zombie84

Ideally, one would want all the versions of the film presented in the best possible way. If I were doing it, I'd make each OT film a 7-disc set; the first four discs would be the six+ versions of the films, with relevant audio commentaries. The fifth disc would be as much vintage/archival material for each film as you can fit on a Blu-ray. The sixth disc would be all-new documentary and featurette material, and deleted scenes. As this would all be for one film, you would pretty much be able to fit all the material necessary. A seventh disc would be devoted to presenting a workprint version of the film from the very first rough cut. In the case of the prequels, it would be neat to also do a bluescreen-only version available in a PIP with the workprint (but perhaps only in SD for space issues). Anyway, it would be like this for the OT at least:

Disc 1: Restored theatrical cut of each film, with audio options for all original mixes. (1981 version of ANH offered via seemless branching) Isolated score and commentary made of archival interviews, plus new commentary by scholars/critics and a text commentary.

Disc 2: 1997 Special Edition of each film. No commentaries, but include some featurettes from 1997. Text commentary on changes and new material.

Disc 3: 2004/2011/Final Versions, split via branching since they all use the same 2004 master. "Official" commentaries already existing, plus text commentary on changes, plus a second text commentary on behind-the-scenes trivia and EU/in-movie trivia.

Disc 4: 3D Version. Commentary by 3D conversion supervisors, plus new featurettes on 3D process for each film (could be 10-30 minutes).

Disc 5: Vintage docs, vintage TV appearances, vintage interviews, trailers, commercials, art and archives, plus reproductions of vintage text/media.

Disc 6: New docs and featurettes, plus deleted material.

Disc 7: Workprint of each film, with commentary by editors, Lucas, and producers. Extra space can be used for documentary on editing processes.

I'd include a bonus disc in the box set which includes extra documentaries on the saga and trilogies as a whole, and all those "Science of SW", "Mythology of SW" type things, plus "Empire of Dreams." The box set would come cased with a hardcover coffee table book which has large reproductions of various photographs from the shoots, plus some text and maybe an intro by George Lucas or something, maybe a couple of small essays like Criterion does. I'd include reproductions of the 1977 programs and lobby cards or something like that too.

The PT films would forgo a 1997 disc and have all the non-3D versions branched on the same disc. Disc 5--which now would be disc 3--would be the original DVD bonus disc plus additional vintage material. The fourth disc would probably be a lot of the stuff that's now on the BD set. The workprint might be in SD if the 35mm versions don't exist, which might mean being able to include the blue-screen version of the movie in HD.

The problem right now is that Lucasfilm has only been giving the OT one bonus disc for the whole trilogy, or 1.5 BDs for the whole trilogy right now. This is pretty laughable, as like most classic films, each OT movie needs at least a dedicated second disc, and more appropriately two or three. Giving 1/3 of a DVD for each film or 3/4 of a BD for each film is a bit of an injustice. It's the reason why everyone always wants more from the special features--no OT film has ever gotten so much as it's own supplementary disc, let alone the two or three adequetly required.

I'd price each film at $50 or $250 for the deluxe set with the book, cards and extra disc.

I'd also make a single-disc limited-time version of the restored theatrical version of Star Wars available, with a short feature on it's restoration included, for whatever is fashionable for a regular BD (about $25 I guess). I wouldn't do this for the other two, in order to highlight the importance of the original, as well as cost-saving as well as creating incentive to buy the higher-priced boxset (just trying to include some business thinking in there).

Ah, we can dream, can't we? The sad part is that this is completely doable, not a budget-breaker, and would reap in huge, huge, huge profits along with the respect and praise of both historians, fans and critics. So you know this won't happen. The thread's original title is morbid but entirely reasonable in this respect. When Lucas dies, you will see something like what I have outlined before too much time has gone by. Until that happens, this is just a classic film enthusiasts pipe dream.

AuggieBenDoggie said:

 

Anchorhead said:

The ability to own a high quality version of the films we sat in the theater and watched. The desire for all six films to be offered unaltered has been expressed many times here, regardless of how many of the six people may want to own.

