Interview Lucasfilm on Star Wars the Complete Saga Blu-ray: Part II Matthew Wood (1 Viewer)

[johnSM]

How would they be "correct" or "incorrect", when the films never had split surrounds before the special edition release? Even the 70mm 6 track used mono surrounds as that was the format before Apocalypse Now introduced the 5.1 format we know today. Doug

It is incorrect because it sounds wrong, many noticed the mistake - enough for Lucasfilm to have to comment on it - and also because it has now been fixed for the impending bluray release... Regardless of the process used to create the surround channels for the 2004 DVD, the channels could have been 'reflipped' in just about ANY audio editing program to sound correct once again! This is Star Wars we're talking about, and many lesser films from the same era have been done correctly without all these problems...

 

[Worth]

This just sounds like more Lucasfilm PR BS to me - covering one's ass again. Well rehearsed excuses instead of coming clean and admitting mistakes were made.

They can't very well admit that mistakes were made because they continue to sell the affected DVDs and have no plans to upgrade them with the newer masters.

 

[johnSM]

They can't very well admit that mistakes were made because they continue to sell the affected DVDs and have no plans to upgrade them with the newer masters.

That's very true - I don't believe there's going to be a DVD edition of this new set either, so people without bluray will have to watch these sub-par transfers still...

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Cory S.

So, we're going to crucify him now for trying to advance digital cinema just because he shot the last two prequels on digital?

I get what you guys are saying but come on, you're basically saying he should've never tried shooting digital so to preserve the look of the Original Trilogy...

He didnt advance digital cinema technology, just because he is using the technology does not mean HE PERSONALLY or indeed Lucasfilm or ILM advanced it, gotta call you out on that point, whether Star Wars was shot on digital or not makes no difference as the technology would still advance without his involvement.


The fact is he should have been thinking about how to make the prequels and original trilogy blend together before he even shot them ( prequels ) and one way is to shoot both on 35mm film and keep his actors happy by doing more location shooting as many got bored shooting green screen even though he built some sets and did some location shots.


P.S. I'm not crucifying him for that decision, merely saying that in my opinion he has now limited himself and his desire to play with new toys means the decision is to either downgrade the originals to look like the prequels or give them new film scans and make them look better, this is as far as detail and resolution goes and you know keep the film grain in but if he keeps the film grain in then they won't look like the prequels, so what route will George take, obviously he will make the originals look worse than they can just to blend them in with the prequels, a situation that could have been avoided by shooting all the prequels on 35mm film. Thats just my opinion.

 

[johnSM]

I'm not crucifying him for that decision, merely saying that in my opinion he has now limited himself and his desire to play with new toys means the decision is to either downgrade the originals to look like the prequels or give them new film scans and make them look better, this is as far as detail and resolution goes and you know keep the film grain in but if he keeps the film grain in then they won't look like the prequels, so what route will George take, obviously he will make the originals look worse than they can just to blend them in with the prequels, a situation that could have been avoided by shooting all the prequels on 35mm film. Thats just my opinion.

^ Agreed! No matter how much he changes the original trilogy, they just won't ever mesh with the prequels seamlessly. The characters & story were the main draw in the original films. In the new ones I'd have a hard time even describing the characters or story in depth compared to Han, Luke, Leia etc. Much of the original trilogy also looked real, because it was real. You cannot improve upon that. Actors had something tangible to react to, and/or exist in; it makes a difference. Much of the CGI in the prequels has already dated, and rather badly. I was watching some of the bluray clips yesterday, in the Jedi Temple scenes with Anakin and Ben having a natter. The background looked so flat and comp'd in, with a curious kind of airbrushed quality to it. It looked so 'clean', clinical and fake - not like the Star Wars universe I prefer... Looked like something out of a Star Trek TNG (no offense Trek fans) episode to be honest! Ironically, the Phantom Menace seems to be the film that has held up better than the other two in terms of looking a little more realistic and grounded. I wish George had worked on making the prequels fit in better with the originals, rather than the other way around...

 

[KlausL]

He didnt advance digital cinema technology, just because he is using the technology does not mean HE PERSONALLY or indeed Lucasfilm or ILM advanced it, gotta call you out on that point, whether Star Wars was shot on digital or not makes no difference as the technology would still advance without his involvement.

 

The fact is he should have been thinking about how to make the prequels and original trilogy blend together before he even shot them ( prequels ) and one way is to shoot both on 35mm film and keep his actors happy by doing more location shooting as many got bored shooting green screen even though he built some sets and did some location shots.

