zombie84

There is no way that is the same saber. Whatever it was that was done to it, whether its the old one re-polished or a new one replaced it, or an older element re-used here, or combinations of any of them--it clearly has been visually altered in some manner. I'm gonna say its a completely different element than 1977. We know they were recomping all the other elements in those shots, and they didn't always recomp them in the same place or with the exact same element, especially since it was digital and they could do whatever they wanted. So it makes sense that if they were re-building the elements in that shot from scratch that the saber is a recomp of some kind. But as for whether that means every shot in the scene had a new saber is hard to say, I'm going by the caps here mostly. As far as I know, the seeker ball was recomped every time, and that would mean the lightsaber was as well, regardless of whether they visually changed it somehow as in this shot.

 I was talking about this:

The lightsaber there is not the same. The original one is skinny at first and then tapers out. The glow is different and has electrical crackly bits, and the way it joins into the hilt is different looking too (squarish and flat in 2004, but thin and rounder in the GOUT, even with its clipped white levels).

The lightsaber in those re-comps is also comletely new, either from 2004 or probably 1997. The shape is different. The crackly electrically edges have been smoothed away as well, could blame lowry but since it is a brand new 1997 or 2004 likely digital saber they might have just done it like that, the way the prequels looked.

Kersh said he appreciated the expanded Bespin, but he also said he was glad it was changed so little, and he seemd to diplomatically indicate he wasn't a fan of the new wampa. But the point is: he wasn't given the choice. It wasn't his doing and he had zero involvement or consultation. If it were up to him, he would have never touched the film, because it was what it was and he was proud of it and had moved on and didn't think it needed to be revisited. All Lucas did was give him an advance screening, not for approval but just to show him what he was doing to his film.

Kasdan, on the other hand, didn't see the film until it premiered. And of course Brackett and Marquand were long dead.

Essentially, according to the Berne Convention Lucas was so aggressively trying to get Congress to recognize, Lucas produced a million dollar fan-edit, since they were other people's films, even though he had a hand in them. Like all fan edits, his version is good in places, bad in places, with some changes that are appreciated and others that are bewildering, but at the end of the day you would never want them to replace the original.

Yeah. But you know I always hear people talk about "the films are his babies," but they really aren't. I guess Star Wars is, he wrote and directed it. But you know, he didn't direct Empire and Jedi, and that alone should make him ineligable to modify them unilaterally. And then Lawrence Kasdan was the main screenwriter. Lucas here envokes the Berne Convention, and he goes on in other parts of the statements to explain how only the primary director and writer can approve changes, and they have to agree on them; this is the mandate of the Berne Convention Lucas was so aggressively promoting and trying to get Congress to recognize. But Kershner and Kasdan weren't even involved in the SE, and Marquand was passed away, so he's altering another director's film after he has died. It's kind of disrespectful for him to talk about "his vision" of things, especially with Empire where even in 2010 Kershner said the film came out so good because Lucas backed off and let him make it exactly the way he wanted and only visited the set three times.

So, basically, while I agree he should have the right to play with Star Wars to his heart's desire as long as the original version is preserved, I don't think he has any business meddling with the other two films without the consent of at least the guys who actually directed them.

Both great. I wonder if there is something similar to Graffiti and Raiders; I know its only a couple shots, but someone must have made a page about them.

Zombie, even though the main purpose of your site is the Star Wars trilogy, could perhaps a little article about his alterations and suppression made to THX 1138 and American Graffiti also fit on your site? it would be great.

Yeah, I had thought about doing that. It's a little outside the scope of the site (save STAR WARS), but one thing I should at least do is add links to existing pages that catalogue the differences. I'm pretty sure there are some out there that I've seen.

Baronlando:

I'm sure they will, (and that he rationalizes it that way these days) but that's a pretty shallow read on it, and a douchey-lawyer way for those people to cherry pick what he actually said. Especially since so much of it is about our heritage and a clear picture of our cultural history etc. etc. And basically none of it is about how writer/producers should be free to do the exact opposite

Well, he sort of does, but I didn't include it. He has two main points:

-Films belong to society, and should be preserved as they are.

