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Topic: These Most Certainly Are The Star Wars Re-Releases You're Looking For...
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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!
Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 09-25-2015 01:33 PM
In my feed this morning from MoviePilot:
quote:
These Most Certainly Are The Star Wars Re-Releases You're Looking For...
By Rob Harris - 22 September 2015
After over 30 years of waiting, the unaltered theatrical versions of the original Star Wars trilogy is finally coming to Blu-ray, at least according to John Landis.
Landis, who is a close friend of Lucas, dropped this proton bomb of an announcement during a Q&A at Universal Studios Orlando, which Empire magazine reported on:
His exact words were:
"First of all, they wouldn’t let me. George owns his movies, so he can do what he wants ... My personal opinion is George hurt his movies by doing what he did. However, George said to me, 'But they're my movies.' ... I thought, 'That’s fair.' ... Did you know Disney, by the way, is putting out the original Star Wars the way it was. So, you know Disney, they’re like money on the floor.
That sounds like a solid confirmation to me - and just in time to get reacquainted with the restored originals in the lead up to The Force Awakens!
Finally, we can now watch these timeless movies as they were first experienced by theater audiences, meaning Han will again shoot Greedo first, rather than the other way round, as in the updated versions.
Legal Issues
The only clear obstacle standing in the way of this long since requested re-release is, as is often the case, rights-related. Although Disney owns Lucasfilm, the original theatrical distribution rights belong to 20th Century Fox, meaning they'll have to sign off on it.
But considering there're boatloads of money to be made, this doesn't seem all that unlikely.
What do you think - would you be interested in an unaltered theatrical version of the original trilogy?
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Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003
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posted 09-25-2015 08:28 PM
If they do get released in their "original" form, I'm curious about the sources they will use. As the story goes, the negative was permanently changed in 1997 for the Special Editions. While I don't believe that, if it is true, I'd imagine that a nice IP exists somewhere which could produce a nice master. There are efforts in the works by fans to scan prints of the original trilogy, including an IB tech print of A New Hope, but if an IP where in an official vault somewhere, that seems like it would do very well, maybe even better than the negative at this point.
Funny, I don't think you'll ever get an "original" version of Star Wars because it never really existed. Even in 1977, there were 3 separate sound mixes, then we got A New Hope added, then further changes to the sound mix on video, different colors and sound for the THX remasters, and of course more special effects, CGI, extra scenes, etc. post 1997. At this point, every generation has the version they "grew up with".
The only real way to do this right is to preserve 3 versions: the 1977 version (with all 3 sound mixes), the 1997 version, and whatever George wants to call his "definitive" version. A Blu-ray could in theory hold all those versions. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
AJG
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-28-2015 12:02 AM
Maybe they can use Harmy's Despecialized Editions as the source? ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I watched the Blu-Ray release of Episode 4 quite recently and I just couldn't stand it. All those alterations seemed so totally out of place and many of them just looked bad, like someone's High School Hack-Job.
So, I ended up giving in to the bad side of the Force and watched the Despecialized Editions instead and had my cookies. Yeah, maybe we're not supposed to have them, but on the other hand, who gave George Lucas the right to mess with history so much?
My girlfriend, not wanting anything to do with this whole Star Wars stuff suddenly started to respect this whole Star Wars thing, even though I made her watch the whole Episode 4 all over again. I also made clear that you best pretend the whole Episode 1 to 3 thing never happened. Before the Despecialized Editions, Star Wars was like Barbie for little boys to her. She couldn't get a grip on why grown ups would give a damn about this childish stuff.
The more I think about it, I do believe George Lucas always hated the Star Wars we all came to love. The Star Wars we got was the "compromise version". Usually, when studios meddle with the end product, it turns for the worse, but here it might actually have saved it.
Once he got the money to do whatever he wanted, he gave us the Star Wars he had in mind... quite an eyeopener. Well, maybe this could have served as an eye opener too. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Ari Leedsw
Film Handler
Posts: 53
From: Stoughton, MA
Registered: Feb 2016
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posted 02-20-2016 09:39 AM
Maybe now LucasFilm (or Disney) will be pressured to actually do a proper rerelease from the original elements.
