m_s0

Kamdan said:

I hadn't heard of these until the Despeciaized edition of A New Hope came out. I would be interested in hearing the full commentary, since it was edited to be played with the original version. Does someone have these commentaries? I tried to look them up, but couldn't find anything, because I didn't catch what the commentator's name was.

I'm not sure I quite understand what you're saying here, but you can find some info here:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_DVD_releases

Come to think of it, I don't recall listening to them myself, mostly because I just can't stand the SEs so taking these discs out isn't a thought I entertain... at all, really. The box itself is nice, though. Really cool cardboard.

This revelation so ingrained in pop culture at this point that the case above is very rare. I've talked to people who literally knew nothing about Star Wars (and I do mean nothing), never watched the movies, but they were familiar with "I am your father" from ESB.

What's worse, though, is the fact so many people got spoiled by the atrocity that is PT, which they hated anyway. That just makes me sad. And glad that I got to watch these when there was no PT and/or widely available Internet access to spoil everything for me.

If you lean on the conservative side and you don't mind the picture quality (you don't have a choice until the BDs come out, unfortunately) get DJ's sets. Take a look at Puggo's preservations of the 16mm versions of the films while you're at it - I think they're absolutely beautiful, but I may be crazy. Both are my preferred versions, and, as it's been pointed out, they're actual preservations.

If all you care about is excising the major changes and/or you want decent picture quality get Harmy's edits. Personally, I think they're remarkable work, but they're not quite where I'd like them to be yet.

As for DJ's upcoming BD sets I recall him posting a preview screenshot of the new version of SW with the appropriate frame from the DVD version for comparison. The difference is certainly there and it's pretty amazing considering what these guys have to work with. You might want to look through the appropriate thread. It's worth keeping in mind they won't look as good as Harmy's Despecialized versions, because he's working with higher quality sources.

Harmy said:

Actually, the hold up is on my head - I'm doing the color correction for Puggo and reels 2 and 3 (there are only 3 for 16mm) are already done but reel one posses a much greater challenge with the need to combine different captures for different scenes as there are both very dark and very bright scenes and it's sometimes hard to pick the best capture and I didn't manage to find the time to do it yet.

Work harder for our (free) amusement, dammit!

...please?

All joking aside, I'm glad this is moving forward since I loved the other two captures. Thanks, guys.

TV's Frink said:

Bingowings said:

It would be ironic if David Lynch turned it down to make Dune.

And extremely fortunate.

Yup. If it wasn't for the trainwreck that was Dune he'd probably be wasting his time on blockbusters for years afterwards.

Rise of the Gungans

They've been undeservedly ignored in the OT, even though they're the key element in the Star Wars mythos. Think of the possibilities: the son of the great Jar-Jar Binks teaming up with 80-year-old Han Solo to do stuff and things, bridging both trilogies as it was originally intended!

It's still great news so thanks for the update! What's the ETA on the rest then?

I can't wait for that new OT set to be released. Here's hoping for an early Christmas this year ;)

Mielr said:

I don't have (or want) a stupid Kindle and it's seriously PISSING ME OFF that I spent nearly $200 for the three hardcover books and now Random House is going around taking the videos off YouTube. The least they could do is offer people who bought the books a place to download the videos, or a mail-in DVD offer (I'd be willing to PAY for that, even!) I'd even friggin' cut the UPC codes out of the book covers and mail them in to prove I bought them!

Loyal Star Wars fan for 32 years, no OOT on Blu-Ray, and I am so fed up with this bullshit PIECEMEAL handling of footage that should have at least been released on DVD in 2005, it makes me doubly glad that I never bought the blu-ray set.

ARRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH! I am SO DONE with this crap and being made to feel like a chump, I think I've finally reached my breaking point. :-(

The Kindle is a pretty neat device, but yeah, I agree completely with your post.

Those who just want an action film of course wouldn't be interested - but their loss...

Wait, what? It's an old-school adventure movie. Yeah, you'd need to have the old man think more and punch people less, but you can't lose the action entirely, because that's what these movies are about.

That kind of reasoning and lack of understanding of the source material got us the bloated mess that is the "plot" of the prequel trilogy, for crying out loud.

using brains and a little good luck in his escapades could make for a decent Indy flick again.

Right. "Look ma, no hands!" I just can't see Indy as MacGyver at all.

And once again, these movies did get a pretty good send off. In 1989.

DominicCobb said:

The Indiana Jones 5 news excites me. I believe there's still potential for a great Indy movie. The real problem will KOTCS was the script. The film was actually enjoyable, just unfocused. If they can get that right (and I don't see why they can't, there won't be another two decades of re-writes) then everyone will be happy because we'll all walk home with one last great adventure.

I don't share your optimism. And I disagree about it being enjoyable.

