Star Wars discussion from The Bits... - Page 4

Re: Star Wars discussion from The Bits...

While I'm a bit disappointed in the news regarding the transfer of the original films it's definatley not the end of the world.

How many times did we here Lucas say, "The originals dont exist". George Lucas is probably the only director that considers his work a 'work in progress'. I am old enough to remember the originals just like the rest of you, but I guess I'm in the minority of those impressed with the way the SE's look and am happy with all the additions and changes (minus the Greedo shooting first deal). But seriously, how many times are you actually going to watch these?

The improvements they have made with these films far outweigh any nostalgia of the originals. I for one am content with what is out now. If the originals are considered an 'extra' then so be it. This won't be the last time we see SW released. The next 'wawa' will be for HD, then the originals in HD. It won't ever end.

Also please consider that Blue Ray has not won any format war. From Sony's E3 presentation, the PS3 got mediocre response at best. And I know there were alot of fanboys here banking on the PS3 pushing Blue Ray into homes. Not with that price.

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That editorial is disgusting, and doesn't merit even the benefit of the doubt. Really, guys, we're better than that.

I think.

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I think that if you actually got what you just asked for here -- a totally unrestored straight transfer of the films -- you'd scream bloody murder when you saw it.

Don't get me wrong -- I have a nice TV, and I'd like a clean, anamorphic transfer of the non-SE films. But the prevailing opinion that you can just slap the film into some machine and out the other end will come a nice DVD transfer is really misguided.

The issue is whether or not to spend money on a restoration. They have a restored transfer, but it's old and non-anamorphic. They can add that to the package for next to nothing, or spend the money on a full scale cleanup of the originals.

That seems to be the sticking point -- spending the time and money to do it right.

Perhaps they've studied the loss in sales expected if they release this non-anamorphic and concluded that the dip in sales will be less than the cost of the restoration?

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first part last


I agree 100%



I said before, I and i suspect many other would be more than happy with an approximation of the originals. Yes, a scene like the entrance to Mos Eisley would have to be sourced from something inferior, as well as the checkpoint scene because it has a little hovering robot in the backgorund- but there are many, many, many other shots and sequences in the films that have absolutely no large, in your face, modifications- and could certinaly be used in toto.
I think it is really disingenuious to suggest that the majority of these films have been tampered with beyond repair or redress.
An approximation could certainly be done.

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I most certainly do not want updated effects. Not at all. I want the original versions of these films with the original effects that earned multiple Academy Awards.

I only hope that that everyone calls/faxes/emails Lucasfilm and Fox to express their dissatisfaction with what we are apparently getting with these discs. As I said in my post in the other thread, people at Lucasfilm are at least aware of the discussion here. Let's hope they listen...

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From the number of people who think that the films are 75-90% restored already because of the SEs and only need a shot replaced here and there, I have to believe that they either don't know or don't care about the majority of the changes.

But regardless, that makes it a bigger task -- the composite shots are the ones that have faded to virtually nothing and therefore need the most restoration work. To get back to 1977 by working from second or third generation material rather than by recompositing the original shots will certainly yield a less-good final product.

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Count me among those who love the original OT films, but who aren't feeling any great interest in the non-anamorphic DVD releases. I already own the 1993 laserdiscs, and will not be inclined to spend further money for these films if Lucasfilm isn't going to offer me a significant upgrade in video quality after thirteen intervening years. Which is a pity; if I these releases were going to represent Lucasfilm's usual commitment to quality audio/video, I'd be the first in line at the store on the day of release.

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I agree. But as you can see from the other replies, some people decidedly don't want that. Personally, I'd be fine with it -- the narrative changes are the ones that bug me, not the recompositing or even the little floating robot.

It would end up being like the fake original theatrical version of Close Encounters that Criterion put together for LaserDisc -- narratively, it was the original theatrical version, but it had all of the updated effects in it. While I'm still curious to see the "real" original theatrical version, it's not a really pressing issue for me.

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Let's see... I've bought the Definitive Collection on LaserDisc three times, off eBay, for approx $500 all told.