 

 

I have never see the desire ( by the community here as a whole ) openly expressed a want for all six films to be released unaltered, above the quality that is offered in the blu-rays. I have only seen the want for a quality release of the unaltered trilogy here. Preferably from a 4k scan, something thats not possible with AOTC and SITH since they where filmed at 1080p, and thats probably why the altered Original Trilogy was mastered at 1080p also. Even the New altered TPM was mastered at 1080p when the print should have been scanned at 4k instead of 2k. Lucas knows that anything he puts out, people will go crazy for.

You're splitting hairs here.

The PT has been promoted consistently, whereas the OT has not only taken a recent backseat, the OOT has been ignored almost entirely. Lucas even said "to me, those films don't exist anymore." It's not that he is saying they are less important, he is actually going so far as saying he treats them as though they were never made. This is not equal treatment.

Moreover, the PT has consistently be presented and available to the viewer. A film that can't be seen and can't be enjoyed might as well not exist. While the 1993 Laserdisc master released in 2006 is indeed better than nothing, in a strictly philosophical sense that is, this is only comparable to content produced or presented in 1993, not 2006. The PT has gotten modern DVD quality transfers. The OOT has not. The PT has received television promotion and airing, and high-definition television broadcasts. The OOT has not. The PT has been released in high definition on Blu-ray. The OOT has not.

So yes, the problem boils down to this: the OOT has basically been buried, and the people in charge (Lucas, Lucasfilm et all) have no desire to treat it with respect or in any sort of respectable form available to the viewer, no do many fans acknowledge it except some obsolete relic. This is not even close to equal-treatment to the PT and OT-SE, in fact Lucas has facetiously denied that the films exist in the first place.

If Lucas/Lucasfilm/et-all and fans had considered the OOT on the same plane as the PT and OT-SE, nothing would be a problem. It is the people who try to bury the OOT or treat it as a relic not good enough for even a museum that causes tension. No one here wants PT fans to not be able to enjoy the films--why would we wish ill will towards strangers? People here may not want to watch the films, but I don't think anyone has ever suggested they be made unavailable to people. With the originaltrilogy.com mandate to preserve cinematic history, that would self-contradictory.

So, why can't the films all be considered and treated equally? At the very least, the OOT deserves to be treated in the same way as every other film is. But it's not. The "creator"/owner (Lucas) has disowned them, confiscated all prints, and refused to sell anything other than a two-decades-old SD Laserdisc video of the films (which is now OOP, by the way, and no longer as relevant a point of discussion). Maybe the PT and OT-SE should be made unavailable to their fans, maybe then they would understand the frustration OOT fans have to go through and understand how selfish it is to assist and be an accessory to the destruction and loss not only of millions of people's favourite films, but an enormously important part of the culturally history of both SE fans and OOT fans alike.

Technically he never edited any of them, but he always had some involvement. Editing was the area he enjoyed the most, one reason he didn't direct Jedi was because he would rather have someone else go "get the material" and bring it to him in the editing room.

You know, most regular people, even if they may see us as extremists for the fact that we spend all our time bitching and doing our own preservations, share our basic sentiments.

The people who write us off--that idiot on certainpointofview blog who refers to us as "the tea party" and some fools on bluray.com or TFN. Those are the typical Lucas apologists fanboys. Of course they feel that way about us! But the truth is that those people represent a very slim cross-section of the fanbase. Why do you think most articles about the BDs are talking about how outrageous it's all gotten? People like TFNers partly exist as a reaction to us, just as we partly exist as a reaction to the Lucas/SE situation. I think most people would not feel the need to comment on this website, it's only the hardcore kool-aid drinkers who have to feel the need to slag the site, and it's only out of an insecurity to defend what they like, you can't write off NYPost or CNN or any of the other big-ticket sites writing about the badness of the BD situation, but a central collective like this place is a perfect target. Because really, if you go to most websites, people aren't saying anything so different from us here, it's only when you go to places like TFN and bluray.com and apologists blogs that you hear all the ridiculous ignorance and hoop-jumping and ot.com bashing. The three usually tend to go hand in hand.

doubleofive said:

 

timdiggerm said:

What does the use of an alternate take imply about transfers, scanning, cleanup, etc?

