how it only made 2 cents (or something to that effect).

And, of course, seeing that ending with the Rick McCallum premiere and all the fans screaming upon the cut to the title shot conjured up all kinds of feelings, especially after reading someone's account (I think it was magnoliafan's) of pretty much that same thing happening and the very steep downward decline the rest of the movie after the opening crawl was.

CO, I was thinking the same thing about how Lucas probably went in a different direction than he was going to for eps II and III after all of the TPM backlash, and I echo HotRod's sentiments when I say that AOTC is the true disappointment of the PT. It was nothing but filler to get to Episode III, and even parts of that ended up being filler. The reason I look at TPM differently is that it was only the beginning of the story. Lucas could've gone in any direction he wanted to get from there to Episode IV, and it's the direction he took that disappointed me.
Post
#300757
Topic
Family Guy to kick off season with 1 hour Star Wars spoof
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/300757/action/topic#300757
Time
Originally posted by: see you auntie
Originally posted by: zombie84

..........and yikes look at that packaging! Is this thing being made by Lucasfilm?



Fox Yes, Lucasfilm No.

The packaging is my only interest and why I made mention of it here. Family Guy and Fox really put together a great set and would like to see something like this for oh I don't know... a real Star Wars dvd release.

If it was done by Lucasfilm it would be nothing this elaborate. From every SW dvd release to Indy Lucasfilm's packaging and coverart have, to put it bluntly, Fucking Sucked.


yea but they'd probably just use the excuse that they'd need to make millions of copies in order to justify cheaping out on the packaging.
Post
#300641
Topic
Does the PT work as a fun & fluff comic book production?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/300641/action/topic#300641
Time
The timing of this thread is great. Watching Spider-Man 3 last week, and thinking about how much higher a budget these big comic book movies have than the prequels, it made me wonder if the modern day equivalent of an Empire Strikes Back sized budget for each of the prequels would've significantly improved them. This does raise the question of what that would be exactly and if the prequels didn't already have them anyway. Going over the numbers in my head, TPM was 130 million or so and AOTC and ROTS were 110 million each. I know they said film processing accounted for several million dollars on TPM, but it couldn't have made the entire difference. For whatever reason, Lucas scaled it back for the prequel sequels. The other thing is how everyone was saying from before TPM even came out that Lucas was saving boatloads of money on effects because he owns ILM.

....

I forgot where I was going with all of this so I'll just leave it at that.
Post
#300169
Topic
Cash cow-abanga shit, another SW OT dvd repackaging for the holidays! Luca$$$
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/300169/action/topic#300169
Time
I think we can at least hope to see the OOT remastered in the hi-def release, whenever that happens. Lucas only got away with the GOUT because everyone watching it on a 4:3 tv can't tell the difference. If he tries to pull the same stunt on the hi-def release, everyone will notice. He has less of an excuse now than ever, with Close Encounters and Blade Runner right around the corner and the Kubrick remasters on the shelves now (ok, Eyes Wide Shut isn't the theater version, but then again the theater version was the version with digitally added people so there ya go). As for the format war affecting this, I feel inclined to point out that the earliest home video releases of the OT were on both vhs and betamax. Yes, I know Lucasfilm has already said they're supporting BRD and we'll probably only see Star Wars on that format anyway since it's 20th Century Fox, but have you thought of what's going to happen with Indy IV? Spielberg is of course exempt from Paramount's hddvd exclusivity, but I'm wondering if that means he can choose not to release Indy IV on hddvd at all. If it doesn't, that means we'll see it on all three formats next fall and maybe it'll end up being the same for Star Wars whenever that gets released. People are saying that the gap between the rival formats is still too close to call. The fact that Lucasfilm took any stance on the format war says to me that we will see Star Wars on BRD eventually if not on both formats. If he released it sooner rather than later, releasing it on both formats would be a bit pointless since it would only widen the confrontation while going with only one format - especially if the release included a remastered OOT - would crush the format war with one swift stroke. If he waits any longer then he might as well just sit back and wait until the format war is over, but that could be more time than even he is willing to wait, not to mention the fans. Ultimately it boils down to how many people have hi-def players in the first place. Lucas might have to wait a while before he'll even have enough people able to even play the hi-def release to justify releasing it.
Post
#300035
Topic
A question about NTSC telecine
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/300035/action/topic#300035
Time
(copy-pasted from another thread)