However. Anamorphic or not-anamorphic, the OT will cost <$100 and my dying laserdisc player will cost >$100 to fix...

It stinks (but really shouldn't be a surprise), but I'm going to have to get them.

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For the record, so that my position is clear -- without anamorphic enhancement, there is no good reason for me to purchase these, and I will continue to enjoy my LaserDiscs. However, if they are anamorphic (or at least present a large image quality improvement over the LaserDiscs), I will happily purchase them the first day they're available.

I waited two hours at my LaserDisc store of choice for their shipment to arrive with the "faces" LDs in them, and paid $70 each, a total of $210, on the first day they were available back in 1995. I'm not shy with my Star Wars spending -- but I also won't spend without a compelling reason to do so.

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My thinking is, and I'm totally guessing, but the amount of work you'd need to do to do an after-the-fact approximation with the 2004 DVD's by subtracting elements would cost more than what letting Robert Harris do restoration would cost, and would be BETTER than an "approximation" because it would be the real thing.

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Pretty simple:
NO RESTORED ANAMORPHIC TRANSFERS = NO SALE

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Agreed.

I am pretty taken aback by this as well, but I have many dvd's in my collection that aren't anamorphic and they look great (Armageddon CC and The Abyss SE anyone?), plus, my projector has an outstanding deinterlacer in it that cleans up non-anies exceptionally well.

I'm still buying them, I mean it's not like they're being released in pan-n-scan.

Bright side, folks, bright side.

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I absolutely agree. I believe most of us are not "unsatisfiable fanboys". We're not asking for every bell and whistle. It would be nice, but we're not. We understand that this release isn't going to get the 5 star treatment. All I want is an anamorphic transfer. If so, I will buy. If not - no sale. A delay of the sale date is fine by me, if that's what it takes. I'll even take a bit of a price hike. It's a shame that the original versions of the largest grossing films of all time are being treated as a mere after thought.

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The only bright side I see is that I'm apparently gonna save myself $60-90 in September

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I have a widescreen TV and have the laser discs so I don't need to by DVD's with the same transfer. For what is planned for release, these could have been released back in 1997 and there probably would have been few complaints.

Matt

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I can just see the scathing reviews of these discs when they hit the streets if they come out as currently planned. The target audience for these discs IS exactly us die-hard DVD and film fan/collectors, as well as the countless die-hard SW fans (who probably already have the lasers or boots of these three films). The SE's are already out there for everyone else at a much lower price. The only point of these new discs is for the unaltered originals - and if most of the target audience is already up-in-arms and angry about these seemingly tossed-together throwaway releases in just two days, then who is actually going to buy them?

I'm more of a casual SW fan, having loved the OT when they were first released. Over the years, my interest has disippated a bit because of the changes Lucas made to the films and not caring at all for the prequels (I still haven't seen "SITH"!). However, I would have bought these in an instant if they were being presented properly. But no way will I purchase a non-anamorphic laserdisc-port in this day and age.

I also am perturbed with Fox/Lucas' marketing of these titles and sales sheet as they are clearly designed to hide any information that these original versions were being presented this way. And claiming the original versions are only "extras" is ludicrous. At $90, if the original versions aren't really worth anything, why not just buy the older SE's for much less?

If this set comes out as currently planned, it may be the most maligned DVD release in history.

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Well, a great 4x3 LBX DVD is at least better than a bad 16x9.

No idea where the point of this release comes in, though.

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John, I used to be in agreeance with you, owning an RP91 which does a good job scaling. But going back and looking at those titles, even with the good scaler in the RP91 (and I own both discs you refer to), still does not measure up to a good anamorphic transfer.

And not everyone owns a good scaling DVD player or TV, and some older HDTV sets "lock on full" when presented with a 480p signal. My Panny HDTV does, so thank god for the RP91. Those owners with that kind of TV set (and there are a considerable number) would be forced to either watch in stretch mode, or windowboxed. Both options.

