see you auntie

The only 3D movies I've seen have been shot in 3D (Avatar) or have been animated (Toy Story 3, Up, How to Train your Dragon, Beowulf) and have been a pretty good experience. But I'm kind of over the 3D thing already. I'll see an Avatar type movie but the type of 3D employed in Toy Story 3 means I'll rather watch it in 2D and save some money.

I haven't seen any of the post-converted 3D movies not because I'm a 3D snob but because the movies looked garbage (Clash of the Titans, The Last Airbender) but from all the reports and reviews I've read the post conversion looks like crap even for the movies that it wasn't a rush job cash grab like the aforementioned titles.

So I don't see how any good can come from Star Wars in (post converted) 3D other than making Lucasfilm 6 more large piles of cash. And even then I don't think the first three will make as much they hope. Who will go see them other than die hards? The general public is definitely burnt out on the prequels. So maybe the final three won't even get released. 

At the end of last year when a lot of movie nerds were bemoaning 3D cinema I was in favour of the wait and see approach but now I just wish it would go away. Sure Scorsese is making a 3D film movie and other big name director will experiment with it soon enough (Fincher, Scott) I highly doubt that my enjoyment of films like Black Swan, The Social Network and True Grit will be lessened by the fact that they are only in 2D.

Though I'll see Scorsese's Hugo Cabret because he shot it that way.

Oh wait I'll probably see Jackass 3D because... why not?

Harmy, no explanation necessary. Like one of the previous posters wrote - your work, your call.

The Rancor scenes look good enough. The shot of Boba Fett I previously mentioned, eh, not so much.

Can I ask what GKAR means? I know what it is, that is it refers to one of the three sources used for the edit along with the GOUT and '04 DVD I just don't know what the specifics are.

I watch the workprint last night. Well about a third and then I scanned through the rest (Endor and Death Star). I can only speak generally because I'm far from technical but the colours looked good (a big issue with me). Vader's lightsaber looks better. I agree on the letterboxing/ black bars issue that's been brought up.

I don't have the workprint on hand right now to reference but I thought the Jabba Palace dance sequence looked good enough. Maybe a little bit too much GOUT, but what's the alternative?

I'm as much as a purist as the next guy but I personally don't see the point of using the Rancor/Luke footage from the GOUT. The drop in quality to retain the matte lines I don't think is worth it. Of course whenever the theatrical ROTJ is truly restored I want to see matte lines but that's because it won't be at the expense of quality.

I think it's an unnecessary distraction. It's not like Adwayn's TESB reconstruction didn't have SE Snowspeeder recompositions.

The same could be said for the shot of Boba Fett flying across screen into the Sail Barge after being hit in the Jetpack. Sure they're different shots from OUT to SE but I think in essence they're the same thing. I can't believe I'm saying this.

I say this not to criticise, but  because most of the Salaac/ Barge battle shots look great and the quality you've been able to maintain while removing cg tentacles etc is really impressive. It's just my opinion. I know this is your project, do what satisfies you, not just one random person on the internet.

Harmy regarding the expanding nature of this project, I imagine if all that was achieved with this project was colour correction, burnt in subs and a re-edit of the Jabba Palace, sail barge/sarlaac and end celebration sequences to match the theatrical this restoration would satisfy most people.

Of course they're are the additional cg shots like DSII blowing up, Vaders eyebrows Sarlaac and Banthas that will be addressed.

All the recompositions of the fx shots for various ships etc aren't that big of a deal if time and school are an issue. Adywan's TESB restoration should be the template and everyone loved that (including me) although it's not 100% theatrical version.

On a personal level, for me the shake in the burnt in subs makes my eyes hurt a little. Otherwise the samples uploaded to youtube look great.

And if you want one more set of eyes to look at the workprint send me a pm. I've been moving but I've now got the spare time.

Ric Olie said:

Lionel Hutz said:

I watched Attack of the Clones in a bar last night. The sound wasn't on, but I think I got the gist of it.

That's genius right there.

For me - 2005. That's when ROTS was released right? Or does the 70 minute review of TPM count?

