zombie84

Gaffer Tape said:

I honestly don't see any difference.  A change is a change.  PERIOD.  Is the extended version of Avatar replacing the theatrical version?  Yes.  That's all there is to it.  To me, it has nothing to do with mindset, with passage of time, with any of that.  He's changing the film and has no ground to stand on to call Lucas out for it.  They're equally wrong.

 I don't think he is saying he is NOT changing the film. That's never been in question--he obviously is. And it also doesn't mean it is "replacing" the original version, in that the original will never be made available again. Since it's on Blu Ray already, it's moot. It's not historical revisionism. It's not the same as what Lucas is doing, not even in the same ballpark.

You are basically saying that once a film has been screened, you are forbidden from changing a frame of film, which is absurd because this happens sometimes through a film's original theatrical run; it's a view ignorant of not-uncommon editorial practices caused by the trauma of Lucas' revisionism, but don't start viewing any sort of change to the film as some sort of dogmatic "YOU CAN'T TOUCH IT ONCE IT'S OUT!!" stance. What Cameron is doing is not the same as coming back thirty years later, inventing new shit that never had any place in the film and isn't of the same nature or technology as the original material, suppressing the original version from existance, and then proclaiming that it was always meant to be. That's what Cameron is saying. That's the fear he's defending himself against. Because people like Lucas do stuff like that, there is this fear that any tweaking of a film once it is screened is "wrong" or "unethical" for some reason, when adding, deleting or changing minor pieces throughout a films original run was practically the norm back in the day. If it was a couple years later, the situation would be differen't, but the bloody thing hasn't even left the theatres yet! Cameron said films are a product of the time they were made, which is why Lucas is wrong to be dicking around with history. Putting six minutes back into a film a few months after it first screened while releasing the first-screened-version in the highest home video quality in existance isn't "revisionism" in the sense we normally use it.

As far as revising history goes though, Avatar has no history. It's been less than six months since the film came out. That's why it's different than Star Wars. "Extended Cut", whatever, the film is still in theatres from its original run as we speak, and the initial release version is being released in high definition Blu Ray right now. It's hardly hypocritical. There's therefore no revisionism in the first place, and like I said, given that the film is still playing in some theatres and that its been less than six months since it made its debut, its not uncommon to add or delete a few bits at this stage in response to certain factors. It's like accusing Lucas of revisionism in 1977 because he added new lines and new sound effects for the mono edition. But beyond this, there isn't the revisionist "the original edition doesn't exit" slant, anyway.

The difference between Avatar and Star Wars is that: a) the additions are out of character and mind-set from the original production, and are not technically appropriate nor part of the original production, b) are added in decades after the film is made, rather than during its original release or theatrical run, and c) that the original version is purported to not exist.

Also, Cameron is adding stuff WITHIN THE YEAR IT WAS RELEASED. It still reflects his mindset at the time. Like how Lucas re-mixed the film a month after it was out. Plus, these scenes were from the original production, not revisions invented 30 years later, another crucial distinction.

I think if you tweak the film within its same release to add deleted material, it doesn't count as "revisionism". Many movies are minorly re-shaped like this, in response to audience reaction, box-office, or whatever. Not so much these days, but before the late 1980s this was not uncommon.

Hello new signature. Good for Cameron. Speaking the truth.

skyjedi2005 said:

Remember when zombie84 reported on his site that the 2004 versions were only done in a resolution of 1080P.  Not exactly blu ray reference quality. 

 This doesn't cut it for a theatrical release, but it shouldn't make a difference on Blu Ray.

Problem is, Lucas has basically made the Blu Ray resolution the negative, which is downright retarded. Even if he re-scanned the footage in 4k or 8k, all the additions done for the 2004 SE would be in 1080 because they were done on a 1080 negative and you will never change that. I realize the additions are few, but this means that even if they re-scanned the film in 8K for a theatrical showing, the prison cell shootout scene, the binary sunset shots, certain Mos Eisley shots, the Jabba scene, the Greedo shooting scene, certain shots from Ben's duel, the scene where Darth Vader meets the Emperor, the scene of Vader's unmasking, and the shots of the three Jedi ghosts--these will always be 1080 lines of resolution. Plus, every SE enhancement from 1997 will be in 2000 lines of resolution. How much footage does that amount for in ANH? Like 25% of the movie? So unless Lucas completely redoes the SE--which will never happen--the "definitive" version of the movie will always have a quarter of it in 1K/2K, even if being projected at 8K. Which is a little sad. 2K I could handle, because that's sort of the same degradation as optical compositing, but 1080? Ugh. Going to be interesting to see how theatrical screenings hold up.

vote_for_palpatine said:

I was in denial the whole time, sadly. It never hit me - I didn't let it hit me - until well after the fact.

Until ROTS came out, I kept thinking This will all work, it's all going to fit, Episode III will fix everything. Lo and behold, come May 2005 and ROTS was history's most expensive PowerPoint.