Pretty sad that the fans have to go and do it themselves.
Lucas is just a jerk.
2K "remasters" inadequate resolution that already look dated, sits on the original material, tries to tell us what to do with trailers.
I saw this in a clip on YouTube, and I agree wholeheartedly: Someone said that the original dogfight in the first film is one of the only "redos" of the effects that is an actual improvement. Almost all of the rest makes things worse.
After the first one, the model work improved substantially, so much so, notice, that they leave it alone (although the element composite is redone digitally) in Empire, and don't even recomposite, leaving the junk mattes, in Jedi.
I wonder if that last was laziness/cost (they supposedly had to combine hundreds of pieces of film, all of which would have to be rescanned if they wanted to take out matte artifacts) or something else.
I would argue that "Jedi's" dogfights looks substantially better than the majority of CGI mush today. An incredible piece of work.
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Ari Leedsw
Film Handler
Posts: 53
From: Stoughton, MA
Registered: Feb 2016
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posted 02-20-2016 10:58 AM
Brad: I would say that's a distortion of an amateur trying to interpret the technical description of poor storage.
My understanding is they used CRIs (direct reversal copy film, to save one generation of loss) ONLY on the wipes, like the one where 3PO gets lifted up. Those were the only effects that were lost, because this film was incredibly unstable, fading to black after less than 10 years. Even if copies of the CRIs didn't exist, it would be simple to redo them from scratch.
Someone at LucasFilm took an opportunity to take a bunch of cheap shots at film, which has improved considerably since 1977.
As to the negative, my understanding is that they got cheap and didn't properly clean it not at the original, but the multiple re-releases. They allowed the dust to get caked in, instead of paying the lab the 2c/foot to clean it between runs. Kinda like with records, letting them sit in dust. Not really the record's fault.
Not sure about the 70mm master. I'm sure what the fans have, three or four generations removed in some cases, there is a far better, earlier generation in a vault somewhere (whether 35mm or 70mm) that could have been rescanned at higher resolution, a copy with less grain or co9ntrast buildup, but due to George Lucas's digital arrogance, is not.
Maybe he's afraid of a higher-than 2K scan of the original outdoing his 2K "remasters." I wonder starting with 2048 lines in 1997, how many lines made it onto the screen on a 4th generation 35mm print. Probably 1100 or 1200.
And Kodak redid a Disney film in 4K in 1994. What a joke.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 04-15-2016 08:02 PM
quote: Ari Leedsw
Brad: I would say that's a distortion of an amateur trying to interpret the technical description of poor storage.
Why, exactly? Dye coupler color stock manufactured, struck and processed in 1977 (or thereabouts), will, barring a miracle, be pink, shrunk, brittle and stinking of vinegar if it has been stored at anything close to room temperature and humidity for any significant proportion of the intervening 39 years. There have been many occasions on which restorers have had to use elements affected by deacetylation and dye fading as the source material for new preservation masters, even of titles that were a popular and commercial success at the time of their release.
It's important to remember that deacetylation (vinegar syndrome) and dye fading weren't widely understood until Scorsese's awareness campaign in the late '70s which led Kodak, and later other manufacturers, to come up with more fade resistant stock. Furthermore, the research by Michelle Edge, the IPI and others which proved that cool and dry storage could slow down both processes (in effect, that atmospherically controlled, long term storage is as necessary for acetate base and dye coupler emulsions as it is for nitrate) wasn't basically done until the early '90s. When I was in film archiving school from 1995-96, the results of this research was the hot news, and part of the reason why preservationists were embracing polyester base so enthusiastically, and trying to persuade the film makers to produce the stocks they used for preservation duping on polyester.
I can think of no reason not to believe that when the initial post-production and distribution was done, the cut o-negs and intermediate Star Wars material was put straight into storage with no atmospheric control. In Southern California, that's especially bad news (though the climate here is pretty dry). In the late '70s, even people who knew and cared about film preservation believed that cold storage was only necessary for nitrate. Indeed, acetate was seen as the savior of cinema because it was believed that it didn't need cold storage; and most dye coupler elements hadn't existed for long enough to have gone seriously pink.
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