I don't think the whole thing about Lucas going "soft" after becoming a father is anything new. In fact I thought that was the general understanding as the reason for certain shifts in focus or tone.

And the whole child psychiatrist thing could be said to go against the whole only Lucas, Kershner and Hamill (I presume Kasdan too) knew about the "revelation".

I now watched the first two thirds of Star Wars de-specialized so I can't comment on the attack on the death star sequence but I'll comment on what I've seen.

I've not yet watched ESB or ROTJ as I have to convert the AVCHD's first. I'll preface that I was only interested in the de-specialized ESB and ROTJ but downloaded SW out of curiosity and to complete the trilogy.

The changes that you've made are well executed but unfortunately for me there still to much SE for me to enjoy the edit. I hope I don't sound critical or unappreciative because your work is really good and I knew exactly what was changed and what wasn't before I downloaded and watched it. I'm also aware this was a project for yourself and your viewing habits that you were kind enough to share with us, so good work considering the source material you have to work with.

I do have a couple of questions.

Did you use any of Adywan's Revisited (which I've not seen) in your edit. The reason I ask is I'm led to believe Adywan painstakingly removed the Ronto that walks in front of the Landspeeder at the Stormtrooper checkpoint and other such things. Did you use these shots?

Also I noticed that the blinking garbage compactor creature and tractor beam display text remain from the 2004 SE's. Is there not HD material from the '97 SE available for these shots?

And the removal of the Han and Jabba confrontation leaves a straight cut rather than the dissolve seen in the '77 theatrical. I assume there's not enough frames available on the ends of either scene to achieve the dissolve.

I should get to the other two films soon and I look forward to them.

Easterhay said:

I have little in common with the fans who make their own edits, I'm afraid.  I'm aware of Adywan and while his passion is admirable, I won't be choosing his versions over the ones I currently have.  Thanks all the same :)

You stated you'd love to see the changes removed. Adywan has removed them.

Easterhay said:

.... All unecessary and I'd love to see them removed.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-Empire-Strikes-Back-1980-Theatrical-version-Reconstruction-Adywan/topic/11544/

;)

xhonzi said:

 

I still don't get it.  How close to Jabba's are they?  They're on Tatooine, that's all the painting tells me.  Is that what you're saying is "too" close?  Or are you assuming they're within miles of the palace?  Back to the former, are we supposed to assume that they dropped the Falcon off a couple planets away and took a cab to Tatooine?

I'd assume it's a distance the droids could easily travel.

Thanks for the guardian article.

This is what was written by one of the commenters (GW74) on the guardian website in response to the article:

The Original Trilogy are George Lucas's children, but if they could speak they would have legally emancipated themselves from him long ago. The technoligical constraints are what made the films so exceptional. The broad infinite canvas that technological progress has brought out the worst in lucas. Alas I fear he is too powerful for this message to ever get through to him.

The part in bold had me cracking up. But the whole reply was particualry well written and apt.

Thank you for the clarification. All is right again.

;)

In this hypothetical he'd still have made like a gazillion dollars on Star Wars right?

With that kind of money comes power and he'd still be terribly dissatisfied with the half finished film he made. And if the same film is still incredibly popular with the public they'd still be numerous re-releases and an opportunity for George to update it to satisfy its shortcomings. So things wouldn't be all that different.

Although with only one film to concentrate on you'd think Fox would give it the Blade Runner/ Close Encounters/ Alien treatment when it comes to a dvd/ blu-ray release.

Davnes007 said:

Wanted to impress his girlfriend?

??????

Thanks for the video of Hamill. That was great. I fucking love that he doesn't know the names of planets and the jawa-mobile. Why would he?

If it wasn't part of his dialogue, most stuff wasn't even named in the scripts, why would he even know it then, let alone now. It's very impressive that he still remembers his dialogue so well after 30 odd years.

He knows Tatooine because he had to repeat Tatooine on a bunch of different takes.

I like that he asked the crowd what's the name of the thing he attaches himself to the big walker in ESB like there is a toy made of it, yeah Mark it's called a harpoon. Not everything in the SW universe has a name and a storied background. *internet whispers in my ear* Wait what....!

