The first hints of Star Wars in 4k.... (1 Viewer)

[Jason_V]

Perhaps it was just me, but I HEAVILY associate the Fox fanfare to SW specifically. When I would watch ANY Fox film growing up SW popped into my head when it played (well, when half of it played anyways). I know it’s not something that will be special for future generations, but starting up a SW film without the fanfare will forever be a little weird. Not a big deal though.

Oh, 100% same. Without a doubt. It's kinda like having other logo's aside from the Paramount mountain at the top of any Star Trek movie.

 

[TravisR]

I'll be the dissenting voice, so far, on this. No. That's not how the VII and VIII were originally made and the fanfare shouldn't be there. Fox had nothing to do with their production.

I think alot of people feel like that the Fox fanfare is basically part of the score. Personally, I've seen so many SW things over the years that don't have the fanfare before the opening (video games, TV shows) that I don't feel like the fanfare is a "prelude" to the opening theme so I don't need it on the front of the new movies but I'm definitely happy that it's back on the front of the first six movies.

 

[Wayne_j]

I was watching today's episode of Screen Junkies Universe and the hosts opened the show by wishing Maclunkey to everyone.

 

[Worth]

I think alot of people feel like that the Fox fanfare is basically part of the score...

It was part of the score:

The fanfare gradually began to fade, but it came roaring back to life in 1977. George Lucas insisted on using the throwback logo at the top of his throwback space serial, and Williams — who started out playing piano on several of Newman’s scores at Fox and who counted the composer as a mentor and friend — wrote his famous “Star Wars” fanfare in the same key of B-flat major to emerge seamlessly out of the Newman piece. In every subsequent “Star Wars” film, Williams treated the Fox logo as the opening of his score.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-fox-fanfare-solo-movie-20180525-story.html

 

[ScottJH]

According to Pabalo Hidalgo per his twitter account these 4k restorations are from "a few years back" and Lucas is responsible for the change in the Greedo scene. These scans were meant for a 3D theatrical release before 3D fell out of favor.

I'm not that impressed with the PQ for the OT. The colors do look better, espically Empire they took out all that blue on Hoth but it looks like it'll still be 4k77 & 4k83 for me.

 

[Edwin-S]

Maclunkey!

I haven't watched the first Star Wars film since all of the unnecessary additions were made, but I had to watch it this time just to see the final nail in the coffin be driven into that Solo/Greedo scene by Lucas.

It did not disappoint. I'm still laughing at how GL took one of the iconic scenes in the film and turned it into a Stooges moment. It was like his final finger to STAR WARS fans.

I start laughing as soon as I picture Greedo yelling Maclunkey before being gunned down.

 

[Worth]

It appears the ubernerds may have decoded the meaning of Maclunkey:

After scouring the Complete Wermo’s Guide to Huttese, I suspect it’s actually supposed to be ma klounkee, a phrase used in The Phantom Menace: Sebulba tells Anakin “Neek me chawa, wermo, mo killee ma klounkee,” which is translated in the subtitles as “Next time we race, boy, it will be the end of you.”

By that logic, “ma klounkee” would mean something like “I’ll end you.”

 

[TravisR]

It appears the ubernerds may have decoded the meaning of Maklunkey:

It's so funny that someone at LFL had the job to find an existing threatening Huttese word to put in there. I love the guy but George Lucas is a weird dude.

 

[Edwin-S]

You know something is a complete fail when one needs to be versed in the minutiae of fictional language guides in order to understand what the intention was.

 

[JPCinema]

The STAR WARS films are all in 4K on Disney+

 

[Tommy R]

I’ve always been a defender of the unaltered OT and prefer it when watching the films, but I’ve always been fine with George making whatever changes he wants. The first “changed” version of the Greedo scene was awful in its cutting, and with each small tweak over the years its become less bad. This new version is definitely the best the cutting has looked, and I find the added dialogue interesting.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I’ve always been a defender of the unaltered OT and prefer it when watching the films, but I’ve always been fine with George making whatever changes he wants. The first “changed” version of the Greedo scene was awful in its cutting, and with each small tweak over the years its become less bad. This new version is definitely the best the cutting has looked, and I find the added dialogue interesting.

TBH, I didn't like the change, but, I always thought the issue was overblown by some people.

 

[Carlo_M]

TBH, I didn't like the change, but, I always thought the issue was overblown by some people.

To me, it's not just the issue of the change itself (again, not just on Han as a character, but also ruins the homage to the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and also is completely illogical in that Greedo is a trained bounty hunter yet can't hit you from 3 feet away).

But it's more that it's symbolic of his belief that everything needed fixing, and many of the changes he made were for the worse. The removal and replacement of Bring My Shuttle is probably the second worst change in my mind. It was a perfectly delivered and emoted line by James Earl Jones, conveying how PO'd Vader was in seeing his son choose to commit suicide rather than join him, only to be replaced by a rather monotonously delivered "alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival". Just so he could insert a shuttle shot? Really, we needed explanation as to who is on board on that Tiderian shuttle?

And don't get me started on the RoTJ songs. Sure, the nub nub song wasn't awesome, but he managed to make it worse. Along with the Jabba's palace music scene.