In today's day and age, there really is no excuse for a non anamorphic transfer. I can't name a widescreen major studio DVD release that wasn't anamorphic in the last 2-3 years.

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That's my bright side as well, Ricardo. I'd rather be getting them

John, I can't get excited about a 2006 release from a studio known for their technical acumen on their flagship title. Calling it a special feature to "ease the pain" only makes it more bothersome.

And very few of us (if any) are an unsatisfiable fanboys. Check the main SW threads.

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Especially when, as others have pointed out in this thread, all the special features for the previous DVDs are 16:9 enhanced. So this feature isn't even ranking up there with other special features from SW DVDs. It's like the redheaded stepchild feature.

That's a good name for it: Star Wars: the redheaded stepchild edition

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I strongly disagree. The whole point is to preserve the films as they existed in their original theatrical release. The effects in those films were a milestone, and dated as they may be by today's standards, they are an important part of film history.

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Your right on all counts, but I can recall the day I bought the original trilogy on LD and being thrilled at the way they looked, these dvd's couldn't look any worse than that...could they? I'll admit that the term "non-anamorphic" doesn't really do much to discourage me from this release, but the term "unrestored" scares me a little.

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The editorial may not belong in this thread, however it changes my attitude about GL decision to not release the original on DVD.

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I won't swear off buying all Lucasfilm products - after all, the Young Indiana Jones chronicles must be about ready by now - but my interest in this Star Wars release started to fade when I heard the sound would be in 2.0, and has lessened since reading all of this.

Next, I am expecting to hear it will be a <4 GB file on a single-layer DVD!

This release sounded so good, at first. I even like the way they are pairing them with the remade versions - because that finally gives me an excuse to buy the remade versions. (I saw the remade Star Wars in the theatres, and it was kind of cute, but I haven't seen the remade Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi yet).

But hearing that Lucasfilm is only going to present this in bootleg quality is really disappointing. This should be a release that we can show to our kids and be proud of - something we can turn on and say "THIS is how movies used to be before digital effects made life easy - this was the film that made magic with models."* It was such a history making film. Wasn't it even admitted into some kind of historic record, or historic archive of some kind? So that it would be preserved for future generations? I guess all that meant nothing to Mr. Lucas. How sad.


*Not that kind of models. I mean plastic ones.

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Whether or not the editorial even makes sense (which I don't think it does), it's clearly not appropriate to this forum, as the question of why he was choosing not to release them previously is moot, and we're trying to show a unified voice regarding what we want from that release.

That, plus it's speculative gossip, to put it kindly. I think we should drop the discussion of it, at least from this thread.

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I'd like to echo the post that pointed out LucasFilm's nigh-on thirty-year reputation for striving for excellence in audio and visual quality. This is the company that introduced THX and has done more for the development of the art and science of the cinema than any other company involved in the movies.

But what does this release say about the company? Look back over the past few weeks at the sheer buzz the announcement of the release made in the media. It completely eclipsed all the talk of HD-DVD, it started threads on various forums that were being read and contributed to by thousands of people.

Ahem. Potential customers.

Then we start hearing odd things that worry some folk. Firstly there's a red herring - Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Although there were 70mm six-track presentations of the movie, most of the however hundred million people who saw Star Wars in theatres would have heard it with the original one-of-the-first Dolby soundtracks. And that would be worth preserving.

Then we hear that the original version of the movie will be an extra on a second disc, and that the primary disc in the release is the previously available 2004 redux. That revelation doesn't sit quite so well, because most fans will have bought that glorious four-disc box set of the 2004 Special Editions.

Curiously, the release is being trumpeted as the final debut on DVD of the "original versions" of the trilogy. That the presence of the original cuts of the movies is the reason and major selling point of the release. Why then are the "original versions" being listed as extras rather than the main feature.

Then it emerges that rather than being beautiful showcases of the original movies that everybody remembers so fondly, transferred to digital for the best audiovisual experience, the discs will be mastered from thirteen year old source material that doesn't even have the benefit of an anamorphic transfer. It will be letterboxed and have the inherently reduced vertical definition of such a transfer.