It does bring about a good point. Someone decided that this shot which was chosen by the editor 28 years ago wasn't good enough, so they went back to the original takes and chose an alternate one. Why? How?

 

It probably goes like this:

-George is screening the films with Rick McCallum, fishing for changes, when he sees the Fett scene

-George: You know, it's hard to see Han hit him there, it's a bit tight. Do you think we have a wider angle somewhere?

-Rick: I'll have someone check it out. *makes note to himself*

-That day, Rick asks some archive librarian to retrieve all the takes for that scene. They are given to an editor who is told to find a wider Fett shot. After going through the footage he finds one or two that would be suitable.

-The next day the alternate angles and takes are shown to George. He decides one shot and take in particular could be useful. Sometime later it gets scanned and an editor cuts it into the DI of ROTJ and George says he likes it. The shot gets passed to ILM to do dirt removal as required and colour correction.

And bingo. New shot in the film. It wouldn't be very hard.

It's definitely an alternate take/angle, it's the same angle that the previous versions have for the explosion of the pack (see the last frame of None's 2004 comparison) they just used that angle for the full length of the closer shot as well.

If you can project it you can scan it, it's just a little more problematic.

I actually thought the humour was well played. It was nice to see them be tongue-in-cheek about some of the silliness of the film. I liked that about that early sequence in the film. Reminds me of the banter in the original Star Wars.

There are two reasons that I can see why Lucas is doing this:

1) He truely was never fully satisfied with the originals and enjoys tinkering around with them. He did this from the beginning--all the 1977 sound re-mixes, the 1981 crawl, he even tried to restore the ANH Jabba scene back then.

So this is nothing new.

But obviously, 1997/2004/2011 tinkering is much, much different than those. So what changed?

Lucas stopped making films and now this is all he has left. In 1981 he could care less about going to so far as to add dinosaurs to Mos Eisley because he was in the middle of shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark, he was about to make Return of the Jedi, and he had just finished producing Kagemusha and Empire Strikes Back. He was thinking about his retirement from the series and was planning on getting back to making experimental films and producing more interesting movies.

That's the biggest factor, IMO.

The 80s came. He got divorced, let go of Star Wars, took a few years to get his personal life back in order, sorted out his finances. Produced some interesting films like that weird John Korty animated film and Tucker and Captain Eo, made Willow, made two more Indiana Jones sequels, got into the business side of Lucasfilm and advanced the computer division and the video game division.

The 1990s then come. Finally he is financially powerful again, had his "rest", had his "family time" where he adopted two more kids, had his fun producing and being the business guy and now was finally going to be a director again, make those weird film that he always said he was going to make.

But instead he went back to Star Wars. And he would stay there. More books, more comics, more toys, more video releases--he realized there was a sleeping empire there. He starts planning on putting that Jabba scene back in ANH like he wanted to do in 1981, but now he starts getting swept away after Jurassic Park and the CG revolution and within a few years he is using the project as an excuse to dabble in computer technology. But he can't get away from Star Wars. An elaborate Special Edition. Another prequel. Another prequel. A TV cartoon. A DVD Special Edition. Another prequel. Another TV cartoon. A live-action series. More books and games. Another Blu Ray Special Edition.

Other than a mediocre Indiana Jones--and, maybe finally, Red Tails if it ever comes out--that's all Lucas has done for about twenty years. Longer than his "retirement." He started working on the SE in 1993 and TPM in 1994, and now it's going on 2012 and he's still stuck there.

So, he has nothing else. He has no other films to put his creative energy into. There's no experimental films, no original ideas, no non-Star Wars films where he is behind the camera, no nothing, just Star Wars. And now he is so old that he never will ever direct another film again. He'll just be stuck with Star Wars, so while in the past he could tinker here and there but otherwise let it be and move on to other things, he's stuck, and all he can do is obsess over them and tinker and tinker and tinker. And when dealing with the older films, he's not the same person who made them in 1976, 1979 and 1982, so it's like he is taking some stranger's film who shares some vague notions with himself and is trying to re-shape them to better reflect himself now. Old George Lucas is literally trying to out-muscle Young George Lucas.