I think when we first got word that he was "fixing" a lot of things in the OUT, we were at first excited because we thought maybe he'd just eliminate the vaseline smudges under the land speeder. Fix the "hollow saber" effects in the original film (which, surprisingly he never has). Make sure the matte boxes were no longer visible for the space battles. We had no idea he'd make some rather puzzling but substantive changes to content, and that he'd attempt to just shove as much CGI into things just because he could. To paraphrase Dr. Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, he was too busy wondering if he could do something, that he never stopped to think if he should.

Okay, I'll stop now, we have a whole other thread about the OUT, but whenever someone says the change is overblown, I feel the need to explain why it's not just the scene in and of itself, it's the fact that it's the canary in the coalmine for everything else he ended up doing.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Like I said, overblown.

 

[Carlo_M]

 

[Tommy R]

But it's more that it's symbolic of his belief that everything needed fixing, and many of the changes he made were for the worse. The removal and replacement of Bring My Shuttle is probably the second worst change in my mind. It was a perfectly delivered and emoted line by James Earl Jones, conveying how PO'd Vader was in seeing his son choose to commit suicide rather than join him, only to be replaced by a rather monotonously delivered "alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival". Just so he could insert a shuttle shot? Really, we needed explanation as to who is on board on that Tiderian shuttle?

I’ll say, out of the whole trilogy, the two changes I think are the worst were the “bring my shuttle” line change and adding the “NOOOOOO” at the end of Jedi.

 

[Dave H]

Due to the sheer number of incredibly subtle changes and fixes on top of the more obvious ones you'd have to retransfer the whole movie to get it back to the defacto "OUT" state.

I was under the assumption the original parts cut from the 97 negative actually exist - not the case?

 

[Kyle_D]

Watched A New Hope in 4K/Dolby Vision on Disney Plus last night and, setting aside the changes, it was the best LOOKING video release of the film that I've seen. (Yes, including the various 4K OUT versions floating around the internet). Here's hoping the rumors of a disc release next year are true, since streaming bitrates still aren't sufficient to properly handle the sand/sky on Tatooine without some banding, but I was very impressed with the master.

 

[Nick*Z]

TBH, I didn't like the change, but, I always thought the issue was overblown by some people.

I suspect the reason it offended so many is simply this: movies in totem, and Star Wars in particular, should be considered as 'art' first, and cultural artifacts second. You wouldn't alter the Mona Lisa, give her lipstick and a nose ring because she's not keeping up with the times, would you? Lucas' alterations to Star Wars amount to putting a nose ring on one of the greatest film franchises in history.

Personally, I only care about the original trilogy, and have clung to my weighty LD box set to get my fix. Yes, I own the Blu-ray set but have not watched it since my initial viewing when I bought it.

Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and, The Return of the Jedi represent an all inclusive saga that thoroughly satisfied without ANY further alterations required.

The fact that Lucas decided later on he would like to revisit the trilogy, turning it into a franchise, because he was suffering from the fallout of a costly/messy divorce and needed some quick cash, is not a valid reason to take a cultural artifact and change it. Frankly, there is no 'good' reason to do so!

If that's the case, I know some people who would like to spray paint graffiti on Tutankhamun's sarcophagus, add horns to Judas' depiction in Da Vinci's The Last Supper, and paint a Speedo across Michelangelo's statue of David. Mercifully, some forms of art are more valued than others.

Film has always been undervalued; whether in its own time, when it was considered the 'lesser' to live theater, or later, when the studios simply lumped their formidable libraries in un-air-conditioned sheds behind the studio, left to molder, decay, or worse - as in the case of Fox - having junked all of their original 3-strip Technicolor and nitrate elements into the Pacific, merely to clear space. Colorization, another form of bastardization followed, as did the pan-and-scan of widescreen movies on home video, and, briefly, the conversion of non-3-D movies to 3-D that was the briefest of gimmicks to spruce up 'old movies' for new audiences. So, Lucas' toying with Star Wars had a lot of company.

But Lucas' continued tampering with his greatest legacy doesn't speak well of his acumen as a film-maker. Indeed, it has only reaffirmed how much he undervalues his own original creative genius by doing so. I can understand the rabid backlash by fans, even if I do not ascribe to it myself.

For me, it's all about history - and the Star Wars movies have NOT been preserved for history's sake in the edits that originally endeared them to fans all over the world. They are no longer a cultural artifact from the late 20th century, but some form of a mutt, that continues to mutate with the times, merely to suit the narrative requirements of their largely forgettable subsequent installments which, in no way, have the longevity of their predecessors.

I am not adverse to Lucas, Fox, Disney continuing the saga if the audience is there to embrace it. But the original 3 movies are not up for discussion here. They are their own entity and should have remained so, regardless of the future forecasting for more of the same.

Art for art's sake, folks.

And art for the ages too - history in the making. You don't rewrite history just because the narrative suddenly seems 'unfashionable' or does not conform to the narrative you would rather put forth in its stead. If that's the case, let's just say Winston Churchill wore lace panties, Christopher Columbus discovered the new world in a speed boat, and Einstein was actually Walter Matthau in disguise. There, now continue the historical narrative from there. Oh right, without the factual and concrete data of the past there can be NO future because everything is left to interpretation! How sad. How very, very sad indeed!

 

[Brian Kidd]

I haven't had a chance to look yet, so can anyone comment on the 4K upscales of Episodes II & III? Talk about overkill, those films were shot entirely in 1080p and then already upscaled for the 2K theatrical master. The Blu-rays really showed the detail limitations of the early digital format used during filming. I can't imagine that a 4K upscale will add anything outside of HDR.