-Artists also should have the right to block the alteration of a film on the grounds of their moral rights. But, if they want to have it altered, that is a decision that only the "authors" of the film can consent to, which is the director and writer.

So, it may seem a bit conflicting on the surface. But he says that rights holder should continue to release and maintain the original versions even if altered versions exist, and expresses anger that this has not be happening very well. Which is the reconciliation of his two arguments.

It's also the exact situation we have today, except in the case of Star Wars. You have the Director's Cut/Special Edition/Extended Version, plus the original theatrical version, released in basically the same quality. Lucas had the right idea, even in 1988. He seems to have lost it.

Unfortunately, there is a caveat in that films are collaborations, and that includes the studio too, and not single-handed efforts that a director can control unilaterally. They tried to open it up to include the primary writer, but that seems like a futile and arbitrary designation for most cases. That's why the Berne Convention wasn't extended to films, and that's why Cultural Heritage protection law is the only effective way to preserve films. People can alter them as much as they like as derivative copies but the original get's priority treatment and preservation. Alas, as Lucas says, this is comparitively unimportant matters for Congress, and the only reason this motion was brought forth was because of the celebrity angle. Who knows when it will come up again, and if they will be wise enough to deal with it properly.

None:

Good suggestions. I have incorporated all of them, except the reference to August, which I don't think is very confusing or relevant to clarify. I also am keeping Brackett out of this because according to the Berne Convention she would not be considered a primary screenwriter even though she has credit, and with her being dead while the main writer is alive she would probably be ignored in the issue.

http://savestarwars.com/lucasspeechagainstspecialedition.html

doubleofive said:

The greatest speech against the Special Editions was written by George Lucas.

 Brilliant. I'm preparing an article that will examine the full document and I think I am going to title it this.

Fascinating, infuriating, sad and inspiring all at once this speech is.

Oh, it gets better. Lucas actually makes a lot of sense here. He even emphasizes that FILMS BELONG TO THE PUBLIC ABOVE ALL ELSE, and that the only reason that copyrights exist is to give their owners financial compensation during their lifetimes (after which the works become public domain and not owned by anyone). And he also nails down the point: there is no American law in place to protect them from being distorted, either during copyright term or after its expiration. I wrote a whole article on the legal and ethical side of this in August--I should have just let Lucas write the fucking thing! Brilliant.

"There is nothing to stop American films, records, books, and paintings from being sold to a foreign entity or egotistical gangsters and having them change our cultural heritage to suit their personal taste.

I accuse the companies and groups, who say that American law is sufficient, of misleading the Congress and the People for their own economic self-interest. The law is not sufficient.

I accuse the Motion Picture Association of seeking to save one billion dollars in film piracy, without acknowledging the moral rights of the artists who created these films as required by the Berne Treaty.

I accuse the corporations, who oppose the moral rights of the artist, of being dishonest and insensitive to American cultural heritage and of being interested only in their quarterly bottom line, and not in the long-term interest of the Nation.

The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work.

There are those who say American law is sufficient. That's an outrage! It's not sufficient! If it were sufficient, why would I be here? Why would John Houston have been so studiously ignored when he protested the colorization of "The Maltese Falcon?" Why are films cut up and butchered?"

Tell 'em, George! Can we get a time machine and bring this guy back here to bitchsmack his future self?

Reading his statements is actually pretty scary. Scary because:

1) he predicted the precise problem in the situations we now face

2) it's amazing how much George Lucas 1988 feels the same about cinematic preservation as I do, but most importantly

3) he predicted every type of digital alteration that he would eventually put to use in the SE as a threat.

Listen to this:

"My name is George Lucas. I am a writer, director, and producer of motion pictures and Chairman of the Board of Lucasfilm Ltd., a multi-faceted entertainment corporation.

I am not here today as a writer-director, or as a producer, or as the chairman of a corporation. I've come as a citizen of what I believe to be a great society that is in need of a moral anchor to help define and protect its intellectual and cultural heritage. It is not being protected.

The destruction of our film heritage, which is the focus of concern today, is only the tip of the iceberg. American law does not protect our painters, sculptors, recording artists, authors, or filmmakers from having their lifework distorted, and their reputation ruined. If something is not done now to clearly state the moral rights of artists, current and future technologies will alter, mutilate, and destroy for future generations the subtle human truths and highest human feeling that talented individuals within our society have created.

