STAR WARS ON BLU-RAY - FALL 2011 (1 Viewer)

[johnSM]

Got to say, even to someone who will be avoiding this release until it's available second-hand on Ebay, those deleted scenes look very enticing indeed - a dream come true! Full marks to Lucasfilm there. Such a pity one has to also pay for Episodes I-III to get them, and there's no way in hell I'm going to put any money into Lucasfilm's bloated account on account of those CGI cartoons no matter how much I want those deleted scenes. It's also a pity that in the deleted scenes section they didnt have the good will to include the scenes which were excised/changed once the Special Edition process began in 1997 (notice I say began because we have no way of knowing if it's finished yet... and I doubt the tinkering will be until the 3D versions are out there at least). Surely that would have been a nice 'meet the fans halfway' sort of thing to do so at least we got the original trilogy in some form..... The Force on Bluray - "Own EVERY Moment" - Hmmmm........! Personally I'd class that as false advertising. Still will look forward to seeing those cut scenes on youtube in the months to come

 

[montrealfilmguy]

I just about fell off my chair with that exhaustive list of extras. A pretty nice list of docs in HD too. You can never give me enough behind the scenes footage from the original trilogy. I'm looking forward to this one also. A Conversation with the Masters: The Empire Strikes Back 30 Years Later (HD, 25 minutes)

 

[oscar_merkx]

Yeah and this afternoon I saw in my Local HMV shop in Glasgow the blu ray cases for the various incarnations. Looking good

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Having just watched some of them at Lucasfilm there are some fantastic deleted scenes and they have done a lot of work on the A/V:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/313950/chance-to-talk-to-lucasfilm-about-the-new-star-wars-blu-rays-what-do-you-want-to-know/60 see post 80 if you have been in the thread before.

 

[oscar_merkx]

Having just watched some of them at Lucasfilm there are some fantastic deleted scenes and they have done a lot of work on the A/V:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/313950/chance-to-talk-to-lucasfilm-about-the-new-star-wars-blu-rays-what-do-you-want-to-know/60 see post 80 if you have been in the thread before.

Thanks for keeping us updated

 

[johnSM]

Mmmmm so yes the picture has been tweaked - great! - but the foundation of these Bluray discs is still a 7/8 year old digital transfer - not so great! Why didn't they do a fresh transfer of the OT from scratch for such an important release? From the Q&A in the other thread, it sounds like Lucas is still adamant these are the only versions which he'll allow released in high quality. He could have appeased some of the original-era fans by including the unchanged shots from the original trilogy in the deleted scenes sections... but noooo. I was wavering, back/forth on this release for the past few months, but this is a no-buy for me I'm afraid. I'd only watch the deleted scenes then the rest of the set would be gathering dust. The situation is crazy, as we'll be able to see the original documentaries on this set, for versions of the films which he won't allow released on Bluray!!! ???!?!?!? Until Lucas see's the value of film preservation (his own!) and actually LISTENS to his audience & releases the original versions (along with the various SEs) with NEW 4K transfers my wallet remains closed. No, he doesn't owe anybody anything, but there is something called 'good will' & understanding. The original audiences fell in love with THOSE versions of the films. Whether he likes it or not Star Wars (circa 1977, NOT 1997) enabled him to build his Empire. Those were the versions we saw & loved for 20 years - I hate the way he now refers to those versions as 'workprints'. He certainly didn't mind the money pouring in from them at the time did he, or the VHS/Laserdisc releases which netted him even more revenue... Thank God at least Spielberg understands now and will not be tarting up any of his films in the future, and who understands that films are a product of their age, and should be seen as such. I'm sure these sets will sell extremely well however, and I hope people enjoy 'em. Exits stage left...

 

[Harmy]

Tweaked picture doesn't necessarily mean better picture and from what I've seen so far, I'm not convinced it will be. And the crushed blacks and clipped whites will be there no matter what they do with it, because they're inherent to the 04 transfer. And apparently they're adding new sounds into the soundmix again. Why can't they just leave that alone? A 6.1 mix that would have all the same sounds and dialogue as the monomix would be really cool but no, they have to add new background dialogue or whatever and boast about it as if it was something great :-( And we still don't know if the deleted scenes will be presented in HD (restoration aside - I'm actually glad they're not restored, because the would probably get special editioned along the way). I'm probably going to wait until the prices drop and then reluctantly buy the set (maybe second hand so that I don't give any more of my money to Lucas for this travesty of a release) just so I can use it for my preservations of the OOT.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

Something I've been wondering for a while, and I'm sure others have, too: Why was there a need for such a drastic audio remix for the '04 DVDs in the first place? Was there anything particularly wrong with '97 remixes? They would have had to adjust the timing in a few places to accommodate the new changes, of course, and then adjust things like Boba Fett's new voice, but the bulk of the trilogy already had a perfectly good 5.1 (or possibly 6.1) backing that shouldn't have required too much tweaking to prepare for DVD.

 

[Kevin EK]

From what I understand, the guys at Lucasfilm were going from the 2K masters done of the original trilogy, but have done a lot with them over the time they've been at this.

I strongly doubt that the masters had crushed blacks and clipped whites. I think it likelier that the downconversion to 480p for DVD release in 2004 would be the culprit than a problem with the scan.


It sounds like they put a lot of time into correcting the color and fixing the glitches they and the fans have been aware of since the 2004 release.

As for the sound mix, there have been multiple mixes done since the original movie's release in 1977. From Adam's report, it's clear that Matthew Wood spent a lot of time, particularly on the original movie, trying to make the best possible home theater mix. Both Lucas and Ben Burtt were deeply involved in this process, and from all accounts of this, you won't be hearing crossed channels or any other problems like that.