 LOL

Similar experience for me. I liked TPM at the time, thought AOTC was even better, and re-watched them quite a bit. I knew they weren't as good as the OT but it was exciting to have new SW films. I lost interest in them a bit by the time ROTS came out, but I loved ROTS and still consider it a pretty good movie. Looking back at the completed picture, however, and with the excitement off, more and more the films didn't hold up. AOTC especially fell apart. TPM I still enjoy as a children's fantasy film--which is the reason I think I liked it in the first place--but failed to hold up as a Star Wars film. I think it took the full trilogy to be seen before the massive failures of the first two films became totally apparent because I just kept telling myself ROTS would make them work somehow. As good as that film was, it made the previous ones seem worse, and it made it apparent that they weren't really necessary for understanding anything in it as well.

Baronlando said:

zombie84 said:

I doubt it will be that expensive. It will probably be under $100, probably in the $89 range.

I dunno, it costs 80 bucks just to buy both of those crappy red/blue trilogy boxes at best buy right now.

That's because those are specialty niche titles. Like how Criterion charges $50 for a 2-disk DVD. I paid $90 for a 4-disk Ingmar Bergman set in 2003. The most popular franchise of all time won't cost that much. Blu Ray now is about what DVD was in 2003, so if a Saga boxset came out then I doubt it would have been more than 80 or 90 dollars. Godfather Blu Ray set is about $50, Matrix 4-film set is about $80, so is LOTR Blue-ray, and that's hitting the roof of what people will shell out for. We'll see how the Alien Anthology prices--6 films, at least 13 disks of material, and produced by FOX, comparable to the SW set. I'd be surprised if it was north of $90 though when it starts selling. And by the time the SW set hits, it will likely be 2011, when prices have gone down even more. But whatever. Even if its $120, they won't need the OOT to make it the fastest selling set in the format's history. It's more about PR. But Lucasfilm can afford to have bad PR because it doesn't impact sales, its more about whether the people in charge are comfortable with this.

I doubt it will be that expensive. It will probably be under $100, probably in the $89 range. They have to make it buyable for kids and parents, one of their main markets. No Blu Ray set is over $100 except the Complete Series mega-sets with 30-disks of content. For $89, people would pay for the OT SE in Blu Ray, plus deleted scenes, new documentaries, everything from the previous set, and the PT included with new PT bonus features. They don't need the OOT. People will be ticked off, they might even actively complain, but they will still buy the thing.

It might not even be a matter of choice. Maybe the LFL people won't be able to topple the immoveable wall of Lucas, and will be forced to exclude it. We'll have to see.

We should really start a letter writing campaign. The set is in the early stages of being developed if its release date of 4th quarter 2011 is correct. They could ready a remastered OOT as late as spring 2011. If we don't act now, the window might pass.

Sadly I agree with CO. It's gotten to the point where I would boycot the set in favour of the OOT, but I know that I'm an exception here. And even then, I would say there is a decent chance I would break and buy the damn thing anyway. I did with the GOUT.

Can he post a full-res screen-cap?

Why would it endanger anyone? Piracy is the private business of the user, not the sites business, unless we start linking to torrents. Get a grip guys, no one is going to do anything for saying "i will download" something, if they did then pretty much every internet message board would be shut down. Especially since this is a hypothetical situation for a product that doesn't exist.

He probably is. They wouldn't be authoring the disks until it is close to release time--which is at least 6 months away, and in all likelihood a year and six months away.

Eh, nothing new here.

We already new they were working on this, and it was assumed there would be new outtakes and documentaries. There's no real specs and no date. This isn't a big deal, really.

Well, the old one was a personal journal, and only covered the shooting, so I doubt they will have 200 pages of a guys experience on the set. They will probably take the interviews he did, and maybe a couple observations. I would hope they would incorporate his carbon-freezing shooting transcript, but its far too lengthy, if they use any of it they will probably just take a few pages. Which is a bit of a shame, but at least it still makes Arnold's book valuable.

Since John Peecher's Making of Return of the Jedi was far less personal and covered most of the production, I do suspect that most of it will show up in the new ROTJ book, whenever it appears.

I plan on living in the Fox studios underground salt mine archive in Arizona, re-watching reels of old John Ford films and the last surviving negatives of Star Wars, whilst surviving off the salt.

Behold!

http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/45777687.html

(not very exciting, but Kershner's annotated script page is very cool IMO).

The point though is based on that Obi Wan knows pretty much nothing about the droid, and the fact that he has no idea of any of the stuff that will happen to him following his grabbing the droid, his decision to jump through the window seems like a very stupid one. We both agree that Obi Wan didn't know what would happen to him in the complex sense: that he would get flown through the city, somehow miss the traffic, somehow miss the lazer bolt, and then freefall into a gentle passenger seat landing in Anakin's ship. Based on what it is reasonable for him to intune--"I will grab the droid, I just have to jump now!"--he clearly did not stop and think about the larger situation he was placing himself in.