 

P.S. I'm not crucifying him for that decision, merely saying that in my opinion he has now limited himself and his desire to play with new toys means the decision is to either downgrade the originals to look like the prequels or give them new film scans and make them look better, this is as far as detail and resolution goes and you know keep the film grain in but if he keeps the film grain in then they won't look like the prequels, so what route will George take, obviously he will make the originals look worse than they can just to blend them in with the prequels, a situation that could have been avoided by shooting all the prequels on 35mm film. Thats just my opinion.

Since most from the prequels is CGI, he always has the ability to re-render everything at 4K or 8K. We don't know about the quality of the textures but they could be upgraded as well. The real-live parts of the screen will not benefit from this though.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by KlausL



Since most from the prequels is CGI, he always has the ability to re-render everything at 4K or 8K. We don't know about the quality of the textures but they could be upgraded as well.
The real-live parts of the screen will not benefit from this though.

Perhaps he will freeze himself and come back five hundred years from now when CGI will have advanced to the point where humans really look totally human and he will CGI Ewan, Natalie and the rest of the cast ( including the original trilogy cast ) and tinker with the films some more, maybe re-render everything in super duper 120K resolution for viewing on future 50000 feet wide screens.


I might freeze myself just to experience this future vision of the films.

 

[montrealfilmguy]

I've said this already,but it needs repeating once in a while. I always say that the original cast were inhibiting their characters in a totally honest way,because they were in Star Wars,a thing that did not exist and only exploded all over the planet a few months after that film came out. But the actors playing in the prequels (well, the ones that weren't in the original anyways ) were playing it with 30 years of Star wars burned into their craniums,so i find this puts you as an actor in a position where you are 100% sure this could not fail in a million years.Even if you tried sabotage. Although looking back on the Days of our lives scenes with Nathatlie and Hayden,you begin to have doubts.... And i agree with JohnSM about the digital sets and whatnot,its a totally different beast to actually walk around the large scale Millenium Falcon and physically walking up that ramp to get on board than it is to see it in your mind's eye and try not to look at all this fluorescent green cyclorama surrounding you. Some can do it,some can't. did you see Carrie Fisher lost 50 pounds (pretty good ) but has a different face (not so good ) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2029633/Carrie-Fisher-loses-50lbs-months-face.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by johnSM



^ Agreed! No matter how much he changes the original trilogy, they just won't ever mesh with the prequels seamlessly. The characters & story were the main draw in the original films. In the new ones I'd have a hard time even describing the characters or story in depth compared to Han, Luke, Leia etc. Much of the original trilogy also looked real, because it was real. You cannot improve upon that. Actors had something tangible to react to, and/or exist in; it makes a difference. Much of the CGI in the prequels has already dated, and rather badly. I was watching some of the bluray clips yesterday, in the Jedi Temple scenes with Anakin and Ben having a natter. The background looked so flat and comp'd in, with a curious kind of airbrushed quality to it. It looked so 'clean', clinical and fake - not like the Star Wars universe I prefer... Looked like something out of a Star Trek TNG (no offense Trek fans) episode to be honest! Ironically, the Phantom Menace seems to be the film that has held up better than the other two in terms of looking a little more realistic and grounded.

I wish George had worked on making the prequels fit in better with the originals, rather than the other way around...

Or maybe he should have done the sequels and not prequels. While I love the background stories, they could have been wrapped up in one film. I would much rather have see what happened to the original characters after Return, then would have been seamless storytelling.

 

[TerryW]

I still think we'll eventually see the final thee Star Wars films in the series (7-9) perhaps showing the character of Leia as a Jedi Master. It'd be great to see a female Jedi as the centerpiece of a film series. Of course, it would have to have a completely different cast from ROTJ (except R2-D2, C-3PO). Maybe Mark, Harrison and Carrie can make cameos at some point.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Because a tuba playing from the right front speaker (correct, as recorded) should not be heard also coming from the left surround channel.  Violins are always seated on the left when facing the orchestra and on stereo recordings (like Star Wars) they are heard from the left speaker.  Give the soundtrack album a listen.  Except in the case of the 5.1 mix on the 2004 DVD where the violins are heard coming from the left front and right surround.  And this also effects source music during the cantina scene.  But this has been addressed and that old 2004 mix is now right where it belongs.

 

Unless you are trying to expand the sound field. Flipping the channels is a VERY common and accepted way of doing that. Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

He didnt advance digital cinema technology, just because he is using the technology does not mean HE PERSONALLY or indeed Lucasfilm or ILM advanced it, gotta call you out on that point, whether Star Wars was shot on digital or not makes no difference as the technology would still advance without his involvement.