This goes into reason number 2

2) He's creatively castrated himself in his old age and success. Puggo explained this rather eloquently. It's actually not that abnormal. He became so successful, so wealthy, and so isolated from the real world that he lost the ability to be in touch with other human beings through his art, lost the ability to write captivating or engaging scenes and characters. Sometimes, creativity needs to be exercised or else it withers away like an underused muscle. But more importantly, Lucas lost his collaborators. He was never quite as talented as everyone suspected but he knew how to smartly overcome his limitations by surrounding himself with collaborators and letting himself be challenged. That situation no longer exists, because he has willed it so.

So, you have a man with nothing creative or artistic in his life except this one franchise, which he can't get away from, he has to keep going back because he doesn't have anything else to go to. And then when he does, he has all these awful ideas, because he's not what he used to be, and no one says anything about them, because he's created his own world that he can live and work in.

And so Lucas is stuck in this endless cycle. Rick McCallum said it best, there will be no definitive Star Wars version until Lucas dies. And we'll have to see each painful permutation of it as this aging billionaire with a fading creative impulse and a plantation of lackeys keeps bringing his baby to the plastic surgeon to get her to look the way he thinks he wants.

They've never been seen except in stills, but I know they were all filmed.

It's funny, there were three deleted scenes from the PT that I really wanted to see, one for each movie.

TPM: Obi Wan gets lectured for shorting out his lightsaber in the Naboo swamp. Always seemed like a good scene, nice to have some sorely missed master-student stuff.

AOTC: Padme in the Lars homestead and gives 3P0 his coverings/ alternate 3P0 intro. I'm glad in some ways this was cut because I feel like it could drag the pace, but this seemed like a really good character moment in a film that was awkward and cold.

ROTS: Original Anakin turns sequence. This could have blown people's minds! A solid 10-minutes or so of the core sequence of the film which plays out completely different, with 80% new footage. Why??

There's a lot of little scene extensions that I know they didn't include, like more dialogue between Anakin and Padme after he saves them from Sebulba and onboard the ship in AOTC dressed as refugees, because portions of them are in the outtakes. But they left out a lot of the more interesting scenes.

I just find it bizarre that someone thinks attempting to sway the public's opinion on an issue is "wrong". It's really, really bizarre cult mentality.

Now that people are actually buying these, even though there are few here who will be, I thought it was be interesting and useful to have a singular thread to post reactions and impressions of them. A lot of people don't have BD players, a lot of people are on the fence about purchasing and want feedback, and some who don't care for the release may be curious how people who have finally seen them feel.

It may have been through film warping, causing it to bend and thus go mildly out of focus. If that were the case previous versions should have the same problems, but it's probably too hard to tell with VHS/Laserdisc. Even on the 2004 DVDs its practically invisible. If the negative was scratched in earlier years it may have been "wetprinted", which often causes a subtly blurrier.

This also may have even just happened. Maybe in 1997 the negatives was fine--this release had the least amount of film clean--up I believe--but by 2003 it had warped a little. You don't do wetgate prints in digital restoration usually, especially for a blockbuster.

Mrebo said:

In some thread was posted the link about the Godfather restoration. What is bugging me now is why didn't they just scan and use the technicolor print (rather than go through all the work with the damaged negative)?

As there is some hope out there for using technicolor of Star Wars, I'm wondering what deficiency if any there is in relying on such a print?

Because it's the highest quality. There would be nothing wrong with scanning a Technicolor print, but it's still two or three whole generations removed from the negative. Negatives can be saved, so it's better to restore the original negative rather than making a new one from a copy of a copy of a copy.

The SW set is likely sharper and cleaner, and I guess that's the main thing people expect out of Blu-ray. They said the same thing about the DVDs in 2004 too. The clarity is impressive, I have to admit, that's the one thing the transfer always had going for it.

