zombie84

The boycott is useful in a symbolic way. It sends a message that a lot of his fans aren't happy. It doesn't matter if the boycott has a financial impact, the fact that a lot of people are boycotting itself sends a message. If it's just two or three people here then it won't matter but if it gets big enough then Lucasfilm higherups will start to hear about it. For me, that is the practical value of it. A few thousand despondant fans aren't going to be able to affect a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, but they can shake the status quo that everything is cool in public relations.

The truth is, a lot of people really don't care if they have to watch the SE. They would like the OOT, but don't particularly feel that strongly if it's not available. And then there are a lot of fans that simply don't give a shit. They'll take the SE and be happy.

These people make up such a sizable portion of the viewing population that there are even quite a few members on this site, of all places, who fall into those categories.

So my point is: even if every regular member here boycotted the release and even if a lot of those fence sitters did too, regardless of whether you view us as a minority or majority, the blu-ray set would still sell millions of dollars. Lucas would be swimming in profit. He might be disappointed that he didn't make as much, but it's hard to complain about a cool $400 million in worldwide sales. If the set made that figure, it would be about 50% of the 2004 set--a catastrophic drop, the best-case scenario for boycotters. But it won't matter. The set is just one component of the wealth-enabling machine that is Lucasfilm. The books will still sell as they have, so will the novels and comics, and the games will continue to be best-sellers too. Then you'll have the Clone War stuff, 3D releases, whatever.

I think Frink is right to some degree. Lucasfilm smartly diversified Star Wars to such wide extent that the actual selling of the films themselves are the least-important aspect of the company right now. Lucasfilm doesn't make money off  the videos, they make it from the toys and t-shirts and games and other merchandise. So if less people started buying the films they'd just re-orient their business strategy to account for the fact that their video profit margin is slightly lower than it was in the DVD era. The DVD era is a unique, probably-not-to-be-repeated era when everyone was buying films again and again, anyway, it was the height of the home video market.

Also, yeah, the deleted ROTJ material makes the film much more adults with the scenes with new Vader-Luke intro and the scenes with Jerjerrod. The Spence Edit, for example, showed how ROTJ could be made more mature just by deleting and re-ordering existing material and this would only add to that. The bunker footage would gives us some action material on Endor near the film's conclusion that for once doesn't involve Ewoks at all.

The "Vader Reaches Out" scene wasn't edited and finished for the Blu, it was completed in 1983 and John Williams scored it, but then it cut from the film just as they were about to send the film off. It was a very last minute deletion, probably because they felt Luke already had a dramatic introduction when he appears to Jabba and because it creates buildup the way each character is introduced one after another (Droids, who then witness Leia, who brings in Chewie, who leads us to Lando, and then finally Luke comes and the action starts).

So, the deleted scenes from the OT are on Youtube, in HD. Check out this guy's channel here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/BetterThanHollywood9

He hasn't upped all of Jedi's yet, but other people have. Here is an example of one of the better ones, developing Jerjerod and the Emperor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9--5hO4BIwc&feature=related

These were interesting enough that I thought it merited having it's own discussion.

My own thoughts:

-On the whole, they aren't amazing or anything, as they were deleted for reasons, but many of them are pretty good, and all of them are interesting. The quality varies around, but most have sound and colour and they are all in HD.

-It's hard to say which of these were newly edited for inclusion here; for instance, the Yoda and Wampa scenes clearly were never included in any cut of the film. The black and white scenes are from the rough cut (I am assuming). Others seem to have been edited back during the cutting stage as they have audio drop-outs and the like which probably means the cutter went as far as prepping them for rough sound design. The "Vader Reaches Out to Luke" was edited, scored and finished with visual effects, but it's the only one. All of the scenes except that tend to need slightly tighter cutting because they never made it to the fine cut where things would be finessed, and some of the cuts are a bit quick or awkward in places too and never got smoothed out.

-The Luke/Toshistation/Biggs scenes are great to see in better quality than Behind the Magic, with the treadwell scene containing many new shots. To me these are some of the best scenes ever shot for Star Wars, but I agree with the editorial team that the film played better with them left out. Actually, I think critics who accused the film of having little character development would have been partly silenced if these made it in.

-The ESB deleted scenes are the best of the bunch. You can see the imprint of Kershner: the performances are by and large outstanding, and he tends to hold on long takes to emphasize performance, and moves his camera to a new position rather than cutting a lot of the time. The Luke-Leia scene on Hoth is so good I wish it was included in the film from the beginning. It also puts a new spin on the kiss they have--it wasn't just to make Han jealous.

-The sandstorm scene in Jedi was much better than I expected. I actually wish they had done the ADR on here, as it seems like it is a much better and more human farewell scene, compared to the final film where Luke just makes a phone call while he drives. How rude! :p

-The scenes with Jerjerrod having to fire on Endor are terrific and would have really amped up the tension in the end, like the ending to the original film where there is a countdown. I assume it was cut because there was so much going on as it was. It would be interesting to see how coherant the film was if this was put back in.