They jeered Jar Jar Binks. The only acceptable derision officially allowed at an officially sanctioned Lucasfilm event, officially.

TV's Frink said:

Darth Paul?

That whole bottle of whiskey I drank last night was to try and erase from my brain the fact that Darth Maul now has a brother. Even though I'm trying to forget it, he will forever be known as Darth Paul in my mind - well done.

Stewart was funny. Lucas was awkward, seriously hard to stay awake whenever he spoke. Whatever, no one made me watch it. Mark was cool. Carrie was hilarious. The mention of the cut nude scene to get the fanboys all riled up had me chuckling, then the allusion that the Jabba porn scene was all imagined because of the drugs she was on had me out right laughing and worth the hour of my time.

Though out the duration of the interview you can tell Stewart is a big fan of the OT. He 's able to drop more references then George, or at least get them right, which is not all that surprising.

The 2nd last clip can be avoided if you don't watch the Clone Wars series, some rubbish about Darth Maul having a brother. Oh boy.

Jedi Temple34 said:

 

 

Nope, I checked before I posted that. But he's an old dude, that's for sure.

The credited DP of Jedi Alan Hume unfortunately died recently. Although the man that took over once Hume was removed during production is still alive.

Collider.com posted an interview with George Lucas by Jon Stewart at Celebration V. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet (it is an hour long) but I'm sure it will be interesting.

http://www.collider.com/2010/08/15/jon-stewart-star-wars-celebration-v-stormtrooper-george-lucas/

Many people questioned Stewart when he didn't ask the hard questions when he interviewed Lucas on the Daily Show in recent times, this is why. You won't get invited to Celebration V and have a action figure made of you.

Not that I'm criticizing Stewart, I love him. And I thought his questions on the Daily Show were fair without outright attacking Lucas and the prequels etc.

http://www.theforce.net/topstory/story/CV_Star_Wars_On_BluRay_133242.asp

"Blu-ray is the absolute best way to experience Star Wars at home – in pristine high definition," said George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars Saga. "The films have never looked or sounded better."

Sorry guy for posting that, it's like kicking you while you're down, but this is getting comical now - at least to me.

Yeah sure the special special editions have probably never looked so good...

This also made me laugh, it's like Mark's responding to the backlash regarding the Blu-ray announcement. A new meme might be in the making.

And I hate to get personal but this is an observation I just had to share - they're some dainty feet ol' George has. I guess there's a reason he's so into sports cars.

edit: And while people are correct in saying that yeah we'll get a proper restoration eventually I assume when it comes to restorations sooner is preferable to later. Godfather was pretty far gone from memory and it's lucky they did the restoration when they did if they wanted to use as many original elements as they did.

It would be nice if Gil Taylor and a whole bunch of the original guys are still around to advise on the project. Probably not going to happen but it would be nice.

Sorry I'm a little late to the discussion.

Zombie I love you (not in a creepy way, hold off on the restraining order) but are you some kind of richist? I'm playing the money card and telling you to not be so close minded when it comes to the wealthy. As for your numerous referrals to Lucas' "uncountable billions" I'm sure his accounts know exactly how much he has, probably down to the last cent even.

Please take that last paragraph with a large does of sarcasm, but there may be a little truth to it. Actually take everything I say in this post with a large dose of sarcasm but I still think it's the truth.

I don't begrudge Lucas for how he made his money and how damn much of it he actually has (I think he kind of deserves it) I only take issue with what he chooses to do with it present day ie not restore Star Wars. Not that I have a say in the matter, or should. One would think and hope any man would choose to do the right thing, not have to be petitioned to.

Film enthusiasts have moaned since the Golden Age of cinema that Hollywood is run by accountants which is why we get the remakes and reboots and the recycling of ideas and cliched rom-coms because they're safe. Most Star Wars fans can identify that Lucas has become what he once hated, just like the Hollywood machine he wanted to escape.

The way I see it every decision Lucas and Lucasfilm makes is in order to protect their investment. That's a huge, pardon the pun, empire to run and it's run like any other company. It's not the dream factory where artists could get away from Hollywood and head north and make their little films away from the system as Lucas once envisioned.