But yeah, the Close Encounters set has way better picture, overall.

darth_ender said:

2. I have to say that I appreciate his attitude towards the many fan editors of his films.  There is no doubt that he's well aware of this site and fanedit.org.  In fact it was through fanedits that I found this site.  Other producers and directors have gotten very offended about people touching their films.  But he turns a blind eye towards those who tamper with his films though I'm sure he's aware that everyone on this site, editor or edit watcher, criticisizes his every decision.  I don't like a lot of what he's done myself, but the fact that he allows so many of you to do what you do so well speaks volumes about his character to me.

I enjoy this aspect as well. I think their actions (or non-actions) have also set a sort of precedent as well with other studios/movies with regards to fan-edits, the sort of "laissez-faire" attitude.

I do think he is more shrewd than just being a "nice guy" here though. You start picking fights with your fanbase, then you drive away the people lining your pockets and upholding your public status. If they aren't hurting anyone or hurting your business in any significant way then just let them do their thing. Lucasfilm used to be total dicks to their fans in the 1990s but they learned they had to co-exist with them. Steve Sansweet I think went a long way to sort of mediating the give-and-take there, from what I know, which, even though I have critized the guy before, I have to admit we should all be thankful for.

The way I see it is this way:

Would you want Seven Samurai restored so that the optical wipes there had been redone using modern technology, the crew wires and reflections painted out, camera bounce stabilized, some makeup and special effects retouched to seem realistic and a 7.1 Dolby TrueHDD audio remix?

Would you want King Kong with all the opticals digitally redone, the stop-animation smoothed out a bit, all the goofs and effects errors cleaned up with digital touch-ups? And a new 7.1 DTS audio mix with a couple re-done sound elements for extra punch?

Doesn't it sound absurd to even be contemplating these things? I mean, think about it, digitally re-compositing things in Seven Samurai and giving it a 7.1 audio mix? Painting out the effects errors in King Kong? Why would anyone even have such bizarre thoughts in the first place? They're old films, classic films, so you leave the films alone, clean them up so they look as best as the film pieces can, and present them as the films were, with their original audio in mono. Just like they have been.

Yet it has become normal to think about Star Wars in terms of alteration. In a reverse situation, the idea of presenting the film exactly as it is and leaving in all its flaws and original elements gets responded to with inquisition.

I think the base matter in all this--aside from the precedent of the 1997 SE, which started this all and without which such a discussion would not even be had--is that Star Wars is still contemporary and new. The films are still being presented as "new" or "modern" material, and so there is the expectation that it must match--at least as much as possible--the new material being made as well. "It's all one Saga." And so the idea of having the film mis-match--even contradict--the contemporary version is distasteful. Lucasfilm has been trying to re-write the OT in terms of its story focus, and they've also been trying to in terms of its aesthetic.

The bottom line is that the films aren't seen as "Classics." People have not fully let them go, let them be as they were with all their charms and flaws. They are still treated as though they were modern films. Seven Samurai, jesus you don't mess around with that, it's an old classic and you should respect the film as it was. King Kong, how dare you think about touching a frame of those pioneering effects, that's like re-painting the Mona Lisa. But Star Wars--why would you want all that grain and those bothersome matte lines in there? And mono sound with all those old sound effects, please, this is the modern era of 7.1 sound. What's the difference, the story is the same, the effects are the same, it's just improved so you can enjoy the experience more.

Unfortunately, it is like re-painting the Mona Lisa. Films like Star Wars and King Kong are to the fine art of motion pictures as the Mona Lisa and Sistine Chapel are to painting. Extreme? Actually no. It may seem weird to make such grand comparisons, but cinema is a very young art and movies like King Kong and Star Wars are not only genre cornerstones but cornerstones of the medium itself, some of the most pioneering, influential and culture-shaping examples of the art medium. People take cinema for granted, it's "just entertainment," but then Mona Lisa is "just a painting." That's why when I hear people write off complaints--"Oh, 'it's like crapping on the Mona Lisa,' grow up guys." I think Frank Darabont said that, and people like Lucas I think have expressed similar sentiments. Unfortunately, it is exactly like crapping on the Mona Lisa as far as cinema is concerned. I would expect classic films and Star Wars in particular to be treated the same as you would treat a classic painting.