The way I see it, the single element that gets screwed up completely almost every single time in modern big budget movies is the script, and KotSC had a lot of problems aside from that. Passing the torch/the bits about shoving in Indy's son (indicative of the general approach to the film), general fakeness due to CGI extravaganza, Ford being an old man (I like the guy, but he's hardly a convincing Indy at this point and people need to get over that) and so on. Yeah, all of that could potentially be solved and if it gets solved there's a chance the movie won't suck, but that's a huge "if".

DominicCobb said:

everyone will be happy because we'll all walk home with one last great adventure.

That already happened back in 1989.

Bingowings said:

Is it on my sleen yet?

Nope, we still need to wait a bit for proper hi-def scans of the OT, but as soon as these become available work on the Original Edition will no doubt commence.

Just about the only part of this rumour that's even remotely close to being exciting is the speculation that Ford (allegedly) deemed the story (not the script) potentially not shit in the form it's (allegedly) been presented to him. Or, more accurately, the part of the story that's related to his character. Yay.

That aside, I don't see how going back to the old characters is a good idea at this point. Leave them be, think of something new. Indiana Jones 5 is an equally horrible idea. Friggin' Hollywood :/

frank678 said:

Memorex said:Cool! I can't wait to see it! At the moment there isn't even a half-decent way to watch the original version :( >> I think some guy named Harmy knocked out a pretty good version a while back.

Nah, it turns out he made some changes that screw with the original vision Lucas had back in the '70s so there really is nothing decent available yet.

frank678 said:

Thought I'd link this here as I just came across it and it relates tangentially:http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/10/22/star-wars-return-of-the-jedi-harrison-ford-mark-hamill/

You might want to read this thread:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Making-of-Return-of-the-Jedi-the-book-Thread/topic/12646/page/12/

;)

timdiggerm said:

Aha, so there is still a bit of a puzzle to solve here. Hmm.

The DRM? If Google is to be believed that shouldn't be a problem.

You need a Kindle Fire (any model aside from the first iteration, supposedly) to play the videos.

That's good to know.

Anyway, I'm thinking Disney would've reacted by know if they intended to react in the first place.

Bingowings said:

Well at least it's not that Demon Lindelof

They're probably saving him for the final pass. You know, to polish things up and add a tinge of mystery as only He can.

I'm happy with Kasdan. There's at least a tiny chance now that this might not suck completely script-wise.

FrederikOlsen said:

darth_ender said:

It worries me that this is getting so much publicity.  What if Disney/LFL shut this down?

This was posted in the group roughly 15 hours ago.

THX was sold off as part of LucasFilm, right? If so, it seems Disney is being uncharacteristically cool about this.

Yeah, that's pretty weird. What reason could they have? Free publicity for that new SW movie? lol

Leonardo said:

Beach photo shoot?

I wanna see Chewie shaking water off himself! Or sporting a silly Taun Taun shaped life preserver, floaties and snorkel !  :D

Leia fondling an Ewok will have to suffice, unfortunately.

http://imgur.com/user/mrdorkesq/favorites/zBbRq

doubleofive said:

Luke loses all three battles.

And why would they need to be labelled (Prime)? Did I miss something? Is the JJ Star Wars going to be a reboot as well?

You probably just missed tons of fanfiction:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Empire

I've never read it, and, frankly, I don't feel like I'm missing out:

The story deals with the return of the villainous Palpatine, having successfully cheated death by becoming a spirit entity that is "reincarnated" through cloning technology. Other themes include Luke Skywalker temporarily succumbing to the Dark Side of the Force, the official return of Boba Fett (who had seemingly died after being swallowed by the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi), and the first appearance of Princess Leia and Han Solo's son, Anakin Solo.

DominicCobb said:

digitalfreaknyc said:

2 ) Rebel briefing scene where Lando announces to Han that that he's a general. Lots of improvised banter between Ford and Williams before they go through the actual dialogue from the script.

What.

God I hope this is in high quality/possible to be ripped.

You can stop hoping. Just look at the size of these ebooks:

ANH: 358125 KB

ESB: 385139 KB

ROTJ: 324759 KB

We're talking embedded video here. I bet you can rip it and it'll probably end up on youtube soon, but it won't be of much use for anything else. Still excited to see it, though.

Tack said:

OK, I though the claim of a 4 hour cut of Blade Runner was insane! I knew there were a lot of cut scenes for TPM, but not 6 hours worth! 

Why is it insane? A rough assembly cut would easily clock around 4h and seeing as Scott tended to shoot quite a bit of footage I'm actually surprised it wasn't longer (as a matter of fact there are reports that even this cut had some missing scenes). Basically, the approach was to cobble together some footage in order to create a rough structure and to work from there. It's probably the most sane approach to dealing with truckloads of film there is.

And since we're already talking about this, I'd kill to see this cut of Blade Runner and (getting back on topic) I'd kill not to be forced to sit through 6h of a TPM.

AntcuFaalb said:

A new transfer of this is coming soon.

I've learned a lot over the past year. It's now time to do it right.

So, uh, what's the status of this new transfer?