I’d love to see the “original original” versions of the 1977 credits! Will you include also the cloudless composite during the “leaving Yavin 4” sequence for this version?
I’d love to see all the existing versions in “as good as possible” quality, so your plan sounds exciting.
The factory scene is much longer, has a flying R2D2, and C3PO making shitty joke after shitty joke. No way is it better than any Grievous scene.
Funny, that’s one of the 2 scenes I like from AOTC 😃 The second one being the arena sequence (before the Jedi arrive)
Hmm… I can’t think of a single scene I actually enjoyed in the whole film. I tried, again
Well, the only thing I really like from TPM is the score and I honestly can’t think about one thing I would like from ROTS.
As a kid I have lived in a nice little town surrounded by mountains. I spent lots of time “outside” and I have seen many UFO’s. BTW UFO = unidentified flying object. In other words I have seen many strange flying objects which I couldn’t identify. Could it be aliens? Sure, but it could be literally ANYTHING. As a kid I had many strange dreams, where I e.g. woke up during the night in a strange place and strange little grey “doctors” were “treating” me - it happened so often that I learned a trick how to “get out” (opening my eyes extremely wide open and staring at the ceiling while concentrating on me wanting to be in my room). Does it mean I used to be regularly abducted by aliens? That’s the same thing like with the UFOs - it could be ANYTHING, maybe even nightmares caused by the junk food I ate that day.
That’s my biggest problems with things like UFOs or alien encounters - while they do make interesting stories, all of these things can be explained in many different ways. I haven’t seen anything, any “proof” where “aliens did it” would be the only possible explanation.
A few iterations later this will change into a picture of Phillip J. Fry with the text “Shut up and take my money”
Just an idea, but do we think it’s worth telling them exactly what we would want to see included in an ideal release?
What I’m picturing would mirror the Blade Runner set rather closely, with the final version (plus a few “final” surprises if that rumor about Han shooting first again has any weight) on disc one and the unaltered version on disc three. For ANH, the '81 crawl should be branched in as an option on the unaltered disc.
The middle disc could be the '97 version (timed to how it actually looked in '97) with the '04 and '11 edits branched in. The '04/'11 changes are few and far enough between that I feel like they could be easily branched if the disc is primarily the '97 version. It would provide interesting historical context like the three different versions of the Krayt dragon call, Boba Fett’s voice, different Emperor hologram and cgi Jabba, and Luke’s scream in ESB.
I’d settle for just the '97 version’s inclusion without '04 and '11 but I really do think '97 should be there. It’s the version that started this whole debate in the first place and it was shown in theaters in a major re-release.
Disc 1 - 1977/1981 versions via seamless branching + trailers and TV spots
Disc 2 - 1997 SE + 1997 trailers and TV spots, plus all 1997 TV specials/promos
Disc 3 - 2004/2011 versions via seamless branching
Disc 4 - deleted and alternate scenes, Making of, Holiday special, maybe a new docu?
I agree with most of your suggestions, in fact they are implemented in my previous post 😉
Yeah, I reacted immediately after reading Silverwook’s comment without reading your response first 😃
My “2 cents” :
Third revision:
Dear Disney and Lucasfilm,
Wouldn’t “Dear Disney, dear Lucasfilm” be better? To me an even better version would be
"Dear Lucasfilm, dear Disney" or maybe even “Dear Mr. Iger, Dear Ms. Kennedy” or something like that.
Today is the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, the film that started it all. Yet, where is that film? No, not the special editon, the original 1977 film. The one we grew up with. The one we saw more times than any other film before or since. The film that changed our lives forever.
I personally don’t like “Yet, where is that film?”. I would personally recommend it with something like “Yet, why can’t we watch the film at home?” or something similar. The first sentence sounds like you’re curious about the film, it sounds like you’re suggesting they’re not treating their property correctly which is not something a “boss” of a multi million dollar company like to read.
Whether young or old, whether we saw it in a theater or on home video, it prompted a desire in some of us to make movies or tell stories of our own. George Lucas lit a spark that remains within us today.
One thing we all share are the memories of where and with whom we saw Star Wars, and even of shooting down imaginary TIE fighters out the back window of the car on the way home. For others, it was a brightly shining light in the middle of a turbulent childhood. If Luke and his friends could triumph over their trials, maybe we could too.