A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history.

[snip]

People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as "when life begins" or "when it should be appropriately terminated," but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavir. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.

These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with thier computers can add color to black-and-white movies,

change the soundtrack,

speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder.

 Tommorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces."

 It will soon be possible to create a new "original" negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires.

The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely dilligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten."

That's George Lucas, I just have to remind again. That's only about 40% of his full letter, but it's representative of the whole thing. What the fuck happened to this guy? He sounds like was pretty cool.

Possibly tonight, as I now have copies of Lucas' statements before Congress from 1988 thanks to a trusty gopher in NYC who did some snooping for me.

msycamore said:

hairy_hen said:

Thanks for pointing out the alteration to the first lightsaber scene, msycamore.  I too noticed that quite a while ago, and it bothered me because there was something not right about it.  Obviously the old transfers are of rubbishy quality, but you can still see the difference even there; the Technicolor print, of course, is by far the best representation.  The blade looks so well made and natural in that version, while the SE is flat and sharp and strange and stupid in comparison.

Thanks for noticing what I pointed out. ;) I thought I was alone there for a while. :)

zombie84 said:

Also, the Falcon saber--in that one wide shot--was always green-cast. The sabers were never consistent, and in ANH Vader's alternated between red, pink and orange. The problem is that this was very, very mild in the original version, so you never noticed it, while in the SE they jacked the colouring on the sabers waaaay up, and then did all sorts of other colour manipulation which just exaggerated this further. As a result, it's not just a mild shift in the colour cast, like in the original, it's outright full-on re-colouring.

Lukes' lightsaber was always blue in the original film, the same goes for Obi-Wans', it could go from a more saturated blue to a more light washed out blue depending on different shots and lightning but it was never green-cast as far as I can see. Where do you get this from? You can clearly see that it is blue in the bootleg telecine for example, even with its wonky quality, also in many older transfers and documentaries where the contrast levels were much better than later video releases. 

How the recomposited saber in the Falcons two wide shots turned green in one of the shots in 2004 is no miracle, as we all know the same kind of color-screwups are all over the place. One example is when Vader approaches Obi-Wan, the green lights on his belt goes from the correct green to blue and back to green again, another is Ben's purple saber and so on. I just find it hard to believe that the 2004 DVD have magically revealed those inconsistencies in colors you describe was always there. Especially when we know this lightsaber shot was recomped in '97. But I may be wrong about this, of course.

The '04 master is so amazingly F***ED up, that in the end it's even hard to study what really is a stupid deliberate alteration or what is just a regular amatuer behind the wheel.

 I'm not saying the saber was green, it was always blue, but in that first establishing shot it has a bit of a green cast to it. Go take a look at the GOUT. It was never a strong blue in that first establisher, and at least on the GOUT I can see some mild green hues coming out. So, on the 2004 version when they yanked up the saturation, played around with other colour levels, and shifted the cast greener still, as the entire shot has a more pronounced green shift, that green saber cast really came out and totally overrode any blue element that was originally weakly there.

However, and this ties in with what I had mentioned earlier, it's hard to say what of the original saber element is even valid in the SE anyway--the saber is a re-comp. The original one was a nubby saber that didn't quite extend to the top of the frame, and they redid the blade (probably for 1997?). So this may also further complicate how the colour deviated so much. I don't know if this shot was ever catalogued as a change/recomp, but it is.

^^

Hmm, that's a good theory. Is it possible that there was tweaking done in '97, or that the elements were exposed at different levels?

The only reason I am hesitant to accept that 100% is because in so many media before the SE the sabers are fatter. Every video I owned had the sabers like in the GOUT, and in publicity material they often are, as well as in comics and the older video games. I suppose many of those designs could be based off of home video versions which never had proper levels, although it doesn't quite explain many of the pre-home-video media. But then there are just as many with the thin sabres, so I guess it varied. What is funny is that I don't remember ROTJ ever having the fatter blades that ESB does, but maybe my memory is wrong.

Yeah, they did that with the Falcon in the Art of ESB book. It's been like that since 1980! I guess they keep using that book as a reference guide so it keeps popping up again; I believe the same error appeared in The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives too.