Profits are the bottom line and ever increasing profits are the goal, again like any other company. Slow quarter, slow year. Lay off some staff. Or close an unprofitable department. All things that most companies including Lucasfilm have done in recent times.

It's a sad reality that Lucasfilm isn't that artists retreat that Skywalker Ranch should have been. Can you imagine what the overheads are just to keep that place running each year. Jesus. Vineyards don't maintain themselves. Some how I think most companies don't have those kind of overheads to deal with.

I'd imagine owning Star Wars and having produced Indiana Jones is enough to keep the lights on (ILM is a different beast, they generate their own profits but they're also a different entity, I mean) but is that enough? To break even, to justify your existence. They're running a business there. So they've got to license the shit out of books, comics, toys, bedsheets etc and now with the Clone Wars and potentially the live-action series, they're in the TV game. I fucking hate that this is the reality of what Star Wars has become but it's reality all the same.

It's why there will never be one Star Wars box set that encompasses everything the fans want, because then there isn't a market for further releases and box sets. Got to keep those future revenue streams open. I'm sure because of this we won't get the Indy trilogy on Blu-ray the same year as Star Wars.

So the delay of the live-action show is simply about investment vs return. Not about breaking even or carving out a small profit. If the analysts are saying the tv show is a bit too expensive or not as profitable as first thought, why not let those allocated funds sit in a bank accruing interest and instead sleep in in the a morning.

It's depressingly sad that this is the mentality of a once great artist but that's Lucas. He's always been a businessman at heart and probably a pretty good one. We'll it appears that way to me, contray to his youth and him not wanting to go into his dad's stationary business or whatever.

He negotiated the merchadising rights for SW when merchasining rights were essentialy unheard of. I guess he saw a market there. Even if he thought it would only be for t-shirts and books slightly underestimating the enormity of what was to come, his foresight has to be some what commended.

He also famously had a fit when Kurtz and Kershner were going over budget on Empire. They didn't care they just wanted to make the best movie possible, there's no limitations on art and all that. But Lucas did, it was his money!

Point being that it appears he's pretty much always been this way. I'm not going to shed any tears for an on-hold TV series that doesn't appear to be hugely profitable because ultimately I'm not surprised that when it comes to SW and Lucasfilm money talks...

God I sound like such a capitalist, honestly I'm not.

I always found it kind of interesting when the prequels were done and Lucas announced Star Wars was heading to TV because (I don't have the quote on hand and I'm probably getting it wrong) the current television climate was better than feature films (ie cinema). This was probably while the Sopranos was still on air and before Deadwood was cancelled.

And I'd have to somewhat agree with him there. But I'm not failing to recognise that we also live in a world where the best stuff on TV like Mad Men and Breaking Bad has fuck all of an audience and not all that profitable when compared to insanely popular shit stuff like Two and a Half Men.

Couple that with the fact networks haven't been the sharpest knifes in the draw dealing with advertising versus viewership numbers when it comes to DVR's, online viewing, digital downloads, dvd boxsets etc. So why are Lucasfilm getting into TV? Turns out maybe they shouldn't be.

*Clears throat*

*ROTS Vader Voice* NNnnnooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

I know how you feel CO. At this point I hardly even care about this and futures releases. While not perfect the fan recreations (in HD and SD) are pretty damned close and pretty damned good. They'll have to suffice and I think I'm ok with that. What other options do I have.

I'm not done with watching Star Wars but I'm done with the fandom and the other bullshit and hope of a legitimate release (please can I buy your product if only you offer it to me - sounds riduclous). Maybe it it wasn't for the community here and the good work they do I'd be done with Star Wars completely.

So thank you the internets and OT.com-ers.

Lucas interview.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/star-wars-films-coming-to-blu-ray-next-year/

‘Star Wars’ Films Coming to Blu-ray Next Year

Though nearly 35 years of “Star Wars” fandom have yielded all kinds of memorabilia inspired by George Lucas’s outer-space epic, including light saber lookalikes and wearable replicas of Princess Leia’s slave costume, one holy grail has lately eluded fans: a video version of the “Star Wars” films that takes the fullest advantage of their top-of-the-line home theater systems.