Will that say much for the LucasFilm sound and vision reputation?

Consider what the release could have been, and still could be with a postponement to Christmas and the timely intervention of Mr Harris.

A single disc, relatively bare-bones. A state-of-the-art digital transfer with anamorphic widescreen and maybe two audio options (Dolby 2.0 and a 5.1 mix-down of the six-track for those who absolutely must have one). You could have the transfer done at HD ready for that mega-box-set next year exclusively in HD, but downscaled for the Christmas DVD release. Stick it in an Amaray with the classic Tom Jung or Drew Struzan artwork on the front. Nuts to it matching the six-film set as it isn't even supposed to be part of them.

You'd clean up, and the fans wouldn't be bitching because you'd listened to them.

Win-win, I'd say.

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Is the usual Lucasfilm quality standard even POSSIBLE with these versions of the films? I have a feeling many people want the original versions looking as good as the SEs, which is probably impossible at this point, if they're truly to be original. Since they're presumably using the same standard definition master used for the LD, they should look atleast as good. "Unrestored" in this case seems to mean that the source won't look any BETTER than the source of the LD.
I think that's why I'm still so interested in this release why many others aren't. I never owned the laserdiscs, so getting the originals in at least Laserdisc quality still excites me quite a bit. And my computer monitor, at 1680 x 1050 resolution, is the only display device where anamorphic makes a big difference.

Here's a question: How many people would be appeased by Lucasfilm using a professional quality upscaler to create an anamorphic source, even though the actual resolution wouldn't be any better?

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the problem is Sean, that everyone here could be arguing the point from a totally clueless position- shooting arrows where we think the target is, when we are really just shooting into a fog bank.

A fog bank purposefully put out there to distract from the real target.

It may not come down to the ego of the artist.
It may not come down to spiting the fans' (which is what I honestly thought in the past, but now may be willing to say I may have been off base)
It may not come down to solely not wanting to spend the money to do it right.

the point is, if we knew for certain what the sticking point was with Lucas to getting a halfway decent edition of these released on whatever is the current format and up to the current technical standards, then we could appeal to him from that position.

in the absence of that, what is there that can really be said to effect a change in attitude? There had to have been some substantial reason why he would purposefully release these like this.

I'm sorry, I realize this is not conducive to the propulsion of unified chanting of "just do it right, George or else we may not buy it". But then I fully believe this release, in its current unsatisfactory incarnation, is a foregone conclusion at this point.

unless he cancels it.
In fact, that's what I would hope for now. Just cancel the thing, for now. Tell us you want to do it right, so you will need some more time- apologize for the delay, and I know I would give him the opportunity to do that.
In fact, I would further suggest that he only concentrate on one film every year. make it something to look forward to again- and at the same time he will be assured of some kind of 3/4th Q revenue for the next three years.

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But Paul--so is Lou (T'bone) mostly because--a) how does he know that the Special Edition changes somehow cut Marcia out of monetary compensations (Her name is still on the credits even) and b) how does he know that's Lucas' mindset and reasoning?

The whole matter has jack stamp to do with what's trying to be achieved in this thread. Playing armchair psychoanalyst with suppositions from a fansite based on navel-gazing is alright, but it doesn't fit here and is only serving to slowly derail this thread like the two previous. Stop, please. Ron's contacted the industry magazines like you wanted. Robert Harris has now even gotten involved. You've been mildly nay-saying since the mere concept of making Lucasfilm aware of these complaints has popped up, please don't contribute to making this particular thread devolve into sewing circle gossip, no matter how justified it may seem to you. You're a good guy Paul, so don't take that wrong.

I'd rather risk coming off as white noise alongside Bill Hunt, Ron Epstein, Robert Harris, Video Business and the rest of the fans who have called and written letters and made suggestions, than to not risk it at all and have these LD dumps unmercifully unloaded onto the store shelves with no resistance at all. There's an alternative. White noise or no, I think it's at least worth pursuing.