It's probably an honest mistake if they used original shots in most other areas. I mean, the editorial team at Lucasbooks probably isn't as sharp on this stuff as people like us...for that matter, pretty much no one is.

Speaking of which, I should probably get to updating the SE Changes page with all your shots.

This article is also printed in George Lucas Interviews, an excellent collection.

none said:

Sluggo wrote:

I wonder if it is of a 70mm showing?

'Star Wars on Video' wrote back and updated his site with some details:

This bootleg was actually telecined from an anamorphically squeezed print


I'm sorry to disappoint you all, but my Qatar bootleg was a telecine of an 
anamorphic print, not camcorded. I'm not sure about the source, but it looks 
like 35mm film. Therefore, no theatrical experience there. Sorry.

No crowd noise for my curiosities, but a great reference of what once was.

 

 This is still a cool, rare item to get. Could give some colouring clues.

Well, it certainly looks like there are other examples, although that one is the only one in which there is video footage of it being altered.

But if you look at the lightsabers...there was definitely something done to them. I don't know if it is just because of the darkened levels that crush down the glow, but it really doesn't seem like it me, and the "electrical" crackly glow is now replaced with a more solid, stable glow. It looks like the cores have not just been dimmed down, but outright thinned out (i.e. erased). Whatever the case, the sabers look different, and it's probably no surprise that they look exactly like they do in the prequels and all subsequent media.

Here is an example, I'm just using this because I already had these caps on my website. This is not too extreme, but you can see how the blades have been thinned out. I don't think it's due to black levels, because on Vader's you can see that where there was originally white core there is now nothing (i.e. the bg and glow), so it's been re-touched from scratch, plus the black levels here are close to the original and wouldn't account for such drastic difference even if it were possible.

I would like to hear some thoughts on this though, as I don't believe the sabers have ever been included in either LFL's or 005's pages.

He stole "shots" from a book which had no pictures in it? That's one of the stupier argument's I've heard concerning this.

Anyway, I have a whole theory regarding Joseph Campbell anyway, which is that Lucas barely paid any attention to him while writing Star Wars. It was mainly a publicity manifestation.

It seems like everyone on the internet, when they aren't downloading porn and killing time on facebook, wants to discuss movies, but as you said they have as many opinions as they have little facts.

I am sure none of those are vignettes from the lens. It's an intentional lighting and filter effect. It looks great, very atmospheric and painterly. I hope it's not taken away, it would diminish the terrific deliberate composition and lighting of Kersh and Suschitzski's and make everything look boring and flat. It's hard to get vignettes on longer lenses like those anyway, unless they were on a zoom, which they likely weren't, as Kersh shot pretty much all on primes. The "vignetting effect"-look is a deliberate stylization in my opinion, not an error to be erased, it's part of the look of the film.

Well, the Falcon scene for one. This was for the 1997 release. The seeker ball, saber and hologram elements were re-comped for the wideshot, and additional dirt was clone-stamped out. You can tell because the seeker doesn't go in the same place as the original version IIRC.

Yeah the lightsaber thing definitely is a curiosity. To me, it looks for sure like they were altered in some way. Rather than being fat and "electricy" they are thin and sword-like, like in the prequels. I assume this is a new re-comp, but crushing the blacks and other image manipulation could have changed this. The saber's were definitely re-comped in at least some of the shots, because I've seen footage of it happening.

Also, the Falcon saber--in that one wide shot--was always green-cast. The sabers were never consistent, and in ANH Vader's alternated between red, pink and orange. The problem is that this was very, very mild in the original version, so you never noticed it, while in the SE they jacked the colouring on the sabers waaaay up, and then did all sorts of other colour manipulation which just exaggerated this further. As a result, it's not just a mild shift in the colour cast, like in the original, it's outright full-on re-colouring.

I believe the in-universe explanation (i.e. EU) is that there is a lag time between when the DS fires and when it has to charge up for a second shot. So it couldn't just fire two shots in a row; if it blew up the Yavin gas giant, the Rebels would have ample time to flee before it could charge up to fire on the moon base. Obviously, one of the upgrades the DSII had was the ability to fire in quicker succession.