-The most interesting thing is the possibilities for fan editors. It would great to put them all back in for extended cuts. Even if they didn't play as well as the originals--which they likely wouldn't--to see the films expanded and fleshed out more would be extremely interesting. The footage would not match of course, as the scenes all have some level of dirt and scratches, and some are black and white. I doubt anyone would be willing to restore these beyond matching the colour-timing better. But it would still be cool to see. The sound design wouldn't be impossible to work around. There's also extra lines and unused shots in Empire of Dreams that could be used.

She got a small cut of the theatrical gross, but nothing for all the merch; that's all she is saying, I don't think she was misquoted (she even states that she can't be bothered to get too upset by it). The Lucasfilm empire of current was built on merchandising receipts, it is a bit of a shame that the people who's likeness was so incredibly heavily exploited didn't get a dime out of it all, but on the other hand they all became millionaires based on their gross percentage so I don't think they are all that offended. It's probably weirder (or cooler, depending on how they stand) for them that their likeness is on so many things rather than any missed opportunities to get profit points on them.

So, I'm noticing that most of the OT deleted scenes are on Youtube, in HD to boot. Some of them are really interesting, some of them are not, but they are all cool to see. I actually wish the Luke-Leia Hoth scene had been left in the film, it's a really good performance. One thing that is really interesting about the ESB scenes is that you can see the quality of the performances and the way Kershner shoots his scenes, holding on shots for a long time and moving the camera. It's too bad some of the scenes are in black and white though, I guess they couldn't find the original colour negatives.

Glad I don't have to spend ten bucks to rent this thing right away.

The sound issues are legitimate technical things. Sometimes scenes are filmed without sound. Sometimes, parts of the soundtrack are damaged and have to be cut out. Sometimes parts of the soundtrack go missing after so many decades. And other times, during the rough cutting, editors will cut and splice unwanted segments out or leave silent certain sections that will require careful sound design later.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Argh! I've always thought that I saw the extended Biggs scene and this is exactly as I remember it. Somehow, I think I've seen this seen before, complete with the additional dialogue. I'd hate to think that I'm suffering from a grappling hook-esque syndrome... :-(

Ah well. Is this how you remember the scene Puggo?

YES!

I'm having a hard time considering this noteworthy. The scene was in the Special Edition. There is only one extra line here, and it was in The Making of Star Wars TV special from 1977. Ergo, the film material for the entirety of the scene has been around for some time, without even getting into the novelization.

Tyrphanax said:

At least one person at the BBC agrees with us!

BBC quotes savestarwars.com FTW!

I didn't know about film stock, regarding the WotW wires. That's an interesting example, because it really does put you in a bind: release a film "unaltered" but in a way that greatly betrays the original look due to poor duplication, or alter a film so that it is closer to the way it was supposed to and originally did look. I can't believe the wires were completely invisible, but I would believe they were less visible/mostly invisible. So getting rid of them entirely is actually betraying the original look, though only by a little.

Interesting example.

Unfortunately it is pretty unique. Most films aren't faced with this kind of decision, and, I might add, that anniversary edition is just one single release. It's not like the film always has and always will look like that on video, earlier ones got it right and latter ones will hopefully too.

So, it's not so much as HD scans revealing "too much" detail as much as it is that they simply happened to use an incorrect print as their source. This was exceptional in the film's history, as far as I understand, and not related to the picture quality of the disc.

CO: Same for me. Feels weird, eh? Even the guy who wrote a 600-page university-endorsed textbook on the 6-part saga is boycotting this!

I think he is saying that the EU is inherantly irrelevant because the OT is the OT and whatever drama, characters and plots the EU devises doesn't matter because it won't change the OT.

I can understand this perspective, but I don't really agree with it. Information contained in EU changes how you view the OT. This is the whole theory behind the existence of the PT. If the OT is already made then why make the PT, you know how it ends and the characters and plots of the OT already exist so it could never affect them...right? But actually no. Darth Vader changes his entire character, you realize half the people in the films have a pre-existing relationship, and you get a lot of other background information that goes against what you assumed.

Obviously, this sort of change can be for the better or for the worse (and we all know which category most of the prequel information falls into). But it happens, so material that fits around and within the OT can have pretty profound effect on how the OT plays out.

70mm isn't actually a format that is shot on. Large-format films are shot on 65mm, which are then released in 70mm. I'm not sure why the difference, I assume it has to do with the optical strip for release prints.

Anyway, everything you see in Star Wars was filmed in 35mm, and the master negative is 35mm. When it was first released it was shown in 35mm but 70mm blow-ups came out at the same time (as was common back then...similar to Imax releases of 35mm films now).