I think the thinking is, Star Wars deserves the full 100%. It's not that much to ask, really--100%. Not 110%, just don't cheap out on it, just do a straightforward restoration of the actual original films. The same as the most basic presentations of other classic or simply vintage films. There's no real reason why Star Wars should be presented in a 90% accurate format, as was mentioned it actually takes more work to re-comp stuff and "fix"/"improve" (and I used those quotations deliberately) parts of the film. Just get your archival material, present it in the best quality possible (e.g. if the film is dirty then clean it, restore scratches if possible, etc.), and that's it.

I have Romancing the Stone on Blu-ray. I love the film, watched it when I was a kid on TV and had a tape of it recorded that I used to see sometimes. I've watched it once or twice since then. So, I've probably seen the film about ten times in my life, would consider myself a fan, and bought it when I saw the BD on sale. But if they added CG rocks to the background of a shot or two, or changed a minor line of dialogue, I doubt I would notice. And if the colour looked basically as I remember it, then I wouldn't think anything was amiss, any differences I would pin down to the BD/remastering making it truer to the original colours.

I mean, complain as we do, Hoth has been blue since the 1995 THX release that everyone bought, the blockade runner is still white-ish, and the Death Star has always been grey-bluish, so as far as most people are concerned the films look about the same as they always have.

So, for Star Wars fanatics, yeah they should be more attentive, and probably are at least vaguely aware of all these things. But the more casual fans, aka just "fans" where more regular films like Romancing the Stione are concerned, won't notice these things, and it's not because they are stupid, they just don't memorize every movie they watch. There are a lot of videos I've owned like Rocky where if I didn't read on the internet that there are visual differences from previous ones I would never have known.

Strange, I never noticed that. This is probably a Lowry artifact, as similar trailing phenomena is noticeable in the desert scenes of ANH. It's too bad, as one of the things that really bugs me about the ESB GOUT is the high amount of trailing of stars in space scenes.

I doubt they saved the digital files because for the 2004/11 SE it looks like they either painted over the existing work or went back to the original pre-comp camera negatives (e.g., this is what it looks like they did for the re-done Jabba).

They probably did save some elements though--a lot of them were re-used in TPM. The one exception to my theory that I can see is that they re-did the "entering Mos Eisley" shot and completely re-comped individual elements--so maybe there was some instances where they had all the digital data for the scene. It's really impossible to say what they have and don't have because it's all just files sitting on a computer that only select ILM employees even know about. But it certainly seems like there is no massive "1997 Special Edition" server that has every scene, element, plate and work record.

And yeah, the 1997 shots are from film scans, not a direct-digital transfer. It's the 1997 film-out that was cut into the negative. This is part of what makes me think a lot of the raw data is gone, or at least the whole scenes. Probably a lot of the data can't be read very easily now anyway, the systems they built and rendered them on aren't used any more and you'd have to probably convert them into a readible format or write a lot of custom software to get the new programs to read and run it.

I seriously doubt they threw away any of the original negative, even the sections deemed unusable. You never throw away your originals. Lucas is notorious for saving everything anyway. But if there was any sections of the original comps that were not presentable because of deterioration it would be no big deal, you just get them from other sources--Ips, separation masters, etc. Some of the shots in the 1997 SE (and on into the 2004/11) were taken from those sources because the negative was no longer any good. They cut in pretty seamlessly.

Thanks to the people who contributed to this report. I think it is worthwhile news as far as our cause is concerned and I'll be posting it on savestarwars.com. Hell, even the guys nostalgic for the 2004 version are having to eat shit now! I feel like the Star Wars fanbase is slowly re-uniting under a mutual disgust for all the changes. If you read on Amazon.com all people talk about is how they miss the original versions--that never really happened before, on this scale. This could definitely fan those flames.

Let me just say one thing: Lucas wears a "Han shot first" t-shirt.

You think he's ignorant to the "NOooo" hate? In the next version he'll probably have Alderaan shoot first too, just to fuck with people.