All these years later, we would love to revisit the Original Trilogy that we remember, to recapture those memories of a long time ago, in a movie theater or living room far far away. Those of us with families want to be able to show our kids exactly what we saw when we were their age and relive it with them. It should be such a simple thing to do.
Now this is a bit confusing. In the previous paragraph(s) you talk about the 1977 movie, but now you jump to the original trilogy without any connection.
Only it isn’t.
We’re limited in our choices to outdated video formats that are increasingly difficult to obtain and inch closer to extinction each year. And the now out of print bonus DVDs from 2006, which utilize ancient video transfers from 1993, are hardly better, if one can find them at all.
“Ancient video transfers” sounds very “snobby”. What about something like “dated video transfers”, or “transfers which were already dated”?
None of us ever imagined as kids that these historic versions might fade from memory, ultimately, disappearing from the collective consciousness altogether. To the point where CGI scenes created in 1997 are now mistaken for the innovative groundbreaking FX technology of the 1970’s. Film history is being obscured, if not rewritten. We live in an era in which even “bad” movies are respected enough to be meticulously restored and made publically available. Shouldn’t a movie as loved and as culturally significant as Star Wars deserve the same treatment in it’s original form?
I don’t remember who are you targeting it to, but if I can recommend don’t use “FX” or similar “jargon”.
Also “publically” is a word that my spellchecker does not recognize. In American English it is supposed to be “publicly” (at least according to my spellcheck plugin).
We don’t bemoan the Special Edition’s existence. It simply isn’t the version of the trilogy we fell in love with. The Original Original Trilogy, or OOT, deserves to be seen in the absolute best quality afforded by modern cinema and 21st-century home video formats so that it can be loved again by all.
Again, not sure who should read this “open letter” but I would avoid nerdy terms like “original original trilogy”. What about something like “The original trilogy deserves to be seen in the original unaltered form and in the absolute best quality afforded by modern cinema and 21st century home video formats…”
There is room for all versions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of The Jedi to coexist. And we want to give you our money for them; we really do! Please give us that opportunity. At least give us hope that we will be able to do so soon. Some of us aren’t getting any younger! That is all we ask.
I’m not sure if it’s worth to give here some examples of movies with multiple versions on one disc, or not.
Sincerely yours,
The Staff and Members of Originaltrilogy.com
MASH was definitely remastered for the DVD, not only re-scanned. I have the DVD sets of the first 2 seasons and they keep repeating it on TV from some unknown source, and if I check just the opening credits - the TV version has tons of scratches and dirt during the opening montage, while the DVD has (almost) none.
The factory scene is much longer, has a flying R2D2, and C3PO making shitty joke after shitty joke. No way is it better than any Grievous scene.
Funny, that’s one of the 2 scenes I like from AOTC 😃 The second one being the arena sequence (before the Jedi arrive)
I actually prefer the originals
Kennedy’s comments make it sound 100% certain that the OUT is never coming.
I can’t really understand how people can come to this conclusion.
The New Spiderman movie will almost certainly be better than the last two terribad ones. I still can’t believe they had a bad guy who basically looked like he was wearing a bad rubber lizard suit from an old Godzilla movie.
Yeah, I wasn’t a big fan of that second trailer, but surely it can’t be worse than the “Amazing” predecessors.
Mind you, I’m not sure any Spider-Man movie is likely to best the first Raimi one, simply because that one has stuff like this. Sure, it’s goofy as hell, but it’s more creative than anything I’ve seen in a comic movie since, and actually feels like something that would be in a comic.
But I digress, I’m sure Homecoming will be fine. After that Ragnarok trailer, I’m suddenly far more interested in Thor, whose previous movies were incredibly dull. The Earth setting was holding them back, and I’m glad they’ve ditched Earth and Thor’s bland human friends.
I loved the first 2 Raimi movies, together with the first 2 X-Men movies I think they might be the best “superhero” movies ever made. The third one wasn’t as good as the previous 2, it had way too many subplots (thanks to Avi F**king Arad) and tonal problems, but it’s still enjoyable. I tried to watch The Amazing Spiderman 1, and I thought it’s a giant piece of dog excrements. I have seen maybe 10 minutes of the second one, I switched the channel during the first commercial break and never came back. And from the reviews I’ve seen I’ve done the correct decision.
