Originally posted by: JediRandyOriginally posted by: mverta
They are not conspiracies, JediRandy; they are lies and deceit exposed. I have personally seen the source files Lucasfilm claims don't exist to produce restored OT discs. The denial of their existence is a lie; as is the idea that financial and talent resources aren't available for a proper restoration. (I'm one of dozens of people who offered to donate state-of-the-art post-production services and facilites completely gratis to see it done.) The idea that the imagery in the 2004 DVD is superior is as laughable as any side-by-side comparison can demonstrate, only a few hundred of which are documented on my site. The revisionist nature of the entire history is well-documented, and disputed by no shortage of people involved in the creation of Star Wars.
None of us know exactly why this has always happened; probably never will. Probably financial, in some way that doesn't make sense to us, shy of some lynch-pin piece of data. But the evidence for a "conspiracy," if you want to be so X-Files about it, is overwhelming. In the end, there are just too many of us, with too much material and expertise, too many inside contacts, and too many privileged sources to make the idea of a deliberately substandard release anything less than fact. In fact, even Lucasfilm is aware the images are substandard: they're deliberately posting compares on the StarWars.com site to show you how shitty the OT DVD's you just bought are.
Frankly, I don't care why Lucasfilm takes the position they do; I already have my own Star Wars vastly superior to anything they've put out. But in the interest of preservation, accuracy, and love for the trilogy, I'm not going to turn a blind eye to the deficiencies which are patently obvious in these transfers. I'm not going to pretend it's okay for Luke's lightsaber in ANH to be green, or Obi Wan's to be purple, or all the glows eaten off the laserbolts. I'm not going to pretend it's okay that the audio in the surrounds are fipped left-to-right. I'm not going to pretend it's okay that the 2006 DVD is grainier than a pre-93 laserdisc transfer I've had sitting on my hard drive for years. I'm not going to believe the source files for a proper restoration don't exist when I've seen them with my own eyes.
If you honestly can't conceive of any of the myriad reasons - financial, artistic, or personal - for why all of this has gone down, then I don't know what to tell you. It isn't particularly hard, nor uncommon a set of potential motivations. As far as conspiracy theories go, it's about as boring as it gets.
_Mike
If only the "Twilight Zone" theme was playing as I read that.
JediRandy, your hilarious. Name-calling and slander only expose you for the idiot you truly are. He who rests his position on bile, has no position at all.
Originally posted by: mvertaThe opening crawl is bullshit - spotted the fake gate-weave right away. What's even worse is that if you have any ability at all, you can do a completely convincing, organic looking gate weave; I've had to do that a bunch for other projects. It just screams digital post gag.
Also, I'm willing to put some serious money on the fact that grain has been added to ANH, at least. Again, maybe it's from 12 years of doing this stuff every day, but there's a look to post-added grain that I noticed in a bunch of scenes.
There are two truths: 1) The materials exist to make a fully restored OT DVD, scanned already. 2) Lucas does not want the OT to supplant the SE. The images are being deliberately served up to look worse, from the unnecessary sourcing of laserdisc masters when better materials exist, to the non-anamorphic transfer, etc. They're even running a "campaign" on StarWars.com showcasing the differences between the 1977 and 2004 versions of the films, so that fans can see just how much better the 2004's are. It's a curious move to deliberately devalue a product you just released, isn't it?
_Mike