Sorry to drag on this question, but can someone who knows please tell me if movies are recorded onto blu-ray/hddvd at exactly 24.000 frames per second? I keep stumbling across message boards in my google searching where people say things like "it has to output it at 23.976 because that's the only thing your television understands" even when they're talking about high definition teleivions. Then there's also that 23.98 framerate I keep hearing about. Please, someone just clear this up for me. I haven't gotten into either format yet because I don't own an hdtv, although I do own a 1024by768 4:3 monitor with both vga and dvi if it makes any difference (don't know if it would be possible to hook up a set top device to this). So yea, right now I can't watch 16:9 video in anything higher than 1024 by 576, however the big appeal to me about these new high definition formats hasn't been the resolution but the fact that it bypasses the existing ntsc and pal systems, allowing us to watch our movies at their exact framerate (at least that's what I've been led to believe). If someone could clear this up I'd greatly appreciate it.

EDIT: yea sorry for all that. I did some digging and I'm now almost totally positive it's exactly 24.000 frames per second for both hddvd and blu-ray. I stumbled upon a forum where people were talking about "cadence" which is something I've heard brought up around here before.
Post
#300032
Topic
Blu-ray Disc or HD-DVD?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/300032/action/topic#300032
Time
Yea but that wasn't my question this time. Last time it was about how NTSC does in fact run slower but this time I'm asking if high definition also runs slower.

Or would both blu-ray and hddvd having 24 fps playback give them yet another thing to have in common and be yet another reason for why you should just get a combo player?!

EDIT: yea sorry for all that. I did some digging and I'm now almost totally positive it's exactly 24.000 frames per second for both hddvd and blu-ray. I stumbled upon a forum where people were talking about "cadence" which is something I've heard brought up around here before.
Post
#300017
Topic
Blu-ray Disc or HD-DVD?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/300017/action/topic#300017
Time
Sorry to drag on this question, but can someone who knows please tell me if movies are recorded onto blu-ray/hddvd at exactly 24.000 frames per second? I keep stumbling across message boards in my google searching where people say things like "it has to output it at 23.976 because that's the only thing your television understands" even when they're talking about high definition teleivions. Then there's also that 23.98 framerate I keep hearing about. Please, someone just clear this up for me. I haven't gotten into either format yet because I don't own an hdtv, although I do own a 1024by768 4:3 monitor with both vga and dvi if it makes any difference (don't know if it would be possible to hook up a set top device to this). So yea, right now I can't watch 16:9 video in anything higher than 1024 by 576, however the big appeal to me about these new high definition formats hasn't been the resolution but the fact that it bypasses the existing ntsc and pal systems, allowing us to watch our movies at their exact framerate. It's almost like having a 16mm print of a movie for your viewing pleasure .... just as long as it's running at exactly 24.000 frames per second. If someone could clear this up I'd greatly appreciate it.
Post
#299968
Topic
Would you give up ESB in exchange for...?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/299968/action/topic#299968
Time
I voted no. Here's the way I look at it. In an ideal world, Lucas would've never made the SE and he would've made the PT, ya know, good. He wouldn't have every single shot using a visual effect of some sort, that's a better way of saying it. However, the prequels are what they are. Keeping the SE as his definitive version while also remastering the OOT for us would not have been ideal, but it would have been at least acceptable. You've got to remember that next to no one involved with the actual making of the movies made any noise when the SE's were released, not even Irvin Kershner. The thing that really irks me is how Lucas felt free to alter Jedi when its director had been dead for ten years and everyone justified it by saying "oh, well Lucas pretty much directed Jedi anyway, it's more his movie than Marquand's."

Sorry to sound whiny people, but I'd prefer to have my cake and eat it too. Give me the original versions of all six movies remastered and then Lucas can go do whatever he wants to them.