I did really like the first Thor movie, but not as a superhero flick, but like a character-driven drama. It was all about interpersonal relationships between two brothers and their father, I really enjoyed the acting, directing, art direction etc. But I understand why some people say it’s boring. The second one however is one giant WTF - I tried to watch it twice but the only thing I remember from it was the “teleportation”. I am worried about the third one, it looks from the trailer it will suffer from the “too much shit going on at the same time” syndrome like Spiderman 3, or Avengers 2
That’s a shit article anyway. That’s not the question she was asked. She was basically asked if they were going to make another special edition with more changes. She was not asked if they were going to restore the originals. Article just wanted attention.
Not exactly, the question asked by the interviewer is pretty ambiguous:
“The vision of George’s final cut of the films that he left us with, whether that might be altered over time.”
To which Kennedy says:
“I wouldn’t touch those, are you kidding? :laughs: Those will always remain his.”
OK maybe it’s because I’m not a native English speaker but to me there is just one possible way how to interpret the question and the answer:
I: Are you going to do more changes to the original trilogy?
K: No
After having an “Easter marathon” my current ranking is
1./2. - Star Wars / The Empire Strikes Back
3. The Attack of the Clones
4. The Clone Wars
5. Return of the Jedi
6. The Force Awakens
7. The Phantom Menace
8. Rogue One
9. Caravan of Courage
10. Battle for Endor
11. The Star Wars Holiday Special
12. Revenge of the Sithdid you manage to fit those all in one marathon? :p
OK, a “marathon” split into 4 days 😃
After having an “Easter marathon” my current ranking is
1./2. - Star Wars / The Empire Strikes Back
3. The Attack of the Clones
4. The Clone Wars
5. Return of the Jedi
6. The Force Awakens
7. The Phantom Menace
8. Rogue One
9. Caravan of Courage
10. Battle for Endor
11. The Star Wars Holiday Special
12. Revenge of the Sith
AOTC film prints were of notoriously poor quality. As it was also originally digitally projected, using a 35mm print as the definitive reference to how it should look is misguided. It was meant to be digitally projected.
Actually in 2002 the majorities of the cinemas / movie theatres on the planet have projected the movie from 35mm prints. So…
However, the 35mm film prints had a different cut of the film, so if one ever becomes available, it would be great to see that alternate cut.
This “alternate” cut is the “original theatrical cut” for most of the world
Just one question - why? Both the NTSC DVD and the PAL DVD come from the same digital master, right?
Waaaaaay too dark
So it’s the final season after all. OK, so what’s the new show Filloni is rumoured to be working on?
Is there any list of changes they’ve done to it? I have only seen ABC versions of 1 and 2
Star Trek III? OMG YES!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja4WudpzBYw&feature=youtu.be
OMG that’s brilliant! Why the hell don’t they release it? Instead they’re just messing with us! BTW is this the first time we have ever heard the word “Sith” in the original trilogy?
pittrek said:
Sorry, but no. There have been hundreds of changes done between the originals and the 97 SEs.
The 2004 DVD is basically the 97SE with corrected coloursThat’s just not true. The only people who ever say that are people who swear by the original cuts and don’t watch the special editions. I saw the faces release first, that was my intro to star wars when I was a kid, then I watched the special edition growing up, and then I had the DVDs when I was a teenager. Those are just what I had available because they didn’t rerelease the originals. The DVD version is completely different because the changes you describe warp the foundation the films. Adding a cgi dewback is just not the same as adding a Hayden Christensen.
That doesn’t change the fact that they have done hundreds (OK, maybe not literally hundreds, I didn’t count them) changes between the original version and the 1997 SE : https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMh7UH0DbCPGxQyEOdmfmYiFnh3lgoBNNLCPnHTQnvyCtXQnScSo8L_vR3x6A9y_Q?key=aDFfLXE3clp4SldVcndkalc3UjJ4UlU2ZUlDb0JB
The Carrie Fisher tribute video had tons of previously unreleased clips. Can that be a sign of … something?
Star Wars is great. The Originals and The 97SEs are fundamentally the same for the most part, but since the DVD release they seem to have changed the way the films actually feel.
Sorry, but no. There have been hundreds of changes done between the originals and the 97 SEs.
The 2004 DVD is basically the 97SE with corrected colours, worse sound mix, new scenes (like “Wesa free” in ROTJ), and re-done effects (new Jabba in E4, new Coruscant in E6). The 2011 Blu-ray is the 2004 master with some minor changes (like the new door to Jabba’s palace) and correction of some lightsabre shots (only the shots which we complained about, and nothing else).