We'll have to wait and see what the reviews say at release date, but it certainly does not sound like they just took the 2004 files and threw an HD version onto disc for the new release. From all accounts, a lot of work went into the new Blu-ray release.


I think someone said in the Q&A thread that this release could better be thought of as an HD companion release to the 2004 editions. You keep the DVD editions for the documentaries and extra materials, and you will now have HD picture and sound along with further documentaries and extra materials.


It's clear that there will be some people that will not purchase the new set due to the fact that Lucas will not release the original theatrical versions. For those people, I would suggest renting the additional discs if they should become available, so you can see the deleted scenes, etc. I have a feeling you may not be able to catch a lot of these scenes on YouTube, since Fox and Lucasfilm will not take kindly to people doing that. And you should know that if you buy the discs even second hand, you'll still be indirectly contributing to the Lucas coffers. If you don't want to support the new releases, the only real way to do that is not to buy them at any time. And you never know - in another 30 years, it's possible that someone could take an opportunity to restore the original cut of Star Wars, in the same way that Walter Murch did the recut of Touch of Evil long after the fact.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Here’s my thoughts....


I am not particularly worried about the original source of masters

used for the Blu-ray transfers IF those who have seen the Blu-ray

say that transfer looks tremendous.


Listen, don't get me wrong, I agree it's very sloppy of Lucasfilm

not to render a brand-new HD transfer for films of this magnitude.

My only thoughts are that they felt that it wasn't needed, and perhaps

with good reason.

Adam Gregorich was just out at a Lucasfilm event on Friday and

will be posting his thoughts on the transfer this weekend. If he feels

the films look stunning on Blu-ray, that is enough for me to make a
purchase.


As far as Lucas not releasing the original theatrical films....


My gut feeling is that he will at some point. I don't feel this is the

last iteration of the Star Wars Trilogy we will see released to the
home market. As long as Lucas is withholding material, he will

always have reason to release something better than before.


We have all learned this about Lucas: In the end it's all about

how much money he can make by recirculating his Star Wars

franchise to the home market as many times as he can.

I look forward to hearing from Adam Gregorich and what he

thought of the transfer he watched on Friday. Look for his
thoughts to be posted on this forum shortly.

 

[Harmy]

The downconversion was definitely not the culprit of the crushed blacks, as the 1080p broadcasts looked exactly the same in that aspect and so do all the new clips from the Blu-Rays. And I believe that people who have seen the Blu-Rays and say that they look "tremendous" may be the same people who said exactly the same thing about the 04 DVDs :-( I'll have to wait and see.

 

[Greg_S_H]

He could have appeased some of the original-era fans by including the unchanged shots from the original trilogy in the deleted scenes sections... but noooo.

You know he couldn't do that. That would be tantamount to saying, "Here are all the tools for you to assemble your own bootleg editions of the OOT!" I hate that we can't have pristine, new transfers of the OOT, but I guess I've surrendered. I just can't stay worked up about it. I'm just hoping that the "taste good" line is back on the new set (might have been back in '04--I can't remember).

 

[TravisR]

We have all learned this about Lucas: In the end it's all about

how much money he can make by recirculating his Star Wars

franchise to the home market as many times as he can.

I know everyone says this but it's not really true. In the 14 years of DVD, the original movies had two releases and the prequels had one. Considering how popular Star Wars is and how DVD is the most popular format in history, they've haven't exploited home video at all.

 

[AlexCosmo]

But that's still a financial decision, when to release it and when to hold it back, like with Disney.

 

[Harmy]

And the OT had at least four DVD releases recycling the same DVDs: 04 - the Special Special Edition Trilogy with a bonus disc, 05 the Special Special Edition Trilogy (same transfer and everything) without a bonus disc, 06 The Special Special Editions (same transfer and everything) separately with a bad quality bonus disc each, 07 The Special Special Editions (same transfer and everything) as a trilogy box with a bad quality bonus disc each. And of course, just as with the upcoming blu-ray release, the bad quality bonus discs were the sole reason for many people to shell out their money for the old transfer of the version of the film they'd already had and didn't really want.

 

[TravisR]

Changing the box isn't a different release. On DVD, there's two distinct releases of the OT and one of the PT.

 

[Kevin EK]

Peter, I'm confused. You referenced 1080p broadcasts of the movies. I thought those were 1080i broadcasts, as played on digital cable where there is a notorious amount of compression that can interfere with PQ.

I thought the new Blu-rays were to be the first time the movies would be available in 1080p.

I honestly could have made a big mistake here - if so, I apologize.

 

[Harmy]

Well, the way I understand it, the German HDTV broadcasts, which seem to be the highest quality to date were 50fps 1080i, which means that it was basically 25fps where each frame was divided into two fields, so when captured, they could be re-encoded back into 25fps progressive. The compression is definitely higher that it will be on the BD release but not by that much really.

 

[montrealfilmguy]

This U.K. documentary should only fuel the fire even more now. http://www.cinemamontreal.com/movies/39359/The_People_vs_George_Lucas.html http://www.peoplevsgeorge.com/

 

[Kevin EK]

The thing is with HDTV broadcasts, most of the time the broadcasters turn up the compression knob until they get complaints.

Blu-ray (and HD-DVD) has been the only way I've been able to appreciate truly uncompressed, full 1080p transfers of movies and other programming.


Based on what I've been reading, the SW blus should look much better than people have been worrying about. But we'll know for sure when the discs land next month.