 

The fact is he should have been thinking about how to make the prequels and original trilogy blend together before he even shot them ( prequels ) and one way is to shoot both on 35mm film and keep his actors happy by doing more location shooting as many got bored shooting green screen even though he built some sets and did some location shots.

 

P.S. I'm not crucifying him for that decision, merely saying that in my opinion he has now limited himself and his desire to play with new toys means the decision is to either downgrade the originals to look like the prequels or give them new film scans and make them look better, this is as far as detail and resolution goes and you know keep the film grain in but if he keeps the film grain in then they won't look like the prequels, so what route will George take, obviously he will make the originals look worse than they can just to blend them in with the prequels, a situation that could have been avoided by shooting all the prequels on 35mm film. Thats just my opinion.

24fps video camera exist because Sony developed them at the request of Lucas. If thats not advancing the technology I don't know what is. He single handedly changed the way films are made. There was absolutely NO interest in digital cinema by main stream Hollywood before the development of these cameras. Doug

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Douglas Monce



24fps video camera exist because Sony developed them at the request of Lucas. If thats not advancing the technology I don't know what is. He single handedly changed the way films are made. There was absolutely NO interest in digital cinema by main stream Hollywood before the development of these cameras.

Doug

Sony actully experimented with digital cinematography way back in the 1980's. Sure Lucas became involved in the nineties and the rest is history but thats just one company, others were working on digital cinema cameras, it would have happened regardless of Lucas.


Low budget filmmakers were using digital cameras before Lucas, the technology would advance with or without him, it might just take longer and thats my opinion.


If he didnt do it then someone else would have, look at the RED camera system, it was founded in 1999, it was always coming, and some might argue digital cameras are a back step, some might argue it would be much more preferable to have Hollywood return to a format like VistaVision or Super Panavision 70, or a successor to both, of course costs all come into this and those formats cost money but they do produce fantastic looking movies.

 

[Douglas Monce]

 

Sony actully experimented with digital cinematography way back in the 1980's. Sure Lucas became involved in the nineties and the rest is history but thats just one company, others were working on digital cinema cameras, it would have happened regardless of Lucas.

 

Low budget filmmakers were using digital cameras before Lucas, the technology would advance with or without him, it might just take longer and thats my opinion.

If he didnt do it then someone else would have, look at the RED camera system, it was founded in 1999, it was always coming, and some might argue digital cameras are a back step, some might argue it would be much more preferable to have Hollywood return to a format like VistaVision or Super Panavision 70, or a successor to both, of course costs all come into this and those formats cost money but they do produce fantastic looking movies.

 

Both Sony and JVC developed HD cameras. I saw demonstrations of some of them at a ShowBiz expo in the early 90s. They were nice images, but didn't look at all like film. They couldn't figure out why Hollywood just wasn't interested at all. It was Lucas pushing them to develop cameras that shot at 24fps and had a wider dynamic rage that got Hollywood interested. But that isn't all he pushed them to do. The cameras they were building were video cameras, and were laid out and operated like video cameras. No one in Hollywood wanted a camera that that operated like a TV news camera, which is basically what they were. Lucas had them design the cameras so they operated more like a film camera. They had to be able to do particular things to be effective as a production camera for a major film. If you look at the Sony CineAlta cameras, or the Thompson Viper, or the Red, they work like film cameras. This is directly attributable to Lucas pushing for digital cinema. Doug

 

[johnSM]

Looking forward to Part III of these reports

 

[oscar_merkx]

Looking forward to Part III of these reports

Yes same here.

 

[montrealfilmguy]

Whoa ! Is this right ? a side-by-side clip of puppet Yoda vs CGI Yoda from Phantom menace... I never thought i'd say this but i'm fairly impressed. CGI Yoda looks quite like Empire strikes back ,and one commenter says that puppet Yoda looks a bit like Jack Nicholson,now that i look at it he's not far off (in a As good as it gets kind of way )

 

[Dave H]

Adam, When will the review of the actual discs be posted?

 

If the real reviews are embargoed, are they embargoed until the day of release, or what?

 

[MielR]

There's a "Save Star Wars - Boycott The Blu-Rays" page on Facebook, soon to be augmented with printable bumper sticker and t-shirt designs (I assume this is allowed here, someone please tell me if it's not) : http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Star-Wars-Boycott-The-Blu-Rays/269110113114406?sk=wall It'll give some of us something constructive to do between now and 09/16/11 (and beyond).