At that point "Sith" was just an undefined term in publicity material. Darth Vader was a knight of the Sith. Whatever that was. The idea of the Jedi having an enemy order was something Lucas integrated some time later, it was in early drafts of Star Wars but didn't seem to survive into the finished film.

Zahn's genius was also just good timing. He created the EU/continuity that now has locked in all authors and creatively stifled them. Creativity needs freedom and for me that's one reason why most of the written EU is poor (very heavy on continuity) and one reason why the Clone War show is so good (continuity with EU is basically ignored). The freedom Zahn had let him tell a story simply because it was a good story, instead of the now backwards way in which things have to be fit together.

Even though Star Wars is a really rich universe of possibilities, it really isn't big enough to support the amount of material created around it if we are going to at least pretend it's all consistent and continuous. No storyline or franchise is that big. After 200 books, 200 games and 200 different comic lines each with dozens of issues, it's so congested that it all implodes. That's the way it seems to me at least.

His posture, obviously!

Who can keep up with the EU? It's an industry unto itself.

Like most people I have read the cornerstones--Splinter, Zahn trilogy, Dark Empire, and the radio dramas and movie novelizations--but other than odd things here and there I have stayed clear. The cartoons and some of the video games are maybe the exception, but even then I'm two seasons behind the current show and haven't played a Star Wars video game since the Lego ones.

When I was a young teenager I was more into it, I suppose, I know a lot of the 1990s EU but not much after the prequels started coming out. I don't know if there is an age demographic for EU, but I feel like there is much less adults who are into EU compared to the amount of adults who simply watch the films. Am I wrong in getting that impression? Maybe it's partly because most of the EU books/comics aren't particularly well written, but even the idea of EU doesn't interest me anymore, and most of the EU I've been exposed to has been fortunately pretty decent.

TheBoost said:

digitalfreaknyc said:

I don't understand why so many of the deleted scenes for the OT are in black and white. Can anyone explain this?

  From the POV of fanedits, and possible extended editions, could these be colorized, Ted Turner style?

Anything in black and white can be colourized, but I'm not even sure that such software is available to consumers. Modern colourization techniques, like what Ray Harryhausen did to his films, are quite impressive but there may be some proprietary software and a lot of by-hand work involved.

They are taken from a workprint (rough cut), which was in black and white.

It may be that they lost the negatives for those select scenes, or couldn't be bothered (Isn't it just the extended cantina? Even the b/w Luke-treadmill scene from Behind the Magic is now in colour).

At this point I think it's more important that someone make the point of releasing the theatrical version only and, as someone else said it, putting the genie back in the bottle regarding all this SE nonsense. It needs to be done, to make a statement.

Of course, I am all for history. But the SE of E.T. is a little footnote, an interesting aside, that it played in theatres (unsuccessfully) and was released on video (alongside the theatrical cut, I might add). I guess if you wanted to get definitive they could have included it via branching without trouble, or put the extra/changed scenes in the deleted/alternate scenes section. I don't doubt that one day people will see this again (in high-def) but I don't think anyone should be complaining too much about this right now. There are more important things to get sorted out before we start worrying about preserving the SE of E.T.

SW.com has been revised many times.

I think the best was around the time of AOTC. Lots of database and free online stuff, lots of featurettes and videos, tons of free content. Then they started charging money for it all (Hyperspace). When that ran out they dropped everything useful and built it around the kindergarden Clone War movie. Apparently even that has now been rebuilt. It is weird to remember a time from 1998-2003 when the site was useful, valuable and worth viewing. I have the memories at least.

The DVD had the original mono, did they get rid of that for the BD?? That would be awful, I can't stand that remixed mess half the time. I think the only place the new 5.1 was superior was when the tanker truck explodes.

I'll admit, I love The Terminator almost as much as I love a lot of the SW films. But I didn't buy the Terminator Blu-ray because the picture quality is only a mild improvement over the last DVD. I hope they do another one sometime soon. And I'm not buying the SW set for the same reason. Do it right or save your money.

Yeah, if you read his individual ratings, it's actually more like 4/5 and 3.5/5, and that's with a lot of overlooking the flaws. Then at the end he just ignores everything he has said and his audio/video/supplement ratings and just gives the set a perfect score. Ugh! This is typical star wars fanboy behaviour where at the end you just overlook everything and go "OMG SW ON BLURAY BUY IT!". It's great that people get so much enjoyment from the series but I have to question their conclusion based on the individual components of the review.

I remember seeing the same thing when the prequels came out. "The story isn't so interesting...the acting is a bit questionable...I'll admit, there's too much CG...lots of kid humour unfortauntely...but who cares! It's new Star Wars! Just pretend you are a kid again and get past all the flaws and enjoy it!" Then five years later all the excitement is gone and they say "Yeah, the prequels were pretty bad weren't they."