That’s a Death Star-sized void that Lucasfilm plans to fill shortly. On Saturday, the studio is to announce that it will release all six live-action “Star Wars” features on Blu-ray DVD in fall 2011. A boxed set containing the Blu-ray versions of the movies, spanning from 1977’s “Star Wars” through the final 2005 prequel, “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith,” will mark the first time the films have been offered in a high-definition home format, and will include documentary features and previously unseen footage.

Given Mr. Lucas’s exacting standards for film presentations (he founded the THX company) and Lucasfilm’s embrace of digital movie technology (digital projection was used for the theatrical release of all three “Star Wars” prequels, and the last two prequels were shot digitally), many fans expected that high-definition versions of the “Star Wars” features would soon follow.

But in a telephone interview, Mr. Lucas said he had been waiting to see if the Blu-ray format would be widely accepted by home viewers.

“We’ve been wanting to do it as soon as we possibly could, but we just wanted to do it when enough people would be able to buy it and see it,” Mr. Lucas said on Friday from the Star Wars Celebration V convention in Orlando, Fla.  

When the original “Star Wars” movies were released on VHS in the early 1980s (along with other short-lived home video formats), Mr. Lucas said sales were slow to take off at first.

“We came out with ‘Star Wars’ right at the beginning of VHS,” he said, “and we sold 300,000 copies.” Within a few years, he added, “They were selling 1 million, 2 million, 10 million. So we learned from that experience that if you’re too early in the marketplace, there’s just not enough demand for it.”

In the case of Blu-ray, at least the potential for galactic-scale sales exists: a recent report by the media firm DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group said that nearly 2 million Blu-ray players were sold in the first half of 2010, an increase of 103 percent over last year, for a total of 19.4 million such devices in the U.S.

Mr. Lucas said the versions of the first three “Star Wars” films – “Star Wars,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” – included in the Blu-ray boxed set will be the special-edition releases that were shown theatrically in 1997 and digitally restored for a 2004 standard-definition DVD boxed set.

Perhaps bracing for the reactions of fans who decried some of the changes made to the special-edition films – like, say, an exchange of gunfire between Han Solo and a certain green-skinned bounty hunter – Mr. Lucas said that to release the original versions of these films on Blu-ray was “kind of an oxymoron because the quality of the original is not very good.”

“You have to go through and do a whole restoration on it, and you have to do that digitally,” he added. “It’s a very, very expensive process to do it. So when we did the transfer to digital, we only transferred really the upgraded version.”

And while some viewers might want the “Star Wars” Blu-ray release in time for this year’s Life Day – that is, the Wookiee holiday that roughly coincides with the start of the holiday shopping season – Mr. Lucas said a 2011 release was the earliest possible date. (The boxed set will be distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment; Lucasfilm did not give pricing information or indicate if the films will also be sold individually.)

That, he said, was partly due to continuing work on the additional Blu-ray features, and partly to factors beyond his control.

“We’ve been working on them for quite a while,” Mr. Lucas said, “but still, there are pipelines. Unfortunately, the recent releases get priority over what we call the classic versions of things.”

 

SilverWook said:

The deleted scenes will be all over the tubes days after the discs come out anyway.

Fixed: The deleted scenes will be all over the tubes a month before the discs come out anyway.

That's the usual time period for pirates to get their hands on new dvd releases and rip them. They're apparently fair game once the discs are at the manufacturing stage.

I will say that deleted scene was pretty cool. Reading about it over the years was it expected that the scene was this complete? I'm surprised.

But I won't be buying the blu-ray set for some deleted scenes (hey why weren't they on the 2004 box set?) and as for the rest of Lucas' comments - fuck you.

It's a waste of our time even commenting on what lies leave this mans mouth.

There's a private collector that owns a SW print that's in pretty good shape. Lucas' prints (maybe not the o-neg) have to be in at least equal condition. Use them for a restoration you tight bastard.

edit: whoops, after re-reading my post I didn't want to imply that I'll be downloading the pirated discs just that I'll watch the deleted scenes on youtubes when they're inevitably uploaded, prior to the release date I'm sure.