You are probably right about Jedi simply trusting their insticts and reacting. But then in the next scene Obi Wan is saying "use the Force, THINK" and then rationalises a strategy using his ability to reason. Obi Wan is normally a very logical person, that's why jumping out a 97th-storey window at the drop of a hat seems a bit weird when you really break it down.

Being able to "see" beyond our normal senses like our eyes is not predicting the future. Luke "stretches out with his feelings", sensing wherethe bolts will come. Spidey sense, basically, or a form of super-human (aka paranormal) reflexes. As I said, this would be akin to Obi Wan "knowing" that he can make the jump to the droid. This is much different from the complex, long-term prediction Obi Wan has to make following this:

-That the droid will support his weight

-That it isn't rigged to explode, or won't intentionally or unintentionally run into a building...or traffic.

-That the sniper who has her scope on him will for some reason shoot the droid and not his head.

-That when he freefalls as a result of this he won't hit traffic or the bottom of Coruscant but will slip gracefully into the padded leather interior of Anakin's speeder.

He clearly knew none of this. That's part of the suspense and drama of the sequence, Obi Wan made a rash choice and now he's hanging on for dear life and who knows what will happen or how he will get out of it. Obi Wan isn't going "its fine, don't worry, I read the script, er, saw the future cuz I'm a Jedi." He's going "SHIT, WTF am I gonna do here??" Thats where the drama comes from, if there is any.

a)they have super-human reflexes

b)they have super-human reflexes

If the Jedi can literally know what is going to occur in a fight--how come they lose 50% of the fights we see them in?? How come large swamrs of them get gunned down in AOTC and ROTS?

"Jedi precognition" in terms of fighting/action is a mix of reflexes and Spidey sense. At other times they have visions and dreams, and can see things literal while in deep states of meditation, but in spur-of-the-moment combat it really just boils down to being able to react quickly to things.

Obi Wan's Jedi Spidey Sense probably told him he could reach the droid in time if he dove through the window right then, but there's no way he could know anything else, including that it would support his weight, that it wouldn't be rigged to explode if captured, that the assassin who shot the droid wouldn't shoot him in the face, that it wouldn't simply drive into a building and kill him, and that Anakin would gently pick him up from freefall into the passenger seat of the speeder.

It's a nitpicky thing, for sure. I think his note that it would make better sense for Anakin to do this is far more salient, because this has to do with character issues. But I have to say, nitpicky or not, he has a good point nonetheless.

I don't think Jedi precognition extends to such specific, instantaneous matters in the middle of an action scene. It's really like "I sense bad stuff will happen sometime soon." Not, "I will grab on to the droid and the droid will support my weight and when the assassin with the sniper rifle and perfect aim shoots she will shoot the droid and not my face and when I freefall 70 storys I will gently land in the passenger seat of Anakin's speeder." Otherwise Jedi would be pretty much invincible.

I'm all for it, could be interesting. The Star Wars episodes of Robot Chicken were quite good, and I can see the approach to this sort of thing. One of the main reasons that I like the first half of Star Wars is because it presents mundane everyday life on this far-away planet, and there's plenty of humor to be had in that.

My question is, is the "Squishies" thing still legit, or was that a mis-report based on this?

To be honest, I would probably buy the SE just to see the films in high-def, as long as I had a good home theater set up. I don't, but I don't mind watching the SE if its going to be shown at its best.  Or maybe I'd just rent it to see if it looked cool. But I definitely would check it out, especially if it had new extras.

Because it would cost more, and it probably wasn't felt it was necessary. I have to agree with them for the most part--there are a few scenes that called for re-comping, but the films generally held up well. There's only a few instances where matte lines are obvious (many of which were fixed), and garbage mattes only show up on home video.

Of course, I'm speaking of the 1997 SE. The 2004 SE cleaned up more mattes and probably re-comped some more stuff, but the blacks were crushed so much that if you can still see garbage mattes your brightness setting must be way off.

Not all elements were re-comped. They redid all optical effects like wipes and fades and transitions because those are duplicate negatives pieces anyway, so they went back to the original sources and did them fresh. But as for the visual effects, only certain sequences were re-composited. In Star Wars you definitely had Luke's Falcon training sequence re-comped, but other than that its unclear. ESB had the walker sequence and at least part of the asteroid sequence re-done. ROTJ might have had the Rancor scene re-comped. But mostly its the original 1977-1983 composites.

Well, film elements from the 70s at least. But the black and white seperation masters will be around. They are almost as good as the negative. In fact, judging by how damaged parts of the negative are, they might even be better.

Don't worry, there are a ton of film out there that don't have existing negatives. Seen the remastered Criterion edition of Seven Samurai? It looks mighty good, and there's no existing original negative for it. Where there's a will, there's a way.